‘All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.’
“There is also another thought suggested by our topic which contains a world of meaning. We are apt to speak, in our discussions, of the
progress of industry, but do we always ask ourselves wherein that progress consists? Is it in the greater perfection to which, in modern times, we have carried the works of our hands? Look at the elegant tissues of Persia and India, or at the flexible blades of Toledo and Damascus, and say in how far we have surpassed these works of semi-barbarous ages and people, with all our boasted mechanical improvements! Can we imagine anything more splendid, more rich, and more delicate than the clothes in which the Oriental princes still array themselves, as their forefathers used to array themselves centuries ago? Have we yet a dye more brilliant than the Tyrian, a sculpture equal to that of Greece, an architecture better than that of the ‘Dark Ages,’ paintings on glass to compare with those in the old cathedrals, workers in bronze to rival a Cellini? Is it not the highest compliment that we pay to a product of skill or genius to say of it that it is ‘classical,’ that it is worthy of the models that have been preserved for ages in our galleries and museums? What then do we mean when we speak of ourselves as more advanced than former nations; what is that difference between us which authorizes us to use the word progress and to look back with a complacent half-pitying eye upon the attainments of the generations that have passed away?
“It is this: that in our discoveries in science, by our applications of those discoveries to practical art, by the enormous increase of mechanical power consequent upon mechanical invention, we have universalized all the beautiful and glorious results of industry and skill, we have made them a common possession of the people, and given to society at large, to almost the meanest member of it, the enjoyments, the luxury, the elegance which in former times were the exclusive privilege of kings and nobles. Formerly the labor of the world fed, and clothed, and ornamented the Prince and his Court, or the warrior and his chieftains—but now it feeds and clothes and ornaments the peasant and his family. Then the ten thousand poor, miserable wretches worked for the one, or the few, but now the ten thousand work for the ten thousand. Then the wealth of provinces was drained to heap up splendors for the lord of the province, but now that wealth is multiplied and diffused, to give happiness to the commonalty. All the concentrated capital of Lyons, and Leeds, and Lowell, all our complicated machinery, while it creates new demands for human labor, is intended to cheapen manufacturing products, as the effort of that cheapness is to put the fabrics of woolen and silk within the reach of the poorest classes. Our books, at this day, may not be individually superior to the books of the days of Elzevir, but millions of men now possess books where hundreds only possessed them formerly. Our vases and cups may not be more exquisitely wrought than the vases and cups of Benevento Cellini, but they are wrought, not like his, for Popes and Emperors, but for Smith and Jones, and all the branches, collateral and direct, of the immense families of Smith and Jones. Our roads are not built at a vast expense, for some royal progress, or the passage of a conquering army, but are built to roll from house to house the precious treasures of industry, or a happy freight of excursionists, giving their hearts a holiday of merriment and innocent delight.
“Our progress in these modern times, then, consists in this, that we have democratized the means and appliances of a higher life; that we have spread, far and wide, the civilizing influences of art; that we have brought, and are bringing more and more the masses of the people up to the aristocratic standard of taste and enjoyment, and so diffuse the influence of splendor and grace over all minds. Grander powers have been infused into society. A larger variety and a richer flavor have been given to all our individual experiences; and, what is more, the barriers that once separated our race, the intervals of time and space that made almost every tribe and every family the enemy of every other tribe and family have been annihilated to enable the common interests and common enjoyments to renovate and warm us into amity of feeling and the friendly rivalry of fellow-workmen pursuing, under different circumstances, the same great ends.
“Legislation, rightly directed, might have done and might yet do much for the civilization and advancement of society; but, unfortunately, in most nations of the earth, the legislation, having been under the exclusive control of a self-styled higher class, has impeded rather than hastened the movement. Yet, in the face of this terrible obstacle, under all the evils of the insular monopoly of Great Britain, seeking to aggrandize her own manufacturing industry at the expense of the industry of the rest of mankind, the genius of practical art has triumphed, and will triumph still more over every difficulty. It is raising the laborer to his true position; it is facilitating the association of men; it is harmonizing their interests; and, whether legislation helps it or not, it will ultimately redeem our race from dependence and slavery. And herein is the chief reason why we to-day salute with satisfaction the opening of the Crystal Palace.”