===========+======================+============+===========+
Year | | Different | Different |
of | Article produced | operations | workmen +
production | | performed | employed |
-----------+----------------------+------------+-----------+
1829-30 | Wheat (hand) | 8 | 4 |
1895-96 | Wheat (machine) | 5 | 6 |
| | | |
1859 | Boots (hand) | 83 | 2 |
1895 | Boots (machine) | 122 | 113 |
| | | |
1850 | Carpet (hand) | 15 | 18 |
1895 | Carpet (machine) | 41 | 81 |
| | | |
1891 |Loading ore (hand) | 1 | 1 |
1896 |Loading ore (machine) | 3 | 10 |
-----------+----------------------+------------+-----------+
===========+======================+================+========
Year | | Time worked. |
of | Article produced +-------+--------+ Labor
production | | Hours | Minutes| Cost
-----------+----------------------+-------+--------+--------
1829-30 | Wheat (hand) | 61 | 5 | $3.55
1895-96 | Wheat (machine) | 3 | 19 | .66
| | | |
1859 | Boots (hand) | 1436 | 40 | 408.50
1895 | Boots (machine) | 154 | 5 | 35.40
| | | |
1850 | Carpet (hand) | 4047 | 30 | 20.24
1895 | Carpet (machine) | 509 | 1 | .29
| | | |
1891 |Loading ore (hand) | 200 | 0 | 40.00
1896 |Loading ore (machine) | 2 | 51 | .55
-----------+----------------------+-------+--------+--------
machinery has displaced labor in one direction it has created more
employment for them in others. He shows for instance[29] that the per
capita consumption of cotton in this country in 1830 was 5.9 lbs.,
while in 1890 it was 19 lbs., and gives similar figures for iron and
steel, and railroad traffic. It will be noticed that all of his
examples are chosen from industries in which the demand is elastic.
Mr. J. A. Hobson, a more careful and conservative writer, draws less
optimistic conclusions from a study of Great Britain. He says: “First,
so far as the aggregate of manufactures is concerned, the net result
of the increased use of machinery has not been to offer an increased
demand for labor in those industries commensurate with the growth of
the working population. Second, an increased proportion of the
manufacturing population is employed either in those branches of the
large industries where machinery is least used, or in the smaller
manufactures which are either subsidiary to the large industries, or
are engaged in providing miscellaneous comforts and luxuries.”[30] It
must be said, however, in modification of Mr. Hobson’s inferences,
that it may be accounted as a social gain if the demand for
manufactured commodities can be met by the labor of a smaller 104
proportion of the population, since the energies of the rest are then
set free for professional or artistic or similar pursuits. A study of
the census reports of Great Britain seems to show that this is what
has happened in that country.
The amount of labor is not the only factor to be considered; the
regularity of employment, as we saw in the last section, is of hardly
less importance. “Another danger of an entirely opposite kind,” says
Professor Nicholson[31], “lurks in this immense power of machinery,
which is continually showing its reality and remedies for which will,
it is to be feared, be the fruit of long years of tentative adaptation
to the new environment. What all sensible workingmen desire, what the
advocates of the trade unions say is their chief object, is to get a
“steady sufficient wage,” but it has been proved inductively that
great fluctuations in price occur in those commodities which require
for their production a large proportion of fixed capital. These
fluctuations in price are accompanied by corresponding fluctuations in
wages and irregularity of employment. But fluctuations in wages and
discontinuities in employment are two of the greatest evils which can
befall the laboring classes.” We have already seen how modern
capitalistic methods of production may lead to over-production and to
a crisis. We now see how machine methods may cause unemployment or
irregular employment. The men displaced directly by new machinery,
those thrown out of work by industrial depression resulting from
over-production in machine industries, and finally those irregularly
employed in the new occupations supplying luxuries--all of these may
fairly attribute their suffering in large measure to machine methods.
