iiifiiiili
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 A FORWARD STEP
 
 A FORWARD STEP 
 
 FOR THE DEMOCRACY 
 OF TO-MORROW 
 
 WILLIAM THUM 
 
 BOSTON, MASS. 
 
 die (ZTteentietl) Centttrp Campanp 
 
 1910
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY WILLIAM THUM 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This is a book for common people, written by one 
 of their own number. What may appear to be 
 needless repetition of ideas in the book is due to 
 the fact that many of the articles hinge upon the 
 one main purpose of promoting the interests of 
 self-supporting students. The articles were written 
 under the following convictions : — 
 
 First, that it is of the utmost importance that 
 the average man, especially the laborer, should ap- 
 preciate the value of the future high school. 
 
 Second, that further ethical, political, and indus- 
 trial progress depends more upon the high schools, 
 greatly increased in number and improved in effi- 
 ciency, than upon any other one thing. 
 
 Third, that this increase in size and improve- 
 ment in quality depends upon there being provision 
 made to supply those who would be self-support- 
 ing students with remunerative and wisely selected 
 work. 
 
 Fourth, that the church could strike at evil in 
 no better way than to direct its main eifort toward 
 furthering the interests of the public schools. 
 
 1500233
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 In the preparing of these articles for publica- 
 tion, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to 
 Miss Ada J. Miller, who rendered indispensable 
 aid. 
 
 William Thum.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Democracy, the High School, and Self-Support- 
 
 ING Students 1 
 
 Public Works High Schools 7 
 
 Manufacturing Works High Schools ... 77 
 Suggestions Relative to a Public Works 
 
 Scholarship Fund 89 
 
 The Heart-Mind and the School .... 95 
 
 Questions for the Universities 107 
 
 Redeem National Resources and Help the 
 
 Schools 112 
 
 A Study in Kinship: Church and School . . 138 
 
 The Sunday League 157 
 
 National Education Party 209 
 
 Social System — Education — Race Suicide . 216 
 One Way to spend Two Millions for the 
 
 Public Good 219 
 
 A Fearless Church — A Better Country . . 223 
 Discussion 234
 
 DEMOCRACY, THE HIGH SCHOOL, 
 AND SELF-SUPPORTING STUDENTS 
 
 The main object of every nation should be to reach 
 the nearest possible approach to a truly democratic 
 state. Democracy that is worthy of the name can- 
 not be possible until a great majority of the citi- 
 zens possess both a good general education, and a 
 special education in some economic field. We here 
 include the professions and arts in economic activ- 
 ity. A good general education will tend to equal- 
 ize us socially, and a nearer approach to social 
 democracy will result. A well-diffused economic 
 education wiU tend toward an equalization of our 
 earning capacities, and to the extent of the equal- 
 ization effected, it will develop economic demo- 
 cracy. 
 
 In order to build this form of democracy, it is 
 of great value that economic education be im- 
 proved, and that it be more generally distributed ; 
 but it must be accompanied by a much better 
 distribution of general education. This combined 
 economic and general education must be of such a 
 degree and so well distributed as to lead the citi-
 
 2 SELF-SUPPORTING STUDENTS 
 
 zen to the polls in the interest of laws that will 
 result in economic justice. By economic justice we 
 mean a state in which no man, through the mere 
 power of wealth, can take artificial advantage of 
 men who possess less wealth or a keener moral 
 sense. We cannot approximate social democracy 
 until all citizens have an equal opportunity to ob- 
 tain a general secondary and higher education. But 
 all cannot have such equal opportunity until eco- 
 nomic methods and customs no longer give to some 
 persons an unearned advantage. 
 
 As just stated, we must have a higher popular 
 education, both general and economic, in order to 
 make laws that put an end to much of this undue 
 advantage ; but as the undue advantage retards 
 the needed advance in popular education, progress 
 is unavoidably slow. We can, however, safely hope 
 that the retarded education will be all the better 
 for the struggle required. This slow progress may 
 be the only safe way for the present, but no oppor- 
 tunity to further education should pass unim- 
 proved. 
 
 True national democracy must always tend to- 
 ward both economic and social democracy. In so- 
 cial democracy we include both intellectual and 
 moral democracy. As long as educated persons are 
 relatively few, they will take little interest in poli-
 
 SELF-SUPPORTING STUDENTS 3 
 
 tics ; but as their relative numbers increase, their 
 interest in politics will increase. When they are in 
 the majority, politics will become the most import- 
 ant subject of their thought and action. Thus poli- 
 tics will be purified and democracy will be fur- 
 thered. Again : as long as secondary and higher 
 education is monopolized by relatively few, these 
 few, with some exceptions, will take undue advan- 
 tage of the less enlightened. In many cases this 
 advantage is taken unwittingly, because even higher 
 education in politics and economics is as yet crude. 
 Under these conditions an approximation to true 
 democracy is out of the question. 
 
 It is the duty of every man who has the ability 
 to learn, to obtain a good general education and 
 an economic education. It is his further duty as 
 a citizen to aid in the spread of secondary edu- 
 cation. The majority of those who have the means 
 to pay the expense of obtaining such education, or 
 who have friends to pay these expenses for them, 
 no doubt attend secondary schools. We therefore 
 depend principally on the self-supporting youth to 
 increase the number of earnest students in these 
 schools. The number who systematically and liber- 
 ally educate themselves at home is too small to 
 take into account. The man who has not in one 
 way or another obtained a thorough secondary
 
 4 SELF-SUPPORTING STUDENTS 
 
 education is usually far from his best in citizen- 
 ship. 
 
 Uncomplimentary things are often said about 
 some high schools and about some of the students, 
 and at times with good reason. This adverse criti- 
 cism is due to the fact that too large a proportion 
 of high-school students regard the school merely as 
 a means of making one proficient in the "game 
 of grab," or in the " society habit." Nevertheless, 
 without high schools improved by time and greatly 
 increased in number, our advance toward true de- 
 mocracy will be so slow that the reactionary element 
 in both the so-called lower and higher classes of 
 society will more than counteract this slow advance, 
 and finally, such democracy as we have attained will 
 be destroyed. We especially mention high schools, 
 as, in our present state of enlightenment, they are 
 more necessary than are additional universities. If 
 what has been said is true, the high school, or its 
 equivalent, and the self-supporting student, give us 
 our greatest hope for further advance toward true 
 democracy. 
 
 The following plan is offered as a suggestion to 
 any boy of sixteen or eighteen years of age, who, 
 in order to do his duty to himself and to his country, 
 is eager to have an education beyond the eighth 
 grade, who is dependent on his own resources, and
 
 SELF-SUPPORTING STUDENTS 5 
 
 who is so situated as to make the following under- 
 taking feasible. Let him find a willing partner in 
 a tried friend, and let them together seek perma- 
 nent employment in some business, as one boy, one 
 to work in the forenoon, the other in the afternoon. 
 After demonstrating their ability to do their work 
 to the satisfaction of their employer, let them apply 
 to some well-equipped high school, or polytechnic 
 school, for admission in half-day sessions, one to 
 attend in the forenoon, and the other in the after- 
 noon for the first year, with the reverse order of 
 time for the second year. In this manner, each will 
 attend a year of morning and a year of afternoon 
 sessions, and in the two years will have obtained a 
 full year of schooling. When over school age, the 
 boys will be required to pay approximately their 
 share of the operating expenses of the school. This 
 requirement should not be regarded as an obstacle, 
 as it will amount to only about thirty dollars a year 
 for a half-time student. It may often be advisable 
 that these boys room together. By this plan each 
 will keep better informed regarding the work done 
 by the other, and the two can better fill the place 
 of a single employee. Two boys living at home may 
 still live together by staying first at the home of 
 one, then at the home of the other, alternating per- 
 haps every month. If economy is practiced in every
 
 6 SELF-SUPPORTING STUDENTS 
 
 direction, wages of six dollars a week for the half- 
 time of each student will pay all living and school 
 expenses. ' School men believe that most young men 
 could easily graduate after six years of this half- 
 time attendance. By this plan the school education 
 would be more slowly and more thoroughly assimi- 
 lated, and would thus gain in value. Employers 
 often advance their best interests by giving em- 
 ployment to well-chosen, self-supporting students. 
 
 1 See note on page 234 for discassion of these wages.
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS.* 
 
 In order to create a desire to attend high school, 
 all children, while in the elementary grades, should 
 be gradually and persistently taught the many and 
 priceless advantages of a thorough high-school train- 
 ing. One period a week for one term in the eighth 
 grade might be given to lessons on the advantages 
 to be derived from an earnest high-school education. 
 These lessons should be so clearly fixed in the mind 
 as to create a desire to learn, and should show that 
 efficiency in some activity for self-support, a know- 
 ledge of the foundations of literature, science, music, 
 and art are essential to a happy life ; they should 
 show that steadily increasing knowledge is one of 
 the necessities of our modern life, and that a high- 
 school training is virtually indispensable as a means 
 toward these ends.^ 
 
 ^ With the exception of slight changes, this article is a reprint 
 of an article published in The Arena for December, 1907. Objec- 
 tions that were made to the plan before its first publication are 
 discnssed, and this fact accounts for the otherwise unnecessary 
 length of the paper. 
 
 2 The question at once arises, how can the eighth-grade student 
 be taught this desirable knowledge, and what shall constitute
 
 8 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 In order that our young men may obtain the full 
 benefit of high-school training, it is necessary that 
 every one of them who is physically able should 
 earn and pay his own expenses after arriving at the 
 age of sixteen. He should earn not only his personal 
 expenses, but eventually his share of the running 
 expenses of the school. Not only sons of parents 
 who cannot afford to send their children to high 
 school, but all other young men of sixteen or over, 
 would be benefited by earning their own education. 
 When conditions make it possible, this applies also 
 to young women. 
 
 It is well known that young men who, either 
 from necessity or from choice, work their way 
 through high school or college stand, almost with- 
 out exception, far above the average. If the work 
 by means of which they earn their living and 
 school expenses is within reason, it harms them in 
 no way ; in many ways it benefits them. Some 
 young men undertake to work outside of school 
 
 these lessons. Call for volnnteer schools to try the experiment. 
 Permit volunteers among the teachers to prepare, during the year, 
 twenty approved half -hour lectures, taking the whole year to per- 
 fect them. The next year set aside twenty half -hour periods in the 
 last term of the eighth grade, and go at it. At least some of the 
 schools will succeed in making a series of lessons worth adopting, 
 and soon the hest authorities on education will take an interest in 
 the new course and perfect the lessons. In this case the main thing 
 is to make a determined start.
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 9 
 
 hours and during vacations and attend high school 
 full time ; some work half-days and attend school 
 half -days ; others undertake to work steadily three 
 or four years to save enough to pay the expenses 
 of a high-school course. Under present conditions, 
 too few self-supporting young men try to obtain a 
 high-school education ; and, for various reasons, too 
 large a proportion of those who do try fail to carry 
 out their intentions : only the most fortunate and 
 strongest succeed, — but happily these are numbered 
 by the thousands. The principal reasons for failure 
 are unsteadiness of employment, and lack of asso- 
 ciates who are striving to accomplish the same end. 
 How much better could the desired result be 
 accomplished if the public would plan to employ 
 ambitious students at steady and justly paid work ! 
 This work should yield enough to defray the stu- 
 dent's necessary expenses, and should, whenever 
 possible, be instructive as well. Such a plan would 
 give the student the further advantage of having 
 associates voluntarily working by his side with the 
 same object in view. The obtaining of an educa- 
 tion, instead of being a difficult and very often an 
 impossible task for a self-supporting young man, 
 would become a decided pleasure. Eventually, all 
 young men, and possibly many young women, would 
 be given an opportunity to earn their way through
 
 10 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 high school. The legal time for attendance in such 
 schools should extend over a period of eight years, 
 anywhere between the ages of sixteen and twenty- 
 eight. The public would be expected to provide only 
 grounds, buildings, and initial expenses, and then 
 exercise general supervision over the schools ; the 
 students themselves would in time be obliged to 
 earn and pay all operating expenses of the schools. 
 The plan proposed might require five, ten, or even 
 more than ten times the present high-school capacity ; 
 this capacity, however, could be increased with but 
 little increase in taxation. 
 
 By reason of the many improvements in the 
 methods of manufacture, industrial work has be- 
 come so productive that almost any healthy young 
 man of sixteen or eighteen could produce enough 
 in five hours per day to pay the necessary expenses 
 of a public works high school course. After two or 
 three years of experience in work, he could earn 
 more than enough for the necessary expenses ; and, 
 if he wished to do so, could accumulate a reserve 
 fund for later use. Some economists assure us that 
 when our industrial programme is less wasteful and 
 the products of labor are distributed in an approxi- 
 mately equitable manner, the average laboring man 
 will be able to earn enough in five hours per day 
 to give him as good a living as he now enjoys. Two
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 11 
 
 o£ the possible results of the proposed plan are a 
 greater productiveness per work-hour and a fairer 
 distribution of the products of labor. 
 
 The present inequitable distribution of the prod- 
 ucts of labor, and the lack of general and thorough 
 secondary education, are the direct causes of much 
 unhappiness, and the indirect causes of virtually 
 all unhappiness. Our elementary education is now 
 well distributed ; it is, however, hardly an adequate 
 preparation for life. If we are to have any further 
 progress, except in a slow, laborious, and wasteful 
 way, every young person with sufficient capacity 
 should be given an opportunity to obtain a second- 
 ary education. The plan that this article suggests 
 aims to give all those who desire this education the 
 opportunity to earn the means necessary for attend- 
 ing high school, and, incidentally, it aims to modify 
 the operation of utility works owned by the public, 
 so that public ownership will effect the greatest 
 possible results. No better means is at hand for 
 the equitable distribution of some of the principal 
 products of labor than well-conducted public utility 
 works. 
 
 Every practicable public opportunity, and, for 
 that matter, every private one, that will enable a 
 young man to earn the means for his high-school 
 education should be opened to him, and, eventu-
 
 12 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 ally, should be opened to all young men regardless 
 of whether or not they can live on the support of 
 parents and friends. It is of as much importance 
 to the average rich man's son that he earn his own 
 high-school education as that he have such an edu- 
 cation. The influence of complete dependence upon 
 others is sometimes ruinous. This is evidenced by 
 every supported high-school student who does not 
 earnestly apply himself to his studies. 
 
 How shall we employ the young men? The 
 public has municipal work to do, and the greater 
 part of this work could be done by clear-headed 
 young men from sixteen to twenty-eight years of 
 age, who are students in public works high schools. 
 In order to avoid giving the younger of these 
 students too many hours of industrial work in one 
 continuous period, it might be desirable to limit one 
 set of students to five hours of labor in the forenoon 
 and to at least three hours of school work in the after- 
 noon ; with the other set of students the order woidd 
 have to be reversed. This arrangement of time, 
 with modifications for night work and special cases, 
 would permit one half of the students to take a 
 forenoon session in school, and the other half an 
 afternoon session. Experienced educators say that 
 the average self-supporting student of sixteen can 
 thoroughly assimilate a full high-school course
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 13 
 
 in six years of half-time school attendance. As- 
 suming this to be true, the public works school, if 
 equipped for the purpose, could either give two 
 haK-time years to technical or trade training, or the 
 same amount of time to college work. 
 
 It is evident that the study programme of such 
 a school would differ from that of the ordinary 
 high school mainly in the fact that each forenoon 
 programme of study would be repeated with the 
 other set of students in the afternoon. In case such 
 schools are established, it would be a matter for 
 experience to decide whether it would be better 
 and more convenient to have the older and stronger 
 boys and young men work and study alternately 
 by half-days or by longer periods of time. 
 
 Thousands of young men have earned the means 
 to pay their way through a full high-school course, 
 and have taken it in fewer than six years. What 
 thousands of young men can do under difficult 
 conditions in less time, millions could do in the six 
 years under public works high school conditions. 
 Furthermore, we should find that the self-support- 
 ing students of these schools, after once the proper 
 rules and methods were established, could do the 
 manual, and even the managerial, labor of many 
 municipal works with far better results than the 
 average works can show at the present time.
 
 14 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 What is here said of students of public works 
 high schools would apply with greater force to 
 students of public works colleges, should these col- 
 leges ever exist. 
 
 One way in which a trial of the foregoing plan 
 might be made, is as follows : — 
 
 Take, for example, a city of ten thousand to 
 thirty thousand inhabitants, owning its water works. 
 Let us assume, for the sake of brevity, that the 
 force of men employed in the water works is as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 1. A superintendent, whose duties are to act as 
 secretary, overseer of the books, and general man- 
 ager of the office and works. 
 
 2. An office clerk, whose principal duties are to 
 do the bookkeeping and to act as cashier. 
 
 3. A meter and bill man to read the meters and 
 make out the monthly water bills. 
 
 4. A foreman over the mechanics and day la- 
 borers in the works and in the field. 
 
 5. A machinist. 
 
 6. An engineer for the engine and pump room. 
 
 7. A fireman for the boiler room. 
 
 8. A janitor, whose duties include messenger 
 service and the care of a team. 
 
 9. Several laborers for trench digging and pipe 
 laying.
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 15 
 
 A committee composed of the school superin- 
 tendent, the principals of the several schools, and 
 one or more members from each educational, social, 
 and business society might be organized to take 
 the matter in hand. If it is found that the city- 
 administration and the citizens will readily favor 
 the making of a public works high school experi- 
 ment in connection with the water works, the com- 
 mittee might proceed in its own way, or it might 
 adopt the following plan : It could choose two 
 capable young men who are willing to do the 
 janitor service, one to work in the forenoon and 
 attend school in the afternoon ; the other to at- 
 tend school in the forenoon and work in the 
 afternoon. It goes without saying that diligence 
 must be required of the young men in the water 
 works, also regular attendance and good standing 
 in the school. The committee, in making its choice 
 of young men, could be guided largely by the 
 recommendations of their former teachers, and be 
 reasonably sure of the character of the young 
 men chosen. Since there are no public works high 
 schools in existence to which such young men can 
 be sent, the committee would, for the present, be 
 obliged to make arrangements with the regular 
 high school of the city so to adjust its programme 
 as to accommodate seK-supporting students who
 
 16 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 wish to do this work. It might at first be some- 
 what difficult to put a student through one year of 
 the course in two years, with attendance only in 
 the forenoon during the first year, and the next 
 year with attendance only in the afternoon ; but this 
 difficulty would gradually be overcome as the teach- 
 ing force adapted itself to the new condition. Here 
 we must remember that the young men in question 
 will be students above the average, and that such 
 students are a pleasure to the teachers. This fact 
 will do much to lessen the burden of any extra work 
 involved. 
 
 About two weeks before the beginning of the 
 school year, the two young men chosen for janitor 
 service at the water works could work with the 
 janitor and take instructions from him. When 
 school begins, the janitor would leave, ^ and the 
 young men would fill his place, each working one 
 half-day, as explained before, until the begin- 
 ning of the next school year. These young men 
 would have to work during the vacations the same 
 as during the school terms, that is, five hours each 
 day, because they would need the money for self- 
 support, and because it would be impracticable for 
 
 ^ The committee would of course be under obligations to give 
 the displaced employee other employment at similar wages. The 
 problem thus presented will be referred to later.
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 17 
 
 the water works department to initiate a set of new 
 men each vacation.* 
 
 About two weeks before the beginning of the 
 second year of our experiment, each one of the 
 student janitors could, in the free part of his work 
 day, take instructions from the meter reader and 
 bill man in order to be prepared to take the meter 
 readings, and to make out the monthly water bills 
 during the second or following year. During the 
 two weeks that these young men take instructions 
 from the meter reader, each could, during his work 
 hours, instruct the second set of students chosen 
 by the committee to do the janitor work for the 
 coming year. Throughout the second year of the 
 experiment, therefore, the second set of students 
 would serve as janitors and messengers, and the 
 first would do the meter reading and make out the 
 monthly water bills. 
 
 About four weeks before the beginning of the 
 third school year of the experiment, each one of 
 the first set of students should, in the free part of 
 his work day, take instructions from the office clerk 
 in order to be prepared to keep the books and to 
 do the other duties of the clerk during the follow- 
 
 ^ A public -works school experiment that promises success has 
 been started by Throop Polytechnic Institute and the city of 
 Pasadena, California.
 
 18 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 ing, or third, school year. Previous to this, the high 
 school should have prepared the first set of stu- 
 (lents by arranging their studies so that both would 
 have received school training in booklteeping and 
 office work. In the third year, therefore, the first 
 set of students, by this time eighteen to twenty- 
 two years old, would do the work of the office 
 clerk; the second set, seventeen to twenty-one 
 years old, woidd do the work of meter reader and 
 biU man ; and the third set, sixteen to twenty years 
 old, would do the janitor and messenger work. By 
 this time the janitor, the meter and biU man, and 
 the office clerk would have been displaced ; the 
 first set of students would, at the beginning of each 
 school year, have been initiated in their various 
 duties by the respective men originally performing 
 those duties ; the second and third set of students 
 would have been initiated in their work, each by 
 the preceding set. Whenever practicable, high- 
 school studies should be employed to help the stu- 
 dents in the duties of the current year, and also to 
 help prepare them for the duties of the year to 
 follow. The courses in mechanics and bookkeeping 
 would meet virtually every need that might arise 
 in carrying out this system. 
 
 The programme as given above could be contin- 
 ued on similar lines for the remaining five years
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 19 
 
 of the fuU course. Briefly stated, this programme 
 might be as follows. In the fourth year, the first 
 set of students, now from nineteen to twenty-three 
 years old, might act as trench-makers and pipe- 
 layers. In the fifth year, they could, under the 
 supervision of the engineer, do the firing and dis- 
 place the fireman ; they now would be from twenty 
 to twenty-four years old. In the sixth year, with 
 the high-school preparation in mechanics, and 
 with the supervision of the foreman and machinist, 
 they could perform the work of engineer. In the 
 seventh year, with the technical high-school training, 
 the two students, now twenty-two to twenty-six years 
 of age, could ordinarily do the work of the machin- 
 ist. In the eighth year of our experiment, the last 
 year of the course, the first students might possi- 
 bly be competent to displace the foreman ; if not, 
 some other arrangement could be made to keep 
 them employed. From the plan as outlined, it will 
 readily be seen that each year, as the first set of stu- 
 dents was shifted to other work, the shifting of the 
 others would naturally follow, and a new set would 
 be introduced as janitors. If this advancement in 
 the work should prove to be too rapid for best re- 
 sults, the students could be confined to the more 
 common work, and the positions of engineer, ma- 
 chinist, and foreman could be left in older hands.
 
 20 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 At the end of the eighth school year, the first 
 set of students would graduate from high school 
 and would no longer be eligible to employment in 
 municipal works, except in the few positions that 
 are of necessity permanent. Aside from employ- 
 ment in these permanent positions, one of the fun- 
 damental rules regarding the students in the muni- 
 cipal works must be that they shall be engaged 
 only while receiving a public works high school 
 education ; and that graduates and others shall be 
 employed in the temporary positions only when there 
 is no suitable candidate waiting to take up the em- 
 ployment for the purpose of receiving such educa- 
 tion. 
 
 We must not lose sight of the fact that the 
 young men employed are selected because of special 
 ability, and that they would do the work at least as 
 well as the average man. We must also keep in 
 mind the fact that, if public works high schools 
 are opened, the several municipal enterprises that 
 might be within the territory of any certain school 
 would, in a sense, become a part of its curriculum, 
 and would be under the direct scrutiny of the 
 entire school, students as well as instructors. Of 
 course the municipal water works here used as an 
 illustration is but an imaginary affair, much sim- 
 plified for the purpose of shortening this article.
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 21 
 
 In practice, the carrying out of the plan just out- 
 lined would prove to be a more complicated mat- 
 ter than we have made it appear ; but once in 
 operation, this plan cannot fail of success. Not 
 all young men would be capable of doing all kinds 
 of work, and many variations from a typical case 
 might be required to suit varying conditions ; such 
 difficulties, nevertheless, can be overcome. 
 
 Most boys finish the eighth grade by the time 
 they are fourteen years old; what shall be done 
 with them until sixteen years of age? Those who 
 are large and strong for their years might, in spe- 
 cial cases, be given some light employment in the 
 municipal works and allowed to attend the public 
 works high school as though they were sixteen years 
 old ; five hours daily of easy occupation would not 
 be injurious to a healthy boy of fourteen. The re- 
 mainder of the fourteen and fifteen-year-old boys 
 in families that cannot afford to keep their child- 
 ren in school beyond the eighth grade, might find 
 light half-time employment outside of municipal 
 works. These boys might even go to work at the 
 most suitable full-time employment that offers until 
 reaching the age of sixteen ; or, work proving un- 
 available, they might simply be obliged to wait until 
 the proper age. Parents having a boy graduate from 
 the eighth grade at the age of fourteen would, of
 
 22 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 course, if they could afford to do so, fully maintain 
 him and pay all expenses of full-time school attend- 
 ance during the ninth and tenth grades, and then, 
 after the boy is sixteen years old, require him to 
 earn his own way through the eleventh and twelfth 
 grades, and what might be called the thirteenth 
 grade, by employment either in some public works 
 or elsewhere. This thirteenth grade would cover 
 the first year of college work, or two half-time 
 years of technical or of trade training. These 
 three grades, under haK-time attendance in the pub- 
 lic works high school, would require five years of 
 time. 
 
 According to the proposed plan for public works 
 high schools, the full course is divided into eight 
 half-grades and is equivalent to a regular high- 
 school course and the first year of a college course. 
 The entire work of each of the half-grades is 
 given in the forenoon, and repeated in the after- 
 noon, throughout each year, for the benefit of both 
 sets of the half -day pupils. The course thus planned 
 will cover eight years for the half-day pupils, but 
 will at the same time offer the opportunity for full- 
 day pupils to complete it in five years, as at pre- 
 sent, by attending school full time and selecting 
 such studies and such periods as will give credit 
 for a full course. Since in all probability the public
 
 PUBLIC WOKKS HIGH SCHOOLS 23 
 
 works high school students would eventually pay 
 the entire operating expenses of the schools, the 
 need of extending the legal school age would not 
 be a disadvantage so long as any one individual 
 may attend the school only eight half-years. The 
 age limit, ranging from sixteen to twenty-eight 
 years, would make a number of sufficiently mature 
 men available for the municipal works; whereas, 
 a lower age limit would, for some departments, be 
 unwise. 
 
 Under an arrangement similar to that described 
 for the public works high schools, yet without 
 adopting the plan in fuU, the city government of 
 any city having a polytechnic institute could offer 
 situations to suitable students of the institute, and 
 gradually all the municipal works of the city would 
 become closely connected with the school. The stu- 
 dent employees would be under the supervision of 
 the proper city authorities, and would at the same 
 time be under the care and guidance of the school. 
 The institute could make the study of the mimici- 
 pal works in which its students are employed a 
 part of one or more of its courses, and in this way 
 develop experts and managers for these works. In 
 cities not having schools of this kind from which to 
 supply their own demand, good employment could 
 readily be found for young men thus prepared.
 
 24 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 Men having had eight years of half-time practical 
 experience, together with the same length of time 
 in a polytechnic institute, would be exceptionally 
 valuable in either publicly or privately owned 
 works. 
 
 Every individual who earnestly strives to develop 
 his reasoning power properly and to accumulate a 
 valuable supply of knowledge is doing his first duty 
 to the state. Here we mean such reasoning power 
 and such knowledge as will result, at least, in the 
 healthy development of both body and mind. It is, 
 therefore, to the interest of every city to assist all 
 eligible persons desiring to obtain a high-school 
 education by offering them such employment as it 
 can. This systematic work, both in school and out 
 of school, will develop the reasoning power to the 
 best advantage. By employing young persons who 
 are ready to work for an education, the city at once 
 gets the strongest moral class of labor, and thus 
 raises the standard of municipal purity. The fact 
 that each student employee would be kept on one 
 class of work but one year, or as long as good serv- 
 ice might require; the fact that each individual 
 municipal enterprise would be a subject of study in 
 a public works high school ; and the further fact 
 that the students of these schools would have inti- 
 mate and practical connection with the municipal
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 25 
 
 works, would make fraudulently inclined men shun 
 municipal employment. The municipal purity that 
 could be brought about by this plan would make 
 municipal ownership a comparatively easy matter; 
 and municipal ownership would naturally extend 
 to many lines of business that cannot now be under- 
 taken by the city on account of graft, some of which 
 intrudes into civic positions and does moral and 
 economic damage beyond calculation. The relations 
 here proposed for the city and the public works 
 high schools would apply equally to the state and 
 the public works colleges. 
 
 As public works high schools and colleges develop, 
 it would become feasible to have municipal tele- 
 phone systems, water woi-ks, gas works, electric 
 works, ice plants, dairies, laundries, and street 
 railways ; also public telegraph, postal savings 
 banks, government railways, and other govern- 
 ment enterprises. Later, the field of public enter- 
 prise could be so extended that one half of the 
 necessities of life would be furnished, approxi- 
 mately at cost, by public works. When such a time 
 is reached, all who are not in the higher financial 
 strata, and all into whose lives luxuries do not enter 
 largely, would no longer pay unnecessary tribute to 
 trusts and monopolies. The average individual can 
 entirely shake off the dwarfing effects of paying
 
 26 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 this unnecessary tribute only when he and his 
 fellows are sufficiently enlightened to cooperate 
 intelligently in supplying their more important 
 needs. 
 
 The greater the number of municipal enterprises 
 that can be operated successfully, the greater will 
 be the number of students that can be employed, 
 and the more rapid will be our intellectual and 
 economic growth. Varied work for the young in 
 any municipal business would teach good business 
 methods by actual practice, and good business meth- 
 ods are a most valuable asset in private life. After 
 eight years of half-time employment in municipal 
 works, the young citizen would be familiar with the 
 details of operation in these works ; and, further- 
 more, he could more readily familiarize himself with 
 other municipal business. Thus he would be trained 
 to be a reliable judge in matters pertaining to mu- 
 nicipal industry ; and, when a large majority of the 
 citizens are thus trained, any indifference to public 
 trust or any possible fraudulent action on the part 
 of a municipal employee, would be still more quickly 
 discovered. The annual reports of all municipal 
 industries would naturally be freely studied, com- 
 pared, and criticised by the majority of graduates 
 of the public works high schools. These schools 
 could, if necessary, well afford to omit some of the
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 27 
 
 present higli-school studies, valuable though they 
 are, in order to study municipal industrial business 
 and thereby aid in the establishment and mainte- 
 nance of greater purity in municipal industrial 
 enterprises ; but, regardless of the foregoing reason, 
 municipal industrial activity, carefully considered, 
 wotild still be an interesting, instructive, and pro- 
 fitable study for the schools. 
 
 There is one thing iil particular that could be 
 done for publicity in municipal enterprise that 
 would at the same time be of value to the public 
 works high schools. The bookkeeping classes could 
 be given complete sets of copies of the corre- 
 spondence, the vouchers, and the various account 
 books for the previous year, of one or more of 
 the municipal enterprises of the city ; and, during 
 the current year, they could enter and post each 
 item to its proper aiccount, and balance the books 
 at the customary intervals. The bookkeeping 
 course could just as well include some part of 
 the city's actual bookkeeping as to provide only 
 imaginary work ; some imaginary work in other 
 lines of business would still be necessary, but 
 less would answer in consequence of the practice 
 obtained from the municipal bookkeeping. The 
 classes would naturally feel a keener interest in 
 actual than in imaginary work, and the students
 
 28 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 would become familiar with those municipal enter- 
 prises, the accounts of which they had audited. 
 Should the time come for some of these stu- 
 dents to act as clerks in these particular enter- 
 prises, they would be especially fitted for such 
 service. 
 
 Instead of using copies of correspondence, vouch- 
 ers, and account books of the previous year, as 
 suggested above, it might be practicable at once to 
 duplicate all office work and have the bookkeeping 
 classes of the high school keep duplicate books at 
 the same time that the original books are being kept 
 in the office of the municipal works. The doing of 
 actual, current work would, no doubt, create a live- 
 lier interest than would the reproduction of work 
 a year old. If the office of the municipal enter- 
 prise and the public works high school would 
 act in harmony, the labors of bookkeeping in 
 the school could be so arranged as to enable the 
 instructors to distribute the work among many 
 students, and thus save much time and obtain 
 better results. It is probable that the methods 
 of teaching the actual bookkeeping of municipal 
 works as outlined would have to be developed 
 as a science, through practical experience in the 
 smaller cities, before becoming applicable to the 
 larger cities where the bookkeeping of the muni-
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 29 
 
 cipal works is of too great magnitude for experi- 
 mental purposes.^ 
 
 With the growing importance of industrial life, 
 the public works high school may have to give more 
 than the ordinary amount of time to the study of 
 bookkeeping ; and bookkeeping, to a certain point, 
 should perhaps be made compulsory, as it has 
 become so vital an element in our economic and 
 political life. To the end that all cities may adopt 
 practically the same system, the whole process 
 of municipal bookkeeping is steadily being made 
 more simple and more uniform. The bookkeeping 
 department of public works high schools could make 
 it a point to look for improved methods in munici- 
 pal accounting, and in the rendering of municipal 
 
 ^ The city's department of education is but a municipal enter- 
 prise, and the account books of this department would at once 
 be available for study by the bookkeeping classes. After a pro- 
 gramme for the study of these books has been perfected, the plan 
 could readily be extended to include the books of other city 
 departments as suggested above. In cities having several high 
 schools and colleges, each of the schools might be confined to the 
 books of a different department or works, thus specializing the 
 accounting. In reviewing the books of the department of educa- 
 tion, all details, including the individual teacher's salary, would be- 
 come known to students, and this might at first be embarrassing 
 to those teachers who are less frank than they should be. Teach- 
 ers, especially, should be frank enough to be above such embarrass- 
 ment. It is through the department of education that this invalu- 
 able publicity can best be introduced into all other departments.
 
