CHAPTER III.
SCIENCE.
Theswallow travels, and the bee builds now, as these creatures of instinct traveled and built in the days of Moses and Job; but the capabilities and acquisitions of rational man are all progressive, not only, as an individual from infancy to age, but as a species from the beginning to the end of time. This is shown, by every art which man has invented, and in every science he has employed. Let us proceed to open up more specifically this illustrative department of our general theme, and consider the threefold advantages, political, mechanical, and educational which the age of Washington permits us to enjoy.
The science of government as practiced in this country, is undoubtedly constructed on the loftiest principles of common sense, and constitutes the best model and most salutary protection to each subordinate department of productive thought. Here, the division of labor has been carried to the greatest extent, not only in the deliberative but in the executive departments; and progress is steadily pursued, without attempting to anticipate results either by springing forward after crude theories, or backward in attempts to copy extinct forms. Our view of liberty differs essentially from that held by the ancients. By the latter citizenship was regarded as the highest phase of humanity, and man, as a political being, could rise no higher than to membership in a state; therefore it was that Aristotle affirmed the state to be before the individual. But with us the state, and consequently the citizenship only affords the means of obtaining still higher objects, the fullest possible development of human faculties both in this world and in that which is to come.
The science of freedom, which is destined to spread its irresistible empire over this continent, started its primary germ in the bosomof our antipodes. Long before the words people, law, equality, independence, and equitable legislation had found a place in refined languages, republicanism glowed in the mind of Moses, and was partially embodied in the Hebrew commonwealth. The safeguard of all races as they were propagated, and the ennobler of all thoughts as they were colonized, this blessing of blessings has ever migrated with advancing humanity from age to age, till at length a fitting field has been attained for its fullest and most fruitful development.
Heeren well observes that Greece may be considered as "a sample paper of free commonwealths." But even that renowned land never saw her people enjoy their just rights; nor was such an exalted privilege realized by the nations of continental Europe, until the great principle of popular consent was recognized as the foundation of righteous authority. The crusades broke down feudalism, and elective monarchies grew increasingly representative of the popular will, up to the transition period, when James II. was hurled from his tyrannical throne, and William of Orange became the people's king. All the best political science of the old world went with the latter, from the comparatively free Netherlands, to ameliorate England, and foster her colonies in America. The essence of the great revolution of 1688 was eminently pacific and progressive, occasioning no sacking of towns nor shedding of blood. According to Macaulay, it announced that the strife between the popular element and the despotic element in the government, which had lasted so long, and been so prolific in seditions, rebellions, plots, battles, sieges, impeachments, proscriptions, and judicial murders, was at an end; and that the former, having at length fairly triumphed over the latter, was thenceforth to be permitted freely to develop itself, and become predominant in the English polity.
In tracing kindred paths of human progress, we have constantly had occasion to note how the affairs of all consecutive ages, though produced immediately by the voluntary agency of diversified actors, have, nevertheless, been controlled by the divine counsel, and contributed to execute the perfected unity of the divine plan. How great and manifold were the purposes which Providence comprehended in the discovery of America, and the peculiar colonies planted on its shores, we need not attempt to portray. But it isimpossible to doubt that prominent among these were improvements in the science of government, the evolution of new theories of civil polity, and a grander application of such principles as had already been made known.
As a new world was about to be civilized, and required the highest measure of free intelligence, Bacon, Harrington, Sidney, Milton, Locke, Grotius, Puffendorf, and Montesquieu, arose to pour successive shafts of light upon the new but sombre skies. Parental injustice and colonial strife for a while darkened earth and heaven; but in due time the sun of American freedom ascended with auspicious splendor, when the mists of prejudice were dispersed, and the fresh revelations of a new political science appeared like some glorious landscape amid clear shining after rain. All the brightest beamings of antecedent light fell concentrated in that ray which illumined the cabin of the Mayflower, and kindled the fairest beacon of freedom on the eastern extremity of our continent. It was an effulgence given to be thenceforth diffused westward evermore, often buffeted, indeed, by adverse elements, but never impeded in its predominating progress, and much less diminished or obscured.
