The record-union., 1891-08-17
AMERICAN SCHOOLING
One Reason Why Foreigners Get the
Best Wages.

DSSC wages.
Visitors to the furniture exposition
about TO be opened in the Exposition
building can obtain practical information
there concerning the complete failure OF
American schooling in one essential re-
Spect.
Every exhibitor is manufacturer. He
employs large numbers of men, boys and
girls: Machinery enters most largely into
furniture production. Machinery is not
able 10 run itself, and when used Tor even
turning wood it must be run by skilled
labor. Every exhibitor will inform the
visitor that the skill employed in the pro-
aucton OF furniture III the United States
Is Is, foreIgn. The designers are all foreign
lney are men who, when entering pri-
mary schools Of their native countries.
were required at once to begin drawing
ana mouelng. They learned with their
literary primer the primer Of design
with the alphabet Of letters they acquired
the alphabet of form. Their days We're
not wasted over dozen branches of pre-
tended study out of which they acquired
nothlng to lit them for their chief mission
III ll1e-to provide their own bread and to
become providers for others to be depend
ent on them.
AS in glass manufacture, pottery and
porcelalns, carpets. wall papers, draper
les, prints, damasks, brOcades. silks files
goldsmlthing, silYersmithing, brass work
ana every other industry into which taste
enters, SO IN turniture-the highest wages
are earned by foreigners, because we CON
tlnue to deny to American children in
primary grades the manual training
that makes skilled artisans ard leads M
| into fine and decorative art.
SkeptlcS may ask whether the alien con-
tract labor law does not protect native
Workmen against the importation of this
lorelgn skill. 1t does not. There was
never law devised to prevent American
enterprise from going ahead according to
its own instincts. Designers must be had
Ihey are not to be had among native
Americans. We do not tolerate them in
our schools. We have n prohibitOry ia
riff against manual skill in the free pri-
mary schools OF this country.
because designers are not to be had at
nome, American furniture manufacturers
must go abroad to get them. They are
brought here by the hundred every wear
IN necessary violation of the alien con-
tract labor law. They come under con-
tract, because capital cannot afford to
risk loss OF them after paying passage
ana mourning other outlay on their ac-
count.
When drawing and modelling become
coordinate in our primary schools with
readlng and writing we shall need no
alien contract labor law. Wewill produce
the most intelligent experts in the world,
ana Will not need to seek them abroad.
But we are not Fastening in this dlrec-
| ton. Every year our millions of bows
| and girls leave the primary grades to 90
| 10 work. They are as incapable of draw
! ing line, of modelling leaf or flower, or
1nventing new pattern as of flying in
air. We spend most of the money at the
| top Of the school system on the few thou
| sand that go from high schools to col
! leges, and we let the great mass of our
A american Mt 70 ovid
! just able to read, spell and write. For
| eigners will continue to take the most
! dignitied, the best paid and the least ia
| tiguing places in all our fine industries
until this vast and obstinate evil is cor
| rected.-Chicago Herald.