The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-05-29


section of the country, even where it is
highest, being $2,250, because that divi-
sion contains the great gold and silver
mining States. Taking those that are de-
voted to the staple crops and staple in
dustries. the results are as given. There
is no reason why, with the development
of mechanical industries in the South,
allied to the development OF her agrl-
cultural interests, the per capita wealth
of the South should not in a very few
years equal that of any other section of
the country where diversified industry
prevails.
1--WE must insist upon wide and per-
sistent technical education as the great
essential in not only developing but pre-
serving prosperity. We are beyond the
ages where strength of arms and num-
bers was the main force in all enterprises
We do not send our commerce abroad in
galleys rowcd by men sentenced to them
for punishment. We no longer have the
horrors of all such employment Instead
of employing a thousand men to take a
small amount of produce from one coun-
try to another, even at short distances,
we send our great products over vast
seas in constructions that are the en-
bodiments of scientific skill, managed by
a very few trained men.
Volumes might be filled in giving il
Illustrations of this power of brain and
hand that has been subjected to scientific
educational forces. One illustration alone,
the result of mathematical calculation.
eloquently describes in figures what
have called the second great attribute
hot of WI
his Creator 1t gives in a sentence an
epitome of what can be secured by the
application of knowledge through the
skilled mind and the trained hand. This
skill and training, as embodied in edu-
Gated labor utilizing natural forces, have
developed a single pound of cotton cost
ing, at the time this calculation was
made, 10 cents into muslin, which sold for
80 cents; into chintz which sold for $500.
They have taken rs cents worth of COM
mon iron ore and expanded it into So
worth of bar iron, $40 worth of horse
shoes, $3.50 worth of table knives, $4,000
worth of fine needles, $29,480 worth of
shirt buttons 100000 worth of watch
springs, $500, 900 worth of hair springs,
and so, 500 900 worth of pallet arbors In
telligent skilled labor with its product OF
mind, has accomplished these things, and
the individual, as we'll as the State, has
profited by the development.
"All the grand movements Of our time,
which are the movements of great COM
munities, are carried on by inventive
skill, by the application of ingenuity, and
these things teach us the absolute neces-
sity of knowing how to do something and
to do it well. The grand summation OF
the value of skilled training is therefore,
found in our modern system of industry.
I do not care how we'll educated a man
may be, if he has not learned how to
make his education useful, if he has not
learned how to support himself and his
family as a result of his education, he is
an ignorant man.
~Do you wish to be dependent upon for
eign countries for the skill necessary in
the manipulation of all these great
forces? Can you not train among you the
men who can build your own railroads.
locomotives" steamships, build tunnels,
develop iron mines, and bring that alli-
anCe of industry, agricultural and me-
chanical, out of which alone can come
prosperity? Develop your trade so that
you have at your doors the cash market
for the products of your soil. 1t is this
that makes a community wealthy; it is
this alliance that has made the per capita
wealth of some parts of our country
greater than that of other parts, and it
is this, too, which will put the South into
successful competition with other parts
of the country and ultimately, and speed
lily too. lead to an acquisition of wealth
and all that. wealth means. 1t will raise
the consuming power of your great and
peculiar body of laborers, and through
this consuming power you will demand
the things which you do not make and
supply to other parts of the country and
to the world the things which your train
ed skill produces. In this lies your very
best hope and your greatest encourage
ment.
ut is the very province of technical
Skill as illustrated in our modern system,
to reach down and lift up those employ
ed in the lowest occupations This means
mental activity, and mental activity is
the great element of our own time Form
erly all competition consisted of muscle
against muscle or brain against muscle.
Today competition is between brain and
brain, skill and skill. There are many
who cannot withstand the requirements
of skill They naturally fall in the rear;
they become what has been called left
over men; they cannot keep up in the
race, largely because in their younger
days they did not have the advantage of
the mental training which is being given
broadcast everywhere today and mental
training allied to manual work has been
found the soundest method Of preserving
a sound mind in sound body. This can
be illustrated by actual facts. In in
vestigating the effects CT manual training
on the students of a group of manual
training schools in Germany, it was found
that these graduates, is rule, were
able to command a higher compensation
as beginners in industrial work than
those who had not been students in such
training; that out of S08 persons investi
gated, GIL were superior to the ordinary
workman in the use of tools at the very
outset of their employment; that $40
were superior in increasing the skill in
the use of tools; that $50 were superior
in economy in the use of materials, and
that 652 were superior in planning and
| arranging work to the ordinary work
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