WINTER MEETING. 32^ 



Utility Plus Beauty. 



L. A. GOODMAN, WESTPORT. 



The first thought of man in his life-work is utility. It matters not 

 where he is, what he is doing, how he is thinking, what he is seeing, 

 where he is feeling his way, his first thought is the useful. 



A poor old cripple, watching his wife eke out their scanty living 

 with her needle, watching her day and night, his heart full of love for 

 her and full of sorrow for their lot, as he sits there watching, a sewing 

 machine is made in his mind to do this work. The thought of the use- 

 ful uppermost in his mind brought out gradually a rough, crude machine 

 that was able to do the work. No thought of the beautiful filled the 

 mind of Elias Howe as his first machine grew under his hands, but 

 only the thought of the useful. 



It was not until years after the successful working of this same 

 machine that it entered the heads of men to make them beautiful, and 

 now we have them in all shapes and sizes, in boxes, cabinets, desks, 

 etc., etc. 



It never entered the mind of Robert Fulton to make a beautiful 

 boat when he first formed the steamboat on the Hudson. His only 

 motive, his prevailing thought, was to make a boat which would run 

 against wind and tide, and so we have the rude, cumbersome, awkward 

 and yet useful boat which succeeded in doing what its maker intended 

 it to do. Now, years after, we have perfect palaces of steamboats, 

 where are embodied the main thoughts of their builders to have a 

 beautiful as well as useful boat. 



In all the realm of thought and knowledge, the useful is the first 

 and prevailing idea. 



The old farmer used the forked stick for his plow with the only 

 thought of utility. The old cast-iron plow had only this for its goal, 

 and it never occurred to man until after he had developed this, useful 

 to his needs, that beauty should have anything to do with it. Beauty 

 and knowledge then go hand in hand, and we may be sure that as you 

 find a nation increase in knowledge and learning, you will see them 

 increase in the love for the beautiful and the useful, and not the useful 

 without the beautiful. Utility plus beauty therefore is one of the factS 

 which determine in our minds the civilization of a people. 



You may take the rude huts of the barbarians, the log cabins of 

 our fathers, the caves of the cliff-dwellers, or the wigwam of the In- 

 dians, and the first thought, in fact the only thought, which seems to 



