300 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



present, on the 26th of January, 1901, be- 

 long to the nineteenth century, and as we 

 look back upon it, how great it appears! 

 Prom those first years when Napoleon, with 

 avenging violence, stepped out upon the 

 plains of Europe and smote its traditionary 

 monarchies to dust and shame ; from those 

 early days when Dalton, with painstaking 

 and scrutinizing care, devised the theory of 

 atoms, which today solves the mystery of 

 chemical mechanics; from that young dec- 

 ade when Channing brought to the pages 

 of the Old Testament the spirit of reconcil- 

 ing grace, how there has swept through it 

 from end to end the antiseptic winds of 

 thought, cleansing from out the crannies of 

 its civilization the miasmas of superstition 

 and the hideous contagions of fear. 



If with one word we should attempt to 

 characterize the spirit and the results of 

 this age, that word would be Knowledge. 



In chemistry, from the first crude begin- 

 nings of analysis through the successive dis- 

 coveries of more perfect methods, the splen- 

 did speculations upon the differentiated 

 cycles of the elements, to these days of rapid 

 industrial improvement, when in every ave- 

 nue of manufacture the beaker glass and the 

 balance of the chemist determine the force 

 and feasibility of each new investment of 

 capital, how astounding has been the prog- 

 ress of knowledge ! 



The new elements, the new views on the 

 composition of compounds, the new com- 

 pounds themselves, the subtlety of those 

 processes of inspection by which the air we 

 breathe is split up into new and precarious 

 parts, are all contributions to the vast and 

 overwhelming depositories of knowledge. 



In geography, we have pierced the secret 

 places of the world, are engaged in ransack- 

 ing to their furthest limits their territorial 

 secrets, have even consolidated the Powers 

 in a mutual contract of plunder upon all 

 their available resources. In astronomy, 

 the terrifying abysses of space have re- 

 sponded to the occult touches of photog- 

 raphy. In medicine, the scenic splendor of 

 a complete reversion of the ghastly armies 

 of torture and shameless pain has unrolled 

 before our eyes its transforming tableaux. 

 Knowledge in this regard has entered our 

 daily lives, and taught us to walk with dry 

 feet, and warm bodies, and renovated lungs. 



In natural science, the endless series of 

 the creations of iiature have gone already 



into card catalogues, and even the story of 

 creation itself stares every schoolboy in the 

 face. 



In mechanics, invention, which is applied 

 knowledge, has made the work-a-day world 

 a vast concatenation of boilers and pistons, 

 cogs and levers. In physics, we are enter- 

 ing upon deep and far-reaching schemes of 

 thought and application, and by night our 

 earth rolls through space, an orb bathed in 

 the glory of its own radiance. 



In business, knowledge has taught us our 

 selfish interests, and great combinations of 

 capital spread their titanic webs in silence 

 where once the inarticulate clamor of con- 

 test spread panic in the commercial agen- 

 cies, and filled the sheriff 's office with fees. 



Not indeed that this portentous silence 

 seems altogether healthful or auspicious, but 

 it is one form of that knowledge which 

 rises everywhere, like an effluence of the hu- 

 man mind, from the nineteenth century. In 

 war, knowledge has taught us the economy 

 of slaughter, and we may soon expect that 

 conflicting generals will play whist with 

 each other over telephone wires while their 

 fighting machines effect the necessary 

 amount of carnage in an adjoining field, 

 and the interested taxpayers wait for the 

 results in the evening's extras. 



Knowledge — I trust I speak with respect 

 — ^has entered the pulpit, and in that unac- 

 customed citadel has added a new virtue to 

 the church. But why epigrammatize longer? 

 Every day the papers are engaged in prov- 

 ing to us the pertinacious fact that in the 

 nineteenth century the human mind has 

 striven with unabated and reckless energy 

 to drive out mystery from the world, to 

 dissect the unknown, and to nail upon the 

 pillars of the temples, "All are free." 



But let us not be deceived by our en- 

 thusiasm for an unrealized ideal. Mystery 

 yet remains, the unknown, yet unabashed, 

 sits in the nectar-sprayed corolla of every 

 flower, and you and I, the protagonists of 

 libertj', yet limp with shackled minds, and 

 beneath the firm glance of defiant hope 

 carry the quivering lip of suspense and 

 doubt. 



With all our laboriously gathered facts, 

 we still fail to touch the hidden recess in 

 which sits the supreme fact. With all our 

 multitudinous books, we fail intelligently to 

 display the Essence, or should I say the 

 Entity, of whicli all facts are but the ex- 



