Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1875 — Skilled Labor. [ARTICLE]

Skilled Labor.

The richest mines of wealth of a nation are its workshops, its factories and its farms, filled with men of highly-trained and skilled labor, it being a universal law that the world’s great prizes go to the best. This is not simply an abstract question, but one affecting us all in our pros perity and success every day, and every hour of the day, and every day in the year. France, Switzerland, Prussia and Germany have laid us, and are laying us every year, under contributions of millions of dollars for very superior workmanship, taste and skill. Their silks, their laces, their cloths, their china and porcelain, their bronzes, their fabrics in metal and wood and their objects of vertu and art could be largely produced in this country if we had developed and educated our artisans and mechanics up to the same perfection in workmanship that they have in those countries.

Their mode of thorough instruction in their workshops and manufacturing establishments produces men of the highest order of training, ability and skill. If we take, as an example, the small State of Wurtemburg, in Germany, with a population of 1,778,000, we find that they have forty-nine industrial and technical schools for the training of boys add educating them in all the industrial arts. In these schools there is a mercantile and commercial course, and one for the application of chemistry to the chemical arts and manufactures, where there are fifty-one professors and teachers of chemical and physical mineralogy, modeling-rooms, mechanical work-shops, rooms for drawing, botanical garden and astronomical observatory. There are other schools for building instruction and tradesmen, where builders are trained for masters and constructors of public works, etc., and plasterers, carpenters, grainers, painters, smiths, etc., are educated for foremen and masters; and the schools are crowded with those for whom they were intended, while the graduates are eagerly sought everywhere on the Continent fdr their superior excellence. There are also schools for education in all agricultural pursuits, in which practice is combined with theory, they having under their care 400 square miles of territory. These schools are largely attended, for in one year 12,040 persons, in 523 places, were getting a thorough, complete and practical agricultural education. Connected with these schools are institutions for practical training in anatomy, physiology and diseases of animals ; and a smithy is attached, in which 4,000 animals were shod per year. The result of this discipline is shown in the superior skill of the workmen, the excellence of all their works in the arts and sciences and the harmony existing among them. A thorough acquaintance with a particular industry necessitates a wide range through the field of knowledge, and makes a familiarity with all the causes which produces such effects. The brain is the motive power as well as the guide, for it points the way and all things move as it points. Skilled labor is its own protection. While its progress may be temporarily impeded by the glittering tinsel of some superficial work, yet its final success is conclusive proof that “ all is not gold that glitters,” for merit in all things must win.

Carelessness and ignorance are the most fruitful sources of loss of life and property. Proportionately, as the mind becomes trained and disciplined, carelessness ceases; greater care is manifested in the management of all the affairs of life and the products of our workshops. The great hurry, which has characterized our people, to reach results and to accumulate riches causes that neglect and superficial workmanship which is so prevalent. Scarcely a paper is published that does not contain In its columns some startling accident, accompanied by great loss of life, occasioned by defective machinery or ignorance in its management. Railroad collisions nearly ail result from these causes. The disastrous errors which frequently occur in many cities among chemists and druggists arise from an ignorance which never would or could exist if a compulsory and skillful training in schools established for the purpose, under practical as well as theoretical masters of the particular industry sought to be acquired, had been gone through. We often read of the falling of a floor filled with people. This shows an ignorance of building and of the strength of different materials, a knowledge.of which , is so indispensable in this important branch of industry. Schools established for a thorough training in mining would not only save life and property, but cause a more profitable development of our mineral resources. k-

“ Knowledge is power.” It is the liffiV itmg director of the productiveness of ajll labor*. As a knowledge of all the arts, a thorough acquaintance with the laws* (ft’ nature exists, so will be the progress *in improvement in all the affairs of life. Its application to all the industries causes a • greater productiveness from the same labor. It has decreased the labor of farming and increased its producing power. The superseding of the scythe and the cradle by the mowing and reaping machines has enabled a much greater number of acres to be tilled; at the same time a larger value is realized from the same quantity of land. The greater the skill the greater the wages. Every hour spent in improving the mind is a bid for increased pay. " The laborer is worthy of his hire,” and that worth is enhanced just in proportion as a knowledge of his work is great or small. The foreman of a workshop receives greater compensation than any other workman. Why? Because he possesses greater intelligence on all matters connected with the work. This subject is capable of being drawn to a great length; but enough has been said to show* the benefits arising from knowledge and skill in all branches of industry, and that industrial and technical schools should be established everywhere. Enquirer. " , —At Portslade, near Brighton, England, some workmen engaged in building operations have come across curious Roman remains, comprising cinerary urns, containing bones, a water-bottle, plate, etc. Four urns have been recovered, but only one is complete.