Captains of Industry

J >> James Parton >> Captains of Industry

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He had fortunately made money enough to buy a very good farm for
himself, and he had often said that he would rather farm fifty acres of
his own than to be the tenant of the best farm in Europe. This
"eviction," as it was called, of a farmer so celebrated attracted
universal comment, and excited general indignation. He left his farm
like a conqueror. Public dinners and services of plate were presented to
him, and his landlord of many names acquired a notoriety throughout
Europe which no doubt he enjoyed. He certainly did a very bold action,
and one which casts a perfect glare of light upon the nature of
landlordism.

George Hope died in 1876, universally honored in Scotland. He lies
buried in the parish of his old farm, not far from the home of his
fathers. On his tombstone is inscribed:--

"To the memory of George Hope, for many years tenant of Fenton Barns. He
was the devoted supporter of every movement which tended to the
advancement of civil and religious liberty, and to the moral and social
elevation of mankind."

SIR HENRY COLE.

He was an "Old Public Functionary" in the service of the British people.

When President Buchanan spoke of himself as an Old Public Functionary he
was a good deal laughed at by some of the newspapers, and the phrase has
since been frequently used in an opprobrious or satirical sense. This is
to be regretted, for there is no character more respectable, and there
are few so useful, as an intelligent and patriotic man of long standing
in the public service. What _one_ such man can do is shown by the
example of Sir Henry Cole, who died a few months ago in London after
half a century of public life.

The son of an officer in the British army, he was educated at that
famous Blue-Coat School which is interesting to Americans because Lamb
and Coleridge attended it. At the age of fifteen he received an
appointment as clerk in the office of Public Records. In due time,
having proved his capacity and peculiar fitness, he was promoted to the
post of Assistant Keeper, which gave him a respectable position and some
leisure.

He proved to be in an eminent sense the right man in the right place.
Besides publishing, from time to time, curious and interesting documents
which he discovered in his office, he called attention, by a series of
vigorous pamphlets, to the chaotic condition in which the public records
of Great Britain were kept. Gradually these pamphlets made an
impression, and they led at length to a reform in the office. The
records were rearranged, catalogued, rendered safe, and made accessible
to students. This has already led to important corrections in history,
and to a great increase in the sum of historical knowledge.

When the subject of cheap postage came up in 1840, the government
offered four prizes of a hundred pounds each for suggestions in aid of
Sir Rowland Hill's plan. One of these prizes was assigned to Henry Cole.
He was one of the persons who first became converts to the idea of penny
postage, and he lent the aid of his pen and influence to its adoption.

At length, about the year 1845, he entered upon the course of
proceedings which rendered him one of the most influential and useful
persons of his time. He had long lamented the backward condition of arts
of design in England, and the consequent ugliness of the various objects
in the sight and use of which human beings pass their lives. English
furniture, wall-papers, carpets, curtains, cutlery, garments,
upholstery, ranged from the tolerable to the hideous, and were inferior
to the manufactures of France and Germany. He organized a series of
exhibitions on a small scale, somewhat similar to those of the American
Institute in New York, which has held a competitive exhibition of
natural and manufactured objects every autumn for the last fifty years.

His exhibitions attracted attention, and they led at length to the
Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851. The merit of that scheme must be
shared between Henry Cole and Prince Albert. Cole suggested that his
small exhibitions should, once in five years, assume a national
character, and invite contributions from all parts of the empire. Yes,
said Prince Albert, and let us also invite competition from foreign
countries on equal terms with native products.

The Exhibition of 1851 was admirably managed, and had every kind of
success. It benefited England more than all other nations put together,
because it revealed to her people their inferiority in many branches
both of workmanship and design. We all know how conceited people are apt
to become who have no opportunity to compare themselves with superiors.
John Bull, never over-modest, surveyed the Exhibition of 1851, and
discovered, to his great surprise, that he was not the unapproachable
Bull of the universe which he had fondly supposed. He saw himself beaten
in some things by the French, in some by the Germans, in others by the
Italians, and in a few (O wonder!) by the Yankees.

