Excerpt from The Philosophy of the Labor Movement

See that man-with ragged clothes and filthy face, his hair uncombed, just enough of his boots left to hold them together. As he walks your streets, he looks ready to go to pieces all at once, like the deacon's one-horse shay. Put some new shoes on his feet he begins to see the need of new trousers to go with them; then a new vest, a new coat, and a clean face. Then he goes home; his wife and children need new clothes, too, he thinks. Then[his house must be re paired; there must be a carpet on the floor, a table in the room, and by-and-thy, when months, perhaps years, of such reform have gone on, 'he will come home some night with the Herald or Times. Then his taste for reading will begin. He won't read Charles Sumner's speeches at first; more likely the doings of the Police Court. But he will have begun the habit of reading. So we might follow him through a long life of such gradual improvement. Well, that is education, broad and substantial; the natural, logical way to abolish ignorance and _its at tendant evils, such as intemperance and prostitution. It is precisely the education which forms the grand. Base of this whole theory of increasing wages by rais ing to a higher level the habits of the people, creat ing in them new wants, enabling them to secure new comforts. Am I not right, then, in claiming this as the educational phase of the labor movement, and in summoning to its support the men and women whose minds are broad enough to see, andwhose hearts are warm enough to feel; that this is the edu cation which the world needs Had I ten thousand tongues, each one gifted with the eloquence of o'connell, they should all say, Improve the habits of the masses, that they may be dearer laborers and better consumers; that thus, by naturally increasing wages and production, amore equitable distribution of wealth may be attained.

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