Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-07-25
The Inventive Faculty.

an inventor Is to keep tnlnklnS.
Some men never allow their thoughts
to go outside of their immediate
wants, and are properly only one
sided SOFT Of men. Another class
of men never gaze upon the SIM
plest price of machinery without
striving to suggest a valuable i'm
provement. Inventors are public
benefactors III the truest sense OF the
word. since, in nine cases out OF ten.
they themselves never reap any bene-
fit from what has cost them years OF
mental labor. 1t was Dean Swift
who said that the man who could
find ont how to make two blades of
grass grow where only one grew be-
fore, was the true humanitarian and
philanthropist. This illustration has
never been improved upon and
should be the text kept constantly
in the mind of the inventor and eX-
plorer.
To be an inventor does not neces-
sarily imply an extended scope Of
scientific attainment. Some of the
most valuable labor-saving machines
and devices have been brought about
BY the merest accident of circum.
stances which surrounded men of
limited means and aducation. The
individual whose mind is ever on the
alert for something new and useful :,
is the one who is likely to possess
the largest normal measure of the
inventive faculty. 1t is a fact, at
tests by the lives Of the most use
full men, that q fair endowment of
good common sense is a much safer
capital to rely upon in entering the
field of invention, than either money
or scholastic attainment.
The inventor of the famous West
inghonse Air Breaks, for railroad
cars, was an obscure apprentice boy
in arailroad machine-shop, and in
his earlier days, looked upon as pos
sessed of an intellectual organism
hardly,above nediocriiy. He con-
ceived the Grade idea, however, of
making an improved break for rail-
ways. When he announced that it
would'be necessary to attach sep
arate engine to the locomotive for
the purpose of condeusing the air
which was t. be used as the motive
power of the breaks, he met with
the usual opposition of ridicule and
unbelief. But monomainac, as he
was called, he worked like Trojan
and built with his own hands, q
rude working model of his plan.
The grand sequel is best told by the
fact that the Westinghouse Air
Break Company" now monopolize
the railroads of the world, so far as
their superior attachment is con-
cerned. Somebody has truthfulIy
said that the craftsmen of every call
ing should be alone responsible for
the inventions and Improvements
that take place in their own particu-
lar vacations. tits reasonable to con-
elude that railroad man is better
qualified to institute Improvements
IN the line of his profession than a
mechanic in an entirely different
calling; and SO through - = -"hole
category of industry and fac
tory
As a quaint writer puts & are
born without our knowledge or
consent" placed in a world where
rude causeways abound, with abun-
dant means for smoothing the rough |
and angular works of nature. If
we can harness the elements or SO
divert the laws of nature as to make
them subservient to our own CON-
fort, convenience and luxury, it is
our privilege in al cases SO to do. |
Whoever succeeds in relieving hu.
man muscle of one pound of the
onerous load it is nov compelled to
bear, just SO far arrests the con-
sumption of vital force. and mater
tally adds to the sum total of human
life and happiness.
ALMOST FIRE.--Some careless
person last Sunday threw . lighted
match under the sidewalk fronting
Allen L. Titus machine shop, on