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Page 7
Labor should not be organized for selfish ends, but for its own good,
_so as to secure steady and permanent employment_, rather than prevent
it by impracticable schemes and unwise methods, which will cripple
manufacturers and all kinds of industry. The men should organize under
the general laws of the State, so that their leaders will be
responsible to the laws and can be indicted, tried, and punished in
case they misappropriate funds or commit any breach of trust; and such
laws should be amended if necessary, so that wise, responsible leaders
of the organizations can contract to furnish labor for a certain time
at a fixed price, when manufacturers can make calculations ahead as to
the cost of labor the same as for the cost of material, and have such
confidence that they will use all their energies to do a larger amount
of business and benefit the workingman as well as themselves by
furnishing steady employment. Such a plan as is here outlined can
readily be carried into effect by selecting better men as leaders. It
is well known how well the organization known as the locomotive
brotherhood is conducted, and it should be an example to others. It
has had its day of dissensions, when the best counsels did not
prevail, which shows that any organization of the kind, no matter how
well conducted, may be diverted by its leaders into improper channels.
When organized under the laws of the State and under by-laws designed
to secure steady employment, rather than any artificial condition of
things in regard to pay hours, and continuance of labor, the true
interests of the workman will be advanced. It may be that some one of
you will develop a talent in the direction of organization and be the
means of aiding in the solution of this great problem. Please think of
the matter seriously, watch the law of evolution while you are
advancing your professional knowledge, and if the opportunity offers,
do all you can to aid in a cause so important and beneficent.
One writer has criticised the technical schools because they do not
teach mechanical intuition. The schools have enough to do in the time
available if they teach principles and sufficient practice to enable
the principles to be understood. The aptitude to design, which must be
what is meant by mechanical intuition, requires very considerable
practical experience, which you will readily learn if you do not keep
yourself above it. If you have used your leisure hours to study why a
certain piece of mechanism was made in a certain way rather than in
another; if you have wondered why one part is thick in one place
rather than in another, apparently in defiance of all rules of the
strength of material; if you have endeavored to ascertain why a
particular device is used rather than another more evident one; if you
have thought and studied why a boss is thrown in here and there in
designs to receive bolts or to lengthen a journal, and if you have in
your mind, by repeated observation, a fair idea of how work is
designed by other people, the so-called _mechanical intuition_ will be
learned and found to be the _combination of common sense and good
practice_.
You will observe that some details have been copied for years and
years, although thoughtful men would say they are not the best, simply
because they are adapted to a large amount of work already done. This
is particularly true of the rolling stock on railroads. The cost of a
change in starting in a new country might be warranted, but it
practically cannot be done when the parts must interchange with so
much work done in other parts of the country. You will find in other
cases that the direct strain to which a piece of mechanism is
subjected is only one of the strains which occur in practice. A piece
of metal may have been thickened where it customarily broke, and you
may possibly surmise that certain jars took place that caused such
breakages, or that particular point was where the abuse of the
attendant was customarily applied.
Wherever you go you will find matters of this kind affecting designs
staring you in the face, and you will soon see why a man who has
learned his trade in the shop, and from there worked into the drawing
room with much less technical information than you have, can get along
as well as he does. Reserve your strength, however. Your time will
come. Whenever there is a new departure to be taken, and matters to be
worked out from the solid which require close computation of strains
or the application of any principles, your education will put you far
ahead, and if you have, during the period of what may be called your
post-graduate course, which occurs during your early introduction into
practical life, been careful to keep your eyes and ears open so as to
learn all that a man in practical life has done, you will soon stand
far ahead.
Reference was made to the use of leisure hours. Leisure hours can be
spent in various ways. For instance, in studying the composition and
resolution of forces and the laws of elasticity in a billiard room,
the poetry of motion, etc., in a ball room, and the chemical
properties of various malt and vinous extracts in another room; but
the philosophical reason why certain engineering work is done in the
way it is, and the proper way in which new work shall be done of a
similar character and original work of any kind carried on, can only
be learned by cultivating your powers of observation and ruminating on
the facts collected in the privacy of one's own room, away from the
allurements provided for those who have nothing to do. No one would
recommend you to so separate yourself from the world as to sacrifice
health and strength, or to become a recluse, even if you did learn all
about a certain thing.
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