ind to do difficult things, but I had to remove the whole of these
high-priced men. Then I tried the cheapest I could find, and the more
ignorant a man was, the more brains he had for my purpose; and the
result was this: I had men now in my employ that I started with at two
shillings a day, and in one short year I can not spare them at eight
shillings a day."* Colt's audacity, however, did not offend the members
of the committee and they decided to visit his American factory at
Hartford. They did; and were so impressed that the British Government
purchased in America a full set of machines for the manufacture of arms
in the Royal Small Arms factory at Enfield, England, and took across the
sea American workmen and foremen to set up and run these machines. A
demand sprang up in Europe for Blanchard copying lathes and a hundred
other American tools, and from this time on the manufacture of tools and
appliances for other manufacturers, both at home and abroad, became an
increasingly important industry of New England.

* Henry Barnard, "Armsmear", p. 371.

The system which the gunmakers worked out and developed to meet their
own requirements was capable of indefinite expansion. It was easily
adapted to other kinds of manufacture. So it was that as new inventions
came in the manufacturers of these found many of the needed tools
ready for them, and any special modifications could be quickly made.
A manufacturer, of machine tools will produce on demand a device to
perform any operation, however difficult or intricate. Some of the
machines are so versatile that specially designed sets of cutting edges
will adapt them to almost any work.

Standardization, due to the machine tool, is one of the chief glories of
American manufacturing. Accurate watches and clocks, bicycles and motor
cars, innumerable devices to save labor in the home, the office, the
shop, or on the farm, are within the reach of all, because the machine
tool, tended by labor comparatively unskilled, does the greater part
of the work of production. In the crisis of the World War, American
manufacturers, turning from the arts of peace, promptly adapted
their plants to the manufacture of the most complicated engines of
destruction, which were produced in Europe only by skilled machinists of
the highest class.

CHAPTER IX. THE FATHERS OF ELECTRICITY

It may startle some reader to be told that the foundations of modern
electrical science were definitely