Those Now Employed
Have A Strong Conception Of The Dignity Of Their Own Social
Position, And Their Successors Will Inherit Much Of This, Even
Though They May Find Themselves Excluded From The Advantages Of The
Present Utopia.
The thing has begun well, but it can only be
regarded as a beginning.
Steam, it may be presumed, will become
the motive power of cotton mills in New England as it is with us;
and when it is so, the amount of work to be done at any one place
will not be checked by any such limit as that which now prevails at
Lowell. Water-power is very cheap, but it cannot be extended; and
it would seem that no place can become large as a manufacturing
town which has to depend chiefly upon water. It is not improbable
that steam may be brought into general use at Lowell, and that
Lowell may spread itself. If it should spread itself widely, it
will lose its Utopian characteristics.
One cannot but be greatly struck by the spirit of philanthropy in
which the system of Lowell was at first instituted. It may be
presumed that men who put their money into such an undertaking did
so with the object of commercial profit to themselves; but in this
case that was not their first object. I think it may be taken for
granted that when Messrs. Jackson and Lowell went about their task,
their grand idea was to place factory work upon a respectable
footing - to give employment in mills which should not be unhealthy,
degrading, demoralizing, or hard in its circumstances.
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