The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1879-01-16


to spend their lives there, do you
think he would make eleven of them
tradesmen and Iaborers, in order that
the twelfth should be a gentleman 2"
''But, my dear fellow, you are not
stating the case fairly. Tradesmen
supply the wants of the poor as well
as the rich"
THAT is not the grievance, Cabell /;
you entirely misapprehend me. 1t
is that they are condemned to a life
hat leaves no time for mental inn
provement;-and this is what they are
condemned to, if they are made trades
men at all. We should never be will
ling to doom a fellow~man to a life
which we would not be willing to lead
ourselves. The twelfth brother-the
gentleman. ought to be ashamed of
himself"
"But it seems to me absolutely nee
essary. What, for instance, would
we do for shoes and boots if we did
not have shoemakers ?"
"Wear straw shoes like the slippers
of the dainty bellies Of Long Branch
and Newport"
land who would make them for
uS?'
The pretty fingers of our own
wives and daughters. 1t is light. in
teresting wo:k;-such as they call
fancy work. And some species Of
straw are SO strong that it will out last
leather. In the Southwestern States,
they plat strips of the inner bark of
the linden tree, and find it strong
enough for mule COLLARS
| couldn't repress another shout Of
laughter.
You may laugh said he coolly,
81 expect nothing else. So the peo-
pie laughed at Fulton when he launch
ed the first steamboat"
"But you would abolish steam
would you not? 1t is part of the ex-
isting civilization"
"No, l would not abolish steam"
he replied, mot, at least, until we
could adopt some better mode of tran
sit"
"And you would not, of course,
abolish the printing press,'' l added.
"Most certainly l would /. Disraelli
ought to know as much about the
highest forms of present civilization
as any man living. His associates are
princes and princesses; dukes and
duchesses; earls and countesses, and
the money kings of the world. He is,
moreover, a literary man, and the son
Of the most literary man of his day.
And what does he say about the print
ing press? He makes his pet hero,
CASTOR Phoebus, say this printing
has destroyed education. The great
est misfortune that ever befell man
was the invention of printing. Books
are fatal they are the curse of the
human race. Art is a great thing,
and science is a great thing; but all
that art and science can reveal can be
taught by man and by his attributes
his voice, his hand, his eye" He
| goes on to say that the highest educa~
zion was that of the Greeks, from the
age of Pericles to hat of Hadrian.
Schools should be numerous, but the
teaching should be oral;-lectures
should be constant, and by the most
illustrious professors;-and the stu
dents should converse on what they
heard. What a vast amount Of vi
cious and debasing literature would
be swept away by such a change. In
Lord Macauley's mastery essay on the
life of Bacon, the same ideas are ex>
pressed. PLATO" he says, ''seems to
have thought the use of letters oper-
ated on the human mind as the use of
the go-cart in learning to walk; or of
corks in learning to swim, is said to
operate on the human body. 1t was a
support which sOOn became necessary
to those who used it and made Wig
orous exertion first useless, and then
impossible. He thought the powers
of the human intellect would have
been more fully developed without
this delusive aid. Men would have
been compelled to exercise the under
standing and the memory, and thus
make truth thoroughly their own.
Now,o the contrary. much knowledge
is traced on paper and but little is en-
| craven on the mind. A mar who
| trusts to books for his information,
cleaned at a moments notice, cannot
in atrictneSs he said tn knnU any