And now what has this combination of legislation for private
protection and public good, of a genius producing great inventions,
and of the accumulated capital of earlier years, brought about?
It has given us the best fruits of science in permanent possession.
The study of science invariably aids, in a thousand ways, the progress
of mankind. It gives us new conceptions of nature and of the
possibilities of art; it promotes right ways of work and of study; it
teaches the inventor and the discoverer how most surely and promptly
to gain their several ends, it gives the world the results of all
acquired knowledge in concrete form. This one instance which we are
now especially interested in contemplating has performed more
wonderful miracles than ever Aladdin's genii attempted. One man, with
a steam engine at his hand, turns the wheels of a great mill, drives
forty thousand spindles, applies a thousand horse power to daily work
in the spinning of threads, the weaving of cloth, the impulsion of a
steamboat, or the drawing of great masses of hot iron into finest
wire. This puny creature, his mind in his finger tips, exerts the
power of ten thousand men, working with muscle alone, and, aided by a
handful of women, boys and girls, clothes a city. A half dozen men in
the engine room of an ocean steamer, with a hundred strong laborers in
the boiler room and on deck, transports colonies and makes new
nations, brings separated peoples together, unites countries on
opposite sides of the globe, brings about easy exchanges between pole
and equator.
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