Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1843-05-19
A D d R E s s
Delivered before the Burlington Mechanics
Institute, by
GEORGE p. MARSH.


AND PUBLISHED REQUEST OF THE INSTITUTE.
Gentlemen Of The Institute:
Propose to address you on the HrsToRY OF
THE MECHANIC ARTS subject, which from its
close connexion with the daily occupations of
most of the members of the association can
not fail to possess interest for you, and which,
from the important influence exercised BY these
arts on the physical well being, and moral and
intellectual condition of man, and the mutual
nter-dependence between their improvement
and the advancement of science, is certainly no
unworthy object of enlightened curiosity and
philosophical inquiry.
The scope of our subject embraces neither
those rude handicraft labours, which not only
originate in but expire with savage life, nor
those arts, which, though mechanical in their
means Of execution, are designed rather for the
embe llshment than for the maintenance of
life, and which address themselves rather to our
intellectual than to our physical nature, but
shall consider the term mechanic arts as ex-
tending to the various modes of celebrating the
raw material by artificial processes, whether of
mere handlcratt or machine. labor, for the pro-
duction of articles intended to be consumed by
use. This definition is nearly in accordance
with the general distinction between the fine
and mechanical or useful arts, though in strict
ness the former term is held to embrace some
arts purely intellectual, such as eloquence and
poetry, and is often extended so as to compre-
bend some whose character is equivoca, as
architecture, which equally belongs to the me-
chancal arts
shall perhaps find it impossible to confne
myself strictly within the limits which ! have
prescribed, excluding the extinct arts of savage
life on the one hand, and the fine arts on the
other. For those mechanical arts, which re-
1ni an aIv raI state ofl ,io.lr o,l o
society for their perfection, and which the con.
sttntiona wants Of man are likely to render
perpetual. have their germs in period antece
dent to civilization, and Their history will be in.
complete, without some notice, not only oil
their origin, but of their obsolete forms, and
again, the mechanical processes, upon which the
fine arts depend, are so intimately connected
with those belonging to the useful arts tina
occasional reference to them will be unavoid
able.
The proper history of every art begins, wher
II ceased to be simple occasional exercise o
handlcraft, and became an occupation, or trade
or in other words, when it became the appro
pirate and exclusive employment of individuals
and every head of family no longer hmsel
exercised the functions of all the various arti
sans whose productions he required.
The origin of the mechanic arts is to b,
found in the physical imperfections of our struc
ture. From nature we receive no covering
and thence the necessity of clothing and shell
ter and by consequence the arts Of spinning
weaving, architecture, tanning, and the thou
sand branches OF industry which flow from
or are subservient to these no weapons O
implements, save that most wonderful machine
the hand, for'it is too complicated in it's struc
ture, and too various in its uses, to be call
Cd an organ, and hence arises the necessity {
the various arts Of the smith, in metal, and tn