The Daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1845-1850, 1850-08-12
Horace Mann ON Labor.

1t was not the design of Providence tina
the work of the world should be performed
by muscular strength. God has filled the
earth and imbued the elements with energies
of greater power than that of all the inhabit-
ants OF thousand planets like ours. Whence
come our necessaries and our luxuries those
comforts and appliances that make the differ
ence between houscless, wandering tribe of
Indians in the Far West, and New England
village They do not come wholly or prin-
cipaliy from the original, unassisted strength
OF the human arm, but from the employment,
through intelligence and skill, of those great
natural forces, with which the bountiful Gre
ator has filled every part of the universe
Caiorlc, grayltation. expasibility, compre-
ilensibility. electricity, chemical affinites, and
repulslons, spontaneous velocities-rhese are
the mighty agents which the intellect of man
harnesses to the car of improvement. The
application OF water, and wind, and steam,
to the propulsion of machinery, and to the
transportation of men and merchandise from
place to place, has added ten thousand fold 10
the actual products of human industry
How small the wheel which the stoutest Ia
borer can turn and how soon will he be wea-
ty! Compare this with a wheel driving a
thousand 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 a
day. Look at these same five hundred men
starting from the same point, and attempting
the same distance with all the pedestrians or
the equestrlan's toll and tardiness The cot
ton mills of Massachusetts will turn out more
cloth in one day than could have been manu-
featured 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 mpious for
human power 10 intrude, even there the gil
gantic forces of nature, which human science
and skill have enlisted in their service. con- .
front and overcome the raging of the ele-
Misunderstanding tempest and tides, escaping
rect, and lee shores, and careering triumphant
around the globe. The velocity of winds, the
weight of waters and the rage of steam, are
powers, each one of which is infinitely strong
er than all the strength of all the nations and
races of mankind, were it all gathered into a
single arm. And oil thoro energies are given
us on one condition-the condition of ntelli-
gence-that is, of education.
Had God intended that the work of the
world should be done by human bones and
sinews, he would have given Us an arm
as strong and as solid as the shaft of a
steam engine and enabled us 10 stand day
and night, and turn the crank of a steamship
while sailing TO Liverpool or Calcutta Had
God designed the human muscles to do the
work of the world, then, instead of gun.pow-
der or gun cotton, and the expansive power
OF heat ne would have given us hands which
could take granite quarry and break It's sol
i'd acres into suitable and symmetrical blocks.
as easily as we now open an orange Had he
intended us for bearing burdens, he would
have given us Atlantean shoulders, by which
we could carry the vast freights of railroad
cars, and steamships, as a porter now car
RES his pack. He would have given us
lungs by which we could. blow fleets before
us and wings to sweep over the ocean
wastes. But instead of iron arms, and At
lantean shoulders, and the lungs of Boreas, he
has given US mind, a soul, capacity for ac-
curing knowledge, and thus of appropriating
all of these energies of nature to our own use.
Instead of telescope and microscopic eyes,
he has given US power to invent the telescope
and microscope. Instead of ten thousand
fingers, he has given us genius inventive of
the power-loom and printing-press. Without
cultivated intellect, man is among the weak
est of all the dynamical forces Of nature;-
with cultivated intellect, he commands
them all.