34 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



from the fatherland, they entered into a solemn compact to 

 recognize in their social and public life the manhood of man. 



In the establishment of all European society this had been 

 entirely overlooked, and not a nation on the footstool had ever 

 recognized the manhood of man. 



In founding the colony, then, from which we originated, and 

 from whose laws our own have to a large extent been formed, 

 the founders endeavored to put aside all prejudice of birth or 

 fortune and elevate all men to the high plane of Christian 

 manhood. In the history of the world, this was the first 

 time that such a principle had been recognized as the corner- 

 stone of national existence. 



Recognizing this great principle, labor became not only digni- 

 fied and respectable, but intelligent and skilful. Capital was 

 made the handmaid of labor, and not its master. Capital grew 

 out of labor, was its product, and therefore sliould not be its 

 superior. Capital was assigned its legitimate sphere, and the 

 laws of the new colony were made to protect the men of the 

 colony ; for when the men of the colony were protected the sub- 

 stance of the colonists was secure. 



The idea, therefore, of educating labor and dignifying it and 

 making it superior to capital was a novel idea — grew out of the 

 necessities of the situation, and became nationalized as pecu- 

 liarly American. 



Growing out of this general education of the people, came 

 inventions, lessening the labor of the hands, and contributing 

 to the comfort and convenience and wealth of the world. So 

 rapidly was invention succeeded by invention that it seemed as 

 though the world had been standing still for centuries. In 

 one hundred years of our American labor civilization had been 

 forwarded more, than during a thousand years preceding. It 

 seemed a triumphal march, as the genius and skill of man were 

 turning the crudest and most worthless productions of nature 

 into sources of wealth and luxury. 



The Puritans reasoned thus : " The more labor is dignified 

 the more man is ennobled ; the more labor is respected the more 

 elevated the character of the labor and the more elevated the 

 character of him who performs it." As a nation, we began 

 at the beginning; we began with man. We said man had 

 rights as man, and that before the law the rights of all men 