Happily he had the candor to admit this humiliating fact to himself, and
he put forth earnest and steadfast exertions to bring himself up to the
level of modern times.

Henry Cole was the life and soul of the movement. It was he who called
attention to the obstacles placed in the way of improvement by the
patent laws, and some of those obstacles, through him, were speedily
removed.

During this series of services to his country, he remained in the office
of Public Records. The government now invited him to another sphere of
labor. They asked him to undertake the reconstruction of the schools of
design, and they gave him an office which placed him practically at the
head of the various institutions designed to promote the application of
art to manufacture. The chief of these now is the Museum of South
Kensington, which is to many Americans the most interesting object in
London. The creation of this wonderful museum was due more to him than
to any other individual.

It came to pass in this way: After the close of the Crystal Palace in
1851, Parliament gave five thousand pounds for the purchase of the
objects exhibited which were thought best calculated to raise the
standard of taste in the nation. These objects, chiefly selected by
Cole, were arranged by him for exhibition in temporary buildings of
such extreme and repulsive inconvenience as to bring opprobrium and
ridicule upon the undertaking. It was one of the most difficult things
in the world to excite public interest in the exhibition. But by that
energy which comes of strong conviction and patriotic feeling, and of
the opportunity given him by his public employment, Henry Cole wrung
from a reluctant Parliament the annual grants necessary to make South
Kensington Museum what it now is.

Magnificent buildings, filled with a vast collection of precious and
interesting objects, greet the visitor. There are collections of armor,
relics, porcelain, enamel, fabrics, paintings, statues, carvings in wood
and ivory, machines, models, and every conceivable object of use or
beauty. Some of the most celebrated pictures in the world are there, and
there is an art library of thirty thousand volumes. There are schools
for instruction in every branch of art and science which can be supposed
to enter into the products of industry. The prizes which are offered for
excellence in design and invention have attracted, in some years, as
many as two hundred thousand objects. During three days of every week
admission to this superb assemblage of exhibitions is free, and on the
other three days sixpence is charged.

The influence of this institution upon British manufactures has been in
many branches revolutionary. As the London "Times" said some time
ago:--

"There is hardly a household in the country that is not the better for
the change; there is certainly no manufacture in which design has any
place which has not felt its influence."

The formation of this Museum, the chief work of Sir Henry Cole's useful
life, was far from exhausting his energies. He has borne a leading part
in all the industrial exhibitions held in London during the last quarter
of a century, and served as English commissioner at the Paris
exhibitions of 1855 and 1867.

This man was enabled to render all this service to his country, to
Europe, and to us, because he was not obliged to waste any of his
energies in efforts to keep his place. Administrations might change, and
Parliaments might dissolve; but he was a fixture as long as he did his
duty. When his duty was fairly done, and he had completed the fortieth
year of his public service, he retired on his full salary, and he was
granted an honorable title; for a title _is_ honorable when it is won by
good service. Henceforth he was called Sir Henry Cole, K. C. B.

To the end of his life he continued to labor in all sorts of good
works--a Training School for Music, a Training School for Cookery,
guilds for the promotion of health, and many others. He died in April,
1882, aged seventy-four years.

CHARLES SUMMERS.

Strangers visiting Melbourne, the chief city of Australia, will not be
allowed to overlook four great marble statues which adorn the public
library. They are the gift of Mr. W. J. Clark, one of the distinguished
public men of that growing empire. These statues represent, in a sitting
posture, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, and the
Princess of Wales. They are larger than life, and, according to the
Australian press, they are admirable works in every respect.

They were executed by Charles Summers, a sculptor long resident in that
colony, where he practiced his art with great success, as the public
buildings and private houses of Melbourne attest. Many of his works
remain in the colony, and he may be said to be the founder of his form
of art in that part of the world. The history of this man's life is so
remarkable that I think it will interest the reader.

