F
F (ĕf), the sixth letter, is a consonant. It is called a labio-dental surd, because it is made with the lips or, more commonly, with the lower lip against the upper teeth, and does not sound. It requires considerable breath to pronounce it, and gives a simple breath-sound, as in fame. The Spaniards and Greeks had great difficulty in pronouncing it. Its value comes from the Latin.
Fa′bius Max′imus, a member of one of the most illustrious patrician families of Rome. He was five times consul and twice censor, and was elected dictator immediately after the defeat of the Romans at Trasimenus. The tactics he observed in the second Punic War gave rise to what is now known as the Fabian policy in warfare. He avoided a direct engagement and harassed the enemy by guerilla warfare; he annoyed them by marches and counter-marches and cut off their stragglers and foragers; and during all this time his delay allowed Rome to assemble her forces in greater strength. He recovered Tarentum, one of Hannibal's strongholds. He died 203 B. C.
Factory and Factory-Legislation. It is not easy to set a date for the origin of factories. In England factories for wool were established in the reign of Edward III. But the nineteenth century was the great period of the rise of factories. This rise was the result of many new mechanical inventions, chief among which were those of Hargreave, Arkwright, Cartwright and Crompton. The factory-system of industry greatly increased the amount of production per man, but in bringing together great numbers of men, women and children it paved the way for the replacement of the old personal interest between master and workman by a mere cash-bond. Overwork and sweating became common practices. In England and America the first laws about factories dealt with the abuse of child and pauper-labor and with the lack of sanitary care within the factories, which became a fertile source of disease. The factory-system came later in America than in England. The English factories jealously guarded the secrets of their machinery. But in 1790 a factory for water-frame spinning was built in Rhode Island; and in 1803 the first cotton mill in America was built in Massachusetts. The growth of factories in America has continued with extraordinary rapidity.
The first modern factory-legislation in England was the law of Sir Robert Peel in 1802, dealing with the labor of children and paupers. A great number of acts followed, dealing with these and other problems. (See Child-Labor Acts.) In the United States, Massachusetts took the lead in labor-legislation; and the laws of the other states tend to be based on this code. But Australia and New Zealand have gone far beyond either England or America in limiting the hours of labor, the age of employees, the lowness of the wage that may be offered and the strife that is apt to occur from time to time between employers and employed, leading to wasteful strikes. But there are laws in the United States regulating the labor of women and children, sanitary matters, the soundness and safety of machinery, payment of wages, hours of labor (limited in Massachusetts to 58 hours a week for young people), hours of meals, licenses, etc.
Faed (fād), Thomas, a Scottish painter of renown, was born at Burley Mill, in Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, on June 8, 1826. He was made an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1849, an associate of the Royal Academy in 1861, an Academician in 1864, and in 1875 was elected an honorary member of the Vienna Royal Academy. Among his celebrated pictures are The Motherless Bairn, The Last of the Clan and Scott and His Literary Friends at Abbotsford.
Fahrenheit (fä′ren-hīt), Gabriel Daniel, the improver of the thermometer and barometer, was born at Dantzic, Prussia, on May 14, 1686. Originally intended for business, he abandoned trade at an early age and took up the study of natural philosophy. About 1714 he conceived the idea of using quicksilver instead of spirits of wine in the making of thermometers, thereby increasing their accuracy. Fahrenheit fixed his freezing point at 32°, to avoid errors in measuring the temperature. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, of London in 1724, and died on Sept. 16, 1736. For all practical purposes Fahrenheit's thermometer is the one in general use in the United States.
Fairbairn (fâr′-bârn), Andrew Martin, a notable Scottish theologian and principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, was born near Edinburgh, Scotland, on Nov. 4, 1838, and educated at the Universities of Edinburgh and Berlin and at the
