The benefit to those undergoing such a training would of itself justify
civil conscription; but when we come to think of the nation--what might
not be done by a State with a national labor army under its control?
Public works might be undertaken at a cost greatly below that which
would otherwise be incurred, and the estimates which now paralyze the
State, when it considers this really needed service or that, would
assume a different appearance, as it would be embracing in one
enterprise technical education and the accomplishment of beneficial
works. With such an army under skilled control the big cities could
have playgrounds for the children of the cities; public gardens, baths,
gymnasiums, recreation rooms, hospitals, and sanatoriums might be built;
waste land reclaimed and afforested, and the roadsides might be planted
with fruit trees. National schools, picture-galleries, public halls,
libraries, and a thousand enterprises which now hang fire because at
present labor for public service is the most expensive labor, all could
be undertaken. If the State becomes very poor, as indeed it is certain
to be, it may be forced into some such method of fulfilling its
functions.
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