A certain class of people are apt to underrate domestic affairs, simply because they are domestic, forgetting that the real progress of the world is always made beneath the shelter of the homestead roof, not under the resounding domes of Senate Chambers; and that a Nation’s surest hope for greatness and for safety is found in the character of its _homes_, rather than in the shrewdness of its merchants or the skill of its artisans. It is the atmosphere of the boy’s early home which clings like an indestructible and exhaustless aroma to his entire life; it is the influence and memory of what his home and his mother were which mould his after life, control his habits of thought, and make him a power for good or for evil in the world. And for the most part he remains unconscious of any such influence. He has imbibed it with his daily sustenance and inhaled it with every breath of his native air, until he involuntarily weighs everything, measures all affairs, and judges all men according to the standards and traditions that prevailed in the now hallowed precincts of his early home. Whatever, therefore, brings added comfort to the matron and the maiden; whatever saves the busy housewife’s time and increases her opportunities for culture; whatever lifts any of the heavy household burdens, and disenthralls to any degree the WOMEN of our day, contributes an ever-augmenting influence towards the highest and best progress of the world. [Illustration: “HAPPY HOMES”—EFFECTS OF THE ANSWER. ] And so the importance of the Sewing Machine in its influence upon the home; in the countless hours it has added to woman’s leisure for rest and refinement; in the increase of time and opportunity for that early training of children, for lack of which so many pitiful wrecks are strewed along the shores of life; in the numberless avenues it has opened for female labor; and in the comforts it has brought within the reach of all, which once could be attained only by the wealthy few, becomes so apparent that few, if any, will dispute its right to stand at least beside its powerful rivals, the Steam-engine and Telegraph. CHAPTER II. GROWTH OF THE IDEA. The idea of sewing by machinery had been cherished for a hundred years before the first successful machine was built. The earliest attempt at sewing by machinery of which any authentic account exists was made as early as July 24th, 1755, when a machine was patented in England by Charles F. Weisenthal, having a needle with two points and an eye at mid-length.