Now, all these inventions are based upon mathematical, chemical, and mechanical theories. The locomotive, the steam-engine, the sewing-machine, the steam-plow, the reaper and thrashing implements, the railroad-car and the ocean-steamer, the power-loom and the telescope, all require a practical and technical knowledge of scientific principles in their construction. This is indispensable in order that they may be either safe or useful. A bridge remains firm only when it is built on sound calculations, and a machine is only useful when it is constructed on correct mechanical rules. How important, then, that every builder, machinist, and engineer should understand the rules which furnish infallible methods for his work, and particularly is this knowledge essential to the artisan engaged in the fabrication of machinery! A man may not be able to form a critical opinion upon a matter of abstract science, but surely a mechanic should know how the parts of a machine are to operate and how they will react on each other; how its various movements are to be affected by the motive power, and what conditions are to be observed in order that good results may be obtained; and also in order to prevent the loss of life and property, which is so often occasioned by blunders and ignorance. In the elementary principles of mechanic art will be found a study of eminent utility to all the pursuits of life, but which will be especially serviceable to the inventor, the manufacturer, the artisan, and the operative. Mechanical learning is therefore making its way into the culture of the age, and there is a growing sentiment in favor of its teaching in our schools.

"Industrial instruction," says a recent writer, "is demanded by every principle upon which our general edu

cational system is based." We must pay a fair price for it. We can not expect frugality, industry, and skill when we have taken no means to secure them. When England became conscious of her inferiority, she established her art and science schools, and has made such giant strides in art-production that the French have been obliged to redouble their efforts in order to retain their traditional superiority. We are in the condition England occupied thirty years ago. What shall America do? We have found that general literary education will not answer this need. Our schools are admirable, numerous, and expensive, and yet we stand at the bottom of all civilized nations in everything relating to industrial education. This is a question that concerns us all-the buyer, the seller, the worker, the poor, and the rich. It is a public question, for our arts are passing into the hands of aliens, and our markets into the control of foreigners.

A writer in "The Popular Science Monthly " magazine argues that no central organization or institution can be expected to do the work which, at the outset, the local industries must initiate for themselves, and develop by their own resources. Not so thought England, when she organized her great industrial museum and art-schools to encourage and improve her manufactures, before "local industries" had laid the foundation of a single institution in the kingdom. Not so thought Germany, which has evolved some of the most important additions to human knowledge and advancement within the last three hundred years, when she seized this problem in her robust intelligence, and solved it for her own people by establishing an industrial school by law. The New England Puritan planted the common school in the wilderness, and

the Western pioneer builds the school-house and the logcabin simultaneously. It is the need of these things that induces public action before the young can grow up in ignorance and idleness; and it would indeed be a mistake to wait until they had been locally developed, and the statistics of their success had excited popular favor. There is an opportunity for endowing a school of this character in every town and city; but do the local industries turn their attention to the necessities or tendencies of our times? And in view of the notorious incompetency and indisposition of these bodies to elaborate plans of education to supply the need, we can scarcely look to them for the proper remedy.

Now, since the great mass of the children in the public schools will have to depend upon some kind of employment for a living, is there anything unreasonable in affording them an opportunity to acquire that kind of knowledge which will open up to them every form of skilled workmanship, which will emancipate them from the narrowness of a single trade, and make them useful and prosperous citizens?

In a commercial and artistic point of view, the advantages of mechanical skill and its combination with beauty appear to be unlimited, for beauty and skill are sold in the market, and delivered to the highest bidder. The people who produce the fleetest ships, the finest fabrics, the most effective arms, and who possess an economical and richly productive agriculture, and a varied and educated mode of manufacture and general industry, will always have greater wealth, population, and intelligence than it is possible to attain without them.

CHAPTER XVII.

Moral influence of industry-West Philadelphia Penitentiary-Criminal statistics-Necessity of manual training to correct degrading views of labor-Also as preparatory for the safety of society-Advantages of industrial education to workmen-It improves their condition and cultivates the moral affections-Early impressions-Mr. Richards's views -Exclusive intellectual training creates a disdain for labor-The connection between idleness and vice-Public schools progressive-The friends of industrial education should vindicate the public schools for their reconstructing tendency—Mr. Fraser's report to the British Government-The improvement of public schools since that time-The education of Indians-Hampton Institute-It is an industrial schoolIndians taught trades-The best way to educate and civilize them— Manual training as an antidote to over-study-Dr. Richardson's views -Boston committee on the subject-The Industrial Home School at Washington-The effect of skill in workmanship upon the condition of the workers-Science and art mutually aid each other-The laboring artist reappears-The establishment of Messrs. Minton-"L'Art Revue "-Fine art in the United States-Production in art-industry—Its humanizing influence-Art and science-Mental industry and material industry in close alliance-The worker is rising higher and higher, and is gaining in intellectual enjoyment-Industrial education the working-man's best friend.

IT may also increase our interest in the economic aspect of our subject if we reflect that intelligent labor is the cheapest police of society, and the main-stay in the moralities of law and order; that it not only secures the means of subsistence, but effectually takes away the inducements to idleness and vice. It is an old proverb that

idleness leads to poverty, and often to crime. A good journeyman is usually a good citizen. We seldom, if ever, hear of a skilled machinist in the penitentiary. Recorder Vaux gives some interesting figures concerning the penitentiary at West Philadelphia. They cover two decades, from 1860 to 1880. In the first, there were 1,605 prisoners received. Of these, 1,115 could both read and write, but 1,217 had never been apprenticed to a trade. In the second decade, there were 2,383 prisoners received. Of these, 1,677 could read and write, but 1,950 had never been apprenticed.

Mr. George S. Angell, who abounds in all kinds of good works, informs me that out of 1,368 prisoners in the Auburn State Prison, New York, a short time since, 1,182 had a greater or less education in colleges, academies, public schools, and elsewhere. As showing the increase in crime, he states that even in Massachusetts it doubled in one decade. In 1865 there were about 10,000 persons confined in the various prisons of the State, and during the year 1875 there were 20,000; and that about twice as many arrests are made annually in the city of New York as were made in all Massachusetts during the year 1880 -namely, 71,477. He also shows that the destruction of property by fire increased in ten years from $35,000,000 in 1868 to about $100,000,000 in 1878; that there are large organized societies of criminals throughout the country; that the largest proportion of the criminal classes are young men not over the age of twenty-five years; that generally they can read and write; and that in no country are life and property more insecure than in portions of the United States. Among the principal remedies he suggests are industrial schools and the plant.