 30 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 reports. The ultimate object of the reports should 
 be to make easy and instructive a comparative study 
 of similar reports from other cities, and to enable 
 the citizen to recognize, in the report, any dollar of 
 which he knows the history, and to learn the history 
 of any other dollar that he may wish to know. To 
 the ultimate advantage of both the cities and the 
 schools, the schools could cooperate with public- 
 spirited citizens who have already accomplished 
 much in this direction. The books of city auditors 
 could be handled in the same way as described for 
 the books of municipal works. 
 
 A large number of persons believe that one might 
 as well employ a lot of frisky colts in a municipal 
 works as to employ young men between sixteen and 
 twenty years of age. The fact remains, nevertheless, 
 and we wish to reiterate it, that a large majority of 
 selected young men of the ages mentioned, after 
 remarkably little practice, can be taught to do half 
 a day's work of a rather complicated nature fully 
 as well as the average man can do this work, and 
 sometimes even better. If we choose young men 
 from sixteen to twenty years of age who have made 
 a good school record for themselves through the first 
 eight or ten grades, young men who have acted sens- 
 ibly since leaving school, and if we start a fresh 
 group each year in a public works high school and
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 31 
 
 a municipal works, at the end of eiglit years, when 
 the first set who have taken the full course graduate, 
 we shall see a works operated by young men who are 
 a credit to the schools and who are doing justice to 
 the city employing them. After a municipal works 
 has been operated by public works high school stu- 
 dents for ten years, it would not be unreasonable to 
 expect that the results accomplished by the average 
 student of twenty years, in five hours of daily labor, 
 would equal what is accomplished in eight hours or 
 even more by the average laborer at the present time. 
 This result would not necessarily be brought about 
 through unusual ability shown by the student, but 
 through the better systemization of the work and 
 the greater publicity. This systemization and pub- 
 licity will result in the saving of labor, and in the 
 discovery of the true measure of work per hour that 
 the average man can reasonably be expected to do. 
 In municipal works that can avail themselves of 
 self-supporting college students, the results would 
 of course be still better. 
 
 What one frequently sees ambitious young men 
 doing to earn their way through high school in four 
 years' time, is sufficient encouragement for the be- 
 lief that the average young man, if given proper and 
 fairly paid half-time employment, could easily earn 
 his own living expenses, as well as the monthly school
 
 32 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 fees necessary to cover his share of the running ex- 
 penses of the school, and finish a complete public 
 works high school course in eight years with half- 
 time attendance. Of course he would have to prac- 
 tice economy, live a pure, healthy, simple life, and 
 spend his wages for right things, — all of which 
 practice tends towards greater happiness. It be- 
 comes relatively easy to live in this way when one 
 is at work obtaining an education. 
 
 Making allowances for previous school training, 
 a careful study of a number of self-sustaining stu- 
 dents, as compared with those supported by their 
 parents or friends, would, as a rule, be convincing 
 proof that the best way to obtain a high-school edu- 
 cation is to work for it. It is true that young men, 
 if ambitious and capable, can develop their minds 
 and gain a store of knowledge outside of school 
 and without teachers, and they frequently do this. 
 This independent development is, however, impos- 
 sible except for the most capable boys, and even 
 these cannot gain it so well and so quickly as they 
 could in an institution of learning equipped for the 
 purpose, and with the incentive of working in com- 
 pany with zealous fellow-students, — the only kind 
 that should be tolerated in the public works high 
 schools or in any high school. 
 
 Taxes could not become an obstacle to the es-
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 33 
 
 tablisliing of public works high schools because, 
 after the schools are in working order, the students 
 would be required to pay tuition which eventually 
 could be made sufficient to cover all operating ex- 
 penses. The public would construct the buildings, 
 supply the first educational and other necessary 
 appliances, and pay the deficit in operating expenses 
 until the school came into full operation. Under 
 a highly developed industrial and economic pro- 
 gramme, the payment of these operating expenses by 
 the students would be an easy matter. If, in time, 
 every young man and young woman eligible to the 
 public works high school were to apply for entrance, 
 it ought not to cost the public more per capita gradu- 
 ally to build and start the larger number of schools 
 required than it would cost both to build and to 
 maintain the comparatively limited number of free 
 high schools that would be required under a con- 
 tinuation of the present system. 
 
 Laboring men and others now employed by the 
 cities in municipal works should bear in mind that 
 the founding of public works high schools would 
 at best be a very slow process, and that relatively 
 few of the employees would be displaced by the 
 students. In any city having several municipal 
 works, there would probably be enough vacancies 
 and new positions at any time to accommodate
 
 34 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 all old employees that might be displaced by stu- 
 dents taken into the first works in which the pub- 
 lic works high school experiment might be tried. 
 As the field of operation of the school would ex- 
 tend by slow degrees from works to works, old em- 
 ployees would drop out by natural processes, and 
 thus make ample room for the student employees. 
 It is clear that the effect of the public works high 
 school on the employees of municipal works would 
 be no more than an occasional inconvenience. 
 
 The effect on the general labor market produced 
 by the introduction of public works high schools 
 would be but slight, for it has virtually the same 
 effect whether young men work half time from six- 
 teen to twenty-four years of age, or f uU time from 
 twenty to twenty-four. Most young men who are 
 not attending school should be at work full time 
 when eighteen years of age. In addition to this, 
 some public works high school students would not 
 begin attendance at school until twenty years 
 old, and then would work only half time until 
 twenty -eight years old, thus taking eight years of 
 half time off the market. The school therefore 
 would reduce, instead of increase, the supply of 
 labor on the general labor market. Furthermore, 
 these students working half time would of necessity 
 spend the greater part of their earnings locally.
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 35 
 
 For these reasons the school could have hardly a 
 temporary effect on even the local labor market, 
 not to mention the general market.^ Of the possi- 
 ble effects on the labor market referable to pub- 
 lic works high schools, none appear to be bad ; but 
 if there could be any bad effects, they must appear 
 very trifling when compared with the good that 
 these schools would do laboring men through 
 their children. There is no reason for believing 
 that laboring men care less for their children than 
 do the more wealthy. Many laboring men feel 
 keenly their inability to send their children to 
 high school. 
 
 If the public works high school should prove to 
 be as valuable as we believe it would be, and if this 
 high school system should become general, all mu- 
 nicipal industrial activities would be purified under 
 the scrutiny of the school, so that even private 
 business would discover a good example in the 
 management of the municipal works and would 
 gradually rise to the new standard. After the public 
 
 ^ Under an ideal economic system there could be no condition 
 that would result in other than a temporary local oversupply of 
 labor pending readjustment. The demand for labor would increase 
 in proportion to the increase in workers, because each worker 
 •would create a demand for products practically equal to his in- 
 dustrial output. The public works high school is suggested as an 
 important element in bringing about such an economic system.
 
 36 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 at large had had some experience in municipal busi- 
 ness, industrial delinquents in all fields, whether 
 employers or employees, would be quickly dis- 
 tinguishable from the men who do capably, and 
 without extortion or theft, their share of the world's 
 work. The public works high school would, event- 
 ually, raise the intellectual and moral standard of 
 humanity so high that there would be no danger of 
 retrogression, because people who understand a 
 nobler life clearly enough to appreciate it will never 
 be satisfied with the lower ideal. 
 
 The pubhc works high school would remove a 
 burden from the parents by aiding their children 
 of over sixteen years of age to earn both living 
 and education. It would be a great satisfaction 
 for parents to feel certain that their children, if 
 fairly healthy and strong, would have an opportun- 
 ity to obtain a good education through their own 
 efforts. All parents who desire to send their child- 
 ren to high school, but who cannot do so, or who 
 have a hard struggle to do so, would appreciate the 
 benefit that the public works high school would be 
 to them. By reason of the school, such parents 
 would have more time for recreation and for plea- 
 surable mental improvement, and would be more 
 companionable to their children. The truer mutual 
 love between the more enlightened parents and
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 37 
 
 their more enlightened children would raise the 
 standard of the home, and every evil known to 
 social science would be just so much nearer cor- 
 rection. 
 
 Every one should earn enough money for the ne- 
 cessities of life, for recreation, and for further de- 
 velopment. If a man is to become better acquainted 
 with the world, and become a worthy part of it, he 
 shoiJd have money and time for books and for other 
 aids in learning. In order to grow, a man must 
 not only earn more money than is necessary to 
 cover the mere necessities of life, but he must also 
 learn to spend this surplus money to good advan- 
 tage ; and he must earn the money during such 
 hours per day as will leave a few hours daily for 
 recreation and for development. It is also essential 
 that he know how to use this spare time to good 
 advantage in order to realize from it worthy ad- 
 vancement. With most persons, as said before, 
 it is absolutely necessary that the education be 
 commenced while young, and that it be received 
 in a school which offers at least the usual high 
 school studies. The public works high school plan 
 would provide experience that would teach the stu- 
 dent how to study, earn, save, spend, and live ; and 
 it would make a livelihood obtainable by all with 
 fewer hours of daily labor than are now required.
 
 38 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 While speaking of leisure time and the best way 
 of employing it, the following plan is suggested as 
 a practicable one for the summer vacations of stu- 
 dents of the public works high school. During 
 this vacation the students would have one half -day 
 free every day, as they would be employed at the 
 works only in the forenoon or afternoon, except 
 during the last weeks, when they would be required 
 to take, from the prior set of students, such instruc- 
 tion as would prepare them for their duties at 
 the works during the next school year. Instead of 
 working half time each day, the students might 
 remain at their work fuU time for half their vaca- 
 tion, one set during the first half, the other set 
 during the second half, and then join an out-of-door 
 summer class of forty or fifty on camping trips 
 under the guidance of a public works high school 
 instructor, whose duty it would be to teach nature 
 studies. In all cases where the students' financial 
 condition would permit, the remaining vacations 
 could also be turned to some pleasurable and good 
 use. 
 
 Have you tried to realize the latent happiness in 
 this plan ? Eventually, almost every young person 
 of public works high school age would be at work in 
 some municipal business five hours, and would be 
 attending school three hours per day ; he would be
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 39 
 
 virtually seK-supporting, and at the same time 
 would be developing a keen intelligence ; he would 
 be in good and happy student company for eight 
 years, and after eight years of such excellent train- 
 ing, he would come out as a first-class citizen to 
 take his place in a community of a high order. 
 Those graduates who might wish to enter a busi- 
 ness career would, without special training, be well 
 prepared to fiU any ordinary position and to ad- 
 vance in this position. Those who might desire a 
 professional or further business training in college 
 would be in excellent mental condition to begin 
 this training. Others who choose to be artisans, 
 with a remarkably short apprenticeship, would be- 
 come proficient. In order to fit such students to 
 become artisans, the eighth or both the seventh and 
 the eighth year of the school course, as the case 
 might require, could be confined largely to trade 
 courses which would give both manual and text- 
 book training. 
 
 Let us take the plumber's trade, for example. 
 The students choosing it could be given manual 
 training of much practical value, also lessons from 
 a technical school book on the subject. These stu- 
 dents might also be required to read a trade journal 
 on plumbing. One or two years of half-time school 
 attendance confined to plumbing and the studies
 
 40 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 related to this subject would prepare the young 
 man to such a degree that he would be sought by 
 employers. The student's careful training in ele- 
 mentary hygiene, sanitation, and chemistry, in ad- 
 dition to the more general studies, has fitted him 
 to continue study on scientific lines, if he should 
 feel so inclined, until he makes himself a master 
 of sanitation, chemistry, and other related sciences. 
 A capable man could use all his ability for a life- 
 time in the endeavor to master the important things 
 there are to know about plumbing and the sciences 
 that bear on it ; in inventing new plumbing devices ; 
 or in discovering new scientific facts in regard to 
 the trade. A journeyman plumber having a public 
 works high school education on which to build has 
 quite as good opportunities to make himself re- 
 spected and valued as he could have in any other 
 position in life. Similar argument could be made 
 in favor of carpentry, house-painting and decorat- 
 ing, drafting, pattern-making, machine-building, 
 and other trades. 
 
 Each city of sufficient size to have at least one 
 well-attended high school would, after the general 
 introduction of the public works high school, have 
 a number of the latter institutions, and the trade 
 courses could be so arranged that no two schools 
 would teach the same trades. In this way the stu-
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 41 
 
 dents in such cities would be given the choice of a 
 number of occupations. 
 
 With the introduction of public works high 
 schools, high schools would not, as now, consist 
 principally of young men and young women of 
 well-to-do families. Relatively poor children who 
 now leave school at the close of the eighth grade 
 would attend the public works high school in large 
 numbers. Many children who now leave school 
 after the sixth and seventh grades would then 
 strive to continue at school through the eighth 
 grade, and would afterwards enter the public works 
 high school. 
 
 Now we come to the question, could the students 
 do work of enough value in five hours per day to 
 earn their personal expenses, including their pro- 
 portionate share of the running expenses of the 
 school? Many sixteen-year-old students are now 
 entirely self-supporting, so the question may be con- 
 sidered settled for almost all other students who are 
 in good physical condition. If parents can easily af- 
 ford to do so, there would be no objection to their ren- 
 dering aid to make the student life of their child- 
 ren more effective and comfortable, but too much 
 aid should be avoided. Members of well-to-do fami- 
 lies will be likely to believe that sixteen-year-old 
 boys should not work; these members will object
 
 42 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 to such steady occupation as our plan makes nec- 
 essary. The public works high school would require 
 the self-supporting student to work five hours per 
 day six days of the week every week in the year, 
 except the few weeks of the summer vacations, and 
 would require him to attend school three hours per 
 day about forty weeks of the year. As our schools 
 are at present conducted, sixteen-year-old boys of 
 well-to-do families are now attending school six 
 hours per day for forty weeks of the year, and it 
 is doubtful whether it would not be better for 
 them to do reasonable work for five hours in 
 place of three of the hours of daily school at- 
 tendance. During the forty school weeks, the dif- 
 ference in hardships between attending a public 
 works high school and the present high school 
 would be slight. 
 
 Now let us examine the details of this question. 
 Can the students earn enough by five hours' work 
 a day to pay their entire expenses ? In cities where 
 the ruling wages for common labor in munici- 
 pal works is twenty-five cents per hour, the fol- 
 lowing figures would, approximately, hold good. 
 The figures given would apply where the public 
 works high school is of sufficient size for economi- 
 cal operation. For young men away from home, 
 cooperative boarding clubs could furnish suitable
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 43 
 
 meals at $2.50 per week ; many college boarding 
 clubs are doing this now, and in some instances 
 they furnish board at even a lower rate. A mother 
 who is a good manager might possibly board her 
 son by increasing her household expenses only 
 $2.00 per week, especially if he did what he could 
 to accomplish this result; and she could give a 
 small, plainly furnished room, with heat and light, 
 at fifty cents per week, and do the laundry work 
 at forty cents per week, if the young man was 
 sensibly economical and would occasionally help her 
 with the work. An operating expense of $60 a year 
 for each full-time student is more than many high 
 schools are allowed, and this amount permits of the 
 maintenance of the equipment and the employ- 
 ment of efficient teachers ; therefore, $30 a year for 
 each half-time student is what we will allow. A 
 young man who has learned how to buy and care 
 for clothes can dress himself comfortably and pre- 
 sentably for $65 or $70 a year. For text-books 
 and other school requisites, stationery, toilet 
 articles, car fares, amusements, church, and other 
 necessary expenses, we have estimated $50. These 
 figures make a total for annual expenses of $300, 
 or about $6 per week, as shown by the following 
 table : —
 
 44 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 ESTQtATED COST OF A TEAB's MAINTENANCE AT SCHOOL FOR A 
 STUDENT LIVING AT HOME, BUT PAYING HIS PARENTS THB 
 ACTUAL COST OF BOARD, ROOM, AND LAUNDRY 
 
 Board at $2.00 a week. 
 
 per year $104.00 
 
 Room with light and heat at 50 cents a week 
 
 " " 26.00 
 
 Laundry at 40 cents a week, 
 
 " " 20.80 
 
 School tuition, for half-time attendance, 
 
 " " 30.00 
 
 Clothing, 
 
 " " 70.00 
 
 School books and other items. 
 
 " " 50.00 
 
 $300.80 
 
 The figures just given and those following are 
 based partly on calculation, and partly on reports 
 of the actual experience of a number of boys and 
 young men who are earning their way through high 
 schools in California. 
 
 Not all young men sixteen years old who might 
 desire to attend a public works high school have 
 homes where they can live in this way. Room, 
 board, and laundry would be likely to cost these 
 young men a little more. Dormitories built by the 
 city, or by voluntary societies formed for the pur- 
 pose, could provide suitable rooms furnished with 
 the heavy pieces only, steam heated, and of a size 
 to accommodate two students, at a rental of $4.50 
 per month ; this figure is so calculated as to pay 
 repairs and to yield a net income of four per 
 cent annually if the property is held free from all 
 taxation. Where economy is an object, good and
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 45 
 
 ample municipal light need not cost more than 
 sixty cents per month. The student could get along 
 with fifty cents per week and even less for laun- 
 dry, if the work was done at special school rates. 
 If the public works high school should be estab- 
 lished, thousands of willing minds wiU invent ways 
 to make the students' living less expensive and 
 better. 
 
 ESTIMATED COST OF A TEAR's MAINTENANCE AT SCHOOL FOB A 
 STUDENT LIVING AWAY FROM HOME 
 
 Board at club $2.50 a week, per year $130.00 
 
 Half of room and heat at $4.50 a month for two, " 
 Half of light at 60 cents a month for two, " 
 
 Laundry at 50 cents per week, " 
 
 School tuition, for half-time attendance, " 
 
 Clothing, " 
 
 School books and other items, " 
 
 27.00 
 3.60 
 26.00 
 30.00 
 70.00 
 50.00 
 
 $336.60 
 
 This amounts to practically $6.50 per week. 
 
 The student, by taking a smaller room alone, 
 would increase his expenses about $1 per month, 
 thus making his weekly expenses amount to about 
 $6.75. The room rents given include only the 
 heavy furnishing of the rooms. Our figures do not 
 include the care of the rooms ; the young men 
 would have to care for them, but this would not 
 be difficult, as the rooms and the main pieces of 
 furniture would invariably be built for easy clean-
 
 46 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 ing. In order to cover these yearly expenses with 
 sufficient certainty, allowing for a few days off for 
 possible sickness, accident, or other imperative rea- 
 sons, the student might have to earn and to receive 
 in wages as much as $1 a week of six five-hour 
 days, or about $364 a year. In addition to this, 
 every student should enter with i50. With part of 
 this amount he could buy his room furnishings, 
 and the remainder he could hold in reserve for 
 emergencies. He should also come with a full 
 supply of clothing. This $50 and enough more 
 to buy a supply of clothing, the progressive boy 
 could, if necessary, earn and save in the time be- 
 tween finishing the eighth grade and entering the 
 public works high school. 
 
 Now, the question remains, could selected young 
 men of sixteen years, who had passed at least the 
 eighth grade, earn the $1 in a week of five-hour days? 
 Investigation shows that they could earn it in the 
 majority of cases, and with economy to the public. 
 Furthermore, they could be given twenty-five cents 
 per hour the second year, thirty cents per hour the 
 third year, and forty cents per hour for all the 
 remaining years, and this with profit to the public. 
 In localities where living expenses are lower than 
 those given in our schedules, the wages would, no 
 doubt, be relatively lower. Forty cents per hour
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 47 
 
 ■would give the older students $2 for each five-hour 
 day, and of these students nineteen out of every 
 twenty would be well worth their hire. Two dol- 
 lars per day, under present price conditions, would 
 permit of considerable saving. If $2 were paid for 
 each five-hour day beginning with the fourth school 
 year, by the sixth year the wise users of money 
 could safely undertake marriage, so far as money 
 is concerned, and if the young woman is also a good 
 financier, there would, with ordinary good fortune, 
 be enough income for both to live comfortably while 
 the young man is completing his school course. 
 
 Objection may be made to this plan because the 
 public works high school would not be an entirely 
 free school. It would be a free school as far as 
 buildings, equipment, and the means required to 
 put it on a self-sustaining basis are concerned. 
 Some think it would be a step backwards to require 
 tuition, but when a municipality supplies work to 
 young people of sixteen to twenty-eight years of 
 age at which they can earn sufficient wages, they 
 ought, in justice, to pay the necessary tuition. Would 
 it not be wise, if only for the moral effect, to re- 
 quire the student to pay tuition ? We believe that 
 the public should pay the expenses of operation only 
 when it will not supply the students with work. 
 
 It is simply a physical impossibility for the ma-
 
 48 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 jority of parents to bear the expense of maintain- 
 ing their children through a high-school course. 
 Even the general public could not, without great 
 hardship, bear the cost of maintenance for such a 
 large number of high-school students ; the build- 
 ing and maintaining of the increased number of 
 schools would be a heavy burden for many tax-payers. 
 It is evident that the youth must earn their own 
 maintenance, and this maintenance should finally 
 include tuition sufficient for the operation of the 
 schools. When, in addition, one considers that the 
 municipality gives the student an opportunity to 
 support and educate himself and that full self-sup- 
 port is valuable schooling second to none, the objec- 
 tion to tuition is answered. 
 
 In brief, the main features of the plan proposed 
 in this article are as follows : the establishment of 
 special high schools ; the selection of the best avail- 
 able students as employees in municipal works ; the 
 arrangement of the duties in these works so as to 
 advance the student in his occupation by progress- 
 ive steps and thus give him experience in as many 
 branches of the business as practicable ; the intro- 
 duction into the curriculum of each of these schools 
 of a course that teaches the operation of the partic- 
 ular works employing the students of the school ; 
 as far as feasible, the detailed study of the current
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 49 
 
 accounts of the works by the bookkeeping classes 
 of the schools ; the requiring of five hours of effi- 
 cient labor and three hours of satisfactory school 
 attendance, or such other division of time as 
 might be more satisfactory ; the payment of the 
 operating expenses of the schools by the students ; 
 the payment to the students of wages such as will 
 a little more than cover a fixed rate of living and 
 school expenses, provided the boys will fully earn 
 such wages. 
 
 Two objections that have been offered to the 
 public works high school plan, objections not pre- 
 viously referred to, are that the schools will cause 
 a scarcity of laborers to do the common work, and 
 that general municipal and other public ownership 
 will cause a loss of individuality, and a lowering of 
 character. 
 
 Many believe that a general distribution of second- 
 ary education would so reduce the number of day 
 laborers that there would be too few to do the world's 
 common work. They fear that, whenever there are 
 relatively few laborers who are capable of doing no 
 other than the common work, general material pro- 
 gress will be seriously retarded. Such fears are 
 unfounded. As popular intelligence increases, the 
 wages for common work will advance in relation to 
 other wages, and more inventive power will be spent
 
 60 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 on devices to perform such work by machinery. It 
 may at times baffle the inventive powers of men to 
 improve some of the more disagreeable occupations 
 so as to make them agreeable ; but a better enlight- 
 ened people will solve future problems of this na- 
 ture fully as well as we solve those of the present 
 time. Many who fear a lack of common laborers 
 as the result of more general education also fear 
 that the immigration of large numbers of the less 
 enlightened of other races to do our common work 
 would be encouraged. This encouragement of im- 
 migration would result in more serious race ques- 
 tions than at present exist, and would, in the end, 
 no doubt, cause much unhappiness for ourselves 
 and for the foreign races. Large corporations 
 employ thousands of laborers from the Orient, and 
 individual citizens employ in the aggregate other 
 thousands to do their common work. Why should 
 we fear that this condition will grow worse instead 
 of better when the public becomes more intelligent 
 and therefore more able to see a danger in its true 
 light? 
 
 The belief is common that public ownership of 
 public utilities is undesirable, even if honest and 
 capable employees are engaged in the work. If pub- 
 lic ownership becomes general, it is feared that it 
 will endanger our individuality, weaken our char-
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 51 
 
 acter, and destroy individual effort and ambition. 
 It is believed that the average man, as soon as he 
 has obtained a fairly secure position in public work, 
 develops a tendency to degenerate in character and, 
 therefore, in economic worth. Sooner or later a tend- 
 ency toward graft develops. Sometimes this graft 
 extends to cash or property transactions; more 
 often it is a matter of misappropriating time, and, 
 again, it is only an unconscious but gradual re- 
 duction of the energy put into the work. This 
 tendency in many men of the present time to de- 
 generate in public service is used as a popular 
 argument against public ownership. It is, how- 
 ever, an argument which the growth in efficiency, 
 resulting from institutions like the public works 
 high school, would soon overcome. 
 
 It is an open question whether that which we 
 here refer to as degeneration in character is not 
 merely an uncovering of previously formed charac- 
 ter. There can be little doubt that the private em- 
 ployer endeavors to keep a close watch over his 
 employees, whereas the public employer is at pre- 
 sent less vigilant. When an employee slackens his 
 energy because watchfulness has been modified or 
 removed, he does not degenerate in character, — he 
 merely exposes his real character. Character that 
 impels to duty only under close watchfulness indi-
 
 62 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 cates slavishness ; is a worthless type of character, 
 and stands for a poor kind of individuality. The 
 feeling of joint ownership in municipal works that 
 the average employee would have under a system 
 of general municipal ownership, would surely tend 
 toward higher individuality than does the intense 
 watchfulness of the private employer, and the pre- 
 sent feeling of distrust between employee and em- 
 ployer. 
 
 Desirable individuality implies good character 
 and ambition, and we shall use the word individu- 
 ality in this sense. Since it is our differing indi- 
 vidualities that make life progressive and interest- 
 ing, the development of individuality should be 
 fostered. The greatest field for this development 
 is among the less educated workers who are willing, 
 or who can be taught to be willing, to earn a high 
 school education. In order to make such an educa- 
 tion possible, the young workers, while attending 
 school, must have steady employment and just re- 
 muneration. Municipal and other public ownership, 
 properly conducted, is the only plan now in view 
 that could supply employment to these young work- 
 ing students. 
 
 Because of weakness of character, the man of 
 the present time has not always given efficient serv- 
 ice in municipal works. As at present conducted,
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 53 
 
 employment in many municipal works does not of- 
 fer enough personal incentive ; the business is not 
 given enough publicity, and the public is too indif- 
 ferent. In order that municipal ownership may 
 meet with the greatest success, men must be em- 
 ployed who are above the present average in char- 
 acter ; more personal incentive must be introduced ; 
 the business must be given greater publicity ; and 
 the public must grow more interested in the opera- 
 tion of the works. 
 
 All this, we believe, could be brought about by 
 means of the public works high school. The stu- 
 dents would invariably be young men who desire a 
 high school education, who are willing to work 
 for it and who are capable of maintaining a good 
 standing in school. These qualifications would ex- 
 clude most of those who are unfit for service in 
 municipal works. The students in public works 
 high schools would be young and hopeful men ; 
 they would have good records to make, both in the 
 school and in the works, and their object in the 
 works would be not only to earn wages, but also 
 to learn thoroughly a manufacturing business and 
 general business methods. Without a good record, 
 they would not be sought by employers, public or 
 private. Students would have no life positions in 
 the works ; their positions would be subject to effi-
 
 64 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 ciency, and would ordinarily last but eight half-years. 
 Through the school, the operation of the municipal 
 works would be given the greatest possible pub- 
 licity. As more and more of the needs of the indi- 
 vidual were met through municipal works, the 
 public would become so vitally affected by the 
 operation of these works that the keenest interest 
 would inevitably follow. The periodical financial 
 reports of public works, made with the aid of the 
 public works high school for the purpose of com- 
 parative study, would act as one means of pre- 
 venting stagnation in these works. One of our best 
 known political economists says, " Young people 
 have a keener sense of right and justice and a 
 sharper scent for graft or ' pull ' than have their 
 elders." 
 
 Before the first class had graduated from the 
 public works high school, students, by reason of 
 their moral development, would consider it unjust 
 to shirk a duty. Although the laziness of the few 
 might increase the cost of living for all others only 
 to a slight degree, the spirit of fair play and the 
 dislike of being imposed upon would quickly arouse 
 the resentment of the manly students and of the 
 educated and interested public. No industrial de- 
 linquent would be tolerated, for fear that the effect 
 of such toleration would endanger the permanency
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 55 
 
 of municipal ownership, and the consequent pro- 
 spect of a more equitable distribution of education 
 and of wealth. The student would understand that 
 the first requirement on his part to aid in the ex- 
 termination of the shirker class would be to avoid 
 being a shirker himself. In short, the pupils 
 admitted into the public works high school would 
 soon develop such self-respect and strength of 
 character that eventually there would be no 
 shirkers in the works. These students would under- 
 stand that every lazy and unscrupulous act would 
 be an act of treason in peace, which is virtually the 
 same as treason in war. The students, especially 
 the older ones, would understand all these things 
 so clearly that right conduct on their part would 
 be inevitable. That student is rare who will do a 
 wrong act if he clearly sees what is right, and at 
 the same time can picture and compare a train of 
 probable consequences of the wrong act and of the 
 right one. This ability would be strongly developed 
 in most young men by a public works high school 
 course. 
 
 In order to arrive at the best results sooner than 
 could otherwise be expected, some kind of regular 
 course in moral instruction should be introduced 
 into all elementary grades. Jane Brownlee's plan 
 for moral training as developed in one of the To-
 
 66 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 ledo public schools is, without question, most valu- 
 able.^ This moral training requires a few minutes 
 daily, but it is reported as saving more time than it 
 requires, as it leads to readier obedience among the 
 pupils and to greater efficiency in their work. By 
 the end of the eighth grade, all moral training 
 in the schools should be so effectual as to result in 
 unquestioned civic honor. 
 
 The largest proportion of selected students 
 would stand for individuality and ambition. No 
 other incentive to do duty other than fair compen- 
 sation would be required. Individuality and happi- 
 ness with such students would not be based on how 
 much municipal work could be shirked, nor on how 
 much more than deserved wages could be obtained. 
 These students would prefer to be strong, quick of 
 perception, well informed, highly proficient and 
 respected men, rather than to be rich men of medi- 
 ocre character. Wealth, beyond the needs of pre- 
 sent usefulness and comfort with a modest reserve 
 for old age, would be less prized by such men. Un- 
 necessary wealth would seem of less consequence 
 than exceptional efficiency in some field of activity. 
 This is true at present of some of our strongest 
 
 1 Jane Brownlee's system of moral training is explained in a 
 pamphlet entitled The Brownlee System of Child Training, which 
 can be obtained from G. W. Holden, Springfield, Mass. Price ten 
 cents.
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 57 
 
 professional men. Most of us have heard that 
 Agassiz, when offered ten thousand dollars for a 
 course of lectures, exclaimed in surprise at the 
 offer, " I have n't time to make money! " There are 
 but few like Agassiz in this respect, but a second- 
 ary education, more generally distributed, would 
 tend to raise the standard of manhood above that 
 of mere money-making. The result would be 
 stronger individuality, better character, and more 
 earnest citizenship. 
 
 Every hour of industrial activity, whether per- 
 formed for one's self, for others, or for the public, 
 affects individuality and character; every hour 
 spent in the pursuit of knowledge, social inter- 
 course, or any other pleasure, does likewise. In 
 devising a plan to promote individuality and char- 
 acter, all of these forms of activity must be taken 
 into consideration. To consider the effect of the 
 industrial part of any plan of life, without taking 
 into account the equally important effects of other 
 activities on individuality and character, would re- 
 sult in incorrect conclusions. Secondary education, 
 if thoroughly assimilated, would tend to make men 
 more nearly of the same intellectual and economic 
 value, — a value higher than at present, — and it 
 would follow as a natural consequence, and justly so, 
 that there would be a readjustment of individual
 
 68 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 earnings. Two persons may be of approximately the 
 same economic and social value, and yet be units of 
 entirely different natures ; in other words, they may 
 have strikingly different individualities. Knowledge 
 is as boundless as nature, and it is knowledge that 
 largely differentiates individuality. Even those who 
 accumulate knowledge to the limit of human ca- 
 pacity learn only an infinitesimal part of all there 
 is to know. We start in the world unhke, seeking 
 different knowledge, seeking it in different ways, 
 and under different circumstances. Two persons 
 would rarely accumulate, even approximately, a like 
 store of knowledge. It therefore follows that the 
 more we know, the more our individualities are 
 differentiated ; the less we know, the nearer alike 
 we are. The individuality that might be lost by 
 reason of municipal ownership continued along the 
 present lines, if this ownership is as detrimental to 
 individuality as is maintained by some, would be 
 more than regained through a public works high 
 school education. But municipal ownership with 
 workers that are self-supporting students would be 
 a builder instead of a destroyer of character, and 
 strength of character is an expression of more 
 marked individuality. 
 
