Hi SHOP 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 Bfll ISM 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 ^Received |. A f| 6 1 893 . 189 
 
 Accessions NoML^ ... Class No. 
 
E VER Y-DA Y PHIL OS O PHY 
 
 THE SHOP 
 
 BY 
 
 ALBERT E. WINSHIP 
 
 EDITOR "JOURNAL OF EDUCATION" 
 
 BOSTON 
 D LOTHROP COMPANY 
 
 WASHINGTON STREET OPPOSITE BROMFIELD 
 
 riI.7iB.siT: 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1889, 
 
 BY 
 D. LOTHROP COMPANY. 
 
WHOSE FORGE AND ANVIL ARE AMONG MY EARLIEST RECOLLEC- 
 TIONS J IwHO TAUGHT ME BY PRECEPT AND EXAMPLE 
 "TO STAND UPON MY FEET" IN THOUGHT 
 AND CHARACTER,! 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS FRUIT OF HIS LIFE AND TEACHING, 
 
 WITH FILIAL DEVOTION, 
 IN HIS EIGHTY - SECOND YEAR. 
 
* EVERY father expects his boy to be a success, and 
 every mother expects her daughter to marry a man 
 who is a success. There are some disappointments. 
 Why?* 
 
 One man says the home is responsible for the failures 
 in life, and organizes an Anti-Divorce League ; another 
 holds the school responsible, and organizes an Indus- 
 trial Education Society ; another says it is the church, 
 and advocates a " How to Reach the Masses Society " ; 
 another lays the blame upon the saloon, and forms a 
 Prohibitory Party; another says it is aristocracy in pol- 
 itics that does the mischief, and launches a Labor Re- 
 form Party. 
 
 Without challenging any of these explanations, or 
 criticising any of the proposed remedies, it may be well 
 to focus our inquiries regarding social disturbances 
 about the shop. There is no intention of magnifying 
 or minifying the good or bad in shop life. The aim is 
 simply to call attention to the possibilities and proba- 
 bilities of social, home, church and political reform, 
 through a keener appreciation and better appropriation 
 of the labor-life of the people. \ 
 
THE SHOP AT WORK. 
 
A good handicraft has a golden foundation. Dutch. 
 
 A good head and an industrious hand are worth gold in any 
 land. German. 
 
 A good trade is an estate for Me. Turkish. 
 
 As the labor so the pay. Portuguese. 
 
 By labor comes wealth. African. 
 
 Labor conquers all things. Vergil. 
 
 Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven. Carlyle. 
 
 Labor is discovered to be the grand conqueror, enriching and 
 building up nations more surely than the proudest battles. 
 Channing. 
 
 Get leave to work ; 
 In this world 'tis the best you get at all. Browning. 
 
 All true work is sacred. Carlyle. 
 
 Nothing is impossible to industry. Periander. 
 
TJHIVE'RSITT 
 
 THE SHOP AT WORK. 
 
 T)Y the shop is meant the vocation-life and 
 association of those who work merely for 
 the dollars and cents that come to them weekly. 
 There is a wide gap between the conditions of 
 work with a laborer and a professional or business 
 man. The man in business for himself, or in a 
 salaried position which gives him confidential 
 relations with the proprietor, works more hours, 
 makes more sacrifices, does more exhausting work 
 than the laborer ; but though he gets more money 
 for it, that is but an incidental reward ; and he 
 views it not as a means of living, but as an invest- 
 ment to bring in return other rewards. 
 
 fThe laboring man has a certain independence 
 that the professional or business man does not 
 enjoy. He can change his place of business, usu- 
 
 9 
 
IO THE SHOP AT WORK. 
 
 ally at a week's notice, and his place of residence 
 as easily, while the professional or business man 
 can almost never change, except through misfor- 
 tune or special good fortune. The laborer can 
 think, speak and vote, as he pleases. If he likes 
 or dislikes any one in the shop, in society, or 
 church, he says so with as much emphasis as he 
 pleases; while the professional or business man, 
 no matter how great his envy or jealousy, must 
 count the cost to his income and influence before 
 he arrays any one against him. l 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, there is an element of 
 independence in the management of a farm, fac- 
 tory, store, office or practice, that is unknown to 
 the laborer who must be in his place at a given 
 minute, do a certain amount of work, lunch on 
 time and stand in his place until a given tick of 
 the clocky/knowing all the while that it will make 
 very little difference to his income how faithful or 
 skillful he is. | His physical energies go to the 
 shop. He eats and sleeps that he may have 
 strength to put on his shop clothes and work all 
 
THE SHOP AT WORK. II 
 
 day, in order to be able to eat and sleep for 
 strength to do it over again. 
 
 We are tinkering our laws each year to make 
 the penalty sufficient to check the stampede of 
 children to the shop before they are thirteen years 
 of age. The vast majority of the men are in the 
 shop from thirteen years of age to the grave, 
 unless they are side-tracked in a hospital, asylum 
 or poorhouse. 
 
 There are in round numbers four times as many 
 men who are classed as laborers, as there are 
 professional and business men combined. Massa- 
 chusetts, for instance, has in round numbers four 
 hundred thousand laboring men and one hundred 
 thousand professional and business men, including 
 farmers, bankers and men retired from business. 
 
 What is the condition of the shop ? What are 
 its hopes and fears ? 
 
 Few men work alone. Modern economy de- 
 mands that each man shall do just so much of any 
 kind of work as he can do with the least waste of 
 time and energy to his employer. The margins 
 
12 THE SHOP AT WORK. 
 
 are so slight that about all the profit there is in 
 any well-established business is the saving that 
 can be made in the adjustment of men to their 
 work. 
 
 The poultry business has reached a stage in 
 science in which the secret of success lies in not 
 allowing the fowl to waste any of its food through 
 exercise. One dealer has invested eighty-five 
 thousand dollars in a plant that enables him to 
 keep twelve thousand fowls in a dark building, 
 each in a compartment about its own size, where 
 he feeds them by placing a hose in their throats 
 and pumping the crops full of prepared food. 
 Here they stay day after day for about three 
 weeks, fed and re-fed, without exercise, in order 
 that their owner may get the greatest amouut of 
 weight with the most delicate " tenderness/' 
 This principle, with variations, applies to the treat- 
 ment of help. 'The result is that groups of men, 
 women or youth, work together, each doing so 
 small a portion of any work as to "require almost 
 no thought. Each becomes a machine, and then a 
 
THE SHOP AT WORK. 13 
 
 machine is invented to do the work. The machine 
 follows the making of a machine of the man. 
 
 As a^rule these groups have the mind free eight 
 or ten hours a day. The tongue is usually free 
 also, and it is talk, talk, talk, from one year's end 
 to the next. They think about their talking more 
 than about their working. What do they talk 
 about ? What effect does their talking have upon 
 their thinking ? ' What is the effect of their think- 
 ing upon their character upon society ? * 
 
 p*y**^ 
 
 The talking is of two kinds some general 
 
 theme on the one hand, or "small talk" on the 
 other. Almost every half-day starts off with a 
 general theme which soon degenerates into small 
 talk. When they begin work in the morning and 
 at noon, they talk of the horse show or the dog 
 show ; of base ball or the yacht race ; of a great 
 shipwreck or a terrible cyclone; of the latest 
 invention or political appointment ; of a revivalist 
 or tragedian ; of James G. Elaine, Dwight L. 
 Moody, Joseph Cook, J. D. Fulton, or John L. 
 Sullivan. 
 
