Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-01-31
ADVERTISERS ,

and sorrows, of one whose name last week
was upon everybody's lips. To-day we pro-
pose to speak of the influences of the individ-
ual man in other departments of life.
Less than hundred years ago, meek
eyed, thoughtful boy watched-for the want,
perhaps, of something more Eenlvening to oc-
cupy the active mind, which thoughtful boys
possess-the boiling of his mothers tea-kettle.
He noticed the velocity with which the hot va
por issued from the nose thereof, and he ques-
toned as to the reason why; and the first per-
feet steam engine answered, after time to his
questionings NOT only the why, but the
wherefore.
Less than century ago, printers journey.
man, the son Of poor tallow chandlerwho lived
down to Boston, and supported large family
upon the profits of huge lye-kettle, with
which, from grease and ashes, by simple
chemical process, which everybody knows, if
they do not understand, stood out in summer
thunder shower and elevated a kite into the
skies, as Virgil expresses it, "the region of
storms and tempests." AS the steam engine
was the result of the observation of the tea
kettle, in the former case, we have the electric
telegraph, as the result of that kite-fying, in
the latter.
James Watt and Benjamin Franklin were
not born with gold spoons in their mouths"
They had, as we may say in good Yankee
phrase, "rather hard chance" in their early
lives but how wide and vast, how grand and
benefcent are the results of their thoughts
and their labors What burdens have been
lifted from human shoulders, what aches have
been spared to human limbs, what comforts
have been added to human lives, because, upon
a certain day, Ammo Domino 1876, the wife of
Watt gave birth to a boy, whose
name was James. And so, too, when that
little cheap tenement at the North End of New
Englands metropolis, echoed to the infant cry
of the squalling Benjamin, as the glad father
placed him in his mothers arms, who could
have predicted what immense capacities were
EMBODIED in that eight or nine pounds avoirdu-
pois of human flesh, blood, and brains. Yet,
today, we have the electric telegraph on all
lands; we have had it under the broad Allan
tic land shall have it yet AGAIN., choiring the
glad anthem of the angels at the Saviour's
birth, of "Peace on earth, and good will to
men," from continent to Gontinent.-And that
dread agency which, since the birth of time,
in the language of the poet
.Has as the footsteps of the dreadful God,
Marching upon the storm, seemed TERRIBLE
is now as submissive to the will of man, as
ready to convey the message of business or
the billetdoux of affection, from town to
town, from country to country, as the gentlest
carrier dove.
In all the departments of practical life, the
individual example, the individual labors of
these two men, are exerting an influence more
potent for good than all the DEGREES of kings,
than all the enactments of legislative bodies,
than all the resolutions of conventions, since
the lsraelites, with dry feet, passed over the
ed of the Red Sea.
1t was not permitted for them to witness
their life times the fruition of their thoughts
and labors, except partially but the germ of
good which their thought and their labor fruc-
tilted, continued to grow, nevertheless, and as
the humanity and democracy of the present
age recognize their prophet in Robert Burns,
SO does the intelligence, the refinement, the
comfort of this age, recognize their chief build
ers and promoters in the humble men we have
mentioned 1t has not been the fashion, on
this planet heretofore, for historian or poet to
do any sort of justice to individuals of this
stamp. We get any quantity of fulsome adu-
lation, from our historians and poets of such
men as Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon, who
were renowned in their day and generation for
what Lord Byron called their skill in the
Brain scattering, wind-ppe Sitting art"
but few words are spoken in praise of the
humble men whose devotion to the peaceful
pursuits of interrogating nature, and expert
menting in the arts and sciences have produc-
ed such rich harvests of blessings for the
men of all lands and all times.
This general adulation, by the masses ofman-
kind, of these mock heroes, whose "brilliant"
careers have ended in no benefceat results, has
had a fatal tendency to paralyze the aspir-
atoms of men who yearned to make their lives
serviceable in some way to their fellows; but,
we trust that better day is about to dawn,
that we have entered already upon more
hopeful era, where, from the study and obser-
walton of the lives of such men as we have
named, many thousands and millions of men
in all countries and in all cimes, will be inspir
ed with the thought, that their own age and
the ages which are to come, will weigh the
worth of a man by his achievements in the
realms of science, by his labors in the workshop
or on the farm.
Look at the earth to day, and what after all
is the prominent lesson which our observation
teaches, but, that all its chief gories and splen-
doris, outside of the domain of rough unpolish-
ed nature, are the results of human labor and
enterprise, directed by some individual mind,
who, in earlier or later times has wrought for
man, perhaps with an eye single only to the
present day or hour, but whose influence upon
the wide theater of the world and the longest
period of time, a good Providence would not
suffer to die.
1t is a long stretch of time and space from
old Tubal Cain at his forge, to the Hoes
printing press mandatory at New York; but
the cunning of the hand which that old son of
Vulcan exercised, has been transmitted from
generation TO generation through countless
other minds; enlarging, growing, and improv-
ing, aided by the skill, genius, and hard work
of such Of his successors as we have named
until we have the London Times and the New
York Tribune, with their long columns pleam-
ing with light knowledge, and intelligence. MT
A. - 40. 81 =.