There were the great, substantial buildings themselves with their ingenious adjustments of parts, so related as to facilitate to the utmost the processes of manufacture and shipment at the lowest cost and with the least friction. There were the lines of railway which entered the grounds, by means of which the machines, loaded into cars from the platforms of the factory, could be forwarded without change to every quarter of the continent. All needed materials, to the smallest detail, entered the factory in their raw forms, and passed out as finished product, delicately adjusted machines ready for immediate use. The imagination bounds to the conception of the miraculous ingenuity of instruments, and the trained skill of operatives, and the shrewd co-ordination of labor, and, above all, the marvellous captaincy by which all this differentiation is systematized and is ordered and directed to the effective achievement of its ends. The large, well-ventilated rooms, comfortably warmed in winter and admirably supplied with the means of light and air, are a part of the general efficacy of the system, and the untiring dexterity of the men gives to it its strongly human interest. There is a fascination in their movements which determines the quality of the attractiveness of the whole. You see no feverish haste in the speed with which they work, but rather the even, smooth, unfaltering sureness which is the charm of mastery, and which must be attended by its satisfaction as well. I witnessed this with delight among the men with whom I lived. Conversation at our meals was nearly always of shop; at dinner and supper especially we discussed the details of the day’s work. Several of us were employed at constructing binders. Albert was of that number. He was making but little more than the wage of common labor when I first knew him, but his income began to increase with his increasing efficiency, and it was a matter of great, vital interest to us all to hear his reports each day, as he told of a fraction of a binder and then of a whole one in advance upon his previous work, until his daily earnings rose to two dollars and a half, which was accepted in his department as the normal sum.