 Can a person who has conscientiously educated 
 himself by eight years of effort ever lose indi-
 
 PUBLIC WOKKS HIGH SCHOOLS 59 
 
 viduality or ever stop its expression ? Surely not, so 
 long as he can supply his material needs by five or 
 even eight hours of daily labor, and thus leave from 
 sixteen to nineteen free hours in which to exercise 
 his individuality without restriction. When our in- 
 dustrial methods are less wasteful and when the 
 products of labor are more equitably distributed, 
 five fully occupied hours of energetic and intelligent 
 work in store, office, or factory, together with work 
 at home for personal needs, will furnish ample means. 
 Whatever increases our free hours increases the 
 opportunity to develop our individuality. 
 
 Let us picture a possible extension of municipal 
 ownership due to the effects of public works high 
 schools, and the influence of such extended owner- 
 ship on individuality. After ten years of trial, a 
 public works high school experiment may prove to 
 be a success. If it does so prove, a limited number 
 of cities may make a trial of the plan, and, if these 
 trials prove successful, the plan may be so widely 
 adopted that in the course of fifty years municipal 
 ownership in connection with these schools may be- 
 come quite general. Should municipal ownership, so 
 conducted, become general, it would follow that the 
 students would no longer be numerically sufficient 
 to man the works. It would then be necessary to 
 permit the students to remain in the employ of the
 
 60 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 works after graduating.* It no doubt would be safe 
 to extend the field of municipal industry as long as 
 either students or graduates of the public works 
 high school are available as employees. If in the 
 future fifty per cent of all workers were employed 
 in municipal works, would our individuality, our 
 character, our effort, or our ambition suffer? In 
 answer we shall assume the following to be the 
 experience of two young men, A and B, living in 
 an era of general municipal ownership and public 
 works high schools. 
 
 We will suppose that A is graduated from the 
 tenth and B from the twelfth grade of the public 
 works school in the year 1940. There is at that time 
 a demand for employees in the municipal works far 
 beyond that which the school can supply, so both 
 A and B take the municipal service examinations. 
 A passes an examination as ordinary accountant, 
 and this examination entitles him to a choice of a 
 number of positions in industries operated by the 
 municipalities. B passes as general expert account- 
 ant and Master of Gas Making, which entitles him 
 to a situation as chief bookkeeper in any municipal 
 
 ^ The plan for the public works high school provides that no 
 graduate shall be employed in the municipal works, unless special 
 fitness adapts him to one of the few positions which are of neces- 
 sity permanent, or unless there is a demand for workers beyond 
 that which the school can supply with its undergraduate*.
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 61 
 
 office, or as manager of municipal gas works ; his 
 examination also entitles him to simpler work, 
 should there be no higher position available. 
 
 Let us follow A. He prefers work as a book- 
 keeper, so he goes to the State Employment Office^ 
 and learns that no bookkeeping situation is available 
 in the city in which he wishes to live, but he is told 
 of a temporary position as a copyist ; this position 
 he accepts, but he leaves his application for a posi- 
 tion as bookkeeper. After a month the Employment 
 Office notifies A that a situation as bookkeeper is 
 now available. He accepts the position, but after 
 three months' trial by the chief accountant, he is 
 found unsatisfactory and is reported to the Oper- 
 ating Committee.^ This committee finds A's work 
 imsatisfactory, and he is discharged. 
 
 ^ The State Employment OfiBce could be so serviceable that 
 no one, except in rare instances, need be out of suitable employ- 
 ment more than one day at a time. This office could also under- 
 take to help those who desire to change their occupations. Some 
 might wish to learn the particulars of another line of work ; for 
 others, a consideration of health or strength might make a change 
 of employment desirable ; in other cases a mere feeling of rest- 
 lessness might result in a desire for change. No one would be 
 forced to do any work, except as necessity demanded ; but in the 
 field of municipal work he would have to take his choice out of 
 such available positions as his municipal service standing would 
 warrant his holding. 
 
 ^ The Operating Committee under this system might be com- 
 posed of three or more members, and every municipal enterprise 
 might be supplied with such a committee. It would be the
 
 62 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 A then visits the Employment Office again, and 
 learns that he can at once find work as clerk in 
 a municipal dairy. He can do this work satisfac- 
 torily, and it suits him ; so he holds the position 
 during the remainder of his active life. In 1943, 
 however, the general manager charges A with care- 
 lessness in his work, and with failure to render 
 a reasonable amount of service. The Operating 
 Committee examines the case, and charges A with 
 neglect of duty. A has a right to appeal his case 
 to the Appeal Committee. * He does this, but again 
 loses. As punishment, he is suspended from work 
 for three months. As he has saved no money, he is 
 compelled to go from house to house to solicit work 
 until his sentence expires. 
 
 duty of this committee to publish bi-monthly reports of the busi- 
 ness ; to see that employees render reasonable service ; to decide 
 internal disputes affecting the operation of the works ; and, •wher- 
 ever possible, to cheapen production. The manager of the works 
 might be chairman of this committee. 
 
 ^ The duty of this supposed Appeal Committee would be to 
 examine and to decide all appealed cases of employees charged 
 with rendering poor service. Each Appeal Committee would have 
 jurisdiction over a number of municipal works, would virtually 
 be a court, and would rarely be called into service. Its principal 
 use would be to enable any man who believed himself mis- 
 treated or misunderstood to vindicate himself. The knowledge 
 coming from considerable experience might be required to pro- 
 duce a harmonious working between managers and both the 
 Operating and Appeal Committees, but final results would justify 
 the existence of thpoA c^nmmittees.
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 63 
 
 In 1945 A decides to marry, and j5nds work in 
 addition to that of bis regular employment. This 
 extra work ^ he does in order to furnish a home. He 
 takes the required examination preliminary to mar- 
 riage,2 but fails in some point of bodily development, 
 and in a knowledge of the foundation principles of 
 physiology and ethics. He remedies his bodily de- 
 fect, informs himself upon the subjects of physiology 
 and ethics, and in 1946 he marries. He takes out 
 the minimum amount of old age and life insurance 
 required by law for a married man. Had he per- 
 sisted in the work of assistant bookkeeper and suc- 
 ceeded, he would have been entitled to $3.50 per 
 day of five hours. His work as dairy clerk yields 
 him $3 per day of the same number of hours. A 
 is not so vigorous as B ; therefore A requires ten 
 
 ^ The question of the legal length of work day ■would be largely 
 eliminated. There would no longer be that feverish hurry to ac- 
 cumulate money for future emergencies and for old age because 
 men would have the certainty of employment, the protection of 
 state life insurance, and the possible self-support of all children 
 over sixteen years of age. This condition would result in fewer 
 men working over-time except for special purposes, and there 
 would be plenty of extra work on hand to supply such cases. The 
 State Employment Office would be expected to see that every 
 man is given not only work for the usual number of hours daily, 
 but for as many additional hours as he may desire. 
 
 2 We here assume that a marriage law compelling such exam- 
 ination has been passed ; and that old age and life insurance poli- 
 cies are required.
 
 64 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 hours of sleep each day, while B requires only seven 
 hours. Here A, as compared with B, loses three 
 hours of activity daily. A smokes inveterately, 
 drinks moderately, and cannot resist spending 
 money frivolously. He saves no money, and in 1950 
 he is obliged to borrow money in order to tide his 
 family over a time of sickness ; this debt he pays 
 during the year by again doing work beyond the 
 customary length of the work day. 
 
 As stated before, B passes the municipal serv- 
 ice examination in 1940, and makes an excellent 
 record. After a short trial he is given a situation 
 as chief bookkeeper in a municipal gas works. In 
 1942 he is elected manager of a new and larger 
 works built in another city. He enjoys his work, 
 and keeps informed on all changes in the business ; 
 he also invents several useful improvements. By 
 1946 B is well known and well liked by all the mu- 
 nicipal works managers of the state ; and, through 
 their recommendation, he is elected to the State 
 Public Works Board. ^ In 1948 he is elected 
 chairman of this board. His first position in 1940 
 entitled him to a salary of $4 per day ; his last 
 
 ^ This supposed State Public Works Board could be composed 
 of fifteen members, one of whom is the governor of the state, 
 and ten of whom are managers of municipal works. The duty of 
 this board could be the furthering- of municipal works and the 
 improving of the laws affecting such works.
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 65 
 
 position yields him 820 daily. In 1949 B passes 
 the marriage examination, and marries. He takes 
 five times the minimum amount of old age and life 
 insurance. By this time he has saved fifteen thou- 
 sand dollars, with part of which he builds and fur- 
 nishes a good home. By 1955 he has three children. 
 He is not harassed by any unreasonably hard and 
 exhausting business struggle, such as was the lot of 
 many business men when competition was so keen 
 that a man's time was entirely engrossed by his 
 business. B is an active member of a social club 
 established for scientific research ; he is also active 
 in a political organization, in a national gas mana- 
 ger's association, and in a number of other volun- 
 tary organizations. 
 
 B not only finds time to continue his education, 
 but also to aid his wife in the proper training of 
 their children. The average old-time business man 
 lacked ripeness of education, and often the abil- 
 ity to rear children properly. B is well informed 
 on the economic history of the previous hundred 
 years, and he is glad that old conditions no longer 
 exist. Should his eighteen-year-old son read a his- 
 torical novel the time of which extends from 1875 
 to 1900, and ask his father to explain the changes 
 that had taken place in economic conditions since 
 that time, his reply might be much as follows : —
 
 60 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 " At the time of the story you were reading there 
 was a popuhir saying, ' Competition is the life of 
 trade.' Competition had been the life of trade, but 
 the facilities for industrial production and com- 
 merce had improved to such an extent as to make 
 possible great concentration into large and finan- 
 cially powerful business units. This concentration 
 made possible greater individual reward to employ- 
 ers for industrial and commercial success. Under 
 conditions making this great concentration and ex- 
 cessive individual reward possible, competition be- 
 came fierce, and proved costly and even disastrous. 
 At this time, competition always resulted either in 
 a combination of the warring parties, or in a death 
 struggle for supremacy. In either case, the prices 
 of the products involved were very likely to be 
 advanced for the purpose of exploiting the public. 
 The usual run of men virtually lost their judg- 
 ment when competition was destroyed and unusual 
 profits were within reach. The managers of these 
 combinations, with some exceptions, proved to be 
 avaricious. In some way they conceived the idea 
 that it was none of the public's business how much 
 it had to pay for freight, passenger service, water, 
 gas, electricity, meat, flour, and other necessities. 
 The public, however, thought differently, and made 
 stringent laws which in time resulted in the strict-
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 67 
 
 est public supervision and control of privately 
 owned public utilities. Public supervision and con- 
 trol became continually more exacting, until it 
 approximated public ownership. 
 
 " In granting a franchise, the public usually re- 
 served the right to purchase the privately owned 
 public utility business at the end of twenty-five 
 years, or at the end of every ten-year period tliere- 
 after. The public also guaranteed a small profit, 
 and set a figure for a maximum profit. All excess 
 over this maximum profit was turned over to the 
 Public Utilities Fund. Contrary to expectation, 
 it became popular with the private corporations to 
 have a surplus over this profit. This Public Util- 
 ities Fund was introduced into many cities about 
 1920. In these cities the public industries existing 
 at the time of the starting of the fund were re- 
 quired to pay into this fund annually, for thirty- 
 three years, three per cent of their estimated 
 value after deducting unpaid bonds. In some 
 cases the prices of the products had to be in- 
 creased slightly to meet this requirement. The 
 fund was designed solely to build additional pub- 
 lic industries on a cash basis. For a time much 
 money had to be added to this fund by direct 
 taxation ; now, however, the four per cent install- 
 ments required to be paid into the fund annually
 
 68 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 by new works meet all demands for further con- 
 struction. 
 
 " The public also reserved the right, on due notice, 
 to alter the rate of charges, always, however, mak- 
 ing good any shortage below the fixed minimum of 
 profit. The minimum annual profit was commonly 
 fixed at two per cent and rhe maximum at fifteen 
 per cent. Interest on capital invested was not al- 
 lowed. As the conditions in any public industry 
 changed, the rate of charges was changed as nearly 
 as possible to correspond. The aim ordinarily was 
 to aUow eight per cent net profit for average ability 
 in the operation of public utility enterprises. The 
 rule providing a minimum profit of two per cent 
 annually was intended as a protection to private 
 owners against possible losses that might accrue as 
 the result of the introduction of new inventions 
 which would throw established plants into disuse. 
 The rule of a low minimum profit, together with 
 the extensive public supervision and control, fairly 
 protected the public against the possibility of pri- 
 vate owners' building plants which were uncertain 
 as to permanency. 
 
 " This public supervision of privately owned pub- 
 lic utilities was not wholly satisfactory. The matter 
 of fixing the amount of profit often had to be car- 
 ried to the courts, and the decision was frequently
 
 PUBLIC WOKKS HIGH SCHOOLS 69 
 
 unfair because graft, to a certain extent, still existed 
 and influenced the testimony. By 1925 all states 
 had passed laws requiring that each publicly owned 
 enterprise must establish such prices for its product 
 as would make the business entirely seK-supporting. 
 These laws also required that aU money for the 
 construction of municipal works must, in gradually 
 increasing proportions, come from the Public 
 Utilities Fund ; and that all construction money 
 must be returned to this fund, without interest, in 
 annual installments of four per cent of the original 
 cost of the works. 
 
 "Opposition to public ownership gave way by 
 degrees. It was believed by many that municipal 
 ownership weakened the character of the average 
 man employed in the works. Gradually, it became 
 apparent that those works in which self-supporting 
 students were employed succeeded well. The works 
 came to be regarded as a means for instructing these 
 students in business methods, and as a place for 
 them to establish their reputations for later life; 
 so in time municipal works were regarded as builders 
 of character. 
 
 " In the year 1920 it became the general prac- 
 tice to employ only students in the works, except 
 in the limited number of permanent positions. In 
 1925, owing to the increase in the number of mu-
 
 70 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 nicipal works, graduates were allowed to fill twenty 
 per cent of the positions in these enterprises, and 
 this percentage was increased until, in 1940, seventy 
 per cent of graduates were employed ; but in no case 
 were they employed where student labor was avail- 
 able. This restriction was deemed wise as a check 
 to the too rapid increase of municipal ownership. 
 A limited number of men like A, who had left the 
 school before graduating, but who succeeded in 
 passing the required municipal service examinations, 
 were employed in the more common positions when- 
 ever neither students nor graduates could be se- 
 cured. 
 
 " As experience grew, the municipal service ex- 
 aminations became more exacting and more prac- 
 tical, so that eventually the standing made by the 
 individual was a fair index of his ability and of his 
 common sen se. All graduate employees were then, as 
 now, considered out of employment every five years, 
 and were obliged to take additional examinations. 
 These quinquennial examinations could then, as 
 now, be taken by any public works high school 
 graduate whether or not he had been employed in 
 the works giving the examination. Those standing 
 highest were given the positions, with the exception 
 that former employees were given the advantage of 
 a few points. The workers who were superseded by
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 71 
 
 the ones making a better standing readily found 
 other work through the State Employment Office. 
 The general public was imbued ^vith the idea that 
 progress depended upon every man's filling the place 
 to which he was best suited. 
 
 "Now, as you know, every law and every prac- 
 tice is established with a view to encourage indi- 
 viduality, ambition, and efficiency. The more equit- 
 able adjustment of wages, and the increased oppor- 
 tunity for secondary education, have been important 
 factors in the social and economic progress of this 
 century." 
 
 These changes in economic conditions since 1900 
 that B explained to his son are the possible results 
 of general municipal ownership. Under this sys- 
 tem the majority of voters might decide to fix wages 
 too nearly alike for all, just as A's and B's wages 
 were made to approximate rather closely, as com- 
 pared with present standards, considering the nature 
 of the services rendered by each. If such a wage sys- 
 tem for municipal workers should be estabhshed, we 
 could console ourselves with the fact that, with 
 public works schools, the shirker would be quickly 
 discovered. By reason of a more general distribu- 
 tion of thorough secondary education, intellectual 
 and industrial worth will be more general ; and the
 
 72 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 average earnings will be larger. The desire of 
 most men to do the work that requires all their 
 training, knowledge, and reasoning powers would 
 tend toward the equalization of wages. For instance, 
 the capable carpenter would rather do the work in 
 a fine public structure at $4 per day than to build 
 barns at the same wages. The capable manager 
 would rather manage a large municipal electric light 
 plant at $20 per day than, at equal wages, spend all 
 his working hours in reading the consumer's meters. 
 It is apparent that a more general education, 
 through which a larger number of men are trained 
 to do the finer and more difficult work, tends to 
 lessen the difference between the wages received 
 for the common and coarser work, and those re- 
 ceived for the finer and more difficult work. The 
 greater desirability of any certain employment will 
 largely constitute the greater reward. As there will 
 be few positions with extremely high wages, men 
 and women wiU choose occupations to which they 
 are naturally adapted, and efficiency will thus be 
 increased. 
 
 It is highly improbable that wages will ever be 
 arbitrarily equalized ; but even in the event of such 
 equalization, B, for example, would not be discour- 
 aged, though he might be a trifle handicapped, if 
 he did not receive the wages he deserves as com-
 
 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 73 
 
 pared with the wages A receives for less valuable 
 services. A's and B's regular work day, as before 
 stated, would be five hours each ; this would leave 
 nineteen free hours for each to use as be sees fit. 
 As previously stated, B requires seven hours of 
 sleep, while A requires ten hours. The remaining 
 hours each could spend in such activity as he pleased, 
 and out of these hours each would reap according 
 to what he sowed, and would reap the entire pro- 
 duet. Because of the difference in the ability and 
 character of the men, B would obtain many times 
 as much good out of his twelve free waking hours 
 as A would obtain out of his nine corresponding 
 hours. Out of these free hours each man would re- 
 ceive all he creates ; he could use his individuality 
 without limit, and no one else, as a matter of law 
 or of custom, would receive the reward of the labor 
 of these free hours. What one could do for himself 
 in each free hour is quite as valuable as the best 
 he could do for himself in each regular work hour, 
 and is much more valuable than that done in any 
 work hour spent in the mere accumulation of un- 
 necessary wealth. 
 
 If, in the course of time, the fixing of wages 
 should become a public office, a community as in- 
 telligent as the public works high schools would 
 make it, would undoubtedly fix a varying remun-
 
 74 PUBLIC WORKS HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 eration for its different classes of work, and this 
 remuneration would be on a just and practical basis 
 which would encourage healthy ambition. Should 
 there develop a social and economic condition under 
 which a most capable man could not reasonably ex- 
 pect to accumulate an abnormal fortune, as is pos- 
 sible to-day, the incentive to accumulate the maxi- 
 mum fortune that the economic conditions would 
 permit would still be as effective a stimulant to 
 this ambition, as that which exists to-day when 
 conditions permit of vast accumulation of wealth. 
 
 Under general municipal ownership and general 
 secondary education, two lives of municipal work- 
 ers as different as the lives of A and B would be 
 easily possible. So great a difference, however, 
 would be less common than it is at present, and 
 more lives would be like that of B. The A's and 
 B's would, as now, be living examples of what can 
 be avoided and what gained by the right kind of 
 effort. The probable result of such effort would be 
 incentive enough to inspire improvement in char- 
 acter and in worthy ambition, quite regardless of 
 the question of earnings. We have even more ex- 
 treme examples before us now than those of the 
 lives of A and B, but we are too deficient in true 
 secondary education and corresponding character 
 to profit adequately by these examples.
 
 PUBLIC WOKKS HIGH SCHOOLS 75 
 
 When privately owned industries grow so large 
 and powerful as to partake of the nature of mono- 
 polies, the responsible positions are sometimes given 
 to friends and relatives of the owners, regardless 
 of the fitness of these persons to fill such positions. 
 This nepotism takes away from many better minds 
 the opportunity to develop individuality in indus- 
 trial fields, and thus creates a condition which is 
 fully as inimical to the development of individual- 
 ity in both managers and laborers as are the con- 
 ditions which are said to exist under municipal 
 ownership at the present time. 
 
 Taking these several points into consideration, 
 it does not seem probable that even the keenest 
 minds in the field of public utilities would be 
 retarded by a gradual introduction of municipal 
 ownership. The field of private industry will still 
 exist for those who prefer it ; but to insure success, 
 private industry will require greater efficiency than 
 at present. 
 
 Again, we wish to say that with a thorough sys- 
 tem of high-school education, the national character 
 will be strengthened. This stronger national char- 
 acter will not lead to an undesirable uniformity of 
 thought. On the contrary, it will give free play to 
 individual talents, and will lead to their full ex- 
 pression.
 
 76 PUBLIC WORKS fflGH SCHOOLS 
 
 By the middle of this century our struggle for 
 wealth will no longer be a matter of life-consuming 
 battles, and the questionable development which 
 results from such battles may have largely dis- 
 appeared. The hard and unfair struggles of in- 
 dustrial and commercial competition will be of less 
 and less value as thorough secondary education be- 
 comes more nearly universal. These struggles will 
 be displaced by a finer, but no less difficult effort, — 
 the effort to deserve and to receive the confidence 
 and respect of one's fellow men. Under these new 
 conditions we shall have time to give more atten- 
 tion to our health ; time to gain a broader and 
 more even development of our minds ; time to de- 
 vote to the better training of our children ; and 
 time to spare for the happiness of others. These 
 gains will result in a stronger individuality.
 
 MANUFACTURING WORKS HIGH 
 SCHOOLS^ 
 
 Progress, material, intellectual, and spiritual, de- 
 pends upon the health of the individual, upon his 
 memory, his power to reason, and his accumulation 
 of interesting and valuable knowledge. It is the 
 generally accepted belief that the reform agencies 
 of the day can hope for success only through the 
 further development of these qualities in the indi- 
 vidual ; without their further development, advance- 
 ment in wisdom becomes impossible. 
 
 A store of valuable general knowledge necessarily 
 includes a fair understanding of the laws of health, 
 and such understanding must, to an ever increasing 
 extent, be the foundation of individual and public 
 health. The process of accumulating this store 
 of general knowledge develops the memory and 
 the reasoning power. So-called primary knowledge 
 
 ^ The article on Manufacturing Works High Schools for Young 
 Women appeared in the Arena of March, 1908. This article is a 
 reprint with the exception of slight changes. It is intended as 
 coraplemental to the article on Public Works High Schools. The 
 plan is equally applicable to young men students if the industry 
 selected is adapted to them.
 
 78 MANUFACTURING WORKS 
 
 is almost universally distributed, but so-called sec- 
 ondary knowledge is enjoyed by comparatively 
 few. Although without the primary there could be 
 no secondary knowledge, it is upon the latter that 
 we directly depend for advancement in wisdom. 
 As it is only through a further advance in popular 
 wisdom that the present and future problems of 
 humanity can be satisfactorily solved, it is of 
 the utmost importance that every young person 
 should receive a secondary or high-school educa- 
 tion. 
 
 At the present time most of us gain our sec- 
 ondary education through observation and reading, 
 without guidance or system ; and we gain this at a 
 later period in life than we should. When one con- 
 siders that in well-managed high schools the teach- 
 ing is done by specially trained instructors in sub- 
 jects selected by experienced educators, and that 
 these subjects are treated according to their relative 
 importance in the student's development, it is evi- 
 dent that the usual random stud}dng is of little 
 value as compared with systematic high-school 
 training received at the most suitable age. How can 
 every capable young person be induced to graduate 
 from some thorough high school? This is the 
 problem that outweighs all other reform prob- 
 lems ; for, as just intimated, the final solution of
 
 HIGH SCHOOLS 79 
 
 such problems depends on the wisdom of the in- 
 dividual citizen. Without an early secondary edu- 
 cation, growth in wisdom is seriously and perman- 
 ently retarded. 
 
 In trying to solve the problem under discussion, 
 one of the principal points to consider is the obtain- 
 ing of means necessary to build and maintain as 
 large a number of high schools as would be required 
 to accommodate practically every individual during 
 the high-school period of his life. The public could 
 do this if it were determined to do so, but the taxes 
 would have to be increased, and they would become 
 a hardship in many more instances than they are 
 at present. In addition to the means required for 
 the building and the operation of the schools, means 
 would have to be provided for the full or partial 
 maintenance of all students whose parents could 
 not fully maintain their children through a high- 
 school course. Under present economic conditions, 
 it would be impossible for the public to furnish this 
 maintenance ; and if it were possible, it would be 
 most harmful. 
 
 It has been suggested that the public build and 
 equip the high schools, put them in operation, and 
 then let the students themselves pay the running 
 expenses. This plan would be easy for the public 
 and good for the students. As it is evident that
 
 80 MANUFACTURING WORKS 
 
 the hiffh-school students who could not or would 
 not be maintained by their friends must provide 
 their own maintenance, the question of supplying 
 the students with remunerative employment be- 
 comes a paramount one. 
 
 One object of this article is to make a specific 
 suggestion for the employment of young women 
 students. We are told that many organized plans 
 to supply students with employment for full self- 
 support have been tried, and that all have failed. 
 This, however, should be no reason for discourage- 
 ment. So important is the problem that a score or 
 more of experiments, all unsuccessful, might be 
 considered profitable if they should finally lead to 
 the discovery of a plan for the better distribution 
 of secondary education. 
 
 Among many industries with which the experi- 
 ment might be tried, a practical one would prob- 
 ably be found in knitting works for women's and 
 children's underwear, as this industry seems to be 
 one that is especially adapted for the employment of 
 young women students. Any standard article that 
 can be manufactured under healthful conditions, 
 and for the making of which adequate remuneration 
 can be given, would answer the purpose. A high 
 school, that could properly be called a manufactur- 
 ing works high school, and a knitting works might
 
 HIGH SCHOOLS 81 
 
 be operated conjointly on lines similar to those sug- 
 gested for the joint operation of public utility works 
 and public works high schools described in the 
 foregoing article. The public works high school is 
 best suited for young men, while the present sug- 
 gestion is for the education and employment of 
 young women. As with young men, most young 
 women of sixteen years or over would be benefited 
 by earning their living and education, if the work 
 is within reason and also instructive. 
 
 The details regarding the school age, the study 
 and work programmes, tuition for operating ex- 
 penses, and like points could be adopted as de- 
 scribed for public works high schools, with such 
 modifications as would best suit a woman's school. 
 Some prominent educators are confident that six 
 years of this half-time school attendance would be 
 ample to complete what at present constitutes a 
 four years' high-school course. The more mature 
 years that would be brought into the latter part 
 of the course, the presumably better health due 
 to the intermissions occupied by work, the better 
 assimilation of the studies due to the more delib- 
 erate progress of the entire course, — all would 
 make it possible to take a regular four years' course 
 in six half-time years. We shall here assume that 
 such is the case.
 
 82 MANUFACTURING WORKS 
 
 The student who attends school full time during 
 the ninth and tenth grades would ordinarily pass 
 the tenth grade at sixteen years of age, and if she 
 afterwards attends only in half-day session, she 
 would require three years more to graduate, and 
 would be nineteen years of age. The young woman 
 who enters the ninth grade at sixteen and goes 
 through all the grades on a half-time schedule 
 would graduate at twenty-two years of age. By far 
 the larger number of young women would graduate 
 at twenty-two or younger. Those who, by actual 
 experience, learn the lesson of full self-support and 
 all that necessarily goes with it, would be certain 
 to gain much more from the school course than 
 would the other students. 
 
 In the article on public works high schools, an 
 imaginary water works operated by self-supporting 
 students is described. In the description of this 
 water works a plan is given for an annual change 
 of employment for the student workers. This change 
 of work is suggested partly to avoid monotony, 
 but principally to acquaint the student with the 
 entire operation of the business from janitor up to 
 manager. As far as it could be made to apply, 
 this plan for changing work might be profitably 
 adopted in the knitting works. The education of 
 several years' duration obtained from a thorough
 
 HIGH SCHOOLS 83 
 
 working study of a knitting factory or of any other 
 business is most valuable and interesting. Such a 
 complete knowledge of any manufacturing business 
 is rare, and few can fully appreciate its value. The 
 student workers would all become well informed 
 in business methods, and it is probable that the 
 experiences of such a course would, in later life, 
 aid greatly in every cooperative effort of whatever 
 nature. 
 
 Many believe that young women under twenty 
 years of age would not render adequate service to 
 deserve wages necessary for self-support. Self-sup- 
 porting young women who are students by choice 
 would make unsurpassed workers. A study of knit- 
 ting works would be made a part of the curriculum 
 of the manufacturing works high school, thus every 
 part of the operation of the works would come 
 under the observation of instructors and students. 
 Under such favorable conditions, the service ren- 
 dered by the young women would be almost ideal. 
 
 The works woidd in all probability be owned by 
 a voluntary association of public-spirited citizens 
 who would not operate them for profit other than a 
 moderate and fixed net profit that would build up 
 a surplus for expansion. This voluntary association 
 of citizens would require full and clear business re- 
 ports issued to the general public at regidar inter-
 
 84 MANUFACTURING WORKS 
 
 vals. These reports and the actual bookkeeping 
 could be made the regular course of study in the 
 bookkeeping classes of the school. In this way the 
 general public, the instructors, and the students 
 would become well acquainted with the details of 
 the business, and this publicity would tend to in- 
 crease the efficiency in the works. 
 
 Young women of sixteen years of age who are se- 
 lected for ability above the average could earn enough 
 in five hours at the knitting works to pay their per- 
 sonal expenses and their proportionate share of the 
 running expenses of the school. The young women 
 under discussion would be willing to live simply ; 
 and one dollar a day could be made to answer, if a 
 supply of clothing, the lighter room furnishings, and 
 about twenty-five dollars for books and emergencies 
 were on hand. An energetic, capable young woman 
 who tries to do her best, ought to be paid enough 
 for five hours of labor to enable her to meet the 
 necessary expenses of one day of such simple living. 
 If she is not paid so much, others are living off her 
 efforts. At the present time the women workers in 
 privately-owned knitting works are not paid twenty 
 cents per hour, and the established prices for knit 
 goods may make wages at that rate impossible. The 
 students' knitting works would be required to yield 
 only a moderate profit to build up the surplus re-
 
 HIGH SCHOOLS 86 
 
 ferred to, and the student workers would no doubt 
 show greater average efficiency than do present 
 workers; so that, notwithstanding better wages, it 
 might be possible for a students' knitting works to 
 sell its goods as cheaply as the same goods are now 
 being sold. As is shown in the article on public 
 works high schools, the effect of student workers 
 on the general labor market would be in no way 
 depressing. 
 
 Some believe that five hours of daily work and 
 three hours of school attendance would result in 
 physical injury to many young women, but actual 
 experience indicates the contrary. Whether it would 
 be injurious or not, it would be less injurious than 
 eight or ten hours of daily work such as those who 
 would constitute the greater number of the seK- 
 supporting students now have to do. The work and 
 surroundings in a students' works would probably 
 be more healthful and pleasant than those of the 
 average private factory. 
 
 We wish to make a specific suggestion for the 
 creating of a students' knitting works. Let the Na- 
 tional Federation of Women's Clubs appoint a com- 
 mittee to investigate the knitting works business. 
 If this appears to be well suited for a students' 
 works, have the committee make a detailed report. 
 This report should include every item of expense
 
 86 MANUFACTURING WORKS 
 
 and income in the operation o£ the business, de- 
 tailed drawings of buildings and machinery, and a 
 practical and scientific description of the raw ma- 
 terial required. The report should give the cost 
 of constructing a knitting plant of the desired size ; 
 also the cost of the necessary buildings for dormi- 
 tory, restaurant, and high school. In making this 
 report, the committee might profitably use several 
 years of time. It is, of course, not necessary that 
 the committee confine itself to knitting works ; these 
 are suggested merely as a possibility. 
 
 The general management under which the works 
 is to be operated, until experience teaches better 
 ways, should also be determined at this time. One of 
 the foremost essentials for success in any plan for 
 a school of self-supporting students is that the ap- 
 plicants for work be given preference, as nearly as 
 possible, in the order of their ability and character as 
 shown by previous standing in school. Such a pre- 
 ference is only fair, and it urges the less capable to 
 do their best. We would suggest a board of directors 
 consisting of three members chosen by the women's 
 clubs. Let there be added to this board twenty stu- 
 dent directors chosen by the student body from the 
 eleventh and twelfth grades. Each student director 
 should have one tenth the voting power of each di- 
 rector chosen by the women's clubs. A special state
 
 HIGH SCHOOLS 87 
 
 law sanctioning such a board of directors might have 
 to be enacted. 
 
 Let us assume that the report will show that one 
 dollar per five-hour day can be paid to capable work- 
 ers. With each additional year of experience the 
 young women would improve in industrial worth, 
 and this, let us further assume, would, as is probable, 
 permit giving a second-year student $1.05; a third- 
 year student $1.10 ; thus advancing the daily wages 
 five cents for each year of experience that the student 
 gains. The daily wages for each of the six years 
 respectively would therefore be 11.00, $1.05, $1.10, 
 $1.15, $1.20, $1.25, making an average of $1.12. 
 All wages over the one dollar per day could be saved 
 by the student until graduation. A student working 
 three hundred days per year for six years could in 
 this way accumulate $225. In voting for student 
 directors, the individual student might be given 
 voting power in proportion to the length of time she 
 had served, as the length of service would, in a way, 
 be a measure of her experience in the business. 
 
