THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY MR. FROUDE'S "PROGRESS"

By Charles Dudley Warner

To revisit this earth, some ages after their departure from it, is acommon wish among men. We frequently hear men say that they would give somany months or years of their lives in exchange for a less number on theglobe one or two or three centuries from now. Merely to see the worldfrom some remote sphere, like the distant spectator of a play whichpasses in dumb show, would not suffice. They would like to be of theworld again, and enter into its feelings, passions, hopes; to feel thesweep of its current, and so to comprehend what it has become. 

I suppose that we all who are thoroughly interested in this world havethis desire. There are some select souls who sit apart in calm endurance, waiting to be translated out of a world they are almost tired ofpatronizing, to whom the whole thing seems, doubtless, like a cheapperformance. They sit on the fence of criticism, and cannot for the lifeof them see what the vulgar crowd make such a toil and sweat about. Theprizes are the same dreary, old, fading bay wreaths. As for the soldiersmarching past, their uniforms are torn, their hats are shocking, theirshoes are dusty, they do not appear (to a man sitting on the fence) tomarch with any kind of spirit, their flags are old and tattered, thedrums they beat are barbarous; and, besides, it is not probable that theyare going anywhere; they will merely come round again, the same people, like the marching chorus in the "Beggar's Opera. " Such critics, ofcourse, would not care to see the vulgar show over again; it is enoughfor them to put on record their protest against it in the weekly"Judgment Days" which they edit, and by-and-by withdraw out of theirprivate boxes, with pity for a world in the creation of which they werenot consulted. 

The desire to revisit this earth is, I think, based upon a belief, well-nigh universal, that the world is to make some progress, and that itwill be more interesting in the future than it is now. I believe that thehuman mind, whenever it is developed enough to comprehend its own action, rests, and has always rested, in this expectation. I do not know anyperiod of time in which the civilized mind has not had expectation ofsomething better for the race in the future. This expectation issometimes stronger than it is at others; and, again, there are alwaysthose who say that the Golden Age is behind them. It is always behind orbefore us; the poor present alone has no friends; the present, in theminds of many, is only the car that is carrying us away from an age ofvirtue and of happiness, or that is perhaps bearing us on to a time ofease and comfort and security. 

Perhaps it is worth while, in view of certain recent discussions, andespecially of some free criticisms of this country, to consider whetherthere is any intention of progress in this world, and whether thatintention is discoverable in the age in which we live. 

If it is an old question, it is not a settled one; the practicaldisbelief in any such progress is widely entertained. Not long ago Mr. James Anthony Froude published an essay on Progress, in which he examinedsome of the evidences upon which we rely to prove that we live in an "eraof progress. " It is a melancholy essay, for its tone is that of profoundskepticism as to certain influences and means of progress upon which wein this country most rely. With the illustrative arguments of Mr. Froude's essay I do not purpose specially to meddle; I recall it to theattention of the reader as a representative type of skepticism regardingprogress which is somewhat common among intellectual men, and is notconfined to England. It is not exactly an acceptance of Rousseau's notionthat civilization is a mistake, and that it would be better for us all toreturn to a state of nature--though in John Ruskin's case it nearlyamounts to this; but it is a hostility in its last analysis to what weunderstand by the education of the people, and to the government of thepeople by themselves. If Mr. Froude's essay is anything but an exhibitionof the scholarly weapons of criticism, it is the expression of a profounddisbelief in the intellectual education of the masses of the people. Mr. Ruskin goes further. He makes his open proclamation against anyemancipation from hand-toil. Steam is the devil himself let loose fromthe pit, and all labor-saving machinery is his own invention. Mr. Ruskinis the bull that stands upon the track and threatens with annihilationthe on-coming locomotive; and I think that any spectator who sees hismenacing attitude and hears his roaring cannot but have fears for thelocomotive. 

There are two sorts of infidelity concerning humanity, and I do not knowwhich is the more withering in its effects. One is that which regardsthis world as only a waste and a desert, across the sands of which we aremerely fugitives, fleeing from the wrath to come. The other is that doubtof any divine intention in development, in history, which we callprogress from age to age. 

