unskilled employment is not disciplinary and it does not lead to a skilled employment which is disciplinary. In the organization of industry, the avoidance of waste is a great aim; yet the lessening of the greatest of all wastes—the waste of life—receives scanty attention.
The writer of "The Long Day,"[1] in drawing upon her own experience as an unskilled girl, looking for employment in a great city, summarizes the situation in these works:
For sad and terrible though it be, the truth is that the majority of "unfortunates," whether of the specifically criminal or of the prostitute class, are what they are, not because they are inherently vicious, but because they were failures as workers and wage earners. They were failures as such, primarily, for no other reason than that they did not like to work. And they did not like to work, not because they are lazy—they are anything but lazy—but because they did not know how to work.
And again the same writer records her conclusions in regard to the educational need of girls in view of the modern demand for skill:
And there are other things more important than the "three R's" which she should be taught. She should be taught how to work—how to work intelligently. She should be trained young in the fundamental race activities, in the natural human instincts for making something with the hands or of doing something with the hands, and of taking infinite pleasure in making it perfect, in doing it well.[2]
And it may be added that what is true of girls is equally true of boys. The great cause of failure and resulting degeneracy is lack of training.
It must be recognized that the vocational impulse is deep-seated, and as the child advances into youth he begins to look to the doing of his life's work. He is restless with simply academic subjects, however valuable. He is concrete in his demands. He wishes to do and earn. But it is an interest in the deep human instincts and forces which must be laid hold of, if we are to develop a healthy, hopeful life; and among these we must recognize the economic instinct leading to the desire to earn and to make a place in the world of production. How much of progress flowed from the development resulting from the vocational education of the apprentice of the guild organization, it is not possible to say; but it certainly was a factor of no small import. And the close association of the wonderful expression of artistic genius in Italy with the development of the skilled artisan and craftsman, is a feature of social history which should lead to serious reflection.
But, further, lack of skill means insecurity of employment for adult workers; and no greater danger threatens labor than this. Every slackening of trade, every depression of business, every interference with industrial progress, every mistake of judgment of the organizers of industry, falls with heaviest force upon the unskilled. Their value in