 Another important step for the committee to take 
 would be to obtain the pledge of a sufficient num- 
 ber of the members of the women's clubs to buy their 
 knitted goods from the students' works, provided 
 that the quality is equal to that of the best factories, 
 and that the prices are not more in excess of mar-
 
 88 MANUFACTURING WORKS 
 
 ket prices than fair wages might make necessary. 
 Investigation may show that students' knitting works 
 could produce underwear at less than present ruling 
 prices. These and other preliminaries being accom- 
 plished, a stock company for the required amount 
 might be formed, possibly for two hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars, and the by-laws framed to make 
 possible the desired mode of management. Should 
 the experiment finally prove successful, students' 
 works and manufacturing works high schools of 
 various kinds could be introduced into every city of 
 sufficient size. 
 
 It would be difficult to estimate the great benefit 
 to humanity if the number of mothers who are thor- 
 ough high-school graduates could be increased but 
 two or three fold. This would be especially true if 
 all future high schools for girls would give courses 
 in domestic science, nursing, and motherhood. The 
 increase in the number of graduates due to the sys- 
 tem for self-support would consist of just those whom 
 nature would choose as the most desirable mothers.
 
 SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO A 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 FUND 
 
 A Public Works Scholarship Fund as suggested 
 in this article would be intended for the aid of self- 
 supporting students of secondary or higher schools^ 
 and would be limited to students who earn their 
 education by doing work for city, state, or federal 
 government. The principal purpose of the fund 
 would be to make good any shortage in wages below 
 a fixed minimum. 
 
 Public works scholarship funds, especially for 
 secondary schools, might be deposited with some 
 state university that would accept the treasuryship. 
 Upon presentation of satisfactory vouchers as to 
 past expenditures, the funds might be made payable 
 in installments, as needed, to the schools for which 
 they were intended. The collection and distribu- 
 tion of a large fund of this nature would require 
 considerable responsibility and work, so the care of 
 the fund would probably be entrusted to a com- 
 mittee. The committee might engage self-support- 
 ing students of the university as clerks to do all of
 
 90 SCHOLARSHIP FUND 
 
 the detail work involved; and as the care of the 
 fund would be work of a public nature, the stu- 
 dents doins: this detail work would be entitled to 
 the benefits of the fund. In order to give the hand- 
 ling of the fund the greatest publicity, a section 
 of the bookkeeping classes might be made to re- 
 view the account books of the fund as part of their 
 regular class work. The schools that are benefici- 
 aries of the fund might handle their portion of it 
 in the same manner. 
 
 Let the objects in placing these students in pub- 
 lic work be as follows : First, to give the public 
 the benefit of a high class of service in the posi- 
 tions allotted to the students ; second, to supply 
 the students with the means for self-support whUe 
 obtaining a school education ; third, to fit the stu- 
 dents for service in public as well as in private 
 activity ; fourth, as far as possible to give the stu- 
 dents practical experience that wiU best supplement 
 the school education in the special fields chosen by 
 them as their life work ; fifth, to bring the schools 
 into intimate working touch with the details of 
 current public activities. 
 
 The obtaining of work for the students might be 
 done by an employment committee. In relation to 
 his employment, the student accepting the benefits 
 of this fund should, as far as possible, be under
 
 SCHOLARSHIP FUND 91 
 
 the control of this committee. The committee, sub- 
 ject to the control of the board of trustees of the 
 school, might have arbitrary power in choosing and 
 removing any student as a beneficiary of the fund, 
 and it should aim to offer for public work the best 
 available material. 
 
 In accepting employment from the public for 
 the student workers, the employment committee 
 should, as far as practicable, aim to confine the 
 students to such positions as would require contin- 
 uous, energetic work. One of the main objects 
 should be to develop in the student both energy 
 and efficiency ; a further object should be to coun- 
 teract any possible tendency of heads of public 
 departments to engage student workers as mere 
 hangers-on to do work only during occasional busy 
 periods. Such a practice would retard the proper 
 development of even the best disposed students. A 
 tendency to employ superfluous help might develop, 
 because, in some cases, all or part of the students' 
 wages would at first be paid out of the fund. 
 
 Any student who might take advantage of this 
 fund, and who, owing to his inexperience with the 
 work, does not at first receive as wages from the 
 department as large a sum as twenty-five cents 
 per hour, would be entitled to receive from the 
 fund such additional amount as would, when added
 
 92 SCHOLARSHIP FUND 
 
 to said wages, equal twenty-five cents for each hour 
 of employment. In case a student should be tem- 
 porarily incapacitated for work, the employment 
 committee might be given the right to make good, 
 out of the fund, any loss in the student's wages aris- 
 ing from such disability. Every student who avails 
 himself of this fund should be impressed with the 
 special necessity of doing his best at the public 
 work, so that he will be likely to receive wages ade- 
 quate for his needs, and thus avoid the necessity 
 of drawing upon the fund. 
 
 Several varieties of public works scholarship 
 funds could be established as their need arises. An 
 exact and full description of the purposes and mode 
 of management of every fund affecting a certain 
 school might be recorded at this school, and a copy 
 of each description might be recorded in the re- 
 corder's books of the county in which the school is 
 located. The purpose of this public record would be 
 to simplify the work of investigation by attorneys 
 in preparing wiUs for those of their clients who 
 might wish to contribute to the fund. The fund 
 committee of the university might formulate clauses 
 and codicils for wiUs for the purpose of making it 
 convenient for any one to bequeath part of his es- 
 tate to the fund. This committee might advertise 
 the nature of the fund and show its inherent
 
 SCHOLARSHIP FUND 93 
 
 public benefits. The same fund committee might 
 also organize endowment funds for public works 
 high schools, and, whenever the fund was lai'ge 
 enough to start such a school, place the money in 
 proper hands for the purpose. 
 
 There can be little doubt that a large number of 
 people would have a strong sympathy for schools 
 which would take a special interest in self-supporting 
 young people. As a result of this sympathy, it would 
 be less difficult to induce people to bequeath of 
 their means for scholarship funds and for school 
 endowments. Because of the self-support of the 
 students and because of the tuition required, both 
 the endowment and the scholarship funds could be 
 much smaller than similar funds under the present 
 school system. Many people, however, would at 
 present hesitate to will money to a fund for a high 
 school: first, because the management is likely to 
 change frequently ; second, because high schools are 
 not equipped to handle such funds ; third, because 
 a high-school fund is likely to be relatively small 
 and a small fund might not be given the same care 
 as a large one. If these objections to high-school 
 funds were aU met, only a moderate amount of so- 
 licitation in behalf of the funds should be required 
 to bring good results. The plan described in the 
 foregoing for the care of the scholarship fund, —
 
 94 SCHOLARSHIP FUND 
 
 a plan in which the students themselves are a fac- 
 tor, — would meet every objection thus far raised. 
 The following clause for wills might be useful as 
 a suggestion to the fund committee : — 
 
 I hereby give, devise, and bequeath to the Uni- 
 versity of the sum of Dollars, in 
 
 trust for the School of the City of , 
 
 State of , to be used, administered, and dis- 
 tributed for the purpose and in the manner set forth 
 and described in a certain instrument entitled " Pub- 
 lic Works Scholarship Fund " dated and 
 
 recorded in Book page of the Mis- 
 cellaneous Records of the county of , State 
 
 of .
 
 THE HEART-MIND AND THE 
 SCHOOL 
 
 For the purposes of the present discussion, it mat- 
 ters not at all whether the arbitrary and simple 
 division of the mind as herein made is scientific. 
 Fortunately, yet strangely, it is not essential that 
 we know whether what we shall term the heart- 
 mind is different from that which we shall term the 
 primary-mind merely in degree or in kind. How- 
 ever, it is essential that we satisfy ourselves as to a 
 vital interdependence and a mutual helpfulness be- 
 tween these two divisions of the mind. 
 
 It is sometimes said that secondary-school and 
 college education develops the mind without de- 
 veloping the heart. We hear that such an education 
 often leaves us cold, hard, and calculating. We are 
 told, and truly told, that without education of the 
 heart no one can become wise, strong, and happy. 
 The word " heart," as thus used, in reality means 
 but a certain part of the mind, and we herein refer 
 to this part as the heart-mind. This mind, we will 
 say, is the division which is concerned with know- 
 ledge and beliefs regarding human nature and God ;
 
 96 THE HEART-MIND 
 
 while the primary-mind is concerned with all other 
 knowledge. Since heart-mind and human nature 
 are practically the same, it follows that each indi- 
 vidual heart-mind is concerned with knowledge re- 
 garding itself, its counterpart in fellow men, and 
 with knowledge of God. That knowledge which 
 clears the understanding that man has of man, or, 
 we may perhaps say, all knowledge so far as it is 
 used to clear this understanding, is knowledge that 
 belongs to the heart-mind. Knowledge of the spin- 
 ning of cobwebs, of the building of suspension 
 bridges, of the science of language, of chemistry, 
 and other laws of nature, are examples of know- 
 ledge belonging principally to the primary-mind. 
 Some branches of knowledge may belong to both 
 divisions of the mind at the same time. 
 
 It seems to be true that the primary-mind is 
 divided in one of several suppositional ways into 
 separate and distinct subdivisions for each line of 
 thought activity. It seems also to be true that 
 the normal activity of any one subdivision of the 
 primary-mind will aid in the development of aU 
 the others. Whether or not the primary-mind is 
 thus subdivided in both a physical and a mental 
 sense, or only in a mental sense; whether the sub- 
 divisions are sharply defined, or not separately dis- 
 tinguishable, is not essential here. As an extreme
 
 THE HEART-MIND 97 
 
 case, for instance, it is believed that a merely nor- 
 mal activity and development of the subdivision for 
 mathematics or mechanics in any mind will further, 
 perhaps only to a slight degree, the development of 
 the subdivision for music or painting in that mind. 
 A normal rate of development of one or more sub- 
 divisions of the primary-mind may, by reason of 
 sympathetic action, cause improvement in the health 
 and strength of all other subdivisions of that di- 
 vision of the mind. Perhaps, too, the development of 
 one subdivision is furthered by the normal develop- 
 ment of any other, merely by reason of the inter- 
 dependence of all branches of knowledge. Here 
 we should remember that what is normal develop- 
 ment for one mind may be extremely abnormal 
 for another. For instance, we are told that some 
 are born with a more vigorous rudiment of the 
 mathematical subdivision of the primary-mind than 
 are others. Those so situated during childhood as 
 to develop this subdivision more fully than the 
 others are developed may almost be put in the same 
 class as those favored at birth with a good mind- 
 rudiment for mathematics. Some children have 
 several subdivisions of the primary-mind above the 
 average in strength ; other children are born with 
 all subdivisions above the average. We all know 
 that by the time manhood is reached the child born
 
 98 THE HEART-MIND 
 
 with a marked inclination toward mathematics may, 
 without other schooling than that obtained in ordin- 
 ary daily occupation, become as proficient in mathe- 
 matics as another born with a moderate inclination 
 towards mathematics is likely to become under effi- 
 cient instruction. It is needless to say that a good 
 school could further improve the mathematical part 
 of a mind that naturally understands mathematics. 
 As it would be with this part, so it would be with 
 all other subdivisions of the primary-mind. 
 
 We have made these observations about the pri- 
 mary-mind because there is good reason to believe 
 that the heart-mind is similarly subdivided into sep- 
 arate and distinct, yet related and interdependent 
 subdivisions for the different branches of knowledge 
 that are its province. The primary-mind and the 
 heart-mind seem not only similar in construction 
 and in method of operation, but humanity often 
 unconsciously acknowledges a close relationship 
 between them. The man who has a well-developed 
 primary-mind is, as a rule, more readily trusted by 
 humanity than one whose primary-mind is poorly 
 developed, and whose store of primary-mind know- 
 ledge is proportionately low. This more ready trust 
 is accorded the man with the well-informed primary- 
 mind because it has been found that improvement 
 in the heart-mind quite generally accompanies im-
 
 THE HEART-MIND 99 
 
 provement in the primary-mind. For reasons that 
 can readily be imagined, the primary-mind some- 
 times advances faster than the heart-mind, and 
 develops relatively far beyond it. Persons with 
 such imeven mental development are frequently the 
 recipients of misplaced conj&dence given by those 
 who judge the individual too much by the quality 
 of the primary-mind alone. He whose primary- 
 mind is thus relatively in advance of his heart-mind 
 is, therefore, in a position to take advantage of this 
 misplaced confidence. This advantage he sometimes 
 takes because, having a relatively weak heart- 
 mind, he cannot always withstand the temptation 
 to abuse the undeserved trust placed in him. He 
 would not be granted this degree of confidence if 
 his primary-mind were, as is usually the case, 
 more in keeping with his less developed heart-mind. 
 It here becomes evident how, in certain cases, a man 
 may improve his heart-mind to some degree, yet, 
 on account of the proportional over-improvement 
 in the primary-mind, he may in reality become a 
 more harmful man than before this additional de- 
 velopment of his heart-mind. 
 
 All this is no argument against educating the 
 primary-mind, because the ultimate good arising 
 from such education makes any temporary harm 
 from disproportional development appear insignifi-
 
 100 THE HEART-MIND 
 
 cant. Since the human race must improve or re- 
 trograde, it is an unimportant matter if a few, on 
 account of temporarily uneven mental development, 
 become more harmfid during their own process of 
 improvement. This uneven development may be 
 looked for in the student who has a naturally weak 
 heart-mind, and who spends most of his time acquir- 
 ing technical, scientific, or other knowledge belong- 
 ing to the primary-mind. This student ignores that 
 training of the heart-mind which is derived from 
 good literature, from the heart-mind sciences, such 
 as ethics, philosophy, sociology, political economy, 
 and from the direct study of human nature through 
 social life. A similar thing is true of any man with 
 a weak heart-mind, whether he be laborer, me- 
 chanic, or business man, if he confines himself too 
 closely to an occupation that calls the heart-mind 
 but little into action. However, the student can- 
 not, while in school, acquire a good store of pri- 
 mary-mind knowledge without some social broad- 
 ening, or broadening of the heart- mind ; ^ and 
 
 ^ The social broadening here referred to is aided but little by 
 the secret societies of the students, if these societies are conducted 
 as reported. They may be increasing in number, but they are not 
 products of secondary and higher education : they are an out- 
 growth of the wrong home training of many of the students. 
 Only injurious training can be given in homes where the love 
 of money, display, luxury, and ease is encouraged. The young
 
 THE HEAKT-MIND 101 
 
 besides a well-trained primary-mind is likely to 
 prepare him to acquire more readily that know- 
 ledge which develops the heart-mind. He who has 
 a weak or untrained heart-mind especially needs 
 ethical study to strengthen this mind. This is true 
 because the society of his own kind, valuable as it 
 is, often gives the heart-mind of the morally ambi- 
 tious man a dearth of higher ethical problems. He 
 is most fortunate who has a heart-mind that desires 
 its own advancement, and who has a primary-mind 
 well enough trained to make ethical study easy. 
 
 To grant trust is to acknowledge in the recipient 
 of that trust a corresponding development of heart- 
 mind. As said before, under the belief that a cer- 
 tain degree of heart-mind accompanies a given de- 
 gree of primary-mind, humanity, taken as a whole, 
 grants to the individual man a greater or lesser 
 
 men from these homes form a certain part of the university stu- 
 dent body, and these men find a combination of true social life 
 and school work quite foreign to their tastes. In many instances 
 they make of the secret society an institution that, in exagg'er- 
 ated and unrestrained form, satisfies the tastes to which they 
 have been bred. Here, of course, we have reference to societies 
 of the nature of those that have been so severely criticised in re- 
 cent years, and the number of these societies is not small. In the 
 end the school will prevail, and undoubtedly all undesirable secret 
 societies will become extinct. The social development we have in 
 mind as due to school life is that which comes from the every- 
 day open school work.
 
 102 THE HEART-MIND 
 
 measure of trust for each measure of development 
 of the primary-mind that he may have attained. 
 This fact alone should be accepted as adequate evi- 
 dence, even though this evidence is circumstantial, 
 that there is a strong relationship between the 
 heart-mind and the primary-mind. It can safely be 
 so accepted until the science of the future settles 
 the question. 
 
 When, for instance, we study criminology, suf- 
 frage, public education, religion, the humanitarian 
 side of taxation or of money, we not only exercise 
 and develop the heart-mind, but we study it as 
 well. The heart-mind cannot thus be occupied with- 
 out making constant use of knowledge stored in the 
 primary-mind, nor without taking advantage of the 
 general mind power that was in part developed 
 through the act of accumulating knowledge in the 
 primary-mind. An exhaustive study of the heart- 
 mind would probably involve all knowledge. 
 
 Knowledge of the heart-minds of one's fellows, 
 whether intuitive or acquired by experience and 
 study, or both, is the principal aid to the develop- 
 ment of one's own heart-mind, and this development 
 fidly governs a man's treatment of his fellow man. 
 Development of the heart-mind means development 
 of goodness degree for degree, and this goodness in 
 its last degree signifies the possession of such
 
 THE HEART-MIND 103 
 
 knowledge and wisdom as results, above aU other 
 considerations, in heartfelt fair play. Still, not all 
 who have considerable knowledge and understand- 
 ing of the heart-minds of others are good. Some 
 make it a business to discover the weak points in 
 the heart-minds of their fellows in order to mislead 
 and take dishonest advantage of them. Those who 
 deliberately use their knowledge and understand- 
 ing of the heart-minds of others for purposes of 
 fraud, do this only because their own heart-minds 
 are deficient or altogether wanting in that particu- 
 lar section which correctly appreciates as a source of 
 happiness the value of deserving the trust of one's 
 fellows. The man with a very unevenly developed 
 heart-mind is sometimes given credit for having all 
 its subdivisions developed as well as those that are 
 farthest advanced. In these cases, as in those where 
 the primary-mind is developed relatively far in 
 advance of the heart-mind, the dishonesty often 
 takes the form of abusing the unearned trust that 
 has been granted. Trust is likely to be erroneously 
 granted or withheld as long as some will judge the 
 entire heart-mind of others by certain sections 
 thereof. 
 
 To all appearances, some are born with better 
 rudiments of the various sections of the heart-mind 
 than are others. In the infant the rudiments of
 
 104 THE HEART-MIND 
 
 this mind are ignorantly selfish in the extreme, and 
 if the infant has inherited little vigor of heart-mind 
 or at least of its more vital parts, he must develop 
 under a serious handicap ; and if he grows to man- 
 hood under circumstances that do not stimulate 
 the heart-mind to higher action, he will be certain 
 to develop into a bad man. Under opposite condi- 
 tions, this ignorant selfishness will gradually change 
 to enlightened, refined, or altruistic selfishness in 
 which a man seeks his own good in the good of all. 
 The man who has a naturally weak heart-mind can 
 be much benefited by a good training of the pri- 
 mary-mind, provided that in the daily course of life 
 his heart-mind is confronted by some stimulating 
 problems, as should be the case with every heart- 
 mind. The training of his primary-mind is the prin- 
 cipal thing that such a man can depend upon to 
 aid his heart-mind in reaching a sound basis, — a 
 basis where the gradual self-uplifting of the heart- 
 mind will be an inevitable consequence. 
 
 Many people are born with the rudiments of an 
 unusually strong heart -mind. They sometimes de- 
 velop strength and activity in all sections of this 
 part of the mind without first accumulating any 
 considerable amount of knowledge belonging to the 
 primary-mind. Some of these people have a very 
 poorly trained primary-mind, although most of
 
 THE HEART-MIND 105 
 
 them, if not all, have a primary-mind capable of 
 good training. They seem able, without any no- 
 ticeable effort, to recognize, to carry in thought, 
 and to analyze fairly complex phenomena pertain- 
 ing to the heart-mind of their fellows. They do this, 
 as just said, without possessing a good store of 
 knowledge in the primary-mind, and without even 
 realizing that their minds are making the effort 
 to study the minds of others. Such persons are 
 sometimes called natural readers of human nature, 
 but we might just as truly call them natural read- 
 ers of the heart-mind. If in a man's own heart- 
 mind that division which appreciates the value of 
 the trust of his fellows is well developed, he can- 
 not observe and understand the heart-minds of 
 others, whether they are good or bad, without 
 making his own heart-mind better. These people 
 sometimes develop a heart-mind relatively far in 
 advance of their primary-minds. This accounts for 
 the fact that some who have but slightly enlight- 
 ened primary-minds are good. We have previously 
 accounted for the fact that some with well-enlight- 
 ened primary-minds are bad. We have also accounted 
 for the fact that some who have only fractionally 
 developed heart-minds are bad. 
 
 All our best novels, histories, and religious books 
 deal instructively with human nature and use it as
 
 106 THE HEART-MIND 
 
 the foundation theme. Through these books we 
 come in contact with the best minds, and, directly 
 or indirectly, through them, we obtain most of our 
 development of the heart-mind. Imagine how much 
 more slowly we should all develop if we were denied 
 the training of the primary-mind, a training so es- 
 sential for the clear understanding of such enlight- 
 ened discourse and such books as best train our 
 heart-minds. Schools, then, develop the heart-mind 
 indirectly through the training they give the pri- 
 mary-mind, through the social intercourse that 
 accompanies school work, and through the direct 
 teaching of such heart-mind studies as are taken 
 by the students.
 
 QUESTIONS FOR THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 Only a moderate percentage of young people enter 
 high school. A large majority of those that enter 
 do not finish the course. Many of those that finish 
 have not been thorough in their work, and of the 
 hmited number that enter the university, many do 
 not have the capacity to continue. Do all universi- 
 ties hold themselves responsible for the existence of 
 poorly trained and untrained young people? Are 
 not those young people who are lacking in educa- 
 tion, whether they are the aimless sons of the rich, 
 the misguided sons of the well-to-do, or the self- 
 supporting young men, largely results of wrong 
 industrial and educational conditions ? Do the uni- 
 versities take sufficient interest in the discovery of 
 ways to improve these conditions for young people ? 
 Do they ask themselves questions of the following 
 nature? — 
 
 Is the waste of school time that results in the 
 high-school failure a result of a popular misconcep- 
 tion of what constitutes social happiness? If so, what 
 is this misconception, and how can it be corrected?
 
 108 QUESTIONS 
 
 How can virtually all boys and girls be led to 
 take a thorough high-school course ? 
 
 Would it be wise for the public to provide em- 
 plojrment for self-supporting students who will do 
 work satisfactorily, provided that the employment 
 is kept under the inspection of the schools and the 
 public ? Would such employment gradually attract 
 large numbers of self-supporting students ? Would 
 these students be above the average in ability? 
 Would they raise the standard of the schools? 
 
 What would be the best plan that the public 
 might adopt to provide steady employment for stu- 
 dent laborers? 
 
 What would be the best plan to induce private 
 employers to furnish steady and sufficiently remun- 
 erative work to self-supporting students ? 
 
 Is it possible, as a general rule, for a student to 
 earn enough for complete self-support after reserv- 
 ing a considerable part of his time for school pur- 
 poses ? 
 
 Could the public, without loss, engage in certain 
 industries in order to give employment to students ? 
 Could it permit the older students to do most of 
 the managerial work, and thus save for the students 
 the employer's profit ? 
 
 What industries could be gradually taken over 
 by the public for the benefit of the students ?
 
 QUESTIONS 109 
 
 Could private employers be induced to instruct 
 students in the complete details of their respective 
 businesses in order that the greatest educational 
 values would be realized from the employment? 
 
 Would employment with private employers, val- 
 uable though it is, be as instructive and as valuable 
 to the students as employment in public industries 
 under school supervision ? 
 
 If the schools were actually guiding some im- 
 portant industries would they not be more highly 
 regarded by young people ? Would not such activ- 
 ity broaden the schools ? Would it not also broaden 
 the lives of the instructors? 
 
 If industrial conditions are at their best, is it 
 not wise for students and others to be self-support- 
 ing after the age of sixteen ? 
 
 Can any school call itself a seat of learning until 
 it has brought about a mental condition in the 
 entire student body that grants the highest respect 
 for any kind of labor done by a self-supporting 
 student, and that regards self-support as one of the 
 essentials of manhood ? 
 
 What can be done to induce rich parents to turn 
 their children over to schools where self-support 
 would be required, and where ways of self-support 
 would be provided ? 
 
 Would the average child in the elementary
 
 110 QUESTIONS 
 
 grades be impelled to better effort by a reasonable 
 prospect for self-support at instructive work during 
 the period of secondary and higher education? 
 
 "Would not the elementary schools prepare the 
 children for the later labors in the public-school 
 industries, and would not young people who had 
 been so prepared make the operation of these in- 
 dustries highly successful ? 
 
 Would the plan for public employment during 
 school age remove necessary competition from the 
 lives of our youth, or would competition still re- 
 main and be of a different and better form ? 
 
 Unless means for self-support are provided, can 
 the majority of our young people ever attain a 
 secondary-school education, and will the standard 
 of student earnestness ever be at its best ? 
 
 Is it better for the young man to give his time 
 exclusively to school work until the day for enter- 
 ing the world's work, or is it better for him to pass 
 a few years in a transition period ? Can secondary 
 and higher education be of the highest efficiency 
 unless it is contemporary with occupation in the 
 world's work? 
 
 Would a general union of secondary and higher 
 schools with public industrial activity and other 
 public activities, purify politics by reason of the 
 higher standard of character engaged and the
 
 QUESTIONS 111 
 
 greater publicity effected, or would politics corrupt 
 the schools? 
 
 To what extent do our industrial and political 
 conditions retard the general distribution of sec- 
 ondary and higher knowledge? Have any other 
 institutions better opportunities to improve these 
 conditions than have our great universities? If 
 so, are any other institutions as responsible for the 
 persistence of these conditions? The church is 
 asked to improve them, and rightly so, but have 
 not the universities a greater responsibility in this 
 field? 
 
 Can these questions be settled without the mak- 
 ing, under varied conditions, of a hmited number 
 of thorough experiments? 
 
 Until the universities have done aU that can be 
 done to increase high-school attendance and to 
 make the students more earnest, they should hold 
 themselves largely responsible for poorly educated 
 young people.
 
 REDEEM NATIONAL RESOURCES 
 AND HELP THE SCHOOLS^ 
 
 When land in great areas still belonged to the pub- 
 lic, the government wisely set aside large tracts as 
 school lands. These school lands were gradually 
 disposed of in order to obtain funds for building 
 and operating public schools. It now becomes ap- 
 parent that it would have been still wiser had the 
 lawmakers of those early times also reserved other 
 public resources. 
 
 Without retarding the nation's material pro- 
 gress, the government might have reserved for pub- 
 lic-school purposes many of the timber, mineral, and 
 oil rights, also much of the water supply and water 
 power. These several resources could, in the begin- 
 ning, have been leased under restrictions fair both 
 to the lessees and to the public, and the rent 
 could have gone, at least in part, to the support of 
 the schools. At the expiration of the leases, the 
 schools, through departments of forestry, mining, 
 oil development, water supply, and water power, 
 
 ^ The larger part of this article was published under another 
 title in the Pacijic Outlook of November 7, 1908.
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 113 
 
 might themselves have operated sawmills, mines, oil 
 wells, water works, and power plants. Good wages 
 and good working conditions could have been given 
 the students in these public activities, and there 
 would have been no lack of available students. The 
 profit to the public would have been great in dollars, 
 and beyond measure in citizenship. 
 
 In consequence of the past oversight in not re- 
 serving more of our national resources, the country 
 now supports thousands of palatial imitations of 
 homes in which families maintain a retinue of ser- 
 vants who, being treated as inferior persons, often 
 become inferior. If the public does not redeem 
 some of its lost resources, and if it does not awaken 
 and come to the support of its better political 
 leaders in conserving the resources still remaining, 
 the nation will in time be burdened with a tenfold 
 increase in such palatial homes and their often- 
 times undesirable occupants, instead, as would be 
 easily possible, of being blessed with more numer- 
 ous and better schools occupied by public-spirited 
 and adequately remunerated teachers and by hope- 
 fid young people developing into upright citizens. 
 
 The following discussion shows how one public 
 resource, although originally regulated by law, was 
 made private property by the courts. The story, 
 although wholly imaginary, shows how ridiculous
 
 114 REDEEM NATIONAL EESOURCES 
 
 such a situation appears, and how easily the re- 
 source might have been rescued. 
 
 "We will suppose that somewhat more than ten 
 years ago one thousand American negro graduates 
 of Hampton Institute, Tuskegee, and many North- 
 ern high schools, in a courageous effort to aid in 
 the solution of the race problem, undertook to start 
 an all-negro nation of high-school graduates ^ in a 
 suitable, uninhabited district in Africa. They named 
 their nation New Liberia, and their first town New 
 Hampton. Out of friendship for the United States, 
 and out of a sense of inter-racial fellowship, all civ- 
 ilized countries agreed to protect these ambitious, 
 nation-making pioneers against white and yellow 
 invasion for one hundred years. 
 
 In its natural state, the district set aside for this 
 new nation was a semi-arid country, as was South- 
 ern California twenty-five years ago. Before leaving 
 for Africa the colony sent three of its members to 
 California to study the water development, and 
 the method of distribution as there practiced. The 
 information gained by these three men was incor- 
 porated as a part of the general plan for the new 
 
 * We have selected secondary-school graduates as the inhabit- 
 ants of our imaginary country because we could hardly expect 
 quick and intelligent public action from those of less training.
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 115 
 
 national life. In this plan it was provided that the 
 three men, for private gain, should form and operate 
 a stock company to supply the inhabitants of the 
 new nation with water. The law framed to cover 
 this phase of the nation's economy provided that the 
 water rates should be so regulated that the business 
 of the water company might yield the stockholders 
 an annual net profit of twelve per cent on the value 
 of the water plant. In addition to the regular cost 
 of operation and maintenance, the expenses included 
 a sinking fund for the purpose of covering expected 
 renewals. With the exception of the clause fixing 
 the rate of profit at twelve per cent, the water laws 
 of California were adopted by the new nation for 
 the regulation and protection of the business of the 
 three incorporators of the water company. 
 
 New Liberia grew rapidly. In ten years five thou- 
 sand additional negro graduates had made their 
 homes in the new land ; and for every such gradu- 
 ate who entered the country, the laws of the nation 
 permitted two less educated adult negroes to come 
 to New Liberia. In ten years, therefore, eighteen 
 thousand adults had come to the new country. If 
 we add to this number all of the native-born, we 
 find a population of about fifty thousand in New 
 Liberia at the present time. Compulsory secondary 
 education was adopted for all native-born citizens,
 
 116 REDEEM NATIONAL RESOURCES 
 
 and for each native graduate, two less educated 
 emigT-ants from the United States will be admitted. 
 Contrary to expectation, this movement of graduates 
 toward Africa has not decreased the intellectual aver- 
 age of the negroes that remain ; it has rather stimu- 
 lated them to a more determined educational effort. 
 
 We will suppose that the richest land in New 
 Liberia, and that nearest the water supply, is by 
 this time thickly settled. All the water has been 
 developed by the three " water-men," as they are 
 called, and all opportunity for competition has been 
 removed. The next available source of supply is 
 sixty miles distant, and the colony is as yet too 
 poor to utilize this water. The three water-men 
 originally brought ten thousand dollars to the new 
 country, and with this capital they developed the 
 first supply of water. The wages that each took 
 for his work, together with the four hundred dollars 
 that each received as his share of the profits, gave 
 each as good a living as that of the more fortunate 
 of his neighbors. But, like a large class of white 
 men and a comparatively small class of black men, 
 the more they have, the more they want. 
 
 The colony has now grown to large proportions 
 and its numbers are increasing rapidly, as many 
 new settlers are coming from the different states. 
 Under these conditions each individual settler is no
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 117 
 
 longer a personal acquaintance of all the others, 
 and it requires ever less acuteness on the part of 
 the schemer to injure the public, and to " befuddle " 
 the issue, when those who are accurately informed 
 of the deception endeavor to expose and correct 
 wrong-doing. However, when a black man of New 
 Liberia tries some nefarious scheme, he is soon 
 checked by his more enlightened fellow citizens. 
 
 Not long ago our three water-men received a 
 visit from a negro lawyer of Southern California, 
 and this friend told them of recent court decisions 
 in suits between California cities and private water 
 companies. In these decisions he said that flowing 
 water, and water that is easily pumped, is inven- 
 toried at one thousand dollars or more per miner's 
 inch. Our three incorporators at once saw great 
 possibilities of wealth, luxury, display, and power, as 
 their water right consisted of one thousand miner's 
 inches of such water. In California this amount of 
 water would be inventoried at one million dollars at 
 least. Up to this time it had not occurred to these 
 men to demand a greater annual profit than twelve 
 hundred dollars, as this was twelve per cent on that 
 part of the plant built with their own money. Be- 
 fore the lawyer ended the first day of his visit, he 
 and his three friends had estimated a large pro- 
 spective profit in the following manner : —
 
 118 EEDEEM NATIONAL KESOURCES 
 
 Part of plant built with the original funds, $10,000.00 
 
 Part of plant built with surplus from water rates, 300,000.00 
 
 1000 miner's inches of flowing water at $1000 per inch, 1,000,000.00 
 
 $1,310,000.00 
 
 Twelve per cent allowed for profit based on such 
 an inventory amounts to $157,200. 
 
