German manufacture
made that clear to American manufacture before the war. It also must
be remembered that it was Prussian pride for imperial position that
inspired the complete and efficient surrender of the German schools to
the needs of the German manufacturers.
America is, of course, "different." All peoples are. But so is our
position in the world different from what it was. Our position is not
now, nor could it be, the German position. Our past is different,
and that will continuously have its effect on our future. But we are
facing a great period of change, and the strongest forces in the
country are the industrial, and the strongest leaders are the
financiers. What the financiers and industrial managers most want is
efficient, docile labor. The German system of education, in spite of
the fact that we are different, might conceivably have that effect on
the youth of this country. Under the pressure of industrial rivalry
after the war, under the pressure of an imperial industrial policy, it
may be that the people of the country will yield to the introduction
of a scheme of education which it has been proved elsewhere can fit
children better than any other known scheme into a system of mass
production.
It is clear that industry could set up models of behavior more
successfully in the name of education than in its own, and to the
extent American children come up to these models the more employable
they would be from the standpoint of business.
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