effort is made to give him a participation in the social and industrial
life with which he comes in contact, nor any insight and inspiration
regarding it.

Apparently we have not yet recovered manual labor from the deep distrust
which centuries of slavery and the feudal system have cast upon it. To
get away from menial work, to do obviously little with one's hands, is
still the desirable status. This may readily be seen all along the line.
A workingman's family will make every effort and sacrifice that the
brightest daughter be sent to the high school and through the normal
school, quite as much because a teacher in the family raises the general
social standing and sense of family consequence, as that the returns are
superior to factory or even office work. "Teacher" in the vocabulary of
many children is a synonym for women-folk gentry, and the name is
indiscriminately applied to women of certain dress and manner. The same
desire for social advancement is expressed by the purchasing of a piano,
or the fact that the son is an office boy, and not a factory hand. The
overcrowding of the professions by poorly equipped men arises from much
the same source, and from the conviction that "an education" is wasted
if a boy goes into a factory or shop.

A Chicago manufacturer tells a story of twin boys, whom he befriended
and meant to give a start in life. He sent them both to the Athenæum for
several winters as a preparatory business training, and then took them
into his office, where they speedily became known as the bright one and
the stupid one. The stupid one was finally dismissed after repeated
trials, when to the surprise of the entire establishment, he quickly
betook himself into the shops, where he became a wide-awake and valuable
workman. His chagrined benefactor, in telling the story, admits that he
himself had fallen a victim to his own business training and his early