Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/135

122 not at all well understood. History but too plainly tells of the dangerous power of priests or nobles consolidated into a class, and their united forces directed by a single able head. The power of allied kings, concentrating whole realms of men and money on a single point; the effect of armies and navies collected together and marshalled by a single will; is all too boldly written in the ruin of many a State. We have often been warned against the peril from forts, and castles, and standing armies. But the power of consolidated riches, the peril which accumulated property may bring upon the liberties of an industrial commonwealth, though formidably near, as yet is all unknown, all unconsidered too. Already the consolidated property of one-eightieth part of the population controls all the rest.

Two special causes, both exceptional and fleeting, just now stimulate the acquisitiveness of America almost to madness.

One is the rapid development of the art of manufacturing the raw materials gathered from the bosom or the surface of the earth. The invention of printing made education and freedom possible on a large scale; one of the immediate results thereof is this—the head briefly performs the else long-protracted labour of the hand. Wind, water, fire, steam, lightning, have become pliant forces to manufacture wood, flax, cotton, wool, and aU the metals. This result is nowhere so noticeable as in New England, where education is almost universal. The New England school-house is the machine-shop of America. What the State invests in slates and teachers pays dividends in hard coin. This new power over the material world, the first and unexpected commercial result of the public education of the people, gives a great and perhaps lasting stimulus to the pursuit of wealth. It affects the most undisciplined portions of the world,—for the educated man leaves much rough labour for the ignorant, and enhances the demand for the results of their toil. The thinking head raises the wages of all mere hands. Hence arises the increased value of slaves at the South, and the rapid immigration of the most ignorant Irishmen to the North. They are to the thoughtful projector what the Merrimack is to the cotton-spinner—a rude force pliant before his will. Dr. Paustus is the unconscious pioneer of many a pilgrimage.