John Shertzer Hittell

“ The Arabs and Hindoos have alphabets, but they have no eminent schools, no rich literature, no great city in which their race has reached a leading place in culture. The possession of the alphabet, with the books, the schools, the wealth, and the centres of civilization, in the temperate zone, where man has the strongest stimulus and the most energy for the exercise of his physical and mental faculties, gives to Euraryans the mastery of the fortunes, and almost a monopoly of the interest of earth. ”

“ Nearly every labor-saving machine has called a new trade into existence. The builders of stationary engines, of locomotives and of railway-cars, the boiler-maker, the steam, the railway, and the gas engineers, the gas-fitter, and the manufacturer of chemicals, are a few out of many. ”

“ As a general rule, population has been nearly stationary; century after century has passed, with little difference until we come within the magic influence of steam, and then suddenly the Euraryan race, acquiring the power to draw larger crops from the soil, to distribute them more evenly, thus preventing disease and famine, and to visit new and more profitable fields of industry, multiplies so as to keep pace with the increased supplies of food and with the demand for labor.
Education, like civilization, of which it is a large part, belongs mainly to the Euraryans. ”

“ Statesmen and people do not yet comprehend the vastness of the commercial interests, nor have the merchants and capitalists yet learned how to combine to prevent the legislative follies of past ages. Commerce is destined to be the great bond of peace between nations, and they will be compelled soon to organize a league to administer international justice, and to protect the vast interests involved in their trade. ”

“ And then the gain in the materials for commerce has been immense. Steam-engines furnish a power estimated to be equal to that of 300,000,000 working-men, and the saving of labor by other machines is probably not less. The production of cloth and the manufacture of iron have been revolutionized, and the annual consumption of the most useful of metals has increased from 200,000 to 12,000,000 tons. The industrial arts generally have made so much progress, that no extensive branch of business is now conducted as it was in the middle of the last century. ”

“ Nearly all our prose romance, and most of our poetry, history, and miscellaneous literature, belong to the steam age in origin and spirit. We now write ten times as many books, and publish fifty times as many volumes annually, as they did in the last century. ”

“ Modern civilization belongs to the Euraryan—the Teutonic, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic and Greek—nationalities which migrated from Asia in the remote past to Europe, whence some of them passed over to other parts of the world, carrying their culture, their energy, and their high capacity for further progress, with them. ”

“ The sickle was superseded by the cradle, with which the farmer could cut four times as much, and that by the reaping-machine, with which a man can cut five times as much, as with the cradle. The scythe gave way to the mowing-machine, and the flail to the thrashing-machine. The steam-plough has not yet been introduced extensively, but it will doubtless make another revolution. The progress made in the drainage of land by pipes, in the drying of fruits and vegetables by hot air, and the canning of fruits and meats, all are important aids to agricultural industry. ”

“ And if now commerce gains nine per cent, annually, whereas before the steam age it did not increase one per cent., shall we not exalt the age of steam, which has brought the improvement? It is to be observed that the forces which have caused the wondrous development, instead of having reached the culmination of their influence, are only beginning to get full swing, and that the new commerce has not yet had time to exert its power. ”

“ Since the farmers are the largest class of producers, and the basis of national prosperity, and since ploughing is the most important part of their labor, the invention of the iron mould-board deserves to be considered one of the greatest contributions to modern civilization, ranking next to the steam-engine and to movable type, in its influence on the general condition of mankind. ”

“ The improvements in printing and in the manufacture of iron and cloth, great as they are, are yet dependent for much of their value on the steam which drives the press, the rolling-mill, and the loom, and transports their products to market. The electric telegraph is inferior to either of these three: Watt's invention remains master of the field. It has made a new era, which ranks with that of bronze, and the two surpass in importance all the others. ”

“ The soil began to produce abundantly; the supply of food was larger and more constant; population became dense; buildings of cut stone were erected for temples, fortifications, and granaries; the accumulation of property became possible and reputable; nations were organized and armies drilled. All these changes were the necessary results of the discovery of the art of making bronze. Previously men were in the stone age, without durable houses, without national government, without cities, without any accumulation of property, division of labor, literature, or prospect of progress. ”

“ The iron and printing ages made revolutions in society, but they were far less important than those of bronze and steam. The bronze revolution was the greater, looked at from a relative standpoint, but, considered absolutely, it was small in comparison, and very slow in progress, with the influence of steam. ”

“ Counting the macadamized roads, the new and improved wagons, the canals, the river and ocean steamboats, the increase in the number, and the improvements in the size, pattern, rigging, and speed of sailing-vessels, and the railroads, there is no exaggeration in saying that the facilities for domestic and foreign commerce have increased one hundred-fold. ”

