curiosity to learn how the
organization of the industrial army was made to afford a sufficient stimulus to
diligence in the lack of any anxiety on the worker's part as to his livelihood.
    »You must understand in the first place,« replied the doctor, »that the
supply of incentives to effort is but one of the objects sought in the
organization we have adopted for the army. The other, and equally important, is
to secure for the file-leaders and captains of the force, and the great officers
of the nation, men of proven abilities, who are pledged by their own careers to
hold their followers up to their highest standard of performance and permit no
lagging. With a view to these two ends the industrial army is organized. First
comes the unclassified grade of common laborers, men of all work, to which all
recruits during their first three years belong. This grade is a sort of school,
and a very strict one, in which the young men are taught habits of obedience,
subordination, and devotion to duty. While the miscellaneous nature of the work
done by this force prevents the systematic grading of the workers which is
afterwards possible, yet individual records are kept, and excellence receives
distinction corresponding with the penalties that negligence incurs. It is not,
however, policy with us to permit youthful recklessness or indiscretion, when
not deeply culpable, to handicap the future careers of young men, and all who
have passed through the unclassified grade without serious disgrace have an
equal opportunity to choose the life employment they have most liking for.
Having selected this, they enter upon it as apprentices. The length of the
apprenticeship naturally differs in different occupations. At the end of it the
apprentice becomes a full workman, and a member of his trade or guild. Now not
only are the individual records of the apprentices for ability and industry
strictly kept, and excellence distinguished by suitable distinctions, but upon
the average of his record during apprenticeship the standing given the
apprentice among the full workmen depends.
    While the internal organizations of different industries, mechanical and
agricultural, differ according to their peculiar conditions, they agree in a
general division of their workers into first, second, and third grades,
according to ability, and these grades are in many cases subdivided into first
and second classes. According to his standing as an apprentice a young man is
assigned his place as a first, second, or third grade worker. Of course only
young men of unusual ability pass directly from apprenticeship into the first
grade of the workers. The most fall into the lower grades, working up as they
grow