d, the idea was often conceived in the
minds of skilful, though dreamy and timorous inventors, but not
developed, for fear of opposition. And opposition enough it has
encountered,--alike from inertia, suspicion, and conservative
hostility,--since first it assumed a practical position among American
ideas, some ten years ago. But I do not care to dwell upon the shadows.
Turn we to the sunshine. There are two strong points in favor of the
invention, which, since they cover the whole ground of argument, deserve
at least to be stated. I assert, then, without the fear of contradiction
before my eyes, that the Type-Setting Machine, besides being a universal
benefactor, is, in a double sense, a blessing to the mechanic. It spares
his physical health, and it stimulates his mental and moral activity.
The first truth appears by sanitary statistics, which prove that the
health of such artisans as the type-founder and such craftsmen as the
printer has been materially improved by the introduction of mechanical
aids to their toil. The second is self-evident,--seeing that there is a
moral instructor ever at work in the mazes of ingenious and
highly-wrought machinery. Those philosophers are not far wrong, if at
all, who assert that the rectitude of the human race has gained
strength, as by a tonic, from the contemplation of the severe, arrowy
railroad,--iron emblem of punctuality, directness, and despatch.

In the interest, therefore, of education no less than health, it becomes
imperative that machinery should be substituted for hand-labor in
composition. At present, our printing-offices are by no means the
sources whence to draw inspirations of order, fitness, and wholesome
toil. On the contrary, they are frequently badly lighted and worse
ventilated rooms, wherein workmen elbow each other at the closely set
cases, and grow dyspeptic under the combined pressure of foul air and
irritating and long-protracted labor. All this should be changed. With
the composing-machine would come an atmosphere of order and cleanliness
and activity, making work rapid and agreeable, and lessening the period
of its duration. I know that working-men are suspicious of scientific
devices. But surely the compositor need not fear that the iron-handed
automaton will snatch the bread out of his mouth. To diminish the cost
of any article produced--which is the almost immediate result of
substituting machinery for hand-labor--is to expand the market for that
arti