If foreign artisans and artists are to make all the objects which taste demands, and are to supply this growing craving of the American people for works of beauty; if our domestic arts and manufactures are to be destroyed, as our commerce has been, by the substitution of foreign for native capital and labor; then, there is no alternative but that labor in the United States must be degraded to the coarser employments.

The Centennial forced the solution of this inevitable problem on us somewhat faster than it would otherwise have come; for the Centennial created in the community at large, a new and rapidly growing demand for objects of taste and beauty. The question now pressing for solution is, will the American people train up their own sons and daughters to produce these articles, or will they condemn them to the thankless life of unskilled laborers?

This is the great question which is debated, consciously or unconsciously, whenever the subject of the introduction of industrial drawing into the public schools of the United States is under consideration.

Far distant be the day when the boys bred in the common schools of America shall be willing, or shall be forced by stern necessity, to become mere beasts of burden; such as were the serfs of Russia, the slaves of America and such as are still large numbers of the peasants of Europe! Such labor is unworthy a thinking being. Such labor impover ishes a country, because nothing is so unprofitable for a community, however profitable it may appear to be for an individual, as the enforced and wasteful labor of ignorance and poverty.

That which makes labor honorable, which gives dignity to toil, is just that which differentiates a man from a brute,- the application of mind to labor! And, owing to the beautiful order of Nature, the reign of Law, which runs through the universe and pervades alike the least and the greatest; it follows, that just in the degree that mind goes into the work, just in that proportion the value placed by the world upon the product of that labor is increased.

As inventions add value to products and create wealth for individuals and communities, so Art, likewise, enhances values and increases wealth. Labor is honored when brains are added to toil. The worker is paid just in proportion as he puts thought and skill into his work.

That piece of marble cost a few dollars to pay for the labor of cutting it out of the quarry and dragging it to Florence, some hundreds of years ago; Michel Angelo struck it a few blows with a chisel and its value is priceless; and men go on pilgrimages over lands and seas, just to be

permitted to look at it! Raphael makes a few strokes of a brush on a few square inches of canvas; and kings contend for its possession.

Nor is this only because the artist is dead, and the works have been famous for centuries. Living men to day; Meissonier, Gerome, Alma Tadema, Millais, Holman Hunt, and numbers of other artists in London and Paris, are paid thousands and thousands for work which costs them but a few days, or hours, of labor.

To consider the results of genius and skill when applied to other things, than to such chefs-d'œuvre of artistic genius; that bit of steel costs but a few cents, the watch spring maker takes it and when his thought, that is, his skill, has been applied to it, the same bit of steel is worth hundreds of dollars. That lump of crude clay is worth perhaps one cent, but the potter puts it on his wheel, and soon it grows under the deft touch of his forming hand into a shape of beauty; more mind is added to it, and it glows with color; the fiery furnace tries its endurance, and makes it a joy forever; and the money, that the toiling drudge, with his shovel or his hoe, could not win in a long year of labor, is cheerfully paid for that lump of clay plus the thought that has transformed it from a senseless clod to the thing of beauty that is to make glad generations of art-loving men. It was a painful and slow task to pick the seeds from the cotton, so slow and so tiresome, that the culture of the plant whose product now clothes mankind, was about to be abandoned, when a boy, who had been in a New England school, chanced to see the clumsy, profitless toil, and gave his mind to the problem of how to get rid of this brute work; the result was the cotton gin, by the invention of which, that one man added many millions of dollars to the wealth of his country. The common sewing needle is a very serviceable little instrument and itself the result of the application of thought and skill to the crude iron; but a boy in New England saw the latent possibilities of that shining little bit of steel, and solved the problem of the sewing machine by showing all the world how to do it. It was a very simple thing when he had once put the eye of the needle in its point, but it added immense sums to the world's wealth, besides enriching its inventor.

It would be mere repetition to recount the numberless stories of inventions, the application of mind to matter, with a mere view to utility. In this field of activity the citizens of the United States are unrivalled. In fitting their pupils for this kind of development, by training their intellects, for these inventions are the outcome of minds trained to think, the common schools have given in the past, efficient education.

We have already seen, however, that it is partly due to this very fecundity of invention, especially as applied to the facilities of transportation and rapid communication, inventions relating to the uses of steam and electricity, that we are now in the midst of this wonderful revolution of the world's industries; and find ourselves laboring under difficulties which the training given in the public schools as heretofore directed, does not fit the pupils, the future working citizens of this great country, to meet.

To recapitulate: First. Owing to the waste and cost of the struggle for the preservation of the Union, we are burdened with a great national debt. This means that more work of the laborer must go to the use of the State to pay the interest and finally the principal of that debt and less to his family; either he must be made more productive, or he himself and his family will inevitably grow poorer and deteriorate.

