Labor should not be organized for selfish ends, but for its own good, so as to secure steady and permanent employment, rather than prevent it by impracticable schemes and unwise methods, which will cripple manufacturers and all kinds of industry.  The men should organize under the general laws of the State, so that their leaders will be responsible to the laws and can be indicted, tried, and punished in case they misappropriate funds or commit any breach of trust; and such laws should be amended if necessary, so that wise, responsible leaders of the organizations can contract to furnish labor for a certain time at a fixed price, when manufacturers can make calculations ahead as to the cost of labor the same as for the cost of material, and have such confidence that they will use all their energies to do a larger amount of business and benefit the workingman as well as themselves by furnishing steady employment.  Such a plan as is here outlined can readily be carried into effect by selecting better men as leaders.  It is well known how well the organization known as the locomotive brotherhood is conducted, and it should be an example to others.  It has had its day of dissensions, when the best counsels did not prevail, which shows that any organization of the kind, no matter how well conducted, may be diverted by its leaders into improper channels.

When organized under the laws of the State and under by-laws designed to secure steady employment, rather than any artificial condition of things in regard to pay hours, and continuance of labor, the true interests of the workman will be advanced.  It may be that some one of you will develop a talent in the direction of organization and be the means of aiding in the solution of this great problem.  Please think of the matter seriously, watch the law of evolution while you are advancing your professional knowledge, and if the opportunity offers, do all you can to aid in a cause so important and beneficent.

One writer has criticised the technical schools because they do not teach mechanical intuition.  The schools have enough to do in the time available if they teach principles and sufficient practice to enable the principles to be understood.  The aptitude to design, which must be what is meant by mechanical intuition, requires very considerable practical experience, which you will readily learn if you do not keep yourself above it.  If you have used your leisure hours to study why a certain piece of mechanism was made in a certain way rather than in another; if you have wondered why one part is thick in one place rather than in another, apparently in defiance of all rules of the strength of material; if you have endeavored to ascertain why a particular device is used rather than another more evident one; if you have thought and studied why a boss is thrown in here and there in designs to receive bolts or to lengthen a journal, and if you have in your mind, by repeated observation, a fair idea of how work is designed by other people, the so-called mechanical intuition will be learned and found to be the combination of common sense and good practice.