Sixty years ago, Charles Summers was a little, hungry, ragged boy in
English Somersetshire, who earned four cents a day by scaring the crows
from the wheat fields. I have seen myself such little fellows engaged
in this work, coming on duty before four in the morning, and remaining
till eight in the evening, frightening away the birds by beating a tin
pan with a stick, not unfrequently chasing them and throwing stones at
them. He was the son of a mason, who had eight children, and squandered
half his time and money in the tap-room. Hence, this boy, from the age
of eight or nine years, smart, intelligent, and ambitious, was
constantly at work at some such employment; and often, during his
father's drunken fits, he was the chief support of the family.

Besides serving as scare-crow, he assisted his father in his mason's
work, and became a hod-carrier as soon as he was able to carry a hod.
Sometimes he accompanied his father to a distant place in search of
employment, and he was often seen on the high-road, in charge of the
drunkard, struggling to get him home before he had spent their united
earnings in drink. In these deplorable circumstances, he acquired a
dexterity and patience which were most extraordinary. Before he was
twelve years old he began to handle the chisel and the mallet, and his
work in squaring and facing a stone soon surpassed that of boys much
older than himself. He was observed to have a strong propensity to do
fancy stone-work. He obtained, as a boy, some local celebrity for his
carved gate posts, and other ornamental objects in stone. So great was
his skill and industry, that, by the time he was nineteen years of age,
besides having maintained a large family for years, he had saved a sum
equal to a hundred dollars.

Then a piece of good fortune happened to him. A man came from London to
set up in a parish church near by a monumental figure, and looked about
for a skillful mason to assist him. Charles Summers was mentioned as the
best hand in the neighborhood, and upon him the choice fell. Thus he was
introduced to the world of art, for this figure had been executed by
Henry Weekes, a distinguished London sculptor. The hardships of his
childhood had made a man of him at this early age, a thoughtful and
prudent man. Taking with him ten of his twenty pounds, he went to London
and applied for employment in the studio of Henry Weekes. This artist
employed several men, but he had no vacant place except the humble one
of stone polisher, which required little skill. He accepted the place
with alacrity and delight, at a salary of five dollars a week.

He was now in his element. The lowliest employments of the studio were
pleasing to him. He loved to polish the marble; the sight of the
numerous models was a pleasure to him; even wetting the cloths and
cleaning the model tools were pleasant tasks. His cheerfulness and
industry soon made him a favorite; and when his work was done, he
employed his leisure in gaining skill in carving and cutting marble. In
this he had such success, that, when in after life he became himself an
artist, he would sometimes execute his idea in marble without modeling
it in clay.

When he had been in this studio about a year, his employer was
commissioned to execute two colossal figures in bronze, and the young
man was obliged to spend much of his time in erecting the foundry, and
other duties which he felt to be foreign to his art. Impatient at this,
he resigned his place, and visited his home, where he executed medallion
portraits, first of his own relations, and afterwards of public men,
such as the Mayor of Bristol, and the member of Parliament for his
county. These medallions gave him some reputation, and it was a favorite
branch with him as long as he lived.

Returning to London, he had no difficulty in gaining employment at good
wages in a studio of a sculptor. Soon we find him competing for the
prizes offered by the Royal Academy of London to young sculptors; the
chief of which is a gold medal given every two years for the best group
in clay of an historical character. A silver medal is also given every
year for the best model from life.

At the exhibition of 1851, when he was twenty-four years of age, he was
a competitor for both these prizes. For the gold medal he executed a
group which he called Mercy interceding for the Vanquished. For the
silver medal he offered a bust of a living person. He had the singular
good fortune of winning both, and he received them in public from the
hands of the President of the Academy, Sir Charles Eastlake. Cheer upon
cheer greeted the modest student when he rose and went forward for the
purpose. He was a young man of great self-control. Instead of joining in
the usual festivities of his fellow-students after the award, he walked
quietly to his lodgings, where his father and brother were anxiously
waiting to hear the result of the competition. He threw himself into a
chair without a word, and they began to console him for the supposed
disappointment. In a few minutes they sat down to supper; whereupon,
with a knowing smile, he took his medals out of his pocket, and laid one
of them on each side of his plate.