Before the pilgrim fathers disembarked, on the 11th of November, 1620, off Cape Cod, they drew up and subscribed a formal social compact, from which is the following extract: "We, whose names are under-written * * * * do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, * * * * and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names." To this remarkable document were appended the names of all the male adults on board the ship; the whole number of both sexes being a hundred and one, who took possession of a desert island, where day now first dawns on the sublimest republic of earth.
According to an eastern fable, the world is a harp. Its strings are earth, air, fire, flood, life, death, and wind. At certain intervals, an angel, flying through the heavens, strikes the harp. Its vibrationsare those mighty issues of good and evil, the great epochs which mark the destiny of our race. In allusion to this, E.C. Wines remarks: "The mystic harp was touched when the pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock. Its quivering strings discoursed their most eloquent music. The burden of the notes was, human freedom; human brotherhood; human rights; the sovereignty of the people; the supremacy of law over will; the divine right of man to govern himself. The strain is still prolonged in vibrations of ever-widening circuit. That was an era of eras. Its influence, vitalized by the American Union, is fast becoming paramount throughout the civilized world. Europe feels it at this very moment to her utmost extremities, in every sense, in every fibre, in every pulsation of her convulsed and struggling energies.
"The great birth of that era is practical liberty; liberty based on the principles of the Gospel; liberty fashioned into symmetry and beauty and strength by the molding power of Christianity; liberty which 'places sovereignty in the hands of the people, and then sends them to the Bible, that they may learn how to wear the crown.' And what a birth! Already is the infant grown into a giant. Liberty, as it exists among us, that is, secured by constitutional guaranties, impregnated with Gospel principles, and freed from alliance with royalty, has raised this country from colonial bondage and insignificance to the rank of a leading power among the governments of earth.
"The union of these States under one government, effected by our national Constitution, has given to America a career unparalleled, in all the annals of time, for rapidity and brilliancy. Her three millions of people have swelled, in little more than half a century, to twenty-five millions. Her one million square miles have expanded into nearly four millions. Her thirteen States have grown into thirty-one. Her navigation and commerce rival those of the oldest and most commercial nations. Her keels vex all waters. Her maritime means and maritime power are seen on all seas and oceans, lakes and rivers. Her inventive genius has given to the world the two greatest achievements of human ingenuity, in the steamboat and the electric telegraph. Two thousand steamers ply her waters; twenty thousand miles of magnetic wires form a net-work over her soil. The growth of her cities is more likemagic than reality. New York has doubled its population in ten years. The man is yet living who felled the first tree, and reared the first log-cabin, on the site of Cincinnati. Now that city contains one hundred and fifty thousand souls. It is larger than the ancient and venerable city of Bristol, in England."
Thus the founders of our national compact have proved themselves the unsurpassed adepts in political science. They unquestionably belonged to that select number, of whom Bolingbroke said that it has pleased the author of nature to mingle them, from time to time, at distant intervals, among the societies of men, to maintain the moral system of the universe at an elevated point. Nor shall we find less variety of profound invention, or less popular advantages derived from practical applications in the realm of American mechanical science, than in the primary one of civic excellence just considered.
The labors of cotemporaries generally are in harmony with the epoch; and in America especially do they all tend to promote that ultimate destiny which promises to be much better as well as greater than the past sufferings, commotions, and hopes of mankind. The westering career of inventive genius reminds one of Milton's hero marching through the dark abyss to discover fairer realms beyond. Though assailed by feelings of discouragement, and fantastic apparitions rise before him, still he persistingly rises from the dark depths, to set his foot on the gigantic bridge that leads from gloom to brightness, and sees at length the pendant new world hanging in a golden chain, fast by the empyreal heaven, "with opal towers and battlements adorned of living sapphire."
Modern science has produced a splendid mass of evidence as to the growing power and capacity of the human mind; of its independence, freedom, and ability to direct its own movements; of resisting the influences of external agents, of inquiring after original truths, and acting according to its own ideas of propriety, justice, or duty. As by the use of armed vision, and other mechanical aids, the modern scholar can extend his intellectual view to things, laws, and results beyond the most distant conceptions of uncultivated mind, so will like means bring into near neighborhood nations and continents heretofore the most remote.
