Samuel Smiles

“ INVENTOR OF THE STEAM-PRINTING MACHINE.
"The honest projector is he who, having by fair and plain principles of sense, honesty, and ingenuity, brought any contrivance to a suitable perfection, makes out what he pretends to, picks nobody's pocket, puts his project in execution, and contents himself with the real produce as the profit of his invention."—De Foe. ”

“ Philip also proceeded to prepare the Sacred Armada for the subjugation of the English nation, and he was master of the most powerful army and navy in the world.
Modern England was then in the throes of her birth. She had not yet reached the vigour of her youth, though she was full of life and energy. She was about to become the England of free thought, commerce, and manufactures; to plough the ocean with her navies, and to plant her colonies over the earth. Up to the accession of Elizabeth, she had done little, but now she was about to do much. ”

“ CHAPTER X. INDUSTRY IN IRELAND: THROUGH CONNAUGHT AND ULSTER, TO BELFAST.
"The Irish people have a past to boast of, and a future to create."—J. F. O'Carrol.
"One of the great questions is how to find an outlet for Irish manufactures. We ought to be an exporting nation, or we never will be able to compete successfully with our trade rivals."—E. D. Gray.
"Ireland may become a Nation again, if we all sacrifice our parricidal passions, prejudices, and resentments on the altar of our country. Then shall your manufactures flourish, and Ireland be free."—Daniel O'Connell. ”

“ It is easy to pull down; it is very difficult to build up. The hands that cannot erect a hovel may demolish a palace. We have but to look to Switzerland to see what a country may become which mixes its industry with its brains. That little land has no coal, no seaboard by which she can introduce it, and is shut off from other countries by lofty mountains, as well as by hostile tariffs; and yet Switzerland is one of the most prosperous nations in Europe, because governed and regulated by intelligent industry. Let Ireland look to Switzerland, and she need not despair. ”

“ CHAPTER II. FRANCIS PETTIT SMITH: PRACTICAL INTRODUCER OF THE SCREW PROPELLER.
"The spirit of Paley's maxim that 'he alone discovers who proves,' is applicable to the history of inventions and discoveries; for certainly he alone invents to any good purpose, who satisfies the world that the means he may have devised have been found competent to the end proposed."—Dr. Samuel Brown.
"Too often the real worker and discoverer remains unknown, and an invention, beautiful but useless in one age or country, can be applied only in a remote generation, or in a distant land. ”

“ Your husband has left his mark upon his age. No optician of modern times has gained a higher reputation; and I for one do not hesitate to call his loss national; for he cannot be replaced at present by any one else in his own peculiar line. I shall carry the recollection of the affectionate esteem in which I held Thomas Cooke with me to my grave. ”

“ The true inventor is not merely the man who registers an idea and takes a patent for it, or who compiles an invention by borrowing the idea of another, improving upon or adding to his arrangements, but the man who constructs a machine such as has never before been made, which executes satisfactorily all the functions it was intended to perform. ”

“ A man's character often exhibits itself in his amusements. One must have a high respect for the character of John Robertson, who looks at the manner in which he spends his spare time. His astronomical work is altogether a labour of love. It is his hobby; and the working man may have his hobby as well as the rich. In his case he is never less idle than when idle. Some may think that he is casting his bread upon the waters, and that he may find it after many days. But it is not with this object that he carries on his leisure-hour pursuits. ”

“ Bianconi continued to superintend his great car establishment until within the last few years. He had a constitution of iron, which he expended in active daily work. He liked to have a dozen irons in the fire, all red-hot at once. At the age of seventy he was still a man in his prime; and he might be seen at Clonmel helping, at busy times, to load the cars, unpacking and unstrapping the luggage where it seemed to be inconveniently placed; for he was a man who could never stand by and see others working without having a hand in it himself. ”

“ No true mechanic can contrast the immense American ten-cylinder presses of The Times with the simple calico-printing machine, without feeling that the latter furnishes the true type to which the mechanism for newspaper printing should as much as possible approximate. ”

