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Page 42
Workingmen themselves have made attempts in both directions, which it
would be well for moralists and educators to study. It is a striking
fact that when workingmen formulate their own moral code, and try to
inspire and encourage each other, it is always a large and general
doctrine which they preach. They were the first class of men to organize
an international association, and the constant talk at a modern labor
meeting is of solidarity and of the identity of the interests of
workingmen the world over. It is difficult to secure a successful
organization of men into the simplest trades organization without an
appeal to the most abstract principles of justice and brotherhood. As
they have formulated their own morals by laying 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 na�ve 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
zo�logy 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.
It is easy to indict the educator, to say that he has gotten entangled
in his own material, and has fallen a victim to his own methods; but
granting this, what has the artist done about it--he who is supposed to
have a more intimate insight into the needs of his contemporaries, and
to minister to them as none other can?
It is quite true that a few writers are insisting that the growing
desire for labor, on the part of many people of leisure, has its
counterpart in the increasing desire for general knowledge on the part
of many laborers. They point to the fact that the same duality of
conscience which seems to stifle the noblest effort in the individual
because his intellectual conception and his achievement are so difficult
to bring together, is found on a large scale in society itself, when we
have the separation of the people who think from those who work. And
yet, since Ruskin ceased, no one has really formulated this in a
convincing form. And even Ruskin's famous dictum, that labor without art
brutalizes, has always been interpreted as if art could only be a sense
of beauty or joy in one's own work, and not a sense of companionship
with all other workers. The situation demands the consciousness of
participation and well-being which comes to the individual when he is
able to see himself "in connection and cooperation with the whole"; it
needs the solace of collective art inherent in collective labor.
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