CHAPTER XLII.

The Dawn of the Twentieth Century.

[=The Nineteenth Century and the Era of Mediævalism=]

The nineteenth century saw the modern world in its making. At its opening the long mediæval era was just ceasing to exist. The French Revolution had brought it to a sudden and violent termination in France, and had sown the seeds of the new ideas of equality and fraternity and the rights of man widely over Europe. In the new world a great modern nation, instinct with the most advanced ideas of liberty and justice, had just sprung into existence, a nation without royalty or nobility, and whose leaders were the chosen servants, not the privileged masters, of the people.

This grand political revolution, with which the century began, was paralleled with as notable an industrial revolution. The invention of the steam engine had brought to an end the mediæval system of industry. The old, individual, household era of labor, where every man could be his own master and supply his own capital, ceased to exist; costly labor-saving machines, needing large accumulations of capital, came into use; great buildings and the centralization of labor became necessary; and the factory system, which has had such an immense development in the nineteenth century, began its remarkable career.

[=The Century's Wonderful Stages of Progress=]

With the opening and progress of the nineteenth century came other conditions of prime importance. Invention, which first became active near the end of the preceding century, now flourished until its results seemed rather the work of magic than of plain human thought and work. Science, which already had made some notable triumphs, gained an undreamed-of activity and hundreds of the deep secrets of the universe were unfolded. Discovery and exploration achieved surprising results. At the beginning of the century half the world was unknown. At its end only the frozen realms of the poles remained unexplored, and civilization was making its way into a hundred haunts of ancient savagery. Literature and art, while they can claim no works of acknowledged superiority as compared with the master pieces of past centuries, have displayed a remarkable activity, and the number of meritorious books now annually issued is one of the most extraordinary events of the century.

[=Progress in Education=]

Not less important is the immense progress in education. The schoolhouse forms the great mile-post on the highway of progress. It is everywhere in evidence. Free schools extend throughout the civilized world, and reach upward to a plane far beyond the highest level of public education a century ago, linking the common school with the college, and forming a direct stepping stone to university education, which has widened out with similar activity. In methods of education a marked advance has been made, while the text-books of to-day are almost infinitely superior to those of the earlier period. And education is turning its attention in a highly encouraging degree towards practical subjects and away from that incubus of the dead languages which was so strenuously insisted upon in the past. Man is going back to nature in education, observation is supplementing book knowledge, and experiment taking the place of authority. In short, education, with its handmaids, the book and the newspaper, is making its way into the humblest of homes, and man is everywhere fitting himself for an intelligent discharge of his social, industrial and political duties.

As regards the development of the spirit of charity and human brotherhood, it has been spoken of in the preceding chapter and does not need recapitulation here. Yet there is one stage of advance of which nothing has so far been said, but which is of high and significant importance, namely, the great progress made in the educational, industrial and political position of woman.

[=The Education of Women=]

In the beginning of the nineteenth century education, except of the most elementary character, was in great measure confined to boys. In 1788 the village fathers of Northampton, Mass., where Smith's College for women is now situated, voted "not to be at the expense of schooling girls;" and in 1792 the selectmen of Newburyport decided that "during the summer months, when the boys have diminished, the Master shall receive girls for instruction in grammar and reading, after the dismission of the boys in the afternoon, for an hour and a half." The site of this schoolhouse, to which, as is believed, women were first admitted on this continent to an education at public expense, is still shown with pride to visitors. The same town established in 1803 four girls' schools, the first on record, to be kept six months in the year, from six to eight in the morning and on Thursday afternoon.

[=Women's Colleges=]

Step by step the free school was opened to girls, and gradually institutions for the higher education of women were established, the pioneer college which opened its doors to the fair sex being Oberlin, in Ohio, in 1833. The advance since then has been great, and at the opening of the twentieth century there was not a college west of the Alleghanies which denied to woman the full advantages of education, while the same was the case in many of the older colleges of the East. In 1865 Matthew Vassar founded in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., the first college exclusively for women. To this is now added Smith, Wellesley and Bryn Mawr Colleges, within whose doors the highest advantages of education are to be obtained. The distinction between boys and girls in education, in short, has nearly ceased to exist in this country, and is in a fair way of vanishing in Europe.

In industrial occupation the advance of woman has been as great. A century ago few avenues of labor were open to them outside the household, and such work as was performed was miserably paid for. At present there is not an industry which they desire or are suited to follow from which they are debarred, and the last census enumerated four thousand different branches of employment in which women were engaged. This was not only in the lower, but in many of the higher employments. Women physicians are numerous, women lawyers and preachers are coming into the field, women professors teach in schools and colleges, and women authors have given us some of the best books of the century.

[=Occupation and Suffrage for Women=]

Politically the progress, while not so great, has been encouraging. In the middle of the nineteenth century no woman had a right to vote, and the thought of woman suffrage was just being evolved. At the end of the century women possessed the fullest privileges of the suffrage in the four states of Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah, and partial suffrage in many other states, while a much wider extension of this privilege seemed not far distant. In many European countries, and in the British colonies of Australia, New Zealand, Cape Colony, Canada, and parts of India, woman had won the right to vote, under various restrictions, for municipal and school officers. Such has been the progress in this direction of a half century.

