220 
On Technical Education . 
[April, 
us the leading manufacturing country in the world, exist in 
greater abundance in that country than in our own ; and 
America possesses in addition at least one raw material, 
cotton, which we do not possess, and on which one of our 
great staple industries is based, and they are beginning to 
try and supersede us in cotton goods on the continent of 
Asia, which at the present time is our best neutral market 
for that class of manufactures. The singular talent their 
mechanists have displayed in the invention of labour-saving 
machines and other mechanical inventions is well-known : 
the cheap labour of Switzerland is no longer able to compete 
with their automatic machinery in the manufacture of cheap 
watches and clocks, and horological apprenticeship schools 
will never be able to train workmen to compete with their 
machinery in this branch of manufactures. And yet they have, 
I believe, no apprenticeship schools, but rely on the good 
public education they afford every class of their citizens, to 
fit each class for their future pursuit in life. And their 
brain-workers and hand-workers certainly appear much more 
capable than those classes do in the older civilised countries 
of engaging in a greater variety of employments, from the 
greater flexibility, if I may so term it, they display of mind 
and hand. This greater universality was well illustrated at 
the close of their war, each officer and soldier when dis- 
banded entering upon some civil employment. This greater 
adaptability may be due in a measure to the faCt that 
America is as yet a comparatively new country, and there- 
fore the avenues to employment are not so over-crowded as 
in older countries. 
In all schools where the training of the hand as well as 
the mind is undertaken, the exercises employed for hand 
training should be of such a nature that the manipulator 
would acquire the greatest dexterity of hand in performing 
them. But not only should these manual exercises impart 
manual dexterity, but they should likewise be of such a 
character that the eye would be systematically and artistically 
educated. The Apprenticeship Schools, on account of the 
nature of the manual exercises given to the students, do not 
evoke this scientific manual skill, and the French, who have 
tried these schools to the fullest extent, are beginning to 
perceive it. They say “ that the art industry of France is 
being lowered, and that the young idea must be more ably 
taught and tutored in the way it should go. At recent ex- 
hibitions it was shown,” they state, “ that England was on 
a level with France in the furniture and china departments ; 
that Austria was on a level with France by reason of her 
