Exercise of the instinct of workmanship not only affords great satisfaction to the producer, but also to the consumer, if he be possessed of any ( 164) critical faculty, or have developed genuine powers of appreciation. Added to the conscience which protests against the social waste of child labor, we have the taste that revolts against a product totally without the charm which pleasure in work creates. We may at last discover that we are imperiling our civilization at the moment of its marked materialism, by wantonly sacrificing to that materialism the eternal spirit of youth, the power of variation, which alone is able to prevent it from degenerating into a mere mechanism.
It would be easy to produce many illustrations to demonstrate that in the leading industrial countries a belief is slowly developing that the workman himself is the chief asset, and that the intelligent interest of skilled men, the power of self-direction and co- operation which is only possible among the free- born and educated, is exactly the only thing which will hold out in the markets of the world. As the foremen of factories testify again and again, factory discipline is valuable only up to a certain point, after which something else must be depended on if the best results are to be achieved.
Monopoly of both the raw material and the newly- opened markets is certainly a valuable factor in a nation's industrial prosperity; but while we spend and treasure to protect one and ( 165) secure the other, we wantonly destroy the most valuable factor of all, intelligent labor. Nothing can help us here save the rising tide of humanitarianism, which is not only emotional enough to regret the pitiless and stupid waste of this power but also intelligent enough to perceive what might be accomplished by its utilization.
We are told that the German products hold a foremost place in the markets of the world because of Germany's fine educational system, which includes training in trade-schools for so many young men. We know, too, that there is at the present moment a strong party in Germany opposing militarism, not from the "peace society" point of view, but because it withdraws all the young men from the industrial life for the best part of three years during which their activity is merely disciplinary, with no relation to the industrial life of the nation. This anti-military party insists that the loss of the three years is a serious matter, and that one nation cannot successfully hold its advance position if it must compete with other nations which are also establishing trade-schools but which do not thus withdraw their youth from continuous training at the period of their greatest docility and aptitude.
England is discovering that the cheap markets afforded by semi-savage peoples, which she has ( 166) thrown open to her manufacturers, are now reacting in the debasement of her products and her factory workers. The manufacturer produces the cheap and inferior articles which he imagines the new commerce will demand. The result upon the workers in the factories producing these unworthy goods, is that they are robbed of the skill which would be demanded if they were ministering to an increasing demand of taste and if they were supplying the market of a civilized people. It would be a curious result of misapplied energy if those very markets which the Briton has so eagerly sought, would finally so debase the English producers that all the increased wealth the markets have brought to the nation would be consumed in efforts to redeem the debased working population.
We have made public education our great concern in America, and perhaps the public-school system is our most distinctive achievement; but there is a certain lack of consistency in the relation of the State to the child after he leaves the public school. At great expense the State has provided school buildings and equipment, and other buildings in which to prepare professional teachers. It has spared no pains to make the system complete, and yet as rapidly as the children leave the schoolroom, the State seems to lose ( 167) all interest and responsibility in their welfare and has, until quite recently, turned them over to the employer with no restrictions.
At no point does the community say to the employer, We are allowing you to profit by the labor of these children whom we have educated at great cost, and we demand that they do not work so many hours that they shall be exhausted. Nor shall they be allowed to undertake the sort of labor which is beyond their strength, nor shall they spend their time at work that is absolutely devoid of educational value. The preliminary education which they have received in school is but one step in the process of making them valuable and normal citizens, and we cannot afford to have that intention thwarted, even though the community as well as yourself may profit by the business activity which your factory affords.
Such a position seems perfectly reasonable, yet the same citizens who willingly pay taxes to support an elaborate public-school system, strenuously oppose the most moderate attempts to guard the children from needless and useless exploitation after they have left school and have entered industry.
We are forced to believe that child labor is a national problem, even as public education is a national duty. The children of Alabama, Rhode ( 168) Island, and Pennsylvania belong to the nation quite as much as they belong to each State, and the nation has an interest in the children at least in relation to their industrial efficiency, quite as it has an interest in enacting protective tariffs for the preservation of American industries.