[=Peace Propositions of the Emperor of Russia=]

What else shall be said of the state of affairs at the dawn of the twentieth century? Perhaps one of the most significant and promising movements of the time is that taken with the object of bringing war, which has raged upon the earth since the primitive days of mankind, to an end. The movement in this direction, singularly enough, emanated from the monarch of the most unprogressive of civilized lands, but one whose size and power give prominence and influence to any proposition coming from its court. On August 24, 1898, Count Muravieff, Foreign Minister of Russia, by order of the Emperor Nicholas II., handed to the representatives of foreign governments at St. Petersburg copies of a proposition of such importance, that we give it below in full:

"The maintenance of general peace and the possible reduction of the excessive armaments which weigh upon all nations present themselves in existing conditions to the whole world as an ideal toward which the endeavors of all governments should be directed. The humanitarian and magnanimous ideas of His Majesty the Emperor, my august master, have been won over to this view in the conviction that this lofty aim is in conformity with the most essential interests and legitimate views of all the powers; and the Imperial Government thinks the present moment would be favorable to seeking the means.

"International discussion is the most effectual means of insuring all people's benefit--a real durable peace, above all, putting an end to the progressive development of the present armaments.

"In the course of the last twenty years the longing for general appeasement has grown especially pronounced in the consciences of civilized nations; and the preservation of peace has been put forward as an object of international policy. It is in its name that great states have concluded between themselves powerful alliances.

"It is the better to guarantee peace that they have developed in proportions hitherto unprecedented their military forces, and still continue to increase them, without shrinking from any sacrifice.

"Nevertheless, all these efforts have not yet been able to bring about the beneficient result desired--pacification.

"The financial charges following the upward march strike at the very root of public prosperity. The intellectual and physical strength of the nations' labor and capital are mostly diverted from the natural application, and are unproductively consumed. Hundreds of millions are devoted to acquiring terrible engines of destruction, which, though to-day regarded as the last work of science, are destined to-morrow to lose all their value in consequence of some fresh discovery in the same field. National culture, economic progress, and the production of wealth are either paralyzed or checked in development. Moreover, in proportion as the armaments of each power increase, they less and less fulfil the object the governments have set before themselves.

"The economic crisis, due in a great part to the system of armaments _a l'outrance_, and the continual danger which lies in this massing of war material, are transforming the armed peace of our days into a crushing burden which the peoples have more and more difficulty in bearing.

"It appears evident that if this state of things were to be prolonged it would inevitably lead to the very cataclysm it is desired to avert, and the horrors whereof make every thinking being shudder in advance.

"To put an end to these incessant armaments and to seek the means of warding off the calamities which are threatening the whole world--such is the supreme duty to-day imposed upon all states.

"Filled with this idea, His Majesty has been pleased to command me to propose to all the governments whose representatives are accredited to the Imperial Court the assembling of a conference which shall occupy itself with this grave problem.

"This conference will be, by the help of God, a happy presage for the century which is about to open. It would converge into one powerful focus the efforts of all states sincerely seeking to make the great conception of universal peace triumph over the elements of trouble and discord, and it would, at the same time, cement their agreement by a corporate consecration of the principles of equity and right whereon rest the security of states and the welfare of peoples."

[=The Peace Conference at The Hague=]

[=The Court of Arbitration=]

This hopeful proposal did not, unfortunately, produce the result hoped for by its distinguished promulgator. Doubt of the honesty of the czar and his advisers, and mutual jealousies of the powers of Europe, stood in the way of an acceptance of the proposition to reduce the enormous armaments of the great nations. Yet, despite this, it was not without important results in the direction of doing away with the horrors of war and bringing about the reign of peace upon the earth. A peace conference of representatives of the nations, in accordance with the suggestion of the czar, was held at The Hague, the capital of the Netherlands, in the spring of 1899, and resulted in the adoption of a scheme of international arbitration which is full of promise for the future, as an important step in the direction of settling international disputes in the high courts of the nations instead of on the bloody field of war. It proposes to adopt in regard to the nations the principle long since in vogue in regard to their people, that of the legal in place of the violent redress of wrongs and settlement of disputes. A permanent court of arbitration is to be established, composed of men amply competent to deal with the questions likely to come before them, and enjoying the public confidence, to deal with national disputes which previously had no other ready arbiter but the sword. There is, it is true, no legal obligations upon nations to submit their differences of opinion to this tribunal, but there is a high moral obligation, whose force is sure to grow as the years pass on, and in the establishment of this court we have the most promising step yet taken towards the abolition of the barbaric custom of war.

[=Labor Saving Machines=]

With the question of the development of the peace sentiment comes that of the advance of industry, which has been one of the most important results of nineteenth century progress. This, as already indicated in these pages, has made an enormous advance within the century, the invention of labor-saving machinery having so enhanced man's powers of production that the results of each person's labor is very much greater than that of a century ago. Where slow hand processes then widely prevailed, now the whirr of wheels, the intricate play of almost human-like machines, which need the eye rather than the hand of the mechanic, turn out products in astonishing profusion and phenomenal cheapness, while the "man with the hoe" of the past is everywhere making way for the man with the machine.

