so employed, they have been engaged in the
work of self-protection.

It is such indirect lessons as may be learned from these and other
statements that give this book its chief value. The interesting
historical and mechanical information contained in its pages makes it
indeed well worthy of perusal; yet for that alone we should not take
especial pains to set it before the people. But its incidental teachings
ought to be taken to heart by every man, and especially every mechanic,
who has any ambition or conscience beyond the exigencies of bread and
butter. Lack of ambition is not an American fault, but it is too often
an ambition that regards irrelevant and factitious honors rather than
those to which it may legitimately and laudably aspire. A mechanic
should find in the excellence of his mechanism a greater reward and
satisfaction than in the wearing of a badge of office which any
fifth-rate lawyer or broken-down man-of-business with influential
"friends" may obtain, and whose petty duties they may discharge quite as
well as the first-rate mechanic. The mechanic who is master of his
calling need yield to none. We would not have him like the ironmongers
denounced by the old religious writer as "heathenish in their manners,
puffed up with pride, and inflated with worldly prosperity"; but we
would have him mindful of his true dignity. In the importance of the
results which he achieves, in the magnitude of the honors he may win, in
the genius he may employ and the skill he may attain, no profession or
occupation presents a more inviting field than his; but it will yield
fruits only to the good husbandman. Science and art give up their
treasures only to him who is capable of enthusiasm and devotion. He
alone who magnifies his office makes it honorable. Whether he work in
marble, canvas, or iron, the man who is content simply to follow his
occupation, and is not possessed by it, may be an artificer, but will
not be an artist, nor ever wear the laurel on his brow. He should be so
enamored of his calling as to court it for its own charms. Invention is
a capricious mistress, and does not always bestow her favors on the most
worthy. Men not a few have died in poverty, and left a golden harvest to
their successors; yet the race is often enough to the swift, and the
battle to the strong, to justify men in striving after strength and
swiftness, as well for the guerdon which they bring as for the jubilant
consciousness which they imp