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PROGRESS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
earthly life; an age when we will find our nation's greatest minds following that pursuit which is most worthy of great exertion. But it can never be until this tide of foreign emigration shall have reached its flood; until that great ocean of foreign customs has ceased to wash our shores; until the foreign element, mingled with the native, composes one uniform mass, and crystalizing, gives our nation an individuality.
It was so with England. For hundreds of years the streams of Norman-French and Anglo-Saxon life flowed on side by side. The magic power of Chaucer's pen brought
them together, and since that time they have been one—they have been English; and so must it be with us. We have had some American literary characters. They have painted American life in its present form; they have done well, but American life to-day is essentiallyEnglish life. Literary characters will, no doubt, appear all along the lines of the future, and by their works future ages will mark the transformation. In the fullness of time America will have her literature, but not to-day, tomorrow.
PROGRESS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
We live in an era of progress. In the triumphal march of the ages, the nineteenth century leads the van. The advance of society is so still that they only who make note of it are aware how swift and sure it is. Immense changes have taken place in one hundred years, yet scarcely a convulsion has been felt. The rapid advance made in all things, both material and intellectual, since eighteen hundred, is truly marvelous. Discoveries and inventions have multiplied; religious thought has become more liberal; scientific theories have been substantiated by facts; educational advancement has been great.
When we look back over such rapid progress we find it impossible to particularize or to decide where improvement has been most rapid. From such an abundance of facts let us choose two illustrations. The ease and rapidity of communication between individuals, and between nations, has greatly increased within one hundred years To the inventive genius of the nineteenth century we owe the electric telegraph and telephone. Through combined genius and
perseverance we have five thousand miles of ocean telegraph. To the inventive genius of the nineteenth century may be ascribed the great improvement which has taken place in the printing press. If a middle-aged man visits the press room of a first-class daily and observes the huge machine which does in a minute what the best machine of his youth would require a man and active boy two hours to accomplish, he may have some idea of the power of this whizzing monster and of the progress made in paper printing. Joseph Cook says: "Caesar could not drive his chariot around the Roman Empire in less than one hundred days. We can now send a letter around the world in ninety-six days. The circuit of the outmost roads of the Roman world could not be made in less than one hundred days, but in less than that time the steamship and the locomotive, however unpoetic they may seem in contrast with the wheels on which Caesar rode, can now be driven around the globe."
To the enlightened public opinion of the nineteenth century we owe the present, com-