The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1899-10-11
WHAT SCIENCE ~ DOING FOR THE
WORLD.
Destroying Beastiiks Toll but Substituting
Intelligent Labor.
From ne Ninet,nn Century.

IntelnRsnt LaDor'
From he Ninet,nh Century.
It certainly seems at first sight to be an
economic danger. this educating Of the labor
ing man and woman to be far too good Tor
laborer's work Let us cast our thoughts.
however. over a wider horizon. and see how
the decades that bring the peril are also
bringing the remedy. Science 10 steadily
sweeping away all those humblest 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 recedng as the steam
plough makes it's appearance. We rarely see
long lines Of men. laden with coal-bags. run
ming up planks as in the olden days. The need
OF men to do the work OF horses 10 steadily
diminishing. 1t 10 true that science has by no
means conquered the whole domain. There is
still much scrubbing OF floors to be done by
men and women on Bonded knees and coal Is
stu hswn opt with PICK and axe and the use OF
even in our fertile century, science never
works bv revolution. but only by progress.
oae 1%ma tbs a Tm aaoher has gone whe n
whom our FrandistheTs, used to require'
s WHAT mai You'd be- ny to
beasti6e toll. Some parts Of the big domain
touched. but the process is going forward ;
and 1t ia clear that whie education is render.
Os tn
| ing away these occupations 1t would be too
much to hope that these processes should be at
But in the general drift OF things they are com
pensatory. and II We, only give to science rea-
| laborer.
Then comes the uneasy question as to what
| Ia to become OF the classes thus deprived OF
c con The working classes Themselves Sc
tempted to look upon 1t as no friend to their
welfare. There are now. It is true, no longer
any machine breaking trenzies; but the dim
suffering, Unicrtuns'sly, society Ia. always
70 travel to permanent good through transitory
because some one has invented a linotype ma
chine there 10 excuse for some bitterness Of
ssps time when 20 ws2s
But the diffleulty is always ey.nsseent, for
cupstion. at the lower end Of the
rSl Ss'fstnS sT Of GnS; q;
men men Th9 In Engiandaro now employed IN call AL
anists Of a hundred knds In the last decade
Or two what an army OF sii lled men have been
parsd with the begin ming OF tho century. think
engineers. the shemists, the Journalistic. the
draughtsmen. the teachers. the postmcn.
railway porters, and tram conductors. What a
multitude OF caings are there which are either
| new. or else newly stocked. 40 that while the
population has quadrupled their ranks have
been multiplied a huniredfolh. But It lie the
entirely new employments that strike the mind
most torcibly. and any one who runs his eye
DOWN census OF the occupations Of tho people
will satsiy himself that IN Eng land OF the pres
ent day pe-ffth part Of the, adult male popu;
no existence when the century began.
Thus while science takes away with one ha nd
| It liberally bestows with the other; but what
It takes away are the loT-cless occupations.
| and what 1t gives are the high class ones, de-
| manding intelligence and cultivatinR 1t. The
general tendency 10 therefore humanizing.
HEAVIER. when thrown out OF work bv the Intro.
| duction OF a steam-crane. can go away and
get a place in on % OF the newly created superior
onllnEs He 10 not such n fool az to waste his
time in applying for an opening as an electrical
engineer. But there Is a gradual creeping up
that % always taking place. And yet the
Of lndiyiduals than by promotion OF genera
the intelligent plumber steps into the new
succession until Serhars Tie 5iyeter.
and steps into II. But it more frequently hap
| pens that the plum ber sducates his son to be
an electrical engineer. and the carter apprcn-
| ticss his boy to the plumber ami the dock
laborer sees his young folk aspiring to be
Thus the general drift OF the whole social
provides Intelligent occupation at the uppe
end and abolishes those that are more or less
brutelike at the lower, and so humanity rs a
reason to feel uneasy at a prospect OF over-ed
| ucation.