visit a scene most picturesque, and thence the overshadowed years of childhood and to pass to a scene through which sensitive youth through those spasmodic years nerves and delicate fastidiousness will of manhood during which the strugle to hurry at double-quick time. Yet not so exist wears an aspect of rugged vigor ;— fast; let us look about us as we go. Our and then through that residue of early deramble in the first instance is through a crepitude, haggard, bent, idiot-like, which is country agreeably diversified as to its levels, indeed an unblessed end of an unblessed and which has its picturesque alternations existence. This rural population does of arable and pasture, bordered by copses, pretty well if the father be able-bodied and and intersected by streams and rills, by the sober, and the mother managing, through side of which the angler delights to spend the summer season of wheat-hoeing, hayhis meditative hours. A deep-rutted and making, and wheat harvest; that is to say, tortuous lane, which just now as we write when the labour of the mother and her is hanging out its charming wreaths of dog- children comes in to swell a little the weekrose and woodbine, and which hides from ly wage. During these weeks something of the sun its ferns and foxglove, opens at needed clothing is obtained-rent is paid up, length upon a common around which cot- and a pittance of animal food, weekly, is tages peep out from among orchards and added to the bread, and the tea, and the poa tall hedgegrowth. Have we not come tato of the seven months' diet. It would upon a very paradise of rural seclusion? is be doing a wrong to our worthy farmer it not a spot to be chosen by those who are friends, and to the rural, sporting gentry, intending to while away existence among to affirm that these miserables are actually the never-tiring sweets of a country life? dying of want: No; they are not dying, But let us step on a little way, and over- so as that inquest must be held before they take the group of children that is just now may be buried: would to God that they crossing the common. Alas!-yet should were: they are the living: they are living we not refrain from expressing the sad feel- to show what extremities men, women, and ings which the first sight of these infant children may endure, and yet not die;-or shadows has awakened?-feelings height- what they hold to be worse-not betake ened by contrast; for lately we were mak- themselves to "the Union!" But, how do ing our way through a fourth-class street, these same men, women, and children, pass where the prime necessities of life are five months of the year? Gladly would amply provided for. Besides, if we look a one find them curled round like hedgehogs second time at these shrunken forms-such and hybernating in hollow trees, or in rabis the beneficence of the Creator-we see bit burrows-lost to consciousness! that childhood will have its smiles, its laugh, its gambols, under conditions even the most forlorn. Moreover, there is, notwithstanding that famished, watery look, there is, taking the group altogether, there is an air of pure rusticity, there is an innocence, comparatively, and a modest propriety-there is a respectfulness in their style Infant cheeks are the true indices of the and deportment, which is greatly in their well-doing or the ill-doing of a people; for favour, when thought of in comparison with these cheeks show, not only how the urchin the bold unreverential sauciness of the in- itself is faring, but how father and mother fant Herculeses of manufacturing towns. are faring at the present time; and more But look at these unfortunates-the infant than this-how the youth and the maiden serfs of the neglected rural district! look fared in their several homes, long before at them physiologically-observe their lank they met at church. In no part of these colourless hair, screening the sunken eye, islands, or in none which it has been our lot and trailing upon the bony neck; look at to visit, is there to be seen so large a perthe hollow cheeks, the candle-like arms, and centage of beautiful children-well developed the unmuscular shanks which serve the dear-every inch of them, as in those streets of urchins for legs! But are not these child- Manchester which are inhabited by the ren breathing a pure atmosphere? are they operatives of that city. Grant it that the not nature's own? Yes, but there is one faces of these sprawling dumplings are not thing wanting to them:-One ominous word always, or often, in a kissable condition : clears up the mystery! Starvation! not in- but they are not, perhaps, much the worse deed such starvation as brings the sorrows for the sooty marbling of their chubby of a sad lot to a speedy end; but such as visages, and none the worse in the eye of drags its pining sufferings out, through the physiologist; — nor would they be (so

We

should, indeed, count it a miracle if, on a May morning, we were to see a group of human beings start up alive from the swad, along with the paigles and the cowslips. But, is it much less than a miracle to see the people of a depressed rural district stepping alive out of the winter months?

