Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-08-01

replace the di9cious by monpcious trees-to
have the pollen and the fruit buds grow on the
same stalk. You have been, students and gradu-
ates, all that careful training can do for you to
make you DISCOVERIES and inventors, TO en-
able you both to initiate aud aetualize
industrial Improvements, and TO reap with
out hindrance or rivalry your merited honors
recompense, And nothing less than this train
ing can put you on the arena with the promise
Of success. No accurate practical results can
be reached without the most exact calculations,
for whether man know or he be Ignorant of
the laws of fhmber and proportion, all sub
iects and forces in nature obey them, and man
masters nature only by making them his rule
and measure. Your literary education here
tends in the same direction, especially the COM
mand you acquire Of the French Language; for
he who wunld contribute to the industrial adj
tancenlent of mankind, must know what others
have thought and DONE how far each separate art
and science has advanced, what unsuccessful
experiments have been made, that he may not
repeat them, and in what direction men of
learning and skill are looking for the new
light, of which they may be unconsciously the
harbingers, and the French has been
for more than a century the moth
or tongue of science and the useful
arts, Astounding equally in encyclopedia works
and In monographs, and present the most adj
vanced views in every department OF physical
philosophy and of practical Technology. With
workshop, far more systematic, comprehensive
and exact than could fall TO your lot under the
best private auspices, SO that you are prepared
to execute or direct your own plans, TO embody
your new thought in wood STEEL or brass, and
10 ensure for yourself fair trial of whatever
process or agency may seem to you an improve
ment on the past. Think not that the canon of
inventive genius is closed. Ii is but Just open
ing. Agents may be slumbering ti1fecOgnized
that shall supplant those now in the ascendant
Steam, the sovereign of our time, may yield the
scepter to a mghtier energy. The power now
sustained by Ithe holocaust Of forests
and the excavation of coal mines, may be
eplaced by some one Of those elementary force,
that spread undivided, operate unspent. The
general use of condensed air ior purposes of To-
eomotion by land and water is now as probable
as that of steam was a century ago; Ericsson
advanced as far in the former as all the predeccs
sors of Fulton had done in the latter. How
know we that the electromagnetic force which
We have harnessed to our thought may not yet
be yoked to our railway traDs2 Who can say
that the pretended generation of light and heat
for common uses by the decomposition of water
the rumor of which emanated if | mistake not
from this very city, while an arrant falsehood,
may not have been an unintended prophecy?
Who knows but that the still deficient d.
recting and impelling force may yet be sup
piled TO give certainty and calculable utility
to aerial navigation2 Then, too, in many Of
modes Of locomotion that are still limlta-
tons, liabilities to accident, possibilities
of added speed or eff1cacy-in fine, thousand
directions in which inventive talent may be
faithfully busy. And there is no invention,
however insignificant it may seem, which, when
multiplied as it may be, by thousands or mil
lions, and extended intu an indefinite future,
may not carry with 1t an untold saving of cost
and labor, and 10 many cases even, of life. The
invention which in the least degree facilitates
Industry, Increases and cheapens Its products,
is a benefaCtion to society which will immeasur-
ably overweight and outlast the most muniicent
gift that wealth can bestow. 1t is by such char
titles that many Of you, trust, will do honor to
yourselves as literally educated artisans.
Permit me now briefly to advert to the need
which our country has of institutions like
yours. Nothing is more evident than the over
crowdng at the present time Of every depart
ment OF commerce. Up 10 a certain point COM
merce is like the mechanical arts, profession.
