CONTENTS. THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS OF THE NATION; CONSUMPTION LIMITED, Pro- DUCTION UNLIMITED-Commencement Address Delivered before the Graduating Class of the University of South Carolina, June 26, 1889 THE FOOD QUESTION IN AMERICA AND EUROPE; or, The Public Victualing Theory and Practice (Supplement to No. X.) THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS OF THE NATION; CONSUMPTION LIMITED, PRODUCTION UNLIMITED. COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS GIVEN TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA, JUNE 26, 1889. G ENTLEMEN: I imagine that it very seldom happens that one who has missed the training of the College or of the University is called upon to make the Commencement Address to a graduating class, as I been invited at this time by your Faculty. Such, however, having been my loss in the process of education, you may not expect from me either a literary treatise or a philosophical essay; I can give you only a few observations which I have drawn from the experience of practical life. I have been for nearly fifty years engaged in the actual work of life in dealing with the material processes which are necessary to the support of mankind in comfort and welfare. I have had but little time for reading books, and I am not learned in economic science as it is laid down in the almost innumerable treatises which have been written under the title of Political Economy. I can only deal with the aspect of life from the standpoint of a workman, but I use the word workman" in its broadest and not its narrow sense. The mind of man is the prime factor in the work of life. In the material work of production and distribution, without the work of the mind the hand would never have gained its power, or it would lose its cunning. The material processes which are necessary to existence, and which are conducted under the name of farming, manufacturing, trade and commerce, are sometimes. looked down upon as being relatively inferior occupations-mere work for bread and butter; or they are looked upon at least as not being entitled to the same place of dignity or estimation as the so-called "learned professions"; but I claim for what may be called the unlearned professions a place upon the same plane and of equal standing with all others, yielding precedence to only one, the highest of all |