14 THE SHOP AT WORK. 
 
 The talk of the shop is largely determined by 
 life out of the shop. Each day is introduced by 
 some comment by each member of the group 
 regarding something that he has seen, heard or 
 read, since they separated. If there be in the 
 group one of any special strength of character who 
 hears a sermon upon a theme in which he is inter- 
 ested, the talk of the shop will be directed by it 
 on Monday morning ; but he is a vigorous preacher 
 who, through any member of his congregation, can 
 hold the attention of the shop never so lightly till 
 Monday noon. 
 
 The day has gone when it is the main duty of 
 the pulpit to tell how wicked the world is and how 
 good the church i^ |The time has come when the 
 pulpit must know, and the church must solve, *the 
 problems of the world. The church must expect 
 to be judged among men by what it does, not by 
 what it says ; by what its members now are, not 
 by what they hope to be hereafter.* 
 
 The shop knows what it wants and what it does 
 not want. Seminary phrases in the pulpit will 
 
THE SHOP AT WORK. I 5 
 
 send the shop to the beach every summer Sunday. 
 The shop will not be "preached at." The "better- 
 than-thou " style of address will drive the shop into 
 open antagonism. 
 
 Wit is always at a premium in the shop. A 
 laugh outweighs an argument. Cant is at a dis- 
 count. Chestnuts are quickly roasted. There is 
 more genuine wit in the shop than at a bankers 1 
 banquet, or a ministers' meeting. There is as 
 much brain in the shop, judging from comments 
 and discriminating criticism of men and passing 
 events, as in some editorial sanctums and court 
 rooms. 
 
 It surprises one to see how quickly the shop 
 sizes up a man. The freedom of the place, the 
 opportunity to say irresponsibly whatever one 
 chooses, enables a man to show whether he has 
 any nerve or brain. The world might be the gainer 
 if we could put our statesmen, editors and preach- 
 ers into the shops for a year, and fill their places 
 with the highest product of the free discussion of 
 the shop. If there was a way to secure the sur- 
 
1 6 THE SHOP AT WORK. 
 
 vival of the fittest by promotions from the shop 
 into life, and if brains rather than culture, if 
 thought instead of classical expression, could be 
 the test, Congressional halls, editorial chairs and 
 pulpits might make some gains. 
 
 1 The trouble is, that society has no way to show 
 its appreciation of any virtue of the shop except 
 through promotion in the shop, where the stand- 
 ard is skill to make more machine-like those who 
 are supervised. The result is a downward ten- 
 dency, with less wisdom and more wit, less sense 
 and more sarcasm, less conscience and more crit- 
 icism, less delicacy and virtue. * 
 
 There is a fascination in all this. With multi- 
 tudes of people the shop becomes a cheerful, rol- 
 licking place, despite its drudgery. It is this, 
 largely, that attracts young people to shop-life. 
 There is an element that they can rarely find any- 
 where else in the hours when the world is at work. 
 
 There are notable exceptions to the non-promo- 
 tion tendencies of the shop. Two of the mayors 
 of Massachusetts' cities this year are men of the 
 
THE SHOP AT WORK. I/ 
 
 shop. One of them is found daily at his forge 
 and anvil, and the other at his place in a factory. 
 These men preside over the destinies of two of the 
 most prosperous cities of the Commonwealth. 
 
 f Whenever an opportunity offers to promote one of 
 these notably able men of the shop, it is as wise 
 as it is just that they be advanced. If it could be 
 believed that the world is as ready to put a compe- 
 tent man into office from the shop as from the 
 law office, from an humble home as from a pala- 
 tial residence, it would make a vast difference in 
 the contentment, character and characteristics, of 
 laboring men.f 
 
 jWe are in the habit of speaking of the talk and 
 thought of the shop as threatening the best inter- 
 ests of society. It is better to think of them as 
 presenting some specially hopeful phases of life. 
 If only they can be directed aright, they will be 
 worth more than any specific means of reform 
 that have been suggested^ Every characteristic 
 of the shop that gives it a dangerous tendency 
 
 , may be turned easily into a helpful phase of life. 
 
1 8 THE SHOP AT WORK. 
 
 When the theme is right, public sentiment is made 
 nowhere so rapidly as in the shop.^ 
 
 (In the trying hours of '61, the shop did more 
 than the platform, pulpit or press, to form public 
 sentiment. Every shop was keenly alive to the 
 changing phases of American thought. It dicta- 
 ted to the leaders. Men who were not in touch 
 with the shop were counselling compromise, but 
 when those who knew what the shop thought and 
 talked reported the purpose and determination of 
 the people, the leaders were prompt to act ; the 
 shop demanded action and gave a million soldiers 
 to endorse its demand!} 
 
 In England it was the shop that prevented 
 British recognition of the Southern Confederacy. 
 But for the purpose and zeal of the toiling millions 
 in Birmingham and other cities, the Ministry 
 would have acknowledged the independence of the 
 Confederacy. There was that indefinable force 
 in the talk of the laborers in England that made 
 the proud aristocracy hesitate to take so impor- 
 tant a step in defiance of their convictions. When 
 
THE SHOP AT WORK. ig 
 
 t at last the aristocracy decided to educate the 
 workingmen away from their prejudices, Henry 
 Ward Beecher delivered one lecture that was 
 reported in the English press and was read in 
 every shop. Editorially the papers denounced it ; 
 but the shop reads the reports and never sees the 
 editorials, and after that speech had been talked 
 over by a hundred thousand laboring men no power 
 on earth could have wrung recognition from the 
 Government. 
 
 ^There is no general reform possible that is not 
 securely anchored in the shop. There is no occa- 
 sion to raise money for campaign purposes when 
 the conscience of the shop is bent upon reform. 
 
 1 Reformers must come into touch with the shop if 
 they would win. I Its possibilities for good are 
 every way. greater than its tendency to evil. 
 
 Success in the shop is as vital to four-fifths of 
 mankind as success in mercantile, professional or 
 literary life, is to the other fifth. Lectures are 
 delivered, articles are written, and sermons are 
 preached to inspire men to be great, but almost 
 
2O THE SHOP AT WORK. 
 
 nothing is said or done to help men to make the 
 most of themselves in the shop.f 
 
 There are compulsory laws requiring school 
 attendance of the children of the shop. The 
 church points with pride to the size of its Sunday 
 School, filled largely from shop homes. Doctors 
 figure skillfully for practice in the homes of me- 
 chanics, and traders cater for their patronage. 
 tThe largest profits are made on goods sold to 
 laboring men, who pay cash because they have no 
 credit. They pay an extra percentage on their 
 groceries and provisions, their boots, shoes and 
 fuel, on the ground that they buy in small quanti- 
 ties.* 
 
 If merchants, professional men and philanthro- 
 pists were as wise as they think themselves, they 
 would join in a movement to inspire the shop to 
 greater thrift. *The world has little to rejoice 
 over in the success of a man who amasses millions ; 
 and yet, every newspaper is keenly alive to every 
 bit of gossip, good, bad or indifferent, regarding 
 such a man's home, social habits or business rela- 
 
THE SHOP AT WORK. 21 
 
 tions, while they leave unnoticed the men who 
 earned the money to buy the goods, to pay the 
 railroad jiares, and to 'use the freight that made 
 his millions possible. * 
 
 The prosperity of the nation depends more upon 
 the character of the shop than upon any other one 
 thing. We should lend every possible encourage- 
 ment to everything that gives financial independ- 
 ence to the shop. | Manly independence will be 
 possible when the shop holds the same position in 
 the regard of the platform, pulpit and press, that 
 wealth, fame and ingenuity, now hold. \ 
 
 ^There are Henry Wilsons in the shoe factories, 
 though they may never develop their character, 
 logic and eloquence, through self-denial, study and 
 aspirations. There are Elihu Burritts in the 
 country blacksmith shops throughout the land, 
 though they may not be inspired to master eight- 
 een languages and twenty-two dialects. There 
 may be Hugh Millers at Quincy and Rutland, 
 though they may not master science or literature. 
 There may be Fichtes tending geese, though they 
 
22 THE SHOP AT WORK. 
 
 may never give the world its rarest philosoph}jL 
 There may be another Robert Burns, bearing the 
 burden of daily toil on the farm, though the world 
 will never revel in another " Cotter's Saturday 
 Night." There may be another Charles Dickens 
 pushing the pencil in the reporter's gallery, though 
 we may not enjoy another "David Copperfield," 
 or "Martin Chuzzlewit." 
 
