American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-04-03

preciatc, and drives the educated young
away.-Dr. j. g. Holland. an iScrt6ner's
Monthly.
The Field for Skilled Mechanics.
A PRACTICAL mechanic, says the
Springfield Republican,, who has been
looking over the locomotive works of
England, writes to the Railroad Gazette
a letter, comparing the British engines
with American. and makes some very
pointed suggestions. He thinks the
American locomotive material the best,
and that the American engines are put
together with the most skill, all the parts
being easily accessible and adjustable.
On this account a class of repairs fire.
quently necessary can be done in twenty
four hours ON the American machine
which on the British necessitates the TAX
ing apart of nearly the whole engine and
the building up again. The position of the
bolthead and nuts where they can be
easily reached makes all this difference.
The use of forward trucks also iii Amer
lea enables our engines to run double the
length of time of their rivals, an English
engine Clearing itself to pieces in twelve
months" to use the mechanics express
sion On the other hand, apart from
this fault in their general plan, the
British engines are built better
than ours and have fewer break
ages There are mo broken straps, no
abominab4 cast-iron cross heads" in the
technical language of the writer. The
proportion of the parts is better, and on
the whole "a British engin is a COM
pany's engine, while an American engine
is a builders engine" And one great oc
casion of the superiority of the British
article, says our observer, is the general
81 elyi Il !, tSr IN tn
carefully design all the parts before they
are made in the shop, while in our rail
way workshops draughtsmen are I'M
known" The excellence of American
tools is attributed to the constant en-
Dloyment of the best skill in desig in
American tool-shOps, while the rule-of-
thumb guess-work is elsewhere in our
industries too generally prevalent. Nev-
ertheless, even with this drawback, the
great superiority of the American system
of providing for the locomotive flexible
bcd-truck enables US to contest the mar
kets of Canada, Russia and South Amer
ica The Custom House returns show
that for the past two years sixty or sew
enty American locomotives year have
been sent abroad, at an annual valuation
of nearly a million dollars.
We have treated this subject thus fully
in order to suggest and enforce the very
first Importance to our mechanics OF
education in their respective trades.
The alert American intelligence is the
promising thing for us to cultivate. 1t
will do more for our industries than pro-
lection or free trade. 1t is the enc s.eady
element of our industrial success on
which we can rely. We can Illustrate
this by the steady growth of the eXpor-
tation of manufactures of iron for the
past quarter of IA century. This eXpor-
tation represents the degree to which
American skill IN irOnworking is able to
prevail over the skill of foreigners.
Now during this interval we have had
low tariff and high tariff, destructive
war and general peace, and yet the
growth of this expectation Cor long
periods has been quite steady. In 1850
it amounted to 81, 900, 900, in 1858 to
81, 5O0,O 900, in 1860 to $4,5O0,00O in 1878
to $12, 100000. 1t has more than doubled
every ten years. American skill comes
in direct competition with British in all
the rest of America. The engineer
ing journals tell of railroad bridge
in Peru which, after being twice set
up by English makers and engineers, was
at length contracted and built by Ameri-
can parties before it would stand. In
the same way the American chilled cast
iron carwheel, after having made the
conQuests of Canada and South America,
is being reluctantly adopted in Great
Britain. We cite these cases, not to prove
the superiority of American skill, but to
show how directly it comes in competi-
ton with British.
The necessity of technical education
is one thing; how to provide it and ac-
quire it is another. We do not believe
that it is necessary to engraft it upon
the public schools, which cannot assume
the burden of educating either profess
sional men or artisans as such. We will
now merely take occasion to suggest that
the mechanics themselves do not realize
their own opportunity and the opportu-
nifty of their sons. American artisans
are not a paupcr class, and they are able
to spend and do spend much for the edu
cation of their youth, but it is too often
to make them lawyers, ministers and
doctors, or journalists, or insurance
agents, or bank clerks, or merchants, or
drummers-all avocations which are
crowded, and in which success is doubt
full, and the opportunity for failure album
dant while the field CT skilled indus
try stands wide open and almost ten
antless.
The amount of deterioration which
coal undergoes when long exposed I'M
protected to the air and dampncss has
recently been investigated by Warren
strass. He found that in many cases the
loss due to oxidation and development
i,.I, hn al ubl IL.