The mountain sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1844-1853, 1850-08-08
Horace Mann on Labor,


We give below an extract from 4 speech
of Mr. Mann in the House Of Representa-
tives, on the 30rh of June, 1913, in which
the speaker pays a splendid tribute to in
vcntive genius:
at was not the design OF Providence
that the work of the world should be per-
formed by muscular strength God has
filled the earth and imbued the clements
with energies of greater power than that Of
all the inhabitants Of thousand planets
like ours. Whence come our necessarics
and our luxuries? those comforts and ap-
pliances that make the difference between
a housclcss, wandering tribe Of Indians in
the Far West, and New England village?
They do not come wholly or principally
from the original, unassistcd strength Of
the human arm, but from the employment,
through intelligence and skill, Of those
great natural forces, with which the boun-
GGul Creator has filed every part of the
Universe. Caloric, grayitation, expansi-
blity, comprehensibility electricity, chem
ical affinities and rcpulsions, spontaneous
velocities-these are the mighty agents
which the intellect of man harnesses 10 the
car of improvement. The application OF
water, and wind, and steam, to the propul-
sion of machinery, and 10 the transporta-
ton of men and merchandise from place'to
place has added ten thousand fold to the
actual products of human industry. How
small the wheel which the stoutest labOrer
can turn, and how soon viii he be weary.
Compare this with wheel driving thou
sand spindles and looms, which stream
Of water can turn and never tire. A loco
motive will take five hundred men, and
bear them on their journey hundreds of
miles day. Look at these same FIVE
hundred men, starting from the same point
and attempting the same distance with all
the pedestrian or the equestrian $ toll
and tardiness. 'Ehe cotton mills Of Mas
sachusetts will turn out more cloth in one
day than could have been manufactured by
all the inhabitants Of the eastern continent
during the tenth century. On an element
which IN ancient time was supposed TO be
exclusively within the control of the gods,
and where it was deemed impioUs for hu-
man power to intrude, even there the gi-
gantic forces of nature, which human sci
ence and skill have enlisted in their service
confront and overcome the raging of the
Misunderstanding tempests and tides,
escaping reef and lec-shores, and carecrmg
triumphant around the globe. The velo-
city of winds, the weight of waters, and
the rage of steam, are powers each one of
which is infinitely stronger than az the
strength of all the nations md Faces OF
mankind, were it all gathered into 4 single
arm. And all these energies are given US
on one condition-the condition of Intelli-
gence-thatis of education.
ssHad God intended that the work of the
world should be done by human bones and
sinews, he would have given us an arm as
solid and as strong as a shaft of q steam
engine; and enabled us TO stand day and
night, and turn the crank of steamship
while sailing TO Liverpool or Calcutta
Had God designed the human muscles 10
do the work of the world, then instead Of
the ingredients of gun-powder or gun-cot-
ton, and the expansive force of heat, he