THE CASE OF THE UNEDUCATED EMPLOYED.
March 25, 1888.
A distinguished lawyer of our city delivered an address before one of the societies in the venerable University of Harvard on this subject: “The Case of the Educated Unemployed.” With an intimate knowledge of his subject, and with rare felicity of thought and expression, he set before his audience, most of whom were either in the learned professions or preparing to enter them, the overcrowded condition of those professions, especially that of the law, a preparation for which is supposed to imply a more or less thorough academic or collegiate education.
I have a different task; for I would show the importance of education to the workers with the hand, whether in the mills, the shops, or among the various trades and occupations. By education I do not mean that of the colleges, or of the common schools merely, but also that which is acquired sometimes without the advantage of any schools. And I particularly desire to show that an uneducated worker, whatever be his work, is at an immense disadvantage with one who is engaged in the same kind of work, and who is more or less educated.
A mechanic may be well trained; may have more than his share of brains; may be highly successful in his business; indeed, may have acquired a large property, and have very high credit, and may hardly know how to write his name. A man may have scores or hundreds of men in his employment, and be conducting business on a very large scale, indeed, and yet be so ignorant of accounts that he is entirely at the mercy of his book-keeper, and may be so defrauded as to be on the very brink of ruin and not know it until it is almost too late. In the course of a long business life more than one such case has come under my observation. A man may be partially educated, able to cast up accounts, able to keep books by double entry (and no other kind of book-keeping is worthy of the name), and yet not be able to write a simple agreement in good English, nor understand clearly the meaning of such a paper when written by another.
Very many of the business failures that occur are due to the fact that the person or firm did not know how to keep accounts. This is not confined to people of small business. How often after a failure are we told “that the man was very much surprised at his condition; he thought he was all right; he could not account for his failure, and that in a short time he would have his books in such a shape that he would be able to make a statement to his creditors and ask their advice. It would require ten days or so, however, before he could tell how he stood.” Why, if the man had been an educated business man, and an honest man, he would have known in twenty-four hours how he stood.
The great majority of people who are employed are not educated. They do not know how to do in the best manner, that which they have to do. Perhaps a good definition of education, as the word is applied to a working man, may be that he knows how to do that which he has to do, in the very best way.
Education may be of three kinds, viz.:
That of the schools.
Self-education.
That of trade or business.
That of the schools. And this is the best of all; for the whole of one’s time is given to it; and if you are so inclined you may go through the whole course, as provided in this school. And all this with text-books, instruments and other appliances, absolutely free of cost. A boy, therefore, who passes through the entire course of study here, has superior opportunities of acquiring a most substantial education.
Certainly the education of the schools is the best; and let me urge you with all seriousness to make the best use of your opportunities. You can never learn as easily as now. You are young. You are not burdened with cares. Do not relax your efforts in the least; do not yield to weariness; do not think you know enough already; do not be impatient lest others of your own age, who have already left school to go to work, get ahead of you in trade or in any kind of business; if they have the start of you, they may not be able to keep it; and depend upon it, in the long run you will overtake and pass them, other things being equal, if you have a better school education than they have. When you are told that young men who are well educated are thereby unfitted or unwilling to take the lowest places in trade or business, do not believe it. I know the contrary. The better the school education you have, and the more you know, the more valuable you will be to your employer.
Another kind of education is called, but most inaccurately, self-education. All that I mean by it is, that education which one acquires without teachers. As so defined, it may be divided into two parts, viz.: the incidental and the direct.
Let me speak first of the incidental.
I mean by this that education that comes to us from society.
You cannot live alone, and you ought not to if you could. You seek companions, or other persons will seek you. Let your associates be those whose friendship will be an instruction to you, rather than simply a means of social enjoyment. There are young people of both sexes who, without being vicious, are utterly weak and foolish, idle and listless, drifting along a current, the end of which they do not care to think of. They are living for this life only, with no thought of the future, no ambition, mere butterflies, who float in the sunshine when the sun is shining, but who, in a dark and cloudy day, are bored and miserable, and utterly useless. Sometimes they are pleasant enough to chat with for a few minutes, but to be shut up to such companionship as this, would be intolerable. Society has a large element of this description, and you are likely to see it in your daily life.
But this is not the worst phase of life among the young people with whom you may be thrown. There are worse elements than this. There are those who are depraved to a degree quite beyond their age; who have given themselves up to work all uncleanness with greediness; who put no restraint on their inclinations; in whose eyes nothing is pure or sacred; who have no respect for that which is wholesome or decent; who are the devil’s own children, and who are not ashamed of their parentage. And to such baleful, deadly influences and associations will you be exposed, my young friends, and you may not be apprised of their true character until it is too late.
