Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/141

Rh self-dumping carriers and steam hoists. Wood fires are no longer used for thawing, the steam point being far more efficient.

During the night shift the steam points are driven in the face of the drift, and after ten hours' thawing the mate- rial is extracted the following day by steam hoist and self-dumping carrier.

Already keen competition is lowering the wage and reducing the cost of sup- plies, and a reduction in cost of extrac- tion and consequent greater profit is the result. Machinery of the necessary class, boilers, pumps, steam winches, hoists, points, and miners' supplies of

all kinds are entering the camp in large quantities. As the cost of mining is lowered, the area of workable ground is increased.

The building of better roads would immensely aid the miner whose ground, though not marvelously rich, still affords good "pay" under more economic conditions. It is probable the gold-producing field will grow, though the test of time is the only reliable one. Certain it is, however, that there exist hundreds of square miles in this region that have barely been scratched, and the hopes and spirits, at least, of the camp are high.

THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE

NE of the most important government publications in some time has been issued by the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor. It is entitled "Industrial Education and Industrial Conditions in Germany," and contains a number of special reports by our consuls in Germany, which give an excellent and thoughtful appreciation of the rapid growth and prosperity of the German Empire. This progress is due mainly to the thorough training which the German workmen and working women, of high and low degree, have received in the German technical schools, which since the union of the German states, in 1870, have been fostered everywhere by principalities, cities, associations, and private benefactors.

These schools are open, not to a class or to a country, but to the world. In their halls rich and poor meet on equal terms as learners. They require comparatively little money, but educate thousands of hands and heads. They throb with the life about them, and grow with the world without. They are the most powerful weapons of German industry. They are the iron-clads of commerce.

A very large majority of the students who attend the trade schools of Germany have had more or less preliminary training and practical experience in the trades in which they desire to perfect themselves.

Almost all trade schools have special workshops or factories associated with the school building.

In them are found the most modern machines, the latest inventions, and the most practical methods. Every movement of the student is guarded, every act is followed, every mistake is corrected as soon as it happens by teachers who have had good preparatory training, who, in most cases, come directly from their trade and who are fresh and up to date in their practice.

How different the situation of the young apprentice in his father's factory. He may be alone at his machine for hours at a time. He may commit a