Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions | Page 6

an agricultural population is professionally an inert population; and, therefore, as in the accumulation of John Jacob Astor's fortune, it was more difficult to take the first step than to make all the subsequent movements. Now, however, the principle of association is giving direction and force to the labors of the farmer; and it is easy for any person to draw to himself, in that pursuit, the results of the learning of the world.
Libraries and lectures for the operatives in the manufactories constitute another agency in the cause of general learning. The city of Lawrence, under the lead of well-known public-spirited gentlemen there, has the honor of introducing the system in America. A movement, to which this is kindred, was previously made in England; but that movement had for its object the education of the operatives in the simple elements of learning, and among the females in a knowledge of household duties. An English writer says: "Many employers have already established schools in connection with their manufactories. From many instances before us, we may take that of Mr. Morris, of Manchester, who has risen, himself, from the condition of a factory operative, and who has felt in his own person the disadvantages under which that class of workmen labor. He has introduced many judicious improvements. He has spent about one hundred and fifty pounds in ventilating his mills; and has established a library, coffee-room, class-room, weekly lectures, and a system of industrial training. The latter has been established for females, of whom he employs a great many. This class of girls generally go to the mills without any knowledge of household duties; they are taught in the schools to sew, knit," etc.
But, in the provision made at Lawrence for intellectual culture, it is assumed, very properly, that the operatives are familiar with the branches usually taught in the public schools. This could not be assumed of an English manufacturing population, nor, indeed, of any town population, considered as a whole. Herein America has an advantage over England. Our laborers occupy a higher standpoint intellectually, and in that proportion their labors are more effective and economical. The managers and proprietors at Lawrence were influenced by a desire to improve the condition of the laborers, and had no regard to any pecuniary return to themselves, either immediate or remote. And it would be a sufficient satisfaction to witness the growth of knowledge and morality, thereby elevating society, and rendering its institutions more secure.
These higher results will be accompanied, however, by others of sufficient importance to be considered. When we hire, or, what is, for this inquiry, the same thing, buy that commodity called, labor, what do we expect to get? Is it merely the physical force, the animal life contained in a given quantity of muscle and bone? In ordinary cases we expect these, but in all cases we expect something more. We sometimes buy, and at a very high cost, too, what has, as a product, the least conceivable amount of manual labor in it,--a professional opinion, for example; but we never buy physical strength merely, nor physical strength at all, unless it is directed by some intellectual force. The descending stream has power to drive machinery, and the arm of the idiot has force for some mechanical service, but they equally lack the directing mind. We are not so unwise as to purchase the power of the stream, or the force of the idiot's arm; but we pay for its application in the thing produced, and we often pay more for the skill that has directed the power than for the power itself. The river that now moves the machinery of a factory in which many scores of men and women find their daily labor, and earn their daily bread, was employed a hundred years ago in driving a single set of mill-stones; and thus a man and boy were induced to divide their time lazily between the grist in the hopper and the fish under the dam. The river's power has not changed; but the inventive, creative genius of man has been applied to it, and new and astonishing results are produced. With man himself this change has been even greater. In proportion to the population of the country, we are daily dispensing with manual labor, and yet we are daily increasing the national production. There is more mind directing the machinery propelled by the forces of nature, and more mind directing the machinery of the human body. The result is, that a given product is furnished by less outlay of physical force. Formerly, with the old spinning-wheel and hand-loom, we put a great deal of bone and muscle into a yard of cloth; now we put in very little. We have substituted mind for physical force, and the