nite. Manual training, therefore, when properly managed, has its advantages both to boys and girls in the schools. Where it has been tried, it has excited so much interest that they have learned as much or more from books as they did without it. Their minds are awakened; they have an opportunity to do something; they are stimulated to action, and the result is beneficial. If the system involved the necessity of erecting extensive workshops and securing costly apparatus, it would fail in small districts. It is necessary for the advocates of this measure to move slowly if their work is to be permanent. As regards trade-schools I have little to say, as those who understand their scope know just what they are for and how they should be managed. The old methods of the apprenticeship system were not agreeable to the boy who entered the shop. The language to him was often more forcible than polite. And if, instead of leaving him to hap-hazard ways, a good mechanic were appointed to go about and see what the young apprentice was doing, and give a hint here and a hint there, greater progress would be made, and it would be exceedingly beneficial to the young man, and I doubt not to the shop itself. Mr. Horace See.*--I would have been inclined to let the discussion stop here; but as certain misrepresentations have appeared in the press, and as some portion of the debates has been worded so that I am to be construed by the press as opposed to manual training, it will be incumbent upon me briefly to reply. Failing also to have certain corrections made in the quarter where the original misstatements were published, I think for this reason a brief rejoinder should appear in the Transactions of this Society. Those gentlemen who attack my address do so because they say it is directed against manual training. Neither directly nor indirectly is there a word which states or even implies anything which should lead to such a conclusion. The declaration that the manual training school (that is, one which follows the public school and of which there can be but few) is out of the reach of the masses, cannot be construed to mean that manual training is wrong, of no value and should not be incorporated in the public schools. Manual training is one thing, and a school where manual training and its kindred subjects alone are taught is another. A school which can be attended by * Authors' Closure under the Rules. the masses is one thing, and that which only a few can use is another. The gentlemen in their haste have confused the two things. In this they are like the two heroes of Cervantes, and have attacked that which is only the creation of their own brain.* My address was written as a plea for the skilled workman, whose services, in this age, have arisen to such great prominence that the work of the engineer would be limited indeed without him. I think this is unmistakably put in the opening and closing sentences, as well as in the body of the address. My desire was to strip the subject of all sentimentality, to interest our profession in the production of a body of men whose services are so essential for successfully carrying out our plans, to incite them to encourage young men to enter the trades, by teaching the that it is ennobling to work with one's hands, and when they become skilled workmen to reward them for the skill which they display. Some contend that the American youth should occupy a higher position than that of a workman; but what is more humiliating than the spectacle of thousands of our countrymen who have no trade, who daily are compelled to beg for work as common laborers? To those who enter industrial pursuits in a manly way, who endeavor to acquire the highest order of skill, who are not devoid of talent, high wages will be at their command as long as health and strength remain, whilst those who, puffed up by false pride, seek and enter seemingly respectable callings will be compelled to stand longer hours, receive smaller returns and liable at any moment to be thrust out of employment, with the difficulty of regaining it on account of the large surplus of such labor. Our country is boundless, our resources unlimited, the oppor- . tunities great for those with brains, whilst our people-free from the restraints which encompass those who dwell in less favored lands-if filled with noble aspirations can make their own position and carve their own escutcheon. With these advantages resting upon them, it seems to me that they would be better off in this world's goods, much better citizens and the nation far stronger if a greater number were reared as skilled and intelligent workmen. * How manual training is to be incorporated into the public school system, an what value we are to place upon the instruction given, is an entirely different subject. CCCXXXII. COMPARATIVE COST OF STEAM AND WATER POWER. BY CHARLES H. MANNING, MANCHESTER, N. H. (Member of the Society.) THE circumstances under which steam and water come into competition as motive powers vary so widely with geographical situation, purpose to which the power is to be put, and other conditions too numerous to be mentioned in a short paper, that I shall confine myself pretty closely to the condition of things in cotton and woolen manufacturing along the valley of the Merrimack River. Along this stream are situated Lawrence, Lowell, and Manchester, three of the leading textile manufacturing cities of New England, and cities, too, which were created by their