[=Industrial Expositions=]

The rate of progress in this direction has been well shown in the successive fairs of the nations, of which, as we have already stated, the first was held in Paris in the first year of the century, while the last was held in 1900, the closing year of the century. Between these two dates a large number of fairs, international and national, have been held in Europe and America, each surpassing its predecessor in size and in the variety and originality of its exhibits, and each showing new and important steps of advance. It was the middle of the century before the ideas of mankind expanded to the conception of an international exhibition, or "world's fair," the first of which was held in London in 1851. Since then many others on this extended scale have been held, the first in the United States being the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876. The Columbian Exposition, which followed at Chicago in 1893, was full of indications of great progress in the intervening seventeen years, especially in the department of electricity, which had made a remarkable advance in the interval. Still more significant, as showing the vast industrial progress of the United States, was the National Export Exposition at Philadelphia in 1899, a display of commercial products significant of the great development of American commerce in the final decade of the century, and justly held in the city which had established the first great commercial museum in the world.

[=Development of American Commerce=]

As indicative of the progress in American commerce, a few statistics may be of importance. In 1873 the exports of the United States amounted to $522,479,922, a sum surpassed by that of the imports, which reached $642,136,210. In 1892 the exports had increased to $1,030,278,148; the imports reaching $827,402,462. In 1898 the total exports aggregated the great sum of $1,231,482,330; while the imports fell to a lower figure than in 1873, the total being $616,050,654, almost exactly one half the sum of the exports. It must further be said that these exports are no longer predominately agricultural, as in the earlier period, but that the mechanical products of the United States are being sent abroad in a constantly increasing ratio. And a significant fact in this relation is that of our growing sum of exports to England herself, long the dominant lord of manufacture and commerce. This is strikingly indicated in the shipment of locomotives for use on English railroads, and of iron bridges for English use by the British authorities in Egypt, the rapidity and cheapness with which American workshops can turn out their products being the ruling elements in this remarkable diversion of trade.

[=Progress in Science=]

The progress in other fields of human endeavor, as indicated at the dawn of the twentieth century, has been equally pronounced. Science, for example, manifests a wonderful activity, and displays results of bewildering variety and great importance; while the rapid and varied applications of scientific discoveries to useful purposes is one of the most significant signs of the age. Striking recent examples of this have been the Röntgen ray and wireless telegraphy.

[=Political Evolution=]

Politically the world has been by no means at rest during the century. In 1800 despotisms, of greater or less rigidness, controlled most of the countries of the world. The republic of the United Netherlands had been overthrown, that recently established in France was sinking under the autocracy of Napoleon, and the small mountain-girdled republic of Switzerland alone remained. Beyond the seas this was matched by a new republic, that of the United States, at that time small and of little importance in the councils of the world. In 1900 a vast change manifested itself. The whole double continent of America was occupied by republics, Canada being practically one under distant supervision, France had regained its republican institutions, and Great Britain had all the freedom of a republican form of government. Through all Western Europe autocracy had vanished, constitutional governments having succeeded the absolutism of the past, and the only strongholds of autocracy remaining in Europe were Russia and Turkey, in both of which the embers of revolution were smouldering, and might at any moment burst into flame.

[=Great Development of Great Britain=]

These are not the only significant signs of progress which present themselves to us at the dawn of the twentieth century. In truth, in a hundred directions the world has been equipping itself for the new century, which seems to have before it a destiny unequalled in the history of the world. It is of special importance to observe how prominent the Anglo-Saxon peoples have been in the great advance which we have chronicled. Great Britain, and, following in her footsteps, the United States, have occupied the position of the leading manufacturing and commercial nations of the world. The contracted boundaries of the British Islands long since proved too narrow to contain a people of such expanding enterprise, and they have gone forth, "conquering and to conquer," settling and developing, until, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the empire of Great Britain and its colonies covered an area of 11,336,806 square miles, inhabited by 381,037,374 human beings. This area is nearly one fourth that of the habitable land surface of the earth, and its population quite one fourth of all mankind. The East Indian possessions of this great empire are larger than all Europe without Russia, and the North American ones, if their water surface be included, are larger than the whole of Europe.

[=Territorial Progress of the Nations=]

The other nations which have made a great advance in territory are Russia, with its 8,644,100 square miles of territory, and the United States with its 3,602,990. But in both the latter cases these are compact territories, held not as colonies, which at any time may break loose, but as integral parts of the national domain. This is particularly the case in the United States, whose territory is inhabited by a patriotic and largely homogenous population, and is not made up of a congeries of varied and dissatisfied tribes like those of Russia. The remaining great territorial nation is France, which, with its colonial acquisitions, covers 3,357,856 square miles of territory. But France herself is only 204,177 square miles in extent, and her immense colonial dominions in Africa are held by so weak and uncertain a tenure as to count for little at present in the strength of the nation.

[=Probable Future of English Speech=]

A significant fact, in respect to the recent proposition to establish a universal language, is that the English form of speech, spoken in 1801 by 20,000,000 people, is now used by 125,000,000. Russian comes next, with 90,000,000, German with 75,000,000, French with 55,000,000, Spanish with 45,000,000, and Italian with 35,000,000. The rate of increase in the use of English has far surpassed that of any other language, and it is said that two-thirds of the letters that pass through the post-offices of the world are written and sent by people who speak this cosmopolitan tongue.

This immense advance of the English form of speech is full of significance. If it goes on, the question as to which is to become the dominant language of the world will settle itself by a natural process, and the necessity of inventing a special form of speech will be obviated. English is to-day the chief commercial language of the world, and is fast becoming the polite tongue of Europe, a position held a century ago by French. By the end of the twentieth century it may well have become the only language besides their own which the peoples of the earth will find it necessary to learn. And its marked simplicity of grammatical form adapts it to this destiny beyond any other of the prominent languages of mankind.

