504
22
THE INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM
the tools and machines employed to modify these, and the finished products resulting from their modification, shall be displayed.
2. A Laboratory and Workshop, where the qualities of industrial materials and products, and the effectiveness of industrial apparatus and machines, may be investigated.
3. A Library, where the special literature of industrial art may be consulted.
4. Systematic Lectures on the contents of the galleries, the investigations of the laboratory and workshop, and the records of the library, as illustrating the nature of Technology or industrial science.
This fourfold idea has been in process of imperfect realisation for the last two years, and the third is now entered on. But, instead of referring to the past, let me suppose the Industrial Museum of the future already existent and realising to the full the idea just referred to.
When that museum shall be erected, I will ask its architect to sculpture on its front an emblematical device, namely, A circle, to imply that the museum represents the industry of the whole world; within the circle an equilateral triangle, the respective sides of which shall denote the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, from which industrial art gathers its materials; within the triangle an open hand, as the symbol of the transforming forces which change those materials; and in the palm of that hand an eye, selecting the materials which shall be transformed.
AND COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE.
23
Gazing through that eye, let us see what the Industrial Museum can do for commercial enterprise.
I. The commerce of the world deals, in the first place, very largely with mineral, vegetable, and animal substances, as related to industrial art, in three ways. 1. Many of them we style raw materials. The term is a very expressive one, as implying that they need to be cooked, and that they admit of being cooked. Originally applied to food, the meaning is not felt to be forced as used in relation to coal, to metallic ores, to sugar, to skins, or to other bodies, which can be changed, especially by chemical processes, from useless into useful substances. 2. Whilst, however, we are all willing to regard coal as a raw material from which gas and naphtha are prepared, and skins as a raw material from which glue is elaborated, we should scarcely call marble the raw material of a statue, or linen the raw material of paper. The term genetic, which I have used elsewhere, I feel to be too pedantic for general use, and the equivalent word parent is too vague. Let us say workable
504
} 8}
22
THE INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM
the tools and machines employed to modify these, and the finished products resulting from their modifi- cation, shall be displayed.
2. A Laboratory and Workshop, where the quali- ties of industrial materials and products, and the effectiveness of industrial apparatus and machines, may be investigated.
3. A Library, where the special literature of industrial art may be consulted.
4. Systematic Lectures on the contents of the galleries, the investigations of the laboratory and workshop, and the records of the library, as illustrat- ing the nature of Technology or industrial science.
This fourfold idea has been in process of imper- fect realisation for the last two years, and the third is now entered on. But, instead of referring to the past, let me suppose the Industrial Museum of the future already existent and realising to the full the idea just referred to.
When that museum shall be erected, I will ask its architect to sculpture on its front an emblematical device, namely, A circle, to imply that the museum represents the industry of the whole world; within the circle an equilateral triangle, the respective sides of which shall denote the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, from which industrial art gathers its
AND COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE.
23
materials; within the triangle an open hand, as the symbol of the transforming forces which change those materials; and in the palm of that hand an eye, selecting the materials which shall be transformed.
Gazing through that eye, let us see what the Industrial Museum can do for commercial enterprise.
I. The commerce of the world deals, in the first place, very largely with mineral, vegetable, and ani- mal substances, as related to industrial art, in three ways. 1. Many of them we style raw materials. The term is a very expressive one, as implying that they need to be cooked, and that they ulmit of being cooked. Originally applied to food, the meaning is not felt to be forced as used in relation to coal, to metallic ores, to sugar, to skins, or to other bodies, which can be changed, especially by chemical pro- cesses, from useless into useful substances. 2. Whilst, however, we are all willing to regard coal as a raw material from which gas and naphtha are prepared, and skins as a raw material from which glue is elabo rated, we should scarcely call marble the raw material The of a statue, or linen the raw material of paper. term genetic, which I have used elsewhere, I feel to be too pedantic for general use, and the equivalent word parent is too vague. Let us say workable
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