TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 239 



his capital or liis time in that which has not been proved by men of large hearts 

 r.nd large intelligence. 



It is snch a practical man as this who delays all improvement. For years he 

 delayed the development in England of the utilization of the waste gases of blast- 

 furnaces ; and he has done so so successfully that, as I have already had occasion to 

 roniark, that utilization is by no means universal in this kingdom. It was such 

 men as these who kept back surface- condensation for twenty years. 



It is such a man as tliis who, when semaphores were invented, would have said, 

 " Don't suggest such a mode to me of transmitting messages: I am a practical man. 

 Sir ; and I believe that the way to transmit a message is to write it on paper, deliver 

 it to a. messenger, and put him on horseback." 



In the next generation his successor would be a believer in semaphores ; and when 

 the electrical telegraphist came to him and said, " Do you know that I can transmit 

 movement by invisible electrical power through a wire however long ? and it seems 

 to me that, if one were to make a code out of these movements, I could speak to you 

 at Portsmouth at one end of the wire while I was in London at the other," what 

 would have been the answer of the practical man ? " Sir, I don't believe in trans- 

 mitting messages by an invisible agency ; I am a practical man, and I believe in 

 semaphores, which I can see working." 



In like manner, when the Siemens's Regenerative Gas-Furnace was introduced, 

 what said the practical man ? " Turn your coals into gas, and burn the gas, and 

 then talk of regeneration ! I don't know what you mean by regeneration, except in 

 a spiritual sense ; I am a practical man, and if I want heat out of coals I put coals 

 on to a fire and burn them:" and for fifteen years the practical man has been the 

 bar to this most valuable improvement in metallurgical operations. 



The practical man is beginning slowly to yield with respect to these furnaces, 

 because he finds, as I have already said, that men of gieater intelligence have now 

 in sufficiently large numbers adopted the invention to make a formidable competi- 

 tion with the persons who stolidlj' refuse to be improved. 



The same practical man for years stood in the way of the development of Bes- 

 semer steel. Now he has been compelled to become a convert. 



I will not weary you by citing more instances ; but one knows, and one's expe- 

 rience teaches him, that this is the conduct of the so-called practical man ; and this 

 conduct arises not only from the cause which I have given (his ignorance of the 

 principles), but also from another cause (one which I have had occasion to allude 

 to when speaking upon a difierent subject), and that is, you cfl'end his pride when 

 3'ou come to him and say, " Adopt such a plan ; it is an improvement on the process 

 von carry on." His instinct revolts at the notion that you — a stranger, very likely 

 his junior, and very probably, if the improvement be an original and radical one, a 

 person not even connected with the trade to which that improvement relates — 

 should dare to tell him that you can inform him of something connected with his 

 business that he did not know. 



It may be said that employers and the heads of manufactories are, as a rule, in 

 these days, educated gentlemen, and that, therefore, it is wrong to impute to them 

 tlie nanowmindedness of the practical man. I agree that in numerous instances 

 this would be wrong ; but the fact is, that in many cases (I think I may say in most 

 ca?es) the head of the establishment, the monied man, the man who by his com- 

 mercial ability (that most necessary element in all establishments) keeps the con- 

 cern going by finding lucrative orders, is not intimfitely acquainted with the practice 

 of the business carried on by his firm : he relies upon some manager or foreman, 

 who too commonly is not the real but the so-called practical man. It is such men 

 as those who simplj' practice that which they have seen, without knowing why they 

 practice it ; to them the title of practical man has most improperly been attributed"; 

 and it is on the advice of such men that the true heads of the firm too commonly 

 regulate their conduct as to the management of their business, and as to the neces- 

 sary changes to be made in the way of improvement. 



As I have said, the practical man derides those who bring forward new inven- 

 tions, and calls tliem schemers. No doubt whatever, they do scheme ; and well it is 

 for the country that there are men who do so. It also may be true that the ma- 

 jority of schemes prove abortive ; but it must be recollected that the whole pro- 



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