3 2o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the Pacific Ocean the very minute of the day announced to him by 

 the ticket agent in New York. 



If we turn our thoughts seaward the development is no less 

 remarkable ; for the long, dangerous, and uncertain voyages once 

 made by sail to Europe are now conducted with almost equal 

 regularity and safety, and the mammoth steamers of the Clyde 

 accomplish in days the trips which formerly took months to per- 

 form, and, within an hour of the safe landing of the passengers, 

 the electric telegraph through the media of lines and ocean cables 

 discloses to friends at home the news of their safe arrival. In the 

 political world the progress of the century has not been less 

 marked. England, which during the reign of George III so per- 

 sisted in tyrannical measures of taxation as to push its American 

 colonies into a successful struggle for freedom, has extended the 

 utmost liberty of action to its remaining American dependencies 

 and Australian colonies ; so, when Britain was threatened with 

 hostilities in the East, she moved to the scene of action the dusky 

 warriors of her Indian empire, while the impetuous youth of her 

 distant colonies volunteered to do her service on the desert sands 

 of Africa or in the mountain fastnesses of Asiatic Russia. "Within 

 a generation has been witnessed the voluntary liberation of the 

 serfs of Russia, the slaves of Cuba and South America, and in our 

 own country chattel slavery was forever extinguished by the 

 sword. 



The growth of liberal ideas and the love of liberty have been 

 very marked. Hungary has been granted the right to legislate 

 upon its own affairs ; a republic has been established in France, 

 and in spite of dire forebodings and prophecies of evil it has with- 

 stood every shock and weathered every storm ; while the greatest 

 of English parliamentary leaders, in his declining years exhibit- 

 ing all the ardor of youth, combined with the vigor of robust 

 manhood and the matured wisdom of old age, has brought his 

 fellow countrymen to a recognition of Ireland's wrongs, and is 

 moving the English masses to extend the principles of Anglo- 

 Saxon liberty and home rule to Ireland, which for centuries has 

 been inthralled. But volumes would be required for the mere 

 enumeration of the growth and development which have come 

 with extended knowledge and the more general schooling of the 

 people. Is it any wonder that statesmen unstintingly provide for 

 the wants of our public schools ; that divines dwell with rapture 

 upon the blessings they have brought us ; that political orators 

 eulogize them as the foundation of our prosperity and the main- 

 stays of our liberties ; that agitators vehemently demand an ex- 

 tension of their benefits ; or that the people feel an honest and 

 unquestioning pride in this governmental institution of their own 

 creation, which has promoted religious tolerance, extended the 