From this time he had no difficulties except those inherent in the
nature of his work, and in his own constitution. His early struggle with
life had made him too intense. He had scarcely known what play was, and
he did not know how to recreate himself. He had little taste for reading
or society. He loved art alone. The consequence was that he worked with
an intensity and continuity that no human constitution could long
endure. Soon after winning his two medals his health was so completely
prostrated that he made a voyage to Australia to visit a brother who had
settled there. The voyage restored him, and he soon resumed the practice
of his art at Melbourne. The people were just building their Houses of
Parliament, and he was employed to execute the artistic work of the
interior. He lived many years in Australia, and filled the colony with
his works in marble and bronze.

In due time he made the tour of Europe, and lingered nine years in Rome,
where he labored with suicidal assiduity. He did far more manual labor
himself than is usual with artists of his standing, and yet, during his
residence in Rome he had twenty men in his service. It was in Rome, in
1876, that he received from Melbourne the commission to execute in
marble the four colossal statues mentioned above. These works he
completed in something less than eighteen months, besides doing several
other minor works previously ordered.

It was too much, and Nature resented the affront. After he had packed
the statues, and sent them on their way to the other side of the globe,
he set out for Melbourne himself, intending to take England by the way
for medical advice. At Paris he visited the Exhibition, and the next
day, at his hotel, he fell senseless to the floor. In three weeks he was
dead, at the age of fifty-one years, in the very midst of his career.

"For him," writes one of his friends, "life consisted of but one
thing--_art_. For that he lived; and, almost in the midst of it, died.
He could not have conceived existence without it. Always and under every
circumstance, he was thinking of his work, and gathering from whatever
surrounded him such information as he thought would prove of service.
In omnibuses, in railway carriages, and elsewhere, he found
opportunities of study, and could always reproduce a likeness from
memory of the individuals so observed."

I do not copy these words as commendation, but as warning. Like so many
other gifted men of this age, he lived too fast and attempted too much.
He died when his greatest and best life would naturally have been just
beginning. He died at the beginning of the period when the capacity for
high enjoyment of life is naturally the greatest. He died when he could
have ceased to be a manufacturer and become an artist.

WILLIAM B. ASTOR.

HOUSE-OWNER.

In estimating the character and merits of such a man as the late Mr.
Astor, we are apt to leave out of view the enormous harm he might have
done if he had chosen to do it.

The rich fool who tosses a dollar to a waiter for some trifling service,
debases the waiter, injures himself, and wrongs the public. By acting in
that manner in all the transactions of life, a rich man diffuses around
him an atmosphere of corruption, and raises the scale of expense to a
point which is oppressive to many, ruinous to some, and inconvenient to
all. The late Mr. Astor, with an income from invested property of nearly
two millions a year, could have made life more difficult than it was to
the whole body of people in New York who are able to live in a liberal
manner. He refrained from doing so. He paid for everything which he
consumed the market price--no more, no less--and he made his purchases
with prudence and forethought. As he lived for many years next door to
the Astor Library, the frequenters of that noble institution had an
opportunity of observing that he laid in his year's supply of coal in
the month of June, when coal is cheapest.

There was nothing which he so much abhorred as waste. It was both an
instinct and a principle with him to avoid waste. He did not have the
gas turned down low in a temporarily vacated room because he would save
two cents by doing so, but because he justly regarded waste as wicked.
His example in this particular, in a city so given to careless and
ostentatious profusion as New York, was most useful. We needed such an
example. Nor did he appear to carry this principle to an extreme. He was
very far from being miserly, though keenly intent upon accumulation.

In the life of the Old World there is nothing so shocking to a
republicanized mind as the awful contrast between the abodes of the poor
and the establishments of the rich. A magnificent park of a thousand
acres of the richest land set apart and walled in for the exclusive use
of one family, while all about it are the squalid hovels of the peasants
to whom the use of a single acre to a family would be ease and comfort,
is the most painful and shameful spectacle upon which the sun looks down
this day. Nothing can make it right. It is monstrous. It curses
_equally_ the few who ride in the park and the many who look over its
walls; for the great lord who can submit to be the agent of such
injustice is as much its victim as the degraded laborer who drowns the
sense of his misery in pot-house beer. The mere fact that the lord can
look upon such a scene and not stir to mend it, is proof positive of a
profound vulgarity.

