Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/868

844 also claimed to be in the interest of peace, when, in reality, if carried into effect, their immediate result will be an enormous expenditure of public money, and afterward their presence will be more likely to provoke than to avert a collision. The nation equipped for war is like the bully with his revolver—always ready for a row, and not likely to miss the chance when an opportunity occurs.

Unfortunately, there seems to be enough of this belligerent and barbarous spirit left, especially in the Old World, to keep up a constant turmoil, or at least to maintain a state of perpetual apprehension, which tends to exert a paralyzing effect upon all forms of industrial effort. But, bad as the outlook at present appears, there is much cause for satisfaction on the part of the friends of industrialism in the growth and extension, under the favoring influence of science, of the arts which make for peace and right living; and it is not a little encouraging that there is already apparent a decided tendency to abandon the strifes of war, and adopt in their stead the more generous rivalries incident to a process of industrial development.

During the last quarter of a century a great impulse has been given in many states to manufacturing interests, the improvement and perfection of working methods, and the competition for excellence in industrial products; and, even in some of the nations whose war-like attitude has given alarm, the earnestness of the people in this direction is already comparable with and promises ultimately to suppress the belligerent disposition of their rulers. Thus it happens that the merchants of Germany are crowding the English out of the markets which they thought their permanent possession, by being able to offer to buyers more desirable bargains. The reason of this is that, while those who supposed they held a monopoly of these markets have been content to rest at a certain point of excellence in manufacture, or have even been careless about the matter, their rivals have persistently sought to improve the quality and the methods of production, and to adapt their goods to the exact taste of their customers; and, apace with this, have developed systems of thorough training, in general and special schools, of their artisan classes in all branches of manufacture, and in the numerous applications of science to the arts.

It is thus becoming recognized that excellence in technical industries and the special training of artisan youth are quite as important for the prosperity and security of the nation as a firm military position; and earnest efforts are making in this country and in England to put in operation means by which these may be attained. It has been proposed in England to honor the jubilee of the Queen's reign by founding an Imperial Institute, the purpose of which shall be to advance the knowledge and practical skill of the productive classes of the empire. The exact shape which the scheme shall assume has not yet been determined, and has hardly been conceived. Professor Huxley, who warmly commended it at a public meeting, would have in the Institute, as he has said in a note subsequently written, "something which should play the same part in regard to the advancement of industrial knowledge as has been played in regard to science and learning in general, in these realms, by the Royal Society and the universities." In his conception of the scheme as he commended it, he pictured the Imperial Institute to himself, he says—

As a house of call for all those who are concerned in the advancement of industry; as a place in which the home-keeping industrial could find out all he wants to know about colonial industry and the colonist about home industry; as a sort of neutral ground in which the capitalist and the artisan would be equally welcome; as a center of intercommunication in which they might enter into friendly