Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1851-08-29
Mechanics, Fair.

Mechanics Fair.
The sixteenth of September is approaching, and
we are reminded that it is day of considerable in
terest and Importance to the majority of the men,
bers of this industrious and laborious community
On that day are to be exhibited, and critically
amined, those works Of genius and skill which have
either been invented by fellow citizens since the
last exhibition have been improved though their tall
ens and enterprise; that constitute the staples of
employment, and consequently the chief elements of
New England wealth and prosperity. We trust
that no manufacturer, artzan, mechanic or artist
within the precincts of Worcester county will either
wilfuy, or Willingly abstain from placing before the
public, evidences of his own individual talents or of
the mechanical skill which is employed though his
business enterprise, and which is expended upon the
articles which have won for our county its manufac-
turing reputation. No one positively estimase
the humanizing influences which such exhibitions
exercise upon the general character of the age in
which we live. 1t is only by contrasting them with
he exhibitions that constituted the pride of odAan-
cestors that we can arrive at atrue conceI bf
their essential grandeur, and true glory as
|
and of the moral position Of the mechanciaftaM
tizan Passages Of arms, called tournaments Saaere,
the great reunions in which the warlike arstoeSaey
Of the dark ages commended with each other for fle
And in the wrestling ring, and where joinisswere
twisted, and skulls fractured with quarter slaves did
the ''commcn herd" as they were called, contend
with each other for reputation The inventive
ooJ H., 4 Al =
our Old World fathers; the greatest destroyer was
the greatest But now, and especially with US
as people, Labor is, or ought to he, acknowledged
the supreme element of civic and social honor as it
is the chief element Of American power and in
laence. Heads to conceive such ideas as those of
Watt and Fulton, and hands to execute them like
those OF our Worcester arzans the bases of our
national prosperity, progress, and true greatness;
and II is our earnest hope and desire that every
American workingman should fully and ntelligentIy
realize this important truth. All honor to hard
handed, swart browed, patient, benefcent, honest
labor. We have heard young mechanic apprentices
encouraged to aspire TO State Offices TO the bar and
to the judiciary bench, because certain persons had
risen above the workshop to those satons but for
our part reckon it no less honor to be dstin-
guished mechanic than TO be Secretary of State,
lawyer, or judge, although generally the public may
not coincide in this view; and for part would
rather encourage the young TO strive to become dis
unguished artizans rather than Adventures in any
other vocation. To whom does the world owe more
for the multiplied blessings and prosperity of the last
quarter Of century than to James Watt, who never
was more than Scottish mechanic? To whom do
we owe our internal wealth, and the facilities for
bringing the of this boundless continent in
to almost immediate communication, but to him, to
our own practical Fulton and to Morse? We look
upon war as an obsolete circumstance 1t was the
profession Of arisocraces, and they all but ex
tinct, the game that they played is growing out ofuse
also But the industrial arts are eternal institutions
issuing from that Divine Being, which he first re-
vealed in the creation; and comforting eternal honor
on the man who faithfully pursues them. We would
urge with all our strength, that no one who values
the reputation of HIMSELF of the mechanics as body
and of Worcester as manufacturing city, will neg
ect to add something worthy ofnote to the Mechan-
les Exhibition.