we are bold to think) much the better, as to | In aristocratic England, the nobly-born, and health, for a thorough clearing off, twice in the wealthy, noble or not-owing to the the twenty-four hours. It is not the soap much improved domestic habits of these which the nursemaid applies to the outer times, and to the taste for the pleasures of man, in his infancy, that does him good; a country life, and to the usage of incessant but it is the fat and the fibre freely adminis- travelling, enjoy advantages so highly contered, which a healthy stomach so quickly ducive to animal wellbeing as to counterconverts into soap (or something like it,) balance the downward tendency we are for replenishing the forces of the inner man speaking of, and to secure for the upper -it is these which indeed work his wel- ranks a bodily development, a breadth, and a beauty of form, which has become the usual characteristic of the English gentleman and the English lady.

which the social mass into which he might It would be an extreme mistake to imarise especially needs, namely a fully devel- gine that, for the purpose of truly and auoped and robust body. Meantime what is thentically knowing what the working men it that is taking place in hundreds of instan- are, and what they think and feel, one must ces, and every day throughout the entire sit with them in the public houses they frearea of the manufacturing region? Men, quent, or be hail-fellow-well-met with them, well put together-and with plenty of bone, or joke in their own style, and speak bad and nerve, and brain, using with an intense English. Any such course would defeat its ardour those opportunities of advancement intention. What is needed is, that we be in which abound in these spheres of enterprise and of prosperous achievement-such men are found to be making themselves heard of among their betters-are seen well dressed before they reconcile themselves to the wear ing of gloves-by rapid advances they are winning for themselves a place in societya place which indeed they well deserve, and there they are doing what they had not thought of-they are regenerating the mass within which they have been received.

earnest that we eschew all guile, and especially all class affectation-that we put far away from us the simpering philanthropistic amiable condescension, the "wishing to promote your highest welfare"-that we be reasonable, rational, straightforward, and that we give the men we talk with credit for right intentions. Then it is needful to know something of human nature, and to possess some tact, and a perfect command of temper; in a word, to behave one's-self as becomes a gentleman, and to treat the man we speak to as a gentleman-and such we shall find him; or if not, it is probably as much our own fault as his. This operative is communionable; and, which is what we have now in

Unreverential in his deportment, rough in exterior, and in some of his personal habits uncouth and annoying; yet less so by far than the lower grade of the middle and trading class; but withal, he is such that, if one wished to fill a lecture-room with hearers who will listen to, and comprehend and relish, what is solid and rational on any subject, one would choose to invite him and his comrades, much rather than the scented audiences who come into such places to be amused, not instructed.

But a comparison between the masses of the people in the agricultural counties, and those of the manufacturing districts, presents another point of contrast which is fraught with a weighty significance; and it demands attention as related to those prac-view, he is, to a great extent, CULTURABLE. tical inferences which we have now in view. The adult males of the manufacturing counties are, in an intellectual sense, peculiarly susceptible of culture; and so, we devoutly believe it, are they in a higher sense, if we did but know how to set about the work. There is only one way in which one may come to a true knowledge of the fact -momentous as it is-and full of hope as it might be and that is, by mingling and conversing with these "operatives," as they are called, on terms of manly equality. It is of no use to perch one's-self upon the emIt would be ungenerous, and it is unnecespyrean eminences of the social structure, sary on this occasion, to return to our comand thence to look down upon the working parison between the manufacturing and the thousands of the people, as if through a agricultural masses, on the ground of MIND Lord Rosse's telescope-by aid of which we and susceptibility of culture. Vast indeed may discover that the begrimmed nebula of is the disparity! but then it arises from the "lower orders" are indeed resolvable causes which are permanent and unalterable, into individual human lustres. It will not and the difference which shows itself so much do to confer with these "operatives" in no to the disadvantage of the labourer on the other way than as from the antagonistic land, ought not to be made a matter of reposition of the payer of wages toward the proach. We should be glad if we could receiver of wages. It will not do-if we think (which we do not at present believe) wish, as philosophers, or as philanthropists, that, ascending through leagues of space in to look into the minds of these men, and into the social system, we should find in an ortheir hearts too-it will not suffice to stand dinary dinner-party, among the rural gentry toward them in the clerical position. These of an agricultural county, a rate of intellimen, or at least the more genuine among gence nearly approaching that communionathem, have unhappily come under an influence ble mind-condition which may be found in which alienates them from the ministers many of the mills and shops of the great of religion. Between these strong-minded men and the official Christian teacher there has, alas! come to form itself—a great gulf, which even the most zealous and benevolent of the order find it scarcely possible to pass. D-2

VOL. XXIV.

