The great toil of other days in many trades is but exercise now, as exhaustion is limited by mechanical contrivances. A pressman in my employ has worked at a hand-press twenty-four hours continuously, before publishing day. Now a gas engine does all the labour. Machinery is the deliverer which never tires and never grows pale. The humiliation of the farm labourer is over. He used to sing: "Mr Smith is a very good man, He lets us ride in his harvest van, He gives us food and he gives us ale, We pray his heart may never fail." There is nothing to be said against Mr. Smith, who was evidently a kindly farmer of his time. Yet to what incredible humiliation his "pastors and masters" had brought poor Hodge, who could sing these lines, as though he had reached the Diamond Jubilee of his life when he rode in somebody else's cart, and had cheese and beer. Now the farm workers of a co-operative way of thinking have learned how to ride in their own vans, to possess the crop with which they are loaded, and to provide themselves with a harvest supper. In my time the mechanic had no personal credit for his work, whatever might be his skill. Now in industrial exhibitions the name of the artificer is attached to his work, and he is part of the character of the firm which employs him. He has, also, now--if co-operation prevails--a prospect of participating in the profits of his own industry. Half a century ago employers were proud of showing their machinery to a visitor--never their men. Now they show their work-people as well--whose condition and contentment is the first pride of great firms. Above all knowledge is a supreme improvement, which has come to workmen. They never asked for it, the ignorant never do ask for knowledge, and do not like those who propose it to them. Brougham first turned aside their repugnance by telling them what Bacon knew, that "knowledge is power." Now they realise the other half of the great saying, Dr. Creighton, the late Bishop of London, supplied, that "ignorance is impotence." They can see that the instructed son of the gentleman has power, brightness, confidence, and alertness; while the poor man's child, untrained, incapable, dull in comparison, often abject, is unconscious of his own powers which lie latent within him. If an educated and an ignorant child were sold by weight, the intelligent child would fetch more per pound avoirdupois than the ignorant one. Now education can be largely had for working men's children for nothing. Even scholarships and degrees are open to the clever sort. Moreover, how smooth science has made the early days of instruction, formerly made jagged with the rod.