180 TRANSACTIOyS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



extract them from their ores ; he must know, of com-se, the uses and 

 the management of heat; and lie must subject, at least, the winds or 

 tlie falling waters to his mastery. Yet even when he has attained 

 this degree of advancement, there seems to be moral causes preventing 

 so rapid a progress in improvement as might else be possible. For 

 in a semi-barbarous condition of society, the arts of ir.dustry are 

 invariably held in contempt, and men's imaginations are preoccupied 

 with the ambition of martial distinction. 



This fact was strikingly illustrated in that department of the great 

 industrial exposition of Paris, which was devoted to the history of 

 labor. The objects in this interesting display were so arranged as 

 to exhibit the several successive stages of progress in the arts of 

 industry from the period of the dwellers in the pile villages of Swit- 

 zerland nearly down to our own time. Almost throughout the entire 

 succession, it is evident that two classes of ol)jects have, in every 

 past age, occupied the minds and employed the hands of artificers 

 almost exclusively ; and that these have been, first, weapons and 

 trappings of war ; and, secondly, articles of ornament and luxury, 

 designed for the decoration of the persons or the dwellings of the 

 great. In the age of stone, we find arrows, and daggers, and spear 

 heads, laboriously formed of flint, in abundance. In the age of 

 bronze, we find similar objects fashioned of metal, to which may be 

 a,dded^ also, swords and shields, finished occasionally with very 

 elaborate ornament. And, along with these, we find here evidence of 

 the fondness for jDersonal ornament of the warriors who bore these 

 wea]ions, in the presence of heavy armlets and other decorations, 

 while the implements which seem to have an industrial use are few 

 and far l)etwecn. Tlie early age of iron presents the same character- 

 istics, still more fully developed. Pursuing the examination through 

 the historical period, we find that down to the very close of the six- 

 teenth century, there are among the objects exhibited scarcely any 

 which are not referable to one or the otlier of the classes above 

 mentioned; although many of the ornamental articles on which 

 wealth had been most lavishly expended, were articles designed to be 

 subservient to religion in the embellishment of churches, or the per- 

 sonal decoration of ecclesiastical dignitaries. During the two centu- 

 ries which follow, we perceive a change slowly creeping in ; but even 

 here, we find the taste for the ornamental still predominant, while in 

 very rare instances does the production of the useful seem to have 

 attained the importance of an extensive manufacture. 



