The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-02-12
The Mechanical Arts.

IL all ages OI Cue WoTlu, tue peoPle oASoHihS
| in the mechanical arts have been accounted
the most civilized, refined and prosperous.
There can be no better guage OF nations
of its mechanical progress and proficiency. If
its inventive brain is active; if its cunning
hand is busy if its work shops are ringing
| with the CHEEKY sound of labor; if its factories
are filled with the whirl of tireless machinery !;
if the echo of its hills are alive to the sound of
| the steam whistle and the thunder of the rat
tling train; if the waters of it's rivers, lakes
and seas are upheaved and set 70 dancing by
the ponderous wheels of the steamer; if its
| palaces lift their proud heads to the smiling
heavens if its gardens and its lawns laugh
under the guardian care of ingenious hands,
and its mountain streams run busy with their
native vigor, chained and utilized by the intel
ligence Of man-that nation may be called
prosperous, may be called great and grand.
England has been tauntingly called nation
of ork.shops and shop-keepers, aud no better
key could be given to the secret of England's
greatness than this. Her power lies in the
subtle brain of her artizans 1t is her mills,
her founderies, workshops, that have built her
prosperity, filling her land with intelligence
and refinement, covering the ocean with her
ships All the monuments OF her pristine
GERS of the artist hands of her mechanics. ST.
Paul, the proud boast of the grandest city on
the globe, pays it's humble tribute to the genius
of Sir Christopher Wren all its feudal halls,
its towering palaces, its abbeys and its castles
proclaim the handiwork of its artizans. #
So, too, with the nations of the past; all
that is left of their material existence, the only
evidence of their being, are the works of their
mechanics. The mighty kings of Thebes are
gone their bones are crumbled, and are dry as
summers dust, and their glory is forgotten, but
the proud work of their people yet stands, and
the genius of their artizans is enshrined in the
temple of Luxor All that we know of their
civilization is found in what remains of their
handicraft. The excavations of Pompeii tell
of the luxury and the refinement of that proud
city. The evidences of mechanical skill, and
presence of artistic ingenuity, tell us at once
that the civilization Of its people was perfect
of its age. All -that-we know, except from
tradition, and even that is handed down to us
through the instrumentality Of mechanical art,
of ancient Greece and Rome, is what can be
seen in the works of their artists, sculptors,
and mechanics, and the evidences of their
past glory is seen in the skill of their arti-
ZanS
We of to-day will, in after centuries, be
should not the mechanic be held in high es-
timation by society? If he is honest, intell-
gent and worthy, why should the young lady
so daintily draw her skirts closely around her
as she passed him, as if there was contamina-
ton in his touch? Why should the thousands
of young men who are begging for situations
as clerks and under-strappers in stores, be
ashamed to pull off their seedy coats, and 60
work as mechanics?
It is because of false pride--a mistaken
These, with degree of responsibility at
tached to mechanics themselves; many of
them do not appreciate the honest worth of
their own calling. They do notstrive to Guilt
vate their self.respectr to educate themselves
in the social and intellectual amenities of life.
They do not strive for eminence and distinction
in their departments are not choice enough
in their own associations; read too little, and,
alas, shall we say it, drink too much.
If they would reform and improve them.
selves in these particulars, we are constrained
to think that society would meet them on the,
halfway ground, and they would stand, as
they deserve, honored among the conservators
of all prosperity. .4a.. ...,.