The tele Great foundland. An unsuccessful attempt had been made at this in 1857. Cyrus W. Field persisted and he was finally successful. The railroad and the telegraph added to the circulation of newspapers, periodicals, reviews, and magazines. graph doubled the newspaper circulation within six years. Great newspapers arose, with great editors newspapers to reflect and enlighten public opinion, like Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald, and Henry J. Raymond of the New York Times. Good reading was made cheaper and possible in almost every home. arose. Reapers and promote agriculture on a large threshers The modern reaper and threshing machines came into use a little over half a century ago. Cyrus H. McCormick had invented his reaper in the early thirties, but he was not able to bring his machines into use until after he had put one on exhibition in the World's Fair in London in 1851, and until he had shown what they could do on our Western prairies. We cannot see how the crops of our great Western farms could now be gathered with only the old-fashioned sickle and scythe or without the steam thresher. scale. In 1844 Goodyear made his process of making India rubber harder, more durable and elastic (called vulcanizing), Goodyear and when we think of the rubber goods that this and rubber goods. made possible we are led to see how Goodyear's invention was one of the most useful of the century. Anæsthetics. In 1846 Elias Howe brought out the first sewing machine, which has since been perfected by Wheeler, Wilson, Singer, and other inventors. By the same year it had been The sewing shown that a person might be made insensible to machine. pain by inhaling chloroform or ether (an anæsthetic) and thus the agony of surgery was relieved. The honor of this discovery has been claimed for a number of physicians: Dr. Morton of Massachusetts, Dr. Wells of Connecticut, and Dr. Long of Georgia. The first operation with the use of an anæsthetic was reported by Dr. Long in 1842. In The last half of the nineteenth century was a period of great trade expansion. Great steamship lines multiplied trade with Trade exEurope and made travel abroad much easier. pansion is 1854 Commodore Perry opened up trade relations promoted by material with Japan. Silver was discovered in Nevada in discoveries. 1859. In the fifties coal oil, or petroleum, was discovered in Pennsylvania, to be followed later by great use of "natural gas." The decades from 1840 to 1860 were marked by great prosperity that was hardly checked by the Mexican War, or by bitter sectional strife, or by the commercial panic of 1857. Increased machinery caused large factories for manufacturing purposes to take the place of the small shops, and this cheapened goods if it did not improve their quality. Wonderful growth of the West. All these causes, cheaper goods, better transportation, better means of living, improvements in agriculture, cheap public lands, increase in the precious metals and in mining facilities, brought about a wonderful growth in the West. Between 1840 and 1860 the population of Illinois and Indiana was doubled, that of Wisconsin and Michigan more than quadrupled. The mining and grazing regions of the Rocky Mountain states were developed. Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska were settled and brought into the Union, and the western part of America became the great source of food products for Europe. At the close of the Civil War the area of the United States was 3,025,000 square miles. In 1867 Alaska was purchased for the sum of $7,200,000. Alaska contained 570,000 square miles. At that time it was thought to consist only of rocks and icebergs of no value; but its fisheries and seals, and lately its gold from the Klondike, have brought in many times what was paid for it. 584. Education, Literature, and Art.-American progress, however, has not all been of a material kind. It is true that our forefathers were engaged, for the most part, in felling the forests and in breaking the soil, but they did not neglect educational affairs. The people of Massachusetts made provisions for educational institutions "while the tree stumps were as yet scarcely weather-browned in their earliest fields." From that time to this education has thrived in the United States. Common schools and high schools are now within easy reach of almost every child, and colleges have increased in number and improved in quality of instruction. Circulating libraries and traveling libraries have been established in large numbers in all parts of the United States. In literature the volume of the product is all that could be desired, but the standard of excellence is not so high as in the days of Longfellow, Emerson, and Lowell. The writers of history, however, have been fairly successful in maintaining the standard set by Parkman, Bancroft, Motley, and Prescott. The work of James Schouler, John B. McMaster, Henry Adams, Henry C. Lea, and James Ford Rhodes will compare favorably with that done in any country in recent years. Art and architecture are still in their infancy, although there is a profound interest in both, and splendid work is being done in some localities. The large cities are becoming art centers. The leisure and wealth of the country may be expected to stimulate artistic work in the near future. - 585. Problems still to be Met. Although the people of the United States have been fairly successful in solving the problems which have confronted them, the student should not think that the victory is complete and that nothing remains to be done. The problems of the twentieth century will be more numerous and no less perplexing than their predecessors. The United States whether for good or for ill-is now a world power. We have interests in the Pacific and in China, and the President was instrumental in bringing about peace between Russia and Japan. We also have our domestic problems. The strife between labor and capital is intense; the tariff and the money questions are not settled; the liquor problem is not satisfactorily adjusted; the trusts and railroads need attention; and the century will develop scores of other questions not thought of now. In fact, history is being made in the United States to-day more rapidly than ever before. 586. "A Man is More than a City." It should be said, too, as a final word, that the most important of our products have not been material ones. America's greatest triumph has not been in her agricultural and manufactured products but in her free institutions. The greatest contribution which the United States has made to the civilization of the world has been in the development of a republican or democratic form of government. Under our system of popular government, the best system which man has yet devised, our highest products are free, enlightened, and progressive American citizens. Our material prosperity is an item of no small account, but " a man is more than a city" and to develop men and women is the highest and noblest work of the State and Nation. FACTS AND DATES 1877-1881. Hayes's Administration. 1881-1885. Garfield and Arthur's Administration. 1885-1889. Cleveland's First Administration. 1886. Presidential Succession Act. 1887. Interstate Commerce Commission Organized. 1889-1893. Benjamin Harrison's Administration. 1894. Wilson Tariff Act. 1897. Dingley Tariff Act. 1893-1897. Cleveland's Second Administration. 1897-1901. McKinley's Administration. 1898. Spanish-American War. 1898. Hawaiian Islands Annexed. 1901-1905. McKinley and Roosevelt's Administration. 1902. Panama Canal Route Authorized. 1905-. Roosevelt's Administration. APPENDIX THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE In Congress, July 4, 1776. THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WHEN in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of |