Page 78 - SST Class 05

12 The Machine Age

Machines and I

Machines are all around us today. Right from very small tools and machines, like the zip in your trouser or
sharpener in your pencil-box, to very big machines like generators, escalators and ships, we cannot
imagine life without machines today. They are the mark of progress today. They have made our life easy
and comfortable, besides ensuring quality. With their help, we can save our valuable time which we can
utilise for other fruitful purposes.

Tools and machines are like our extra hands. They help
us do our work quickly and efficiently. Right from the
alarm clock that wakes you in the morning to the

television watching which you go to bed are all tools and
machines. Without them, we would not be able to do
many things or we would need a far longer time. We
cannot do many things with bare hands. We need tools
and machines for almost all our daily tasks. We need Stone tools used by Early Man
them to grow our food and cook it; make our clothes and stitch them; and build our
house and live in it comfortably.

Man has become more powerful than animals only because he has machines. A horse
may be physically very strong, but it has to follow your command when you rein it.
Animals have not progressed only because of their inability to make and use tools. The
tools and machines have set us on the path of civilization. Because of the common use
of machines today, the present age is rightly called the Machine Age .

Our earliest idea of a tool must have been thought by Early Man when he threw a
stone to keep away an animal or pluck a fruit from a high tree. He then made tools
from stone. He sharpened pieces of stone for different purposes, like for cutting meat
or digging roots.

The discovery of fire helped Early Man to discover copper, iron and other metals. He
found that metal was stronger, harder and better to use than stone. He started to make

tools with metal when he realized that copper and other metals could be hammered
into different shapes. This was a revolutionary discovery.

78 Contemporary Social Science-5