But there are direct means of education, so called.
The first of these which I mention is the use of books. This is unquestionably the best means. I am supposing that you have some taste for reading; if you have not, it is hardly worth while for me to speak, or for you to listen. I know some people who rarely read a book, and I pity them. They seem to think that all that is necessary to read is the daily newspaper. I do not say that such persons are necessarily very ignorant, for very much may be learned from the daily paper. But the newspaper does not pretend to supply all that you need, to fit you for a life of business, either as a dealer in merchandise, a professional man or a mechanic. No; you must read books, not only for entertainment and recreation, but for information and culture, which you can obtain nowhere else. If there is no public library within your reach, seek out some kind-hearted man or woman who has books, and who will be willing to lend them to one who is in search of knowledge. I well remember a gentleman in my early life who did this kind office for me before I was able to buy books, and there are such now who will do the same for you.
If you have little knowledge of books, you ought to ask the advice of some practical friend to point out such as you may most safely and properly read. For if left to your own judgment or taste, you will probably waste valuable time, or be discouraged by an attempt to read something not immediately necessary or appropriate. But do not attempt to follow an elaborate plan of reading, such as you will find detailed in some books, for you are very likely to be discouraged by the greatness of the task. Such lists, I fancy, are made out by scholars who have read almost everything, and to whom reading is no task whatever, and who have plenty of time. Do not attempt to read too many books, nor too much at a time, and do not be disappointed or discouraged if you are not able to remember or put to good account all that you read. You cannot always know what particular kind of food has afforded you the most nourishment. You may rest assured, however, that as every morsel of food that you take and are able to digest does something to build up and develop your system, or repair its waste, so every book or paper that you read, that is wholesome, does something, you may not know how much, to strengthen or develop your mind.
There are books that you read for entertainment or recreation, and that are written for that purpose only. You may read such; indeed, you ought to read them, for you need, as everybody else needs, recreation and amusement, and there is much of the purest and best of this that you can get from books. But you must not make the mistake of supposing that most, or even a very large proportion, of your reading can be of this character. You would not think of making your daily meals of the articles of food that you enjoy as the sweets of your meals. You would not think of living on sponge-cake and ice-cream for a regular diet. You might as well do so, as to read only the light and humorous matter that was never intended for the mental diet of a working man. No. If you would attain the real object of reading and study, you must read and study books and papers that tax the full powers of your mind to understand them. This will soon strengthen the quality of your mind, even as the exercise of your muscles in work or play will develop a strength of body that the idle or lazy youth knows nothing of.
If you would know how to make yourself master of any book that you read, form the habit, if the book is your own, of making notes with a pencil in the margin of the pages; but if the book is not your property, or in any case, take a sheet of paper and write at the end of every chapter questions on the matter discussed, and the answer to such questions will probably bring out the author’s meaning so fully that you will have absorbed the book and made it your own; for, as an eminent American author has said, “thought is the property of whoever can entertain it.”
I said just now that the daily newspaper does not pretend to supply all that you need to fit you for a life of business, either as a dealer in goods, or as a mechanic or clerk. But the daily paper is a most important means of education—so important that no one can afford to ignore it. Now-a-days one cannot be well informed who does not read the newspaper. The whole world is brought before us every morning and evening, and, if we do not read the news as it comes, we shall not know what we ought to know. It is not necessary to read everything in a daily paper; there are some things that it will be better for you not to read. You need not read all the editorials, brilliant as some of them are, for sometimes they discuss subjects that are not at all interesting nor useful to you. The newspaper from which I make the most clippings is one which is the fullest of advertisements, but which sometimes has nothing whatever in it that I read. But when it does discuss a subject of interest, it is apt to leave nothing further to be said.
But to read with the most advantage one ought to have within easy reach a dictionary, an atlas and, if possible, an encyclopedia. Then you can read with profit, and the mere outlines which the newspaper gives can be filled up by reference to books which give more or less complete histories.
The political articles which appear in the height of a campaign are hardly worth reading, unless you think of entering politics as a money-making business, which I sincerely hope none of you think of doing. And I am sure that the full accounts of crime, and especially the details of police reports and criminal trials, you will do well to pass by and not read. I really believe that a familiarity with these details prepares the way, in many instances, for the commission of crime, just as the reading of accounts of suicide sometimes leads to the act itself.
Some of the best minds in our country, and in the world, are now employed in writing for the periodicals and magazines. No one can be well informed without reading something of the vast amount of matter which is thus poured out before him. I have not named the newspapers nor the magazines which you may read with the most profit; but your teachers can advise you what to read. Rather is it important for you to know what not to read. Many of the most popular and the most useful books that have been published within the last quarter of a century have appeared first in the pages of a weekly or monthly paper. The best thoughts of the best thinkers sometimes first see the light in such pages.
