During the decade between 1880 and 1890 the number of paper plants proper had decreased from 692 to 567, 125 in all, or eighteen per cent. In 1880 the average number of employes to each factory was thirty-five, with an average yearly output from each plant of $79,639. During the ten years that followed, the average number of employes in a factory rose to 53, and the average yearly output from each plant to $131,056. With a decrease of 125 mills during that period, there must have been an increase of 5,831 employes and of $19,198,564 in the value of the output. While the stately array of figures already marshaled is an impressive reminder of the wonderful development of the paper industry, which we accept unthinkingly as one of the benefits of a marvelous century, mere numerals can never tell the whole story. They must be forever silent as to the aims and purposes, the patient efforts, the determination and perseverance, the alternation of defeat and triumph which are embodied in the perfected product of to-day. It is not for them to chronicle the crude beginnings of the industry in the days of the dim and far-away past, nor to trace the slow steps by which it has advanced to its present commanding position. As our earlier chapters recount, its most marvelous strides forward have occurred during the hundred years just past. ♦Paper aids other industries♦ The century that has marked such material progress in the production of paper has been pre-eminently one of vast intellectual and industrial activity and advancement, and it is a fair statement that paper has not only contributed largely to the general progression that has taken place, but through it as a medium standards have been reached that must have remained unknown were it not for its efficient service. Through man’s inventive genius the utility of this valuable product has been increased a hundred-fold, and its wider use has been the means of broadening and extending other manufactories. It has aided invention, and is the medium through which new discoveries, theories, and conclusions have been proclaimed. It is the handmaid of literature and music, and through its fostering agency the highest culture is to-day placed within the possible reach of the masses. Formerly, any considerable degree of learning was confined to the favored few--they were the “wise men” and the “magi”; those who could read even the simplest forms of language were the decided exception, and works to be read were rare, and confined to the libraries of the great cities. To-day, through the abundance and cheapness of publications, all men may hold close communion with the minds of leading thinkers past and present, and the melodies of the great masters are brought within the hearing of all. ♦Paper’s service to the fine arts♦ In art it has served as noble a purpose as in literature and music. The fineness and delicacy of surface, attained through modern processes, make possible