water powers; so that if we can show that steam can compete successfully with water here, it surely can elsewhere in the same lines of production. The history of the development of the cotton and wool industries of this country includes with it the development of the great water powers; for when these industries commenced to assume large proportions, the stationary steam engine was in its infancy, so that there was at that time no question as to what motive power it was best to adopt. To get a fair understanding of the cost of the water power we must remember, first, that where a large power is improved and made available, the cost per unit of power is decreased proportionally, as well in maintenance as in first cost. Again, these large water powers, more especially those at Lawrence and Manchester, were developed by companies owning large extents of land made valuable by the sale of water powers at low figures, the companies making their profits by the sale of lands rather than by the water power. The system at Lowell differs somewhat from the other two in that the water power is owned and controlled by a stock company made up of the manufacturing companies themselves in proportion to their water rights, therefore, as they buy from themselves, their prices, which, as a general thing, are lower than Law rence, may be taken as a pretty good guide as to the cost, as there is little object in their making themselves pa much of a profit. The water power at Lawrence is owned and controlled by the Essex Company, and has been sold in mill powers, together with mill sites to the extent of about 130 mill powers. This unit of water power varies slightly in the different places, that in Lawrence being thirty (30) cubic feet of water per second on a fall of twenty-five (25) feet, whilst at Manchester it is thirty-eight (38) cubic feet per second on a fall of twenty (20) feet, the first being equivalent to 85.23 H.P. gross, and the latter to 86.36 H.P. gross. At Lowell there are three different falls, but the average mill power there is about the same as at Lawrence. The original cost of a mill power at Lawrence was ten thousand dollars, subject to an annual rental of three hundred dollars more, bringing the real cost to fifteen thousand dollars. These tenants have also the right, under certain restrictions, to draw surplus water, paying for the first twenty per cent. additional, four dollars per day per mill power; for the next thirty per cent., or from twenty per cent. to fifty per cent., eight dollars per mill power per day; above fifty per cent. it drops back to four dollars per day again. At the present time the Essex Company leases mill powers at twelve hundred dollars per annum instead of the former method of a cash payment and rent. To summarize the foregoing: Cost, per gross H.P. per annum, of water at Lawrence: At Lowell, "The Proprietors of The Locks and Canals" continue to charge themselves three hundred dollars per annum rent on all mill powers granted in the original leases, and charge five dollars per day per mill power for surplus water up to forty per cent.; exceeding forty and up to fifty per cent., ten dollars per day; from fifty to sixty per cent., twenty dollars per day; and when any one exceeds sixty per cent., they must pay twenty dollars per day per mill power for the entire surplus. On the original leases cash payments of ten thousand dollars per mill power were made, so that on original leases the cost per gross H.P. is the same as at Lawrence, or, summarizing as before: Cost, per gross H.P. per annum, of water at Lowell : At this latter price water becomes an expensive luxury. The original leases amount to about one hundred and forty mill powers, or nearly twelve thousand gross H.P., which at the present time is supplemented by about eighteen thousand H.P. of steam. At Manchester the water power is owned by the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, who made original grants at about the same terms as Lowell and Lawrence, except that as the mill power is a trifle greater, it makes the cost per gross H.P. a few cents less. For some years tenants were allowed to use surplus water without charge, but when the capacity of the power at low stages of the river was reached, a charge of five dollars per mill power for surplus water was made. This was the means of causing several of the mills to substitute auxiliary steam power for surplus water; but still later, the Amoskeag Company having reduced the charge to two dollars per day per mill power, tenants who are equipped to do so use surplus water whenever allowed. We will summarize now for Manchester. Cost per gross H.P. per annum at Manchester: Under original leases.. $10.42 7.15 It is usual in computing water powers to subtract one foot from the head as measured from still water, which is an allowance for loss of head in the water entering and leaving the wheel. The efficiency of a first-class turbine should be about eightyfive per cent. of the net fall, so that if we consider that the average wheel that would be put in to-day will deliver to the shaft seventy-five per cent. of the gross power paid for, we shall not be far wrong. = Under these circumstances the net H.P. would cost 10:50 14.00 for water under the original leases. The cost of the plant will vary largely per H.P. inversely with the head under which it is used, as the greater the head the smaller the wheel for a given amount of power; but under a head of about |