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THE EFFECT OF EDUCATION UPON THE WORLDLY FORTUNES OF MEN BY HORACE MANN RESPONSE
Lowell, Massachusetts December 3, 1841. To: Horace Mann Dear Sir, -- I owe you an apology for not having made an earlier reply to your inquiries respecting the influences of education upon the character and conduct of our operatives. I have to plead in excuse for my neglect an unusual press of business, which has almost literally occupied every moment of my time; and, while I was seeking a leisure hour to devote to this purpose, my friend, Mr. Bartlett, has kindly allowed me to read the very full and particular answers prepared by him to your several interrogations. …We have in our mills about one hundred and fifty females who have,
at some time, been engaged in teaching schools. Many of them teach during
the summer months, and work in the mills in winter. The average wages of
these ex-teachers I find to be seventeen and three-fourths per cent above
the general average of our mills, and about forty per cent above the wages
of the twenty-six who cannot write their names. It may be said that they
are generally employed in the higher departments, where the pay is better.
This is true; but this again may be, in most cases, fairly attributed to
their better education, which brings us to the same result. If I had included
in my calculations the remaining fourteen of the forty, who are mostly
sweepers and scrubbers, and who are paid by the day, the contracts would
have been still more striking; but having no well-educated females engaged
in this department with whom to compare them, I have omitted them altogether.
In arriving at the above results, I have considered the net wages merely,
-- the price of board being in all cases the same. I do not consider these
results as either extraordinary or surprising, but as a part only of the
legitimate and proper fruits of a better cultivation and fuller development
of the intellectual and moral powers.
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