In the eyes of this latter infidelity history is not a procession or aprogression, but only a series of disconnected pictures, each little erarounded with its own growth, fruitage, and decay, a series of incidentsor experiments, without even the string of a far-reaching purpose toconnect them. There is no intention of progress in it all. The race isbarbarous, and then it changes to civilized; in the one case the strongrob the weak by brute force; in the other the crafty rob the unwary byfinesse. The latter is a more agreeable state of things; but it comes toabout the same. The robber used to knock us down and take away oursheepskins; he now administers chloroform and relieves us of our watches. It is a gentlemanly proceeding, and scientific, and we call itcivilization. Meantime human nature remains the same, and the whole thingis a weary round that has no advance in it. 

If this is true the succession of men and of races is no better than avegetable succession; and Mr. Froude is quite right in doubting ifeducation of the brain will do the English agricultural laborer any good;and Mr. Ruskin ought to be aided in his crusade against machinery, whichturns the world upside down. The best that can be done with a man is thebest that can be done with a plant-set him out in some favorablelocality, or leave him where he happened to strike root, and there lethim grow and mature in measure and quiet--especially quiet--as he may inGod's sun and rain. If he happens to be a cabbage, in Heaven's name don'ttry to make a rose of him, and do not disturb the vegetable maturing ofhis head by grafting ideas upon his stock. 

The most serious difficulty in the way of those who maintain that thereis an intention of progress in this world from century to century, fromage to age--a discernible growth, a universal development--is the factthat all nations do not make progress at the same time or in the sameratio; that nations reach a certain development, and then fall away andeven retrograde; that while one may be advancing into high civilization, another is lapsing into deeper barbarism, and that nations appear to havea limit of growth. If there were a law of progress, an intention of it inall the world, ought not all peoples and tribes to advance pari passu, orat least ought there not to be discernible a general movement, historicaland contemporary? There is no such general movement which can becomputed, the law of which can be discovered--therefore it does notexist. In a kind of despair, we are apt to run over in our minds empiresand pre-eminent civilizations that have existed, and then to doubtwhether life in this world is intended to be anything more than a seriesof experiments. There is the German nation of our day, the mostaggressive in various fields of intellectual activity, a Hercules ofscholarship, the most thoroughly trained and powerful--though itscivilization marches to the noise of the hateful and barbarous drum. Inwhat points is it better than the Greek nation of the age of itssuperlative artists, philosophers, poets--the age of the most joyous, elastic human souls in the most perfect human bodies?

Again, it is perhaps a fanciful notion that the Atlantis of Plato was thenorthern part of the South American continent, projecting out towardsAfrica, and that the Antilles are the peaks and headlands of its sunkenbulk. But there are evidences enough that the shores of the Gulf ofMexico and the Caribbean Sea were within historic periods the seat of avery considerable civilization--the seat of cities, of commerce, oftrade, of palaces and pleasure--gardens--faint images, perhaps, of theluxurious civilization of Baia! and Pozzuoli and Capri in the mostprofligate period of the Roman empire. It is not more difficult tobelieve that there was a great material development here than to believeit of the African shore of the Mediterranean. Not to multiply instancesthat will occur to all, we see as many retrograde as advance movements, and we see, also, that while one spot of the earth at one time seems tobe the chosen theatre of progress, other portions of the globe areabsolutely dead and without the least leaven of advancing life, and wecannot understand how this can be if there is any such thing as anall-pervading and animating intention or law of progress. And then we arereminded that the individual human mind long ago attained its height ofpower and capacity. It is enough to recall the names of Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Paul, Homer, David. 

No doubt it has seemed to other periods and other nations, as it now doesto the present civilized races, that they were the chosen times andpeoples of an extraordinary and limitless development. It must haveseemed so to the Jews who overran Palestine and set their shining citieson all the hills of heathendom. It must have seemed so to the Babylonishconquerors who swept over Palestine in turn, on their way to greaterconquests in Egypt. It must have seemed so to Greece when the Acropoliswas to the outlying world what the imperial calla is to the marsh inwhich it lifts its superb flower. It must have seemed so to Rome when itssolid roads of stone ran to all parts of a tributary world--the highwaysof the legions, her ministers, and of the wealth that poured into hertreasury. It must have seemed so to followers of Mahomet, when thecrescent knew no pause in its march up the Arabian peninsula to theBosporus, to India, along the Mediterranean shores to Spain, where in theeighth century it flowered into a culture, a learning, a refinement inart and manners, to which the Christian world of that day was a stranger. It must have seemed so in the awakening of the sixteenth century, whenEurope, Spain leading, began that great movement of discovery andaggrandizement which has, in the end, been profitable only to a portionof the adventurers. And what shall we say of a nation as old, if notolder than any of these we have mentioned, slowly building up meantime acivilization and perfecting a system of government and a social economywhich should outlast them all, and remain to our day almost the solemonument of permanence and stability in a shifting world?

