kindred bodies, and throiigli tlieir aid and 

 encoura<jement, the boundaries of l^nowl- 

 edge liave been pushed forward, and depths 

 have been touclied and iieiglits reached, of 

 wliicli our fathers jiever dreamed. Tlie 

 Britisli Association for the advancement of 

 Science maizes annual appropriations to 

 facilitate discovei-y and test results in 

 almost every branch of physical science. — 

 Similar associatious have sprung up in the 

 United States, and are doing excellent 

 service. In all the great cities of the 

 Union, historical, philosophical, scientific 

 and fine art associations bring together 

 their respective votaries, and by concentra- 

 tion of forces and division of labor secure 

 results impossible under individual effort. 



Another phase of co-operative effort, 

 peculiar to modern times, is found in trades 

 and trades unions. Tiiese, vphen perverted, 

 as they often have been, are productive of 

 disastrous consequences to labor and to 

 capital ; but when confined to a legitimate 

 activity, are productive of great and perma- 

 nent good. Almost every activity, in which 

 liuman brain and human muscle manifest 

 themselves in material production, have 

 associations formed for mutual benefit and 

 mutual protection. Sometimes their Ojiera- 

 tions are confined to sick benefits, aiding 

 members in distress, caring for tlieir fami- 

 lies when deprived of their natural protect- 

 ors, providing employment for the young, 

 and placing them beyond the reach of 

 poverty, furnisiiing them with an education 

 and employment, helping them, in short, to 

 help themselves, by fitting them to become 

 honest, capable and industrious members of 

 society. - 



Sometimes, by adding capital to labor, 

 they become corporate bodies for produc- 

 tion ; reapiuir, thereby, not only the fruits 

 of individual labor, but sharing in the pro- 

 duction as well. In England, this kind of 

 co-operative activity has sometimes taken a 

 wide range. Under the auspices, and 

 through the capital of such an association, 

 stores are carried on, supplying all that 

 families require ; flouringinills are in oper- 

 ation to furnish breadstuffs ; cotton and 

 woolen mills have been set agoing, on a 

 sci-ile second only to those of Manchester 

 and Bradford. In these enterprises there 

 was employed last year, under the control 

 of a single association, capital equal to $3,- 

 300,000. And why should not such enter- 

 prises be extended ? There is an abund- 

 ance of capital from the savings of the 

 working classes, if properly employed, to 

 extend such operations as these, and to 

 yield large results in annual dividends.— 

 One-half the amount deposited by the 

 working classes in the savings banks of 

 Great Britain, if employed in joint-stock 

 enterprises, in manufactures, and in com- 

 merce, would add immensely to the yearly 

 earnings of the working classes and largely 

 to the national wealth. Of the $350,000,000 

 on deposit in the savings banks, $175,000,000 

 might be thus employed, yielding to the 

 depositors annual average profits, amount- 

 ing to over $17,000,000. 



What has been done in Great Britain 

 might be done in the United States. Our 

 population is larger, our artizans better 

 paid, and the aggregate amount of savings 



thus employed could in a short time fairly 

 double the amount given above. There is 

 little doubt that this phase of co-operation 

 will continue to attract more and more 

 attention in this country and in Europe, 

 and that in the future it will form no unim- 

 portant factor in the adjustment of the 

 claims of capital and labor. 



Still another phase of co-operation, and 

 bearing more directly upon the object for 

 which we are now convened, is found in 

 associations whose immediate object is not 

 production, but the best means to facilitate 

 production. Such associations exist all 

 over our own country, and in many foreign 

 countries. Notable among these are agri- 

 cultural, horticultural, pomological, wool- 

 growing, cattle-breeding, and bee-keeping 

 associations. Hei'e the end sought is to 

 determine the principles which render 

 successful production possible, leaving 

 their applications to individual agency. — 

 Here the end is. by observation and experi- 

 ment, to generalize such a body of knowl- 

 edge as shall enable those who devote 

 themselves to these pursuits to realize the 

 greatest possible expenditure of labor and 

 capital, if hundreds of intelligent workers 

 be engaged in the same pursuit, each collects 

 facts and places himself, with special 

 relation to the objects with which his 

 activity is conversant, to the body of facts 

 collected by each, and in the relation sus- 

 tained to the end in view, there will be two 

 elements, a general and a special ; the 

 general being common to all observers, and 

 the special peculiar to the one. The special 

 will sometimes be the result of fortunate 

 or unfortunate accident, sometimes of the 

 idiosyncracy of the individual. Through 

 the former, the more obtrusive elements 

 which enter into the body of knowledge 

 will be rapidly generalized ; through the 

 latter, the less obtrusive— but not, on that 

 account, the least important elements.— 

 Moreover, these latter will continually tend 

 to multiply, as the powers of observation 

 are cultivated and strengthened. By the 

 co-operation of the two, all the elements 

 will be gathered, conjecture will rise to 

 hypothesis, hypothesis to theory, and the- 

 ory in the end will rise to the dignity of 

 science, restini: on a broad basis of observed 

 facts and tested by experiment. Now, this 

 is what workers, associated together for a 

 common purpose, accomplish with the least 

 expenditure of mental and physioal force. — 

 Tile observations, tests, and experiments of 

 hundreds of workers and thinkers are 

 brougiit together into a common stock, dis- 

 cussed, criticised, questioned, put in every 

 light, in every shade, viewed from this 

 standpoint, then from that, and the infer- 

 ences which the seemingly established facts 

 warrant, if not conclusive, are provisionally 

 accepted till further light is thrown upon 

 them. Then the whole array of workers, 

 leaving the well enough established to take 

 care of itself, apply themselves energetic- 

 ally to collect further facts, in order to 

 establish or refute that which was only 

 provisionally accepted, to take it from the 

 limbo of uncertainty and the region of the 

 possible, and place it either among accepted 

 truths or relegate it forever to the domain of 

 exploded fiction. 