 (The shop has infinite possibilities, and there are 
 at the bench and wheel, at the plough and lathe, 
 men who will be worthy successors of Dwight L. 
 Moody, the clerk ; William Dean Howells, the type- 
 setter; Thomas Bailey Aldrich, the book-keeper; 
 Mark Twain, the pilot ; but of these the world has 
 less need to know than of those who cannot aspire 
 to thrive outside the shop, who go to their daily 
 toil knowing that their highest business hope must 
 be, "not to get out of a job," and not to have their 
 wages "cut.^ 
 
 tTo make the toiler prosperous, contented, peace- 
 ful, sunny, joyous in his work, is as great service 
 to the state and the church as any one can ask to 
 
THE SHOP AT WORK. 23 
 
 perform. Not every man can expect to do any 
 great thing for the shop. Brilliancy is a rare gif t.t 
 
 Illumination requires a deal of talent, but to 
 speak into and through the shop, if touched rightly, 
 is within the reach of humble men. It takes sixteen 
 hundred times as much electric force to run one 
 arc light as to run the entire telephone system of 
 Boston ; indeed, so slight is the force required for 
 the telephone that, by moistening the fingers, one 
 may pass the telephonic current through himself 
 and not feel it, he can be talked through, even, 
 and not know it. 
 
 I So slight is the thrill of sympathy required to 
 breathe hope, peace, joy, into the heart of toiling 
 humanity, that he is without excuse who fails to 
 do something to make the shop brighter and better.! 
 
THE SHOP AT PLAY. 
 
He that labors is tempted by one devil ; he that is idle by a 
 thousand. Italian. 
 
 Honest labor bears a lovely face. Dekker. 
 
 Labor is itself a pleasure. Lucretius. 
 
 Labor is preferable to idleness, as brightness to rust. Plato. 
 
 Labor is the best sauce. Latin. 
 
 A mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one. Carlyle. 
 
 We pine for kindred natures 
 
 To mingle with our own. Hemans. 
 
 The secrets of life are not shown except to sympathy and 
 likeness. George Eliot. 
 
 Sympathy is especially a Christian's duty. Spurgeon. 
 Those who would make us feel, must feel themselves. 
 Churchill. 
 
 Some feelings are to mortals given 
 
 With less of earth in them than heaven. Scott. 
 
 One does not feel three hundred blows on another's back. 
 Servian. > 
 
 Sympathy is the solace of the poor. Bea. 
 Work first, then rest. Ruskin. 
 
THE SHOP AT PLAY. 
 
 A RCHDEACON FARRAR said at a meeting 
 at Lord Aberdeen's in April last, that it 
 was a national disgrace for England, after spend- 
 ing millions on elementary education, millions on 
 the repression of crime, to do nothing whatever 
 for lads who, after their day's work, are "turned 
 adrift into the burning, fiery furnace of the 
 streets." 
 
 Whoever has aught to do with ' the out-of-shop 
 life of the youth of the shop, knows but too well 
 what this means. The danger is not in the street, 
 is not in the shop, is not in the lad himself, but in 
 a strange combination of the three, which makes 
 life from tea-time to bed-time a burning, fiery fur- 
 nace for a lad with nothing to do, who has been 
 in the shop eight or ten hours. 
 
 It is not alone the children of the laboring men, 
 29 
 
30 THE SHOP AT PLAY. 
 
 but the sons of clergymen, authors, doctors, law- 
 yers, merchants, millionaires, who prefer the shop 
 to a scholastic life. Did we not bait the college 
 course with the fascination of the oar, the bat, the 
 foot-ball and the class-day, how should we keep 
 any boys from the shop ? 
 
 What is the attraction of the shop ? Is it not 
 because of the lack of thought and responsibility, 
 absence of draft upon intellect and sympathy? 
 Shop-life is sociable. There is the fascination of 
 story-telling. Experiences romantic, comic and 
 tragic, are recited with all the embellishments of 
 the imagination. There is little thought required 
 for the work, and the mind is free for thinking, and 
 the tongue for talking. There are jealousy and 
 envy, friction and chafing, but such is the free- 
 dom in repartee, and such the absence of standards, 
 that every one consoles himself with the thought 
 that he gets the best of the argument or the joke. 
 
 If, for any reason, he does not like his associa- 
 tions, he merely "gets another job," and profits by 
 past experiences. He enjoys the freedom of the 
 
THE SHOP AT PLAY. 31 
 
 shop, at the same time he enjoys being liberated 
 from the "prison " of the shop at six o'clock. The 
 laboring man has the luxury of liberation daily. 
 The professional and business man rarely enjoys 
 such a sensation. For two weeks in the summer 
 some men throw off all care and abandon them- 
 selves to a lawless life in yacht or camp. O, the 
 luxury of a bosomless shirt, freedom from social 
 restraint, and the exhilaration of a careless life 1 
 
 All this the shop youth feels, with variations, 
 every night. O, the luxury of a bosom shirt, the 
 freedom of the street corner, the exhilaration of 
 a careless evening ! 
 
 JThe atmosphere of the shop prepares youth to 
 crave some experiences and enjoy some liberties 
 each night that are in such contrast with the shop 
 as to make them fascinating, though the tendency 
 is demoralizing. There is an absence of aspira- 
 tion, hope or fear, that peculiarly fits him to take 
 physical, moral and intellectual risks, that he would 
 not under other conditions. 
 
 He who prevents disease or disaster benefits 
 
32 THE SHOP AT PLAY. 
 
 mankind more than one who heals disease or res- 
 cues from destruction ; he who leads youth to a 
 life of total abstinence is doing grander service to 
 man than one who rescues a drunkard ; he who 
 prevents the desire to patronize the saloon does a 
 nobler work for that man than one who closes the 
 saloon ; so he who gives the shop something to do 
 in the out-of-shop hours, something to think of 
 which makes street-loafing insipid, and social 
 demoralization distasteful, is infinitely above one 
 who builds hospitals, asylums and reformatories^ 
 The shop influences the life outside itself, as it 
 is influenced by that outside life. Though no two 
 of the group meet each other outside the shop, 
 most of them affiliate with those of kindred tastes 
 from other shops. Society is in theory at the 
 opposite extreme from the shop. Social life is a 
 passion ; work is a necessity. Man hungers for 
 society; he dreads work for work's sake. Social 
 life is a stimulant; work is wearying. . Society 
 intoxicates; work wears. A man's only excuse 
 for his social indulgences or amusements is that 
 
THE SHOP AT PLAY. 33 
 
 he wants them and can afford them, financially, 
 physically, mentally and morally* 
 
 Social experts give the world unrest. Boys and 
 girls rush into the shop at thirteen to get a little 
 spending money to gratify some social indulgence. 
 The boy filches postage stamps from his em- 
 ployer, and the girl dodges the horse-car fare ; the 
 bank cashier embezzles, and the bank president 
 forges, all to gratify social unrest. 
 