[=Influences Aiding Development=]

To return to the subject under consideration, that of nineteenth century progress, it may be claimed as due to several influences, materially to the extended use of the forces of nature in mechanical processes, in which it went far beyond any of the earlier centuries; scientifically to the rapid extension of observation and the vast collection of facts. While there was no superior faculty of generalization, this accumulation of scientific facts added greatly to the probability of the theoretical conclusions thence derived. Again, this activity in investigation, and the great increase of the numbers engaged in it, are legitimate results of the extension of education, and in a large measure of the replacement of classical by scientific instruction. The progress in ethical sentiment is doubtless largely due to the same cause, that of educational development. This has gone far to dispel the cloud of ignorance which formerly hung heavily over the nations, to ripen human intelligence, to broaden man's outlook, to extend his interest far beyond the range of his immediate surroundings, and, by increasing his information and widening his mental grasp, to develop his sympathies and enhance in him the sentiment of the universal brotherhood of mankind.

The intense activity of the human mind in those late days, and the quickness with which men take practical advantage of any new suggestion of workable character, are strikingly exemplified in an example that is well worth relating. In the famous sociological novel by Edward Bellamy, entitled "Looking Backward," in which the author describes an ideal community placed at a date near the end of the twentieth century, he pictures a number of advanced conditions which he evidently hopes will exist at that coming period. One of these is a newspaper on a new type, a spoken instead of a written paper. By aid of telephone connections running in all directions, the events of the day in all parts of the world are to be "phoned" to subscribers in their homes, while great orations, theatrical entertainments, concerts, etc., may be enjoyed without leaving their rooms.

[=A Telephone Newspaper=]

Whether suggested by this imaginative picture or not, it is said that something of this kind has been already introduced, a century in advance of its appointed time. We are told that the city of Budapest, Hungary, has had for several years a spoken newspaper named the _Telephone Gazette_, in which all the news of the day are transmitted by telephone to the subscribers, who are constantly growing in numbers. It has a corps of forty reporters and literary men for the collecting and preparing of material, and sends its news to clubs, restaurants, cafés, public and private residences, the hours of publication beginning at 8.30 A.M., and continuing without interruption until 11 P.M. Each hour is devoted to some special class of news, beginning with telegraphic dispatches from abroad, following with local and provincial news, etc., while at 8 P.M. there are given concerts, lectures, recitations, or other forms of instruction or entertainment.

We have hitherto dealt solely with the progress of the nineteenth century. Now, standing like Bellamy at the dawn of the twentieth, it may be well to take a long look ahead, and strive to trace some stages of the probable progress of the coming time, looking forward from this summit of the ages and stating what this outlook into the dim and distant future brings to our eyes.

[=Limits of Nineteenth Century Progress=]

Before making this effort there is one thing that needs to be said. The progress of the nineteenth century, great as it has been in various directions, must be considered as confined within comparatively narrow limits of space, its effects rapidly diminishing as we pass into the remoter lands of semi-civilization and barbarism. The United States, Western Europe, and such British colonies as Canada, Australia, and Cape Colony have been the seats of most active progress; Spanish America, Russia, and Southeastern Europe have played secondary parts in this movement; Asia, with the exception of Japan, has taken very little part in it; and Africa almost no part at all, except in a few of its European settlements.

[=Progress in China and Hindostan=]

This is one of the important directions in which we may look for a declared exercise of twentieth century activity, that of the planting of the results of recent civilization in all the regions of the earth. This work, as above said, has been done in Japan, whose people have responded with wonderful alacrity to the touch of the new civilization. In the great empire of China the response has been much less encouraging, not from lack of intellectual activity in its people, but from self-satisfaction in their existing institutions and culture. At the close of the nineteenth century, however, this resistance to the thought and mechanical inventions of the West was rapidly giving way, and doubtless one of the triumphs of the twentieth century will be the rejuvenation of China, which we may look to see rivalling Japan on the path of progress.

Of the other great centre of intellectual activity in Asia, the populous land of Hindostan, its progress is likely to depend far more on its British overlords than on the people themselves. While as mentally active as the Chinese, the Hindoos are far less practical. The Chinaman is natively a man of business, and needs only to be convinced that some new method is to his advantage to take active hold of it. The Hindoo is a dreamer, remarkably lacking in the business instinct, and is so deeply imbued with the ancient religious culture of his land that it will not be easy to rouse him from the fatalistic theories in which his whole nature is steeped. National progress in that land must be the work of British energy. But it has already made such marked advance that India may be trusted to wheel into line with the West in the new century.

[=Among the Dull-Minded Peoples=]

The future of the remainder of the world is less assured. The slow thinking peoples of the remainder of Asia, the fanatical populations of Mohammedan lands, the negroes of Africa, the natives of Brazil and Patagonia, the inhabitants of the islands of the Pacific, the peoples of the tropics in general, all are likely to act as brakes upon the wheels of progress, and the "white man's burden" with these tribes and races during the twentieth century is certain to prove an arduous one.