 The lawyer said that inventory prices of flowing 
 water in California have a tendency to rise, and he 
 predicted that two thousand dollars an inch would 
 prevail in ten years. Should this prediction come 
 true, these New Liberia water-men believed that 
 in ten years they would be entitled to an annual 
 profit of over a quarter of a million dollars. Even 
 $157,200 of annual income would mean a colossal 
 fortune for three men in a new country of this 
 character ; yet it meant, in money, but seventy- 
 three cents per month for each of the eighteen thou- 
 sand adults of New Liberia. 
 
 Of course the lawyer told his friends that it 
 would be a difficult matter so to engineer this 
 change in rates that the leaders of the common 
 council, the newspapers, the courts, and even the 
 people, would see things right, and appreciate the 
 injustice that his friends had inflicted on them- 
 selves in the past. The lawyer told the three water- 
 men that they were supposed to have done business 
 under law copied from the original California law,
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 119 
 
 and this being the case, they could assume the 
 privilege of acting under that law as modified by 
 subsequent California court decisions. In any 
 event, the lawyer said that it would do no harm 
 to try the new water rates on the people, and ex- 
 pressed his willingness to undertake the securing of 
 legal sanction for the increased rates as just esti- 
 mated, if the water-men would agree to allow him 
 fifteen thousand dollars a year for his work as long 
 as the increased rate could be made to hold. The 
 lawyer said that he expected to use fifty thousand 
 dollars, conditional on success. This fifty thousand 
 dollars he thought would be ample to enlighten 
 and satisfy all antagonism. He promised to arrange 
 that none of these obligations should become due 
 before the profit out of the new rates which the 
 people would be made to pay was ample for set- 
 tlement in full. His greatest trouble, he believed, 
 would be to obtain advertising space on credit from 
 even the friendly newspapers. He emphasized the 
 fact that he, too, would wait for his annual reward of 
 fifteen thousand dollars until the rates for January 
 were collected. The lawyer said that it certainly 
 could be made to look ridiculous that the water-men 
 should have a profit of only twelve hundred dollars, 
 exclusive of salaries, on a business that distributes 
 nearly thirteen million gallons of water a day.
 
 120 REDEEM NATIONAL RESOURCES 
 
 " I know you water-men receive a salary that is 
 approximately what you would receive if doing any- 
 thing else," the lawyer said, " and a salary at which 
 the public could hire men who would, with a little 
 practice, carry on this business successfully. On 
 the other hand, there is George Frost who has a 
 profit of one hundred thousand dollars a year from 
 his simple invention, and the money volume of his 
 business is not half what your total water rates 
 would be on the new basis. With arguments of this 
 nature I can easily mislead the public, if the ma- 
 jority of your people have not yet learned to dis- 
 tinguish between a monopolistic public utility busi- 
 ness and a private competitive business. I am aware 
 that Mr. Frost has a monopoly for seventeen years 
 in this patented device, but he cannot prevent 
 another from inventing a better one which might 
 take all or part of his business away from him. A 
 monopoly in a public necessity, whether created by 
 law or by an invincible aggregation of capital, is 
 as safe as a real-estate mortgage, and, in compari- 
 son with a private competitive business, it deserves 
 much less profit. Your people, I believe, do not 
 realize this, therefore they may stand the increase 
 in rates. If they will stand the proposed increase, 
 it will be an easy matter to continue the raising 
 of rates in proportion to the further rise in inven-
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 121 
 
 tory values of flowing water in California. When 
 your annual profit has increased to about two hun- 
 dred and forty thousand dollars, I should advise 
 that you capitalize on a six per cent basis, or for 
 four million dollars, and sell at par to your fellow 
 citizens as much of the capital stock as you can. 
 This will make your position more secure." 
 
 All the courts and newspapers in New Liberia, 
 had they tried, could not have convinced the fifty 
 thousand enlightened negroes that the inhabitants 
 of California have any sense of justice, or common 
 sense of any kind, when it comes to calculating water 
 rates. Neither the courts, the newspapers, nor the 
 officials endorsed the proposed increase in rates. 
 After their endeavor to increase the water rates, 
 the three water-men were called unpatriotic, and it 
 will require many years of right effort to reestablish 
 them in the confidence of their fellow citizens. 
 
 The proposed plan of the California lawyer and 
 the three New Liberian water-men directed the at- 
 tention of the people to the possible misinterpreta- 
 tion of the California law that they had adopted. 
 Awake to the possibilities of the injustice to which 
 this law opened the way, they immediately set to 
 work to remedy its defects. When they explained 
 the method of calculation used to arrive at the pro- 
 posed water rate, the four men were so sharply
 
 122 REDEEM NATIONAL RESOURCES 
 
 reprimanded by the public that their attempt ended 
 in a timid argument that rates must be raised to 
 lessen consumption in order that the inadequate sup- 
 ply might hold out until the colony was wealthy 
 enough to bring its water from the next source of 
 supply. 
 
 Their fellow citizens replied : " Raise the rates as 
 high as necessary for this purpose, but turn over to 
 the city, annually, all surplus profits over twelve 
 per cent on your original investment of ten thou- 
 sand dollars. The money you thus turn over we 
 will apply to extend the water plant ; and what is 
 not needed for this extension will be used to reduce 
 the general tax levy. If once they had accumulated 
 sufiicient money, men as selfish as you are might 
 corrupt our press and our officials. An enterprise in 
 what is acknowledged as a public utility must hence- 
 forth be considered the sacred charge of those into 
 whose hands it has fallen. Since you have exposed 
 your characters, we shall relieve you of your busi- 
 ness as soon as we can make a fair and satisfactory 
 law to provide for the compensation to be given. 
 But this compensation will include no price for the 
 water that was in reality only loaned by the govern- 
 ment. Our magnificent school system is the only 
 part of the nation's economy that is operated on a 
 scale so generous as to make retrenchment pes-
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 123 
 
 sible, and if we were to permit you to take the pro- 
 fits that you planned, we should have to curtail the 
 school system, and this would be preposterous." 
 
 The three men might have lived entirely on their 
 salaries, and have used the annual dividends of 
 twelve per cent to acquire additional capital stock 
 of the water company. At the end of twenty years of 
 such procedure, each would have accumulated about 
 thirty-two thousand dollars worth of stock, which 
 would yield for each an annual income of about 
 thirty-eight hundred dollars. Had these three men 
 adopted this plan, the public of New Liberia would 
 have remained satisfied, and would not have decided 
 to acquire the water business. Twenty years of 
 service in the water works would have found these 
 men, at about fifty-five years of age, with an annual 
 income for each of thirty-eight hundred dollars in 
 addition to a fair salary, and with the deepest respect 
 and confidence of their fellow citizens. 
 
 We will now turn from the imaginary country of 
 New Liberia to our own country, and to California. 
 Califomians are all interested in learning by what 
 legal reasoning and by what principle of justice the 
 California courts construe the law so as to permit 
 water companies to estimate a percentage of profit 
 on a valuation placed on the water they were per-
 
 124 REDEEM NATIONAL RESOURCES 
 
 mitted to appropriate. The California law originally 
 did not intend to grant a man the right to appro- 
 priate a public necessity like water, and then to pro- 
 tect him against usurpers in order that he might 
 demand a profit on the water right, much less a pro- 
 fit per gallon on this right, which increases with the 
 demand for water. Without doubt, the purpose of 
 this law was to allow him a certain profit on his de- 
 velopment work, and this profit was fixed at a given 
 percentage of the value of the plant. It seems, how- 
 ever, that the law did not define with absolute clear- 
 ness what should constitute this value. 
 
 The water law of 1885 contains the following: 
 *' Said board of supervisors, in fixing such rates, 
 shall, as near as may be, so adjust them that the net 
 annual receipts and profits thereof to the said per- 
 sons, companies, associations, and corporations so 
 furnishing such water to such inhabitants, shall be 
 not less than six or more than eighteen per centum 
 on the said value of the canals, ditches, flumes, 
 chutes, and aU other property actually used and use- 
 ful to the appropriation and furnishing of such 
 water, etc." The law does not say that a profit of 
 between six and eighteen per cent shall be allowed 
 on any future valuation of the water rights. It is 
 true that the law expressly allows the said 
 profit on " aU other property actually used and
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 125 
 
 useful to the appropriation and furnishing of such 
 water." 
 
 The phrase "all other property actually used 
 and useful to the appropriation and furnishing of 
 such water" was not intended to cover water 
 rights. Should a jobbing house advertise that 
 it has on sale water pipe and all other property 
 actually used and useful to the appropriation and 
 furnishing of water by water companies, no one 
 would expect to buy water or water rights from the 
 house. Should a dealer advertise that he has on sale 
 fish lines and all other materials actually used and 
 useful for catching and selling fish, no one would 
 expect to buy fish from him. For like reasons no 
 one should have assumed that the framers of our 
 water law intended that a profit should be figured 
 on a valuation of the water right, when they said 
 that a profit of six to eighteen per cent may be al- 
 lowed on the " value of the canals, ditches, flumes, 
 chutes, and all other property actually used and use- 
 ful to the appropriation and furnishing of such 
 water." The records of lawsuits show that, up to 
 1890 or even later, it did not occur to water com- 
 panies to ask a percentage of profit on a valuation 
 of appropriated water. This fact is strong circum- 
 stantial evidence that no such profit was originally 
 intended. The fact that the framers of the law spe-
 
 126 REDEEM NATIONAL RESOURCES 
 
 cified canals, ditches, flumes, and chutes, but did 
 not specify the water right, which is the first essen- 
 tial in the business, is adequate evidence in favor 
 of our contention. 
 
 Does not that branch of the press that stands for 
 right have a duty to perform in every case of such 
 positive injustice to the public? This case of injust- 
 ice stands out so plainly, and could be so effectually 
 and easily corrected without wrong to any one, that 
 the duty to work for such correction becomes doubly 
 binding. 
 
 If the interests that now control our water sup- 
 plies are so strong, and if the rights of these interests 
 are so long established that we cannot force any 
 radical change, could not a valid law be framed 
 and enacted for the appraisal of all privately 
 owned water rights? This law should provide that 
 the appraisal be made within a short period after 
 the law goes into effect. Whether the price deter- 
 mined upon in any case is fixed at the rate of one 
 dollar or one thousand dollars per miner's inch at 
 the intake, the law should provide that the ap- 
 praised value may never be raised in proceedings 
 for determining any future water rate ; that it may 
 never be raised in order to aid in increasing the 
 capital stock of the corporation ; that it may never 
 be raised in order to increase the value of the
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 127 
 
 assets of any water company in any condemnation 
 suit brought by the public for the purpose of effect- 
 ing public ownership. 
 
 The foregoing is said with a full appreciation of 
 the fact that lawyers generally would consider law 
 based on the above suggestion as impractical, con- 
 fiscatory, and unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the 
 law that regulates public water rates to the extent 
 that they are regulated is of the same nature, and 
 it was meant to go just as far as the one suggested. 
 Long ago, when the present laws for the regulat- 
 ing of water rates were first discussed, many law- 
 yers argued that these laws were unconstitutional 
 and confiscatory. This argument was made by these 
 lawyers, although no principle in law is much more 
 strongly established than the one which allows leg- 
 islative bodies the right to fix the rates of charges in 
 any business that partakes of a public nature. Our 
 legislature acted well within its powers when it en- 
 acted a law that attempted to regulate our public 
 water rates. The law that was enacted is, however, 
 only partially operative, because the courts have 
 interpreted it so as to allow the rate to be in a 
 measure based on a changeable valuation of the 
 water right, — a right which, under certain re- 
 strictions, was given to the appropriator by the 
 public. It is apparent that as long as the valuation
 
 128 REDEEM NATIONAL RESOURCES 
 
 of the water right per miner's inch can be raised 
 from time to time, any law attempting to fix water 
 rates on a percentage basis of the combined value 
 of the water plants and water rights becomes par- 
 tially inoperative. For the purpose of carrying out 
 at least in part the evident intent of the statutes 
 fixing our water rates, all water rights must soon 
 be given a maximum legal valuation, and this valu- 
 ation should not be excessive. 
 
 In order to show the power of our legislatures to 
 regulate private enterprise when public interest is 
 seriously affected, one need only refer to the historic 
 suit of Munn versus Illinois,^ tried before the Su-' 
 preme Court of the United States in 1876. This 
 suit was brought to restrain the state of Illinois 
 from fixing a maximum rate for the storage of grain 
 in privately owned grain elevators in all cities of over 
 one hundred thousand population. Chicago was at 
 that time the only large city in the state. Although 
 every sentence in the opinion delivered by Chief 
 Justice Waite is most interesting, we will quote 
 only in part : — 
 
 "Enough has already been said to show that, 
 when private property is devoted to a public use, it 
 is subject to public regulation. It remains only to 
 ascertain whether the warehouses of these plaintiffs 
 
 ^ Supreme Court Decisions, book 94, U. S., p. 113.
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 129 
 
 in error, and the business which is carried on there, 
 come within the operation of this principle." 
 
 Next to the air we breathe, water is of the most 
 vital importance to the public, and any private 
 corporation in the business of supplying water to 
 the public has its property " devoted to a public 
 use." If, therefore, it was constitutional to fix the 
 price of storing grain at the rate of two cents per 
 bushel, it must be equally constitutional to prevent 
 the basing of water rates in part on a valuation of 
 a water right that can be increased as the demand 
 for water increases, or for any other cause. In 
 other words, if it is constitutional for the legisla- 
 ture to make a fixed rate for the storing of grain 
 in privately owned warehouses, it must be constitu- 
 tional to make a fixed value for the water rights 
 upon which a water rate is to be based. This looks 
 especially reasonable when it is borne in mind that 
 the water right was granted by the government to 
 the original appropriator free of cost. 
 
 For the sake of information we will again quote 
 from the opinion of Chief Justice Waite : — 
 
 " Neither is it a matter of any moment that no 
 precedent can be found for a statute precisely like 
 this. It is conceded that the business is one of re- 
 cent origin, that its growth has been rapid, and 
 that it is already of great importance. And it must
 
 130 REDEEM NATIONAL RESOURCES 
 
 also be conceded that it is a business in which the 
 whole public has a du-ect and positive interest. It 
 presents, therefore, a case for the application of a 
 long-known and well-established principle in social 
 science, and this statute simply extends the law so 
 as to meet this new development of commercial 
 progress. 
 
 " It matters not in this case that these plaintiffs 
 in error had built their warehouses and established 
 their business before the regulations complained of 
 were adopted. What they did was, from the be- 
 ginning, subject to the power of the body politic 
 to require them to conform to such regiilations as 
 might be established by the proper authorities for 
 the common good. They entered upon their busi- 
 ness and provided themselves with the means to 
 carry it on subject to this condition. 
 
 " We kuow that this is a power which may be 
 abused ; but that is no argument against its existence. 
 For protection against abuses by Legislatures the 
 people must resort to the polls, not to the courts." 
 
 A great many subsequent Supreme Court decis- 
 ions confirm the principles laid down in the case 
 quoted. These citations from the opinion of Chief 
 Justice W^aite could be made the basis of a law 
 which would seem both reasonable and constitu- 
 tional, if it provided as follows : —
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 131 
 
 1. Water rights not yet legally appropriated 
 shall be given no money value in future proceedings 
 conducted to determine public water rates, nor in 
 future calcidations conducted to determine the price 
 to be paid by the public for acquiring a water plant 
 using any such water supply. 
 
 2. Any owner of a water right, if he believes it 
 to be of money value at the present time, may 
 make affidavit setting forth his claims. These affi- 
 davits must set forth all the evidence in support of 
 the value claimed. All affidavits must be filed with 
 a " Water Court " within one year after the date on 
 which the law goes into effect. 
 
 3. For the purpose of establishing an " appraised 
 value," the proper public officer shall, without de- 
 lay, bring suit against every person filing such affi- 
 davit in any Water Court. Each such suit for "ap- 
 praised value " shall be separately conducted on its 
 merits. With special restrictions, these price-fixing 
 suits shall be tried in a manner similar to that fol- 
 lowed in suits for the condemnation of private pro- 
 perty for public use. 
 
 4. Any price so fixed by the Water Court for 
 such water right shall be forever the maximum fig- 
 ure on which a profit may be calculated in deter- 
 mining public water rates ; this price also shall be 
 forever the maximum that the public shall be re-
 
 132 REDEEM NATIONAL RESOURCES 
 
 quired to pay for the water in case of condemnation 
 by suit to acquire the water plant using such water. 
 6. All water rights at present appropriated, as to 
 the value of which no affidavit has been filed within 
 the legal limit of one year, shall be considered as 
 having no money value in the proceedings de- 
 scribed in the first clause hereof. 
 
 6. This " appraised value " of water rights shall 
 be subject to reduction for cause, through proceed- 
 ings properly brought ; but it shall not be subject 
 to such reduction oftener than once in ten years, 
 unless it be reduced for reasons of equity in a con- 
 demnation suit brought at any time by the public 
 for the acquiring of the water plant which is using 
 the water. 
 
 7. Any community using water supplied by a 
 private water company may, by means of the usual 
 proceedings, annually determine the rate to be 
 paid for water. This rate shall be calculated to 
 yield a profit of not over five per cent on the ap- 
 praised value of such part of the water right as is 
 actually used, and a net profit of a percentage to 
 be determined on the value of the development 
 work; and in addition a net profit of a percentage 
 to be determined on the original cost of the real 
 estate investments necessary for the protection of 
 the water right.
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 133 
 
 8. This clause might show in detail how the net 
 value of the development work shall be ascertained, 
 and how to determine which real estate shall be 
 considered necessary for the protection of the water 
 right. 
 
 9. This clause might give the public the power 
 to raise the water rate when, in its opinion, such 
 action shall be necessary in order to curtail the 
 consumption of water. The extra profit due to such 
 increase in rates shall be turned over to the public 
 treasury for various purposes, first among which 
 shall be that of perfecting and enlarging the water 
 system whenever necessary. The part of the sys- 
 tem built with this extra profit shall belong to the 
 public. 
 
 10. Nothing herein contained shall be taken or 
 construed as applying to privately owned water 
 rights, the water of which is used only on the lands 
 of the owners of the water. 
 
 It may be considered too radical a principle of 
 law that permits the permanent fixing of a price of 
 an asset belonging to a privately owned public busi- 
 ness, but in cases where that asset was given to the 
 appropriator by the state without special compensa- 
 tion, and where the principle is applied to a ne- 
 cessity so indispensable as water, this principle of 
 law can only be considered a next legal step in eco-
 
 134 KEDEEM NATIONAL RESOURCES 
 
 noinic progress. It is possible that conditions are 
 not yet ripe for the application of this principle to 
 all privately owned businesses of a public nature, 
 but the water business is so well understood by the 
 public, and the need of pure water is so well known, 
 that the public can be better trusted with this 
 branch of the public economy than can private 
 water companies. 
 
 The above arguments for a law to fix maximum 
 prices for water rights for the purposes stated are 
 equally applicable to a similar law in regard to 
 the numerous water-power rights that are being so 
 eagerly grasped by private individuals. The present 
 laws relating to these latter rights were perhaps 
 reasonable enough when they were made, but under 
 present conditions they are a menace to the public 
 good. These laws were enacted when the present 
 electrical appliances for utilizing this water power 
 were as yet in their incipiency, and when, in com- 
 parison with present methods, it was a Herculean 
 task to bring the water power from the falls in the 
 mountains to the city situated many miles distant. 
 At that time relatively few of the water-power 
 rights were appropriated. As great profit-making 
 enterprises, they were less attractive than at pre- 
 sent. However, by reason of the unprecedented de- 
 velopment along the lines of electrical machinery.
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 135 
 
 the values of these rights, from the standpoint of 
 unregulated private ownership, have increased prob- 
 ably more than a hundred fold. Private citizens 
 whose vocations have taught them to appreciate 
 the new and increased value of these water-power 
 rights are appropriating them with feverish haste, 
 and this appropriation is effected in ways which do 
 not always conform to the evident intent of exist- 
 ing laws. These citizens well realize that the laws 
 relating to water-power rights may soon be made 
 more exacting, and their desire is to outstrip the 
 lawmakers by hastily appropriating all such rights 
 as are stiU left unclaimed. 
 
 In the course of twenty years the interests own- 
 ing the various power rights will inevitably be 
 merged with the railway interests. By that time, if 
 legislation favors, the California water-power rights 
 alone can easily be made to yield an annual profit 
 of many millions of dollars. Such large annual 
 profits would be a heavy burden on the five millions 
 of people who may inhabit the state twenty years 
 hence. However, the greatest loss to the public 
 will not be the payment of these millions of dollars 
 in annual profits ; it will be the official corruption 
 due to the misuse of a part of these millions in the 
 legislative departments of our government. Con- 
 temporary history teaches that the combined finan-
 
 136 REDEEM NATIONAL RESOURCES 
 
 cial forces of the water-power and railway inter- 
 ests wUl be controlled largely by men consciously 
 or unconsciously lacking in public morals. Public 
 morals, generally speaking, will advance greatly 
 in twenty years, and corruptors will find operation 
 ever more hazardous. Nevertheless, if we carelessly 
 and recklessly continue to place great public prop- 
 erties in the hands of men who have little inter- 
 est in the public welfare, we must expect to see 
 the present steady advance in public morals most 
 seriously checked by this increased power to cor- 
 rupt our civic life. When we offer great public re- 
 sources to enterprising individuals without proper 
 restrictions to prevent abnormal profit, we attract 
 a large percentage of men too grasping to be 
 interested in a profit that is merely fair. This 
 grasping class of men adopt business methods that 
 either force out of the business those who have 
 public morals, or force these other men to adopt 
 similar methods in order to preserve their interests. 
 The public, of course, pays all the loss. 
 
 No good reason appears why aU remaining na- 
 tional resources of forests, coal, oil, and metals 
 shoidd not immediately be set aside as public prop- 
 erty, and leased out for varying terms, or possibly 
 operated as suggested in the foregoing by means of 
 public works schools. In order to redeem public
 
 HELP THE SCHOOLS 137 
 
 resources, we are in great need of a law similar to 
 the one herein suggested, and we must soon have 
 political conditions which will enable the public to 
 pass such laws. The public is accustomed to seeing 
 the considerable profit made on national resources 
 pass to private interests. After the redemption of 
 any such resource, no one would suffer if a share 
 of the profit saved by reason of public ownership 
 were turned over for school purposes, especially if 
 the school should cooperate in making successful 
 the public management of the resource.
 
 A STUDY IN KINSHIP : CHURCH 
 AND SCHOOL^ 
 
 Let us suppose that thirty years ago a ship was 
 wrecked near an unknown island, and that among 
 the passengers there were twenty children varying 
 from three to nine months of age. The ship struck 
 an outlying rock, and the captain saw that the ves- 
 sel was so badly damaged that it must be aban- 
 doned. A terrific storm drove them far out of any 
 established course, and during the storm all the 
 life-boats were swept away. A raft was hastily 
 constructed, and all the children were secured to 
 this and sent to shore with a sailor and his 
 wife. Mother love, facing necessity, induced the 
 mothers to part with their children in this way. 
 The sea was unusually calm, and no fears arose in 
 regard to the safety of the children. The intention 
 was to draw back the raft by means of an attached 
 
 ^ For a century or more, the main thought expressed in " A 
 Study in Kinship " has been generally accepted as true. Never- 
 theless, until each individual church takes a keen interest in both 
 the elementary and the secondary education of each of its young 
 people, there is reason for repeating the thought in one form or 
 another.
 
 CHURCH AND SCHOOL 139 
 
 rope, and, meantime, to construct other rafts. But 
 before the first raft landed, the boiler of the ship 
 exploded, and the ship, released from the rock, 
 quickly sank. All on board were either kiUed or 
 drowned. The one sailor whose life was saved 
 wrote these particulars of the shipwreck in a note- 
 book which was found thirty years later. 
 
 This old notebook records that the sailor and his 
 wife landed safely and found on the island a par- 
 ticularly large, intelligent, and docile species of 
 monkey not yet known to the outside world. Ac- 
 cording to the notes, the sailor's wife won the con- 
 fidence of these animals, and soon induced the 
 mothers among the monkeys to adopt, nurse, and 
 protect the babies. The monkeys were very imi- 
 tative, and were quickly taught the essentials neces- 
 sary for the welfare of the children. The notebook 
 said that the children throve from the start ; it also 
 said that the sailor and his wife, as the result of 
 an accident, hardly expected to live. This, the 
 last entry, was written six months after the ship- 
 wreck. As the notebook told no more, the lives of 
 the two guardians must have ended as the sailor 
 feared. At this time the older children were but 
 little over a year old. 
 
 Now let us suppose that thirty years later ex- 
 plorers who landed on the island found the twenty
 
 140 A STUDY IN KINSHIP 
 
 stranded children and their offspring in good health, 
 but living and acting much like the wild animals 
 that shared the island with them. The few words 
 that the older children had learned from the sailor 
 and his wife had been forgotten. Under such cir- 
 cimistances, a simple gibberish similar to that used 
 by the monkeys was as near to language as any- 
 thing that could be developed in thirty years. By 
 means of this gibberish they could express pain, 
 fear, indifference, irritability, anger, jealousy, hatred, 
 and other like states of mind, as well as the oppo- 
 site states. 
 
 If left to themselves, how many thousand years 
 would it take these isolated men and women to 
 reach a stage of civiHzation equal to that of old 
 Rome ? And to these thousands of years must be 
 added at least two thousand more before they 
 could reach our present stage of civilization. 
 
 Our forefathers, at the time of earliest recorded 
 history, were subject to a superstitious fear of 
 storms and other unusual phenomena. Each of 
 these phenomena was probably connected in their 
 minds with some imaginary supernatural personal- 
 ity, and this fear was the nearest approach to re- 
 ligion then extant. The thought-processes of our 
 islanders coidd hardly be called cerebration ; indeed, 
 in comparison with their mental activity, tlie super-
 
 CHURCH AND SCHOOL 141 
 
 stitious fear ascribed to our forefathers in the first 
 dawn of history was a brilliant mental state. 
 
 If the explorers should bring the twenty islanders 
 and their children to New York, the churches and 
 philanthropic societies would at once cooperate to 
 educate them. As a result of this effort, the chil- 
 dren of these islanders would in twenty years be 
 as enlightened as is the average university grad- 
 uate. Thus we see that, by taking advantage of 
 intercourse with educated people and of the pre- 
 sent school organization with its accumulation of 
 knowledge and wisdom, we accomplish, by way of 
 enlightenment, as much in twenty years as would 
 require thousands of years on the isolated island. 
 
 Let us again suppose that we were entrusted 
 with the finding of homes for twenty orphaned 
 children from three to nine months old, and that 
 these children were in every way equal to the in- 
 fants whom we described as shipwrecked. Suppose 
 that these children were given to twenty of the 
 most illiterate and poorest homes of the slum dis- 
 tricts of some great city, — districts where primary 
 education was very laxly enforced, and where the 
 children, when only nine or ten years of age, were 
 set at work that stunts their growth. AUow the 
 children to develop under these conditions, without 
 enlightened aid, until they are twenty-five years of
 
 142 A STUDY IN KINSHIP 
 
 age, and what would be the result? Some would 
 not even learn to read ; only a few would learn 
 more than the rudiments of reading. Their spoken 
 language could be no other than that used by ignor- 
 ant and oftentimes vicious people, — vicious, how- 
 ever, only by force of circumstances. The vocabu- 
 lary used by any person developed under such 
 conditions would of necessity be extremely limited. 
 In some cases so much slum vernacular would enter 
 his speech as to make it difficult for the average 
 person to grasp his meaning. 
 
 We learn and reason largely by means of lan- 
 guage. We have seen that without language and 
 without association with enlightened minds, we can 
 acquire but little knowledge beyond that which is 
 common to lower animals. With a very limited 
 vocabulary, and with association confined to those 
 who are no better enlightened, there can be little 
 opportunity of rising above the semi-barbarian in 
 intelligence. Some barbarians, without doubt, have 
 better opportunities to develop moral and ethical 
 intelligence than have many of our fellow-citizens 
 who live in the close confines of some of the least 
 favorable sections of large cities. For such men to 
 have any clearly-defined religious thought is impos- 
 sible ; they have neither the opportunity nor the 
 ability to learn from books or from enlightened
 
 CHURCH AND SCHOOL 143 
 
 discourse. Where primary-school laws are not en- 
 forced, hardly one of the twenty children just men- 
 tioned, by the time of reaching maturity, would 
 have extricated himself from his undesirable en- 
 vironment and become a good and valuable citizen. 
 If one did so extricate himself, this release might 
 be due to his having inherited better personal ap- 
 pearance, better health, or somewhat stronger men- 
 tal power. Some accidental incident may have led 
 him into surroundings which afforded better oppor- 
 timities, and these better opportunities may have 
 presented themselves in such form and in such 
 order that he could readily take advantage of 
 them. 
 
 Is it not directly in line with the purpose of the 
 churches to see that school laws are adequate, and 
 to see that they are enforced until they extend to 
 the last child of school age that is out of school ? 
 Some children are too poor to go to school. Is it 
 not the part of wisdom of the churches to provide 
 the means for elementary school attendance of all 
 children not otherwise provided for ? Will not this 
 be the duty of the churches until all states have 
 laws to provide the means for the school attendance 
 of the comparatively few children whose parents 
 cannot so provide? It should not, however, be 
 simply a matter of sending these children to school
 
 144 A STUDY IN KINSHIP 
 
 for a few months each year ; the same supervising 
 care should see that they, as well as all other chil- 
 dren, attend full time. The church cannot do every- 
 thing, but if it has any duty to itself and to the 
 public beyond that of preaching to people as it finds 
 them, it is to look carefully after the elementary 
 school training of children. This training will al- 
 ways be the best part of the foundation on which 
 church work is built. 
 
 Some men believe that assistance of every kind 
 pauperizes character. These men say, " The one of 
 the twenty slum inhabitants who advanced beyond 
 the nineteen was the only one fit to advance." They 
 also say, " Nature's law, the survival of the fittest, 
 should have unobstructed sway ; the nineteen were 
 inferior, and should be left at the bottom until 
 nature disposes of them by elimination, for other- 
 wise society will not grow permanently better." 
 
 Perhaps some of these men were themselves sent 
 to the elementary school merely because the law or 
 the custom demanded that they should go. Surely 
 what they learned in school and out of school was 
 principally knowledge that was bequeathed by past 
 generations. Why do not these men argue that each 
 succeeding generation should start at the beginning 
 and rediscover existing knowledge and redevelop 
 a school system, — all in order that character be
 
 CHURCH AND SCHOOL 145 
 
 not pauperized ? If all of the twenty children in 
 the supposed instance were compelled to attend the 
 primary school, and were given wise opportunity 
 for further improvement, it could hardly be said 
 that only one would make a good and valuable citi- 
 zen ; it is more likely that four, six, ten, twelve, or 
 even more would do equally as well. 
 
 At the present time but few object to free pub- 
 lic elementary schools, and but few more object to 
 giving state aid to poor elementary-school pupils. 
 Not many thoughtful people now object to com- 
 pulsory elementary-school attendance. Five or six 
 decades ago there were many who objected seriously 
 to all of these things. On the other hand, many peo- 
 ple are at present objecting to the public high 
 school; they do not understand the great future 
 necessity for this institution, or its possibilities. 
 The democracy of the past was based on our elemen- 
 tary-school system. The advanced democracy that 
 the early future promises must be based on an im- 
 proved and enlarged high-school system. But en- 
 larged high-school capacity will do no good unless 
 increased attendance follows. High-school attend- 
 ance is relatively expensive, and many parents can- 
 not furnish the means to support a family of chil- 
 dren through a high-school course. Nevertheless, 
 the majority of young people must soon take this
 
 146 A STUDY IN KINSHIP 
 
 course. Here also is a large and difficult problem, 
 and one which the churches can help to solve. 
 
 Would the one child previously mentioned as 
 succeeding on his own initiative beyond the nineteen 
 be discouraged, if the education of the nineteen 
 and of himself were fostered as just suggested? If 
 his advancement beyond the nineteen was due not 
 to accident, but to superior ability, would he not 
 still possess that superior ability, and would he not 
 on this account continue in advance of the nineteen ? 
 Would not the nineteen make a new and higher 
 standard for the abler one to surpass ? If the nine- 
 teen, through better opportunity, raise themselves, 
 the superior one, by reason of the same bettered 
 opportunity, could surely maintain a part of his 
 former measure of superiority. The law relating to 
 the survival of the fittest would not be antagonized. 
 On the contrary, the requirements for unusual success 
 would be made more exacting, and Nature's elimina- 
 tion of any truly undesirable elements would still go 
 on. Such a result should satisfy those who fear that 
 aid in the form of opportunity pauperizes character. 
 
 The progressive element of our people might well 
 advocate aid in addition to that which obliges the 
 parent to send his child through a full elementary- 
 school course, and in addition to that which, when 
 strictly necessary, obliges the public to pay part or
 
 CHURCH AND SCHOOL 147 
 
 all of the personal expenses incident to a child's 
 attending the elementary school. To supply to any 
 properly recommended young man of sixteen an op- 
 portunity to work at fair wages for the purpose of 
 earning his way through a secondary school would 
 be aid of the greatest value. Is it not time for the 
 public and for the church to make a business of 
 thus providing work ? To be sure, such a plan for 
 public aid would deprive the self-supporting stu- 
 dents of the experience to be gained from finding 
 suitable work for themselves, but the experience so 
 lost would soon be gained while seeking employ- 
 ment after graduating from the high school. 
 
