stirred the hearts of her people so deeply, and re-established 

 in her institutions on a firmer basis the principle of universal 

 education, were contemporaneous, and under the auspices of 

 the same public men. 



The social power of mechanical and manufacturing produc- 

 tion in England, is the keen and watchful rival of the aris- 

 tocracy. Under the lead of Cobden, and to give the mechanic 

 cheaper food, it abolished the corn laws, which protected the 

 privileged class and the culture of their immense estates. To- 

 day, it demands through John Bright legislation that shall 

 liberalize the tenure of land ; and with the sanction of Glad- 

 stone, England's future prime- minister, seeks an extension of 

 the suffrage. The student of nations, Avho follows through 

 the last forty years the policy of Russia, in developing her 

 mechanical and manufacturing industry, is prepared to under- 

 stand how such statesmanship should culminate in the thunder- 

 flash of that emancipating edict which made twenty-three 

 million serfs, freemen. 



The history of mechanical progress shown in one implement 

 of agriculture, the plough, contains in epitome the history of 

 man's contest with nature, and his ascent to civilized supremacy. 

 A hafted. wooden tooth, drawn through the ground by a shaft, 

 and leaving but a slender superficial groove, is the rudiment. 

 It is held and drawn, with painful, exhausting toil, by slaves. 

 With the ploughshare, the coulter, the mould-board, the two 

 handles, and the yoked oxen come the deeper and broader 

 guage of the furro%v, relief to the over-tasked ploughman, and 

 a free yeomanry. The polished instrument of iron, with the 

 bended beam, and nicely balanced adjustment of weight, lines, 

 curves, and angles, with which its parts are put together, and 

 which slides through the glebe with such easy guidance in 

 your ploughing match, carving and turning the curling sod 

 without a break, represents a five-fold gain in effectiveness 

 over the plough of eighty years ago It represents, besides, 

 an industry more profitable and less laborious, the liberation of' 

 the mind from the cramping bonds of an over-worken physical 