Besides the newspaper and the literary magazine, there are scientific periodicals, which are of essential value to a worker who wishes to be well informed in any of the mechanical arts. The Scientific American is, perhaps, the best of this class, both in the beauty of its illustrations and in the high quality of its contributions. The Popular Science Monthly is a periodical of a wider range and more diversified character. These periodicals, if you are not able to subscribe for them as individuals or in clubs, you may find in the public library. But let me urge you to turn away from “dime novels.” Not because they are cheap, but because they are often unwholesome and immoral. The vile, fiery, poisonous whiskey which so many wretched creatures drink until the coatings of the stomach are destroyed, and the brain is on fire, is no more fatal to the health and life, than is the immoral literature I speak of, to the mind and soul of him who reads. There is an abundance of good literature that is cheap—do not read the bad.
Having now spoken of the education you may get in the schools, and that which you may acquire for yourselves, if you have the pluck to strive for it, either in the society which you cultivate, or more directly from books, whether read as an entertainment and recreation, or, better still, by careful study; or through the daily newspaper, or the periodical, whether literary or scientific; or, what is best of all, that which is decidedly religious; I turn now to the education which you will acquire when you work day by day at your trade or business.
Let me beg of you to consider the great value of truthfulness in all your training. Hardly anything will help you more to reach up towards the top. And when you are at the head of an establishment of your own or somebody else’s (and I take it for granted you will be at the head some day), whether it be a workshop or factory of any kind, or a store, no matter what, a fixed habit of keeping your word, of not promising unless you are certain of keeping your promise, will almost insure your success if you are a good workman. How many good mechanics have utterly failed of success because they have not cared to keep their promises? A firm of high reputation agrees to supply certain articles of furniture at a time fixed by them. The time comes but the articles do not come. A call of inquiry is made and new promises are made only to be broken. Excuses are offered and more promises given; then incomplete articles are sent; then more delays, until, when patience is nearly exhausted, the work is finished. Then comes the bill and there is a mistake in it. The whole transaction is a series of disappointments and misunderstandings. Will you ever incline to go to that place again?
It is usual for miners of coal to place their sons, as they become ten or twelve years of age, at the foot of the great breakers to watch the coal as it comes rattling and broken down the great wire screens, and catch the pieces of slate and throw them to one side and allow only the pure coal to pass down into the huge bins, from which it is dropped into the cars and taken to market. To an uneducated eye there is hardly any perceptible difference between the coal and the slate. But these little fellows soon become so quick in the education of the eye, that they can tell in an instant the difference. When the boy grows older he graduates to the place of a mule driver, and has his car and mule, which he drives day by day from the mouth of the mine to the breaker. Then when he begins to be of age he fixes his little oil lamp in the front of his cap, and goes down into the mines with his pick and becomes a miner of coal. It seems a dreary life to spend most of one’s time under the ground, shut out from the sunshine and from the pure air. And most of these men having no education, and never having been urged to seek one, are content to spend all their days in this manner. But occasionally there is one who feels that he is capable of better things than this. And I know one at least, who began his work at the foot of a coal breaker and worked his way up through all these stages, as I have told you, and who determined to do something better for himself. So he gave much of his leisure (and everybody has some leisure) to study; nor was he discouraged by the difficulties in his way. He persevered. He rose to be a boss among the men; then having saved some money, instead of wasting it at the tavern, he bought his teams, and then bought an interest in a coal mine, and became a miner of his own coal, and had his men under him, and has grown to be a rich man, and is not ashamed of his small beginnings nor of his hard work. This is only one instance of success in rising from a low position to a high one.
The same thing is going on all around us and we see it every day. It would hardly be proper to give you names, but I could tell you of many within my own knowledge who, from positions of extremely hard labor and plain living, have risen to be the head men in shops and other places which they entered at the lowest places. Such changes are continually occurring. And there is no reason whatever, except your indifference, to prevent many of you from becoming, if God gives you health, the head men, in the places where you begin work as subordinates or in very low positions. And I tell you what you know already, that there is plenty of room for advancement. It is the lowest places that are full to overflowing. Who ever heard of a strike among the chiefs of any industry? No, indeed. They have made themselves indispensable to their employers and they don’t need to strike. And there is hardly a youth who cannot by strict attention to business, and conscientious devotion to the interests of his employer, make himself so invaluable that he need not join any trades union for protection. Do the vast army of clerks in the various corporations, or in the great commercial houses, or in the public service, or in the army and navy—do these people ever band themselves in any associations like the trades unions? They know better than that; they accomplish their purposes in better ways. If the working classes, so called, were better educated, they would not suffer themselves to be led by the nose by people who will not themselves work, who will not touch even with their little fingers the burdens which are crushing the life out of the deluded ones whom they are leading to folly. It is a true education that is needed, a true conscience that must be cultivated, to enable men to do their own thinking, and to determine for themselves what are their best interests.