Yet it is not well to be too pessimistic in regard to this problem. It must be remembered that the work of the nineteenth century in these lands has been largely one of discovery. The labor of settlement and development has only fairly begun; what the results will be it is not safe to predict. To make thinkers of these dull-minded savages and barbarians will perhaps be the work of many centuries. To make workers of them is a far easier task, and civilized processes may be active in all these lands long before the nations are in condition to appreciate them. One method of solving the problem is already under way. In the Hawaiian Islands the native population is rapidly disappearing and being replaced by a new one. In New Zealand it has in great measure disappeared and British immigrants have taken its place. The natives are diminishing in numbers elsewhere, as in Australia. The problem of civilization in many of the new lands is likely to be solved in this easy way. But in the thickly settled countries this radical solution of the problem is not to be looked for, and the white man has before him the burden of lifting these unprogressive populations into a higher state.

[=Conditions of Twentieth Century Development=]

To come back to the question of the general advance of the world during the twentieth century, we find ourselves facing a difficult and varied problem. That the great progress of the nineteenth century will be continued cannot well be questioned, but the directions this progress will take is far from easy to decide. In some of its phases progress seems approaching its limiting point, in others its rapidity is likely to decrease, while in still others it may be enormously enhanced. It is by no means improbable that the development of human institutions during the century at hand will be in quite different lines from those of the century just closed, less mechanical perhaps and more moral, less scientific and more philosophical, less political and more industrial, less laborious and more artistic.

In some branches of invention and discovery we seem approaching a termination. It is not easy to see, for instance, how telegraphy can advance in the future as it has in the past. Its powers seem nearing their ultimate measure of ease and rapidity. Yet it is dangerous to predict. Here at the end of the century comes wireless telegraphy, with untold powers. And by its side appears telepathy, mental telegraphy,--the direct action of mind upon mind in a manner analogous to that of telegraphing without wires--of which as yet we know little, yet which may have in it great possibilities of development.

[=Limitations to Progress=]

Other discoveries which seem approaching their ultimate condition are telephony, photography, illumination, and apparently labor-saving machinery in some of its fields, since the performance of some machines appears to have practically reached perfection. Transportation may well be one of these. The rapidity of railroad travel will, no doubt, be increased, yet natural limitations must check its indefinite increase. The same may be said in regard to steamship travel, it appearing that any great future increase of speed must be at an increased ratio of cost so considerable as to bring development in this direction to a speedy termination.

Of course, we are speaking only from our present point of view. It is quite possible that some new and luminous conceptions may break down the bars which now appear to be erected and open the way for new progress in all these directions. Yet it seems safe to assert, as a general principle, that development in any one direction can go on only unto a certain point, and that the limitations of nature must check it at that point.

[=Probable Lines of Future Activity=]

We cannot, indeed, well conceive of a greater activity of invention and a more rapid unfoldment of new processes than we have had before us in the nineteenth century. But an equal activity may long continue. While invention appears to have yielded practically perfect results in some fields, great imperfection exists in others, and in these the minds of inventors have still abundant room for exercise. Thus while the bicycle seems almost to have attained perfection, the automobile is only in its pioneer stage and may be capable of extraordinary improvement. It is quite possible that the horse may in the near future end his long career as man's chief instrument of carriage and traction. Navigation of the air is still in embryo, but it may in time supplant travel on land and sea.

The possibilities in these and some other directions seem immense. At the beginning of the nineteenth century wood was the chief fuel, and had in great measure to serve the needs of household and workshop. At the dawn of the twentieth century coal had taken its place, and the forest had been replaced by the mine. We look back with pity, not unmixed with contempt, on the slowness of our ancestors, slaves to the axe and the firebrand. Our descendants of a century hence may look back with like feelings upon us, and marvel how we could content ourselves with delving in the deep rocks of the earth's crust for fuel when far more abundant and useful resources lay everywhere about us.

[=Employment of the Forces of Nature=]

We are beginning to perceive, somewhat dimly still, the immensity and inexhaustibility of these powers and are prospecting among them with the footsteps of pioneers. The powers of falling water have long been employed, but only recently has it been discovered that they could be conveyed to a distance by means of the electric conductor and applied to motors for the movement of machinery. The electric plant at Niagara Falls is the greatest nineteenth century installation in this direction. Thousands of such plants may be installed in the near future, and the flowing currents of electricity yield light, heat and power in a profusion and with a cheapness that will quite throw coal out of the race, and release the slaves of the mine from their age-old fetters.

Falling water is only one of these sources of natural power. The tidal rise and fall of the seas is another. The movement of the winds is a third. The vast heat contents of the sunlight is a fourth. The variable and periodical character of these is capable of being overcome by methods of storing energy, electrical or other, already somewhat developed and doubtless capable of much further development.

This is one of the most promising directions that appear before us for the exercise of twentieth century invention. Yet, despite this and other fields of inventive activity, what we have said appears to hold good, that one by one each of the varied lines of invention will reach its ultimatum, and gradually the activity of man in this direction decrease. While the twentieth century may be as active in the development of mechanism as the nineteenth has been, it seems unlikely to be more so, and in succeeding centuries, inventive activity must decline for want of fields in which to exercise itself.