“ INVENTION OF THE WALTER PRESS.
"Intellect and industry are never incompatible. There is more wisdom, and will be more benefit, in combining them than scholars like to believe, or than the common world imagine. ”

“ It all comes from the power of individuality, and furnishes a splendid example for Dublin, Cork, Waterford, and Limerick, each of which is provided by nature with magnificent harbours, with fewer of those difficulties of access which Belfast has triumphed over; and each of which might be the centre of some great industrial enterprise, provided only there were patriotic men willing to embark their capital, perfect protection for the property invested, and men willing to work rather than to strike. ”

“ In a country where wealth was concentrated in the hands of the powerful, it was no doubt highly judicious thus to encourage its employment for objects of public advantage. A feeling, more or less powerful, has always existed in the minds of the high-born, against the employment of their time and wealth to purposes of commerce or manufactures. All trades, save only that of war, seem to have been held by them as in some sort degrading, and but little comporting with the dignity of aristocratic blood." Cabinet Cyclopedia—Silk Manufacture, p. ”

“ Sometimes the idea is born in one generation, followed out in the next, and perhaps perfected in the third. In an age of progress, one invention merely paves the way for another. What was the wonder of yesterday, becomes the common and unnoticed thing of to-day.
The first idea of the screw was thrown out by James Watt more than a century ago. Matthew Boulton, of Birmingham, had proposed to move canal boats by means of the steam-engine; and Dr. Small, his friend, was in communication with James Watt, then residing at Glasgow, on the subject. ”

“ When I visited Belfast in 1840, the town contained 75,000 inhabitants. They are now over 225,006, or more than trebled,—Belfast being the tenth town, in point of population, in the United Kingdom.
The spirit and enterprise of the people are illustrated by the variety of their occupations. They do not confine themselves to one branch of business; but their energies overflow into nearly every department of industry. Their linen manufacture is of world-wide fame; but much less known are their more recent enterprises. The production of aerated waters, for instance, is something extraordinary. ”

“ A system of machinery almost organic has been devised and arranged, which, while it relieves the human frame of its most laborious' efforts in printing, far exceeds all human powers in rapidity and dispatch. That the magnitude of the invention may be justly appreciated by its effects, we shall inform the public, that after the letters are placed by the compositors, and enclosed in what is called the forme, little more remains for man to do than to attend upon and to watch this unconscious agent in its operations. ”

“ He was a man of tenacity and perseverance. What should he do but start an opposition car? Nobody knew of it but himself; not even the driver of the opposition car. However, the rival car was started. The races between the car-drivers, the free lifts occasionally given to passengers, the cheapness of the fare, and the excitement of the contest, attracted the attention of the public. The people took sides, and before long both cars came in full. Fortunately the "great big yallah horse" of the opposition car broke down, and Bianconi had all the trade to himself. ”

“ In these early times the Dutch were not unworthy rivals of the English. After they had succeeded in throwing off the Spanish yoke and achieved their independence, they became one of the most formidable of maritime powers. In the course of another century Holland possessed more colonies, and had a larger share of the carrying trade of the world than Britain. It was natural therefore that the Dutch republic should take an interest in the North-west passage; and the Dutch sailors, by their enterprise and bravery, were among the first to point the way to Arctic discovery. ”

“ The land is the same, the climate is the same, and the laws are the same, as those which prevail in other parts of Ireland. Belfast is the great centre of Irish manufactures and commerce, and what she has been able to do might be done elsewhere, with the same amount of energy and enterprise. But it is not land, or climate, or altered laws that are wanted. It is men to lead and direct, and men to follow with anxious and persevering industry. It is always the Man society wants. ”

“ I do, in their name congratulate you upon the successes you have already had, and I most sincerely wish that all your future trials may in every way prove answerable to these beginnings, and that the full accomplishment of your great undertaking may at last be crowned with all the reputation and advantage to yourself that your warmest wishes may suggest, and to which so many years so laudably and so diligently spent in the improvement of those talents which God Almighty has bestowed upon you, will so justly entitle your constant and unwearied perseverance. ”

