Such schools are useful beyond doubt; but so far as educating workingmen is concerned or in any measure satisfying the democratic ideal, they plainly beg the question.
Almost every large city has two or three polytechnic institutions founded by rich men, anxious to help "poor boys." These have been captured by conventional educators for the purpose of fitting young men for the colleges and universities.

They have compromised by merely adding to the usual academic course manual work, applied mathematics, mechanical drawing and engineering.

Two schools in Chicago, plainly founded for the sons of workingmen, afford an illustration of this tendency and result.

On the other hand, so far as schools of this type have been captured by commercialism, they turn out trained engineers, professional chemists, and electricians.

They are polytechnics of a high order, but do not even pretend to admit the workingman with his meagre intellectual equipment.