Mr Grierson on Coinpetitions among Tradesmen. 107 



most dexterity and skill can do so little towards raising them 

 into public notice, we can hardly wonder that their work should 

 hang heavy on their hands, and that their relaxations should be 

 of a kind of which we cannot approve. But were a ladder af- 

 forded to a working tradesman^ by which he might raise him- 

 self step by step from his obscurity, to such a station as his ta- 

 lents and acquirements enable him to fill with credit to himself 

 and benefit to the public ; and were it made plain to him that, 

 whatever step he may at present occupy on this ladder, no 

 great exertion would be required to gain one step higher, there 

 cannot be a doubt that the emulation which has, by similar 

 means, been excited among ploughmen, would be excited in 

 him also, and in a much greater degree. The ordinary occu- 

 pations of the workshop would become interesting to him as pre- 

 parations for his public exhibitions ; and the time during which 

 he is not thus engaged, would be employed by him in gaining 

 some acquaintance with such branches of science as may be con- 

 nected with his trade. This would unquestionably be the ef- 

 fect of these competitions on all the ablest men among these 

 classes ; and as it is from them that the whole take their tone, 

 their example would be speedily followed. The community at 

 large would become industrious and economical, and men who 

 now sink through all the gradations of idleness and want, till 

 they end in crime, would become active and useful members of 

 society. 



This would necessarily produce no inconsiderable diminution 

 on the number of paupers, while it would at the same time tend 

 to lessen the expense of all the necessaries of life. Every hand 

 being improved to the utmost, and employed in the best pos- 

 sible way, would be rendered proportionally more productive, 

 and as the most important inventions have almost all been made 

 by working tradesmen, a very rapid addition to them might be 

 confidently anticipated, from the prodigious force of talent 

 thus brought into operation, which is at present altogether dor- 

 mant- 



To these considerations it must be added, that the proposed 

 competitions would do much towards re-establishing the connec-. 

 tion between the higher and lower classes, which, of late years, 

 has been almost entirely done away, very much to the injury of 