“ Every person taken into the concern had to be trained and educated to mechanical work by the partners themselves. With indescribable patience they taught these labourers the use of the hammer, the file, the turning-lathe, and other tools, which the greater number of them had never before seen, and of whose uses they were entirely ignorant. The machinery of the workshop was got together with equal difficulty piece by piece, some of the parts from a great distance,—the mechanical arts being then at a very low ebb in Germany, which was still suffering from the effects of the long continental war. ”

“ Bianconi, to make sure of the soundness and safety of his cars, set up a workshop to build them for himself. He could thus depend upon their soundness, down even to the linch-pin itself. He kept on his carving and gilding shop until his car business had increased so much that it required the whole of his time and attention; and then he gave it up. In fact, when he was able to run a car from Clonmel to Waterford—a distance of thirty-two miles—at a fare of three-and-sixpence, his eventual triumph was secure. ”

“ This splendid reward for a method of discovering the longitude was offered to the world—to inventors and scientific men of all countries—without restriction of race, or nation, or language. As might naturally be expected, the prospect of obtaining it stimulated many ingenious men to make suggestions and contrive experiments; but for many years the successful construction of a marine time-keeper seemed almost hopeless. At length, to the surprise of every one, the prize was won by a village carpenter—a person of no school, or university, or college whatever. ”

“ We went together accordingly to Galway, up Lough Corrib to Cong and Lough Mask; by the romantic lakes and mountains of Connemara to Clifden and Letterfrack, and through the lovely pass of Kylemoor to Leenane; along the fiord of Killury; then on, by Westport and Ballina to Sligo. Letters were posted daily by my young friend; and every day we went forwards in safety.
But how lonely was the country! We did not meet a single American tourist during the whole course of our visit, and the Americans are the most travelling people in the world. ”

“ Agriculture was almost a lost art. "Except in a few instances," says a writer in the 'Farmers' Magazine' of 1803, "Scotland was little better than a barren waste." Cattle could with difficulty be kept alive; and the people in some parts of the country were often on the brink of starvation. The people were hopeless, miserable, and without spirit, like the Irish in their very worst times. After the wreck of the Darien expedition, there seemed to be neither skill, enterprise, nor money left in the country. ”

“ The same dignified feeling which urges men to gain a dominion over nature will preserve them from the dominion of slavery. Natural, and moral, and religions knowledge, are of one family; and happy is the country and great its strength where they dwell together in union."
Dublin was once celebrated for its shipbuilding, its timber-trade, its iron manufactures, and its steam-printing; Limerick was celebrated for its gloves; Kilkenny for its blankets; Bandon for its woollen and linen manufactures. ”

“ If anything important had to be done, we used to send for foreigners to come and teach us how to do it. We sent for them to drain our fens, to build our piers and harbours, and even to pump our water at London Bridge. Though a seafaring population lived round our coasts, we did not fish our own seas, but left it to the industrious Dutchmen to catch the fish, and supply our markets. It was not until the year 1787 that the Yarmouth people began the deep-sea herring fishery; and yet these were the most enterprising amongst the English fishermen. ”

“ This is the result of a knowledge of Practical Astronomy. "Place an astronomer," says Mr. Newcomb, "on board a ship; blindfold him; carry him by any route to any ocean on the globe, whether under the tropics or in one of the frigid zones; land him on the wildest rock that can be found; remove his bandage, and give him a chronometer regulated to Greenwich or Washington time, a transit instrument with the proper appliances, and the necessary books and tables, and in a single clear night he can tell his position within a hundred yards by observations of the stars. ”

“ As Koenig himself said, when giving an account of his invention:—"There is on the Continent no sort of encouragement for an enterprise of this description. The system of patents, as it exists in England, being either unknown, or not adopted in the Continental States, there is no inducement for industrial enterprise; and projectors are commonly obliged to offer their discoveries to some Government, and to so licit their encouragement. I need hardly add that scarcely ever is an invention brought to maturity under such circumstances. ”