, in the departments requiring the most skill,
is two dollars and fifty cents per week, exclusive of board. The average
wages of the lowest departments is one dollar and twenty-five cents per
week.

Of the forty-five who are unable to write, twenty-nine, or about two
thirds, are employed in the lowest department. The difference between
the wages earned by the forty-five and the average wages of an equal
number of the better-educated class is about twenty-seven per cent. in
favor of the latter. The difference between the wages earned by
twenty-nine of the lowest class and the same number in the higher is
sixty-six per cent. Of seventeen persons filling the most responsible
stations in the mills, ten have grown up in the establishment from
common laborers or apprentices.

This statement does not include an importation of sixty-three persons
from Manchester, in England, in 1839. Among these persons there was
scarcely one who could read or write; and although a part of them had
been accustomed to work in cotton-mills, yet, either from incapacity or
idleness, they were unable to earn sufficient to pay for their
subsistence, and at the expiration of a few weeks not more than half a
dozen remained in the employment of the company.

In some of the print-works a large proportion of the operatives are
foreigners. Those who are employed in the branches which require a
considerable degree of skill are as well educated as our people in
similar situations. But the common laborers, as a class, are without any
education, and their average earnings are about two thirds only of those
of _our_ lowest classes, although the prices paid to each are the same
for the same amount of work.

Among the men and boys employed in the machine shops, the want of
education is quite rare. Mr. Mills does not know an instance of a person
so employed who is unable to read and write; and many have a good common
school education. To this, he thinks, may be attributed the fact that a
large proportion of persons who fill the higher and more responsible
situations come from this class of workmen. From these statements the
reader will be able to form some estimate, in dollars and cents, at
least, of the advantages of even a little education to the operative;
and _there is not the least doubt_, says the same authority, that the
_employer is equally benefited_. He has the security for his property
that intelligence, good morals, and a just appreciation of the