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atent system and for years ran parallel with it. "fhis approach,originated abroad, offered inventors medals, cash prizes and other incentives.
In the United States, multitudes of premiums for new devices were awarded at country fairs and at the industrial fairs in major cities. Americans flocked to thess fairs to admire the new machines and thus to renew their faith in the beneficence of technological advance.
Given this optimistic approach to technological innovation, the American worker took readily to that special kind of nonverbal thinklng required in mechanical technology. As Eugene Ferguson has pointed out , "A technologist thinks about objects that cannot be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions; they are dealt with in his mind by a visual, nonverbal process . . . The designer and the inventor . . . are able to assemble and manipulate in their minds devices that as yet do not exist. "
This nonverbal "spatial" thinking can be just as creative as painting and writing. Robert Fulton once wrote, "The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheels, etc. ,like a poet among the letters of the alphabet , considering them as an exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea. "
When all these shaping forces--schools, open attitudes, the premium system, a genius for spatial thinking--interacted with one another on the rich U. S. mainland, they produced that American characteristic , emulation . Today that word implies mere imitation. But in earlier times it meant a friendly but competitive striving for fame and excellence.
63. According to the author, the great outburst of major inventions in early America was in a
large part due to__
(A) elemental'y schools ( B) enthusiastic workers
(C) the attractive premium system (D) a special way of thinking
64 . It is implied that adaptiveness and inventiveness of the early American mechanics__
(A) benefited a lot from their mathematical knowledge
(B) shed light on disciplined school management
(C) was brought about by privileged home training
(D) owed a lot to the technological development
65 . A technologist can be compared to an artist because __
(A) they are both winners of awards
(B) they are both experts in spatial thinking
(C) they both abandon verbal description
(D) they both use various instruments
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