[=Possible Decline in Mechanical and Scientific Progress=]

In some other fields of mental activity a similar slackening of energy may appear. Science has been as active as mechanics in the century just closed, but in some of its fields of exercise an approach towards a limiting point seems evident. Observational science has been phenomenally busy, and the multitude of facts collected has been extraordinarily great; so great indeed that in some lines the facts remaining to be observed have become limited. Such is the case in zoology and botany. The species of animals and plants are by no means all known, but only the inconspicuous and those existing in lands yet unexplored remain to be discovered. There is much room for work still in this field, but future labors must be more difficult and results less abundant. The same can be said of several other fields of scientific observation, such as chemistry, mineralogy, anatomy and physiology, and others that could be named. Doubtless there is still large room for observation, but it must be in the finer and less evident domains of science, the surface facts having been largely gathered in. In theoretical science great progress has also been made by such men as Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Young, Darwin and a host of others. But many important problems remain to be solved, and human thought may profitably be exercised in this direction for a long time to come.

[=New Lines of Mental Activity=]

Yet it may be that the progress of the twentieth century will be directed most largely towards fields of research or improvement which have been secondary considerations, or have made only partial advance, in the century we have been considering. These will perhaps be intellectual rather than physical in character, and the advance social rather than material. Man has been struggling actively with inanimate substances and physical forces and adapting them to his ends. There lie before him the world of the animate and the forces of society and the intellect, to be treated with similar activity. The political, moral, educational, and industrial problems of the day need to be taken hold of more decisively than ever before, and the reign of fraud, injustice, autocratic power, unnatural inequality, ignorance, unnecessary want and suffering, etc., brought to an end.

[=Purity in Politics=]

There has been, as above stated, very considerable political evolution during the recent century, but the political condition of the world remains very far from satisfactory, even in civilized lands, and there is abundant room for progress in this field. Man will not be satisfied until every vestige of autocratic power and hereditary rank is swept away and the rulers of the nations have become the chosen servants of the people, as in the republic of the United States, and what we may call the prime-ministry of Great Britain--for the so-called monarchy of that kingdom has sunk to a title without power. Nor will man be satisfied until the rule of the political boss is similarly swept aside and honesty in office and in elective methods secured. This state of affairs cannot be reached under the present condition of public opinion. In the educational activities of the age political instruction is sadly needed. The masses need to be taught their duties and their rights. If they can once be brought to act together for their own interests and their own ideas of right and wrong, and cease to be led astray by the shibboleth of party or partisanship, there will be a rapid change in the state of public affairs, and men be chosen for official positions who can be trusted to act for the good of those who sent them there.

[=The Vice of Intemperance=]

Advance in education is not alone needed for this, but its accompaniment, advance in moral standards, is equally requisite. The moral progress of mankind, which has been so marked during the past century, is sure to go on to higher levels, and with every step upwards there will doubtless be demanded a higher standard of action in those who are called upon to act as servants of the public. We have not mentioned in this work one of the great evils of the age, the vice of intoxication, which has done so much to degrade and pauperize mankind, and has been one of the leading influences in the retention of the unworthy in power. Legal enactments have failed to put an end to this indulgence in a debased appetite, but public opinion is beginning to succeed where law has failed. Drunkenness has ceased to be respectable, and as a result open intoxication among respectable people is growing more and more rare. At the same time the desire to be considered respectable is making its way downward among the people, and widening the field of its effect. Drinking in moderation is prevalent still. Drinking in excess is plainly on the decrease. And with every step in this direction the self-respect of the people must grow, pauperism decrease, and an enlightened conception of public duty develop. Whatever else the twentieth century brings about, we may reasonably look for a great revolution in the political status of the world.

[=Industry in the Twentieth Century=]

There is one farther field of twentieth century progress to be reviewed, the industrial. The nineteenth century has reached its end leaving this great domain of human interests in a highly unsatisfactory condition. The progress of labor during the century under review has been considered in a preceding chapter, and brought down to its existing state. What the character of its progress will be in the twentieth century is open to conjecture. While nothing concerning it can be stated positively, some deductions from the present condition of things may be made.

[=The King, the Priest, and the Cash Box=]

Mankind for some thousands of years past has been subjected to tyranny of various kinds, and in particular to the tyranny of the king, the priest, and the cash box; the first controlling him by the power of the sword, the second by that of superstition, the third by that of material wants. The control of the first two of these have long been slipping away from them. That of the king has quite vanished in the most advanced lands, and the political equality of all men has been assured. That of the priest has similarly vanished in these lands and is diminishing everywhere, liberty of thought being made secure. That of the cash-box, on the contrary, has grown as the authority of its rivals has decreased, and it stands to-day as the great power in the most advanced communities, it being particularly dominant in the United States.

Shall this third of the great tyrants of the world retain its supremacy? Shall it not in its turn be overthrown, and liberty and equality in this direction be also attained? Certainly great progress is likely to be made in this direction, whatever the final outcome may be. For ages a state of protest and quiet or active revolt against kingcraft and priestcraft prevailed. This state now exists in regard to the money power, the industrial classes of all lands struggling bitterly against it, and combining with a view to its overthrow. Such a state of revolt, bitter, persistent, unrelenting, indicates something innately wrong in the industrial situation, and cannot fail in the end to have its effect. We may safely look forward to an amelioration in the situation, even though we cannot tell how it is to be brought about.

