Year: 1872

LABOR.


From a report made by j. b. Kill.
brew to the last General Assembly on
the subject of popular education VIC
extract the following:


Education has become absolutely
indispensable to the material prosper
ity of any community. The machines
which are now in common use on
the farm, in the workshop, by the fire.
side, on the streams, on the ocean,
pre-suppose some knowledge of me
chanics in order to operate them
More cultivation of intellect is requir-
cd to manage reaper, or thresher
than to use sickle, or to beat out
grain with fail. And as the intro
duction of machinery into the opera
tions of the farm is becoming more
general each year, so larger degree of
intelligence is constantly demanded
there. The senseless exercise of mus
Gle cannot compete with the precision
and intelligent action of machinery.
Each succeeding year will show a di-
minished demand for ignorant labor
and an increased inquiry for skilled
labor The highest interest of the
State, then, demands recognition of
this fact, and the adoption of some
measures by which the laborer may be
instructed in the higher requirements
of the farm, for all the experience of
this country goes to prove that it is
more economical to employ intelligent
labor and use machinery than dispense
with machinery and use ignorant la
Dor. The production of cotton since
the invention of the cotton gin, the
increased production of wheat since
the invention of the reaper, are cases
in point; and so far from machinery
reducing the average price of labor,
the producing power of days labor
is greater now than it ever has been !;
employment is more constant; sales of
agricultural products more certain !;
and a gradual elevation of the laborer
in the scale of dignity and intelligence
more decided where machinery is used
and the laborer is educated. Indeed
it may be affirmed that sailors, me-
chanics, seamstresses, and all classes
who live by manual labor, as we'll as
farmers, are compelled to have more
knowledge now than half a century
ago. Ignorant people of this age are
compelled by an inexorable law to be
poor. No richness of soil, no radiance
of the sky, no commercial facilities,
no mineral wealth, can confer great
ness and honor on a people incapaci-
tated by ignorance. 1t has been well
said that whatever wealth is showerod
upon such people will run to waste.
The ignorant pearl divers do not
wear the pearls they win. The dia-
mond hunters are not ornamented by
the gems they find. The miners for
silver and gold are not enriched by the
precious metals they dig. Those who
till the most luxuriant soils are not
filled with the harvests they gather
All the choicest productions of the
earth, whether mineral and vegetable,
wherever found, or wherever gather
ed, will in short time, as by some Sc
cret and resistless attraction, make
their way into the hands of the more
intelligent Let whoever will SOW the
seed, or gather the fruit, intelligence
will consume the banquet" Give ed
ucation, and you give the keys TO un-
lock the treasures of the world. Moth
ing desirable in the depths of the
ocean, or in the bowels of the earth, or
in the atmosphere above, but can be
obtained by its aid. New agencies
and new powers of nature are har-
messed, and made to do the biddings of
man. Refuse education and you re-
fuse everything-social elevation, NOR
al grandeur, civil and religious liber.
ty, virtue, integrity and power, and
good government. Deny it, and there
is no other "open sesame under
heaven to open the doors of the varied
wealth of the universe. Man becomes
but an instructive brute. toiling to live,
and living only to die. His intellect is
darkened with a cloud more threaten
ing than that rifted by the thunder
bolt; more terrible than that which
surrounds the apex of Il burning vol
cano, and more disastrous than the
whirlwind; for it is the cloud of ig-
norancc that shuts out ali the light Of
civilization, of the treasures ofscience,
and the blessings of rational existence.
/