It Can't Be Done
Listen to these examples of inventions and ideas that some people said "couldn't be done" so they resisted the new.
1. The first successful cast-iron plow, invented in the United States in 1797, was rejected by New Jersey farmers under the theory that cast iron poisoned the land and stimulated the growth of weeds.
2. An eloquent authority in the United States declared that the introduction of the railroad would require the building of many insane asylums, since people would be driven mad with terror at the sight of
locomotives rushing across the country.
3. In Germany it was proved by "experts" that if trains went at the frightful speed of 15 miles an hour, blood would spurt from the travelers' noses and passengers would suffocate when going through tunnels.
4. Commodore Vanderbilt dismissed Westinghouse and his new air brakes for trains, stating, "I have no time to waste on fools."
5. Those who loaned Robert Fulton money for his steamboat project stipulated that their names be withheld for fear of ridicule were it known they supported anything so "foolhardy."
6. In 1881, when the New York YWCA announced typing lessons for women, vigorous protests were made on the grounds that the female constitution would break down under the strain.
7. Men insisted that iron ships would not float, that they would damage more easily than wooden ships when grounding, that it would be difficult to preserve the iron bottom from rust, and that iron would deflect the compass.
8. Joshua Coppersmith was arrested in Boston for trying to sell stock in the telephone. "All well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over a wire."
9. The editor of the Springfield Republican refused an invitation to ride in an early automobile, claiming that it was incompatible with the dignity of his position.
By James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited
(Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988), p. 407. http://isbn.nu/0842315691
Story courtesy of Wit & Wisdom
http://www.witandwisdom.org
Originally published July 14, 2005.
