The times., 1899-11-05
SCIENCE AND LABOR.
New CHIIings for Men Displaced by
Modern Machinery.
(From the Nineteenth Century.

New CHIlings for Men Displaced by
Modern Machinery.
From the Nineteenth Century)
It certainly seems at FIST sight 10 b. an
economic danger this educating OF the Ia
boring man and woman 10 b 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 num-
blest classes Of employment. Hardly any
man has now to toll up ladders with the
hod of bricks upon his shoulder. The don
key engine does the purely animal part OIL
the work. The reaper is replaced by the
machine, and the plowman is fast reced-
ing as the steam plow makes its appear
ance. We rarely see long lines OF men,
laden with coal bags, running up plankS
as in the olden days. The need OF men 10
DO the work of horses is steadily diminish
ing.
1t is true that science has by no means
conquered the whole domain. There is stili
much scrubbing of floors TO be done by
men and women on bended knees, and coal
is still hewn out with pick and axe and the
use of muscle, with hut little use of brains.
And yet, even in our fertile country, sci
ence 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 ours gTandfatherS USED
TO require? Imagine, il ships had still TO
be moved by galley rowers what millions
would be doomed to a beastlike toll. Some
parts Of the big domains of unretected Ia
Dor will long be left untouched, but the
process is going forward; and it is clear
that while education is rendering the lower
4rJnEf frr. h1 h,,vr4 b,I.V -.rtr nf Gp-
equations, science is steadily sweeping
away these occupations. 1t 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 il we only
give to science a reasonable time it will
leave us none of that labor to be done
which requires an uneducated laborer.
Then comes the uneasy question as to
what is to become of the classes thus de-
prived of occupation. The working classes
themselves often curse the progress of in
yention, and are tempted to look upon it
as no friend TO their welfare. There are
now. it is true, no longer any machine
breaking frenzies, but the difficulty often
arises in an acute though silent suffering.
Unfortunately society has always to travel
to permanent good through transitory ills.
When an army of compositors is dismissed
: DcNd duSt SOi4c but has DlNGnLSl q l1lciChlht
there is excuse for some bitterness of feel
ing And yet there was a time when
whole army of manuscript book copiers had
to give way before the advent of the com
positor.
But the difficulty is always eyaHescent,
for here too, there are compensating in
fluences at work. For if sciencesis 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 call
ings that had no existence sixty years ago;
the telegraphers, and photographers, and
machinists of a hundreds 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 chem
/ lists the journalists, the craftsmen, the
teachers, the pOstmen, railway pOrters, and
| tram conductors. What a multitude of call
ings are there which are either new or else
| newly stocked, so that, while the population
has quadrupled, their ranks have been null
tiplied a hundredfold But it is the entirely
new employments that strike the mind
most forcibly, and anyone who runs his eye
down a census of the occupations of the
people will satisfy himself that in England
of the present day one-fifth part of the
adult male population find their livelihood
in callings that had no existence when the
century began.
l. Thus while science takes away with one
hand. Il literally bestows with the other
but what it takes away are the lOw-class oC-
Ecupations, and what it gives are the high
( class ones demanding intelligence and cul-
tivatng it. The general tendency is there
/ fore, bumaHtzing.
But, Of course, it never happens that the
+ -coalheaver. when thrown out of work by
the introduction of a steam crane, can go
away and get a place in one of the newly
created superior calHngs He is not such
fool as to waste his time in applying for
an opening as an electrical engineer. But
there is a gradual creeping up that is
always taking place. And yet the transfer
! is much less effected by the promotion of
| individuals than by promotion of genera
| tions. No doubt it 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 in succession until perhaps the
! riveter thrown out of work by the intro
duction of hydraulic 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 en-
! gineer, and the carter apprentices his boy
! % the plumber, and the 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 at the lower. and
! so humanity as a whole is the gamer
| There is. therefore, no reason to feel un-
easy at a prospect of overeducation.
rwo CoTNcTDENcE sropIps