The mechanical inventor stands prominent among the chief heroesand benefactors of every productive people, and especially is this true of the mightiest in our day, the English race. Their bloodless conflict with, and conquest over, the forces of nature, transcend in importance all the glitter of ancestral fame, and the proud spoils of foreign wars. Nothing in ancient annals is comparable to the prodigious feats of human industry and skill which have been witnessed since the age of Washington began. Not to go east of our own immediate ancestors, it is interesting to see how the old haunts of power are now but the abandoned monuments of progress, the means of which are mostly mechanics, all the chief seats of whose influence have migrated to the West. Canterbury, Lincoln, Salisbury, and Winchester, have remained almost stationary ever since the United States were organized; while Leeds, Paisley, and Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool have become the comprehensive centres of the most productive and beneficent life. The growth of the latter town has corresponded with our own great commercial metropolis; which, like it, is truly a city of the young and auspicious age. Sitting there upon a rock, overlooking the Atlantic, and enriched with the merchandise of many nations, the modern Tyre of the old world, whose rugged Lancastrian dignity comports well with the majesty of universal commerce, relies for her principal support on her rival New York.
Previous to the eighteenth century, great ingenuity and fertility of invention was manifested in theoretical representations of mechanical principles and complicated machines. But in all that relates to efficient construction and adaptation to practical use, a total absence of scientific insight was manifested. The puny engines might act very well in the form of models, if not set to work out something in good earnest, but otherwise they were sure to knock themselves to pieces in a very short time. On the contrary, this century is distinguished in nothing more than by the potent simplicity and prolific benefits to which all its great mechanical inventions are reduced. The hundred eyes of Argus, and the hundred hands of Briareus are at once laid under contribution to the widest good in the simultaneous action of all their most concentrated powers. Inventive genius, divinely guided, is fast altering the face of earth, and converting the elements of nature, togetherwith her laws, into instruments and artificial powers, wherewith to augment the fruitfulness of human industry, and the products of cultivated soils. Labor-saving machinery increases the yield of agricultural science, facilitates transportation, and enriches commerce through the varied wealth it affords for exchange. The steam-engine, spinning-jenny, and power-loom, consume neither food nor clothing, while they accomplish more labor than millions of weary human hands. How wonderfully does mechanical science augment the products of industry, multiply the comforts and diminish the diseases of life, developing the resources, and increasing the capital, intelligence, and power of a nation!
With the exception of a few islands in hot climates, agriculture never did flourish in any country where the mechanic arts were not flourishing. Nearly all the grains, vegetables, and plants, as well as fruits, which afford support to our spreading population, and replenish the marts of trade, once grew spontaneously in eastern climes, whence they were transplanted to constitute the advantage and reward of western agriculture. As soon as the pioneer of a new region acquires sufficient knowledge of the mechanic arts, and learns to construct tools adapted to the cultivation of earth, he is able to convert its products into the means of comfort, and the staples of commerce. One discovery leads to another yet more prolific of good, and every improvement in mechanical science not only multiplies the enjoyments of rational man, but contributes to promote his health, increase his longevity, and augments the products of every realm of nature, in quantity, quality, and value. Agriculture is therefore dependent upon mechanical science, not only for its origin, but also for every step of its progress in the sublime march of invincible civilization. Agriculture has less direct influence upon the wealth and power of a nation than commerce, but it is most conservative of the highest national weal. Minds engaged in the latter pursuit are more active and acute, more inclined to seek after new discoveries and such inventions as most favor zealous enterprise; hence, nearly all great material improvements have been made by the mechanical, manufacturing, and commercial classes. Their minds are fuller of schemes and projects, often ill-digested; and they have more energy, but less stability of character, usually, than agriculturists. They are more daring, butless safe; their operations, unlike the salutary effects of bucolic toil, frequently partaking of the character of gambling speculations.
Most of our colonies were planted by commercial companies, and primarily depended on commercial gain for their chief support. But as our national resources and dangers have multiplied, very fortunately the conservative power of the rural populations has proportionately increased; so that at the present moment of peril, the mighty palladium of our Republic lies along the magnificent expanse of our western agriculture.