How many times has the face of Europe been changed--and parts of Africa, and Asia Minor too, for that matter--by conquests and crusades, and therise and fall of civilizations as well as dynasties? while China hasendured, almost undisturbed, under a system of law, administration, morality, as old as the Pyramids probably--existed a coherent nation, highly developed in certain essentials, meeting and mastering, so far aswe can see, the great problem of an over-populated territory, living in agood degree of peace and social order, of respect for age and law, andmaking a continuous history, the mere record of which is printed in athousand bulky volumes. Yet we speak of the Chinese empire as an instanceof arrested growth, for which there is no salvation, except it shallcatch the spirit of progress abroad in the world. What is this progress, and where does it come from?

Think for a moment of this significant situation. For thousands of years, empires, systems of society, systems of civilization--Egyptian, Jewish, Greek, Roman, Moslem, Feudal--have flourished and fallen, grown to acertain height and passed away; great organized fabrics have gone down, and, if there has been any progress, it has been as often defeated asrenewed. And here is an empire, apart from this scene of alternatesuccess and disaster, which has existed in a certain continuity andstability, and yet, now that it is uncovered and stands face to face withthe rest of the world, it finds that it has little to teach us, andalmost everything to learn from us. The old empire sends its students tolearn of us, the newest child of civilization; and through us they learnall the great past, its literature, law, science, out of which we sprang. It appears, then, that progress has, after all, been with the shiftingworld, that has been all this time going to pieces, rather than with theworld that has been permanent and unshaken. 

When we speak of progress we may mean two things. We may mean a liftingof the races as a whole by reason of more power over the material world, by reason of what we call the conquest of nature and a practical use ofits forces; or we may mean a higher development of the individual man, sothat he shall be better and happier. If from age to age it isdiscoverable that the earth is better adapted to man as a dwelling-place, and he is on the whole fitted to get more out of it for his own growth, is not that progress, and is it not evidence of an intention of progress?

Now, it is sometimes said that Providence, in the economy of this world, cares nothing for the individual, but works out its ideas and purposesthrough the races, and in certain periods, slowly bringing in, by greatagencies and by processes destructive to individuals and to millions ofhelpless human beings, truths and principles; so laying stepping-stonesonward to a great consummation. I do not care to dwell upon this thought, but let us see if we can find any evidence in history of the presence inthis world of an intention of progress. 

It is common to say that, if the world makes progress at all, it is byits great men, and when anything important for the race is to be done, agreat man is raised up to do it. Yet another way to look at it is, thatthe doing of something at the appointed time makes the man who does itgreat, or at least celebrated. The man often appears to be only a favoredinstrument of communication. As we glance back we recognize the truththat, at this and that period, the time had come for certain discoveries. Intelligence seemed pressing in from the invisible. Many minds were onthe alert to apprehend it. We believe, for instance, that if Gutenberghad not invented movable types, somebody else would have given them tothe world about that time. Ideas, at certain times, throng for admissioninto the world; and we are all familiar with the fact that the sameimportant idea (never before revealed in all the ages) occurs to separateand widely distinct minds at about the same time. The invention of theelectric telegraph seemed to burst upon the world simultaneously frommany quarters--not perfect, perhaps, but the time for the idea hadcome--and happy was it for the man who entertained it. We have agreed tocall Columbus the discoverer of America, but I suppose there is no doubtthat America had been visited by European, and probably Asiatic, peopleages before Columbus; that four or five centuries before him people fromnorthern Europe had settlements here; he was fortunate, however, in"discovering" it in the fullness of time, when the world, in itsprogress, was ready for it. If the Greeks had had gunpowder, electro-magnetism, the printing press, history would need to berewritten. Why the inquisitive Greek mind did not find out these thingsis a mystery upon any other theory than the one we are considering. 