 I Society despises the shop, yet feeds upon it. | 
 All second-grade amusements and vices depend 
 upon the shop for support. The daily paper that 
 expects to be read in the shop, must advertise 
 whatever caters to a love for second-rate social 
 amusements. 
 
 Whatever else is done for the shop, there can 
 be no permanent success that does not reach the 
 shop at play. All the labor reform of the world 
 will not bring peace, all the preaching in Christen- 
 dom will not give hope, unless the social life of 
 the shop is successfully met. 
 
 If the shop can be socially fed, it will not seek 
 
34 THE SHOP AT PLAY. 
 
 social intoxicants. tModern science intemperance 
 reform teaches that to prevent the drinking of 
 liquors we must keep men from being thirsty. A 
 drink of sparkling water, the moment one feels 
 thirsty, is worth a hundred temperance lectures to 
 keep a man from his beer. Enough good food, 
 well-cooked, enough good sleep in good homes, 
 abundance of sunlight and pure air, are better 
 than all the temperance laws ever passed, t 
 
 (What the shop wants socially is buoyancy, not 
 stimulants ; absence of repression, not religious 
 theatricals ; social tonic that shall make social 
 dissipation insipid.t 
 
 Vacation furnishes the theme for several weeks' 
 thought and talk in the shop, and the character of 
 the vacation life will determine its influence for 
 good or bad. Children and teachers have two 
 months' vacation ; preachers and church officers 
 four weeks ; clerks and most business men two 
 weeks ; professional men and most shop people 
 none at all. The Sunday holiday at the beach, in 
 the park or the woods, is the only vacation that 
 
THE SHOP AT PLAY. 35 
 
 most shop people receive ; and yet, from nearly 
 every group some one goes forth for vacation days. 
 All read and listen to vacation experiences. No- 
 where is there greater familiarity with what the 
 world is doing in vacation than in the shop. The 
 laboring man frequently sends his wife and chil- 
 dren for a vacation at a greater sacrifice than the 
 world suspects ; and not infrequently the home 
 of the laboring man is burdened with vacation 
 visits from more fortunate relatives. 
 
 Society has a definite mission with the shop. 
 Social sympathy covers a multitude of sins in the 
 eyes of the shop. I Society may do much by way 
 of studying wayward youth, comforting sorrowful 
 toilers, winning youths and maidens from harmful 
 paths by a judicious, fervent use of the sympa- 
 thetic emotions. *The shop peculiarly needs sym- 
 pathy, and is susceptible to its slightest touch. 
 The proportionate activity of muscle and mind, 
 the relation of speech and thought, the conditions 
 out of the shop as related to those in the shop, 
 create emotional possibilities eminently susceptible 
 
36 THE SHOP AT PLAY. 
 
 to fervency, amusements, saloons and political 
 parties. * Amusements in factory towns do not 
 pretend to improve head or heart, thought or life ; 
 they simply aim to stir the emotional nature, the 
 effervescent characteristics. The saloon does not 
 advertise to better the man in any regard ; it sim- 
 ply inflames his appetites and passions. * Political 
 parties rarely reason with the shop, they appeal 
 to its prejudices, and aim to make it hate some 
 policy or men. ) 
 
 The play life of every man, in summer and win- 
 ter, in vacation and in evening amusements, should 
 keep in mind the play life of the shop. Every 
 tendency toward aristocracy in enjoyment, is a 
 blow at justice, purity, honesty, through the shop. 
 
 Whoever deliberately seeks entertainment, be- 
 cause it is above the reach of the laborer, is doing 
 his country a positive wrong. What the world 
 needs, what America needs, is amusement, enter- 
 tainment, out-of-shop life that is intelligent, buoy- 
 ant, helpful, inexpensive, acceptable to the rich, 
 and within the reach of the poor. 
 
THE SHOP AT HOME. 
 
 37 
 
Labor rids us of three great evils tediousness, vice and pov- 
 erty. French. 
 
 Labor malces bread out of a stone. German. 
 
 No man can eat anything sweeter in this world than what he 
 has acquired by his own labor. Turkish. 
 
 Reward sweetens labor. Dutch. 
 
 The sleep of the laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little 
 or much. 
 
 'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
 
 Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. Key. 
 
 Our own home surpasses every other. 
 
 A coal-heaver is master at home. 
 
 The fire burns brightest on one's own hearth. 
 
 Without hearts there is no home. 
 
 At evening home is the best place for a man. 
 
 He that has no rest at home, is in the world's hell. 
 
 Home is home, be it ever so homely. 
 
 Home is the rainbow of life. 
 
 Cut your clothes according to your cloth. 
 
 Economy is a great revenue. Cicero. 
 
 Every one is bound to live within his means. 
 
 He that eats and saves, sets the table twice. Ovid. 
 
 He who eats and puts by, has sufficient for two meals. 
 
 39 
 
THE SHOP AT HOME, 
 
 *\ VIEWED from any standpoint of industry, 
 faithfulness, enjoyment, health, virtue, or 
 development, the great necessity of the shop is 
 good home life.X 
 
 It is as important to the employer as the em- 
 ployee that the laborers have good homes. It is 
 important to the State that the home life be every 
 way satisfactory. The statesmen can do nothing 
 for their country that will count for more by way 
 of national security, prosperity and honor, than to 
 encourage the best of home life among working 
 people. I We occasionally hear men vvko did not 
 go into the army talk about the worthlessness of 
 the soldiers in the Civil War. The bone and 
 sinew of the army came from good homes. There 
 were in the army 2,320,272 three-years' men, not 
 
 41 
 
42 THE SHOP AT HOME. 
 
 to mention 452,136 who enlisted for shorter peri- 
 ods. Of the 2,320,272 three-years' men, 1,200,- 
 ooo were native Americans; 175,000, Germans; 
 150,000, Irishmen; 105,000, Englishmen; and 
 225,000, colored men and men of various nation- 
 alities. (Of the 2,320,272, nearly 1,000,000 were 
 farmers, and half a million were the better class 
 of mechanics.) The best estimate that can be made 
 shows that five soldiers out of every six came from 
 homes of their own or from homes owned by their 
 parents. In any national emergency the country 
 must rely upon home-loving, working people. 
 
 VjThere is little liability of loose talk in the shop 
 on the part of those whose home life is joyous. 
 Nothing makes a laborer so contented in his toil 
 as to go to and come from a good home. 
 
 Employers begin to realize that it is for their 
 
 interest to improve the home condition of their 
 \ 
 
 employees. ^ There is no comfort for any man who 
 employs a large number of laborers who have no 
 home comforts or aspirations. IThe wildest panics 
 are liable to come with the suddenness of a cyclone 
 
THE SHOP AT HOME. 43 
 
 and the fierceness of a flood to any community of 
 toilers who are so underpaid as to make home joy 
 impracticable.* 
 
 The American Watch Company, Waltham, 
 Mass., employs twenty-seven hundred people. 
 Two-thirds of the towns of the state have a less 
 population than there are employees in this fac- 
 tory, and they pay the highest average wages of 
 any factory of considerable size in the world. 
 iThey can afford it because of the quality of help 
 they secure, which is largely determined by the 
 home life of their help.1 There is not a neater 
 community of homes in the world than that in 
 which these twenty-seven hundred laborers reside. 
 Many of them own their homes, residences cost- 
 ing all the way from one thousand to ten thou- 
 sand dollars, and the mayor of the city of twenty 
 thousand is one of the workmen of this shop. 
 
