is the minimum. Certainly the public schools should not unfit boys and girls for industrial and social life. We are then face to face with the most serious educational and sociological problem of our time. It is gratifying, therefore, to note the rapid progress of a popular movement in favor of industrial education, either separate from the public school system, such separation in the case of children's schools being usually regarded as temporary, or as a part of the school curriculum. It is pretty generally conceded that the teaching of special trades — as distinguished from general mechanical dexterity cannot be demanded of the public schools. Such teaching applies to many of the boys who go to college, but ought not to go, and to most of those who have finished at the public schools or academies. Such as are to make business or scientific men find commercial and scientific schools at hand. But those who ought and desire to learn a trade have hitherto been unable to do so, primarily because the trade unions allow "a master mechanic to graduate one journeyman in each year, or one in two years, a number insufficient to fill the vacancies, much less to meet the ever-increasing demand for skilled labor in growing communities," and because there were no trade schools. In this field, perhaps, the most interesting and typical institution is the "New York Trade Schools," whose ninth annual programme is at hand. Founded and supported by Colonel Auchmuty, it has outlived the hostility of the Unions, who now furnish skilled instructors to the school, the Merchant Tailors' Society providing free instruction in tailoring. Here 450 young men are given day or evening instruction in plumbing, carpentry, painting, metal work, etc., the charge for instruction including tools-varying from ten to forty dollars, the latter figure only for one course. The year is about five months, one year constituting the course. The workshops are well equipped, and this year a dormitory has been built for the school. The institution is not yet self-supporting, nor is it intended to be money making. Two thousand young men have already received instruction in it, and were soon receiving skilled workmen's wages. The new Pratt Institute of Brooklyn does much the same kind of work for pupils a little younger both boys and girls. It has over 1,300 enrolled upon its books. Other large cities have taken up the work in some form with surprising success, for example, the Fourteenth Ward Industrial School of the Children's Aid Society, of New York.

As applied to public schools the system is less pretentious, confined to teaching girls cooking and sewing, and boys the use of simple tools; this, too, as only a part of the curriculum a pleasing diversion from books and recitation. In some of the grammar schools, for example, the Ninth Ward, New York, and the Cambridge schools, the results are thoroughly satisfactory, though it is too early to summarize them. The moral effect ought to be good, to judge by the words of a correspondent of the "New York Times" in reference to the New York Trade Schools: "Though valuable tools are scattered about, there has been (in eight years) only one instance of theft. Rude or profane language is never heard among them; and not even a scratch or pencil mark has been made on the walls since the schools were opened." Such ideas of workmanship are not learned easily from books.

In the same general field, though of a very much higher order, is the work of Mr. John Ward Stimson's "New York Institute for Artist Artisans," whose first annual report deserves to be widely circulated.

The title indicates the aim of the undertaking, to make real artists of our artisans, in decorating, designing, drawing, carving, etc. It instructs bright workmen in the laws of beauty as applied in form and color. The tuition is fifty dollars per year, sometimes paid by firms like Tiffany, for their employees. Mr. Stimson, the organizer, is an enthusiastic and successful teacher, for many years connected with the Metropolitan Museum. His ambition is largely philanthropic, and entirely patriotic. Certainly such a school will do much for the beauty and refinement of American homes, to say nothing of the increased earning power of really educated artist artisans.

PROFIT SHARING.

The widespread unrest of the laboring classes, which finds expression in strikes, socialistic agitation, and utopian schemes, arises largely from a belief that the present distribution of the products of industry is an unjust one. While it is true that most of the evils complained of are incident to human nature, and beyond the reach of any revolution save a moral one, it must be admitted that the present distribution of the products of industry is often unwise, if it is not unjust. It would certainly appear unwise to treat laborers as mere hired instruments who had no material or moral interest in the quality and results of their work. This interest is awakened when they are allowed not merely wages, but a share in the profits. Profit sharing offers a modest and yet sensible solution of this difficult question, and has received the approval of the wisest political economists from Mill to Walker. Profit sharing is not coöperation, as many suppose. Coöperation endeavors to get rid of the manager. It is nothing but an association of workmen. As such it is, except in a restricted field, doomed to failure, simply because any business of importance must have a manager, and good managers must be rewarded. A man of executive talent is rare, and will not remain the mere clerk of an association of workmen when independent enterprises are competing for his services. Coöperation must then do without managers, or cease to be pure coöperation. Profit sharing recognizes these facts. It says to the manager: Manage the business; take the reward of talent, but allow us a percentage of profit as an incentive to greater care, energy, faithfulness, and economy. In a word, give us what would otherwise be wasted." Both parties are now better off; the work is done with less friction and more economically, while the laborer becomes a partner in the business, with a partner's incentives. This is not charity or theory, but economic fact. Naturally, there is a limit to the share of the profits which labor can take. If it is too large, the manager finds the share remaining to him too small, he can do better elsewhere. Or, if the business is a feeble one upon the no-profit line, the manager and business will disappear together if any demand is made upon the slender profits. The economic law seems to run as follows: If the profits divided among workmen exceed the amount saved under the incentives of profit sharing, the establishment, unless a monopoly, must go to the wall in competition with establishments which give out as profits to their employees only the amount saved under the system, or less. And this amount laborers can reasonably expect. If the amount is greater, the establishment will lose its market, and then its manager. On the other hand, it seems certain that a wise sharing of profits is in many industries a condition of the most economical and successful production. If this is so,