[=The Vast Growth of Wealth=]

The extraordinary activity of productive industry within the century is the cause of the state of affairs which now exists. The wealth of the world has increased enormously, and has fallen largely into the hands of individuals. A century ago there was not a millionaire in our land, and few in any land. Now they exist by the thousands, and millionaires two hundred fold multiplied are not unknown. This vast accumulation of wealth in single hands does not satisfy its owners. They are eager for more, and capital is widely combining into great corporations for the purpose of reducing expenses, so that the cost of manufacture may be decreased, and doing away with competition, so that prices of goods may be augmented. This is but one result of the trust combination. A second and highly important one is a great reduction of the opportunity for individual business operations, the tendency being to reduce the great mass of the community to the position of employees.

[=National and Municipal Ownership=]

This problem has been already considered in Chapter xxxviii., with the suggestion there made that it is apt to strengthen the force of Socialism, the purpose of which, as there indicated, is to put an end to individualism in productive enterprises, and place all workshops, stores, railroads, etc., under government control, to be conducted for the good of the people as a whole, not for that of individual capitalists. A step in this direction somewhat widely taken in Europe, is the control of railroads and telegraphs by the government. Another step is the control of all municipal functions, including street railways, electric lights, etc., by the city authorities. The latter system, adopted by many European cities, is being actively advocated in the United States, and is gathering to its support a vigorous public opinion which promises to be strong enough in the end to achieve its purpose.

Abroad the forces of Socialism are organizing themselves actively, and are gaining a political strength vigorous enough to create much alarm in the ruling powers. Whether this cult of Socialism has come to stay, and has in it sufficient force of growth to give it an eventual supremacy, or whether it is to be classed with the many popular movements which have played their parts for a time and passed away, is not for us to say, only the arbitrament of time can decide.

[=The New Psychology=]

We might consider the question of the twentieth century progress from other points of view, such as agriculture, architecture, household art, literature, medicine, surgery, social relations, etc., though in doing so we should be considering simply developments of existing conditions. Perhaps the most promising line of progress is in experimental psychology, the study of the brain and nervous system, the instruments of the mind from the scientific point of view, in distinction from the old, theoretical psychology. This, the latest of the sciences, has recently begun its development, and is full of promise of important discoveries concerning the conditions of mental phenomena. It must suffice here, however, to refer to it as one of the lines in which science has before it a broad field of research, and with this mention we shall bring to an end the long journey we have made in this work through the stirring history and marvelous events and discoveries of the wonderful nineteenth century.

* * * * * *

Transcriber's note:

The many illustrations have been moved to fall on paragraph breaks.

A number of illustrations are composite portraits. Each name is listed in the caption.

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Proper names, especially Russian, were not spelled consistently, and are generally given here as printed. The exceptions are noted below.

Compound words that are hyphenated on a line break are given here with or without a hyphen, following the most frequent appearance elsewhere in the text.

Diacritical marks are frequently missing either in the text or in captions. The variants are retained. The name 'Blücher' appears twice as 'Blucher' (p. 66 and the caption of the illustration on p. 91). The variants are retained. The word 'insistent' was consistently spelled 'insistant' (pp. 168, 172, 305), all of which are retained. The given name of Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier appears twice (pp 515-516) as 'Wilfred', and is retained.

The following table itemizes the various (and numerous) textual issues encountered in preparing this version of the text, and their resolutions. Corrections have been made, as noted, when it is obvious that a printer's error has been made, or when other instances of a misspelled word appear correctly elsewhere. The words 'indispensible' or 'indispensable' appears once each as 'indispensible' or 'indispensibly' and were corrected here. 'Dispatch' and 'despatch' are used interchangeably, and are retained. Any errors appearing in quoted matter are retained as printed. The word 'infectuous', an obsolete form of 'infectious', appears on pp. 586-587. Although 'infectious' appears several times as well, the obsolete form is retained.

p. 7 General Hayna[n/u] Corrected.

p. 8 2[59] Page number completed. Sir Arthur Wel[l]esley Added.

p. 13 Andrée[']s Fatal Balloon Venture Added.

p. 14 a[min/nim]als Transposed.

p. 24 great continent of[,]America. Removed.

p. 27 ind[e/i]spensible Corrected.

p. 49 persist[a/e]nce Corrected.

p. 51 two forces[,/.] Decaen Corrected.

p. 56 D[e/i]vised Corrected.

p. 58 despa[i]ring Added. persist[a/e]nt Corrected.

p. 66 simultaneo[u]sly Added. Demor[i/a]lization Corrected. Generl Benni[n]gsen Removed.

p. 68 northe[r]ners] Added.

p. 70 Benni[n]gsen's troops Removed.

p. 71 hind[e]red Added.

p. 74 sovereign[i]ty Removed.

p. 76 Austr[ai/ia]ns Transposed.

p. 78 more[o]ver Added.

p. 88 stubborn[n]ess Added.

p. 107 Westmin[i]ster Removed. Nap[a/o]leon Corrected.

p. 117 delib[e]rations Added.

p. 122 the absolute kings[.] Added.

p. 124 arbit[r]ary Added.

p. 141 their daring[s] keels Corrected.

p. 142 persist[a/e]nt Corrected. William of Norman[d]y Added.

p. 143 Dardanell[e]s Added.

p. 145 su[p/r]pass Corrected. Great Brit[ia/ai]n Corrected.

p. 162 perc[ie/ei]ved Transposed.

p. 166 persist[a/e]nt Corrected.

p. 168 di[s]missed Added.

p. 174 out[b]reak Added.

p. 176 desp[a/e]rate Corrected.