 Now suppose we have a third group of twenty 
 children of the same ages, and in every way equal 
 to those described as having been placed in pov- 
 erty-stricken houses of slum districts. Suppose that 
 this third group is given to twenty families who 
 live in a better part of the city, a part where it is 
 customary to send children to school until they have 
 completed the eighth grade, and where they are ex- 
 pected to go to work upon leaving that grade. Let 
 us assume that all of the twenty will creditably pass 
 the eighth grade, and will then enter some field of 
 industry. Judging from past experience, hardly one 
 out of a dozen who leave school at the close of the 
 eighth grade will afterwards augment his store of
 
 148 A STUDY IN KINSHIP 
 
 knowledge in any systematic way. At the close of 
 the eighth grade the reasoning power is usually not 
 developed to such a point that it is foUowed by a 
 spontaneous growth which enables the individual 
 to cope with religious, social, and political ques- 
 tions. At this period the storing of fimdamental 
 secondary knowledge has just begun, and a fund 
 of this knowledge is an invaluable aid in the solu- 
 tion of such questions. Nevertheless, the majority of 
 this group of twenty would make what we at present 
 call good and valuable citizens ; some of them, in 
 fact, would be among the best. But a store of sec- 
 ondary knowledge, however acquired, is quite as 
 essential for what we call manhood-thought as a 
 knowledge of the alphabetical sounds is for child- 
 hood reading. Without manhood-thought there can 
 be no intellectual happiness and no satisfying re- 
 ligion. Then why not, regardless of any reasonable 
 sacrifice, provide means for our youth to acquire the 
 essentials of a secondary education? 
 
 At the prime of life the average man whose school 
 experience ended with the eighth grade, and whose 
 part of the world's work is manual, does his think- 
 ing and expresses his thought with a vocabulary 
 of about twenty thousand * words fairly well used. 
 
 ^ The Popular Science Monthly, vol. Ixx, p. 378, gives this esti- 
 mate of the number of words used by men with only a coramon- 
 Bchool education, but who are readers of books and periodicals.
 
 CHURCH AND SCHOOL 149 
 
 In the field of thought, and in other ways, this man 
 has a great advantage over the previously described 
 man who was virtually without school opportuni- 
 ties and who developed in the poorest section of the 
 city. 
 
 Now let us suppose a fourth group of twenty 
 children in every way equal to those we have con- 
 sidered. Place these children where they will grow 
 to manhood in a part of the city that would insure 
 healthful physical and moral surroundings, and 
 where they would be sent to school through the 
 tweKth grade. Suppose the high school that these 
 children attend is one of the more efficient ones, — 
 a school in which the special abilities of the students 
 are likely to be discovered, and in which an earnest 
 desire to accomplish something of value within the 
 range of these abilities develops into an impelling 
 pleasure. By the time he approaches middle life, 
 the average earnest high-school graduate reasons 
 and expresses his thought with a vocabulary of about 
 thirty-five thousand * words correctly used. 
 
 In the field of thought, the successful high-school 
 graduate has an advantage over the eighth-grade 
 graduate similar to that which a carpenter with a 
 systematic training and a fair equipment of tools 
 has over a carpenter without systematic training 
 1 The Popular Science Monthly, vol. Ixx, p. 378.
 
 150 A STUDY IN KINSHIP 
 
 and with a relatively poor supply of tools. In other 
 words, the man who uses thirty-five thousand words 
 correctly may expect to learn much more from 
 daily practice and vStudy, and he may reasonably 
 expect his life to be relatively more effective and 
 happy and more nearly in harmony with the world 
 than if his school career had been checked so that 
 his vocabulary was limited to twenty thousand 
 words. The numbers twenty thousand and thir- 
 ty-five thousand do not represent the true pro- 
 portionate difference in the intelligence of an 
 average man from each of the two classes. As a 
 rule, the man having the larger vocabulary uses 
 his words more accurately. This greater accuracy 
 makes the larger vocabulary comparatively of much 
 greater value than its numerical size would indi- 
 cate. When we consider that every word is a tool of 
 thought, it becomes easy to appreciate how it may 
 be an immeasurable advantage to have the larger 
 vocabulary, and to have a better understanding of 
 the words comprising it. This advantage is of both 
 economic and social value. 
 
 We do not mean to imply that a high-school 
 graduate always develops into a man who is su- 
 perior to the eighth-grade graduate. This would be 
 far from the truth. In making comparisons we 
 must not take into account the high-school gradu-
 
 CHURCH AND SCHOOL 151 
 
 ate who had no mauly purpose in going to school. 
 A considerable percentage of our high-school stu- 
 dents are sons of rich and well-to-do parents, and 
 these young people do not feel the spur of immedi- 
 ate necessity to drive them into making good use 
 of their school days. Such of these boys who lack 
 the common sense to desire a good secondary edu- 
 cation often shamefully misuse their own time and 
 that of the school. It is not infrequently the case 
 that rich and well-to-do parents have children who, 
 by reason of false training or almost the total lack 
 of training, have lost their ability to get from a sec- 
 ondary education the good that it possesses. This 
 does not alter the fact that the average boy who has, 
 with earnestness, obtained a secondary-school edu- 
 cation, in nearly every case has made himself super- 
 ior to what he would have been had he left school 
 at the close of the eighth grade. 
 
 Suppose that the entire twenty boys referred to, 
 after leaving high school, become so situated in act- 
 ive life that the majority of those with whom they 
 come in contact are equally enlightened, or even 
 more enlightened. It must be evident that the 
 opportunity of such men to enjoy life and to develop 
 character would, as a rule, be far greater than that 
 of the previously described groups of twenty who 
 receive no secondary-school education, and who
 
 162 A STUDY IN KINSHIP 
 
 live and develop within a society in which the aver- 
 age individual has accumulated noticeably less 
 knowledge and has developed proportionally less 
 reasoning power. 
 
 As suggested before, and as is quite seK-evident, 
 a thorough high-school education is necessary before 
 self-instruction becomes easily possible and in a 
 measure spontaneous. The number of earnest high- 
 school graduates who have in after life firmly fixed 
 the habit of a quiet study hour each evening is 
 smaller than it should be, yet it is proportionally 
 far greater than that of a corresponding number of 
 those without high-school training. In the course 
 of fifteen or twenty years a man who spends from 
 five to ten hours weekly in the systematic study of 
 wisely selected topics will be on a higher plane 
 than he would have been had his time not been 
 well directed. With a companion or companions in 
 the study hours, this method yields the highest 
 pleasure of which the mind is capable, and, in the 
 course of years, the accumulated result outweighs 
 all that material wealth could buy, — here is shown 
 the greatest advantage that may accrue to the 
 earnest high-school graduate. His quiet study hours 
 make possible satisfying spiritual development. 
 
 No doubt there are many ways for the church, 
 through a department of education, to interest it-
 
 CHURCH AND SCHOOL 153 
 
 self in the spread of secular knowledge without in 
 any way becoming entangled with the system of 
 public education. The church, as such, it need 
 hardly be said, can have no moral right to intrude 
 on the public school until every member of the com- 
 munity concerned is voluntarily affiliated with the 
 church. But it is surely the duty of every church 
 to see that none of its children are lacking in 
 thorough elementary schooling. And, furthermore, 
 it is surely the duty of the church to see that its 
 members are ever willing to pay their taxes for ad- 
 ditional elementary schools and for continually im- 
 proving the equipment of these schools. The church 
 should be second to no institution in calling for 
 necessary schools, both elementary and secondary. 
 It should advocate the keeping of high-school facili- 
 ties ahead of the demand. No doubt the rate of 
 increase in high-school taxes would be hastened by 
 this course, but in order to promote attendance at 
 high school and at the same time keep taxes for 
 these schools as low as practicable, a number of pro- 
 visions may be made to enable young men and yoimg 
 women of sixteen years and over to earn wages for 
 self-support and tuition during a part of each day 
 and to attend school the remainder of the day. * 
 
 ^ See articles on " Public Works High Schools " and "Manufac- 
 turing Works High Schools."
 
 154 A STUDY IN KINSHIP 
 
 The church that permits one of its children of 
 sound mind to reach sixteen years of age without 
 having received a most thorough elementary educa- 
 tion commits a well-nigh irremediable wrong. Every 
 church has among its members eighth-grade gradu- 
 ates who have ample mental capacity to acquire a 
 thorough secondary education. The church that 
 makes no serious effort to see that each such qual- 
 ified graduate obtains a valuable secondary educa- 
 tion also commits a wrong. This wrong, although 
 less extreme than that described in the former case, 
 is nevertheless unpardonable. 
 
 Some churches are located in outlying districts 
 where no public high school exists, or where the high- 
 school capacity is too limited to accommodate all 
 who desire admission. An aggressive, determined 
 church should not consider such a condition an un- 
 surmountable obstacle. The desired result could be 
 accomplished, at least in a small measure, by evening 
 schools, evening and Sunday study, and social circles, 
 all conducted within the church. Earnest high-school 
 graduates, or other persons interested in education, 
 could act as volunteer teachers and leaders for these 
 evening schools and circles until such time as the 
 church had succeeded in inducing the public to 
 provide adequate secondary-school facilities to ac- 
 commodate all young people who wished to attend.
 
 CHURCH AND SCHOOL 155 
 
 The churcli can further secondary education by 
 other means also, and the aggressive church can 
 find the means. 
 
 Why is that which we call nature tangible or 
 sensible to us? Why have we a desire for know- 
 ledge and a mind with which to learn, unless it is 
 necessary for our development to learn ? If it were 
 bad for us to learn, nature would revolt at our 
 effort. Education is slowly revealing nature, and 
 nature is the tangible, sensible evidence of God. 
 Through this evidence we can more satisfactorily 
 contemplate Him. Lack of a generally distributed 
 education is responsible for the failure of the 
 church to conform its ceremonial details and its 
 deeper religious thought to the revealed knowledge 
 of God's law, a knowledge which would, if under- 
 stood and applied, give man a harmonious life. 
 The church early strayed from the path of its 
 deeper usefulness ; but of late, where education has 
 had its influence, the church is beginning to right 
 the wrongs which it has committed, perhaps un- 
 consciously, in being the conservator of a class, 
 rather than the teacher of humanity. 
 
 If the essence of this article is not wholly wrong, 
 is it not the duty of every fairly enlightened church 
 to organize an educational department which shall 
 stimulate an interest in school education ?
 
 156 A STUDY IN KINSHIP 
 
 A few eastern churches, we are told, take an 
 adequate interest in elementary and secondary- 
 school education. Why do not all churches take a 
 like interest? Is this neglect due in part to the fact 
 that it requires hard work, some money, and a 
 spirit of democracy to aid in providing for the laun- 
 dress's or gardener's child an education equal to that 
 provided for the child of the wealthier member? Is 
 the neglect due to the undemocratic fear that it will 
 become still more difficult and expensive to hire 
 common work done, or to the selfish fear that, 
 when education becomes general, the rich and well- 
 to-do may be obliged to do more nearly their share 
 of the common work ? Surely not.
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE ' 
 
 " Presume not God to scan ; 
 The proper study of mankind is man." 
 
 Stated in the simplest form, the purpose of the 
 orthodox church is to teach us how to please God 
 and to give us a desire to please Him. The high- 
 est thought of this church is open to conviction, 
 glad to receive suggestions, and ready to make 
 these suggestions, if practicable, a part of the 
 church work. In describing a Sunday League of 
 which the main purpose is the study of man, the 
 author offers what seems to him a working prin- 
 ciple, which, if generally applied, would reach many 
 of the unchurched two-thirds, and many of the 
 churched one-third who do not find themselves fully 
 in accord with the present system of church work. 
 One purpose of the Sunday League is to make 
 every individual strong, self-possessed, happy, and 
 of noble character ; another purpose is to create in 
 every mind an especial desire to help uplift the 
 
 ^ Although the " Sunday League " as described on the following 
 pages is imaginary, nearly every point given is in actual operation 
 in one or more communities, and almost every incident cited in the 
 narrative has occurred practically as related.
 
 158 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 next generation ; a further purpose is to seek and 
 disseminate that knowledge which best shows how 
 to accomplish these results. The object of this 
 League, definitely stated, is kept before its mem- 
 bers. The first care of the League is to fix its pur- 
 pose, concisely and specifically stated, in the minds 
 of its children members, so that in the future no man 
 can pass the threshold of the League without hav- 
 ing this purpose flash clearly before his mind. Any 
 noble aim, expressed in few words and in tangible 
 form, will in time have a good influence over the 
 hardest and dullest minds. To accomplish the pur- 
 pose of the Sunday League may seem like asking 
 much of any association, but as the Sunday study 
 course extends from the age of five years to that of 
 forty-five years, it will be seen that what is planned 
 can be accomplished without any sense of haste. 
 After finishing the study course, the members 
 attend sermons where more particular attention is 
 paid to religious teachings. These sermons, of 
 course, may be attended at any age. It is the pur- 
 pose of the League to use the entire Sunday for 
 seeking knowledge and recreation in the most ad- 
 vantageous manner. 
 
 While listening to lectures, talking with mem- 
 bers, and doing some reasoning of our own, we 
 have learned some things that may be of interest to
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 159 
 
 the average man. We shall not try to give all we 
 learned about the League nor all the arguments in 
 its favor ; we shall simply recall enough of the items 
 recorded in our memory to give a fair idea of its 
 work. 
 
 Naturally, first among these items would be those 
 concerning the League's concept of God. Our first 
 visit to the League was early one morning last 
 summer. On our way we overtook a member, and 
 during our walk together, we inquired concerning 
 the concept of God as held by the League. Some 
 of the principal points of his reply were as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " The League originates no definition of God. 
 Most of the members believe God to be a power of 
 such intelligence as was necessary to create the 
 universe. Some of them believe God to be the uni- 
 verse. Others believe that the spiritual in us is a 
 part of God and one with Him ; aud still others 
 believe that ours is a subordinate spirituality, and 
 that the God-intelligence is of a different and 
 higher order. The belief of some of the members 
 is that God, although He gave us the ability to 
 sympathize, is an abstract power without sympathy. 
 A few members of the League believe that a God- 
 Power started the universe on an orderly world- 
 cycle, and that not later than the time when man
 
 160 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 developed, this Power returned to a dormant state, 
 or to some other state of inaction, and left matter 
 and force to work out their inevitable destiny, pos- 
 sibly with no other result than a return to the orig- 
 inal undeveloped state of existence when this world- 
 cycle began. The unity of the League is not 
 founded on a unity of opinion regarding God. The 
 question of the form, the name, or even of the na- 
 ture of God does not enter the League, except as 
 those advanced in the course may discuss it as a 
 purely speculative problem," 
 
 In answer to an inquiry as to the characteristics 
 of those having atheistic beliefs, our companion re- 
 plied : " Strange to say, these atheists are as kind 
 and appear as happy as the other members. They 
 feel a strong responsibility for the welfare of others, 
 — a responsibility which seems to come from the 
 belief or the fear that there may be no God to watch 
 over the individual. They have a strong desire for 
 the friendship of others, and live principally for 
 the faith that others have in them. Since they be- 
 lieve that death is the end to all existence, they en- 
 deavor, through the pleasures of friendship, to make 
 the best of their short term of life, and they ear- 
 nestly desire to see all develop the wisdom that will 
 guide them to do likewise. These men, like others, 
 cling to the idea of a futm-e life, but they do this
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 161 
 
 by regarding their own lives as continued in a 
 somewhat modified form in the lives of the next 
 generation. Granted a good education that has 
 given a fair insight into the innumerable wonders 
 of nature, and that has included a broad study of 
 man, the atheist's contemplation of the lives of his 
 fellow men, — lives which he believes will sooner or 
 later pass into non-existence, — arouses a strong 
 sympathy for others, a sympathy not dependent on 
 personal traits and beliefs. To me this sympathy 
 seems as fine as that exhibited by the truly religious 
 man. The inexperienced atheistic mind sometimes 
 shows a tendency toward rank selfishness; but as 
 education advances, time modifies this selfishness, 
 and its folly appears. Frequently, too, the atheistic 
 view weakens with the deeper insight into nature's 
 laws. 
 
 " There are also a few in the League who might 
 be called ' specieists.' They believe that God does 
 not watch over each individual separately, but that 
 He created the human family and made a combina- 
 tion of physical and psychical laws for its growth. 
 ' Specieists ' believe that God concerns Himself not 
 with the advance of the individual, but only with 
 the advance of the race. Some of these men at first 
 feel out of harmony with the remainder of the world, 
 as does the foolishly selfish atheist just referred to ;
 
 162 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 but, as with the latter, a reasonable study of the 
 wonders of nature modifies this early unbrotherly 
 feeling." 
 
 We asked if atheists were not more inclined to 
 be fatalists than the other members of the League, 
 and were told that fatalism was not noticeable among 
 them. As we approached the League grounds, our 
 companion directed us to one of the lecture rooms 
 in which an address was to be delivered that morn- 
 ing on the subject of free will. After a walk of about 
 a mile over a country road shaded by trees, we had 
 now reached the League entrance. Here we sepa- 
 rated, but before doing so, our companion informed 
 us that he was at the head of the Personal Appear- 
 ance Department, and invited us to call at his home 
 some evening to learn about his work. As several 
 of his remarks in regard to the department under 
 his supervision had excited our curiosity, we readily 
 promised ourselves the pleasure of accepting his 
 invitation. 
 
 Hundreds of members of all ages were arriving 
 at the League, and we went in with the others. On 
 entering, our first desire was to walk through the 
 grounds, and to this desire we yielded. The place is 
 delightful, as an artist-architect has so planned the 
 buildings that they harmonize with the natural sur- 
 roundings. The grounds, which are about three-
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 163 
 
 fourths of a mile square, are covered with a nat- 
 ural forest known as the League Park. A small 
 river flows through the grounds, and this has been 
 dammed to form a lake. The buildings, which are 
 inexpensive, yet attractive, are scattered over a par- 
 tially cleared space of about half a mile square in 
 the centre of the Park. 
 
 After a hasty inspection of the League grounds, 
 we decided to hear the lecture on Free Will, and we 
 recall the following thoughts from this lecture : — 
 
 " Some believe that all our actions are foreor- 
 dained, and, figuratively speaking, plainly written 
 in the great book of the future. To others it seems 
 that our mind action is a result of the complex co- 
 operation of the five physical senses through a cen- 
 tral exchange called reason. This faculty they con- 
 sider merely another sense, and to such persons it 
 seems that our actions are not strictly foreordained, 
 yet must inevitably be what they are. Still others 
 believe that our mind is absolutely free and fully 
 responsible for its thoughts and acts. Some be- 
 lieve human mind action to be attributable partly 
 to instinct and partly to free will. Whether we 
 have absolute free will or not, we endeavor to sat- 
 isfy desire by acting in accordance with a judg- 
 ment based on a complex experience. Our volun- 
 tary acts are directed by our reason to meet ever-
 
 164 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 changing conditions. Every voluntary act is pre- 
 ceded or accompanied by more or less deliberation, 
 which may or may not be voluntary, yet to our 
 minds it appears voluntary." 
 
 The words "judgment" and "reason" were 
 used by the lecturer to express lesser mind pheno- 
 mena than free will. " Since it is such a matter of 
 course to think of our acts as originating in free 
 will," the lecturer said, " it is evident either that 
 God gave us free will, or that he gave us a mind- 
 condition that makes it appear to us that we pos- 
 sess free will. Even if the most advanced minds 
 should unite in telling us that we have no free will, 
 the instinctive regarding of our acts as prompted 
 by free will would continually assert itself. Then, 
 too, in every experienced and thoughtful mind, 
 there must always remain a doubt as to conclusions 
 on this question, as on all others that are purely 
 speculative. Since God gave us the instinctive be- 
 lief in free will, He no doubt gave it for a purpose, 
 and this belief must affect not only our individual 
 actions, but all human development. Whether we 
 have absolute free will or only a God-given illusion 
 of free will, is immaterial so far as our actions and 
 duty are concerned. A God-given illusion, so long 
 as it lasts, is to all intents and purposes an actual- 
 ity. If what has been said is true, each individual
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 165 
 
 must hold himself responsible for his acts. lu fact, 
 human nature would revolt against the man who 
 would attempt to excuse a wicked act on the ground 
 that he possessed only instinct and no free will." 
 
 The lecturer said, "I am acquainted with two 
 men of strong, active minds, and of unquestioned 
 character, who cannot come to any other conclusion 
 than that man has no trace of free will. These two 
 men act as though they held themselves wholly 
 responsible for their own deeds. If there is any 
 difference between the actions of these two and the 
 actions of other good men, it is that the former do 
 not hold their fellow men so responsible for their 
 acts as do the latter. It requires considerable abil- 
 ity to carry a line of thought as do these two men 
 when explaining the process of reasoning that is 
 responsible for the belief they hold. By the time a 
 man has accumulated a store of knowledge and has 
 developed reasoning power of this degree, there is 
 small likelihood that he will use his belief as an 
 excuse for a mean act." 
 
 The next lecturer to whom we listened told his 
 class of young people that the only permissible 
 reward for pleasing God is the satisfaction a well- 
 developed mind finds in seeking and in doing right. 
 This gives to the individual the pleasure of being 
 in full harmony with the universe. He said: —
 
 166 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 " The first essential in doing right is of course to 
 seek a knowledge of what is right ; this seeking 
 eventually brings one to the study of the laws of 
 nature in their government of the human mind. 
 A study of the human mind usually increases sym- 
 pathy for one's fellow men, enlarges and enlight- 
 ens the sympathy of the fortunate for the unfortu- 
 nate, and of the good for the bad. 
 
 " Man has not yet found a more complex or a more 
 highly organized form of life than his own. We 
 therefore assume that man is God's highest handi- 
 work. This may not be true, but our limited yet 
 God -given reason can come to no other conclu- 
 sion. Naturally, we judge God's ideals by the high- 
 est thoughts of the best developed human minds, 
 as far as we can understand these best minds. 
 Some say that all that is necessary in order to find 
 these ideals is to search the Bible for them. Here 
 we must consider that the present average mind, in 
 searching a book written largely in unfamiliar terms 
 and in the style of a past time, usually understands 
 this book imperfectly, and gives its own interpreta- 
 tion to a much greater extent than if it were 
 searching the mind of another through conversa- 
 tion, or through a modern book. While searching 
 the Bible for a knowledge of what is right, it is 
 well to study also the best there is in the thought-
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 167 
 
 fill minds about you. The Bible is laboring under 
 great difficulties, — for the average church member 
 it requires the minister as an interpreter. This mem- 
 ber hears one or two sermons a week, and of these 
 sermons perhaps less than half an hour — a total 
 of twenty-six hours a year — is devoted directly 
 to the Bible. In many cases this Bible exposition 
 is forgotten almost as soon as heard." 
 
 The lecturer insisted that the direct search for 
 knowledge of what is right should be more earnest 
 and more extended. 
 
 The Sunday League seemed much like an inten- 
 sified institutional church. What appeared strange 
 to us was that the League considered it immaterial 
 whether or not man was God's best handiwork; 
 whether or not man's spirit is part of and one with 
 God's ; whether man has free will or only instinct, 
 or both combined ; whether or not there is a God 
 that concerns Himself about us. These, and many 
 other beliefs and shades of beliefs, are regarded as 
 merely personal opinions which do not materially 
 affect the main purpose of the League. 
 
 The liberality of the League in regard to per- 
 sonal beliefs made us wonder what were the require- 
 ments for membership. Upon inquiry we learned 
 that any person will be accepted who possesses a fair 
 degree of intelligence, and who grants full tolerance
 
 168 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 of thought and its expression, provided this expres- 
 sion does not violate the laws of the land. The prin- 
 cipal requirement for membership is a promise that 
 the applicant will earnestly pursue the study of man 
 for the purpose of a higher self-development, and 
 as an aid to the higher development of humanity. 
 This study has come to be regarded by most mem- 
 bers as the shortest road to wisdom and happiness. 
 
 We commented on the metropolitan aspect of 
 the membership, and were told that the League was 
 conceived by a young and independent minister. 
 He, with a few business men of various occupations, 
 and their most trusted employees, established the 
 League. Since its object is to uplift humanity, it 
 was decided that the society should endeavor to ob- 
 tain a large membership and should aim to have all 
 nationalities, religions, professions, and trades repre- 
 sented as nearly as possible in the proportions found 
 in the community. Children applicants who are not 
 sufficiently trained, and older persons who desire to 
 join but who do not quite come up to all the require- 
 ments, are given a preliminary training under the 
 care of the membership committee. 
 
 The next Sunday we visited the children's play- 
 ground. Here we found a child who was recover- 
 ing from the effects of an accident. She had sat 
 down in the sunlight near the edge of the little
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 169 
 
 lake where she could watch the children and young 
 people at play. We sat down near her, and in reply 
 to questions, she told us that she had been a mem- 
 ber of the League for three years. She said that 
 she liked her Sunday and week-day lessons because 
 they make her " more beautiful, more good, and 
 more happy," and because they teach her how to 
 make people about her "more good and more 
 happy." She said that every Sunday the teachers 
 tell them in what way some part of the lessons of 
 the day may serve to make them better or happier. 
 
 At this moment the little patient's teacher came 
 to take her away. " Do your members, as a rule, 
 regard education as an imperative and religious 
 duty after they have passed the age of childhood ? " 
 we asked the teacher. 
 
 " Our young people," she replied, "' are taught 
 to regard their general education as an aid to- 
 ward making them genial and helpful members of 
 society, and to regard their vocational education 
 not only as a means of earning a livelihood, but also 
 as a means for becoming economically efficient citi- 
 zens. The League keeps this dual purpose of voca- 
 tion in the minds of the students while they are 
 taking the vocational course at school or in ap- 
 prenticeship. Once these purposes of general and 
 vocational education are understood by the students
 
 170 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 whose training tends towards making them thought- 
 ful, any slighting of work or its total avoidance 
 seems like unfair play ; and any thriving on unpro- 
 ductive scheming seems still worse. Students are 
 shown how rapidly the requirements of good citi- 
 zenship are increasing, and they early realize that 
 without a good secondary-school education they can 
 hardly expect to become valued members of society. 
 Under League environments it requires little effort 
 to inspire in the boys a desire to become good citi- 
 zens." 
 
 As the teacher left, we could but think that if 
 all teachers were able to see the wisdom in the re- 
 marks just made by this League teacher, they would 
 without doubt take greater pains to instill into the 
 youth of the land the ideal she expressed. The 
 effect of such action by teachers might be slight, 
 but it would surely be good. 
 
 We now turned our attention to the Weekly 
 Bulletin published by the League. This Bulletin 
 gives the programme for all the meetings of the 
 various societies, the lectures, lessons, and sports 
 for the day and for the next Sunday. It has a 
 question and answer column, and each number con- 
 tains articles by members of the League. One val- 
 uable feature of the Bulletin is a short review of 
 magazine articles that are believed to be of special
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 171 
 
 interest to students of mankind. From the Bulletin 
 we learned the following : — 
 
 The League considers a specific study of man 
 during and after high-school years absolutely essen- 
 tial in preparing its members to aid in the advance- 
 ment of humanity. Metaphysical, religious, and 
 other speculative subjects are not discussed in the 
 study course. In this course the member is taught 
 the purport of many of these questions, and the 
 different effects with which they have been credited. 
 He thus becomes familiar with these questions, and 
 this familiarity prevents his becoming a heated 
 partisan for any one in particular. He soon learns 
 that a partisan-like discussion, especially of specu- 
 lative religious questions, is inimical to happiness. 
 However, such questions are frequent topics in the 
 debating societies, and the general lecturers often 
 discuss them. It is understood that a reasonable 
 amount of time given to a thoughtful and honest 
 investigation of speculative questions is essential 
 to progress and happiness. 
 
 The members of the League are divided into 
 many minor and wholly independent societies which 
 have headquarters on the grounds. Each of these 
 societies has for its purpose the raising of the 
 standard of manhood in some particular way, or 
 the enlightening of its members on some particular
 
 172 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 question. There are societies for the promotion of 
 temperance by prohibition, by high license, by gov- 
 ernment sale of liquor, by the sale of beer and the 
 exclusion of whiskey ; there are societies for child 
 labor control, for and against compulsory secondary 
 education, for and against government care of poor 
 children ; there are church societies and other or- 
 ganizations, formed either for the betterment of 
 conditions and the development of character, or 
 for study and research in some restricted scientific 
 or speculative field. Purely speculative questions 
 are closely studied only in the philosophical societies 
 of the League, so their discussion does not burden 
 the regular course of study. The independent minor 
 societies are designed as agencies through which each 
 individual may exercise his best judgment as to a 
 method of work for the general advancement. As 
 stated before, one of the few tenets of the League 
 demands tolerance of the views of others. This tol- 
 erance, although it is studied at first, leads finally 
 to amicable relations between societies opposed in 
 theory. Heated attack on the views of others is 
 regarded as a loss of time. All arguments between 
 opposing societies are made only in print, and, as a 
 result, the arguments are fewer and more thoughts 
 ful. To make the work of these societies more en- 
 joyable, the homes of all tlie larger, permanent ones
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 173 
 
 are equipped for social entertainment. For the pur- 
 pose of explaining the activities of these League or- 
 ganizations, we shall give extracts from a Bulletin 
 article, " Reform by Legal Means." This article 
 answers a previous one opposing reform law : — 
 
 " A considerable number of men believe that we 
 shall weaken certain classes and cause continued 
 deterioration in them if we endeavor to force them 
 to be good. These men maintain that if the human 
 race is ever to be morally strong and hardy, we 
 must allow the individual to develop independently. 
 When we, by law, take alcohol away from the alco- 
 hol-weakling, we do not make him alcohol-resistant, 
 — the weakness stays with him, and if he has no 
 alcohol, the weakness will assert itself in some other 
 way. These persons also say that when we compel 
 the parent to send the child to school, we do not 
 improve the parent, as his selfishness remains, nor 
 do we remake the child and make it of better blood. 
 When we force the trust to reduce the price of a 
 staple, we do not make the trust-owners more gen- 
 erous, nor do we increase the ability of the public 
 to make its own product. Our friends argue that 
 there should be no more of law than is absolutely 
 necessary for the most evident self-preservation : 
 laws against murder by violence, and stealing by act 
 of hand are, to their minds, admissible. We will
 
 174 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 admit that those who are beyond easy redemption 
 are perhaps only in rare instances fully redeemed 
 through the agency of reform laws. In greater or 
 lesser measure the weakness in each case remains 
 to assume some other form. The A's cannot harm 
 themselves, nor can they harm the B's, without 
 harming the C's. When the C's are sufficiently in- 
 jured to become aroused, and when their number 
 is sufficiently large, they will, with the aid of all 
 the B's they can enlist, force the A's to desist ; and 
 they will do this regardless of the assertions of the 
 A's that this action interferes with the course of 
 nature, and that the paternal care of the law weak- 
 ens character. The C's will consider that they, too, 
 are an element in the course of nature, and that 
 what they are trying to do is only a natural pro- 
 cess to their advantage and in the interest of their 
 conception of right. In so far as this struggle is 
 educational, it surely has a permanent effect on the 
 character of the nation. 
 
 " The help that the regular League course gives 
 the inexperienced is simply the light of special 
 knowledge with which to see the way of life more 
 clearly and more in detail. The various legal means 
 that are advocated by the several independent 
 societies of the League in the numerous fields of 
 reform are such as, after years of thought and study,
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 175 
 
 seem wise. The men composing these societies come 
 from all fields of activity, have done all branches 
 of work, and, after a life of practice and years of 
 study and discussion, they believe in certain reforms. 
 In view of this, should they permit their experience 
 to waste and let things go on as before without an 
 effort to better conditions?" 
 
 In another article the Bulletin described a re- 
 vision in the study course on the eye. The course, 
 as revdsed, demands one hour each Sunday for 
 twenty weeks. It includes additional study in com- 
 parative anatomy, and some new ideas on the con- 
 nection of the eye with the brain ; it also includes 
 the latest theories regarding the sight faculty. We 
 were informed that all the principal parts of the body 
 are studied in this leisurely, careful way between 
 the ages of twelve and twenty-five years. The Bid- 
 letin contained other matter of interest to members ; 
 but enough has been given to explain its scope, and, 
 incidentally, to explain some things regarding the 
 League. 
 
