Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/414

400 only an evil, and unnecessarily feed the youngster, and that at a very impressionable age, with unjust prejudices. The writer had some curious experiences in that direction, especially when, for the fun of the thing, he wanted to have Republicanism and Democracy defined and limited by Republican and Democratic voters, graduates from public schools, and, he is sorry to say, graduates from apparently known colleges also.

To sum up, more grammar and less grammatical instruction would also be desirable. Mathematics more practically taught, problems of actual use from elementary mechanics, would, for instance, be found more useful than the traditional apple cut up into parts, and would equally well illustrate the principles intended in arithmetic.

Then, with a few dollars spent for plant and materials in industrial education with drawing, we should have our public schools doing really a great work, because actually preparing men for real life.

Following the woman emancipation question we shall probably see a number of clerks gallantly leaving their places to so many lady candidates, book-keepers, etc., and possibly shall we chauvinize ourselves sufficiently to recognize and socially respect (not politically) our new gentleman in overalls, but at large society will have gained only by that; and probably our hot question now, that of labor and capital, will have lost considerably of its disagreeable aspect. General smartness, and what we call general literary information, have had their day; they do not protect us now from a very unhygienic and unsavory fare. Now, as to the special course of manual training in higher preparatory schools. A chemical laboratory, a physical laboratory, scales, standards of measure, specific gravities, thermal, barometrical, electrical units, more minute calculations, would represent the variety necessary, covering the scientific parts more minutely, but by no means dispensing with actual shop practice and thorough work in it. Such training will be found very useful in a professional career; it will enable also the future leader of work and labor to estimate it thoroughly, to understand its difficulties and its actual value, and therefore its needs and rights. It may do away with some of our typical social dilettanti, but most assuredly it will create the true social type of man, struggling for his existence, and surviving because the fittest, but expecting more profit from, and directing, therefore, more energy toward, the struggle with Nature and her forces than toward a battle with his fellow-men.