638 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



conferred because of services to the crown, either promised or 

 performed ; while the joint-stock company of the present age is 

 adopted as an institution, without any pretense of making returns 

 to the state for favors received. 



Every new era of material progress must be accompanied by 

 its moral correlative, which is implied in trust, else treachery is 

 sure to follow ; and only as men enlarge their confidence can 

 honest co-operation be extended. In the beginning of the present 

 century, the age was ripe for co-operation in its industrial forms ; 

 and it would be the distinguishing feature of our present develop- 

 ment, had not impatient legislation introduced the joint-stock 

 company as a legal substitute. At the period of history to which 

 we refer, the nobility still retained possession of the land, and 

 deemed it vulgar to engage in trade ; while the merchants had 

 amassed large fortunes in the commerce which had sprung up 

 from the daring explorations, enlightened navigation, and ener- 

 getic colonization which followed the discovery of the mariner's 

 compass. Small shops abounded ; the master-workman, journey- 

 man, and apprentice were friends and comrades, the apprentice 

 becoming journeyman and then master -workman in turn. In the 

 revolutionary struggles which marked the commercial age, a fair 

 measure of free speech had been attained ; and the scientist, being 

 free to give to the world his discoveries, was quickly followed by 

 the inventor, who applied these discoveries to the wants of man. 



Is it not pertinent to inquire why, under such conditions, sci- 

 ence, invention, and co-operation did not flourish and develop to- 

 gether ; and why the scientist, the inventor, and the artisan, do 

 not share the profits of their joint creations and endeavors, which 

 profits are now largely absorbed by capital ? How is it that, 

 with enlarged mechanical possibilities, the small shop-owners 

 have been driven from the field of proprietorship ; and the mas- 

 ter-workman and journeyman of a hundred years ago are to be 

 found at the bench or lathe of the mammoth workshops of the 

 day, not as independent workmen, but as mere automatons, to 

 pull the levers which release the cranks, gears, and pulleys of the 

 machinery which performs the former labor of their hands ? 



It is often urged, and with apparent seriousness, that in this 

 republic every man has a chance to become the owner of one of 

 these vast establishments ! What monstrous folly to claim that 

 every man can become the employer of a thousand men, when, by 

 implication, for every proprietor there must remain a thousand 

 men to be employed ; so, with all the vain-glorious self -congratu- 

 lation, it simply means that out of every struggling thousand one 

 may reach the goal ! Driven from so untenable a position, it is 

 declared that the fittest will survive, which, being a half-truth, 

 means nothing, for fitness has no existence apart from its environ- 