Secondly. The improvements in steam transportation, etc., bring the product of the labor of the most distant rations, in competition with the labor of the American, in his home markets.

Thirdly. The wonderful advance during the last few years in the beauty of all manufactures, in the tastes of the consumers, and in the skill of the workmen in England and on the Continent, make it far more difficult for our workmen to compete with these foreign workers in foreign markets, in the things they can make; while there are whole classes of manufactures which as yet Americans do not make at all.

Fourthly. The Centennial so informed our own people as to the beauty of the productions of other countries, as to make them dissatisfied with the lack of beauty in those of our own, so that our native workmen find to their surprise that their handiwork is of no esteem; the public demand the work of the foreign artisans because it possesses the artistic qualities which are lacking in the home products.

The American worker thus unexpectedly finds that a most unwelcome and dangerous competitor has invaded the stronghold that he thought invincible; the home market. Outrivalled abroad, neglected at home, where shall the inartistic American producer turn to find customers for his unlovely wares?

THE SITUATION IN EUROPE AND IN THE UNITED

STATES.

The changed relations of Labor not peculiar to the United States-Efforts of other nations to meet the difficulties - The American people not yet aroused to the situation-Wealth of the United States in raw material requisite for art industries shown at the Centennial-This country must continue to develop in the arts and manufactures, if it is to retain any rank among civilized nations - Power abides with a scientific and a manufacturing, not with a merely agricultural people - How introduction of elementary industrial art training in public schools will aid the solution of the problem - The economic test a proper one - The refining, elevating influence of the proposed study - The presentation of the vase to William Cullen Bryant and the poet's tribute to the artist workers in silver.

The changes that have been here so briefly recited, began to develop in the United States as recently as at the commencement of the late war, and have since grown with ever increasing rapidity, receiving their most evident impulse from the Centennial.

As has been shown, a similar revolution in all the industrial arts has been long in progress in Europe; and the nations are eagerly rivalling each other in their efforts to train up skilled artists and artisans, to meet the demands of modern taste, and wide spread intelligence. Their efforts, in these directions are comprehensive and unceasing. The nations of Europe begin with the children, and in England, in Belgium, in France, in Germany, in Austria, in Italy, and in Russia, all manner of experiments to ascertain the best methods of training skilled artistic workmen by beginning with the definite education of young children, are actively in progress.

This increased activity in the countries of coutinental Europe in initiating the direct educational training of the people in artistic indus tries, was marked by the founding of an entirely new class of public museums; in which were collected such examples of medieval art workmanship as could be procured. The model of these new institutions was evidently the South Kensington Museum. Important museums of this class were founded in Vienna, in 1864; in Berlin in 1866; in Nuremberg, in 1868; in Weimer, and in Dresden, in 1869; in Leipsic,

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in Hamburg, and in Pesth, in 1874. While in Stuttgart, Gotha, Cologne, Mayence, Darmstadt, Karlsruhe, Munich, Salsburg, Bamburg, and Augsburg, smaller museums of the same class have been formed during the past few years. Ten years ago Germany had some three hundred technical industrial schools in operation and Austria had about one hundred; while in both countries industrial drawing was commonly taught in the elementary schools. Full accounts of many of these schools and museums will be found in the Appendices to these volumes.

It is evident that the people of the United States are not yet generally roused to the pressing importance of providing such training as shall prepare the new generation to cope with the changed conditions of industry. Although, as we have seen, the people of Europe have, for several years, been making every effort to accommodate themselves to the new conditions; in the United States, except in a few sporadic instances, the common school education of the children goes placidly on in the old ruts. In a few wide awake towns and cities, there is some interest manifested and some effort made, to begin to meet this new industrial warfare by introducing the new methods of drilling and equip ping the industrial armies; but the great mass of the people are, as yet, indifferent to the situation, though, while they may not know all the relations of the problem, they are conscious that for some reason it is more difficult than it was years ago, for the American school boy to enter upon a prosperous career; formerly industry and integrity, were all the capital needed, now, these alone, essential as they ever must be, no longer suffice, for an amount of definite knowledge and technical skill, then undreamed of, are also requisite.

In view of the facts recited, is it strange that complaints have arisen that the public schools no longer give the training needed to equip the young citizen for the business of life?

What is needed? It seems too clear a proposition to waste time in its demonstration, that if the United States are hereafter to hold rank among the productive, powerful and cultured nations of the world, it must be by such a development of her abundant natural resources, (these were fully shown to the world at the Centennial, and the fact that they were amply sufficient for all needs was conceded,) as shall not only enable her to contend with them on equal terms in the markets of the world, but as shall cause other nations to seek her productions in exchange. No fact in political economy is so well settled as that the exporters of raw material receive but little over the bare cost of its production, for the