“The second great charge made against the factory system is that it
displaces a higher grade of labor by a lower grade; sometimes 105
substituting the work of women and children for that of men; sometimes
substituting work under conditions physically or morally unhealthful,
for work under healthful conditions; sometimes substituting
specialized and mechanical work for diversified occupation which
contributes to general intelligence.” The point as to the labor of
women and children has already been discussed. The charge that factory
labor is physically unhealthful may in general be denied. Mr. Wright,
in an elaborate defense of the factory system in the Tenth Census,
concluded that the conditions of work in the modern factory are much
more conducive to good health than those under the preceding domestic
system, while morally they are far superior. The qualities demanded by
the machine production of the modern factory are punctuality,
steadiness, reliability, and sobriety, and it therefore makes against
intemperance and immorality. So far as these exist in factory towns,
they are the result of town life rather than of manufacturing. It
must, however, be said that while the factory system is not inherently
unhealthful, the high pressure at which operatives of steam-driven
machinery are compelled to work, particularly in this country, may and
often does wear him out prematurely. This again is partially offset by
a shortening of the hours of labor.
The final charge against the factory system is monotony of work. Many
writers, from Adam Smith down, take the view that it is more
stupefying to make a small part of an article, say the sixty-fourth
part of a shoe, than to make the whole article. Professor Marshall,
who has considered the subject carefully[32], concludes that while it
takes away manual skill, it substitutes higher or more intellectual
forms of skill. “The more delicate the machine’s power the greater is
the judgment and carefulness which is called for from those who see
after it.” But after all there is less danger from monotony of work 106
than from monotony of life, and the cure for this would seem to be in
an increase of machinery rather than in its abolition.
Let us now try to summarize our conclusions on this intricate
question. The first effects of the introduction of labor-saving
machinery is to displace particular laborers; these suffer real
injury, though they are often reabsorbed in the industrial organism.
The social gain is undoubted, for the improved methods lead to lower
prices and thus to an increase in the real wages of labor. To the
improvement and wider use of machinery we must indeed look for the
ultimate relief of the human race from exhausting toil. Says a
socialist writer: “On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the
machine, the future of the world depends…. All unintellectual labor,
all monotonous, dull labor, all labor that deals with dreadful things,
and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery.
Machinery must work for us in coal mines, and do all sanitary
services, and be the stoker of steamers, and clean the streets, and
run messages on wet days, and do anything that is tedious or
distressing.” If labor today has a complaint to make against the use
of machinery, it is that labor has not shared sufficiently in the
improvements thus far effected. But the evil here is connected with
the inequitable distribution of wealth, not with the methods of its
production. In justice labor should share in the technical
improvements which characterized the nineteenth century and will
revolutionize to a still greater extent the industries of the
twentieth. The practical question in this connection is as to the best
method for labor to secure its claim to a share in the increased
production. One answer, to which we will turn next, is by increasing
its efficiency through better industrial education and training.
The subject of industrial education has recently been receiving
considerable attention in the United States and the needs and
shortcomings of our country in this regard have been described. Under 107
modern methods of production, with their extreme specialization of
labor and extended use of machinery, it is practically impossible for
a worker to secure an adequate knowledge of a trade in the actual
practice of it. In former days boys acquired training in their trades
by the system of apprenticeship under the immediate charge of a master
of the craft. The system of apprenticeship has today almost
disappeared; boys are taken into shops as helpers, not as apprentices,
and receive practically no systematic instruction in their trade,
especially in a modern large establishment. In consequence of these
facts it is insisted that school instruction should be given to make
good the absence of shop practice; that a general system of industrial
education should be developed to give our workingmen systematic
training in the various trades. The superiority of the opportunities
for industrial education on the continent of Europe, especially in
Germany, have been frequently emphasized, and their industrial advance
has been credited in large measure to this fact. We can probably not
approach the subject better than by explaining the systems in these
other countries and then comparing them with that of the United
States.
