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ART. I.-Annual Report of the President and Directors of the
Board of Public Works, to the General Assembly of Virginia,
in pursuance of an Act, entitled, An Act creating a Fund for
Internal Improvement. Richmond; 1818. pp. 78.

EVER since our ancestors founded this new family among nations, we have been in a continual bustle and stir to supplant the old tenants, to arrange our great and increasing household, and to dispose of its members among the departments and recesses of this extensive and fair domain. No sooner had a small number fixed themselves in a comfortable situation, than a spirit of inquiry and boldness of enterprise rendered them restless. New discoveries led to new emigration; love of safety and of social ties yielded to a love of territory and power; and the consequent dispersion of the early colonists has been continued among their descendants to the present day, when the limits of our territory and population are scarcely discernible towards the west. It is remarkable, that, in spite of this spreading emigration, which so powerfully counteracts the growth of useful arts, we should, in two centuries, be so little behind Europe, where a thousand years have been spent in labour, invention and experience to bring them to their présent state of improvement. But we must not be too proud of our advantages, nor mistake the cause which produced them. We should recollect that Europe has been Vol. VIII. No. 1.

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at work many ages for our benefit, and that our philosophy, our science, our literature and our arts come from her, ready made up for our use. Our habits, manners, fashions, modes of worship, morals, laws and forms of government, as well as ourselves, have all sprung from the great European fountain, whence has flowed, and still flows, a rich and constant stream of learning and intellect. Our social and moral powers are excited and brightened by the familiar intercourse between this country and Europe; but many of our inventive faculties are inactive, because we have few occasions for invention. In its place, a habit of copying, and of copying well, has grown up with us. Our mechanic arts are devoted to the imitation or manufacturing of articles or fabrics from models taken out of foreign workshops; we make roads and canals, and improve rivers; build docks and improve our harbours, from plans of similar works in France and England. We do all these as the means of acquiring wealth in Europe wealth has produced them. Here we endeavour to add them to the natural advantages of our country, and begin in our infancy to construct works, which are there considered as the monuments of extensive opulence, population and refinement.

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It is a common remark with writers on political economy, that the division of labour has been the main cause of the rapid improvement of the arts in modern times; but the observation is drawn from, and is seldom extended beyond the workshop. It is to this principle also, and to this alone, that we must look for any progress in the higher branches of knowledge; and in proportion as this principle is understood and applied, will nations improve either in arts or science. It is to the operation of this principle, that the world is indebted for the most philosophic invention of modern times,the safety lamp of Sir Humphrey Davy. The labours of Perronet, De Prony, Guathey, De Cessart, Brindley, Smeaton, and other engineers, have shown a connexion between natural philosophy and the wealth of nations; between the laws of our necessities and the laws of nature; and taught us to apply the most abstruse mathematical researches to the important and daily occupations of life.

If we examine ourselves as a nation, we shall be at no loss to discover, that it is our limited application of this principle, the division of labour,-which has placed us behind Eu

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