COMMENXEMEXT EXERCISES 317 



and i-o<;ardless of piecoiueived opinions, is the pornliar and dominat- 

 ing- cliaraeteristic of all scientitic investip;atoi'S. AVliat more wholesome 

 moral atniospjiere in which to raise a child? The boy who has acquired 

 a passion for any line of seientific study can safely be trusted to follow 

 his bent. He will come to no harm and is likely to come to something 

 great and good. 



As many of the traditions of religion fail and fall, the eternal truths 

 of science will take their place, and we shall build on this sure founda- 

 tion a new religion and a more rational and just morality which will 

 be to nations a bond of union instead of a perpetual tlame of discord 

 and disruption, as religion has been in the past. 



MATEKIAL rRODUCTIVENESS. 



Following intellectual achievement and moral ujirightness, I will 

 place material productiveness which results from our modern scientific 

 achievements. Here on the threshold of the world's workshops, we 

 are struck at once with the magical transformations which have been 

 effected in the methods of production. The skillful mechanic, who 

 with great manual dexterity, and with a complete knowledge of his 

 art, fashioned a jn-oduct from the raw material to the finished state, is 

 no more. His like is no longer found outside of Asia; these workers 

 who entirely made up the guilds of former centuries, and who were 

 the pride and glory of Europe in the renaissance, were first reduced 

 to the performance of single manual o])orations, the complete product 

 being then the work of many hands, and finally, with the introduction 

 of the automatic and labor-saving machinery of today, they have be- 

 come mere overseers and tenders of such machinery. As we walk 

 through any great modern factory, tlierefore, we see not manual work- 

 ers, but nuichine attendants. But let us not make the very common 

 mistake of supposing that these men and women, or boys and girls, are 

 mere automatons, or animated attachments to the machines tliey oper- 

 ate. This is the mistake our literary and clerical friends nearly always 

 make. They deplore the age of steam, wind, water, and electricity, 

 and of labor-saving and automatic machinery, and sigh for the good old 

 days when the blacksmith Avas the only worker in iron; when the 

 wheelwright and the cabinetmaker did all the work in wood; when 

 the shoemaker and the saddler were the workers in leather, and when 

 their grandmothers Imd added to their other labors the spinning, 

 weaving, and making uj), bj- Imnd, of all the family wardrobe. These 

 workmen, by laboring from twelve to sixteen hours a day, at sumll 

 wages, managed \o earn only enough to ])rovide the bare necessities 

 of life. Hut the steam engine and multi]»le jiroduction has now 

 changed all this. Not only has the slavish muscular toil been gracious- 

 ly lifted from off our industrial workers, but (he wearing and anxious 

 care formerly placed upon all such workers in order that tlii'y might 

 bring their work up to the requisite standard of exactness, .has also 

 ])een taken over by mechanisms which not only never tire but which 

 will turn out a million pieces exactly alike. The attendant u])on such 

 a meclianisiu, charged only with keeping it in order and well supplied 

 with the raw material, has time and ojtportunities, yes, and the neces- 

 sary stimulus, to engage in i)rofitable study and invention. The very 