 The Pillsbury Flour Mills, at Minneapolis, 
 Minn., the greatest establishment of its kind in 
 the world, has taught the manufacturing indus- 
 tries of the land how great is the gain from the 
 
44 THE SHOP AT HOME. 
 
 encouragement of a better home life through bet- 
 ter pay, or profit sharing. The senior partner is 
 Hon. Charles A. Pillsbury, a former mayor of the 
 city and governor of the state. They have three 
 mills for the manufacture of " Pillsbury' s Best/' 
 and one of these has a capacity of seven thousand 
 barrels a day. iThe success of their business 
 depends largely upon the intelligence, sobriety, 
 stability, skill, zealous interest, and absolute fidel- 
 ity of their entire corps of laborers.% 
 
 In the modern manufacture of flour, the quality, 
 consequently the market, depends upon the utmost 
 care, and it is practically impossible to trace to 
 the proper source the results caused by negligence. 
 Only one who has studied carefully the intricacies 
 of these flouring mills can appreciate this. 
 
 In 1882, Mr. Pillsbury determined upon an 
 heroic effort to improve the home life of his help 
 the wages were already the highest anywhere 
 given in the business. They ventured the profit- 
 sharing experiment, and have given it the most 
 elaborate trial yet witnessed in America. Sept. 
 
THE SHOP AT HOME. 45 
 
 I, 1883, they distributed $40,000 of the profits to 
 such of the help as occupied the most responsible 
 positions, had been most faithful during the year, 
 and, as a rule, had been with them at least five 
 years. The checks averaged about one-third the 
 entire wages received by each man during the year. 
 In 1884-5 an d in 1888, they made each year 
 about the same division of profits among the men. 
 In 1886-7, tne business, for various reasons, did 
 not pay well and no distribution was made. 
 
 The effect of this profit sharing has been most 
 noticeable in the homes of the men, and has 
 proved as great a moral and social blessing to the 
 city as it has to the employers and employees. 
 
 It would be easy to select numerous instances 
 in all sections of the country and of the world, 
 illustrative of the fact that it pays in every way to 
 encourage with great care and apparent sacrifice 
 the best of home life among laboring people. No 
 business pays so uniformly well as that which has 
 the best home habits and the most home comforts 
 for the laborers. It is as easily demonstrated 
 
46 THE SHOP AT HOME. 
 
 from these same instances that it is equally advan- 
 tageous to the moral, social, intellectual and eco- 
 nomic advantage of the community in which such 
 conditions exist. 
 
 No man can enjoy his home so much, other 
 things being equal, as the laborer. He need have 
 little draft upon time or thought when out of the 
 shop. The kind of weariness that comes from 
 Work, makes the rest of the home more satisfying. 
 The brain-worker needs out-of-door life, physical 
 activity. The* professional man inevitably has 
 numerous social calls, making his home in a cer- 
 tain sense, public. The social life of a business 
 man naturally destroys the privacy and quiet of 
 the home ; but the laboring man may easily make 
 his home his paradise. It must be humble, 
 largely devoid of comforts and luxuries. He can 
 hardly choose his community, or the playmates 
 for his children. There are innumerable things 
 to chafe him if he will be chafed ; but society 
 proper makes few claims upon him, or, rather, will 
 extend to him few courtesies. Unless he can find 
 
THE SHOP AT HOME. 47 
 
 comfort in his home, there is little comfort for 
 him in life, f If he has mis-mated in home-making, 
 all the Circumstances conspire to make life less 
 comfortable as the years go by. { 
 
 1 An unmarried laboring young man, spending 
 all his earnings, dresses as well as a man with a 
 large income, f With his wit trained in the fer- 
 vency of shop talk, he has certain fascinating arts 
 that the wealthy youth does not possess. Many 
 a father prefers to have his daughter marry an 
 honest laborer, rather than a dude. Many a girl 
 having discovered the hollowness and "lack of 
 business " in the flirtation of the society man, 
 responds promptly to the attentions of the young 
 man of the shop. $Hence, many shop homes are 
 launched on an income from which the man alone 
 did not lay by a penny, with a wife whose spend- 
 ing-money alone has exceeded his income; home 
 then means sacrifice.* 
 
 t Another shop youth, having flirted beyond his 
 intention, marries some frivolous, "good com- 
 pany" girl of the shop, who has been quite inde- 
 
48 THE SHOP AT HOME. 
 
 pendent on her own earnings, and both fret under 
 their straitened means. Hence, from many 
 causes, the home of the laboring man that has 
 boundless possibilities of comfort, is in danger of 
 being a source of discomfort. f 
 
 fThese home complications of the laboring man 
 are practically unreachable by any philanthropy or 
 philosophy, and yet the future of America depends 
 largely upon the home life of the shop.l What- 
 ever is done for the home must be done largely 
 through the example of the homes in which chil- 
 dren are reared ; must be done by the precepts of 
 the school, church and Sunday-school, before 
 children are fourteen years of age ; must be done 
 by the heroic utterances of the best home senti- 
 ment, by pulpit, press and platform. Whoever 
 edits a paper that goes into the shop, has a patri- 
 otic opportunity and a moral responsibility that 
 are too little appreciated. 
 
 The key-note of the home is rhythm, which 
 means comfort. By rhythm is not meant the 
 effusiveness of song nor the exhilaration of poetry. 
 
THE SHOP AT HOME. 49 
 
 The chord or harmony in the music is not rhythm, 
 
 neither is the metre in poetry. Rhythm is that 
 
 
 
 indefinable feature of prose which makes it classic ; 
 it can neither be tested by rule, nor taught by 
 methods ; hence it is infinitely easier to secure art 
 in song than in speech, in poetry than in prose, in 
 oratory than in conversation. 
 
 There is little melody or poetry in the home life 
 of laboring people, but the rarest rhythm of the 
 world may be found there. Every condition for 
 such rhythm is there presented. I Let our biogra- 
 phers glorify occasionally the rhythmic virtue of the 
 ideal laborer's home ; let the newspapers magnify 
 the fact for fact it is that the majority of the 
 truly great men of the world are born in the shop 
 home; let us have more of the genius of the 
 novelist in picturing the rhythmic halo of such a 
 home ; let the churches bring to the front in their 
 social life the home-making class of our citizens ; 
 let our magazines illustrate occasionally the beau- 
 tiful, rhythmic homes of shop men, instead of glo- 
 rifying the horses, dogs and fowls, of sportsmen, j 
 
THE SHOP AT SCHOOL 
 
Those who labor with their minds rule. 
 It is lost labor to sow where there is no soil. Chinese. 
 Education is the poor man's haven. Latin. 
 Education polishes good natures, and corrects bad ones. 
 You may pay more for your schooling than your learning is 
 worth. 
 
 53 
 
THE SHOP AT SCHOOL 
 
 TT IS just possible that the platform, pulpit and 
 press have gone quite far enough in demand- 
 ing that the school do various things that should be 
 done by the home, the church and the shop. Each 
 has some responsibilities and privileges in the edu- 
 cation of the whole boy. The fact that too much 
 is demanded of the school is no reason, however, 
 why it should escape criticism for failure to do 
 essential things. Evidences multiply that the 
 school does not realize the character of its respon- 
 sibility. A study of the examination papers of 
 many schools, attention to the character of the 
 exercises in the average institute and association, 
 observation of the work done by many teachers, 
 will reveal the fact that by far too many, even in this 
 day of advance in school methods, estimate their 
 
 55 
 
56 THE SHOP AT SCHOOL. 
 
 success by the facts they teach, by the examples 
 correctly and promptly performed, and the words 
 rightly spelled, whereas these results should be 
 merely means to a higher end. 
 