The propulsive energies and ennobling tendencies of this age and nation consist mainly in its mechanical, mining, and manufacturing industry, as the main feeders and conservators of its commerce. These lead to mental activity and independence, enterprise and inventions which contribute to the largest measure of productive results, and most ameliorate the various conditions of life. Had we long been limited to the narrow area of the original thirteen colonies, the preponderance of the commercial spirit would probably have ruined us; but happily the maritime coast around the little East, extended as it may appear, is vastly exceeded by the widening dominions of agriculture opened in the great West, whose inexhaustible richness guaranties the perpetuity of our union and the supplies of our food. Thither millions are escaping from the old world, painfully recollecting how many small homes they have seen demolished, to make way for the exclusive parks and aristocratic mansions wherein they could find neither sympathy nor support. But on the virgin soil where rugged emigrants build their cabins of content, the sense of property becomes the truest of magicians; it is to them the consciousness of power, and the feeling ofvaluein self-relying effort. Arthur Young well said, "Give a man nine years' lease of a garden, and he will turn it into a desert; give a man entire possession of a rock and he will turn it into a garden." The vast basin of the Mississippi will soon become the paradise of republicanism, the chief fountain of ameliorating civilization, and the central granary of the world.
The first canal that was opened in the United States extended from Boston to the river Merrimac. The "Great Western" soon after was undertaken, and now the finest canals in the country connect the Hudson with the grand series of inland seas, and thenceextend beyond the Ohio. The first railroad was also constructed at the eastern extremity of our republic, and was the beginning of a continuous thoroughfare of rock and iron which at this time extends due west a greater length, and with more abundant profit, than can elsewhere be found on earth. The first steamboat was built in this city, and made her trial trip between the focal-point of universal maritime navigation and the predestined line of the grandest inland travel direct from east to west. As canal, railroad, and steamboat were wanted, they were produced, exactly in the places and exigences best fitted to give them the widest and most salutary use. Neither Fulton nor Clinton dreamed of what gigantic results they were the incipient agents. Even Jefferson, who as unconsciously served the hidden purposes of Providence in the purchase of Louisiana, when told of the proposed artery of commerce which now winds like a thread of silver through this imperial Commonwealth, said that "it was a very fine project, and might be executed a hundred years hence." A hundred years hence! What will science have done for our nation before that period shall have transpired?
The advanced races are always the goers, while the less advanced are the stayers at home. Therefore the improvement of locomotion is one of the first essentials in the progression of mankind, to clog which is not merely a crime against the individual, but against humanity itself. Man, aided by the facilities which mechanical engineering has provided, is armed with the powers of nature; he has vanquished his opponent, and enlisted her forces in his service. Matter is no longer an impediment to oppose him, but the arsenal from which he draws his mightiest weapons and richest stores. Coal and water become concentrated forces, whose powers he may develop and control for the extension and improvement of his terrestrial dominion. One single steam-engine constructed by mechanical science, is of more real importance than all the powers of Rome, and a single printing-press than all the arts of Greece. They are more than mere instruments, they are prodigiouspowers, placed at human disposal. They are products of reason; and just as that highest mental attribute learns to see further and further into the processes of nature, so does man by such means acquire new power for extracting welfare from the earth. When Humboldtwould enumerate only a few of the instruments whose invention characterizes this great epoch in the history of civilization, he names "the telescope, and its long-delayed connection with instruments of measurement; the compound microscope, which furnishes us with the means of tracing the conditions of the process of development of organs, which Aristotle gracefully designates as the formative activity of the source of being; the compass, and the different contrivances invented for measuring terrestrial magnetism; the use of the pendulum as a measure of time; the barometer; hygrometric and electrometric apparatuses; and the polariscope, in its application to the phenomena of colored polarization in the light of the stars, or in luminous regions of the atmosphere." Chemistry instructs us as to what and whence the metals are; and from the grossest dregs elicits flaming gas, that great moralizer of modern cities, more powerful than an armed police. Mechanics and chemistry furnish us with an endless variety of substances, in combinations infinitely diversified, all tending to give man more power, leisure, and comfort; to make him, in fact, freer, and more elevated in his position on the globe. Instead of being the slave of physical nature, science renders man its master, as the Creator intended him to be when he gave him an earthly dominion.
