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is alike their duty, privilege and interest. Education should 

 thus be made the auxiliary of labor. Instead of treating it as 

 a degrading drudgery, education should elevate labor and 

 render it more skillful and productive. If the true bearing of 

 education on industry was taught in our schools, our youth 

 would grow up under the salutary conviction that education 

 is economy, and so far from degrading labor makes it more 

 inviting and profitable, because the skilled workman so fore- 

 casts his plans that every blow tells, thus economizing his time 

 and strength and stock, and even in the humblest work, accom- 

 plishing more, in better style, and with less damage to tools or 

 machinery, than the boor who can use only brute muscle. Pride 

 in one's work leads to higher excellence both in his craft and 

 character. The skilled artizan who delights to do his best 

 to-day, will aspire to do better still to-morrow. On the other 

 hand, the too common theory that labor is a degrading drudgery 

 will consciously demean any workman and bar improvement in 

 his trade. 



Connecticut is a busy hive of manufactories. The industrial 

 interests of no State are more vital to its prosperity. We are 

 a working people, and the cause of the workman is the cause of 

 all. The problem of our State and of our day is to elevate 

 work by educating and thus elevating the workmen. The 

 masses are learning that mere muscle is weak, that brains help 

 the hands in all work, that knowledge multiplies the value and 

 productive power of muscular efforts. If knowledge is power, 

 ignorance is waste and weakness. What a man is, stamps an 

 impress upon what he does, even in the humblest forms of 

 industry. The character of the work depends upon the work- 

 man. Whatever elevates the laborer improves his labor. In 

 proportion as you degrade the operative even to the degree of 

 serf or slave, you depreciate his work. You can dignify work 

 therefore in no way so surely as by elevating the workman. 

 The wealth and welfare of individuals and States, always 

 dependent on labor, can be most fully secured only by edu- 

 cated labor. If rightly conducted, our schools, so far from 

 breeding discontent with the humblest pursuits, will prepare 

 for success in the ordinary callings of life. 



Instead of this, I find in some cases the chief aim is promo- 