 The school is responsible for such intellectual 
 discipline as shall give the highest effect to the* 
 physical, industrial, economic, moral and religious 
 life of man. For a child to read and write fluently, 
 spell and cipher correctly, know all the bays, capes 
 and rivers of the world, will not insure his pros- 
 perity, happiness or peace of mind. 
 
 The mission of the school is intellectual disci- 
 pline, not for the sake of such discipline, but for 
 its effect in domestic, social, industrial and profes- 
 sional life, in character building, in patience, loy- 
 alty and religious consistency* We do not teach 
 for discipline for its own sake, but for the results 
 of discipline in everyday life, in every sphere of 
 life. Since the vast majority of mankind is so 
 interested in the shop ; since the after-school life 
 of the majority of the public school pupils is to be 
 shop life, the school curriculum, methods and tone, 
 
THE SHOP AT SCHOOL. 57 
 
 should be largely attuned by that fact. [The work 
 of the school, however, is not to make better work- 
 men in the shop, but rather to secure greater 
 ultimate success, comfort and happiness because 
 of such work* 
 
 As labor now is, any youth can become handy 
 in shop work if he will devote himself to it for a 
 little time. A full course of industrial training 
 would rarely lessen perceptibly the time required 
 to initiate him into any mechanical industry. 
 There is no necessity here for raising the question 
 of the educational advantage in teaching accuracy 
 in observation, measurement, estimate, and in the 
 actual doing of the thing projected; but aside 
 from this, it is a misfortune to bring the shop life 
 too early into the path of our boys and girls. 
 There is no occasion to fear that labor will lack 
 fascination when we are obliged to put up legal 
 barriers to keep the children from entering the 
 shop before they are thirteen years of age, when 
 nearly every home has to make war upon the pas- 
 sion of American youth for shop life. What the 
 
58 THE SHOP AT SCHOOL. 
 
 fehop needs of the school, is that love for good 
 books, good companions, good thoughts ; that 
 appreciation of cleanly, manly conversation which 
 shall project into the shop life of the pupils some- 
 thing that shall lead them to read intelligently and 
 with avidity good things ; which shall lead them 
 to enjoy good lectures, good conversation, good 
 society; which shall lead them to appreciate a 
 good home with good books and good associations. 
 The school is not to make shop work more suc- 
 cessful, but is to make the shop at play and the 
 shop in the home mean more and bring more 
 comfort to the shop toilers. I 
 
 The shop certainly needs to be educated, but 
 not in technique. The inventions of the world 
 ought to spring from the .shop, as they do not 
 now. The man who studies principles, not the 
 one who practices processes, is the mechanical 
 inventor. The education that the man needs out- 
 side the shop, is in principles, not in processes. 
 
 Laws may be negatively beneficial to the shop, 
 but not positively. They may protect a man from 
 
THE SHOP AT SCHOOL. 59 
 
 abuses, but can never develop genius. * Labor 
 reform that aims at hours of labor or at wages, 
 may be a good thing in the negative way; but 
 what the shop needs is the inspiration to use the 
 mind, and the knowledge of the best way to use 
 it in and out of work hours. Time of itself is 
 of little account ; the use of time is of inestimable 
 importance. % 
 
 The wage question is of great moment, but the 
 use of wages is of vastly more consequence. { The 
 primal educational need of the shop is taste and 
 talent for the use of one's self, one's time and 
 wages.l 
 
 Have we not played the educational farce long 
 enough ? The idea of dividing the people of the 
 country into the educated and illiterate, with no 
 higher test for education than ability to read the 
 simplest sentences and write one's own name! 
 The showing is bad enough with that test what 
 would it be if we drew the line where it would 
 require ability to do independently and with assur- 
 ance anything that required independence of 
 
6O THE SHOP AT SCHOOL. 
 
 thought and familiarity with standards ? There 
 are men in this country who cannot read, or write 
 their own names, who are better educated than 
 some men who have been in school for years. It 
 is a trite saying, but one that needs to be repeated 
 again and again, that the most stupid children in 
 school stand about an even chance *of leading their 
 classmates in wealth, business ability, social 
 standing, political influence and moral power, at 
 forty years of age. 
 
 The work of the school is to put the child upon 
 his feet ; to give him the standards he is to use, to 
 teach him how to use them, and to inspire him to 
 make the most of them. The boy who knows all 
 that the school pretends to teach of facts and pro- 
 cesses, may yet be easily distanced by the youth 
 who, knowing little of the wisdom of other men, 
 * knows how to use himself land what little he does 
 know of the facts and processes given by others. 
 
 In the great Samoan gale that wrecked German 
 and American vessels, carrying scores of souls 
 suddenly into eternity, one vessel was saved sim- 
 
THE SHOP AT SCHOOL. 6 1 
 
 ply because the commander, seeing how useless 
 was the canvas, ordered his men to the rigging, 
 where they arranged themselves so as to catch 
 the breeze ; and there they clung, defying the storm 
 in all its fury. The education that the shop needs 
 is the ability to hurl personality, all that is alive 
 in one, into the world's rigging, defying cyclonic 
 circumstances in politics, social dissipation and 
 home misfortune. I 
 
 When asked to present questions to a school, 
 do not ask for a question of fact, nor one for the 
 verification of processes, but rather seek to know 
 whether the individual pupil has standards in a 
 given subject and knows how to use them. For 
 illustration, I have asked hundreds of high school, 
 normal school, academy, seminary, and even col- 
 lege classes, the distance to Louisville, Ky., and 
 the answers were about the same in all the schools, 
 regardless of the real distance. These ranged 
 from three hundred and fifty to thirty-five hundred 
 miles, sometimes a lesser estimate and sometimes 
 a much higher being made. I then give the class 
 
62 THE SHOP AT SCHOOL. 
 
 six distances, as, for example, the distance from 
 New York to Bangor, Savannah, New Orleans, 
 Chicago, Denver, San Francisco. These are yard- 
 sticks. When any two places are given, they can 
 easily apply this "yardstick" on an imaginary 
 map and make a correct estimate. The same class 
 that apparently had no idea of distance, will sud- 
 denly give with accuracy any distance called for. 
 They have standards and know how to use them. 
 The chief educational merit of manual training is, 
 that it trains in measurements, estimates, and the 
 use of standards. One of the chief elements of 
 good teaching is, to stand a child upon his feet in 
 every branch, place standards in his hands, and 
 teach him to use them. |No man will ever become 
 a machine in the shop who has been trained in 
 individuality, who has formed the habit of actual- 
 izing himself in whatever circumstances he may 
 be placed.* 
 
 | There is always danger in emphasizing the 
 importance of individuality, of standing on one's 
 own feet, in that it makes one indifferent to the 
 
THE SHOP AT SCHOOL. 63 
 
 advantages gained by combinations. It is true 
 that the best work of the world is custom work, 
 and yet.it is practically impossible for anyone 
 to attain to great success when he tries to do 
 every part of the work himself. The success 
 of the world is in combinations, placing every man 
 where he can accomplish the most. This applies 
 all through society. | No man thinks of raising all 
 kinds of stock, or all classes of stock of one kind. 
 The man who raises horses only, makes it pay 
 when he raises one breed. If he is making a 
 specialty of draught horses, he does not wish to 
 be experimenting on speed horses, because his 
 success in marketing his stock will depend largely 
 upon knowing intimately every phase of the mar- 
 ket, all the breeders, and all the interests involved. 
 He wants to be most intimately associated with 
 every element and with all the individuality in 
 that line of business ; he wants to blend himself 
 completely with them all, and to blend them most 
 completely with himself. 
 * In a word, then, the second element in educa- 
 
64 THE SHOP AT SCHOOL. 
 
 tion for the shop is, ability to blend one's self most 
 harmoniously, consistently and persistently, with 
 every other interest involved in the shop. |Not 
 one person in a thousand ever made it for his 
 advantage to be out of harmony with his employer, 
 with his foreman, with his fellow-laborers. Other 
 things being equal, no man ever failed to find it 
 both for his comfort and his profit to train himself 
 to get on harmoniously with all the men above, 
 beside, or below him in the shop. One sees many 
 evidences of this in shop life. A man declines 
 to lend a moment's assistance to an associate, 
 declines to tell him where something is that he is 
 looking for, chuckles over the fact that his failure 
 to help another causes that other to lose time or 
 fail of results. This is not soon forgotten, and 
 the opportunity soon comes for the other man to 
 return the compliment with interest. "It is a 
 long road that has no turning"; and ultimately 
 every man loses with interest every dollar, every 
 hour, every result, that his selfishness, or inherent 
 meanness has caused another to lose. 
 
