laborer for his calling will give him versatility, and contribute to his ability to adapt himself to whatever change may transpire in his fortunes. The general education begun in our common schools, and continued in our academies, high-schools, and colleges, is undoubtedly capable of the widest practical application, and best fits one for readjusting his vocation in life. The more special the education the less it fits the individual for this change. But we must not conclude from this that branches less general in their nature than those ordinarily taught in our schools should not be introduced into the curriculum-quite the contrary. While claiming that the studies of our common schools are the most practical of elementary studies, it is possible to introduce disciplines which point to mechanical vocations, without in the least injuring the old course of study.

Industrial education-specially so called-has or should have its place in our common schools and high-schools as an additional safeguard against disaster in the process of readjustment, which must go on uninterrupted among the American laboring-population. It should partly precede and partly follow, as well as accompany, the general course of study in the common school:

1. There is first a most carefully-devised scheme, laying a foundation for industrial skill in general, before the pupil is mature enough to take up the studies of the general curriculum of the common school. Froebel's Kindergarten takes the child at four years of age-while his muscles are yet unformed-and disciplines them in such a way that they will have for all afterlife the special development which gives skill in manipulation. While it does not neglect the child's imagination nor his manners, it lays a good foundation for skill in the use of the hand and eye, and in the first theoretical steps in form and number.

2. Drawing is the chief industrial study in the common school proper; and, if taught thoroughly in all its departments, it will nearly suffice for the general training of the hand and eye, such as is indispensable in most of the arts and trades.

3. Finally, the institution called "school-shops" creates versatility within the range of mechanical industries. It is in this "school-shop" that the pupil learns the theory and practice of tools in general; and a boy well trained in a "school-shop" would learn the mysteries of a special trade in a month, and would

go forth into the world of industry able to readjust himself if any untoward accident happened to his special vocation.

Although art-education is allied to industrial education, the two are not identical; art-education is the training which fits one for the appreciation and production of the beautiful—as ornament or as free art. It is obvious that a large portion of the labor set free by the increased productivity of new mechanical inventions should not be forced to migrate, but should remain and devote itself to the ornamentation of the manufactured products. Further elaboration, higher degree of finish, should add greatly to the market value without increasing the bulk. This is the process described as the enhancing of values by mixing brains with the manufactured products. To add beauty to mere use increases the market value. The money paid for ornament is astonishingly out of proportion to that paid for mere use. The retention at home here in the United States of the money sent abroad to France, England, or Italy, for various forms of ornament would go far to enrich those superfluous workmen who fall out of their vocations by reason of inability to adapt themselves to changes.

With a perfect system of readjustment of vocations, it is ob vious that the progress of mechanic invention brings with it emancipation from physical labor, and the opportunity for each and all to ascend in the direction of those vocations having for their end the direct ministration to the spiritual wants of man. The artisan will give place for the artist in each department of industry. The vocations devoted to obtaining natural productions, to their elaboration (manufacturing), to their exchange and distribution, and to the public protection, are destined to employ mankind in a gradually decreasing ratio; while those vocations which are devoted to human nurture and education, to the Church, to the reflection of human life through artistic and literary productions, and to pure science, will be followed by an increasing number of people.

WILLIAM T. HARRIS.

V.

CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM.

THE recent changes in the New York Custom-House, where more than seventy per cent. of our customs revenue is collected, have brought again to the front reform in the civil service, and present a new phase in its progress.

In December last the Senate refused, by the vote (as reported) of thirty-one to twenty-five, to confirm the nomination as Collector of the late Theodore Roosevelt of honored memory, who was understood to be in perfect accord with the President's policy, in place of General Chester A. Arthur, who had been Collector since 1871, and who was known to regard it with less approval. That vote of the Senate, whatever the varying motives that induced it, blocked the President's plan by placing him in the position of a general whose corps-commanders were in sympathy with the enemy, and openly at variance with their chief.

The exercise by the President, since the adjournment of the Senate, of his constitutional right to remove and appoint during a recess, has given him for the first time in New York a Collector of his own choice: and the appointment shows that his temporary acquiescence in the rejection of Mr. Roosevelt implied neither alarm nor indifference, least of all an abandonment of his pledges.