And it is as mysterious that China, having gunpowder and the art ofprinting, is not today like Germany. 

There seems to me to be a progress, or an intention of progress, in theworld, independent of individual men. Things get on by all sorts ofinstruments, and sometimes by very poor ones. There are times when newthoughts or applications of known principles seem to throng from theinvisible for expression through human media, and there is hardly ever animportant invention set free in the world that men do not appear to beready cordially to receive it. Often we should be justified in sayingthat there was a widespread expectation of it. Almost all the greatinventions and the ingenious application of principles have manyclaimants for the honor of priority. 

On any other theory than this, that there is present in the world anintention of progress which outlasts individuals, and even races, Icannot account for the fact that, while civilizations decay and passaway, and human systems go to pieces, ideas remain and accumulate. We, the latest age, are the inheritors of all the foregoing ages. I do notbelieve that anything of importance has been lost to the world. TheJewish civilization was torn up root and branch, but whatever wasvaluable in the Jewish polity is ours now. We may say the same of thecivilizations of Athens and of Rome; though the entire organization ofthe ancient world, to use Mr. Froude's figure, collapsed into a heap ofincoherent sand, the ideas remained, and Greek art and Roman law are partof the world's solid possessions. 

Even those who question the value to the individual of what we callprogress, admit, I suppose, the increase of knowledge in the world fromage to age, and not only its increase, but its diffusion. The intelligentschoolboy today knows more than the ancient sages knew--more about thevisible heavens, more of the secrets of the earth, more of the humanbody. The rudiments of his education, the common experiences of hiseveryday life, were, at the best, the guesses and speculations of aremote age. There is certainly an accumulation of facts, ideas, knowledge. Whether this makes men better, wiser, happier, is indeeddisputed. 

In order to maintain the notion of a general and intended progress, it isnot necessary to show that no preceding age has excelled ours in somespecial, development. Phidias has had no rival in sculpture, we mayadmit. It is possible that glass was once made as flexible as leather, and that copper could be hardened like steel. But I do not take muchstock in the "lost arts, " the wondering theme of the lyceums. Theknowledge of the natural world, and of materials, was never, I believe, so extensive and exact as it is today. It is possible that there aretricks of chemistry, ingenious processes, secrets of color, of which weare ignorant; but I do not believe there was ever an ancient alchemistwho could not be taught something in a modern laboratory. The vastengineering works of the ancient Egyptians, the remains of their templesand pyramids, excite our wonder; but I have no doubt that PresidentGrant, if he becomes the tyrant they say he is becoming, and commands thelabor of forty millions of slaves--a large proportion of them office--holders--could build a Karnak, or erect a string of pyramids across NewJersey. 

Mr. Froude runs lightly over a list of subjects upon which the believerin progress relies for his belief, and then says of them that the worldcalls this progress--he calls it only change. I suppose he means by thistwo things: that these great movements of our modern life are not anyevidence of a permanent advance, and that our whole structure may tumbleinto a heap of incoherent sand, as systems of society have done before;and, again, that it is questionable if, in what we call a stride incivilization, the individual citizen is becoming any purer or more just, or if his intelligence is directed towards learning and doing what isright, or only to the means of more extended pleasures. 

It is, perhaps, idle to speculate upon the first of these points--thepermanence of our advance, if it is an advance. But we may be encouragedby one thing that distinguishes this period--say from the middle of theeighteenth century--from any that has preceded it. I mean theintroduction of machinery, applied to the multiplication of man's powerin a hundred directions--to manufacturing, to locomotion, to thediffusion of thought and of knowledge. I need not dwell upon thisfamiliar topic. Since this period began there has been, so far as I know, no retrograde movement anywhere, but, besides the material, anintellectual and spiritual kindling the world over, for which history hasno sort of parallel. Truth is always the same, and will make its way, butthis subject might be illustrated by a study of the relation ofChristianity and of the brotherhood of men to machinery. The theme woulddemand an essay by itself. I leave it with the one remark, that thisgreat change now being wrought in the world by the multiplicity ofmachinery is not more a material than it is an intellectual one, and thatwe have no instance in history of a catastrophe widespread enough andadequate to sweep away its results. That is to say, none of thecatastrophes, not even the corruptions, which brought to ruin the ancientcivilizations, would work anything like the same disaster in an age whichhas the use of machinery that this age has. 