A commodity is not a furnished product till it
is brought within easy reach of its consumer,
and the merchants, Wholesale and retail, who
are needed for the successive stages between the
producer aud the consumer, are to that extent
agents in the production, as also are the bankers
and brokers who supply the necessary funds and
participate in the pecuniary transactions. But
when members of the mercantile profession are
so needessly multiplied that they create super
numerary stages In the passage of goods from the
producer to the consumer, interpose TO arrest
instead of facilitate the transfer, every block
made on every commodity in the Market and
get for themselves the lions share in
the ultimate price, they then Infiict
a wrong on both parties; they make their Su-
pertiuons profit on the spoils of both; on the
one hand diminishing the wages Of productive
industry, on the other hand limiting the con-
sumers' purchasing power. That that is the
case in our country at the present time there
can be no doubt The reason is obvious Our
schools educate our young men TO point at
which they feel that they sacrifice themselves
and sink below their proper level by becoming
mere laborers or mere routine mechanics, espe-
cially when they are placed by the side of or
brought into competition with the hordes of I'M
educated and rude immigrants who crowd our
labor market. Those who were themselves con-
tent as laborers are ambitious of higher des-
tiny for their sons Hence the rush of appl-
cants for every vacant clerkShip. Hence the
spectacle both udicrous and sad of hands that
could WELD the sledge hammer, measuring tape,
drawing soda water and weighing sugar plumS.
Everything that can by the broadcast cOnstruc-
ton call itself trade or commerce deems itself
respectable; some towns and cities are support
ing twice the number of shopkeeperS that they
need, and sustaining abe-bodd men, too,
in paltry commercial industries which yet
would give competence TO our thou
sands of strong women and girls. To restore
the deranged balance of society, its old honor
must NC given DdCh 10 HdTu luuuSITlal
pursuits must be raised in dignity and respecta-
bility above the lower walks of commerce and
folly, to a level with its higher departments and
functions Both agriculture and handicraft
must be made only byI stocking them
with men of liberal culture; for it is
not the profession that gives character to the
man, but the man to the profession. Our
agricultural colleges and our industrial
institutes are supplying the needed culture
and are going to replenish the field and the work
shops with new order of large and high-mindcd
operatives men of liberal tastes, pursuits and
aims, who will do honor to their respective call
ings and make them seem worthy of the noblest
ambition of the aspiring youth of coming gen
erations. The successful impulse has been al
ready given. 1t is already no uncommon thing
for the graduates of our best colleges to pass at
once into the machine shop or the factory, and
to go through the entire novtiate as a raw APP
prentice might. Il has, indeed, been demon
strated, and it will be soon made apparent to
the whole worli, that there is no department
of productive industry in which genius, talent,
science and learning may not find profitable in
Vestment, full occupation, ample room TO grow,
and adequate social position and honor.
There are other points TO which would glad
ly ask your attention had not taxed it so long.
But cannot close without reminding the pupils
aud undergraduates Of the institute that educa-
ton has, or ought TO have, higher taste than
what we call its use. We are too apt TO think
OF the course OF early study and discipline,
chiefly as specific preparation for ones bust
ness or calling in after life AS the means of
becoming good lawyer, merchant, mech anic or
or farmer. This, however important, is but a
secondary purpose. You might better be a
beaver or a sparrow, if skill as an artisan or
fabricator seems to you the grand aim and end
of life. Over and above your profession, ex-
ceeding 1t, mastering it, should be your sefhood,
your manhood, your beginning as a knower, a
thinker, rememberer of human society a
child of God, an immortal soul. Your course
of instruction here has its highest value
in giving you ready knowledge, materials
for thought, stimulant to mental activity, and
withal for your moral spiritual nature In the
laws of the material universe, especially in the
necessary eternal laws that underlie all mathe-
matical science, you enter into close contact. !
would that You might ever know and feel it
with the infinite mind. You become conyersant
with forces which are but the uniform vet I'M
divided omnpotence. In the study Of physical
science you are within temple gates and
on holy ground. Let, then, those pursuits in
which you are here initiated for a lifelong self
training, indicate their claim to be regarded as
liberal studies, by the breadth and depth of
thought, sentiments and character, which they
inspire and cherish by the high type of man
which they give the impulse, remember above
all that your ultimate success depends on char
acter; genius and skill will but glitter and
vanish. Industry, probity, charity, sober
habits, and quick, stealthy conscience, are
worth as much in the mere material results
Of life of average duration, as they are in the
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