THE SHOP AT SCHOOL. 65 
 
 I The school should teach first, last and always, not 
 only that honesty is the best policy as well as the 
 right principle, but also that to be helpful to 
 others, within the bounds of reason, is the best 
 policy and the true principle.* 
 
 I Again, the danger with the shop is, that it shall 
 lack purpose. The moment a laborer fails to have 
 a purpose high and noble, aspiring unto something 
 other than the wages he receives, work becomes 
 drudgery, life monotonous, the world a disappoint- 
 ment; but every man who has a purpose, who 
 aspires to do something above the mere mechan- 
 ical routine of the shop, finds joy in his work, and 
 increasing profit from it. By purpose is not meant 
 the ambition which gives unrest ; is not meant aspi- 
 ration, even, that makes one discontented or disap- 
 pointed ; but rather a buoyancy that allows one to 
 move through the daily routine of life much as a 
 bird sails through the air, using the atmosphere of 
 labor as a necessity, taking the shop into every 
 avenue of his being, only to make him light enough 
 in thought and feeling to glide forward or upward, 
 
66 THE SHOP AT SCHOOL. 
 
 to the right or to the left, with equal ease, the pur- 
 pose being to use and not be used by the circum- 
 stances of the shop. The school has opportunities 
 and responsibilities for discipline in individuality, 
 harmony and purpose, unattainable by the home, 
 the church or society, and its ultimate usefulness 
 to the state depends largely upon its improve- 
 ment of these privileges. \ 
 
THE SHOP AT CHURCH. 
 
Many come to bring their clothes to church, rather than them- 
 selves. 
 
 What the soul is to man, the church is to the world. 
 
 Who don't keep faith with God, won't keep it with man. 
 Dutch. 
 
 Better suffer for truth, than prosper by falsehood. 
 The language of truth is simple. Seneca. 
 Truth conquers all things. Latin. 
 
 Truth crushed to earth shall rise again. 
 
 The eternal years of God are hers. Bryant. 
 
 Justice is half religion. 
 
 A Christian is God Almighty's gentleman. 
 
 Big church, little saints. German. 
 
THE SHOP AT CHURCH. 
 
 'THHE church is responsible for the quality, de- 
 gree and intensity of the world morally. 
 The church is to be judged by truth as she is lived, 
 as much as the school is by " English as she is 
 Taught." So long as so large a fraction of man- 
 kind is in the shop, the church is as responsible 
 for the quality of its influence upon the shop as it 
 is for the quality of its preaching. 
 
 The primal mission of the church was to carry 
 the truth and secure its benefits to all people. 
 There is no warrant nor apology for the too gen- 
 eral custom of having a pastor devote his time and 
 talents to the intellectual and social luxury of 
 those who pay his salary. I The church is respon- 
 sible for finding a way to inspire the purpose and 
 purify the motive of all classes. \ If the methods 
 
72 THE SHOP AT CHURCH. 
 
 and practices of the church are not available, they 
 must be made available through adaptation. The 
 world has suffered quite long enough from the 
 name " theological seminary" for the three years' 
 training-school for men who are expected to reach 
 the shop at work, at play and at home. It has suf- 
 fered quite long enough from the wrong focus of 
 church associations and councils for ordaining men 
 to save mankind. A council always makes sure 
 that a would-be pastor is theologically sound, with- 
 out the faintest effort to discover whether he has 
 sound common sense. The council is always ready 
 to pronounce against a man whose theology will 
 not satisfy the deacons, without asking whether 
 his good taste and good sense will satisfy the shop. 
 We make sure that he will satisfy the men who 
 theoretically do not need salvation, without once 
 asking whether he has adaptation to the men whom 
 we would save. 
 
 The church must understand that its mission 
 in the world is largely with the shop ; not, how- 
 ever, with its hours of labor, not with the relation 
 
THE SHOP AT CHURCH. /3 
 
 of employer to employees, but with the relation of 
 the laborers to each other, and the relations of the 
 shop a,t work, at play and at home. 
 
 The church architecturally, in the fervency of 
 its singing, in the character of its preaching, in 
 the price of its pew rents, in the standard of 
 dress, must make every self-respecting laboring 
 man, whatever his financial income or financial 
 home demands, thoroughly at home in church life. 
 The church, through its pulpit, through its social 
 life, through its mid-week meetings, must find a 
 way to influence for good the talk and thought of 
 the shop. 
 
 The mission of the church is largely to rescue 
 the shop ; and if she has encumbrances, traditions 
 and prejudices that make such rescue impractica- 
 ble, the sooner she throws them overboard the 
 better. 
 
 When the Missouri rescued the Danmark's crew, 
 in March, '89, the captain found himself in mid- 
 ocean en route for Philadelphia with a choice cargo. 
 Here on the high seas was the Danmark with pas- 
 
74 THE SHOP AT CHURCH. 
 
 sengers and crew amounting to about seven hun- 
 dred. To take them on board was impossible, 
 unless he threw overboard the valuable cargo for 
 whose safe delivery he was responsible. He did 
 not falter a moment ; had he done so, he would 
 have been execrated of mankind. Human lives 
 are worth more than any freight. 
 
 The leaders and commanders in our churches 
 are situated much as was Captain Murrell. The 
 shop is upon the high seas; the church is re- 
 sponsible for its rescue ; and if it has any tradi- 
 tions, customs, fashions, theological pride or eccle- 
 siastical egotism that tempt it to leave the shop to 
 perish upon the sea of temptation, it must throw 
 them overboard. If the church prizes its freight 
 more than human souls, it is only a question of 
 time when it shall be repudiated by God and man> 
 
 Thus far the American church has been equal 
 to every emergency. Never promptly, but event- 
 ually and effectively it has borne its part in every 
 great national contest. While it has no monopoly 
 of the moral force, benevolent spirit and philan- 
 
THE SHOP AT CHURCH. 75 
 
 thropic zeal of the land r -it has very generally 
 focused these influences for the betterment of 
 humanity in our country. Its prestige has come 
 largely from this fact. 
 
 The independent spirit in government, the vote- 
 as-you-please principle, the mind-your-own-business 
 phase of life, the periodical discovery of some 
 new natural resource on a large scale as coal, 
 iron, copper, gold, silver, and natural gas, the 
 ever unfolding availability of natural forces in the 
 telegraph, telephone, electric light, electric car, 
 phonograph, etc., all tend to reduce the reverence 
 of the American for the miraculous, the supernat- 
 ural and the historic. 
 
 The church has held its leadership in this coun- 
 try largely because the men who represent it in 
 the eyes of the world have been the men who 
 stand for the best enterprise, spirit and character 
 in other fields of moral endeavor. It has been of 
 much less importance to the average American 
 what the Christian has done in the church than 
 out of the church, on Sunday than on Monday. 
 