Beginning with Germany as the country in which industrial education
has received the greatest attention, we find there three different
kinds of schools, which we may call the lower, middle, and higher. The
lower group includes artisan and specialized trade schools, and is
intended to be a substitute for the apprenticeship system. While they
have an important influence on the general industrial efficiency of
the nation, they concern chiefly the small handicrafts. The middle
group comprises the trade schools (gewerbeschulen), of which the most
famous are the weaving and dyeing schools at Chemnitz; other branches
taught are soap-boiling, milling, building, pottery, etc. These are
the schools that provide technical instruction for the large 108
manufacturing industries, and are consequently of great importance;
they train the foremen, superintendents, managers, and heads of
establishments rather than the workingmen. The higher group is formed
of the technical high schools or technological institutes, where are
trained the scientific experts. The importance of the German system
lies in the development of the last two groups rather than in
provision for the training of the workmen. Germany’s recent industrial
advance must be credited to the training of the officers, not the rank
and file, in the industrial army, to the development of managerial
ability rather than of manual skill.
In England the last twenty years have seen a marvelous development in
industrial education, brought about in part by the “made in Germany”
agitation. The English system differs from the German in educating
working-class boys, while at work in the mill or at the forge, into
foremen, managers, etc., mainly by means of evening classes in trade
or technical schools. The German system, on the other hand, trained
men who already had a superior general education. These schools are
regarded as stepping stones for the more ambitious and intelligent
young workingmen. They give a practical grasp of the subjects, but do
not teach actual processes of manufacture, owing to trade union
objections. They thus come between the lower and middle schools in
Germany. The higher technical schools also exist and have recently
been greatly expanded.
The system of industrial education in the United States may be said to
resemble that of Germany more than England in that it supplies
industries from above rather than from below, but it is in a very
chaotic state as yet. The most important schools are institutes of
technology and the technical departments of the universities, but
these train men only for the highest positions. Provision for the
industrial training of the workingman is almost lacking except in a 109
few manufacturing centers. Thus there are a few trade schools
resembling somewhat those in the Middle German group, as the textile
schools at Philadelphia, Lowell, and a few other cities. Lower trade
schools are found in New York City, but hardly anywhere else. That
there is a distinct need of and demand for instruction of this
character is shown by the enormous expansion of correspondence
schools, a peculiarly American institution, which endeavor to give the
training afforded by the English schools to the more ambitious young
artisans.
So far in their industrial development the people of the United States
have been immensely aided by two factors: the rich natural resources
of the country, and the high quality of the labor. But as we have
already seen, the natural resources are being either rapidly exhausted
or monopolized. As to the character of the second factor, we may quote
from the testimony of a recent careful observer, Dr. A. Shadwell[33]:
“The American method of work in the industrial sphere is distinguished
by the following features: enterprise, audacity, push, restlessness,
eagerness for novelty, inventiveness, emulation, and cupidity.
Employers and employed have exhibited the same qualities in their
degree.”… But they suffer “from the national defect of want of
thoroughness, which arises from the craving for short cuts.” Now that
American industries are entering the markets of the world in
international competition, it becomes important to correct any faults
that will cause us to fall behind. So far the movement for better
industrial education through the establishment of trade schools has
met two obstacles in this country. The first is the hostility of the
trade unions, which fear to see their control of the labor market
disturbed by the annual turning out of hundreds or thousands of
workers from the trade schools without any especial sympathy with
trade union methods or policies. The other difficulty lies in the 110
satisfaction with prevailing methods, the belief that the American
workman without training possesses skill superior to that of his
European competitors, and a naïve national self-conceit in all things
American. Now that we are for almost the first time in a hundred years
measuring our industrial efficiency in foreign markets against our
European competitors, we shall be compelled to take stock of all the
items that make for industrial supremacy. There seems to be little
doubt that when once this is fairly done, the need of a better system
of industrial education will be recognized and met.