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present day for the foundation of the industrial arts it would read about 

 as follows: "By the steam engine and by the brain of man, guiding the 

 hammer and the hand, all arts do stand." The change is made necessary 

 by the industrial revolution that has. characterized the present century. 

 The hammer and the hand are now only minor tools. The steam engine 

 is the great power which is doing the mechanical work of the world, 

 and it is the brain of the captain of industry which determines what 

 work the steam engine, the hammer and the hand are to do, and which 

 today is the chief factor in increasing the wealth of the race. The revolu- 

 tion has now been in progress for over a hundred years, ever since the 

 general introduction of the steam engine into factories. So long has it 

 continued, and so steady and gradual has been its progress that but few 

 are able to realize its extent. 



One great consequence of the revolution is that agriculture has been 

 relegated from the first to the second place in the industries of the United 

 States, and manufacturing industry has taken the first place. Of all the 

 material and marketable things which man in this country produces and 

 consumes, manufactured goods form the chief part, measured in money 

 value, and agricultural products the second. The application of machin- 

 ery to farming, the migration of farmers from the sterile lands of the 

 east to the fertile lands of the west, the improvement in character of 

 the crops, and the increased application of fertilizers, have all tended 

 to make a smaller fraction of the population necessary to produce the 

 food for the whole country and to discharge men from the farm and turn 

 them into other pursuits. One reason that great cities are growing at 

 such a remarkable rate is that factories are built in the cities and the 

 average working man can make more money in them than he can on the 

 farm. He is discharged from the farm where the denumd for his labor 

 is relatively diminishing and he is welcomed in the city where the de- 

 mand for labor is increasing. The agricultural industry of the country 

 is now going throng a transition stage which is in many respects similar 

 to that through which the iron manufacturing industry went in the 20 

 years preceding 1890. In that period the production of pig iron quad- 

 rupled, while the number of furnaces in blast decreased about one-half, 

 and the cost of making pig iron also was diminished by half. The 

 average product of a blast furnace was multijilied eight-fold in that 

 period, — not that any given furnace in 1890 produced eight times as 

 much as it did in 1870, but new furnaces were built which caused the 

 abandonment of the old ones and in many cases the bankruptcy of their 

 owners. New districts were develoy^ed in which iron could be made 

 more cheaply than in the old, the furnaces in the old districts were 

 allowed to fall into ruins, and millions of dollars' worth of invested 

 capital were thus wiped out. The period of 20 years was one of read- 

 justment and relocation of the industry, and it was one of severe compe- 

 tition in prices and of struggle for existence, in which the law of the 

 "survival of the fittest" operated most disastrously to the unfit. 



I have already spoken of some of the causes which tend to make a 

 smaller number of farmers, relatively to the whole population, necessary 

 to provide the food for the country. There is another cause tending in 

 the same direction, and it is one not peculiar to this country, but is 

 world-wide in its operation. Hitherto a, considerable portion of the 

 farmer's market has been furnished by the demand for export. This 



