turer has invaded the British market, and while the sale of British boots has decreased in our colonies, that of American boots has increased. This is not because the American boot wears better than the British. It does not. A finely made British boot is the best in the world. But in the average boot, the boot which the average person wears, which he buys ready made in a shop at from 12s. 6d. to 25s. a pair, the American article is more popular. It looks neater; there are so many different widths and half sizes that it fits at the start; you have not to be satisfied with it being "all right in a few days, sir." The British boot manufacturers tried to laugh American competition out of existence. Then they took to American methods, and to-day all the largest British boot manufactories are fitted with American machinery. Indeed, all the most ingenious devices in the manufacture of a shoe came from the other side of the Atlantic. It is not enough to tell the public the British shoe wears longer than the American. We don't buy our boots and shoes to wear to the last eighth of an inch. We buy them to fit us and serve us for a time, wanting them to look neat and not be heavy and clumsy. There the American showed the way.

Take railway locomotives. Several of our big lines have tried American built engines. Generally speaking, they have been pronounced a failure; they consume more coal than English engines, and they spend too much of their time in the repairing sheds. But there are several things to be borne in mind. The American builds a locomotive to last ten years. The British maker takes pride in pointing out engines in this country that have run forty years. The American engine is built to drag immense loads. It has an enormous haulage power; it consequently consumes much coal. In England or the States it uses the same amount of fuel. But whilst in the States it has a giant's work to do in haulage, in England it has only an infant's work by comparison. "Put the same weight behind our engine in England," says the American maker, "as we do in America, and then you will find while it consumes more coal it earns more money by the increased haulage capacity."

It is by the adoption of enormous cars and having locomotives of great haulage power that the cost of conveying freight in America, which formerly was the same as in England, is now less than one third per average ton. One sees American locomotives all over the world. So one does British, but not in the same proportion. British makers have recently been getting big orders from abroad. This is not because the American engine is being discarded. It is because America is so prosperous-there is such a boom in the home trade that American makers have no opening to fulfill new contracts for two or three years yet. The point, however, is that the American railroad companies have for a number of years been solving the question of freight charges by the adoption of engines of huge haulage power and cars of thirty ton capacity. Only recently have the British railways made a move in the same direction.

The American manufacturer has vim and something of the gambler in him. He is thirsty for new ideas; he is daring. Where the Englishman would hesitate and think and calculate, the American will plunge, neck or nothing, at a venture. He can see ahead further than the Englishman. In British works new machinery is fitted up when the old has begun to wear out or when nearly everybody else has it and it is necessary to have it also if trade is to be held. Those are not considerations which weigh with the American manufacturer. His constant criticism against his cousin on this side of the Atlantic is that the Britisher doesn't know the value of a scrap heap. An American will spend, say, $150,000 in putting in the latest machinery. Six months later some fresh appliance which will do more work and quicker is invented. He does not wait till the machinery he has put in is worn out before adopting the new invention. The machinery fitted six months back may hardly have got into proper working order. But he rips the lot out, "scrapheaps" it, and has the very latest machinery. He sees ahead. He sees how he has practically thrown away $150,000; but he also sees the gaining of $500,000.

We, in this country, set much store by experience. The American sets more store by youthful enterprise. We think

a man who has been in a business for thirty years is the one who ought to know most about it. The American thinks that a man who has been at it so long is certain to have fossilized ideas, and therefore not likely to keep abreast of the needs of the times. We think a youth thrown into responsibility will, likely as not, make a mess of things. The American thinks that responsibility brings ballast and with all the fire of his young manhood a youth will strive night and day to prove the confidence placed in him is well placed. And here the American is right. Time and time again, as I have gone through the workshops of the United States, I have almost been staggered at the mere boys who are managers and heads of departments; not the sons of proprietors, but young fellows who have started at the bottom, proved their grit, shown their energy, and been pushed on to high positions. It is not at all unusual to find a man of twenty four years having the control of several thousand men. And the fact that a man is young and unmarried is no reason, in the employer's mind, why he should receive comparatively small salary. The question of how cheap you can get such men is not considered. No price is too big to give a lad who has brains and adaptiveness. It is recognized that by paying him well, appreciating him, you fire his enthusiasm.

The tendency within the next decade will be to pay lower wages in America for mere physical labor. The trend is to pay more, never mind what, for brains. Every young American knows this. That is why there is a positive rage for technical instruction and why the technical schools are ever crowded. We have nothing like the same eagerness in Great Britain. After being in America, seeing young mechanics almost starve themselves to pay for a university course-filling in their vacations by acting as waiters in hotels, or tram conductors or bath chair men-it brings a chill to the heart of a Briton to come home and see hardly any such desire among the British youth, and to see our excellent technical schools appreciated only in a lukewarm way.

I readily recognize there is a stress and a strain in American industrial life which suggest the inquiry, whether, after all, the prize is worth the struggle? I have often shuddered

at the thought of what is likely to be the effect on the race of making millions of workers little other than machines. Now and then I have been unable to restrain an open smile at the tremendous conceit of the American manufacturer and his colossal ignorance about things European. But it is not by pooh-poohing his braggadocio, nor by moralizing about the grinding conditions of labor, nor by complacently saying British ways are good enough for us, that British manufacturers will stem the tide of American industrial success, which is already more than threatening fields of commerce we had considered exclusively our own. It is not sufficient to point to the fact that British trade is increasing, and so dismiss foreign competition as the nightmare of pessimists. Increase of trade can only be considered comparatively. And while we crawl, America bounds.

THE RELATION OF EDUCATION TO INDUSTRIAL

AND COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT.

BY HOWARD J. ROGERS.

[Howard J. Rogers, educator; born in Stephentown, N. Y., Nov. 16, 1861; educated in the public schools and at Williams college; superintendent of the New York state educational exhibit at the World's Columbian exposition, 1892-4; director of education and social economy for the United States commission at the Paris exposition of 1900; chief of departments of education and social economy at the St. Louis exposition, 1901-04; director of congresses at that exposition.]

The rivalry of nations has become so intense that the preliminary training of their citizens is a matter of unusual

moment.

In older times this rivalry generally culminated in the arbitrament of war, and as God was usually on the side of the heavier battalions, and as the material of the battalions was not of over vital import, provided it was good food for powder, the necessity for the mental development of any class but the ruling class was never keenly felt. But the rivalry of the present day is not so much one of territorial aggrandizement as of the development of trade and commerce, and war is consequently a more remote resort. Were this spirit still one of national aggression and territorial acquirement we should now be turning out the common soldier and the officer; but when the dominant activity of the world is turned to the thousandfold phases of commerce and of industry, each requiring special training, and each dependent on the flexibility of mind and adaptability to conditions of its followers, the drill and training of our rank and file becomes a vital proposition.

Granting, then, the industrial predominance of the present age, the timeliness of the subject of this paper becomes selfevident. In discussing it we need to consider two main propositions: (1) The tendency of our national development; (2) the kind of education of value to it.

The initial years of the new century, are the annus mirabils of material progress. They have broken the record of record