SECTION II. SECTION II. 
One remarkable efffect of democratic institutions is theexcellence of the work turned out by those who live under them.In a country where the whole course is open to every one; where,in theory, everything may be obtained by merit, men have thestrongest stimulus to exert their powers, and try what they canachieve. I found master-workmen, who employ operatives of variousnations, very sensible of this. Elsewhere, no artisan canpossibly rise higher than to a certain point of dexterity, andamount of wages. In America, an artisan may attain to be governorof the State; member of Congress; even President. Instead of thispossibility having the effect of turning his head, and making himunfit for business, (as some suppose, who seem to consider theseopportunities as resembling the chances of a lottery,) itattaches him to his business and his master, to sober habits, andto intellectual cultivation.
The only apparent excess to which it leads is ill-consideredenterprise. This is an evil sometimes to the individual, but notto society. A man who makes haste to be famous or rich by meansof new inventions, may injure his own fortune or credit, but isusually a benefactor to society, by furnishing a new idea onwhich another may work with more success. Some of the mostimportant improvements in the manufactures of the United Stateshave been made by men who afterwards became insolvent. Wherethere is hasty enterprise, there is usually much conceit. Thevery haste seems to show that the man is thinking more ofhimself than of the subject on which he is employed. It naturallyhappens that the conceited originator breaks down in the middleof his scheme; and that some more patient, modest thinker takesit up where he leaves off, and completes the invention. I wasshown, at the Paterson mills, an invention completed by two menon the spot, whose discovery has been extensively adopted iuEngland. A workman fancied he had discovered a method by which hecould twist rovings, fastened at both ends, quicker than had everbeen done before. As a more thoughtful person would haveforeseen, half the twisting came undone, as soon as the ends wereunfastened. The projector threw his work aside: but a quietobserver among his brother workmen offered him a partnership anda new idea, in return for the primary suggestion. The quiet mansaw how quickly the thread might be prepared, if the rovingscould be condensed fast enough for the twisting. He added hisdiscovery to what the first had really achieved; and the successwas complete.
The factories are found to afford a safe and useful employmentfor much energy which would otherwise be wasted and misdirected.I found that in some places very bad morals had prevailed beforethe introduction of manufactures; while now the samesociety is eminently orderly. The great evil still isdrunkenness: but of this there is less than there used to be; andother disorders have almost entirely disappeared. A steadyemployer has it in his power to do more for the morals of thesociety about him than the clergy themselves. The experiment hasbeen tried, with entire success, of dismissing from tbe mills anywho have been guilty of open vice. This is submitted to, becauseit is obviously reasonable that the sober workmen who remainshould be protected from association with vicious persons whomust be offensive or dangerous to them. If any employer has thefirmness to dismiss unquestionable offenders, however valuabletheir services may be to him, he may confidently look for acessation of such offences, and for a great purification of thesociety in which they have occurred.
The morals of the female factory population may be expected tobe good when it is considered of what class it is composed. Manyof the girls are in the factories because they have too muchpride for domestic service. Girls who are too proud for domesticservice as it is in America, can hardly be low enough for anygross immorality: or to need watching; or not to be trusted toavoid the contagion of evil example. To a stranger, their prideseems to take a mistaken direction, and they appear to deprivethemselves of a respectable home and station, and many benefits,by their dislike of service: but this is altogether their ownaffair. They must choose for themselves their way of life. Butthe reasons of their choice indicate a state of mind superior tothe grossest dangers of their position.
I saw a bill fixed up in the Waltham mill which bore a warningthat no young lady who attended dancing-school that winter shouldbe employed: and that the corporation had given directions to theoverseer to dismiss any one who should be found to dance at theschool. I asked the meaning of this; and the overseer's answerwas, "Why, we had some trouble last winter about thedancing-school. It must, of course, be held in the evening, asthe young folks are in the mill all day. They are very young,many of them; and they forget the time, and everything but theamusement, and dance away till two or three in the morning. Thenthey are unfit for their work the next day; or, if they getproperly through their work, it is at the expense of theirhealth. So we have forbidden the dancing-school; but, to make upfor it, I have promised them that, as soon as the great new roomat the hotel is finished, we will have a dance once a fortnight.We shall meet and break up early; and my wife and I wil1 dance;and we will all dance together."
I was sorry to see one bad and very unnecessary arrangement,in all the manufacturing establishments. In England, the bestfriends of the poor are accustomed to think it the crowninghardship of their condition that solitude is wholly forbidden tothem. It is impossible that any human being should pass his lifeas well as he might do who is never alone,--who is not frequentlyalone. This is a weighty truth which can never be explained away.The silence, freedom and collectedness of solitude are absolutelyessential to the health of the mind; and no substitute for thisrepose (or change of activity) is possible. In the dwellings ofthe English poor, parents and children are crowded into one room,for want of space and of furniture. All wise parents above therank of poor, make it a primary consideration so to arrange theirfamilies as that each member may, at some hour, have some placewhere he may enter in, and shut his door, and feel himself alone.If possible, the sleeping places are so ordered. In America,where space is of far less consequence, where the houses arelarge, where the factory girls can build churches, and buylibraries, and educate brothers for learned professions, thesesame girls have no private apartments, and sometimes sleep six oreight in a room, and even three in a bed. This is very bad. Itshows a want of inclination for solitude; an absence of that needof it which every healthy mind must feel, in a greater or lessdegree.
Now are the days when these gregarious habits should be brokenthrough. New houses are being daily built: more parents arebringing their children to the factories. If the practice be nowadopted, by the corporations, or by the parents who preside overseparate establishments, of partitioning off the large sleepingapartments into small ones which shall hold each one occupant,the expense of partitions and windows and trouble will not beworth a moment's consideration in comparison with the improvementin intelligence, morals, and manners, which will be found toresult from such an arrangement. If the change be not soon made,the American factory population, with all its advantages ofeducation and of pecuniary sufficiency, will be found, as itsnumbers increase, to have been irreparably injured by itssubjection to a grievance which is considered the very heaviestto which poverty exposes artisans in old countries. Man's ownsilent thoughts are his best safeguard and highest privilege. Ofthe full advantage of this safeguard, of the full enjoyment ofthis privilege, the innocent and industrious youth of a newcountry ought, by no mismanagement, to be deprived.
From Harriet Martineau, Society in America, VolumeII, Part II, Chapter V, Section II - "Morals ofManufactures." London: Saunders and Otley, 1837, pp.352-359.
Forward to Society in America, Vol II,Part II, Chapter V, Section III - "Morals of Commerce."
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