It is unnecessary to describe one by one the seventy articles on other fabrics and tissues, ranging through the alphabet from Alpaca to Velveteen; but they are all included in the list at the end of this chapter, and all are fully described in the Britannica. Costume (Vol. 7, p. 224) is a long and important article, with a full page plate and many other illustrations. The section on dress in general is by T. A. Joyce, of the British Museum staff, that on ancient costumes by H. S. Jones, director of the British School at Rome, and that on modern costume by Oswald Barron, editor of The Ancestor. The account of underclothing is of especial interest, as most books on costume altogether neglect this branch of the subject. Another section of this article is on national and official costumes by W. Alison Phillips, principal assistant editor of the Britannica. The study of ceremonial robes is carried into further detail by the article Robe (Vol. 23, p. 408), with its five richly colored plates, in one of which the judicial robes of the U. S. Supreme Court Justices are shown. Liturgical vestments are dealt with in Vestments (Vol. 28, p. 27) and in a series of articles such as Dalmatic (Vol. 7, p. 776) and Alb (Vol. 1, p. 497).

Inventors of Textile Machinery and Great Textile Merchants

Among the biographies which are of interest in connection with textiles are those of Arkwright, Richard (Vol. 2, p. 556), the barber who invented the spinning frame; Cartwright, Edmund, (Vol. 5, p. 425), inventor of the power loom; Crompton, Samuel (Vol. 7, p. 486), inventor of the spinning mule; Salt, Titus (Vol. 23, p. 87), who created the alpaca industry; Strutt, Jedediah (Vol. 25, p. 1044), who did much to perfect the manufacture of cotton; and of Whitney, Eli (Vol. 28, p. 611), who went from Yale to Savannah to secure a position as school teacher and then, being disappointed, turned his attention to a device for separating the cotton fibre from the seeds and refuse, and invented the gin which has “profoundly influenced American industrial economic and social history.” Another name of a great American inventor who individually rendered great services to the textile industry is that of Howe, Elias (Vol. 13, p. 835), who invented the sewing machine. You will also be interested in the lives of successful merchants such as Canynges, William (Vol. 5, p. 223), the great 15th Century cloth manufacturer who became a clergyman after making a large fortune; Mackintosh, Charles (Vol. 17, p. 250), who introduced lightweight waterproof garments; Wanamaker, John (Vol. 28, p. 302), who began life as an errand boy in a book store; Field, Marshall (Vol. 10, p. 322), who when Chicago was a comparatively unimportant city founded there what has become the finest dry goods store in the world; Stewart, A. T. (Vol. 25, p. 912), who after studying for the ministry in Dublin, immigrated to New York and gradually built up the largest retail store in the city; Pease, Edward (Vol. 21, p. 31), founder of a famous Quaker family of textile manufacturers in England; and Claflin, H. B. (Vol. 6, p. 418), who came from Worcester, Mass., to New York where he for years controlled “the greatest mercantile business in the world.” If you turn to the Article Worcester (Vol. 28, p. 823) you will note the associations of the locality with Elias Howe, Eli Whitney, Samuel Crompton, already mentioned, L. J. Knowles, another inventor who helped to perfect the power loom, and Erastus Bigelow, who invented the carpet-weaving machine (Vol. 6, p. 530) and was one of the incorporators of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Other lives of successful textile makers and dealers are those of Rylands, John (Vol. 23, p. 950), founder of the largest cotton mills in Lancashire; Dexter, Timothy (Vol. 8, p. 141), the eccentric New England merchant of the 18th Century who beat his wife for not weeping heartily enough at the rehearsal of his funeral; Horrocks, John (Vol. 13, p. 712), the great English cotton manufacturer who was far ahead of his time and died of brain fever produced by overwork in 1804; Worth, C. F. (Vol. 28, p. 834), the famous Paris dressmaker who began life as a London draper’s apprentice; Whitely, William (Vol. 28, p. 605), “the Universal Provider,” of London; and Tata, J. N. (Vol. 26, p. 448), the great Parsee textile manufacturer.

A LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL ARTICLES IN THE BRITANNICA OF SPECIAL INTEREST TO MERCHANTS AND MANUFACTURERS OF TEXTILE GOODS

CHAPTER VI
FOR MERCHANTS AND MANUFACTURERS OF MACHINERY

A Change in Public Opinion

An appreciation of the science of mechanical engineering is so indispensable to the manufacture and sale of machinery that the reader of this Guide might simply have been referred to the chapter For Engineers as covering the industry, if it were not that the Britannica contains (as the list at the end of this chapter shows) a great number of articles dealing with individual machines. The amount of space which the new Britannica devotes to mechanical subjects, and the great number of expert contributors whose collaboration was enlisted in this connection, are significant from more than one point of view. All other general encyclopaedias, including earlier editions of the Britannica itself, seem to have been influenced by the old-fashioned fetish of “pure” scholarship and “pure” science, treating theory as a subject of study much more dignified than the application of knowledge to the practical affairs of life. Until recent days the great universities of such important manufacturing countries as England, Germany and France were almost exclusively devoted to the teaching of philosophy, history, Greek and Latin, mathematics and pure or natural science. The older universities of the United States, too, were for a long time reluctant to recognize the growing importance of technical education, and the necessity, apart from technical education, of giving the general student some knowledge of mechanics. And it is a significant fact that the Britannica, the first encyclopaedia that has ever been published by a university, should be, although it comes from one of the oldest of all universities, the first to give full recognition to the importance of this department of knowledge.

Men in the machinery trade will welcome this change of attitude in the Britannica, not because they crave a public acknowledgment of the great share of the world’s work that they are doing, but because public ignorance of mechanical subjects results in the abuse of machines and in unreasonable complaints against manufacturers when improperly used machinery fails to do its work. A curious illustration of the general disregard of the subject is supplied by the fact—as true of the United States as of England, Germany or France—that representative government is, in practice, chiefly government by lawyers, and that in this age of machinery it is the exception to find in the cabinet which directs the affairs of any country, a single member who has any knowledge of mechanics. The same ignorance is conspicuous in newspaper offices. Even the most dignified dailies seem unable to deal with any news that has to do with machinery without making ridiculous blunders.

Influence of Automobiles