For instance: Gibbon selects the period between the accession of Trajanand the death of Marcus Aurelius as the time in which the human raceenjoyed more general happiness than they had ever known before, or hadsince known. Yet, says Mr. Froude, in the midst of this prosperity theheart of the empire was dying out of it; luxury and selfishness wereeating away the principle that held society together, and the ancientworld was on the point of collapsing into a heap of incoherent sand. Now, it is impossible to conceive that the catastrophe which did happen tothat civilization could have happened if the world had then possessed thesteam-engine, the printing-press, and the electric telegraph. The Romanpower might have gone down, and the face of the world been recast; butsuch universal chaos and such a relapse for the individual people wouldseem impossible. 

If we turn from these general considerations to the evidences that thisis an "era of progress" in the condition of individual men, we are met bymore specific denials. Granted, it is said, all your facilities fortravel and communication, for cheap and easy manufacture, for thedistribution of cheap literature and news, your cheap education, betterhomes, and all the comforts and luxuries of your machine civilization, isthe average man, the agriculturist, the machinist, the laborer any betterfor it all? Are there more purity, more honest, fair dealing, genuinework, fear and honor of God? Are the proceeds of labor more evenlydistributed? These, it is said, are the criteria of progress; all else ismisleading. 

Now, it is true that the ultimate end of any system of government orcivilization should be the improvement of the individual man. And yetthis truth, as Mr. Froude puts it, is only a half-truth, so that thissingle test of any system may not do for a given time and a limited area. Other and wider considerations come in. Disturbances, which for a whileunsettle society and do not bring good results to individuals, may, nevertheless, be necessary, and may be a sign of progress. Take thefavorite illustration of Mr. Froude and Mr. Ruskin--the condition of theagricultural laborer of England. If I understand them, the civilizationof the last century has not helped his position as a man. If I understandthem, he was a better man, in a better condition of earthly happiness, and with a better chance of heaven, fifty years ago than now, before the"era of progress" found him out. (It ought to be noticed here, that thereport of the Parliamentary Commission on the condition of the Englishagricultural laborer does not sustain Mr. Froude's assumptions. On thecontrary, the report shows that his condition is in almost all respectsvastly better than it was fifty years ago. ) Mr. Ruskin would remove thesteam-engine and all its devilish works from his vicinity; he wouldabolish factories, speedy travel by rail, new-fangled instruments ofagriculture, our patent education, and remit him to his ancientcondition--tied for life to a bit of ground, which should supply all hissimple wants; his wife should weave the clothes for the family; hischildren should learn nothing but the catechism and to speak the truth;he should take his religion without question from the hearty, fox-huntingparson, and live and die undisturbed by ideas. Now, it seems to me thatif Mr. Ruskin could realize in some isolated nation this idea of apastoral, simple existence, under a paternal government, he would have intime an ignorant, stupid, brutal community in a great deal worse casethan the agricultural laborers of England are at present. Three-fourthsof the crime in the kingdom of Bavaria is committed in the Ultramontaneregion of the Tyrol, where the conditions of popular education are aboutthose that Mr. Ruskin seems to regret as swept away by the presentmovement in England--a stagnant state of things, in which any wind ofheaven would be a blessing, even if it were a tornado. Education of themodern sort unsettles the peasant, renders him unfit for labor, and givesus a half-educated idler in place of a conscientious workman. The disuseof the apprentice system is not made good by the present system ofeducation, because no one learns a trade well, and the consequence ispoor work, and a sham civilization generally. There is some truth inthese complaints. But the way out is not backward, but forward. The faultis not with education, though it may be with the kind of education. Theeducation must go forward; the man must not be half but wholly educated. It is only half-knowledge like half-training in a trade that isdangerous. 

