The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-01-03
(Philadelphia I;ccord.)

II is an axiom of social evrlution-
lists that in the not far distant future
nearly all merely muscular industry
will he superseded by machinery. ANY
one at al familiar with what is being
done by mechanism must also DC
aware that a great deal OF mental IN
dustry is being superseded. ana mere
fore, it may be thought that in the in
%tcllcctual field mechanical inventions
arc likely to go as far as in the nus
cular. That. of course. is Il mistake.
There is 40 exercise of muscular chi
orgy which cannot be more or less
successfully initiated by mechanism;
but the brain work which may he
taken over by machinery is restricted
within narrow limits that can ny no
possibility be oVerstcpped.
These limits. though they are very
real, are not always very obvious. and
to tho casual observer 1t must some
times appear that n kind of mechanl-
cal intelligence is being evolved. From
the miller's little bell, that sets up a
fussy tinkling the moment the hop
per runs empty. up to the calculating
machines that arc now to be fOund
in banks and insurance ot1ces. Clear
ing houses and ~obscrvatorics. there
arc SO many mechanical substitutes
for brain workers that it is difficult at
times to realize that it is. after all,
only mechanism, and not Intelligence,
that is being evolved.
Some of the touches of what, for
convenience, we may call mechanical
intelligence, to be met with in various
odd corners of the industrial and com
ing, and they have their prototype in
that little bell of the old windmill.
There is, for instance, to be seen in
any screw factory a different applica-
ition of that device. The machinery
takes hold of "a rod of metal, pulls it
rapidly along, gives the end OF 1t the
general shape Of a screw. cuts the
thread around it. and the slot in the
head, and then ships off a perfect
screw. If you watch the thing actual
Iy making the screws. the idea strikes
You that 1t is merely a piece of me-
chanism, but when the machine
comes to the end OF its material and
gives a sharp. impatient ring Of a bell
for the attendant to bring more, you
Experience the uncanny feeling that
the thing is human.
The machine by which railway tick
cts are printed gives an exhibition OF
intelligence, or what looks very like
it.. Railway tickets are not. as might
he supposed. printed in large sheets
and afterward cut up. The cardboard
is cut into tickets first. and printed
one by one afterward. The little bla7k
cards are put in a pile in u kind of
perpendicular spout, and tho machine
slips a bit Of metal underneath the
bottom of the spout and pushes out
tho lowest ticket in the pile to be
printed and c~onsecutivcly numbered.
1t is Of no use trying to print a bad
ticket. The machine finds out an i'm
perfect blank in an instant. and fatty
refuses to have anything to do with
1t. Tear OFF the orner OF one of the
bits of card and put 1t into the spout
with the others, in order to see what
will happen. and it refuses to bulge
again until somebody comes and re.
moves the tmposter. Pull out the
damaged ticket and the mechanism
will set briskly to work again.
However there are far higher flights
of mechanical intelligence than this
The work Of hundreds and Thousands
Of clerks has within the past few
years been taken Owe by small ma.
chimes very much like typewriters in
appearance. by which columns OF
money in small or large items are in.
ist"nfiv added Up -.'t. -"~a ~ the ,.isL