Evening star., 1899-11-04

Ii is Destroying BeastIiI<c Toll aud
Substituting InteIIIgent Labor.

III beastlike Toll and
Substituting Intelligent Labor.
From the Nineteenth Century.
1t certainly seems at first sight to he an
economic danger, this educating Of the
laboring man and woman TO be far too good
for laborer's work Let us cast our
thoughts, however, over wider horizon,
and see how the decades that bring the
peril are also bringing the remedy. Science
is steadily sweeping away all those hum
blest classes of employment. Hardly any
man has now to toll up ladders with the
hod of bricks upon his shoulder The
donkey engine does the purely animal part
Of the work The reaper is replaced by the
machine, and the ploughman is fast r.ced-
ing as the steam plough makes its appear
ance. We rarely see long lines of"meU,
Laden with coalbagS. running up blanks as
IN the olden days. The need of men To do
the work OF horses Is steadily diminishing
IL Is true that science has by no means con-
quered the whole domain, There Is still
much scrubbing of floors to be done bN men
and women on, bended knees; and coal is
stlll hewn out with pick and ak and the use
OF muscle, with but little use of brain. And
yet, even in our fertile century, science
never works by revolution. but only by
progress. One domain after another has
gone. Where are now the armies Of water
carriers, and chair porters, and night men
and sawyerS whom our grandfathe!s used
to require? Imagine, If ships had still to
be moved by galley-rowers. what millions
would be doomed to a beastlike toll Some
parts of the big domain of unreflective la
Dor will long he left untouched, but the pro-
cess is going forward; and il is clear that
while education is rendering the lower
classes unfit for the humblest sorts of oC-
cupations, science is steadily sweeping
away these occupations. II would be too
much to hope that these processes should
, be at all times strictly proportioned to one
another. But in the general drift Of things
they are compensatory, and If we only give
to science reasonable time IL will leave us
none of that labor to be done which re-
Quires an uneducated labOrer.
Then comes the uneasy question as to
what is to become of the classes thus de-
prfved OF occupation. The work ng classes
themselves often curse the progress Of in
vention, and are tempted to look upon it as
no friend to their welfare. There are now.
II Is true, no longer any machiue-breakin
frenzies; but the difficulty often arises i'm an
acute, though silent. suffering. Unfortu-
nately, society has always to travel to per-
| manent good through transitory ills When
: an army of compositors is dismissed be-
cause some one has invented linotype ma
! chine there is excuse for some bitterness Of
| feeling. And yet there was a time when a
whole army of manuscript book copiers had
to give way before the advent of the COM
positor.
But the difficulty is always evanescent,
for here, too there are cornpensating in
huences at work. For if science is abolish
ing occupations at the lower end OF the
scale, she is creating new ones at the top.
Think of the hundreds of thousands of men
who in England are now employed In cali
the telegraDhers and photographers and
mechanics of a hundred kinds. In the last
decade or two what an army of skilled men
have been demanded by the invention Of
the bicycle, the telephone and the electric
light! As compared with the beginning Of
the century. think of the long array of ma
rine and locomotive engineers. the chemists,
the journalists, the draughtsmen. the teach
ers, the postmen, railway porters and tram
conductors What a multitude of callings
are there which are either new or else
newly stocked. that Wbilp Ia panula-
tion has Quadrupled their ranks have been
multiplied hundredfold. But il is the en-
tirely new employments that strike the
mind most forcibly. and any one who runs
his eye down census Of the occupations OF
the people will satisfy himself that in Eng
land of the present dav one-ffth part II
the adult male population find their liveli-
hood in callings that had no existence when
the century began.
Thus while science takes away with one
hand it literally bestows with the other:
but what it takes away are the low-class
occupations, and what Ii gives are the high
class ones, demanding intelligence and cul-
ivating it. The general tendency Is, there
fore, humanizing.
But, OF course. IT never happens that the
coalheaver, when thrown out Of work by
the introduction of steam-crane. can go
away and get a place in one Of the newly
created superior callngs. He is not such a
fool as to waste his time in applying for an
opening a. electrical engineer But
there is a gradual creeping up that is al
ways taking place. And yet the transfer Is
much less affected by the promotion Of
individuals than by promotion of genera
tons. No doubt ii sometimes happens that
the intelligent plumber steps into the new
opening for an electrical engineer. and
leaves a gap which some one of an inferior
calling steps into; the gaps being filled I'm
succession until perhaps the riveter, thrown
out of work by the introduction of by
draulic machinery, finds a vacancy at last
and steps into it. But IL more frequently
happens that the plumber educates his son
to be an electrical engineer and the carter
annrpntipaS his how n the nfnrOher NJ he
dock laborer sees his young folk aspiring TO
be carriers.
Thus the general drift of the whole social
scale is steadily upward In proportion as
science provides Intelligent occupations at
the upper end and abolishes those that are
more or less brutelike the lower, and
so humanity as whoieis the gamer There
is, therefore, no reason to feel uneasy at a
prospect of over-education.