But what I wish to say is, that notwithstanding certain unfavorablethings in the condition of the English laborer and mechanic, his chanceis better in the main than it was fifty years ago. The world is a betterworld for him. He has the opportunity to be more of a man. His world iswider, and it is all open to him to go where he will. Mr. Ruskin may notso easily find his ideal, contented peasant, but the man himself beginsto apprehend that this is a world of ideas as well as of food andclothes, and I think, if he were consulted, he would have no desire toreturn to the condition of his ancestors. In fact, the most hopefulsymptom in the condition of the English peasant is his discontent. For, as skepticism is in one sense the handmaid of truth, discontent is themother of progress. The man is comparatively of little use in the worldwho is contented. 

There is another thought pertinent here. It is this: that no man, howeverhumble, can live a full life if he lives to himself alone. He is more ofa man, he lives in a higher plane of thought and of enjoyment, the morehis communications are extended with his fellows and the wider hissympathies are. I count it a great thing for the English peasant, a solidaddition to his life, that he is every day being put into more intimaterelations with every other man on the globe. 

I know it is said that these are only vague and sentimental notions ofprogress--notions of a "salvation by machinery. " Let us pass to somethingthat may be less vague, even if it be more sentimental. For a hundredyears we have reckoned it progress, that the people were taking part ingovernment. We have had a good deal of faith in the proposition put forthat Philadelphia a century ago, that men are, in effect, equal inpolitical rights. Out of this simple proposition springs logically theextension of suffrage, and a universal education, in order that thisimportant function of a government by the people may be exercisedintelligently. 

Now we are told by the most accomplished English essayists that this is amistake, that it is change, but no progress. Indeed, there arephilosophers in America who think so. At least I infer so from the factthat Mr. Froude fathers one of his definitions of our condition upon anAmerican. When a block of printer's type is by accident broken up anddisintegrated, it falls into what is called "pi. " The "pi, " a mere chaos, is afterwards sorted and distributed, preparatory to being built up intofresh combinations. "A distinguished American friend, " says Mr. Froude, "describes Democracy as making pi. " It is so witty a sarcasm that Ialmost think Mr. Froude manufactured it himself. Well, we have beenmaking this "pi" for a hundred years; it seems to be a national dish inconsiderable favor with the rest of the world--even such ancient nationsas China and Japan want a piece of it. 

Now, of course, no form of human government is perfect, or anything likeit, but I should be willing to submit the question to an English travelereven, whether, on the whole, the people of the United States do not haveas fair a chance in life and feel as little the oppression of governmentas any other in the world; whether anywhere the burdens are more liftedoff men's shoulders. 

This infidelity to popular government and unbelief in any good results tocome from it are not, unfortunately, confined to the English essayists. Iam not sure but the notion is growing in what is called the intellectualclass, that it is a mistake to intrust the government to the ignorantmany, and that it can only be lodged safely in the hands of the wise few. We hear the corruptions of the times attributed to universal suffrage. Yet these corruptions certainly are not peculiar to the United States: Itis also said here, as it is in England, that our diffused and somewhatsuperficial education is merely unfitting the mass of men, who must belaborers, for any useful occupation. 

This argument, reduced to plain terms, is simply this: that the mass ofmankind are unfit to decide properly their own political and socialcondition; and that for the mass of mankind any but a very limited mentaldevelopment is to be deprecated. It would be enough to say of this, thatclass government and popular ignorance have been tried for so many ages, and always with disaster and failure in the end, that I should thinkphilanthropical historians would be tired of recommending them. But thereis more to be said. 

I feel that as a resident on earth, part owner of it for a time, unavoidably a member of society, I have a right to a voice in determiningwhat my condition and what my chance in life shall be. I may be ignorant, I should be a very poor ruler of other people, but I am better capable ofdeciding some things that touch me nearly than another is. By what logiccan I say that I should have a part in the conduct of this world and thatmy neighbor should not? Who is to decide what degree of intelligenceshall fit a man for a share in the government? How are we to select thefew capable men that are to rule all the rest? As a matter of fact, menhave been rulers who had neither the average intelligence nor virtue ofthe people they governed. And, as a matter of historical experience, aclass in power has always sought its own benefit rather than that of thewhole people. Lunacy, extraordinary stupidity, and crime aside, a man isthe best guardian of his own liberty and rights. 

