the greatest stress upon the largest morality, so if they could found their own schools, it is doubtful whether they would be of the mechanic institute type.  Courses of study arranged by a group of workingmen are most naive in their breadth and generality.  They will select the history of the world in preference to that of any period or nation.  The “wonders of science” or “the story of evolution” will attract workingmen to a lecture when zooelogy or chemistry will drive them away.  The “outlines of literature” or “the best in literature” will draw an audience when a lecturer in English poetry will be solitary.  This results partly from a wholesome desire to have general knowledge before special knowledge, and is partly a rebound from the specialization of labor to which the workingman is subjected.  When he is free from work and can direct his own mind, he tends to roam, to dwell upon large themes.  Much the same tendency is found in programmes of study arranged by Woman’s Clubs in country places.  The untrained mind, wearied with meaningless detail, when it gets an opportunity to make its demand heard, asks for general philosophy and background.

In a certain sense commercialism itself, at least in its larger aspect, tends to educate the workingman better than organized education does.  Its interests are certainly world-wide and democratic, while it is absolutely undiscriminating as to country and creed, coming into contact with all climes and races.  If this aspect of commercialism were utilized, it would in a measure counterbalance the tendency which results from the subdivision of labor.

The most noteworthy attempt to utilize this democracy of commerce in relation to manufacturing is found at Dayton, Ohio, in the yearly gatherings held in a large factory there.  Once a year the entire force is gathered together to hear the returns of the business, not so much in respect to the profits, as in regard to its extension.  At these meetings, the travelling salesmen from various parts of the world—­from Constantinople, from Berlin, from Rome, from Hong Kong—­report upon the sales they have made, and the methods of advertisement and promotion adapted to the various countries.

Stereopticon lectures are given upon each new country as soon as it has been successfully invaded by the product of the factory.  The foremen in the various departments of the factory give accounts of the increased efficiency and the larger output over former years.  Any man who has made an invention in connection with the machinery of the factory, at this time publicly receives a prize, and suggestions are approved that tend to increase the comfort and social facilities of the employees.  At least for the moment there is a complete esprit de corps, and the youngest and least skilled employee sees himself in connection with the interests of the firm, and the spread of an invention.  It is a crude example of what might be done in the way of giving a large framework of meaning to factory labor, and of putting it into a sentient background, at least on the commercial side.