From Town Drudgery 247 



necessary to live with the throng in order to 

 know what is going on where crowds meet, and 

 all signs go to show that in the future it will be 

 still less necessary. The phonograph, to speak 

 of but one wonder of the near future, offers 

 extraordinary things to the man who wants to 

 get away from the crowd. The perfected 

 phonograph, and there can be no reasonable 

 doubt as to its future perfection, whether this 

 is achieved a year or twenty years hence, will 

 not only give us books at a cost insignificant as 

 compared to that of ink and paper, but in a 

 far pleasanter form ; it will be a pleasant reader 

 always ready to read by the hour or the day. 

 Not only this, but it will give us music of any 

 kind the latest song or the newest orchestral 

 symphony in a manner to be enjoyed even by 

 experts. So much has been accomplished with 

 the phonograph that nothing seems to be too 

 extraordinary to claim for it. It is no dream 

 to say that as a means of communicating 

 thoughts and words, the phonograph will do 

 more for the world as an educator than print- 

 ing. In the future, authors will not write their 

 books they will read them, and phonographic 