 After reading the Bulletin we permitted our 
 thought to wander from one subject to another, and 
 among the ideas that presented themselves were the 
 following: — 
 
 Could not the League have a department the 
 duty of which would be to see that every capable
 
 176 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 youth obtains a secondary-school education? The 
 League is so large that it might easily establish 
 several cooperative enterprises, and the self-sustain- 
 ing young people of the League might be given five 
 hours daily of progressive employment in these in- 
 stitutions, provided they would use their earnings 
 to pay the expenses of three hours' daily attendance 
 in a high school. At each annual influx of fresh- 
 men, the older students would be advanced in their 
 industrial work, and in this way the employment 
 would be more interesting and instructive. Such a 
 plan would be a most practical and thorough way 
 to teach industrial business methods. Later, we 
 learned that this very thing was being done. . . . 
 Could not every orthodox church accomplish much 
 by organizing a department to encourage secondary 
 education ? ^ . . . What coidd yield more happiness 
 to the individual than to assist in a plan by which 
 all children, rich or poor, might have an equal oppor- 
 tunity to obtain a good secondary education ? . . . 
 One of the striking characteristics of the Sunday 
 League is the feeling of fellowship that pervades 
 the meetings. These people, all through the forty 
 years' course, and even afterwards, are not only 
 
 ^ The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social 
 Science for November, 1907, shows the results of church work 
 along practical advanced lines.
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 177 
 
 students, but also close observers of educational 
 methods and results. Their observation ranges from 
 a study of the simplest rudiments of language and 
 mathematics to that of psychology and other sci- 
 ences. Most members of the League appear to 
 have been lifelong acquaintances. Is it not prob- 
 able that a wise study of man gives one an insight 
 into the nature of his fellow man so that weeks will 
 develop as ripe an acquaintance or friendship as 
 under other conditions might require years ? . . . 
 But, after all, is it probable that the majority of 
 men will ever be able to understand clearly a study 
 like psychology; and is it not less probable that 
 they will gain this understanding through pleasur- 
 able effort ? We recall our grammar-school exper- 
 ience. Most of those who left school at the end of 
 the eighth grade were as capable, mentally, as those 
 who continued and successfully completed the 
 course. We believe that under a systematic train- 
 ing the capacity for learning possessed by a large 
 majority of the workers of society is quite as great 
 as that possessed by the planners and schemers. If 
 the church does its best to see that all children re- 
 ceive a high-school education, and if other reform 
 forces do not lessen their efforts, the average man, 
 within a few generations, could easily be as famil- 
 iar with the phenomena of the human mind as the
 
 178 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 special students are now. It is well known that a 
 great number of our best students along all lines 
 are those whose parents and grandparents were la- 
 borins: men. ... If a man's treatment of his fel- 
 low man is the best index of his character, it would 
 seem reasonable to consider a study of man as one 
 of the principal requirements of education. For in- 
 stance : to refrain from telling a falsehood because, 
 if discovered, your reputation would be injured, or 
 because you were taught as a child not to tell a 
 lie, or because the Bible demands that you tell only 
 the truth, is not what, in this age, should be con- 
 sidered an expression of intelligent character. To 
 withstand a temptation to speak a falsehood because 
 that which is called self-respect does not permit 
 the untruth, may or may not be due to intelligent 
 character. To refrain from telling a falsehood be- 
 cause you understand the possible bad effects that 
 any falsehood may have on others as weU as on your- 
 self, and because you understand the criminality of 
 an act that injures humanity, is intelligent char- 
 acter. A falsehood is always told for some personal 
 advantage. If, by means of falsehood, you receive 
 or retain credit for greater goodness or ability than 
 you possess, you indirectly injure others and di- 
 rectly injure yourself. In a not very remote way, 
 every falsehood is a parasitic act. The mere mental
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 179 
 
 influence on others of hearing even what is called 
 a " white lie " from the lips of one supposed to be 
 true, is an injury to those who hear it, and to all 
 humanity. Every time a man hears an untruth, his 
 confidence in human character is lowered. If his 
 confidence is lowered, he almost invariably shows 
 this mistrust in his actions, and this reacts on all 
 with whom he comes in contact. People with little 
 strength of character tell falsehoods without hesi- 
 tation. A falsehood from such a source does not 
 shock an experienced man, but the effect of such a 
 falsifier on what might be called the inter-human 
 confidence is extremely damaging. The telling of 
 a falsehood, even if the falsity is never discovered, 
 has some psychological effect that tends to destroy 
 this mutual confidence. . . . The different forms 
 of indirect injury that any instance of the lowering 
 of confidence may effect are innumerable, as are 
 the more direct injuries due to falsehoods. Every 
 falsehood is an injury to humanity, and no one can 
 foretell the damage that any particular falsehood 
 may cause. It is only the enlightened student of 
 man who can fully appreciate the value of truth 
 to humanity. This enlightened student, on account 
 of knowing the value of truth, and on account of the 
 character acquired while becoming enlightened, is 
 almost the only man who habitually speaks his true
 
 180 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 belief, and who is brave enough to do so. Occa- 
 sionally a man of little education and experience 
 is absolutely truthful, and in thought, at least, 
 every one honors him. These exceptions, like all 
 exceptions to general rules, prove nothing until 
 understood through study and research. . . . As 
 self-evident as the value of truthfulness is to the 
 enlightened man, experience has taught that it 
 cannot be instilled into the human mind by admo- 
 nitions to refrain from untruths. Not until we have 
 advanced farther in the study of man, and have ap- 
 plied the acquired knowledge to all economic, social, 
 and political questions for a considerable time, can 
 we expect character that will be habitually truthful. 
 Every thoughtful man knows what an uplift the 
 simple, direct truth between men would give to life. 
 The goodness that comes from understanding man, 
 and from the character formed during the develop- 
 ment of this understanding, is true and will last. 
 To this kind of goodness must we look for relief 
 from present social difficulties ; and this kind of 
 goodness must be in accord with God, because it is 
 intelligent goodness. . . . Knowledge of the latest 
 facts discovered concerning man's mind and body 
 is useful for the purpose of uplifting humanity. 
 In order to make a speedy yet steady and easy 
 headway in such knowledge, a secondary-school
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 181 
 
 education is an almost indispensable foundation. Al- 
 though a knowledge of all facts discovered would 
 be useful to the average man, he cannot hope to 
 become so well informed ; but under favorable con- 
 ditions he can probably learn enough so that hu- 
 manity will advance at many times its present rate. 
 When a slowly acquired and clear knowledge of the 
 most important needs of man is more general, a way 
 to have these needs supplied will readily be found. 
 . . . How to aid in the equipment of the ordinary 
 individual member so as best to enable him to do 
 his share in the uplifting of humanity, is a vital 
 question for any church. Strange to say, very few 
 churches treat this as a distinct and vital question. 
 The wisdom of any individual church may well be 
 measured by its effort in this direction. . . . 
 
 " Can I show you anything here to-day ? " an 
 acquaintance asked. This question ended our medi- 
 tations. We replied that he might show us any- 
 thing he pleased, if he would first tell us about the 
 course of study prescribed by the League. 
 
 " It requires but a moment's thought," he replied, 
 " to convince one that the outlining of a well-defined 
 and wise course for the study of man is a task that 
 only men of the broadest education and of a partic- 
 ular mental endowment can be expected to work 
 out without much difficulty. The League had at fiirst
 
 182 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 no experienced or professional advisers. The min- 
 ister who conceived the League and his associates 
 discussed the plan of study for several years before 
 even a preliminary trial course was formulated. 
 Since then a curriculum committee of six has experi- 
 mented with the study programme, and has done re- 
 markably well. This shows that very often men of 
 fair general education can, in an emergency, do work 
 that ordinarily requires specialists. Several of the 
 older members make it their constant study to im- 
 prove the curriculum. 
 
 " To describe the study course in a very general 
 way, I may say that the first part is really in the 
 public school. The League aims to take an encour- 
 aging interest in school children and in the school 
 system. When a child is unable to keep up in any 
 study because the week-day teacher cannot find suf- 
 ficient time for his particular case, the League tries, 
 on Sunday, to aid him in whatever way it can. This 
 aid is given by volunteers who^ for the most part, 
 are high-school graduates that are being trained as 
 public-school teachers. Graduates of the League 
 also assist. This aid is given strictly in accordance 
 with advice received from the school which the child 
 attends. As both parents and children attend the 
 Sunday League, it is in closer touch with the par- 
 ents than is the public school. Because of this closer
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 183 
 
 touch, the League can more conveniently and more 
 intelligently interest the parents in the child's needs. 
 In this way the child is almost certain to have their 
 sympathy and aid. Wise aid given occasionally to a 
 child below the average in ability means happiness 
 and progress to the little one ; without this aid, 
 the child might be most miserable. The first care 
 of the committee on education is to see that each 
 child has an elementary and a secondary -school edu- 
 cation, and that this education is as thorough as 
 possible. 
 
 " The public school, especially the high-school de- 
 partment, gives the matter of health as much atten- 
 tion as time permits. Valuable as is this knowledge 
 when taught in the high school, it is considered the 
 imperative duty of the League to carry this study 
 still farther. We all know that it is impossible for 
 a man to be at his best in character if his health is 
 below the normal. To understand the relative value 
 of food materials, to understand the laws of diges- 
 tion and of assimilation, we need to know some- 
 thing of organic chemistry. To understand the eyes, 
 we need to know, among other things, the laws of 
 light ; to understand the ears, we need to know the 
 laws of sound, and so on. To learn even the rudi- 
 ments of these sciences, one must have a fair gen- 
 eral knowledge of language and of mathematics.
 
 184 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 Botany, zo61og}% comparative anatomy, as well as 
 other sciences, are well worth studying for the pur- 
 pose of better understanding man's body and its re- 
 quirements. The study of body is a preliminary to 
 the study of mind, and a knowledge of mind is of 
 value in the pursuit of health as well as in the pur- 
 suit of social happiness. To these ends we find a 
 complete scientific high-school course indispensable. 
 
 " You may say that such knowledge is for the 
 physician, the oculist, the athletic instructor, and 
 other specialists. We have these men with us now, 
 but they can accomplish more when those for whom 
 they work understand their advice and the reason 
 for it. The specialist's duty is to obtain accurate 
 and broad knowledge of his subject and to teach 
 this knowledge ; the layman's duty is to be able to 
 understand it. But both the specialist and the lay- 
 man have much to learn in regard to making our 
 bodies healthy, strong, and beautiful. The League 
 gives a course on personal appearance which enables 
 the poor man to look quite as neat as does the man 
 of average means. 
 
 " There is a course that presents briefly the his- 
 tory of speculative questions. The course includes 
 a short exposition of the principal theories of nat- 
 ural law, and of the various religious, ethical, scien- 
 tific, and philosophical subjects of controversy in
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 185 
 
 both the past and the present. This short course in 
 speculative thought shows that theorizing is end- 
 less. The lectures are designed to create more re- 
 spect for the opinions of others ; to sober argument 
 of a speculative nature, and, incidentally, to moder- 
 ate all other argument. More knowledge of past 
 speculative questions will tend to save for humanity 
 time that would otherwise be lost by reason of a too 
 literal repetition of thought generation after genera- 
 tion. You may question the average man's interest 
 in these speculative questions. The average man 
 thinks, and lacking accurate knowledge of the his- 
 tory of past speculative thought, he readily becomes 
 a partisan upon these questions, as well as upon sim- 
 ple questions of fact. It is surprising to see how the 
 little time given to these lectures sobers controversy. 
 " There is a course in social and political science 
 which gives a fairly well-defined idea of these sub- 
 jects in all their branches. Each year a different 
 branch is given special study. One year, attention 
 may be concentrated on intemperance and the drug 
 habit ; another year, upon the production and dis- 
 tribution of wealth ; another, on public education ; 
 another, on religion in relation to politics. This year 
 attention is directed to intemperance and the drug 
 habit. The plan of giving special attention to a cer- 
 tain branch of social or political science each year
 
 186 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 is continued for ten years, and then the programme 
 is repeated with such variations as experience and 
 fuller understanding may dictate. Time is too limited 
 to permit of each member's taking all of the ten 
 branches specially studied, but he is expected to 
 study one branch between his twentieth and thir- 
 tieth years, as it is considered the duty of every citi- 
 zen to understand at least one of these subjects to 
 the extent that they are taught by the League. As 
 far as possible the classes are so arranged that each 
 year a different tenth of the members can take one 
 of the special subjects. In this way every member 
 has broad general training in at least one branch of 
 social and political science, and social intercourse 
 diffuses the knowledge of aU ten branches among 
 all of the members. 
 
 " After the high-school period, studies in science, 
 literature, and art are continued at intervals until 
 the end of the League course. The young married 
 women are given a course in the duties of mother- 
 hood ; the young married men, a course in the duties 
 of fatherhood. Those young women who did not take 
 a course in domestic science in the high school are 
 given an outline course in the League. Ethics is 
 given careful study. Outlines of the various reli- 
 gions of to-day, and a short history of all religion 
 are included in the course. Outdoor nature studies
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 187 
 
 receive special attention, and, to this end, the chil- 
 dren spend two or three entire Sundays of each 
 summer in making excursions to the hills or to the 
 beach. An outline of anthropology is given and is 
 most eagerly studied. All sociological topics are dis- 
 cussed to a greater or less extent. Psychology is 
 a favorite study with many of the older students. 
 Almost the entire course is simply a forty years' 
 study of man, and this study is based, wherever pos- 
 sible, upon a secondary-school education which has 
 been received at the proper age. 
 
 " To understand even as short an article on ethics 
 as is found in the larger encyclopedias requires a 
 mind that has at least the training of secondary edu- 
 cation, and one in which a fair degree of reasoning 
 power is developed. Nine out of every ten men have 
 minds that could, with little effort, have been so 
 trained as readily to understand such an article. 
 At present, however, even after most careful read- 
 ing, hardly one out of ten would understand it 
 fully. A single instance like this should arouse all 
 to a sense of the futility of trying to teach a man 
 who is not naturally good to be soundly and firmly 
 good, before he possesses a fair education. 
 
 " Although practically the entire course is for the 
 study of man, it diverges and takes up political and 
 social science topics as such. The special attention
 
 188 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 thus given to these subjects will be necessary until 
 industrial, economic, social, and political conditions 
 are fully miderstood through week-day education. 
 
 " The study of the body and its care is combined 
 with all kinds of athletics, out-of-door nature-study, 
 singing, and other exercises that require only the 
 most pleasurable mental exertion. These courses 
 are given to the children who attend school during 
 the week, and the nature of the work is such that 
 the Sunday activity is not simply a continuation 
 of school work. In an attractive and effective way, 
 good manners and moral and ethical principles 
 adapted to their age are at all times taught the chil- 
 dren. 
 
 " Beginning with the fourteenth grade, the study 
 sessions are devoted principally to lectures, during 
 which the students ask questions, discuss the topic, 
 and take notes. At the close of the term, each stu- 
 dent prepares a thesis on an assigned subject, and 
 on the thoroughness of this thesis depends his privi- 
 lege of entering a higher course." 
 
 Here we expressed our satisfaction with our 
 friend's explanation of the study courses, and in- 
 quired about the teaching force. He replied, "All 
 except the few special teachers, whom we call lec- 
 turers or ministers, are volunteers. Any graduate 
 of the fourteenth grade may have his application
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 189 
 
 for a position as teacher entered on the waiting-list. 
 The average youth passes the twelfth, or the last 
 high-school grade, at eighteen years of age. Each 
 League degree requires but one year, and is given 
 with the corresponding school grade. After the 
 twelfth grade, the League degrees are granted an- 
 nually to those following prescribed courses up to 
 the age of forty-five. The placing and retiring of 
 teachers is in the hands of a teacher's committee 
 composed of members and paid lecturers. 
 
 " There is no salary attached to any of the posi- 
 tions except those which are filled by the lecturers, 
 and these paid positions require daily work as well 
 as general supervision of the Sunday courses. The 
 regular Sunday positions are filled by men and 
 women who do this work for the love of it. It is a 
 rare occurrence to see a volunteer teacher retired 
 after he has been allowed to teach for a year. 
 Usually a teacher who has been retired from one 
 study will at once place his name on the waiting- 
 list for any position the committee may offer for 
 which he is prepared. It is considered an honor to 
 be tried, and each one tried is expected to admit 
 that the committee knows better than he which 
 teacher best meets the needs of the students. He is 
 also expected to realize that the feeling of resent- 
 ment is extremely childish, besides being a hindrance
 
 190 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 to the success of the institution for which, if neces- 
 sary, he is supposed to be willing to sacrifice him- 
 self. Each teacher appointed, no matter how much 
 he may enjoy his position, is expected to do his best 
 to prove that his loyalty to the League so far tran- 
 scends any personal feeluig that he will welcome 
 displacement if the committee finds a substitute 
 that it considers superior to him. Even should he 
 believe that the committee acted in bad faith in 
 displacing him, he will be expected to remain 
 with the League and to use his power wisely in the 
 interest of right as he sees it. He who fulfills these 
 expectations is magnanimous, and is considered of 
 the highest value to the League. So vital do we 
 regard the influence of perfect character, that we 
 consider the League indestructible as long as at 
 least one out of every twenty-five of its members 
 is truly magnanimous. Partly for this reason, the 
 member is valued much more for his character than 
 for any special ability he may possess. 
 
 " All teachers who have not finished the League 
 course are required to continue their League studies 
 and to write their theses. Each teacher is supposed 
 to have a class of about fifteen students. The full- 
 time volunteer Sunday teachers have classes for 
 four hours during the day, while the time given by 
 other volunteers varies from one to three hours.
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 191 
 
 At least half of the teachers are workingmen, their 
 wives, their daughters, or their sons. For instance, 
 one of the teachers is a foreman carpenter whose 
 subject is Human Habitations. This subject in- 
 cludes the history of human dwellings from the 
 time of the cave, cliff, and tree dwellers to the 
 present time. He has taught this subject for fifteen 
 years, has written the text-book used by the classes, 
 and is now regarded as an authority on this sub- 
 ject. This teacher lectures one hour every Sunday, 
 and the course consists of fifteen lectures. In this 
 way, by having classes of fifteen or twenty mem- 
 bers, he can teach the entire League membership. 
 The carpenter's wife is an assistant teacher in 
 domestic science. This husband and wife were 
 elected to their positions on account of special in- 
 terest and ability shown in the preparation of one 
 of their annual theses. Physicians, lawyers, mu- 
 sicians, and scientists freely give of their time for 
 Sunday lectures. One out of about every ten 
 members over twenty-five years of age is acting as 
 teacher in some capacity, and no people are happier 
 on Sunday than these teachers and their pupils." 
 
 At this point our acquaintance invited us to 
 accompany him to the League restaurant for lunch- 
 eon. We told him that we were much interested in 
 this feature of the League, and requested him to
 
 192 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 tell us all about it. The following points are the 
 most interesting ones that he gave : — 
 
 " Meals are served from eleven a. m. to two P. M., 
 and from five to seven p. m. The classes and the 
 various amusements are so arranged that meals are 
 in nearly uniform demand during these hours. Food 
 is sold at a price that leaves five per cent of the 
 gross income for the general League fund. Many 
 meals are served, so the cost of preparation amounts 
 to very little per meal. The dining-room is operated 
 more like a cafeteria than like the usual restaurant, 
 and meals cost very little more than the price of 
 materials used in similar meals prepared at home. 
 The manager and enough help to operate the res- 
 taurant on week days are steadily employed. This 
 help is composed of young people, and is divided 
 into two groups, each working six hours a day. 
 These groups have their hours for duty so arranged 
 that one half may attend a morning session in high 
 school or college, and the other half an afternoon 
 session. Each member of this week-day corps of 
 workers remains on duty all day Sunday, but each 
 is relieved from duty one day during the week. 
 Much more help is required on Sunday, and this is 
 supplied first by volunteers, then by League mem- 
 bers selected by lot for five consecutive Sundays. 
 The wholesome, inexpensive restaurant meals are
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 193 
 
 recognized as the feature that makes it possible for 
 many members, especially those who are parents 
 with large families and without ample means, to 
 attend the League all day and evening. For this 
 reason those who are selected by lot are expected 
 to do their work cheerfully. Teachers, those with 
 other special duties, and all older members, are 
 exempt from restaurant duty unless they volunteer. 
 Of the younger members, those who have once 
 been chosen by lot are exempt from further duty 
 till all available ones have served their turn, then 
 all names are again placed on the list. The regular 
 help consists of young League members who wish 
 to learn the business and to attend school. Every 
 League activity has an educational value. With 
 the exception of the manager, each person regularly 
 employed in the restaurant is given a certain branch 
 of the work for a prescribed length of time ; and 
 the work is so divided that each worker, by pro- 
 gressive steps, may learn the entire business, as far 
 as this plan for progressive division of labor is 
 feasible. The manager is a capable man developed 
 within the League, and excellent work upon his 
 part is regarded as essential to the success of the 
 League. Volunteer workers may, by agreeing to 
 work regularly every Sunday, take the restaurant 
 course as do the regular workers, but the taking of
 
 194 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 the course in this way naturally extends it over a 
 much longer period. 
 
 " The Sunday business of the restaurant is very 
 large, as many non-members come to enjoy the 
 grounds and the band concerts. The considerable 
 extent of the business gives exceptional opportuni- 
 ties to learn the best methods of accounting. There 
 is a great deal to learn in the operation of a 
 restaurant which is so conducted that the meals are 
 scientifically prepared, and every pound of material 
 is taken into account. For some, this work is even 
 fascinating, — it appears to be a real pleasure to 
 wear an apron and act as assistant cook or waiter 
 for a gathering which consists largely of relatives 
 and friends. Especially is this a pleasure when one 
 is regarded as a student of the business. Besides 
 the practical education referred to, this employ- 
 ment gives an exceptional opportunity to study 
 human nature, and thus aids in the study of man. 
 Furthermore, a close industrial contact with others, 
 and a close practical study of any well-developed 
 business, are great social educators. 
 
 " These student employees receive thirty cents 
 per hour for such time as they work. Not all of 
 the restaurant students follow this business in later 
 life, but the business training alone is believed to 
 be worth while. All the student workers who are
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 195 
 
 engaged at the restaurant regularly six hours a day 
 attend either our public high school for self-support- 
 ing students, or a college in the city. In the grant- 
 ing of employment in its several departments, the 
 League recently decided to give preference to self- 
 supporting students. 
 
 " Assiuning a previous or present high-school 
 training in chemistry and bookkeeping, the restau- 
 rant course requires from one to two years of prac- 
 tical work and study in food preparation." 
 
 We were also shown several noteworthy details 
 that would be of interest to men in the restaurant 
 business. 
 
 WhUe at luncheon, we referred to the unusual 
 degree of comradeship manifested between hus- 
 bands and wives. Our acquaintance thought this 
 was due to the fact that both take parts of the same 
 extended Sunday study course, and, when possible, 
 join the same classes. To a certain extent this class 
 work creates a similarity of thought which leads to 
 closer comradeship. He said that those studies 
 which relate particularly to man tend especially to 
 strengthen the companionship and mutual sympathy 
 of those who live and learn together. 
 
 "Who provides the means to erect all these 
 buildings and to keep them in such good repair ? " 
 we asked.
 
 196 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 " As yet, the buildings are provided largely by 
 those members who are, financially, more success- 
 ful," our companion replied. " Mechanic members, 
 when out of work, sometimes give their services 
 free, and the majority of the League ministers 
 know how to do a mechanic's work. They have but 
 little time to spare, but that little is often willingly 
 given to the hammer or the saw when this service 
 is needed. Our ministers, you see, are practical men 
 who accept only moderate salaries and live simple, 
 unostentatious lives — lives that are an inspiration 
 to the community. These men find the pleasure of 
 preaching to an intelligent, appreciative audience 
 a privilege beyond price. The League, I must 
 add, does not debar women from entering the min- 
 istry. 
 
 " The building committee decides on all building 
 plans ; these plans, however, must be approved by a 
 majority of the graduate members. Those two new 
 buildings at your right, — those in cottage style, — 
 for instance, were approved by ninety-five per cent 
 of these members. The home idea caught them. 
 You see, they are day-nursery buildings where 
 mothers who are teaching or engaged in other work, 
 or mothers who are attending the lectures, can 
 leave their children during certain hours of the day. 
 This building at your left is our new library build-
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 197 
 
 ing. A little farther on is the public high school, 
 on a lot sold to the county. This school is attended 
 half-time, or one session each day, by young people 
 employed in various capacities the remainder of 
 the day, and by the children of neighboring farm- 
 ers. The school was established for self-supporting 
 students. The same course is given both forenoon 
 and afternoon, thus accommodating all. The League 
 recently purchased sixteen acres of land adjacent 
 to the grounds, and has divided this acreage into 
 eight two-acre lots. As an experiment, six of these 
 lots are to be rented to as many self-supporting 
 students of the agricultural department of the high 
 school. If these students wish, any two will be 
 allowed to form a partnership and operate their 
 land jointly ; one can then attend school in the 
 forenoon, and the other in the afternoon. The rent 
 will cover the taxes, and the leases will contain 
 certain requirements with which they must comply. 
 Six of the oldest and most enterprising students 
 have formed three partnerships and will soon try 
 the experiment. It has been estimated that any 
 earnest, capable student of the agricultural depart- 
 ment can make more than a living from the two 
 acres. The instructor in horticulture will use the 
 two remaining lots as an experiment station. This 
 half-day plan is bringing about remarkable results,
 
 198 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 because the students have learned economic and 
 educational values. 
 
 " On Sundays, the high-school building is used 
 for lecture rooms. We have two amusement haUs 
 with well-appointed stages. Over there on the hill- 
 side among the trees is our Greek theatre, where, 
 in favorable weather, lectures, concerts, and plays 
 are given. During inclement weather the entertain- 
 ments are given in the halls. The players and mu- 
 sicians are usually members of the League who are 
 of artistic temperament, and much of their work is 
 better than some that is considered professional. 
 These men and women donate their services on 
 Sunday. One group has developed talent equal to 
 that of the better professional actors, and each Sun- 
 day they give creditable performances of such plays 
 as are not only artistic, but morally instructive. 
 These Sunday plays attract large numbers of non- 
 members from the city. 
 
 " This power house we are passing is operated by 
 a few high-school students under the guidance of a 
 teaching manager. Surplus light and power are sold 
 to the neighboring farmers at a small margin of 
 profit. The plant is operated in much the same way 
 as the restaurant." 
 
 We soon reached the limits of the space reserved 
 for buildings, and the conversation turned to the rem-
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 199 
 
 nant of forest that surrounds the reserved square. 
 We were told that the park is open to the public 
 every day from seven A. m. to ten P. M. In the even- 
 ing the grounds are always brilliantly illuminated. 
 On Saturday, school children are carried on the cars 
 from the city to the League for five cents a round 
 trip. 
 
 " For the building of character, one of the best 
 results of League education is early marriage. The 
 League, through its concern for the next genera- 
 tion, takes a deep, yet unobtrusive interest in every 
 wedding, — an interest which is confined largely to 
 the careful teaching of the purposes, duties, and 
 ethics of married life. This care for the next gener- 
 ation creates a desire to have every union as nearly 
 ideal as possible. As a result, divorces among 
 League members are rare and solemn occasions. 
 The private life of the members, except such quiet 
 study hours as they may maintain at their homes, 
 is an open book. Through the effect of the study 
 of man, and through the intellectual contact with 
 older people who have taken the study, the young 
 people learn to know one another as well at twenty 
 or twenty-five years of age as they would otherwise 
 at thirty or thirty-five. This knowledge makes 
 marriage less of a lottery. The League education 
 makes a simple and inexpensive way of living look
 
 200 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 attractive to young people, and it teaches how a 
 sensible young couple can live comfortably on the 
 earnings of an able man of twenty-five. If all 
 people should become wise enough at twenty-five 
 to be able to lead happy married lives, and if con- 
 ditions favored the finding of the right kind of life 
 partner, how little of vice would be left ! Marriage 
 under such conditions would make the rearing of 
 children the greatest of pleasures, and the much-de- 
 plored race suicide would be permanently checked. 
 The man who has had a good educational training 
 up to his twenty-fifth year and who has seen much 
 of the best side of life, is mentally better prepared 
 to marry than is the average man of thirty-five. It 
 is the ignorance that prevails between the ages of 
 sixteen and twenty-five, and the inexperience in 
 things that are good, that are chiefly responsible 
 for the start on the road to immorality. 
 
 In answer to a question, we were told that the 
 Sunday League is maintained by moderate quarterly 
 dues, which vary in amount, by certain profits, and 
 by certain admission fees required from non-mem- 
 bers. An inheritance fund is becoming popular, and 
 is growing to some proportions. The income from 
 this fund may be used for League expenses, and 
 the princij3al may be used for buildings. The re- 
 strictions upon the use of this fund are generally
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 201 
 
 satisfactory, and any one wishing to do so can be- 
 queath any sum to the fund. Notwithstanding the 
 fact that the dues are moderate, some think that 
 they cannot afford to join the League. Often, how- 
 ever, the solicitor for membership can prove to such 
 persons that by cutting down his expenses for to- 
 bacco, theatres, excursions, and other items that can 
 be curtailed or entirely dispensed with, the League 
 dues can easily be paid. Then, too, the educational 
 benefits are sometimes estimable in dollars, for the 
 entire study course shows the advantages of simple 
 living, and teaches numerous economies not known 
 to many inexperienced husbands and wives. 
 
 The activity around us turned our thoughts to 
 the empty homes with the unused kitchens and the 
 bare dining-tables. We asked our companion if 
 some of these people did not miss the Sunday home 
 dinner and its social influence, and whether the en- 
 tire Sunday away from home did not impair home 
 life. 
 
 " Saturday evening," he replied, " has become, 
 with many, the time for the weekly family reunions. 
 The young men whose work keeps them away from 
 home all the week come back for the Saturday even- 
 ing dinner, remain to attend the League on Sunday, 
 and then return to the place of their employment 
 at night or early Monday morning. Whenever the
 
 202 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 mother can attend the League, she has a day of 
 genuine change and rest, and each child has proba- 
 bly had a better time than he would have had at home. 
 Besides his Sunday lesson designed to impress some 
 moral principle, the child may have received train- 
 ing in the gymnasium, or the swimming pool, or 
 he may have spent time among the trees and flowers. 
 At the gymnasium he may have been taught the 
 value of some physical exercise for the correction of 
 a slight imperfection of his body. Perhaps the rules 
 of some outdoor sport were taught to the class while 
 the game was being practiced. Here I may explain 
 that it is one of the purposes of the gymnasium to 
 teach the children how to play many outdoor games. 
 The Sunday spent in this wholesome way gives food 
 for thought, and the home life as well as the busi- 
 ness life of the ensuing week is energized." 
 
 In the afternoon we listened to one of the series 
 of lectures for children who were about to pass the 
 sixth grade. In the evening we heard a similar but 
 more mature discussion of secondary education. 
 This was given to children about to leave the eighth 
 grade. Many parents were present at both lectures. 
 At these lectures we noticed what we had observed 
 before, — the imiformly courteous manner and the 
 pleasing personal appearance of the great majority 
 of the members. It was difficult to distinguish the
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 203 
 
 merchant or the doctor from the mechanic or the 
 laborer ; all were equally interested in any plan for 
 the uplifting of himianity. A fair knowledge of 
 man tends to inspire modesty, yet such knowledge 
 tends at the same time to inspire seK-confidence. 
 Modesty, with confidence, produces the best man- 
 ners. So much for personal actions. In personal 
 appearance there was no material difference among 
 the members. One member with moderate earnings 
 might have five or six children to support, but that 
 did not seem to affect his own good appearance. 
 At first thought it may be considered a small mat- 
 ter, yet if the appearance of the individuals in a 
 large League gathering were changed to that of 
 the usual public gathering, the League would soon 
 lose much of its attractiveness, and might finally 
 cease to exist as a democratic institution. 
 
 These thoughts led us to accept the invitation 
 of the head of the Personal Appearance Depart- 
 ment to call at his home. Li due time our host took 
 us into his combined study and workshop, where we 
 learned many things that interested us. After the 
 gymnasium was established, the instructor saw the 
 need of improving the appearance of some of his 
 pupils, and he realized that the desired improve- 
 ment would be a difficult task. Accordingly, a de- 
 partment for this purpose was established and placed
 
 204 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 in the care of our host. The ambition of this man 
 is to teach every individual how to present a neat 
 appearance. He is constantly endeavoring to dis- 
 cover inexpensive methods by which all wage-earn- 
 ers and their families may, by the expenditure of 
 little money and some energy, be quite as present- 
 able as are those who have more wealth and who 
 have had better opportunities to learn the ways and 
 means to present a good appearance. It required 
 work and patience before the department succeeded 
 in raising the standard of tidiness to its present 
 level; now, however, good personal appearance is 
 such a matter of course that, without special effort, 
 the children learn how to be neat and clean. 
 
 In order to give an idea of the value of this de- 
 partment, we shall try to explain briefly one of 
 the many divisions of its most practical and inter- 
 esting work. For example, it publishes a pam- 
 phlet on the care of the teeth. This pamphlet 
 describes the various dijfficulties encountered by 
 different persons in keeping the teeth in order, 
 and gives instructions for keeping them in good 
 condition and looking attractive at nominal ex- 
 pense. The pamphlet tells the inexperienced that 
 those who have normal mouth secretions need only 
 use dental floss daily and rinse the teeth with water ; 
 others less fortunate in this respect must, in addi-
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 205 
 
 tion, use brush and powder ; while for still others 
 further treatment of the teeth is prescribed. It is 
 shown how a person requiring the daily use of pow- 
 der and brush in addition to the floss must spend 
 for this purpose, even with careful buying, at least 
 $1.25 per year. The pamphlet also shows how this 
 expense can be reduced to twenty-five cents per 
 year. This saving is brought about in part by the 
 use of a home-made dental floss and powder. A 
 new and economical device in toothbrushes is de- 
 scribed, and is to be introduced by the League. 
 Many families of six who purchase supplies in the 
 ordinary way pay at least $7.50 for floss, brushes, 
 and powder. This is more than the less fortunate 
 can pay, and without these essentials, the teeth are 
 more or less neglected. By following the advice 
 given in the pamphlet, the expense for such a 
 family may be reduced so that it will not exceed 
 $1.50 per year. Although the materials recom- 
 mended are inexpensive, their use will keep the 
 teeth in perfect order. All materials recommended 
 for the care of the teeth are endorsed by the den- 
 tists in the League and by several of the best den- 
 tal colleges. 
 
