UTILIZATION OF LABOR. 55 



may produce more and better results, as the years pass. The 

 wants of savage life are few and call for little economy of time 

 or strength. But far different are the demands of civilized 

 life. New wants keep pace with new discoveries and new in- 

 ventions, till the simple New-England home represents skill and 

 labor astounding to one who traces all its comforts and luxu- 

 ries back through all their processes to their original products. 

 The varied fabrics of the household ! How many mills, what 

 complicated machinery and wonderful chemistry do they sug- 

 gest! The well filled library demands for its production an 

 army of laborers. Every time the frugal meal is spread, we 

 find upon the table, the products of other lands supplied only 

 through the discoveries and commerce of civilized nations. 

 A whole nation of savages could not, in a life-time, supply by 

 their labor the products in one of our best New-England 

 homes, — homes the result of the toil of a single civilized man. 

 He has all these sources of enjoyment because civilization has 

 utilized labor, and thus multiplied a hundred-fold the powers 

 of a single man. This utilization of labor has still further 

 advanced civilization, and thus we have the conditions of prog- 

 ress for the race. Civilization and utilization go hand in hand, 

 mutually reacting upon each other. 



And where are found the grand elements of this utilization ? 

 Plainly, first, in the forces of nature. These forces are guided 

 and controlled by man till they become his never wearied ser- 

 vants. The rains and dews upon the hills gather in springs, 

 leap towards the valleys in rivulets, until their combined weight, 

 poured upon the ponderous wheel, gives life to the spindle and 

 the loom. The guiding hand of man is needed, but with the 

 aid of this falling water, he draws out a thousand threads as 

 he could but one by his unaided strength. That wheel, through 

 which the water plunges by its own weight as it rushes on to 

 find its ocean level, multiplies the labor of all who work above 

 it a hundred-fold. It took time and hard labor and skill, 

 indeed, to dam up the floods, to lead them along in canals and 

 to fashion all the wheels and shafting by which their power is 

 transmitted from room to room and machine to machine. But 

 all of this labor is but a fraction of the multiplied power 

 which they give to the service of man, before worn out by their 

 own revolutions. 



