justification of such measures is limited and relative, and therefore
of varying strength. All protective measures are alike in that
the free choice of one citizen is forbidden by law in the supposed
interest of some other citizen who is to be "protected." While the
purpose of the tariff is economic and political, in a large majority
of social laws the moral purpose is fundamental. It is the demand of
humanity that competition be placed upon a higher plane. Most social
legislation is to protect the weak from being forced into contracts,
or from living in conditions injurious to their welfare and happiness.
The justification for these limitations upon the right of private
property, upon the free choice of the individual, upon "free
competition," must be found in the social result secured. The best
test of social protective laws is their contribution to a higher
independence and to a freer competition on a higher, more worthy, and
more humane plane.

Sec. 10. #Training in the trades#. Free elementary and secondary
education has become the all but unquestioned public policy in the
American commonwealths. The main motive for it has been the belief
that education in books is a necessity for good citizenship in a
republic. At the same time it has been thought that the training of
the school would help the child to earn a living. This appears to have
been true so long and so far as it was combined with, or supplemented
by, industrial training on the farm, in the home, and through
apprenticeship in the manual trades, as once was so prevalent. But
industrial conditions have changed. Most of the old-time education
of the schools has now little relation to the industrial life of the
great majority of the children, for few enter clerical or professional
callings. Germany was the first nation to recognize the new
educational need (in fact, never as urgent there as here) and to
provide for systematic and efficient training in all the industrial
arts. Since the beginning of the century the American public has been
awaking to the needs of the situation. We appear to be on the eve of
a great development in industrial training that will equip youth for
more efficient life in business and in the home, either in rural or in
urban conditions.

Sec. 11. #Prevalence of unemployment.# Many other forms of social
legislation on behalf of the common man might well deserve, did
time and space permit, a larger measure of the economic student's