IV

AMERICAN  PREFACE.

France.  But  education  is  a  plant  whose  fruit  does  not  mature  in
a'year,  nor  all  at  once:  a  half  Century  was  required  fully  to  convince
  Europe,  by  results,  that  the  workman  should  be  specially
educated  for  bis  work.  Meantime  America  was  developing  the
public  school  as  a  means  of  populär  culture.  To-day  Europe  is
successfully  combining  tlie  two  lessons,—industrial  instruction,
and  general  culture,  of  the  whole  people.  The  different  governments
  realize  that  henceforth  national  supremacy  must  depend
more  and  more  upon  industrial  supremacy  ;  and  so  for  tliis  peaceful
warfare,  not  the  less  real  because  bloodless,  each  is  arming  itself
with  the  best  weapons  that  art  and  Science  can  furnish.  In  the
camp  soldiers  are  drilled  no  less  than  of  old  ;  but,  in  the  schools,
children  and  youth  are  trained  with  a  direct  view  to  labor  as  they
never  were  trained  before.  Of  all  things,  the  pencil  is  recognized
  as  the  most  efflcient  ally  of  the  needle-gun.  While  the  latter
wins  victories  on  the  field  of  carnage,  the  former  wins  them  in
great  industrial  tournaments  that  bring  together  the  rival  products
of  the  whole  working  world.  In  the  one  case  it  is  a  battle  of
bullets,  in  the  other  a  battle  of  forms;  and  Europe  has  learned
that  Provision  should  be  made  no  less  against  defeat  in  the  battle ­
  of  forms  than  in  the  battle  of  bullets.
While  America,  as  j’et,  has  done  almost  nothing  for  the  direct
education  of  labor,  how  munificent  the  expenditures  made  for  this
purpose  by  European  governments!  how  broad  their  view,  and
how  thoughtful  the  adaptation  of  means  to  secure  the  end  desired!
They  rely  upon  no  one  thing  ;  but,  beginning  the  work  in  elementar ­
  schools  where  all  can  be  reached,  they.  carry  it  on  through
evening  schools,  through  Sundaj-  schools,  through  schools  for
special  industries,  even  in  towns  of  one  or  two  thousand  inhabitants,
  tlirougli  schools  of  arts  and  trades  at  frequent  intervals  ;
they  advanee  it  by  .  populär  lectures,  by  local  museums,  and  by
oft-occurring  exhibitions;  they  complete  it  in  great  central  technieal
  universities  and  art  museums,  with  their  numerous  and
comprehensive  courses.  Thus  they  provide  for  all  ranks  in  life,
for  all  the  exigencies  of  art  and  of  industry.  To-day,  in  the
Workshops  and  manufacturing  establishments  of  Europe,  there
are  miüions  of  men  and  women  who  have  been  trained  more  or
less  efficiently,  during  the  last  twenty  years,  in  art  and  Science