84 THE THIRD POWER 



km for centuries, and that one boat had been built 

 three hundred years ago, which actually did travel 

 a short distance under water under propulsion of 

 oars. But the writer said that this inventor could 

 do little simply because he had outstripped the pos- 

 sibilities of the science of his day. Steam naviga- 

 tion was then two hundred years in the future. 

 Even thirty years ago submarine boats were looked 

 on as impracticable — Jules Verne writing fancifully 

 of a trip under the sea as he did of a journey to the 

 moon or the center of the earth. Now the problem 

 is solved, not because the men of our day first 

 thought of solving it, but because science had ad- 

 vanced sufficiently to enable them to solve it — had 

 given them the materials to work with. Much the 

 same thing is true of aerial navigation. It is so of 

 reform movements. Even the Christian religion 

 could not have spread so rapidly had it not been that 

 the world was prepared for it. The Romans had 

 built the roads over which missionaries traveled, 

 had welded mankind together, had established peace, 

 law and order throughout the civilized world, and 

 created a system of government that was marvelous 

 for its efficiency. 



The moral is plain. Every influence that can be 

 named is operating to bind the farmers together. 

 Railroads, the telegraph, the wonderful extension of 

 the telephone service, the rural mail service, the trol- 

 ley roads, the growth of towns in proximity to the 

 farm, the spread of education, the development of 



