Technology shifts gears. The workers who control it need to learn how to shift gears, too. Workers brought up with universal schooling would respect authority, learn enough "geometry and mechanics" to use in their trades, keep invention alive, and finally see through "the interested complaints of faction and sedition." In other…

When Martin Lancaster took over as president of the North Carolina Community College System more than a decade ago, the state, not unlike much of the nation, stood at the precipice of a massive economic shift. As traditional manufacturing and farming jobs--from tobacco to furniture to textiles--began to disappear, demand for a new breed of worker…