Wherever the better schools were supposed to be, there the
American pupils gathered; and the consequence was during the last
quarter of the nineteenth century a steady and considerable improvement
in the standard of special work and the American schools of special
discipline. In this way there was domesticated a necessary condition and
vehicle of the liberation and assertion of American individuality.
A similar transformation has been taking place in the technical aspects
of American industry. In this field the individual has not been obliged
to make his own opportunities to the same extent as in business,
politics, and the arts. The opportunities were made for him by the
industrial development of the country. Efficient special work soon
became absolutely necessary in the various branches of manufacture, in
mining, and in the business of transportation; and in the beginning it
was frequently necessary to import from abroad expert specialists. The
technical schools of the country were wholly inadequate to supply the
demand either for the quantity or the quality of special work needed.
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