172 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is a question worth considering whether political freedom and 

 industrial slavery represent an ideal with which any people may 

 worthily remain content. An industrialism is conceivable, with 

 hours so reasonable and conditions so wholesome that the lives 

 of the workers shall be as beautiful as the wares they produce. 

 Whether this will result from the present competitive system car- 

 ried to its extreme, or from a substituted co-operative system, re- 

 mains to be seen. In the atelier, the main process in operation is 

 the transformation of moving, human energy into the stored-up 



Fig. 9.— The Portland Vase. 



energy represented by a highly wrought product. One may be 

 pardoned, then, if his thought turns occasionally upon the source 

 of the energy, the man. It is not an agreeable reflection to pre- 

 sent to the reader that the majority of our brothers in large cities 

 are living bitter, hateful lives, but I believe that it is a true one. 

 It is perhaps well to entertain the thought for a moment, since 

 our people, presumably sympathetic and compassionate, not only 



