178 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



The growing rate of this increase in knowledge and of the re- 

 sulting social changes may be strikingly presented by using the 

 historian's device of compressing the time scale until the whole 

 growth of man through a million years is concentrated within the 

 lifetime of a middle-aged man of 50. It was then as a child that 

 our man was learning how to use certain odd-shaped sticks and 

 stones as tools. The meaning of sounds became definite as he learned 

 to talk. By the time he was 40 he had developed the art of skill- 

 fully shaping stones to fit his needs. Man soon became an artist, 

 and by half a year ago had learned to use simplified pictures as 

 symbolic writing. Some 6 weeks ago the Phoenicians introduced the 

 alphabet, and within a fortnight came the brillant art and science 

 of ancient Greece. Then came the fall of Rome, hiding for some 

 weeks the values of civilized life. Less than a week ago, as the 

 report has it, Galileo dropped the heavy and the light cannon balls 

 from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, refuting a proposition of Aristotle 

 and starting the period of modern science. Three or four days ago 

 the first practical steam engine was built and it was at about this time 

 that the United States came into being. Day before yesterday the 

 laws of electromagnetism became known, which by yesterday had 

 given us the telegraph, the telephone and incandescent electric light. 

 Only last night X-rays were discovered, followed quickly by radium 

 and wireless telegraphy. It was this morning that automobiles 

 came into general use. Air mail began to be carried only at noon 

 today. Popular short-wave broadcasts, practical color photography, 

 and fluorescent lighting have been with us for only an hour. It is 

 clear that our American scene is staged in the midst of a period 

 of unparalleled advance in science and rapidity of social change. 



AMERICAN CULTURE IS THAT OF A CHANGING SOCIETY 



Even before the outbreak of the present wars, America had be- 

 come the leader in most fields of scientific endeavor. The tradition 

 of the pioneer has made it relatively easy for the American to alter 

 his habits as required by the introduction of new techniques, with 

 the result that in this country social changes have gone ahead with 

 a speed not found elsewhere. Our culture is thus that of a new 

 community, with our customs and ideas only partly adapted to 

 the rapidly changing conditions of life. 



For a week I have been living in an apartment on a corner by 

 which a streetcar clangs its noisy course. When first installed, these 

 cars gave the rapid transportation that made the city possible. Now 

 the demand is insistent that the streetcars be replaced by quieter 

 buses that will permit conversation by day and sleep by night. 

 Thus the first application of technology was to meet the primary 



