55 



Public schools, industriai schools and the Polytechnic Insti- 

 tute have in a remarkable manner unified and fraternized the 

 people of these twenty -five cantons. Though separate in race, 

 religion and language, they are one in national sympathy and 

 interest, proud of their history, and prouder still of their recent 

 progress and manufacturing prosperity. While beggars are 

 found everywhere in Europe, there is less pauperism in Switzer- 

 land than in any other nation on the continent. With no 

 communism, there is still a general diffusion of property, and 

 almost every one is a land-owner. 



In our country by reason of the restrictions imposed by our 

 Trades Unions, apprenticeships are so much lessened that it is 

 now difl&cult for boys to learn a trade. Hence increasing num- 

 bers are growing up to manhood in idleness, without any regular 

 calling, or seeking to earn a livelihood without manual labor. 

 This limitation of apprenticeships is a short-sighted and suicidal 

 plan, sure to cripple our future mechanics. It seeks a temporary 

 gain at the sacrifice of a permanent prosperity, and is depriving 

 many boys of that thorough training in the several trades which 

 is essential to their skill and success. The system of apprentice- 

 ship ought to be encouraged as an indispensable part of the 

 practical education of our future artizans. Otherwise our 

 youth must surrender the most lucrative positions to skilled 

 mechanics imported from abroad. This waning of apprentice- 

 ships, which cannot easily be remedied, creates the greater 

 necessity for industrial education. 



In speaking of the substitution of steam power for hand 

 labor, J. Scott Eussell says : " Occupations which require no 

 skill, but only brute force, will necessarily be vacated by human 

 hands. Society, in the march of improvement, is as certain to 

 do without the unskilled, unintelligent and uneducated as 

 it is to do without wild plants and animals." Certainly any 

 system of public instruction which leaves industrial education 

 out of the account is radically defective. Fortunately this 

 was the theory and practice of the early settlers of Connecti- 

 cut. The founders of this State valued and honored industry. 

 The code of 1650 which stood in this respect unchanged for over 

 one hundred and fifty }• ears required, " That all parents and 

 masters do breed and bring up their children and apprentices in 