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it is bound to become the accepted system. We have before us what we have hitherto lacked - a fairly complete history of this most interesting and growing economic movement.1 It is an original work, much of the information having been collected by correspondence and personal investigation. While the philanthropy of the author is beyond question, he confines himself entirely to facts, and sets forth candidly all the facts whether they tell for or against profit sharing. He follows the various experiments through from their beginning, and this detailed history is exceedingly interesting and instructive. As seen in Mr. Gilman's pages, profit-sharing is by no means a cast-iron system. Its forms are about as various as the experiments, and in this very elasticity is its strength. Sometimes the employees' share of the profits goes into an insurance fund against age and sickness, accomplishing voluntarily what Bismarck's State Socialism strives to accomplish. In other cases, the bonus can be invested in the shares of the establishment, a safe and admirable plan when the workingmen's shares are given the preference in any bankruptcy proceedings. They should certainly be out of the reach of scheming and speculating managers. Again, the workingmen's profits go into building associations, or build and equip reading-rooms, libraries, apprentice schools, etc. Mr. Gilman's account of the earliest and most successful instance of profit sharing the Maison Leclaire, house painters, of Paris is most interesting. In this house the system has been in successful operation since 1842. The experiment was begun timidly and amid great difficulties by Leclaire himself a workman. He grew rich and famous through it, and to-day the association of workmen of the house, the Mutual Aid Society, is half owner of the business, but not liable except to the extent of its capital. The society receives, in common with the individual partners, five per cent. upon its capital. After this has been paid, along with salaries, wages, and all other expenses, one fourth of the profits go to the individual partners, one fourth to the Mutual Aid Society, while the remaining one half is divided in cash among all workmen and employees of the house in proportion to their wages. This cash payment amounts to an annual addition of about twenty per cent. to their wages, though the wages themselves are as high as any in Paris. The executive body of workmen is the noyau or nucleus, a select body comprising about one sixth of their number. This body elects the individual partners, when a vacancy occurs by death or removal. In several cases the person so elected has been the chief employee of the house, who must, of course, purchase his one fourth interest in the business from his predecessor or his heirs. The Mutual Aid Society provides for sickness, also a pension of twelve hundred francs per annum for those who have passed their fiftieth year, and have been twenty years in the employ of the house. It also provides a life insurance of one thousand francs. Doubtless the business of house painting and decorating, where the ratio of wages to other elements of cost is very large, that is, where investments and risks are small, furnishes the most promising field for profit sharing. But Mr. Gilman gives the history of many successes in profit sharing in manufacturing; notably, the experiment of Edmond Laruche-Joubert in the manufacture of paper. Though most popular in Europe, the system appears to be rapidly spreading in 1 Profit Sharing between Employer and Employee. A Study in the Evolution of the Wages System. By Nicholas Paine Gilman. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1889. Pp. 460.

America. The number of cases in which profit sharing has been abandoned, thirty-five, and those in which it is now in operation, 135, suggests too unfavorable an estimate of the feasibility of the scheme. For in nine of the thirty-five cases of abandonment it was successful, but terminated for other reasons. Failure in many of the remaining twenty-six cases can be traced to blunders of employees or the antagonism of socialists and labor unions. On the whole, one concludes from Mr. Gilman's admirable study that profit sharing has approved itself in practice to be most helpful. It is economically sound, though not universally applicable, or a panacea for all human ills. D. Collin Wells.