The English critics, who say we have taken the government from thecapable few and given it to the people, speak of universal suffrage as aquack panacea of this "era of progress. " But it is not the manufacturedpanacea of any theorist or philosopher whatever. It is the natural resultof a diffused knowledge of human rights and of increasing intelligence. It is nothing against it that Napoleon III. Used a mockery of it togovern France. It is not a device of the closet, but a method ofgovernment, which has naturally suggested itself to men as they havegrown into a feeling of self-reliance and a consciousness that they havesome right in the decision of their own destiny in the world. It is truethat suffrage peculiarly fits a people virtuous and intelligent. Butthere has not yet been invented any government in which a people wouldthrive who were ignorant and vicious. 

Our foreign critics seem to regard our "American system, " by the way, asa sort of invention or patent right, upon which we are experimenting;forgetting that it is as legitimate a growth out of our circumstances asthe English system is out of its antecedents. Our system is not theproduct of theorists or closet philosophers; but it was ordained insubstance and inevitable from the day the first "town meeting" assembledin New England, and it was not in the power of Hamilton or any one elseto make it otherwise. 

So you must have education, now you have the ballot, say the critics ofthis era of progress; and this is another of your cheap inventions. Notthat we undervalue book knowledge. Oh, no! but it really seems to us thata good trade, with the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments back of it, would be the best thing for most of you. You must work for a livinganyway; and why, now, should you unsettle your minds?

This is such an astounding view of human life and destiny that I do notknow what to say to it. Did it occur to Mr. Froude to ask the man whetherhe would be contented with a good trade and the Ten Commandments? Perhapsthe man would like eleven commandments? And, if he gets hold of theeleventh, he may want to know something more about his fellow-men, alittle geography maybe, and some of Mr. Froude's history, and thus he maybe led off into literature, and the Lord knows where. 

The inference is that education--book fashion--will unfit the man foruseful work. Mr. Froude here again stops at a half-truth. As a generalthing, intelligence is useful in any position a man occupies. But it istrue that there is a superficial and misdirected sort of education, socalled, which makes the man who receives it despise labor; and it is alsotrue that in the present educational revival there has been a neglect oftraining in the direction of skilled labor, and we all suffer more orless from cheap and dishonest work. But the way out of this, again, isforward, and not backward. It is a good sign, and not a stigma upon thisera of progress, that people desire education. But this education must beof the whole man; he must be taught to work as well as to read, and heis, indeed, poorly educated if he is not fitted to do his work in theworld. We certainly shall not have better workmen by having ignorantworkmen. I need not say that the real education is that which will bestfit a man for performing well his duties in life. If Mr. Froude, insteadof his plaint over the scarcity of good mechanics, and of the TenCommandments in England, had recommended the establishment of industrialschools, he would have spoken more to the purpose. 

I should say that the fashionable skepticism of today, here and inEngland, is in regard to universal suffrage and the capacity of thepeople to govern themselves. The whole system is the sharp invention ofThomas Jefferson and others, by which crafty demagogues can rule. Insteadof being, as we have patriotically supposed, a real progress in humandevelopment, it is only a fetich, which is becoming rapidly a failure. Now, there is a great deal of truth in the assertion that, whatever theform of government, the ablest men, or the strongest, or the most cunningin the nation, will rule. And yet it is true that in a populargovernment, like this, the humblest citizen, if he is wronged oroppressed, has in his hands a readier instrument of redress than he hasever had in any form of government. And it must not be forgotten that theballot in the hands of all is perhaps the only safeguard against thetyranny of wealth in the hands of the few. It is true that bad men canband together and be destructive; but so they can in any government. Revolution by ballot is much safer than revolution by violence; and, granting that human nature is selfish, when the whole people are thegovernment selfishness is on the side of the government. Can you mentionany class in this country whose interest it is to overturn thegovernment? And, then, as to the wisdom of the popular decisions by theballot in this country. Look carefully at all the Presidential electionsfrom Washington's down, and say, in the light of history, if the populardecision has not, every time, been the best for the country. It may nothave seemed so to some of us at the time, but I think it is true, and avery significant fact. 

