We have merely given above the slightest idea of the vast industrial operations of the United States, which embrace every branch of arts and manufactures; but that little is enough to show how great are their resources, and what an immense field is opened to their enterprise, to their skill and inventive genius.
As we have already said, education is one feature of the American national character, and art-education, as applied to manufactures, is now beginning necessarily to attract serious attention in the United States. Hence schools of design have been established in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Baltimore and other cities; most of these being, however, intended for the art-education of women.
From art-education, which can only be available for a portion of the public, we pass to that which is made indispensable by the wise legislation of the United States.
“The compulsory educational clauses adopted in the laws of most of the states, and especially those of New England, by which some three months of every year must be spent at school by the young factory operative under fourteen or fifteen years of age, secure every child from the cupidity of the parent, or the neglect of the manufacturer; since to profit by the child’s labour during three-fourths of the year, he or she must be regularly in attendance in some public or private school conducted by some authorised teacher during the other fourth.
“This lays the foundation for that wide-spread intelligence which prevails amongst the factory operatives of the United States; and though at first sight the manufacturer may appear to be restricted in the free use of the labour offered to him, the system re-acts to the permanent advantage of both employer and employed.
“The skill of hand which comes of experience is, notwithstanding present defects, rapidly following the perceptive power so keenly awakened by early intellectual training. Quickly learning from the skilful European artizans thrown amongst them by emigration, or imported as instructors, with minds, as already stated, prepared by sound practical education, the Americans have laid the foundation of a wide-spread system of manufacturing operations, the influence of which cannot be calculated upon, and are daily improving upon the lessons obtained from their older and more experienced compeers of Europe.
“Commercially, advantages of no ordinary kind are presented to the manufacturing states of the American Union. The immense development of its resources in the west, the demands of a population increasing daily by emigration from Europe, as also by the results of a healthy natural process of inter-emigration, which tends to spread over an enlarged surface the population of the Atlantic States; the facilities of communication by lakes, rivers, and railways; and the cultivation of European tastes and consequently of European wants; all tend to the encouragement of those arts and manufactures which it is the interest of the citizens of the older states to cultivate, and in which they have so far succeeded that their markets may be said to be secured to them as much as manufacturers, as they have hitherto been, and will doubtless continue to be, as merchants. For whether the supply is derived from the home or foreign manufacturer, the demand cannot fail to be greater than the industry of both can supply. This once fairly recognised, those jealousies which have ever tended to retard the progress of nations in the peaceful arts, will be no longer suffered to interfere, by taking the form of restrictions on commerce and the free intercourse of peoples.”
THE END.
[1]. Hildreth.