The native American., 1838-01-20

wants, to raise the standard of comfortable liy
4 |ing,-increase the quantity OF leisure time appli
cable to the culture of the mind and thus pro
mote the intellectual and moral progress of thu
mass of the community. That this is the genera
tendency Of progress in the useful arts, no one
can doubt, who compares the present condition q
the world with its condition in the middle ages
and the fact is confirmed by the history of single
inventions. have already spoken of alphabet.
cal writing. Pliny remarks of the Egyptian reed
(the first material Of which paper was made, that
on this reed rested the Immortality of man. The
thought, though savoring of heathenism in the
expression, is Just. The single artof alphabetical
writing was step absolutely essential in the
moral and Intellectual progress Of our race. To
speak of the art Of printng in its connection with
morals and mind, would be as superhuous as il
would be difficult to do justice to the topic It's
history is not SO much an incident as the summa-
Try of modern civilization. Vast as the influence
Of this art Of arts has been, it may well be doubted
whether improvements will not yet be made in
the mechanism connected with it, which will in
|calculably increase its efficiency If mistake
not, the trumpetvoice of Truth from this machine
is yet destined to reach to distances and depths
Of society, which have hitherto remained unex-
plored and neglected.
tsAgain, in reference to the intimate connection
of the useful and mechanic arts with intellectual
progress, let us but advert for moment to the
mariners compass, the telescope, the quadrant
For myself, never reflect upon their influence
on the affairs of man, and remember that they are
after all, merely mechanical contrivances without
emotions of admiration bordering upon ave. This
sentiment, know, is so worn away by habit,
that it seems almost to run into sentimentality.
But let us not be ashamed to reproduce the emo
tons that spring from the freshness Of truth and
nature. What must not have been Galileo's feel
ings, when he pointed the first telescope to the
heavens, and discovered the phases of Venus and
the moons of Jupiter! When behold the touch
ed needle trembling to the pole,--when I know
that, beneath the utter blackness of the midnight
storm, when every star in heaven is quenched,
and the laboring vessel, in mid-ocean, reels like
a drunken man, on the crested top of the mighty
waves, that little bar of steel will guide the worn
and staggering helmsman on his way, / feel that
there is holy philosophy in the arts Of life,
which, if cannot comprehend, can reverence.
"Consider the influence on the affairs Of men,
in all their relations, Of the invention Of the little
machine which | hold in my hands; and the other
modern instruments for the measurement Of time,
various specimens of which are on exhibition in
the halls. TO say nothing of the importance Of
ali accurate measurement of time in astronomical
observations, nothing Of the application Of time
keepers to the purposes ofnavigation,-- vast
must be the aggregate effect on the affairs Of lfe
throughout the civilized world, and in the progress
|of ages, Of convenient and portable apparatus
for measuring the lapse of time! Who can calcu-
late in how many of those critical junctares when
affairs Of weightiest import hang upon the issue
Of an hour, Prudence ard Forecast have triumph
ed over blind Casual sby being enabled to mea-
sure with precision the flight Of time, in its
smallest subdivisions Is it not something more
than mere mechanism, which watches with us by
the sick-bed Of some dear friend, through the live
long solitude Of night enables us to count, in the
slackening pulse, NATURES trembling steps to-
ward recovery, and to administer the prescribed
remedy at Ae precise, perhaps the critical, mo-
ment Of its application! BY means of watch,
pnnct1ality in all his duties,-which, in its per-
fecton is one Of the mcommunicable attributes Of
Deity,-is brought, in no mean measure, within
the reach of man. He is enabled if he will be
guided BY this halfrational machine, creature of
day as he is, to initiate that sublime precision
which leads the earth, after circuit of FIVE
hundred millions Of miles, back to the solstce at
the appointed moment, without the loss of one
second, no, not the miIlionth part of second,
for the ages on ages during which it has travelled
that empyreal roads What miracle Of art, that
a man can teach few brass wheels, and little
piece of elastic steel, to outcalculate HIMSELF to
give him rational answer to one of the most i'm
portant questions which being travelling to-
ward eternity can ask! What miracle, that a
man can put within this little machine spirit
that measures the flight of time with greater ac-
curacy than the unassisted intellect of the pro-
foundest philosopher; which watches and moves
when sleep palsies alike the hand of the maker
and the mind of the contriver, nay, when the
last sleep has come over them both! / saw the
other day, at Stockbridge, the watch which was
worn on the 9th Of September, 1855, by the un-
fortunate Baron Dieskau, who received his NOR
tai wound on that day, near Lake George, at the
head Of his army Of French and Indians, on the
breaking out of the seven years war. This
watch, which marked the fierce, feverish mo-
ments Of the battle calmly as it has done
the fourscore years which have since elapsed, is
still going; but the matchmaker and baron have
now for more than three-fourths of century been
gone where time is no longer counted. Frederic
the Great was another and vastly more impor-
tant parsonage of the same war; His watch was
carried away from Potsdam by Napoleon, who,
on his rock in mid-ocean, was wont to ponder
on the hours Of alternate disaster and triumph,
L L r u