“ Progress depends not so much on the number of those who come within its nominal domain, as of those who are under its full influence and appreciate its value; that is, the educated people. They have increased ninefold since 1770. In that year not one out of a hundred adults in Russia and Turkey, not ten in Catholic Europe, not thirty in Protestant Europe, could read. Now, about eighty-five out of a hundred in the Teutonic, and fifty in the Latin nations, can read, or nearly 200,000,000 in all. ”

“ The uncertainty of enjoying accumulated wealth deprived the people of zeal for labor or economy. But now there has been a vast change for the better, and commerce and finance have made wonderful advances. International and national traffic have risen to proportions which far surpass the wildest visions of past ages. ”

“ They must adopt new rules for their new circumstances. The policy which might have been beneficial in a national point of view in 1700 would be foolish now. "Commerce," as John Stuart Mill said, "first taught nations to see with good-will the wealth and prosperity of one another. Before, the patriot, unless sufficiently advanced in culture to feel the world his country, wished all countries weak and poor and ill-governed, but his own." Now, he understands that the greater their wealth and prosperity, the greater also will be that of his nation ”

“ Our houses, our tools, our clothing, our food, our trades, and our professions, are different in many important points. The farmers have thrown aside the wooden plough, the sickle, and the flail, which were their chief implements in 1750. The wooden mouldboard was excellent as compared with the barbaric plough which had no mould-board, and did not throw a furrow to one side, but merely scratched the ground, making a ridge on each side of the plough-point. While oak was the material, the farmer usually hewed or chopped out his own board, and fastened it on his plough ”

“ But we are told that the spirit of our age is bad; it is too materialistic; it is hostile to æsthetical and spiritual influences; it exalts money and machinery. The meaning of this complaint is that its authors have not been properly educated, and they find that the world is not in sympathy with them. ”

“ The miner has adopted dynamite and other explosives stronger and safer to handle than the charcoal-powder, and can, at the same time, hold and strike the small drill, whereas the large drill needed for the weaker powder required one man to hold the drill while another was striking. Steam not only hoists the ore and pumps the water, but sometimes drills the rock. ”

“ When savages learned to make bronze, their former weapons and tools of stone and bone were thrown away. The flint knife, which lost its brittle edge at the first cut into wood, was replaced by tough metal which could be sharpened anew every day, and would last for years. ”

“ England did not commence building canals till 1760, and in the mean time not less than 6,000 miles have been built by the Euraryans, at a cost of not less than $500,000,000. The shipping of Christendom has risen from 1,500,000 to 15,000,000 tons, and a third of the increase is in steamers, which make three trips for one by a sailing-vessel. They not only carry three times as much freight per ton as the sailers, but they take many perishable articles which could not go by the slower navigation, and were therefore not produced, or were wasted. ”

“ The ancient Egyptians asserted that their monarchy had stood without material change for 10,000 years. There is much reason for believing that their religion and polity were about the same for at least 3,000 years, and for presuming that they must have been very slow in reaching that condition. ”

“ The savage armed with flint weapons was no match for the man of bronze, and thus the latter could take the most fertile valleys and reduce the former to slavery. The possession of metallic hoes, spades, and sickles, was the beginning of systematic agriculture. ”

“ National animosities, sectarian passions, popular ignorance, despotic governments, the division of one nationality into numerous independent states, and the established policies of conquest, balance of power, sectarian intolerance, and trade-restriction bred frequent wars, and destroyed confidence in the duration of any peace. ”

“ The breeds of farm-animals have been greatly improved. The Ayrshire, the Durham, the Jersey, and the Devon, the Cotswold, the Southdown and the Cheviot, the Chester and the Berkshire, the Clydesdale and the American trotter, have been either started, or for the first time introduced into extensive use, in the steam age. ”

“ The processes of separating gold and silver from the earthy and rocky matter which hold them in a state of nature are new in their principal features.
All the prominent mechanical occupations have felt the influences of our progressive time, and many have been added to the list. ”

“ A large majority of our most instructive books are the product of the last hundred years. Of the works sold in the book-stores or loaned by the public libraries, at least ninety-five per cent, are new. ”

“ They measure it by their ignorance and prejudice, and conclude that it is wrong. In all ages such lamentations have been heard about the progress of the most beneficent changes. The discredit into which many of the old metaphysicians have fallen is chargeable in a great degree to our superior knowledge. ”

“ If steel pens had not come into use as a substitute for quills, the supply of which would have been entirely inadequate to the scribbling demands of the present day, education might have felt a check. ”

“ Not a hundred years have elapsed since the owners of riding-horses petitioned the English Parliament to forbid the establishment of a stage-line which had lately been started, and was ruining their business. ”