The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1904-12-29
!, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2e, 1904

Thus premiumts placed on educa-
tion, and believinghthat factions speak
louder than words,Y the company has
established and maintain schools where
the children of employees may acquire
the kindergartenS and elementary
training which will, in great measure,
fit them for the practical instruction
that comes from contact with honest
toll.
Other concerns maintain schools of
various kinds-some purely technical
some more elahorately planned and exc
cuted than others, but one and all doing
most effective work, and these system
schools are wise from every viewpoint,
since there is growing demand for
more actual work of life in the school
room, and books alone do not properly
educate.
None other can be so far-reaching
as a system of education which takes
the child at an early age and not only
equips him with purposive knowledge
but also teaches him that the biggest
and best part of life lies in supplying
oneself with the things one needs,
and that the individual who fails to
use his body every day in a certain
amount of manual labor is menace to
the community of which he is an
integral part and a positive danger to
his inmost self. Safety lies in a just
balance between head and hand and
the employer cannot more effectually
win the regard and confidence of his
working people than by giving their
children the opportunity of obtaining
an education which is all the more
appreciated because the parents, per-
haps, have been denied such advan-
tages in early life.
With almost his last public utterance
VIM. Mckinley declared that: Expo
sitions are the time-keepers of
progress" and the aphorism found
partial verification when the Jury of
Awards, in connection with the Louis
lana Purchase Exposition, awarded a
Grand Prize and a series of compile
mental awards for Industrial better
ment work among employees"
No adequate provision was made
for similar award in connection with
the Columbian Exposition, and even
to have proposed such thing in con-
nection with the Centennial would
have excited the ridicule of then prac-
tical men. On the threshold of the
Goth century it merely does substan-
tial justice to q concrete fact, and
serves as an indicator on the dial of
human progress.
We note terse item, in an obscure
corner of some paper, stating that a
certain manufacturing concern will,
at an expense of many thousands of
dollars, erect strictly modern build
ing to contain restaurant, recreation
room, gymnasium with modern
equipment) and provide lectures
for its 5000 employees; that another
concern has become a convert to the
Carnegie habit. By the "Carnegie
habit" 1 mean that (for the benefit of
its employees) a library has been in
stalled, and not that a $5O,OOO,OOO note
has been endorsed for some goth CEN
tury Eve.
Again, we read that certain indus
trial concern chartered special trains
and maintained hotel in order that 1t
might entertain its 1000 employees as
guests at the Worlds Fair; a detach-
ment of one hundred and fifty persons
enjoying the hospitality of the COM
pany each week throughout the period
of the exposition.
These, and news items oflike import,
greet the eye in almost any one of the
current papers. The time was-and
that, too, within the memory of each of
us-when such items would have been
featured in the daily press and made
the subject Of spectacular magazine
articles.
Today they cause scarcely ripple of
comment. We accept them as reflect
ing the spirit of the age and intuitively
we turn from the old regime to the
new; from the dirty God forsaken
company towns" we all have seen, to
such model villages as Leclaire, the
mere conception of which was more
than sufficient to immortslize the
name of its founder, Mr.. N. o. Nelson;
from the dark unsanitary factory to