An immense amelioration has taken place in the condition of modern society. Man has extended the limits of his life, has intelligently constructed circumstances less fatal to his organism, and has vastly diminished his liability to dissolution; in fact, he has, to a certain extent, beaten the evils of the physiological world, exactly as he has vanquished the difficulties of the mechanical world. Better dwellings, clothing, and food; more abundant supplies of water and pure air, and prompt treatment under acute disease; inoculation and vaccination; the improvement of prisons and workhouses, and a more rational mode of treating the human frame both individual and collective, has secured to civilized man a longer tenancy and happier use of terrestrial existence. Thus, the sciences not only lead to an amended order of action, but also to a condition amended and improved as well. And we confidently believe that the very same kind of improvements that have followed the mathematical and physical sciences will supervene upon social science, and achieve in the world of progressive man far greater and morebeneficent wonders than have yet been achieved in the world of subordinate matter.
Civilization was born on the banks of the great rivers of the East, and its grandeurs were first accumulated round the Mediterranean, under the sway of Greece and Rome. The mediæval age enabled European nations to develop their ultimate energies on the border of the Atlantic, and, with ships vastly superior to the triremes of antiquity, to take possession of the immense expanse of oceanic billows. Coincident with the establishment of great commercial exchanges in this new world, that masterly monument of mechanical science, the Eddystone lighthouse arose on the line of all progress, and guided the old powers and inert capital of Europe to improved enlargement and use in America. The great currents of the sea and trade-winds of heaven move westward alike and evermore. Science daily adds new capacities and momentum in aid of transportation. Young as we are as a nation, our boats, yachts, clippers, and steamships are the first in the world. The child of the East has become a man in the West, where oriental toys have expanded into colossal instruments proportioned to the occasions and efficiency of their requisite use. But no inventor is taken captive by his inventions here, however potent they may be. Every improvement lessens the impress of local character, and prevents a separation of the nation into distinct peoples. Petty cliques and transient conflicts may sometimes occur; but deep in the popular heart the great social country engrosses the profoundest regard, and entirely preponderates over the geographical country.
The finest bricks are made on the western shore of Lake Michigan; and the best materials for the manufacture of flint glass abound in Minnesota. Lead and copper of great purity and in astonishing abundance attract and reward industry beyond the grandest of inland seas; and silver mixed with gold in fabulous profusion draws enterprise over the diameter of earth to explore nature's great storehouse along the Pacific shores. But better and more permanently profitable for man than all else of mundane wealth, are the more substantial treasures which are buried with inexhaustible richness on the terra firma route, pre-ordained for ameliorated humanity to pursue from east to west. Coal and iron constitute the chief motor and metor of all physical improvement.Like freedom, superior intelligence, and exalted moral worth, they are the special gifts of God to those who speak the English language, and will be found most copious in those remote regions where republicans are destined to be most free.
As the prominent inventions of a people are the best exponents of their peculiar genius, and the clearest prophecies of prospective triumphs, so does the energy of their educational zeal indicate the measure and immediateness of their success. The successive departments of political and mechanical science we have severally considered above; let us now give more particular attention to the science of education as exemplified in our land.
All human progress, political, intellectual, and moral, is inseparable from material progression, by virtue of the close interconnection which characterizes the natural course of social phenomena. But the educational element must form the principal band of the scientific sheaf, from its various relations, both of subordination and of direction to all the rest. It is in this way that the homogeneous co-ordination of legitimate sciences proceeds to the fullest development, and for the widest ulterior influence on human destiny. The filiation and adaptation of all great discoveries for the popular good, affords a fine subject for grateful contemplation, and is the most exhilarating guaranty to the loftiest hopes. The general intellect, under the auspices of American freedom, now, and for the first time, is entering upon the age of ameliorating science. It is an advent to be hailed with chastened joy, and to be guarded by vigilant expectation. In comparative anatomy it is well known that a Cuvier may determine, from a single joint, tooth, or other fragment of an animal, whose species had never entered human eye or imagination, not only its general configuration, size, family, and grade in the series of organic beings, but also its physiological constitution, its manners, its food, its climatic habitation, whether in the geography or the chronology of the globe. Even so equal knowledge of the analogous laws of symmetry and mutual dependence in the social system, eventually attainable, and to be applied to extant usages or disinterred relics, will enable its possessor, by a single specimen, accurately to fix the entire condition of the corresponding people on the scale of civilization. Tried by this criterion, what monuments of national mind may we not anticipate for the future, while wecontemplate the results already attained by our brief but glorious past. As the greater Newton succeeded the great Kepler, and was in turn followed by La Place, who explained the physical counterpart of his predecessor's theory by the law of gravitation imperfectly understood by its own discoverer, so do we believe that the inductive method re-established by Francis Bacon will be consummated in our central clime, amid greatly increased splendors, by the mental manhood of the twentieth century.