* The reader, we presume, knows that this word, as used in the manufacturing districts, does not mean a "shop" where shopkeeepers stand behind counters to sell goods.

manufacturing towns. But this we leave in his particular line of labour. We are

and pass on.

allowing a great deal when, in any practical sense, we allow as much as this; for it is an allegation which not merely is true only in a limited sense, but it is one which stands open to direct contradiction; for there are

The operative, even those whose position in the scale of wages is not the highest, has often acquired more than a smattering of scientific knowledge, as well as some mathematical initiation; and he knows how to use with those-practical men-who would, on the conpropriety the customary terms belonging to the physical sciences. This might be expected; but beyond this, men may be found, deep-stained in dress and person with the detritus of their particular line of labour, who can furnish evidence of the zest and intelligence with which they have read, and continue to read, books on the most abstruse moral subjects.

trary, say-" Give me only hands and arms, and I will find brains." We are, however, willing to abide by our concession, and have only this reserved meaning wherewith to qualify it, to wit-The intelligence and the scientific proficiency of our "working hands," constitute a means or a treasure which will be available to a far greater extent, when those measures shall have been taken, and those Yet the fact we now refer to, namely, the labours persisted in, as touching an upper active intellectual condition of a large pro- class, the issue of which would be to authenportion of the operative class, and of the sus- ticate this intelligence, and to bring it to ceptibility of these men of further culture, bear with effective precision upon the matis not here referred to as if it were our in- ters to which it is applicable. At present, tention, in this Article, to speak of " Mechan- and in default of such measures, this same ics' Institutes," or of popular courses of lec- popular acquaintedness with physical science tures, or of the circulation of elementary is a treasure neglected or squandered; and books, or of any, the like means of advanc- worse than this, it comes into geering in a ing the scientific proficiency of those whose manner which leads us to wish it were fairly lot it is, and must be, with few exceptions, out of the way: it is, as we have affirmto labour 60 out of the 144 hours of every ed, a Force obstructive of the movement week. We have no proposal to plead for of the great manufacturing machine. A which would send the youth of the oper- word or two will clear up our meaning. ative class—ordinarily to COLLEGE. This The workman's philosophy, in whatever will never be; or never while the social sys- manner he may have picked it up (and often tem continues to be what, as we think, it it has been by an industry which is highly ever must be, a vast machine, highly com- to be commended), and which we are willing plicated as well in its parts as in its func- to grant is genuine, so far as it goes, never fails-or seldom fails, to concrete itself with But this same fact, or these facts, stand in two resistant, or to use a technical phrase, a very important position as related to the infusible masses; it is a half-ladle-full of culture of the classes next above the operative, pure metal spilt in among the scoria. The and until this relationship is clearly appre- workman's nugget of science attaches itself, hended we shall fail to be conscious of the se- first, to the traditional axioms of the shop, rious moment and the gravity of the ques- which axioms are sometimes utter absurditions that now urgently claim to be consi- ties; and then to the man's own crotchets, dered. fancies, or preposterous theories, and to That sort of undefined and unauthentic ac- which, as they are the fruit of his own musquaintedness with the mathematical, me-ings, he is likely to be warmly attached. chanical, and physical sciences which prevails Both of these obstructive concretions meet among the operative class throughout the one in the shop, and constitute formidable, manufacturing districts, may, with a view to perhaps unsurmountable obstacles in the our immediate purpose, be looked at from path of those who are endeavouring to introtwo opposite points, as thus :-This sort of duce improved methods. proficiency is an element in the great manufacturing machine, claiming to be calculated upon as PROMOTIVE of the prosperous action and the efficiency of the universal movement. But it must also be taken account of as a force OBSTRUCTIVE of that movement, and actually operating to retard or divert it. Under the first named aspect, it should be freely allowed that the workman's science, such as it is, renders him so much the more an instrument individually available

tions.

