and muscles
of the limbs, the mechanism of the hand, the nerves and lobes of the
brain--the sum of whose healthy action is satisfaction and
enjoyment. In the school of labor is taught the best practical
wisdom; nor is a life of manual employment, as we shall hereafter
find, incompatible with high mental culture.

Hugh Miller, than whom none knew better the strength and the weakness
belonging to the lot of labor, stated the result of his experience
to be, that work, even the hardest, is full of pleasure and
materials for self-improvement. He held honest labor to be the best
of teachers, and that the school of toil is the nobles of schools--
save only the Christian one; that it is a school in which the ability
of being useful is imparted, the spirit of independence learned, and
the habit of persevering effort acquired. He was even of opinion that
the training of the mechanic--by exercise which it gives to his
observant faculties, from his daily dealing with things actual and
practical, and the close experience of life which he acquires--better
fits a man for picking his way along the journey of life, and is more
favorable to his growth as a man, emphatically speaking, than the
training afforded by any other condition.

Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, was one of the most
industrious of men; and the story of his life proves, what all
experience confirms, that it is not the man of the greatest natural
vigor and capacity who achieves the highest results, but he who
employs his powers with the greatest industry and the most carefully
disciplined skill--the skill that comes by labor, application, and
experience. Many men in his time knew far more than Watt, but none
labored so assiduously as he did to turn all that he did know to
useful practical purposes. He was, above all things, most persevering
in the pursuit of facts. He cultivated carefully that habit of active
attention on which all the higher working qualities of the mind
mainly depend. Indeed, Mr. Edgeworth entertained the opinion that the
difference of intellect in men depends more upon the early
cultivation of this _habit of attention_, than upon any great
disparity between the powers of one individual and another.

Arkwright, one of the world's greatest mechanics, and the inventor of
the spinning jenny, was famed for his unceasing industry.

Like most of our great mechanicians, he sprang from the ranks. He was
born in Preston in 1732. His parents were