The great prophet of science to whom we have just referred, lived mostly in the future, and in his last will he left "his name and memory to foreign nations and to the next ages." He had crossed the Atlantic, whose storms men had penetrated for ages without perceiving the fair omens of progress, but in the confidence of his prophetic intuition he gave the name of Good Hope to the headland he had reached; as Magellan, when he beheld the boundless expanse of waters in another direction, called it the Pacific. The seeds which Bacon sowed have here sprung up, and are growing to a mighty tree, and the thoughts of millions come to lodge in its branches. Those branches spread "so broad and long, that in the ground the bended twigs took root, and daughters grew about the mother tree, a pillared shade high overarched, and echoing walks between;" walks where Literature may hang her wreaths upon the massy stems, and Art may adorn that Religion, of which Science erects the hundred-aisled temple. The preparation made for the present age, and the high anticipations entertained by the last and wisest of its precursors, is set forth as follows near the close of hisAdvancement of Learning: "Being now at some pause, looking back into that I have past through, this writing seemeth to me, as far as a man can judge of his own work, not much better than that noise or sound which musicians make while they are tuning their instruments; which is nothing pleasant to hear, yet is a cause why the music is sweeter afterward: so have I been content to tune the instruments of the muses, that they may play who have better hands. And surely, when I set before me the condition of these times, in which Learning hath made her third visitation or circuit, in all the qualities thereof—as the excellency and vivacity of the wits of this age—the noble helps and lights which we have by the travails of ancient writers—the art of printing,which communicateth books to men of all fortunes—the openness of the world by navigation, which hath disclosed multitudes of experiments and a mass of natural history—the leisure wherewith these times abound, not employing men so generally in civil business, as the states of Greece did in respect of their popularity, and the state of Rome in respect of the greatness of her monarchy, the present disposition of these times to peace, and the inseparable propriety of time, which is ever more and more to disclose truth—I can not but be raised to this persuasion, that this third period of time will far surpass that of the Grecian and Roman learning."
In 1647 the Plymouth colony of Massachusetts passed an Act "that every township of fifty householders should appoint a person to teach all the children to read and write, and that every township of one hundred families should support a grammar-school."
In the following year (1648) the Legislative Assembly of the colony of Connecticut, passed a statute in relation to education of very nearly the same purport as that passed in Massachusetts. The Puritans of New England entertained the same opinion as the Presbyterians of Scotland, that education is necessary to the performance of religious duty; and the former seem to have borrowed their ideas and system of education substantially from the latter. This was the foundation of the system of common-school education, which was adopted in the State of New York in the early part of the nineteenth century, and has been more recently adopted in nearly all the free States. While no effort has been made to give the whole population of England a common-school education, and Parliament persists in discouraging such an undertaking, our newest western States even exceed New England in their educational zeal.