Of course, in this affirmation of belief that one hundred years ofpopular government in this country is a real progress for humanity, andnot merely a change from the rule of the fit to the rule of the cunning, we cannot forget that men are pretty much everywhere the same, and thatwe have abundant reason for national humility. We are pretty well awarethat ours is not an ideal state of society, and should be so, even if theEnglish who pass by did not revile us, wagging their heads. We mightdiffer with them about the causes of our disorders. Doubtless, extendedsuffrage has produced certain results. It seems, strangely enough, tohave escaped the observation of our English friends that to suffrage wasdue the late horse disease. No one can discover any other cause for it. But there is a cause for the various phenomena of this period of shoddy, of inflated speculation, of disturbance of all values, social, moral, political, and material, quite sufficient in the light of history toaccount for them. It is not suffrage; it is an irredeemable papercurrency. It has borne its usual fruit with us, and neither foreign norhome critics can shift the responsibility of it upon our system ofgovernment. Yes, it is true, we have contrived to fill the world with ourscandals of late. I might refer to a loose commercial and politicalmorality; to betrayals of popular trust in politics; to corruptions inlegislatures and in corporations; to an abuse of power in the publicpress, which has hardly yet got itself adjusted to its sudden accessionof enormous influence. We complain of its injustice to individualssometimes. We might imagine that something like this would occur. 

A newspaper one day says: "We are exceedingly pained to hear that theHon. Mr. Blank, who is running for Congress in the First District, haspermitted his aged grandmother to go to the town poorhouse. What rendersthis conduct inexplicable is the fact that Mr. Blank is a man of largefortune. "

The next day the newspaper says: "The Hon. Mr. Blank has not seen fit todeny the damaging accusation in regard to the treatment of hisgrandmother. "

The next day the newspaper says: "Mr. Blank is still silent. He isprobably aware that he cannot afford to rest under this grave charge. "

The next day the newspaper asks: "Where's Blank? Has he fled?"

At last, goaded by these remarks, and most unfortunately for himself, Mr. Blank writes to the newspaper and most indignantly denies the charge; henever sent his grandmother to the poorhouse. 

Thereupon the newspaper says: "Of course a rich man who would put his owngrandmother in the poorhouse would deny it. Our informant was a gentlemanof character. Mr. Blank rests the matter on his unsupported word. It is aquestion of veracity. "

Or, perhaps, Mr. Blank, more unfortunately for himself, begins by makingan affidavit, wherein he swears that he never sent his grandmother to thepoorhouse, and that, in point of fact, he has not any grandmotherwhatever. 

The newspaper then, in language that is now classical, "goes for" Mr. Blank. It says: "Mr. Blank resorts to the common device of the rogue--the affidavit. If he had been conscious of rectitude, would he not haverelied upon his simple denial?"

Now, if an extreme case like this could occur, it would be bad enough. But, in our free society, the remedy would be at hand. The constituentsof Mr. Blank would elect him in triumph. The newspaper would lose publicconfidence and support and learn to use its position more justly. What Imean to indicate by such an extreme instance as this is, that in our verylicense of individual freedom there is finally a correcting power. 

We might pursue this general subject of progress by a comparison of thesociety of this country now with that of fifty years ago. I have no doubtthat in every essential this is better than that, in manners, inmorality, in charity and toleration, in education and religion. I knowthe standard of morality is higher. I know the churches are purer. Notfifty years ago, in a New England town, a distinguished doctor ofdivinity, the pastor of a leading church, was part owner in a distillery. He was a great light in his denomination, but he was an extravagantliver, and, being unable to pay his debts, he was arrested and put intojail, with the liberty of the "limits. " In order not to interrupt hisministerial work, the jail limits were made to include his house and hischurch, so that he could still go in and out before his people. I do notthink that could occur anywhere in the United States today. 

I will close these fragmentary suggestions by saying that I, for one, should like to see this country a century from now. Those who live thenwill doubtless say of this period that it was crude, and ratherdisorderly, and fermenting with a great many new projects; but I havegreat faith that they will also say that the present extending notion, that the best government is for the people, by the people, was in theline of sound progress. I should expect to find faith in humanity greaterand not less than it is now, and I should not expect to find that Mr. Froude's mournful expectation had been realized, and that the belief in alife beyond the grave had been withdrawn.