The workman of the present time, who is distinguished among his comrades by any intelligence, has indeed learned to recognise science as a something real, valid, and useful; and he would scout the imputation of harbouring any of that feeling toward it which marks vulgar ignorance. So far so good. But when he is challenged to give admittance to science as an AUTHORITY, claiming the right of interference in his department, in the shop or the mill, he finds it easy to

to turn it to excellent account; and so, inwardly exulting in the thought of his trea sure, he is led to hold cheap, though he does not quite contemn, what the professor of science may know of things beyond his sphere. It is plain, then, that there is room, on this ground, for more of communionship than actually exists between the professor of science and the operative. Undoubtedly an exchange of experiences between the two labourers in the same region would be mutually advantageous.

repel the intrusion upon grounds which, to when the moon was three days old, or the him, cannot but seem good and approvable. wind north-west by north, he will not neg In any personal converse which he may lect such a coincidence when he is noting chance to have had with the professors of the the probable causes of so lucky a result. physical sciences-in listening to their sug. Meanwhile the cautious churl takes good gestions, in answering their questions, con- care "not to say nothing to nobody" about cerning particular processes in the arts, has what he has been privileged to see and to discovered that these gentlemen-clever and do. accomplished as they may be, are, for the In those dull hours of those dull weeks, most part, utterly ignorant of those special months, years, which the workman spends facts, upon a knowledge of which the suc- at his bench, or stooping over the steaming cessful management of the process, in its se- caldron, or sweating in the fierce front of the veral stages, absolutely depends. High raging furnace, or stirring the crusted mixphilosophy does not condescend to teach (for ture of a vat-in those monotonous hours, she has never learned) those mysteries in ig- at moments few and far between, AWFUL NAnorance of which the simplest processes will TURE, who, through thousands of years has yield no valuable result. The feeling of the veiled herself prudishly from the eyes of accomplished workman towards the SCIENCES sages, stands revealed before the astounded is akin to that which gives courteousness to workman, and sheds a momentary splendour his behaviour when, as often happens, fine through the dungeon-like vault in which he ladies-nicely gathering their skirts about labours. It is not often that the workman them, make their way adventurously himself comprehends the revelation of which through factories, and go in and out among he has been the witness; but, nevertheless, awful wheelwork. Fine folks-gentry- he notes the result, and he finds opportunity our betters-who, in plain truth, understand nothing of the things they are looking at. There is, in fact, a broad border, we might call it a wide region-hitherto unappropriated by philosophy-unmapped by science, unexplored by the accomplished occupants of Chairs," which is the workman's own. Not merely is this region not invaded by men eminent in science-for even the Principals in some of the largest and best ordered manufactories are not privileged to keep a key of this preserve. In many cases the very fact upon a knowledge of which success wholly depends, is known to nobody "on the works," perhaps, but to Sam Jenkins or Daniel Mudge. Yet of what nature is this secret this potent mystery, if it were strictly examined? We should, in almost every instance, find, that it is one of those casesfraught with extensive consequences, in which an infrequent, because a highly complex, assemblage of properties or affinities--an assemblage (fortuitous so far as the workman is concerned) produces a result altogether unlooked for, and, perhaps, of the most auspicious kind. This combination, rare as it will be, because it is inclusive of many conditions, has nevertheless occurred often enough in the workman's long experience to attract Those many thousands of the population his notice, to wake him up, and to stimulate of these islands (the same thing, of course, his curiosity, so as that he narrowly observes is true in every manufacturing country), how every circumstance, even the most trivial, many soever they may be, and whether they which has attended the occurrence; and if be principals or subordinates, whose days three times in succession it should have are spent in carrying forward those arts of chanced that this rare colour he has been so life to which the term manufactures most long in quest of, this fine texture, this res- properly applies, and of whose labours naplendence, this sparkle, has presented itself tional wealth is the result, may be regarded to his delighted eye on a Thursday, or as occupied daily in breaking ground for the

To become fully alive to the importance of the matter now before us, and to be aware of the great extent of meaning which belongs to it, we must give a few minutes' attention to a subject, less often considered than it might be. We mean, the relation of manufacturing operations, taken in their universality, to the advancement of the sciences. We hear much of the correlative relationship, or the deductive bearing of the sciences, and especially of the applicate sciences, upon manufacturing art; and of this we shall have something to say presently; but the firstnamed species of influence is entitled to come first under notice. Of what sort then is it?