The first college in America was founded on the eastern edge of Plymouth colony, and has been succeeded by a series of rivals stretching due west, so rapidly and widely multiplied in numbers and patronage, that now the new States possess richer advantages for learning than the old. A self-educated seaman, born in the same region of rock and ice, was the first to translate and publish with emendations the profoundest mathematical works of modern times; and now there are successful aspirants after like distinction, whose towers of science stand reflected on the banks of the Ohio,casting their shadows still onward before the ascending sun. It was fitting that the most learned President of the United States should travel from Pilgrim Rock to the "Mount Adams" of westward empire, whereon he laid the corner stone of the only Observatory extant, which is sustained by popular subscription, and rendered renowned by private enterprise. In that "Queen City," which seems like a thing of yesterday, not only has the pendulum of Galileo been made to measure the diameter of a single planet, but one of the most valuable inventions of this age, the astronomical clock, there first beat in its sublime reckoning of the universe. A printer born in Boston, was armed by Providence with paper and twine through which to draw harmless lightnings from the skies; and a painter in New York, under the same heavenly guidance, and at the fitting time, charged the celestial messenger with a kindred burden of human intelligence, and dispatched it first from the capitol of our Union to instruct and ameliorate mankind. Coincident with the latter discovery, mechanical science in this great metropolis perfected a still more imperial civilizer, the steam power-press; and now not an element of nature expands, not a conquest of science is matured, and not an inspiration of genius fulmines in the gloom of penury, or around the pinnacles of power, that the press does not gather all the aggregated excellence in subordination to its use, to enhance the benefactions of ennobling intelligence upon which it subsists. In Boston, ether was first applied to ameliorate the dreaded pain of surgical steel, to mitigate the bitterest physical pangs, and rob Death himself of half his spiritual terrors. In Cincinnati, the steam fire engine has just been added to other mighty conservative agents. As the general alarm aggravates midnight terrors, and the gains of a toilsome life are threatened by the remorseless conflagration, glaring in lofty defiance to ordinary resistance, a tiny match kindles the ardor of invincible union between diverse elements in united opposition, and agitated crowds are soon awed into admiring silence, as the mighty flames are speedily drowned. One of our citizens has recently mapped the ocean of international commerce with all its old currents of power sagaciously discriminated, and newly traced as the best channels of safety. Another, venturing where no predecessor had ever been has just returned from the regions of perpetual ice, to win thegrateful applause of Christendom for the material wonders he discovered and the beneficent spirit he displayed. A clergyman of this city, for his researches in Palestine, was the first of four Americans who, within the last fifteen years, have been decorated with the golden medals of foreign honors; one of whom, on account of his explorations in the opposite direction, whither tends the greatest public good, has just been nominated to the highest secular dignity possible on earth.
The restless and insatiable activity of Americans in scientific research and moral heroism, was finely personated by Ulysses of old. Sick of Ithaca, Argos, Telemachus, and Penelope even, the old and indomitable mariner-king panted for untried dangers and undiscovered lands. His purpose was "to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars, until he died." Thus actuated, man is lifted to a higher platform of observation whence he may read the book of gemmed pictures illuminating his nights, and revealed to fill his soul with an inspiration more grand and inspiriting than any terrestrial object can communicate. It is the legitimate and appropriate sequence of the new revelations of modern science, and is designed more and more to render the master of earth free of the universe. In his heavenly Father's house are many mansions, and these with all their expansive marvels are unfolded in salutary enlargedness, in order that their predestined possessor through a corresponding education in their presence, may expand his spirit till it shall become approximatively unbounded in a creation without bounds. The telescope, the compass, the press, the locomotive, and the telegraph, have in succession, and with vastly increased degrees of power, infused into the heart of humanity a sense of freedom, and in that influence their chief benefaction consists. Each new province annexed to the magnificent domain of present knowledge points more clearly to still richer provinces beyond; and on the remotest border of all, human immortality and infinite progress are most legibly inscribed. "Forward" and "forever" are exhortations not only vocal in the music of the spheres, but are repeated to the adventurer by the remotest billows, and quicken the passion for profounder investigation in the darkest depths.
The regulator of the steam-engine was invented in Massachusetts, where also originated most of the superior cotton and woolenmachinery now generally employed. The locomotive was there entirely re-cast, and immensely improved. When the perfected "iron horse" thence advanced, surmounted by that indigenous embodiment of democratic huzzas, the steam whistle, "Young America" was just beginning to go ahead. When in the laboratory of the University in this city, the sun-picture was first invented, simultaneously with the labors of Daguerre, the same promising youth was favored with a glance of what he is yet to be. And when that first telegraphic message, "What hath God wrought!" was let fly with the lucid freedom of lightning, Young America, standing on the summit of six thousand years, and born to renovate the race whose final destiny he represents, had then, indeed, begun to talk.