His appointment of General Merritt and Colonel Burt will hardly be cited to prove that "want of will-power" which has been so freely attributed to Mr. Hayes by his enemies, and perhaps sometimes by his impatient friends. It has encouraged, on the contrary, the high hope that the velvet glove conceals the iron hand; and that with the gentle courtesy of the President is blended the firm resolve, in view of the temper and strength of the opposition both Republican and Democratic, to exert his constitutional authority, during the remainder of his term, with

a prompt and judicious vigor that may redeem past mistakes and past delays, and secure, however severe the struggle, the due execution of the laws and the honest collection of the national

revenue.

But the task of the President-who is happily free from suspicion of aiming at a second term-involves the permanent reform of the service; and that requires congressional legislation to secure appointments by merit, and a tenure dependent on good behavior.

This work, therefore, for which but two and a half years are left to the Administration, demands all the tact and skill of the President and of the statesmen who compose the cabinet, to enlist the representatives of the culture, the commerce, and the industry of the country in a common effort, to prevent the Government from hopelessly degenerating into an oligarchy of politicians, maintaining themselves by patronage and plunder.

The honorable and intelligent members of both Houses must recognize the exigencies and dangers that confront us. They know that our Indian troubles, with their waste of heroic life and treasure, result from the peculations and bad faith of our own agents. They are aware that the terrible burdens imposed by the civil war have been year by year increased by official folly, imbecility, and crime. They see the popular discontent threatening disorder and the Commune, stimulated by the thought that the hard sufferings of the poor are intensified by the wrongful conversion of the Government to the enrichment of its partisans.

Our honest and patriotic Congressmen, whatever their politics or preferences, may well hasten to unite in some effective scheme to protect the civil service from spoliation and collusion; especially when they recall the picture presented by Colonel Mosby, who, anticipating the possible return of the Democrats to power, said that they would come to Washington "as fierce as famine and as hungry as the grave!"

The question of reform in the New York Custom-House, whatever its special interests, which can hardly be exaggerated, for that city and State, concerns the whole country in connection with our imports, exports, duties, and revenue; and its bearings extend to the entire civil service.

Astute observers are agreed that it cannot be excluded from

the presidential canvass; and that, whatever other issues may present themselves, the question how far the Republican party, under President Hayes, has honestly fulfilled the pledges which it gave at Cincinnati, is one that cannot be avoided; and for that party it would seem clear that the only possibility of success rests upon its fidelity to the work of reform.

The position of the President was defined in his note to Mr. Secretary Sherman, May 26, 1877:

"I concur with the Commission in their recommendations. It is my wish that the collection of the revenue should be free from partisan control, and organized on a strictly business basis, with the same guarantees for efficiency and fidelity in the selection of the chief and subordinate officers that would be required by a prudent merchant. Party leaders should have no more influence in appointments than other equally respectable citizens. No assessments for political purposes on officers should be allowed. No useless officer or employé should be retained. No officer should be required or permitted to take part in the management of political organizations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns. Their right to vote and to express their views on public questions, either orally or through the press, is not denied, provided it does not interfere with the discharge of their official duties."

The counter-views of Collector Arthur appear from his letter, in November, 1877, to Mr. Secretary Sherman, reviewing the first four reports of the Investigating Commission. Before quoting the letter, it may assist in a survey of the political situation on this subject, to recall some of the features of the civil service at the close of the Democratic and pro-slavery régime in 1861, and of the fluctuations of civil-service reform during the rule of the Republican party for the last seventeen years. Events with us move rapidly, and, with the lessons they should teach, are too rapidly forgotten. Our countrymen do not always appreciate the importance of preserving an accurate memory of political events as they occur, and of recognizing in the department of facts and statistics what Sir George Lewis calls "the entrance and propylæa to politics."

Our recollections of Mr. Buchanan's Administration are connected with the desperate attempt to force slavery into Kansas; and later, when the rebellion came, the bad faith on the part of VOL. CXXVII.-NO. 264.

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