76 THE SHOP AT CHURCH. 
 
 He has been the leader in statesmanship, in com- 
 mercial life, in educational effort, in the perma- 
 nent philanthropies, in the moral reforms. This 
 fact has given weight to his influence with the 
 people of every rank. 
 
 /New forces are now competing for this philan- 
 thropic leadership through the benevolent touch 
 of humanity/) The fraternal-insurance-relief lodge, 
 that gives financial aid in sickness, watches by 
 the bedside of the dying, has money and sym- 
 pathy for the burial, and competency for the oth- 
 erwise homeless and friendless widow and orphan, 
 is but one of the numerous competitors for the 
 confidence and sympathy of the toiling millions. 
 Last year one of these assessment insurance fra- 
 ternities, whose conservatism and reliability place 
 it in the front rank, paid out of its treasury upon 
 the death of its membership, in round numbers, 
 $2,500,000 which went almost exclusively to the 
 widows and orphans of shop toilers. That is a 
 fact that counts for much with the shop. The 
 church must watch such signs of the times. It, 
 
THE SHOP AT CHURCH. 77 
 
 must see to it that its touch of the shop is as 
 vital, as warm, as comforting, as helpful as that 
 of any other agency. 
 
 There must be no organized sociability more 
 genuine, no philanthropy more reliable, no sym- 
 pathy more fervent than is to be found in the 
 churches. The churches of any city have as a 
 rule a pastor to every two thousand inhabitants, 
 of any country town one to every three or five 
 hundred persons. He is an expert who has given 
 from three to ten years to special preparation for 
 the ethical and spiritual leadership of society. 
 He is relieved from all other burdens. While the 
 merchant is grappling with the problems of trusts 
 or competition, while the manufacturer is bending 
 all his energies to the question of economic pro- 
 duction, while the banker is giving his very life to 
 the financial concerns of mankind, while the shop 
 is working and worrying out the problem of exist- 
 ence, one man in every two hundred, or two thou- 
 sand, is set aside by the church with a salary 
 specially assigned him, that he may comfort and 
 
78 THE SHOP AT CHURCH. 
 
 uplift society. No rival organization has any 
 such advantage, and if the church does not do for 
 America and for the American shop as great a 
 work as it has ever done in the past, the responsi- 
 bility will rest upon itself. 
 
 The church has access to the shop in every 
 phase of its life at work and at play, in the home 
 and school ; and it must place before toiling hu- 
 manity through genuine sympathy the words of 
 the Master : 
 
 " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest/' 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 After-work Hours . . . . . . 29 
 
 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey . . . .22 
 
 Amusements . . . . . . 33 - 36 
 
 Appreciation of Shop Virtue . . . 16 
 
 Aristocracy ...... 36 
 
 Atmosphere of Shop . . . . . 31 
 
 Blending One's Self with Others .... 63 
 
 Bosom Shirt, Luxury of . . . . . , 31 
 
 Bosomless Shirt, Luxury of . . . . 31 
 
 Brockton, Mass. . . . . . . 16 
 
 Burns, Robert .... .22 
 
 Burritt, Elihu . . . . . . 21 
 
 Business Man's Independence . . . . 10 
 
 Chestnuts, Roasted . . . . 15 
 
 Church Problems . . . . . . 14 
 
 Church, Shop at . . * . . . 71 
 
 Civil War . . . . . . . 41 
 
 Combinations, Gain by . . . . 63 
 
 Compulsory Laws ..... 20 
 
 Conditions of Work with the Business Man . . 9 
 
 Conditions of Work with the Laborer ... 9 
 
 Cordial Church Reception to the Laboring Class . 73 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Demands on the School . . . . . 55 
 
 Dickens, Charles ...... 22 
 
 Doctor's Practice . . . . c . 20 
 
 Dull and Bright Pupils, Even Chances of . . . 60 
 
 Education of the Shop . 58 
 
 Electricity ....... 23 
 
 Encourage the Best Home Life among Laborers . 45 
 
 England and the War . . . . e 18 
 
 Englishmen ...... 42 
 
 Exchanging Statesmen, Editors, etc. . . . 15 
 
 Farmers ....... 42 
 
 Farrar, Archdeacon .... i 29 
 
 Fascination of the Shop . . . . . 16 
 
 Fascinations of the Young Man of the Shop . 47 
 
 Freedom of Mind in Work . . . . 13 
 
 Germans . . ... . . . 42 
 
 Home Comforts for the Laborer ... 42 
 
 Home Complications, How to Reach ... 48 
 
 Home Life ...... 41 
 
 Home, Shop at . . . . . . 41 
 
 Howells, Wm. Dean. ..... 22 
 
 Illumination ...... 23 
 
 Income ....... 47 
 
 Individuality, Train in . . . . 62 
 
 Influence upon Shop Talk . . . . 14 
 
 Irishmen . . . . ^ . . . 42 
 
 Laborer a Machine . . . . . 13 
 
 Laborer's Enjoyment of Home Life . . . 46 
 
 Laboring Man's Independence .... 9 
 
 Lack of Purpose the Shop's Danger ... 65 
 
 Margins of Profit . . . . . . 1 1 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Mark Twain ...... 22 
 
 Mechanics ...... 42 
 
 Miller, Hugh . . . . . . 21 
 
 Minneapolis, Pillsbury Flour Mills ... 43 
 
 Mission of the Church largely with the Shop . . 72 
 
 Modern Economy of Labor . . . . 1 1 
 
 Moody, D wight L. . . ... . 22 
 
 Native Americans . . . . . 42 
 
 Newspaper Emphasis of Success ... 20 
 
 Non-Promotion Tendencies . . . . 16 
 
 Out-of-Shop Fascination to Laboring Man . . 30 
 
 Out-of-Shop Life ...... 14 
 
 Play, Shop at ...... 29 
 
 Popularity with Associates, Advantage of ... 64 
 
 Poultry Business . . . . . . 12 
 
 Profit Sharing . . . . . . 44 
 
 Proportion of Laborers . . . . . 1 1 
 
 Pulpit's Responsibility . . . . . 14 
 
 Reform and the Shop . . . . . 19 
 
 Repartee in the Shop ..... 30 
 
 Responsibilities of the Church . . . . 71 
 
 Responsibilities of the School .... 56 
 
 Rhythm Key-note of the Home .... 48 
 
 School, Shop at . . . . . . 55 
 
 Seminary Phrases in the Pulpit . . . . 14 
 
 Shop, Definition ...... 9 
 
 Shop in the Army . . . . . 18 
 
 Sizing up a Man . .... 15 
 
 Social Experts 33 
 
 Social Life ...... 32 
 
 Social Sympathy ...... 35 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Socially Fed, the Shop - 33 
 
 Society's Mission - - 35 
 
 Success in the Shop Vital - 19 
 
 Standards for Pupils 61 
 
 Story-telling, Fascination of 30 
 
 Street Loafing - 32 
 
 Sunday Holiday - 34 
 
 Survival of, the Fittest - 16 
 
 Sympathy - 23 
 
 Talk of the Shop - 13 
 
 Theological vs. Common Sense - 72 
 
 Thought of the Shop - 13 
 
 Threatening, Best Interests 17 
 
 Tinkering Laws - 1 1 
 
 Vacations 34 
 
 Vacation Life 9 
 
 Wage Question, The 59 
 Waltham, Mass. - - 16-43 
 
 Work, Shop at - 9 
 
 Working People the Nation's Reliance - 42 
 
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