A comprehensive view of political, mechanical, and educational science in our country will teach us that the mightiest minds are more and more compelled to serve the masses; and that the most enormous outlay of capital in either ponderous or exquisite producing agents, is all in favor of the undistinguished populace, and not for the special advantage of a select few. The most subtle and refined machinery, for example, is not applied to the most delicate and elegant kind of work, such as gold and silver, jewels and embroidery. These luxuries are mainly executed by hand, while the most expensive machinery is brought into play where operations on the commonest materials are to be performed, because these are executed on the widest scale. Such is especially the case when coarse and ordinary wares are manufactured for the many. This is why such a vast and astonishing variety of artificial power is used in our country and age. The machine with its million fingers works for millions of purchasers, while in lands less free, where magnificence and beggary stand side by side, tens of thousands work for one. There Art and Science labor for princely aristocrats only; here, the great mass of the people are their chosen and most munificent patrons.
All great workers, and the improvements they originate, find their legitimate use only in the enunciation of great truths for the popular good. Thus it is that the relation of men to each other and to the whole world is progressively changed, and that always in the direction of increased equality. The universal mind receives simultaneouslythe impression of each new idea; it imprints itself upon domestic institutions, infuses itself into literature, reconstructs political formulas, and in some measure both impels and controls the religious life. It has lately been proved that the whole earth is a magnet, and all mental achievements in our day tend to render the domain of American civilization one immense university of science. At each remove toward western freedom, progressive man has shown his mastery by compelling all the elements to help create and grace his triumphs. The waters turned from their courses to move his mills; the sportive zephyrs and angry winds imprisoned in his sails; the flying vapor taken captive to whirl his myriad of spindles, or send the "Iron Missionary" tramp, tramp over the earth, splash, splash across the sea; the soft light he makes ministrant to the dearest joys, depicting by it the portrait of tenderest love; and the latent flame which sings along the wires by lines of railway; all alike and together prophesy of mightier and better things to come.
Facilities of knowledge are the auspicious means of transfusing into the soul those ideas which are the tools vouchsafed to shape the destiny of our race. The dynasty of a new thought is much more glorious than the pedigree of old kings; and the future of free America will infinitely transcend in worth and well-doing all the arbitrary dignities and adventitious splendors gone by.
The machinery of production in America is already greater than that of England. Our twenty-three millions of citizens produce a larger amount of valuable staples, while they build twice as many houses; make twice as many roads; apply three times more labor in the improvement of land; build four times as many school-houses and churches; and print ten times as many newspapers. We have laid the foundation of a pyramid whose base is a million of square miles, studded all over with innumerable little communities, each one of which occupies space sufficient for a large one, with its academy, or its college, its journals, bookstores, and libraries, all aiding to give to the superstructure a magnificence proportioned to the breadth and stability of its base. Among the more western States, not less than in the eastern, there is universal activity and intelligence. It is safe to repeat that the commonwealths recently organized have more and better printing-presses, and consumemore well-read paper; that they have more commodious school-houses, and more scholars in them; more churches, and more devout Christians in them; more well-selected libraries, and more thoughtful readers in them, than any other nation on earth.
What our future may become, our brief past will best suggest. We know that however high we may ascend the course of history, we see, not in each or any particular people, but in the human family as a whole, an uninterrupted endeavor to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge always progressive; so that, from the obscurity of earliest time, we arrive step by step to modern science, more certain, more extended, and more prolific, in practical results than was ever known in preceding ages. This progress is proved by the sovereignty which man has successively acquired over nature, subordinating to his will her most energetic forces, and compelling them to accomplish the highest ends in the surest manner. We see what the earth, transformed in an immense portion of its best surface, has become under his hand. He subdues the billows, traverses seas, and his invincible thought, aspiring to still sublimer empire, makes his necessities to be served by the stars which vainly flee in the deserts of space.
From the survey which has been taken above of the spreading of ameliorating empire in the great West, it is evident that its central throne must soon rest on the granite heights beyond the great lakes, near the sources of the mighty Mississippi. Thither the free and brave millions are fast gathering, whose noble progeny will people the entire continent, and bless the world. The denizens of those wealthy regions, and the patriots of those happy times, will be both intelligent and brave beyond precedent, in conserving the republican institutions they have received to perfect and perpetuate. The sentiment of the great man of the extreme East, will be best appreciated, and most sublimely exemplified, in proportion as it sweeps with the sun from the horizon of its origin, and, from the loftiest Rocky Mountains, resounds simultaneously from ocean to ocean, the profoundest sentiment of undivided peoples, "Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"