December i6, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



297 



all proportion to its size, for it is both original and powerful. 

 The author's style is clear, crisp, and concise, and, as we shall 

 show by some quotations, is very striking and attractive. Take 

 this as a specimen : " Everybody wants to settle the labor ques- 

 tion, but nobody is willing to sacrifice any thing to settle it ; nobody 

 appears to be willing to pay out any money to settle it. The labor 

 question will not be settled without sacrifice ; it will not be settled 

 without a large expenditure of money. To settle the labor question 

 without sacrifice, would be to get something for nothing. The 

 settlement of the labor question will in some way have to be paid 

 for." The one hundred and sixty pages of the book are full of just 

 such epigrammatic passages as that. 



Mr. Jacobson's line of argument is this. The so-called labor 

 problem is the great problem, not only of our time, but of all times. 

 It cannot be settled without expense, and large expense at that. 

 Although any thing but settled, it has already cost this country 

 hundreds of millions of dollars in the way of disturbance of busi- 

 ness. The demand of the man who is at the bottom for better 

 things in life is in the nature of things. It is a demand which 

 sooner or later must be met, and it is to the interest of every one that 

 it should be met. The man who works with his hands sells by the 

 quantity, and at the lowest possible prices, all he produces. What- 

 ever he has to buy he buys at the highest retail price. In the game 

 of life the cards are stocked against the man who labors with his 

 hands. Nearly all the wealth of modern times is earned by steam, 

 which does for man his work. The wealth which steam earns 

 should belong to all mankind ; but, instead of going to the many, it 

 goes to the few, and the many continue to hopelessly drudge and 

 slave on. But the labor question is not merely a question of fewer 

 hours and more pay : it goes deeper than that. It can be settled, 

 but it can be settled by nothing short of revolution. This revolu- 

 tion, however, will be peaceful : there will be no lawlessness, no 

 destruction of property, nobody would be maimed, nobody would 

 be killed. The revolution is to be effected through the manual- 

 training school. 



In June, 1886, the Chicago Manual-Training School sent an en- 

 tirely new product into the world. It graduated a class of boys 

 about eighteen years of age, who three years before had never 

 touched tools with a view to becoming skilled in their use. Yet, 

 without neglecting their books, they had in those three years drawn 

 the plans for several steam-engines, had made the patterns in wood, 

 had done the chipping, filing, and lathe-work (the casting was done 

 elsewhere, because the school lacked facilities for doing it), had put 

 together the engines, and had run them. This manual education 

 was not special, but general. It mattered not what profession the 

 boys chose : it was useful to them. The product of the manual- 

 training school does not compete with the wage-earning masses, for 

 his skill and intelligence raise him above them. The manual-train- 

 ing school is popular, and destined to become still more so ; for at 

 the present time the school facilities that exist for the children of the 

 laboring people, after they are ten or twelve years old, are only a 

 hollow mockery. The manual-training school should become part 

 of the American school system ; and, to enable all children to get 

 the benefit of the school, parents or guardians should be paid for 

 keeping the children at school. The compensation should begin 

 at the child's twelfth year, and be fifty dollars per year: it should 

 continue till his twentieth year, when it should be three hundred 

 dollars a year. The proposition includes both boys and girls. 

 The expense thus incurred would be enormous, and could not 

 be met by any taxation now in vogue. It could be met, how- 

 ever, by a graduated tax upon estates. In war times we had a 

 succession tax, and it never failed to be collected, simply because 

 the probate judge could declare no estate setded until the tax had 

 been paid. The law imposing this tax was passed in 1 861, and 

 amended in 1862. Both acts were signed by Abraham Lincoln. In 

 war times we also had a graduated income tax ; so that a gradu- 

 ated tax is not new to the American people. But the income tax 

 was odious, because only the scrupulous paid, and the unscrupulous 

 escaped by swearing falsely. A succession tax is a fair tax, because 

 nobody can escape paying it. The State of New York has a gradu- 

 ated succession tax, passed by the Legislature of 1885. It is now 

 proposed to enact a graduated tax for all estates. It should be i 

 per cent on estates less than $25,000, i per cent on all above 



$25,000 and less than $50,000, % per cent on all above $50,000 and 

 less than $100,000, then increasing gradually until it becomes lO' 

 per cent on estates above a million, and 50 per cent on estates 

 above five millions. The tax would not fall heavily upon anybody.. 

