tion of them. Gladstone spoke to me of our "enormous power." The lamented Bright, in July, 1887, propounded to me an inquiry as to the elements of our greatness. Gibbon, in his account of the Saracenic invasion of Spain, says that soon after the conquest a map of the province was presented to the caliph, showing rivers, harbors, seas, cities, climate, soil, productions. In two centuries the gifts of nature were so improved by agriculture, manufactures, and the commerce of an industrious people, that the tribute money grew into an annual sum surpassing the united revenues of the Christian monarchs. Villages, mosques, cities, baths, horses, mules, made it difficult to exaggerate the riches and populousness of the Peninsula. In material, political, and moral aspects, what a contrast does that glowing picture present to our progress in a hundred years. The changes in all the departments of life have been like the work of enchantment. 1789-1889 mark a century of prodigious revolutions, not sudden or violent, but, in the main, peaceful, orderly, and beneficient. One can realize the advance only by instituting a comparison betwixt the two periods. No hundred years of the Christian era has witnessed such improvement in invention, in comforts and luxuries, in productive industry, in wealth, in science, in means of education, in liberal giving, in amelioration of human condition, in enlargement of personal and civil liberty, in establishment of free institutions, in spread of Christianity, in all the fields of human thought and life.. I shall not essay to explain the manifold causes of this progress. Let it be my humbler task to take a hasty glance at a few of the more salient. II. The discovery of America was providential. The time was most propitious. Fortunately the gift was to the Aryan race. It was somewhat contemporaneous with, but happily subsequent to the intellectual revival consequent upon the discovery of a forgotten literature, the invention of movable types, the application of the polarity of the magnet to navigation, and the Reformation of religion. These were great agencies for quickening thought and enterprise, for arousing men from mental stupor, from industrial sluggishness, from the lethargy which results from civil and ecclesiastical despotism. It is not easy to estimate the intellectual and spiritual awakening produced by these agencies. Society was permeated by fresh and intelligent thought. This was a remarkably creative, nourishing period, begetting mental independence, love of knowledge, a glow of life and intellect. III. America was a tabula rasa as to social and political institutions. The aborigines, speaking many distinct languages, had diverse civil organisms, multifarious arts, picture writing, implements of stone, shell, bone and wood, navigated rivers and lakes, but they were barbarians and have left scant material for linguistics, or history, or archæology. The native races were so inferior to the immigrants, so few in number and widely scattered, that they were easily dispossessed, and the new comers had practically no embarrassment from traditions and prescriptions and passions which are transmitted so fully by national character. Besides, the ties which bound to mother country were not very strong. Remoteness from Europe, slow and infrequent voyages, occupation of the people of the old world with urgent questions, hatred of religious and civil tyranny, and other causes, left the adventurers very much to self-control, and indisposed them to take lessons of submission or instruction from those left behind. IV. The hostilities encountered were largely of their own creating, but served to compact into union and fellowship and to awaken physical and mental energies among those who but for this need of co-operation would have been segregated into families or communities and weakened by avarice and indulgence. This enforced combination ultimately ripened into the American Union, which has been, still is, may it ever be !-one of the chief est sources as well as guarantees of prosperity and greatness, because it means union, liberty, and law. The immediate causes and the history of that organizing are foreign to my purpose. Suffice it to say, we have an area of 3,501,404 square miles, immense lakes and rivers, virgin soil of unexampled fertility, a climate varied, healthful, adapted to fruits and crops of great variety and utility, timber of many kinds, mineral wealth that defies computation. If wealth be the product of labor skillfully applied to natural elements, then the conditions of wealth are superabundant. The land was not under feudal title or mortgages of labor or service. In Great Britain and Ireland with 120,879 square miles, there are few proprietors. * Here the government has disposed of land with secure title and fixed boundaries at nominal rates and cheapness, fertility and easy transfer have left no excuse for being without permanent homes, and the result is the most general distribution of landed and other property, the largest individual prosperity, and "the largest aggregate of estimated wealth" ever known in civilized life. One can hardly doubt the salutary influence of this home life and family independence upon individual character and citizenship. It may not be irrelevant to emphasize the suggestive historical fact that the Congress of the Confederation, by the Ordinance of 1787, reserved lot No. 16 of every township for the maintenance of public schools. This ordinance, Webster said, declared it to be a high and binding duty of government itself to support schools and advance the means of education on the plain reason that religion, morality and knowledge are necessary to good govern The Financial Reform Almanac for 1887 says that 10,207 persons own the whole of England and Wales; 1,700 persons hold nine-tenths of all Scotland, and 1,912 persons own two-thirds of Ireland. The cost of transfer of land is stated as 3 per cent. + Gladstone in Nineteenth Century for May. ment and the happiness of mankind. The ordinance was followed by act of Congress in 1803 and, later, by other enactments, applying to all the territories. In 1848 the quantity was doubled, and since, all organized territories have received the 16th and 36th sections in every township. To each State admitted into the Union since 1800-Maine, Texas, and West Virginia for obvious reasons excepted -and to New Mexico, Washington, and Utah, two or more townships have been granted for endowment of universities. In 1862 the act for Agriculture and Mechanic Arts was passed, aggregating near 10,000,000 acres. By act of 22 Feb., 1889, 450,000 acres were granted to North and to South Dakota, Montana, and Washington each, for educational and charitable institutions. Whatever differences among men and parties, there has been a consensus of opinion as to the dependence of the Republic on education and the duty of the Federal Government to assist in maintaining schools. The free public school, the zo STW of representative institutions, is proving to be the solvent of language and condition, has a training and unifying influence and is merging our population into one substantial body politic, making our country what has not inappropriately been called, "the grave of nationalities." We have 12,000 periodicals, 200,000 public schools, sustained at an annual expenditure of $122,455,252, possessing property worth $200,000,000, and attended by 10,000,000 pupils, besides 250,000 in secondary schools, and 60,000 in colleges and universities. There are 200 institutions for higher education of women, 345 for men, 450 for science, law, medicine and theology, and 360,000 teachers. "These are the despair of the scoffer and the demagogue, and the firm support of civilization and liberty." As the pioneer pushed his way into the primeval forest, and constructed his rude hut, his next labor was to provide a house for a school and for religious worship. In thinking of those who laid the foundations none are more deserving of gratitude and immortal record than the teachers of the "old-field " schools, who moulded the intellects, and the godly "saddle bags" preachers, who accompanied the advance wave of population and sought to build securely on the infallible Word of God. "The riches of the Commonwealth Are free strong minds and hearts of health; The cunning hand and cultured brain. While near her school the church-spire stands : While near her church-spire stands the school." * As proof that undue care for material prosperity has not destroyed care for the mind and that democracy feels the need of a higher as well as of public school education, see the splendid gifts made by private liberality. What has been done by Peabody, Slater, Hand, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Bostwick, Rockafeller, Trevor, Colgate, Sage.* What is done elsewhere by imperial decrees or State revenues is done here largely by individual and denominational labors and benefactions. The new States vie with the older, and in some respects surpass in more thorough adaptedness to our wants as a people. This noble University furnishes apt illustration. Matthew Arnold said ours was a land of intelligent mediocrity where every one has some culture, and where supeorities are discountenanced. Here you have extensive courses of instruction under teachers of distinguished competency, broad and catholic learning. There seem to be no bigoted restrictions on thought and investigation. You have libraries, museums, laboratories, observatories, competitive schools of medicine based on different theories, dental, law, music and scientific schools, not detached as annexes, but made a part of the organism, liberty of choice * Bureau of Education reported individual benefactions for education for 1871-1880 as over $62,000,000. |