I urge you all to seek that higher and better education which will make you true men. You have now the great advantage of the education of the school. I have tried very simply, but not the less earnestly, to show you how you can fit yourselves for high places. It is for you to say whether you will avail yourselves of these plain hints. No earthly power can force you to do that which you will not do. You may lead a horse to a brimming fountain of water, but if he is not thirsty, no coaxing nor threatening nor beating can make him drink. I may show you, to demonstration, the abundant fountain of learning, but I can’t make you drink, or even stoop to taste the stream, if you are not thirsty. I can’t make you study, however great the advantage to you, or however much they who are interested in you desire that you should.
Every year this question which I have been pressing upon you becomes more and more important. The great colleges of the country are graduating their thousands of students, many of whom will compete with you for the high places in the mechanic arts. So are the public schools of the country sending out hundreds of thousands, many of them having the same aim. Technical schools, teaching the mechanic arts, are multiplying. Great changes have been made recently in our own city in this respect. The Spring Garden Institute is doing a noble work in this way. Our own college is moving in the same direction, and soon it will be sending out its hundreds every year to compete for places in the shops, with this great advantage, that you Girard boys have a school education—the best that you are able to receive, and you must not let any others go ahead of you.
Look at the poor, ignorant people from abroad who sweep our streets—look at the stevedores who load and unload the ships—look at the men who carry the hod of mortar or bricks up the high and steep ladders—look at the drivers and the conductors on our street cars, the most hard worked people among us—and are you not sure that most of these people are uneducated? No one wants to be at the bottom all the time. We may have been there at the first; but those who have made the most progress are generally those who have had the best education. I know that education is not a sure guarantee of success; many other things enter into the consideration of the question; but I am saying that, other things being equal, he who knows the most will do the best. There are, alas, many instances of the sons of the rich, who have been well educated, who have everything provided for them, who have no stimulus, no spur; who have no regular occupation, and need not have any; many of whom sink into idleness and dissipation, and their fine education goes for nothing. But you are not of this class. You will have to make your way in the world by your own exertions.
I shall fail of my duty if I do not say some words about such boys as sometimes stand at the corners of the streets in large or small companies and amuse themselves by smoking and chewing tobacco, telling bad stories and making remarks upon those who pass by. I am sure much of this arises from thoughtlessness; but I wish to point out the exceeding impropriety of this behavior. I have known ladies to cross the street and, at much inconvenience, go quite out of their way rather than pass within hearing of these boys and young men. What right has any one to make the streets disagreeable to any passenger, to block up the way or make loose or rude remarks, or defile the pavement over which I walk?
All this most serious waste of time is probably because no one has particularly called attention to it. The time may come when you will recall the words of advice which you hear to-day, and you may regret when it is too late that you turned a deaf ear to what was said.
I have now tried, in as much detail as the time will permit, to show the importance of that education which will enable you to rise in your trade or business, whatever it may be, to the upper places; and I have tried to show that a true ambition leads one to strive to be chief rather than a subordinate, to be a foreman rather than a journeyman.
But, after all, everything will depend upon yourselves and upon God. There is no royal road to education; the very meaning of the word shows this; the mind must be drawn out, worked over, developed, rounded, hammered, somewhat as a blacksmith puts a piece of rough iron in the coals, keeps it there until it is red-hot, then draws it out, lays it upon his anvil and hammers it, turning it over and over, striking it first on this side and then on that, rounding it off; then when it cools thrusting it among the coals again, then hammering away again until he has brought the rough piece of iron to the size and shape he wishes, when he allows it to cool and harden. If you are willing to work your mind into the shape you want it, you will surely bring yourself to the front among active, ingenious and successful men. But this means hard work, and work all the time.
Now if you mean to avail yourselves of any of the hints which I have given you, if you really mean to succeed, if you are not content to be workers low down in the scale of industry, if you mean to rise rather than to be obscure, if you intend to be well-to-do men, instead of living from hand to mouth, you must grapple with the subject with all your might and keep at it all the time. And you must keep out of the streets at night, away from the taverns and from the low theatres, and from gambling dens, and from other places which I will not name; and, in short, you must be true Americans, for there is no truer type of manhood in all the world than a real American; and nowhere else in all the world has a poor boy so good an opportunity to be and do all this, as in our own good city of Philadelphia.