Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/433

Rh It is not a criticism of the congress of 1895 to say that it opened more questions than it decided. Penology, like every other science, must advance by interrogations even more than by affirmations. With the growth of knowledge problems multiply and become more complex. But we are better prepared to grapple with difficult conditions when we know what they are; and one of the most hopeful elements in dealing with the subject of criminology in all its varied and elusive relations is the existence of an organized international corps of men and women who approach the matter in a calm, judicial, scientific, and humane spirit.



HERE seems to be no immediate prospect of ending the contest between capital and labor. No matter how strikes or lockouts are settled, they leave a bad feeling behind them that will be shown as soon as another opportunity offers. Mutual distrust and jealousy mark the-situation to-day as they have marked it for many years past. The capitalist votes one way, and the employees vote another, so that they may not oblige him. In every dealing between the two sides the opposition is carried so far that a good understanding seems more remote than ever. Nor does there appear any hope for improvement till each party is ready to make concessions.

The old system of apprenticeship drew more closely the bonds of common interest between the employer and the employee, and with benefit to both. It was comparatively easy for apprentices to become employers. But labor-saving machinery has made the workman an attendant upon the machine, and it has destroyed that sympathy between him and his employer which was the strength of the apprentice system. The blame for this rests upon neither side exclusively. The system may have been too slow to satisfy modern conditions, but the departure of it has made the situation worse. No longer do workmen, as a rule, educate themselves in schools of technology and by the reading of books. There is no inducement for doing better things while the doctrine holds that one man's work is as good as another's, and while labor organizations restrict the number of youth who shall learn trades, thereby keeping all on the same level and giving none an incentive to rise.

The establishment of boards of arbitration will not meet the present difficulties. Those who adopt the idea, on the strength of declarations made by both sides, of a desire for a reasonable 