p. 191 enthusia[s]tic Added.

p. 193 engag[e]ments Added.

p. 198 sovereign[i]ty Removed.

p. 204 twice[d] rammed Removed.

p. 205 strengthened with a [a] new French Removed.

p. 222 [h/b]eheld Corrected.

p. 239 the various state[s] Added.

p. 244 state[s]manship Added.

p. 248 announ[c]ed Added.

p. 250 Gladstone[e] Removed.

p. 260 ac[i]tivity Removed.

p. 261 massacres on both sides[,/.] Corrected.

p. 262 occas[s]ion Removed.

p. 264 forstalled _Sic._

p. 265 enthu[is/si]astic Transposed.

p. 267 gradual[ly] repayment Removed.

p. 268 Wellesl[e]y Added. Eve[r/n] there Corrected.

p. 269 A[l/f]ghans Corrected. Bri[s]tish Removed.

p. 273 he[or/ro]ic Transposed.

p. 279 Repu[b]lican gover[n]ment Added.

p. 284 Th[ei/ie]rs had just performed Corrected.

p. 285 fort[r]ess Added.

p. 287 streng[t]h Added.

p. 288 cause celèbre _Sic._

p. 305 for[e]seeing Added.

p. 311 I[t] indicates Added.

p. 324 re[gco/cog]nize Transposed. remar[k]able Added.

p. 326 possesses[s] Removed.

p. 329 impor[t]ant Added. its innumerable affluents _Sic._

p. 331 Egyptian[s] troops Removed.

p. 335 The S[ei/ie]ge of Sontay Transposed.

p. 337 h[re/er]oic Transposed.

p. 341 the ruined fort[r]ess Added. enterp[r]ise Added.

p. 345 inaptitude _Sic._

p. 347 Right of Suff[e]rage Removed.

p. 348 Massac[h]usetts Added. which the[,] crushing Removed.

p. 350 in hundreds [of] libraries Added.

p. 353 eno[u]rmously Removed.

p. 354 Mer[r]iwether Lewis _Sic._

p. 356 Actio[h/n] Corrected.

p. 370 proc[c]eed Removed.

p. 381 concentration of [d/p]ower Corrected.

p. 384 suc[c]eeded Added.

p. 388 war-[w/v]essels Corrected.

p. 412 and he did force it.["] Added.

p. 418 I decline [acceeding] to your request _Sic._

p. 421 [batallions/battalions] Corrected. irresist[a/i]ble Corrected.

p. 429 Lou[i]siana Added. disfellowship[p]ed Added.

p. 435 orator has a [a] special significance Removed.

p. 441 Assas[s]ination Added.

p. 457 Virginia Campai[g]n Added.

p. 460 with [t]he utmost Added.

p. 461 resis[t]ance Added.

p. 464 cap[ti/it]al Transposed.

p. 469 d[i/e]spite Corrected.

p. 473 Indian Territor[r]y Removed. came [n/u]pon them Corrected.

p. 474 commis[s]ion Added.

p. 479 unin[i]tiated Added.

p. 481 responsibilit[i]es Added.

p. 486 Curaçoa _Sic._

p. 491 Hampton R[h]oads Removed.

p. 504 while hundreds[,] of their crews Removed.

p. 506 a yell f[or/ro]m the sentinel Transposed.

p. 507 [u/i]neffectively Corrected.

p. 511 suprema[n]cy Removed.

p. 514 commer[ic/ci]al Transposed (twice).

p. 518 mount[ia/ai]n Transposed. ac[c]ross Removed. fr[ie/ei]ght Transposed.

p. 519 vis[i]tor Added.

p. 532 Robe[r]t E. Peary Added. near the 81st parallel[,/.] Corrected.

p. 533 walrusses _Sic._ unsuc[c]essful Added.

p. 536 Del[a]ware Added.

p. 543 compet[it]ion Added.

p. 546 telegrap[h]y Added.

p. 552 millionairs _Sic._

p. 554 For a centur[e/y] Corrected.

p. 564 to prevent its[,] ever Removed.

p. 565 conspira[r/c]y Corrected. F[r]ance Added.

p. 574 signifi[c]ance Added.

p. 578 pheno[n/m]e[m/n]a Transposed. d[e/i]stinction Corrected.

p. 581 Subsid[u/i]ary Corrected.

p. 582 pal[a/æ]ontology Corrected.

p. 585 ever[y]where Added.

p. 592 the people in all lands[,/.] Corrected.

p. 593 "Scarlet Letter,['/"] Corrected.

p. 594 "New South["] Added.

p. 595 "Genius of Christianity.[']" Removed.

p. 597 the poets [a/o] Norway Corrected.

p. 598 Litera[t/r]ure Corrected. ninete[e]nth Added. Sienkiewi[e/c]z Corrected.

p. 599 sc[ei/ie]ntific Transposed.

p. 600 Th[e/o]se who cannot read Corrected.

p. 609 insist[a/e]nce Corrected.

p. 618 the selectmen[t] of Newburyport Removed.

p. 620 prop[a/o]rtions Corrected.

p. 621 eco[m/n]omic Corrected.

p. 628 possibilit[i]es Added.

p. 635 persist[a/e]nt Corrected. accum[m]ulation Removed. sati[s]fy Added.

p. 636 phenom[en]a Added. a[r]bitrament Added.