Nor is it lords alone who thus waste the hard earned wealth of the
toiling sons of men. I read some time ago of a wedding in Paris. A
thriving banker there, who is styled the Baron Alphonse de Rothschild,
having a daughter of seventeen to marry, appears to have set seriously
to work to find out how much money a wedding could be made to cost. In
pursuing this inquiry, he caused the wedding festivals of Louis XIV's
court, once so famous, to seem poverty-stricken and threadbare. He began
by a burst of ostentatious charity. He subscribed money for the relief
of the victims of recent inundations, and dowered a number of
portionless girls; expending in these ways a quarter of a million
francs. He gave his daughter a portion of five millions of francs. One
of her painted fans cost five thousand francs. He provided such enormous
quantities of clothing for her little body, that his house, if it had
not been exceedingly large, would not have conveniently held them. For
the conveyance of the wedding party from the house to the synagogue, he
caused twenty-five magnificent carriages to be made, such as monarchs
use when they are going to be crowned, and these vehicles were drawn by
horses imported from England for the purpose. The bridal veil was
composed of ineffable lace, made from an original design expressly for
this bride.

And then what doings in the synagogue! A choir of one hundred and ten
trained voices, led by the best conductor in Europe--the first tenor of
this generation engaged, who sang the prayer from "Moses in Egypt"--a
crowd of rabbis, and assistant-rabbis, with the grand rabbi of Paris at
their head. To complete the histrionic performance, eight young girls,
each bearing a beautiful gold-embroidered bag, and attended by a young
gentleman, "took up a collection" for the poor, which yielded seven
thousand francs.

Mr. Astor could, if he had chosen, have thrown his millions about in
this style. He was one of a score or two of men in North America who
could have maintained establishments in town and country on the
dastardly scale so common among rich people in Europe. He, too, could
have had his park, his half a dozen mansions, his thirty carriages, his
hundred horses and his yacht as big as a man-of-war. That he was above
such atrocious vulgarity as this, was much to his credit and more to our
advantage. What he could have done safely, other men would have
attempted to whom the attempt would have been destruction. Some
discredit also would have been cast upon those who live in moderate and
modest ways.

Every quarter day Mr. Astor had nearly half a million dollars to invest
in the industries of the country. To invest his surplus income in the
best and safest manner was the study of his life. His business was to
take care of and increase his estate; and that _being_ his business, he
was right in giving the necessary attention to it. "William will never
make money," his father used to say; "but he will take good care of what
he has." And so it proved. The consequence was, that all his life he
invested money in the way that was at once best for himself and best for
the country. No useless or premature scheme had had any encouragement
from him. He invariably, and by a certainty of judgment that resembled
an instinct, "put his money where it would do most good." Political
economists demonstrate that an investment which is the best for the
investor must of necessity be the best for the public. Here, again, we
were lucky. When we wanted houses more than we wanted coal, he built
houses for us; and when we wanted coal more than we wanted houses, he
set his money to digging coal; charging nothing for his trouble but the
mere cost of his subsistence.

One fault he had as a public servant--for we may fairly regard in that
light a man who wields so large a portion of our common estate. He was
one of the most timid of men. He was even timorous. His timidity was
constitutional and physical. He would take a great deal of trouble to
avoid crossing a temporary bridge or scaffolding, though assured by an
engineer that it was strong enough to bear ten elephants. Nor can it be
said that he was morally brave. Year after year he saw a gang of thieves
in the City Hall stealing his revenues under the name of taxes and
assessments, but he never led an assault upon them nor gave the aid he
ought to those who did. Unless he is grossly belied, he preferred to
compromise than fight, and did not always disdain to court the ruffians
who plundered him.

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