 As it is with the teeth, so it is with everything 
 about the appearance of even the humblest mem- 
 bers : the straw hat will be white and fresh as new,
 
 206 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 yet it may be old ; the collar and tie will be fault- 
 lessly clean ; the shoes will be well polished with a 
 home-made polish of serviceable yet most inexpens- 
 ive material, and by special treatment they will 
 be made to wear well ; the clothes, even though in- 
 expensive, will be spotless and free from dust ; the 
 hair, face, and hands will show that their owner 
 has learned how to take care of them. This de- 
 partment has found such inexpensive and ingenious 
 ways to accomplish these and other things that the 
 usual income of a laboring man's family, even if 
 the family is large, will permit the carrying out of 
 these details. This, however, might not be possible 
 if the other departments did not show how to spend 
 the income to the best advantage in other directions. 
 These practical methods of economy are published, 
 and they are especially appreciated by yoimg mar- 
 ried people who are building and furnishing new 
 homes. 
 
 The Sunday League has much in common with 
 the Institutional Church, the Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Association, the University Settlement, and 
 certain phases of Chautauqua work. It might almost 
 be taken for a composite of these activities. The 
 League, however, has on Sundays both the week- 
 day work and the Sunday work of the two first-men- 
 tioned institutions ; but it is not more for Christians
 
 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 207 
 
 than for those belonging to the long list of other 
 faiths among which men are divided. The purpose 
 of the League is the raising of the standard of man- 
 hood and womanhood regardless of religious belief. 
 Differing religious beliefs have their place in the 
 League if they wish place, as the thoughtfully 
 planned methods in no way interfere with the 
 free expression of the individuality of its members. 
 
 Another point in which the League differs from 
 the other institutions mentioned is in the fact that, 
 eventually, it is to be maintained entirely by the 
 regular dues for membership ; it will not accept 
 donations, except such gifts as may be willed to its 
 inheritance fund. This sentiment is the outgrowth 
 of increased knowledge and the consequent spirit 
 of independence. In time, a fair knowledge of man 
 wiU be possessed by practically all ; and at such 
 time each individual will be respected and honored 
 in proportion to his perfection of character. The 
 money ideal will fade as true knowledge advances, 
 and no one will be granted the privilege of paying 
 more than his proper share towards any public 
 activity. 
 
 To the League, the uplifting of humanity means 
 not only a bettering of the laborer's condition, but 
 an effecting, through education, of the virtual elimi- 
 nation of laborer and master as separate classes.
 
 208 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE 
 
 The League is confident that two generations of 
 education, approximate justice, right living condi- 
 tions, and freer sway to individuality, — all of which 
 things are furthered by its work, — will fairly accom- 
 plish this end. The true friend of humanity can have 
 no rest until all men have the opportunity for the 
 highest development of which they are capable. The 
 common and most essential work will not suffer in 
 the hands of educated men, whereas at present it 
 often suffers in the hands of the uneducated. This 
 is a long look ahead, but the best way to accomplish 
 an end is to keep the final purpose fresh in mind so 
 that every effort made along the way will be an effort 
 in the right direction. 
 
 With variations that are not vital, the Sunday 
 League is in existence at the present time. Its good 
 features, however, are scattered, some here and some 
 there. By the universal law of attraction, they are 
 drawing together to build a complete institution, 
 and the present century may reasonably expect to 
 see a Sunday League more nearly ideal than the 
 one here described.
 
 NATIONAL EDUCATION PARTY 
 
 A FUTURE political party might be called the "Na- 
 tional Education Party." The purpose of this party 
 would be to make cautious experiments in govern- 
 ment and in public education, and especially to 
 effect a more general distribution of a wise second- 
 ary and higher school education. As such education 
 must always be the important feature in the solution 
 of every great political question, and since this is 
 especially true of the temperance question, the Tem- 
 perance Party might, for a time, become the temper- 
 ance branch of the Education Party. Others of the 
 smaller parties, and progressive sections of the Re- 
 publican and Democratic parties, might temporarily 
 adopt the same course. This united effort might be 
 maintained until the principal common objects were 
 accomplished. The "National Education Party" 
 might have a platform consisting of sections num- 
 bered as follows, approximately in the order sup- 
 posed to be best for their practical application :^ — 
 1. Direct Primary Laws of the most approved 
 form. 
 
 ^ In this list of sug^gestions, those that are printed in italics are 
 full or partial copies of some of the best " Demands " in the Social- 
 ist platform of 1908.
 
 210 NATIONAL EDUCATION PARTY 
 
 2. The initiative and referendum^ proportional 
 representation, and the right of recall. 
 
 3. The organization of a National Taxation Com- 
 mission and of auxiliary state commissions whose 
 duty it shall be to evolve a more scientific system 
 of taxation. 
 
 4. For experimental purposes only, local option 
 by counties as to the method of taxation, — this local 
 option to be limited to one county in each state, 
 and limited also to the various methods of taxation 
 prescribed for experimental purposes by the Na- 
 tional and State Taxation Commissions. 
 
 5. The making of experiments under the super- 
 vision of the Taxation Commissions to determine the 
 feasibility of the gradual introduction of a system of 
 combined Single Tax and what may be called a 
 "Graduated Real Estate Income Tax." The pur- 
 pose of this system of taxation is to keep down the 
 price of land, and otherwise to prevent excessive 
 rents. ^ 
 
 1 It is believed that Single Tax alone would in some cases ac- 
 complish the desired purpose for a limited time only, after which 
 a " Graduated Real Estate Income Tax " might be applied to any 
 excessive rents that might appear. When strict government reg- 
 ulation of public utilities, or government ownership thereof, ia 
 more general, and when voluntary cooperation in industry and 
 trade is more common, the question of taxation will be simpler 
 than at present. Only under conditions such as these can reforms 
 in taxation have a permanently good effect.
 
 NATIONAL EDUCATION PARTY 211 
 
 6. The enactment of further measures for gevr 
 eral education and for the conservation of health. 
 The Bureau of Education to he made a department. 
 The creation of a department of public health, 
 
 7. The making, under government supervision, 
 of a number of experiments with public works schools. 
 The plan of these schools provides for young men 
 and women an opportunity to earn an education by 
 doing public work. In case of successful results from 
 these experiments, the establishment of public works 
 school departments for self-supporting students in 
 all high schools and colleges.^ 
 
 8. The establishment of state normal schools that 
 provide seven hours daily of industrial work and 
 three hours daily of school work. The business fur- 
 nishing this industrial work to be reserved as a state 
 monopoly, and the wages for seven hours of daily 
 labor to be sufficient to support a family. The ob- 
 ject of these schools shall be to encourage young 
 men to take up the vocation of teaching. ^ 
 
 * An outline for combining school work and municipal em- 
 ployment is more fully elaborated in the article " Public Works 
 High Schools." One result of these schools will be that they 
 will make of the students efficient workers in public as well as in 
 private enterprises. 
 
 2 A plan that would apply to a school of this nature is described 
 in the article " Manufacturing Works High Schools " ; this plan 
 is equally applicable to a school for young men.
 
 212 NATIONAL EDUCATION PARTY 
 
 9. The government ownership of railroads^ tel- 
 egraphs, telephones, steamship lines, and all other 
 means of transportation and communication. 
 
 10. The government ownership of the lumber 
 industry. 
 
 11. The government ownership of the Portland 
 cement industry. 
 
 12. The government ownership of grain eleva- 
 tors. 
 
 13. The government ownership of all industries 
 which are organized on a national scale and in 
 which competition has virtually ceased to exist. 
 
 14. The government ownership of mines, quar- 
 ries, cement deposits, oil wells, forests, and water 
 power. 
 
 15. The municipal ownership of water works, 
 electric light and power plants, gas works, and street 
 car lines. 
 
 16. This government and municipal ownership 
 to be effected only as properly equipped students 
 and graduates of public works schools are avail- 
 able for the purpose of operating such activities. 
 
 17. The scientific reforesting of timber lands, 
 and the reclamation of swamp lands; the land so re- 
 forested or reclaimed to he permanently retained as 
 part of the public domain, and the income therefrom 
 to be used in part for additional school facilities.
 
 NATIONAL EDUCATION PARTY 213 
 
 18. The establishment of a Department of Pub- 
 lic Ownership and Voluntary Cooperation for the 
 distribution of such knowledge as will further 
 municipal and government ownership of public utili- 
 ties, and voluntary cooperation in mercantile and 
 manufacturing activities. A special purpose of this 
 department shall be the publication of knowledge 
 necessary for the construction and operation of pub- 
 lic utility works. 
 
 19. The establishment, for national defense, of 
 a militia composed of self-supporting students em- 
 ployed at public work. Approximately six hours 
 of drilling, eighteen hours of school attendance, and 
 thirty hours of work per week to be required from 
 each militiaman. 
 
 20. The establishment, for national defense, of an 
 adequate regular army composed of self-supporting 
 student soldiers. Approximately twenty-four hours 
 of drilling, eighteen hours of industrial work, and 
 eighteen hours of school attendance to be required 
 per week. The industrial work is to be such as is 
 required to equip and maintain the army and navy. 
 As far as possible, the drilling is to be given with 
 a view to physical culture. 
 
 21. The establishment, for national defense, of 
 an adequate navy under a plan similar to that just 
 given for the army. School ships or combined
 
 214 NATIONAL EDUCATION PARTY 
 
 school ships and colliers to accompany the war- 
 ships. 
 
 22. The maintenance of such militia, army, and 
 navy until the people of all great nations, through 
 education and experience, have so far advanced in 
 moral and aesthetic development that war will be 
 outside of the realm of possibilities. 
 
 23. Provision for special elections for women 
 only, — these elections to be on the question of 
 limited suffrage for women, to be followed in ten 
 years by general suffrage. In order to carry the 
 question, a majority vote of the women shall be re- 
 quired, and this majority vote shall not be less than 
 the number representing one half of the registered 
 men voters. 
 
 24. The appointment of a National Monetary 
 Commission to find a unit of value that will an- 
 swer the purposes of money, but that will not con- 
 sume so much energy as does the production of 
 gold and silver coin. The commission to be directed 
 to investigate a plan for a paper dollar with a com- 
 posite base, as soon as the government owns the 
 grain elevators, and either owns the mines or con- 
 trols the products thereof. Each one hundred dol- 
 lars to represent a given quantity of the following 
 and similar products : wheat, oats, com, rice, gold, 
 silver, nickel, copper, lead, iron.
 
 NATIONAL EDUCATION PARTY 215 
 
 25. The organization of a permanent tariff com- 
 mission composed of one member from each state, 
 the members to be elected directly by the people. 
 The annual reduction in the tariff on each article 
 now protected, — this reduction to be six per cent 
 of present tariff rates, provided, however, that the 
 reduction may at any time be suspended, if proof is 
 furnished which satisfies the commission that a fur- 
 ther lessening of rates would be inimical to fair 
 profits and to the American standard of wages. 
 
 26. The formation of a National Political Sci- 
 ence Commission, the duty of which shall be to 
 suggest to the country at large what it considers 
 the most needed laws. The formation of similar 
 state commissions. 
 
 27. The continuance of all present special com- 
 missions, and the formation of others for the pur- 
 pose of seeking such knowledge as is needed for 
 good government.
 
 SOCIAL SYSTEM — EDUCATION — 
 RACE SUICIDE 
 
 The best social system would provide continuous 
 occupation for every man, whether his capabilities 
 were great or small. The occupation provided 
 would be such as is well suited to the worker, but 
 he would be given every practicable opportunity 
 to change his occupation at will. At its best, the 
 system should provide such remuneration to the 
 individual as would represent as nearly as possible 
 the worth of his labors, both in the quantity and 
 in the quality of the work done. 
 
 Under present conditions of civilization, the ac- 
 tivities are so specialized as to make it seemingly 
 an impossible task to plan a social system that 
 approaches even approximate fairness. It requires 
 comparatively no thought to leave all social pro- 
 blems to work themselves out as best they may un- 
 der the unfair, crude, and clumsy methods of " in- 
 dustrial competition " and " supply and demand " 
 that are still in force against the average man, and 
 that bring wholly unearned hardships upon many 
 who are favored with less than their share of good
 
 RACE SUICIDE 217 
 
 fortune. Strict government supervision of all im- 
 portant industries, — a supervision approaching gov- 
 ernment ownership ; government ownership itself ; 
 and better public education are at present the 
 principal movements toward making employment 
 steadier, more available to all, and more justly 
 remunerative. 
 
 Without an unrestrained growth in secondary 
 and higher education, a social system cannot be at 
 its best. Since most young people will always de- 
 pend on their own resources, the best social sys- 
 tem will provide for every self-supporting young 
 person who desires an education, an opportunity 
 to earn the expenses of school attendance. Under 
 a well-planned programme combining education 
 and remunerative occupation, practically all cap- 
 able young people would, in time, avail themselves 
 of at least a secondary-school education. When this 
 stage of education is reached, the vexatious wage 
 question will largely adjust itself. As education ad- 
 vances, both individual wages and individual capa- 
 city will tend toward equalization. In addition to 
 the qualifications already mentioned, the best social 
 system would make it plainly apparent that a man 
 must be estimated both according to his intellect, 
 and according to his attitude toward others and 
 toward himself.
 
 218 RACE SUICIDE 
 
 Under a social system such as that described, 
 most fathers and mothers would be well informed, 
 refined in character, and economically well situ- 
 ated. This enlightenment of parents would cause 
 them to regard the rearing of a child as a pleasure 
 infinitely deeper than that with which an artist re- 
 gards the painting of his masterpiece. Art in its 
 broadest meaning is the soul of life. By the time 
 that the art of rearing children — an art which in- 
 volves all knowledge — is recognized as the high- 
 est of all arts, race suicide will be a thing of the 
 past.
 
 ONE WAY TO SPEND TWO MILLIONS 
 FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD^ 
 
 The country is seriously in need of all the reforms, 
 or " advance " movements that are now under way. 
 Some are more needed than others, but none are 
 more necessary than those which promise advance 
 along lines of secondary education. This advance 
 should lead to a more general distribution of this 
 education, and improvement in its quality. This 
 better education is needed to give value to the 
 good work being done in all other advance move- 
 ments. 
 
 The foregoing belief accounts for the following 
 suggestion for the use of a fund of two million 
 dollars designed to improve general conditions. 
 Each step in the suggestion is given on the assump- 
 tion that all previously given steps have worked 
 out as desired. 
 
 Reserve enough to cover the expenses of investi- 
 gation, and place the fund in charge of a trust com- 
 
 ^ The paper on this subject was written by request ; its purpose 
 is to explain how a manufacturing works high school may be made 
 into a public institutioB<.
 
 220 HOW TO SPEND TWO MILLIONS 
 
 pany to invest in loans. Study the cotton mill busi- 
 ness, — say in Georgia, — and select a suitable mill 
 whose owners desire to cooperate in carrying out 
 the following ideas : — 
 
 Organize a school equipped to teach one hundred 
 sixteen-year-old pupils in the forenoon and a like 
 number in the afternoon. Gradually induce two 
 himdred young people of the vicinity to work five 
 hours and attend school three hours daily ; and 
 send one haK to school in the forenoon, and the 
 other half in the afternoon. As rapidly as practi- 
 cable, increase the standard of the school until it is 
 a first-class high school. 
 
 From the fund, supplement the student workers' 
 wages so that a reasonable amount of energetic 
 work will yield enough to pay a little more than 
 the necessary expenses of living and school attend- 
 ance. 
 
 In order to guide the young people into eco- 
 nomical ways of living, have a course in the school 
 on personal expenditures. 
 
 Gradually change the personnel of the working 
 force until all but superintendents are student 
 workers of sixteen years and over. 
 
 Enlarge the experiment until the entire annual 
 income from the fund is consumed. Estimating a 
 low net income and a high expense rate, it is pos-
 
 HOW TO SPEND TWO MILLIONS 221 
 
 sible that only four hundred students could be 
 accommodated. 
 
 Induce the city or the school district to reimburse 
 the fund for the cost of the school building and 
 equipment. 
 
 Induce the National Child Labor Committee to 
 furnish and apply labels to the products of the 
 mill, and have these labels state how much per 
 yard extra each kind of cloth costs in consequence of 
 the school plan. Also induce the committee to urge 
 all who are in sympathy with its work to demand 
 the goods from this mill at the slightly advanced 
 price. 
 
 Buy the cotton mill at a prearranged price. 
 
 As soon as the public demands more than the 
 output at a price that pays additional cost of cloth 
 from this miU, the fund will be relieved of supple- 
 menting the students' wages. Extend the plan to 
 other mills as fast as this condition makes it pos- 
 sible. 
 
 In order to make the work more interesting, let 
 the school curriculum include a complete study of 
 the business, from the purchasing of the raw ma- 
 terial to the collecting of accounts. 
 
 For educational purposes and to avoid monotony, 
 vary the students' mill work occasionally, and later 
 give older students some voice in the management,
 
 222 HOW TO SPEND TWO MILLIONS 
 
 as suggested in the article on " Manufacturing 
 Works High Schools." 
 
 Net profits should be used either to extend the 
 plan or to lower the prices, as circumstances might 
 indicate. 
 
 Induce state legislatures to recognize cotton 
 manufacturing as a public school industry, and to 
 extend the plan as fast as suitable graduate work- 
 ers from the first mill can be obtained to manage 
 other mills. 
 
 If dispensing with the net profit would offset 
 the better wages and place selling prices as low as 
 those established by privately owned mills, there 
 would be no difficulty in disposing of the product 
 of school mills under any rate of increase in output. 
 Corruption or negligence in the business would be 
 impossible, as all the current details of the business 
 would be given in the school course, and would be 
 studied by pupils and teachers.
 
 A FEARLESS CHURCH— A BETTER 
 COUNTRY 
 
 It is said that it is useless to think of having a 
 better country until there is a fundamental im- 
 provement in human nature ; and it is also said 
 that any fundamental change in human nature is a 
 matter of centuries of time. This argument is used 
 against activity designed to improve political con- 
 ditions, and especially against all movements in- 
 tended to bring about government control or own- 
 ership of public utilities. It is often urged that no 
 reform effort is of lasting benefit, because the pub- 
 lic is either hopelessly incompetent or hopelessly 
 corruptible. 
 
 All that is necessary in order to have a better 
 country than we at present enjoy is to use to good 
 advantage such reasoning power as we now pos- 
 sess. All we need is a little clearing of our mental 
 vision. The problem is largely a matter of awaken- 
 ing each individual to his present power for good, 
 and of showing him the best use to which he can 
 put his present capabilities. 
 
 Do we put these capabilities to the best use by
 
 224 A BETTER COUNTRY 
 
 spending our time in the accumulation of money so 
 that we may eventually live in extravagant luxury, 
 wear expensive clothes, eat expensive foods, attend 
 costly social entertainments, live in a locality known 
 as the most exclusive, travel for the opportunity of 
 posing as travelers, or for the purpose of driving 
 away domestic ennui that should not exist ? Does 
 not such use of our capabilities, of our power to 
 reason, result in a relatively characterless and 
 empty life ? Is such life really — life ? Do we put 
 our reasoning power to good use when we spend 
 our time accumulating money in order that we may 
 lovingly grant every whim of our children ; in order 
 that we may favor relatives, friends, and passing 
 strangers, and thus put them under some kind of 
 obligation to us, — call it obligation of friendship 
 if you will? A life so spent may be a step higher 
 than the one previously described, but it is far 
 from the ideal life. Is our reasoning power well 
 directed if we spend our time in accumulating 
 money, not for personal comfort, but for the pur- 
 pose of lessening the pain of sympathy that we 
 feel because of the suffering we see about us ? It 
 is not well-directed reason if we relieve that suffer- 
 ing merely with the salve of alms, gifts, or free 
 service. Such relief does not cure, and a life so 
 spent is not the life of a strong man.
 
 A BETTER COUNTRY 225 
 
 Is not tliat man's reasoning power well directed 
 who studies his own character and develops his own 
 independence, and who, by example as well as by 
 precept, tries to develop character and independ- 
 ence in every member of his family in order that 
 each member may raise the standard of manhood? 
 Is his reasoning power well-directed if he develops 
 in himself enough of the spirit of fau'ness to feel 
 the unearned suffering of those less fortunate, and 
 the foolish waste of happiness of many of the more 
 fortunate ? Is his reasoning power well directed if 
 he spends such time as he can in attempts to improve 
 the social conditions that hinder the proper devel- 
 opment of some of his fellow men ? Surely the man 
 who so directs his reasoning power is a " soldier of 
 the common good " ; his life is not characterless 
 and empty ; he lives not only in the present, but in 
 the future as he wishes it to be ; he is above the 
 petty human failings that impede true progress ; he 
 sees hope for humanity, and nothing can darken 
 the light of that hope. His family is likely to mani- 
 fest the same public spirit. His wife is likely to 
 care infinitely less about display or the ease of lux- 
 ury, and infinitely more about having her children 
 and other children live in a better and fairer world. 
 She is pleased to have a husband who is in truth a 
 man, and children who promise to become strong,
 
 226 A BETTER COUNTRY 
 
 modest men and women. A simple fireside, a small 
 library, a healthy mind, a well-developed body, the 
 ability to do a specific share of the world's work 
 both of hand and of mind, fair economic and social 
 conditions, and the material and spiritual condi- 
 tions that residt from all these things, are what 
 such a mother hopes for her children's future. 
 
 To be financially rich is in the minds of the 
 characterless a sort of substitute for richness in 
 manhood. Financial riches, for the sake of such 
 riches, are only for those who are blind to the op- 
 portunities of being men, instead of expert money- 
 getters. It is this blindness that so seriously retards 
 well-balanced political and industrial progress. 
 
 We all know that humanity is weak. Edward 
 may be jealous of James ; Mary may be envious of 
 Ann ; Frank may mistrust Charles undeservedly. 
 It may not be within the present power of any of 
 these to overcome their respective states of mind, 
 but every one of them can easily do some good 
 work for humanity. No sane man ignores the 
 needs of humanity ; no sane man is jealous or en- 
 vious of it, nor does any sane man distrust it. The 
 individual can more easily do real good to human- 
 ity, taken collectively, than he can taking it indi- 
 vidually. Your humanity is the public that is with- 
 in your sphere of influence. If you take advantage
 
 A BETTER COUNTRY 227 
 
 erf it in any way, or if by indifferent example you 
 fail to inspire in the right way those who are 
 younger in years, you are an enemy of your 
 children, of your children's children, and of all hu- 
 manity. This serious charge applies to the laborer 
 who shirks his work ; to the senator who " grafts " ; 
 to the monopolizer in land and other public re- 
 sources ; to the millionaire who spends but little of 
 his time and money for the benefit of institutions 
 intended to improve human conditions ; to eveiy 
 man in whose mind the thought of the service to be 
 rendered does not take precedence over the thought 
 of private gain. Fortimately, when a man works for 
 the public good he best learns how to do real good 
 to himself and to those nearest to him. In fact, 
 this is often the only practical way to overcome 
 the feelings of antagonism and antipathy that 
 develop between individuals. The man who cares 
 little for the public good or for humanity can 
 care for an individual only from the most selfish 
 motives. When the present degree of reasoning 
 power of the average citizen is directed toward the 
 public good, we shaU advance as a nation in a 
 manner unprecedented. 
 
 Not much longer will the organized community 
 be a thing to "pluck," because the public is fast 
 learning to apprehend the " plucker " ; because an
 
 228 A BETTER COUNTRY 
 
 ever-increasing number are learning that it always 
 degrades to act as a public parasite; and because 
 the individual is learning that the community stands 
 for humanity, and that his own, and especially his 
 children's interests, are identical with the interests 
 of humanity. The advancement of humanity, not 
 only iof the good of the present generation, but 
 also for the good of succeeding generations, must 
 always be the object of every enlightened and well- 
 balanced mind. It matters not how good a man may 
 otherwise be, if he knowingly injures the public, he 
 wholly nullifies this good. 
 
 Why do not more churches try to improve the 
 individual through his latent love for humanity ? 
 Do many ministers study the effects of land specu- 
 lation, or of our system of land taxation and land 
 ownership? Do many ministers study the practical 
 workings of our system of franchise granting, and 
 then offer criticism to members of their congrega- 
 tions who are directors in companies that utilize 
 such franchises improperly? Do many ministers 
 study the practical workings of our system of pri- 
 vately owned public utility businesses, or the methods 
 and workings of our political conventions and our 
 elections in large cities, and then argue against 
 further wrong-doing in these fields ? Do many min- 
 isters urge those of their congregation who are
 
 A BETTER COUNTRY 229 
 
 best fitted for the work to form, with their pastor's 
 co(5peration, a society for the purpose of studying 
 sociologic conditions, in order that he may intelli- 
 gently discuss child labor if in a factory district; 
 land speculation, if in a growing community ; tainted 
 news, if a tainted paper circulates in the locality ; 
 or that he may intelligently discuss the subject 
 of taxation, of the preservation and redemption of 
 national resources, and other topics which are of 
 vital interest, and which, on account of their hu- 
 manitarian side, would be at least as stimulating 
 and elevating morally as any part of the regidar 
 sermons ? 
 
 Perhaps all who read this article know of minis- 
 ters who are working along these lines. The num- 
 ber thus working is sufficiently large to show that 
 it is practicable for able and fearless ministers to 
 undertake the preaching of these first principles 
 of applied Christianity. It is true that some of the 
 larger contributors to the church fund may be dis- 
 pleased. These contributors would rather see the 
 church confine itself to organized charities, — a de- 
 vice that relieves only a small part of the misery due 
 to wrong political and economic conditions, and re- 
 lieves it in the wrong way. A fearless, tactful, well- 
 informed minister can successfully preach on land 
 and other speculation, tenement house iniquities,
 
 230 A BETTER COUNTRY 
 
 monopoly prices of utilities, and other social wrongs. 
 The personnel of his congregation may gradually 
 change ; some of those who have gained an unfair 
 advantage of the public may be improved by the 
 sermons ; others may leave the church for a time, 
 and, as a result, the minister may be obliged to ac- 
 cept a lower salary. Possibly as soon as the minis- 
 ter must live on a smaller salary, those will leave 
 who can judge of a minister's ability only by the 
 salary he receives. But would not all the best mem- 
 bers remain ? Would not new and thoughtful listen- 
 ers join ? Would not those who leave enter a congen- 
 ial church ? It must not be inferred that it is only 
 the rich man who has not learned the true way of 
 life, and who needs instruction. Every poor man 
 who, for instance, wishes that some so-called good 
 luck would put him in possession of an independent 
 fortune to be used for display, luxury, or ease, is, 
 in proportion to his influence, as great a burden to 
 society, and needs enlightenment as badly as the 
 rich man who has similar ambitions. 
 
 Why does not the church, as a whole, patiently 
 and thoroughly study sociologic conditions, and 
 then considerately and fearlessly attack the wrong 
 it sees and understands? Is what should be the 
 House of God only the " House of Fear " ? If so, 
 what does it fear? Is it the loss of the rich man's
 
 A BETTER COUNTRY 231 
 
 patronage? Perhaps the church is not afraid. Is it 
 hypnotized by the rich? Or is it asleep ? 
 
 These questions can be better answered after cer- 
 tain present-day efforts have passed their experi- 
 mental stage. In the meantime, we may feel en- 
 couraged because the church is awakening to its 
 duties and possibilities. Let us watch. If the church 
 will only be a careful student of conditions prior to 
 taking radical steps, we may expect tremendous re- 
 sults. After such a reformation in the church, those 
 men who left, but who on second thought are amen- 
 able to reason, will eventually return to be its best 
 workers. 
 
 To illustrate the need of church work in civic 
 morals, almost any reader can recall some acquaint- 
 ance who answers to the following description. A 
 certain man in an enlightened American city is a 
 prominent citizen and a leading member of a great 
 church that has a brilliant minister. The man is 
 prominent in public and private business life, and 
 also in social life, and for many years has been a 
 member of this church. If drawn into a friendly 
 yet earnest discussion in regard to the possibility 
 of raising the standard of individual morals and 
 true fellowship by developing a high sense of pub- 
 lic duty, this man would smile and say that when 
 his pocketbook was aifected, his civic pride and
 
 232 A BETTER COUNTRY 
 
 honor had to step aside. He would further say that 
 none of his acquaintances differed from him in this 
 regard, and would intimate that if any man is really 
 different at this stage of human progress, this man 
 must be one lacking in judgment. 
 
 Individual goodness to family or to friends, 
 unless it has underlying it real concern for the gen- 
 eral good, or at least a latent capacity for this con- 
 cern, does not differ from that goodness which ani- 
 mals exercise toward their families and associates. 
 This being the case, the extreme moral inexperience 
 of the type of man just discussed becomes apparent 
 as a matter seemingly beyond the hope of better- 
 ment. Surely such men were born with as strong a 
 tendency toward righteousness as were most men, 
 and they are considered honorable. Had the church 
 known how to teach them the love of humanity, 
 and from the time of their early youth dared to 
 teach them this love, they would have been genu- 
 inely public-spirited citizens long before maturity, 
 and would now be good men instead of only good 
 moral animals, as animals go. You may say that 
 such a man is good, — that he would die for his 
 wife and children. This, you may say, is the height 
 of unselfishness ; but, as said before, this unselfish- 
 ness is no greater than that manifested by the lower 
 animals : a cat will die for her kittens ; a dog, in
 
 A BETTER COUNTRY 233 
 
 order to protect his master, will take chances that 
 often result in death. The cat and dog may not 
 know that they put themselves in danger, never- 
 theless, the chances they take are such as they re- 
 frain from taking on all common occasions. Again 
 you may say that in the case of the animals the act 
 of self-sacrifice is an act of instinct, while with the 
 man it is an act of free-will. That man who would 
 readily give his life for his children, yet who has 
 no care for the public good, could sacrifice himself 
 only by reason of instinct. Only the human ele- 
 ment in a man is concerned with the public good. 
 All other conscious life is purely animal, and ani- 
 mal life, whether in the human body or in that of 
 the lower animals, is governed by what is called 
 instinct. 
 
 Reason as we may, that which distinguishes hu- 
 man life and happiness from the life and happiness 
 of lower animals, is a concern for the common good. 
 Those in whom this concern does not exist are not 
 yet human. In order to make a better country, 
 there can be no doubt as to the line of work along 
 which the church of to-morrow must fearlessly 
 direct its efforts.
 
 DISCUSSION REFERRED TO IN FOOT-NOTE, 
 PAGE 6 
 
 SELF-supporting students who are not beyond the age 
 limit for high-school attendance will not be required to 
 pay tuition, so they can easily live on wages of five and 
 a half dollars a week. Upon first thought, a wage of six 
 dollars. a week for only part-time work may seem high 
 for young men of sixteen to eighteen years who have had 
 but little experience, but these student workers are nat- 
 urally selected from among those who passed the eighth, 
 ninth, or tenth grades with special credit. Each, as a 
 result of his own wisdom, is willing to forego the plea- 
 sures of an easier life in order to make a long-continued 
 efFort for the future economic, social, and intellectual 
 good that results from education. As a rule, young men 
 of this type are energetic, truthful, and reliable ; and, 
 after a comparatively short experience, they can safely 
 be given fairly responsible positions. Failures among 
 them are rare, so the necessity for changing help is in- 
 frequent. Under half-time school attendance, the self- 
 supporting students can do from five to six hours of work 
 each school day and a few additional hours on Saturdays. 
 They find delight in both work and study under these hope- 
 ful conditions, and they are usually strong and happy, 
 and, almost without exception, stand high in school. 
 Employers who have sufficient faith in earnest students
 
 DISCUSSION OF WAGES 235 | 
 
 to employ them, will soon feel inclined to pay them such j 
 
 wages as they are worth by comparison with regular era- ) 
 
 ployees, although these wages may be somewhat more 
 than are customarily paid workers of the same age. It \ 
 
 should be borne in mind that the proposed plan provides i 
 
 that the student workers shall be first tried and required 
 to gain some experience before they are permanently 
 employed and allowed these wages. Many capable young i 
 
 people now command wages of twenty cents per hour. 
 When one considers these points, the wages proposed do 
 not seem improbable or unreasonable. Employers find ,' 
 
 these self-supporting students, even at the wages stated, I 
 
 to be as profitable as any help they have. Even in parts 
 of the country where the proposed wages are, for the 
 present, beyond the earning capacity of young students, j 
 
 the plan suggested would still answer for those who i 
 
 obtain some assistance from home. The number of able 
 young people of the ages discussed is limited, but this 
 ability will rapidly become more general, as the custom 
 of earning one's way through school becomes more com- 
 mon.
 
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