ANDOVER.

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. By MAX MÜLLER. In two volumes. Pp. xxix, 656. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1887. $4.00.

any

The author of this book regards his work as marking an epoch in the history of Psychology and Philosophy. As Kant revolutionized Philosophy by making the question, What is the origin of knowledge? obsolete, so Max Müller thinks he has revolutionized the study of Psychology and Philosophy by discovering the autobiography of the mind. Since Kant the question has not been, Does all our knowledge come from experience? but What makes experience possible? In like manner, no one hereafter, in the opinion of our author, can study Psychology and Philosophy without being guilty of the grossest anachronism where but in the autobiography of the mind language. "The science of language is the science of thought; the science of thought is the science of language. Trace language to its source, and you have found the birthplace of reason; find the origin of reason, and you will know the origin of language. Language is the other side of reason; reason is the other side of language. Reason lives its entire life in language; language, apart from reason, is dead. Like the Siamese twins, they are born together, they live together, and should either of them die, they would die together.

Sometimes the author uses the phrase "inseparableness of language and thought," sometimes "the identity of language and thought," to express his theory. Properly interpreted, the two phrases mean precisely the same thing, but the latter is the more accurate statement of his theory. Language, as he defines it, consists of symbols used intelligently. In other words, language, in order to be language, must have thought for its inside, and thought cannot exist at all unless it has language for its outside. They are, then, as he conceives them, one fact, which we may look at from two points of view. Taking our position without the mind, we call it language, looking at the same fact from within, we call it thought. He uses the phrase "inseparableness of language and thought" only out of deference to the untechnical, inaccurate senses in which the words are commonly used.

Since language and thought are thus identical, no shade of thought can exist which is not embodied in language. Language and thought are like the two sides of an equation: for every value of one there is a precise equivalent in the other.

I believe the experience of every one who has ever tried to express his thoughts on a subject of any difficulty will completely disprove this theory. Who is there who has not, on such occasions, often been obliged to say to himself, This is not what I mean. This does not express what I think? Sometimes while one is groping around for words to express his thought, the fit words flash into his mind. He knows by a direct and delightful experience the difference between words that express the mere outline of his thought and words that seem coined for the purpose of delineating every shade of it.

Our author considers a case very similar to this. He says: "Sometimes we feel dissatisfied at the imperfection of language which compels us to seek among old words some that seem appropriate for our new purposes, or to trust to composition, or to try what can be done by making a new word out of the materials accumulated in our own or even in foreign languages. But all this only serves to show that thought without language is impossible."

I submit that in this paragraph the author gives up his case. What he has to prove is that language and thought are identical. But here he admits that we sometimes have thoughts that we cannot express by words in current usage, and while they remain unexpressed, or but imperfectly expressed, we try to find an obsolete word, or to coin a word, to express them try to find that which according to the theory must be a part and a conscious part of that which is! The very fact that we can be conscious that our words express our thoughts imperfectly proves that there is something in the thought that has not gone into the words, an inside without an outside, a soul without a body. What our author has to do is to prove that thought and language are like the two sides of a perfect equation. But if he admits that sometimes the fittest words we can think of express our thought imperfectly, he admits that the equation is not perfect. Instead of writing, Thought = words, we must write, Thought= words +x.

In another paragraph he gives up his case even more unequivocally. Here he manages to avoid directly admitting the rottenness of the foundation of his " system" by an ignoratio elenchi. His business is to show that thought and language are identical. Instead of that he says, "But all this only serves to show that thought without words is impossible," overlooking the immense difference between saying, Thought without language is impossible, and Language and thought are identical. But in the paragraph to which I refer he practically admits that thought is possible without words. He is discussing the formation of words, and is undertaking to show how words become more and more general by dropping out of their meaning details that originally formed a part of it. He illustrates his meaning by the word foot. A foot had originally a very full intention. It meant the member of a living body, made of flesh and bone and muscle, with five toes, and used for locomotion. It was meant for a human foot, and implied very soon a certain length. But many of its attributes not being attended to, foot became applicable to the locomotive organs of other animals, quadrupeds, insects, birds, till at last it lost even the attribute of locomotion, retaining only the meaning of what we stand on, and thus was used as the foot of a table, or the foot of a mountain, signifying what is most lifeless and motionless.

And here again we see very clearly how language and thought march hand in hand. It was not that man did not know by what is called