 It would only be $2.50 on an estate of $1,000, and only $1,000 on 

 an estate of $100,000. It would yield from twenty-five to fifty mil- 

 lions annually in New York City, and from three to six millions 

 annually in Chicago. Its proceeds would be ample for the proposed 

 expenditure. This measure is expedient, and as just as any tax. 

 .measure can be. It would increase individual power and individual 

 intelligence, and would produce no unhappiness or suffering. The 

 very rich man might say that he should be permitted to do what he 

 likes with his own ; but this he cannot do now, and in the nature 

 of things will never be allowed to do. The law interferes at every 

 step, and tells him what he may do with his own, and what he 

 must not do. Many rich men give as much now for benevolent 

 objects as the succession tax would take from their estates ; but 

 they rarely give it so as to accomplish the most good. Untold 

 benefits would arise from this law. The child-labor problem would 

 be settled, because it would now pay to keep the children at schooL 

 Wages would rise, because the competition of thousands under 

 twenty years of age, who are now laborers, would be withdrawn. 

 Intelligence shall make the people strong, the people shall be the 

 government, and the strength of the people shall be the strength of 

 the government. This is, in briefest outline, Mr. Jacobson's argu- 

 ment. Its novelty, its brilliancy, and its apparent cogency, nobody- 

 will deny ; but will it stand the test of practicability ? We are com- 

 pelled to ask this question seriously, because Mr. Jacobson's proposi- 

 tion is made thoughtfully and in good faith : it is not the vagary of 

 a fanatic, or the raving of a lunatic. It is a business proposition,, 

 and as such it demands fair treatment. 



The second half of Mr. Jacobson's book is devoted to an explana- 

 tion and eulogy of the manual-training school. We will grant for 

 the sake of argument— though we agree with Mr. Jacobson in the 

 matter, and therefore really grant nothing — that the manual-train- 

 ing school will accomplish all that is claimed for it by its thoughtful 

 and influential advocates. It is then necessary to consider obvious 

 objections to Mr. Jacobson's plan. So far as the graduated tax on 

 estates is concerned, it is an excellent, safe, and easily collected tax.. 

 And while it may at first sight seem absurd to talk about subsidiz- 

 ing parents to keep children at school, yet we must take other con- 

 siderations into account. It is just as absurd, and no more so, to- 

 levy a school-tax upon a man who has no children to be educated^ 

 Furthermore, it is an expense incurred in order to solve the labor- 

 question, which Mr. Jacobson holds, and rightly, cannot be solved 

 without sacrifice and expense. All this being acceded to, it re- 

 mains to ask whether the proposed tax would pay the bill. The 

 author claims that it would, but offers no statistics in support of his. 

 assertion. An examination of the census of 1880 may enlighten us. 

 Mr. Jacobson proposes to pay certain fixed sums per annum for each, 

 child over twelve and under twenty. In 1880 there were 8,347,731 

 such children in the country. To be reasonably successful, Mr. 

 Jacobson's plan should reach at least three-fourths of them. If it. 

 should reach so many, and payments were made at the rates laid 

 down by the author, the disbursements under this head in 18801 

 would have amounted to the enormous sum of $919,502,737.50, or 

 nine times more than our present total outlay for educational pur- 

 poses. In the census year there died 756,893 persons. Of these,, 

 202,806 were children under five years of age, whose opportunities. 

 of accumulating fortunes were restricted. But let us suppose that 

 one-half of all those who died, or 378,447 persons, left estates valued, 

 at $1,000 and over (we are construing these figures in as liberal a. 

 spirit as possible toward Mr. Jacobson, and if we err it is not against 

 his theory). Suppose now, and it is almost unreasonable to sup- 

 pose so, that 370,000 of these left fortunes averaging $5,000, that 

 8,000 left fortunes averaging $25,000, that 400 left fortunes aver- 

 aging $100,000, and that 47 left fortunes averaging $1,000,000. If 

 Mr. Jacobson's graduated succession tax were levied on these es- 

 tates, it would net $10,830,585, making no deduction for cost of 

 collection. And this $10,830,585 seems paltry when brought face to. 

 face with $919,502,737.50. Mr. Jacobson claims, however (p. 44), as 

 was quoted above, that the tax would at present yield from three 

 to six millions annually in Chicago, and from twenty-five to. fifty 



