William James’s essay on the moral equivalents of war advocated
conscription for peace of all youths, rich or poor, to do the hard,
rough and disagreeable work—the labor of the mills, the coal, iron and
other mines, the work of railroad building and transportation, to man
the fishing fleets in December and the harvest fields in August, the
digging of tunnels and foundations, the erection of the frames of
skyscrapers, and the varied work of land reclamation and cultivation.
This of course would have to be done under a system of State Socialism,
as everybody is naturally looking for the easier jobs. But the plan
would hardly work under the present system of individualism and freedom
of choice in occupation and the pursuit of happiness. But one thing the
State might do, in organizing its educational facilities, is to give
more attention to and provide more facilities for a vocational
education. There is a surplus in all communities of clerical labor and
of people who are seeking to do what they call brainwork, rather than
muscle work. But the need of the world is for strong muscle workers, for
manual skill combined with intelligence. Our schools afford ample
facilities for the acquirement of book education, and the importance of
book education has been so magnified that the lighter tasks have come to
be extensively regarded as in some way more genteel than the harder
ones. Sentiment, however, is changing, as is shown by the fact that
skilled mechanics as a rule command better pay and steadier employment
than the mere clerical workers. Applied science and skill have come to
occupy so important a place in our modern social life that the skilled
manual worker is now the real aristocrat among workers. This trend in
the distribution of tasks will do away with the need of drafting men for
the hard work. The higher pay and the higher honor of such work will
steadily draw the superior brawn and brain of our youth into what may be
aptly called the manlier occupations.