602 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in a Pennsylvania coal town. Then civilization shed but feeble 

 light at its centers on the Continent, while the mongrel race in 

 England were literally the " heathen of the isles," who dwelt in 

 Cimmerian darkness. Nor, as historians would make us believe,, 

 was the high civilization which succeeded self -evolved from this 

 unpromising horde. Native Englishmen Norman and Saxon 

 played but a small part in the development of the nation. The 

 men who made England were the swarming adventurers from 

 every land enterprising merchants, cunning artificers, and sail- 

 ors bold who flocked to the island when the discovery of the 

 Cape of Good Hope and the Americas, together with the growth 

 of northwestern Europe, made it the finest business location in 

 the world. It gratifies the pride of the amalgamated descendants 

 of those many-tongued adventurers to believe that they are 

 sprung directly from the Anglo-Saxon lords of the soil, or from 

 the " landless resolutes " who went filibustering with William the 

 Bastard. The besotted peasantry found to-day in the purely 

 agricultural districts of England indicate the intellectual sterility 

 of the land before its splendid commercial opportunities caused it 

 to be fertilized by a freshet of the best brains and energy of the 

 Continent. The domestic peace which began with the Tudors 

 was also potent in this enrichment, in attracting thither from the 

 war-accursed mainland a large share of the intellect and skill of 

 Europe. The few hundred thousand beef-witted Britons of the 

 days of the early Tudors would have counted for no more in 

 history than the Bretons of France, the Basques, or the Styrians,. 

 had it not been for the inundation of superior minds, moved to 

 flow in from every quarter by love of gain, of peace, and of free- 

 dom of conscience. 



" Lives of great men all remind us," if we examine them criti- 

 cally, that, since their day, the advance in morals has been almost 

 as great as in the arts and sciences. Judged by present ethical 

 standards, many great men of the past the benefactors of their 

 race, and men who builded strongly and well for their countries 

 and the world had the morals of the slums. Had they been held 

 to the same accountability as the men of to-day, they would have 

 been social outcasts, if not actually behind prison-bars. 



Taking even our own country, and so recent history as that of 

 the end of the last century, every well-informed man knows that 

 the private lives and much of the public careers of the men whom 

 we revere such men as Winthrop, Hancock, Adams, Washington, 

 Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Monroe, Jackson, etc. would not 

 bear at all the tests we now apply to public and private characters. 

 Yet we hypocritically assume that these men were altogether 

 superior to any now before the public eye. We teach our chil- 

 dren that they were ideal men, whose characters form the highest. 



