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and nationality, is an element of future greatness, and time only can 

 •develop the latent qualities of the whole when merged into one. His- 

 tory has always shown that when a people can easilifgQt a competency 

 or wallow in I'iches, degeneracy of mind follows. Note Egypt, Persia, 

 Rome. 



To the student who has thought out the gradual development of 

 literature, its changes are as full of wonder as are the formation of 

 rocks to the geologist. Early [man tried like the child of to-day to 

 draw, and in the rude endeavour scratched with a |flint tool on bones 

 found in the caves of Southern France, we may see the beginnings of 

 -an art which culminated in the creation of writing. Dr. Isaac Taylor 

 says that " the history of writing forms no exception to that law of 

 •developement which modern research has found to preside over the 

 destinies of the universe." Printing has been the great medium of 

 •development of literature in modern days. The germ of its discovery 

 was innate ; but it took centuries to evolve it, and to attain to the degree 

 ■of excellence it now possesses. Signet rings and seals and the scarabcei 

 found in Egyptian tombs bore elaborate inscriptions evidently intended 

 to be transferred to the surface of substances fitted to receive them. 

 The dies of coin in all countries involve the same idea. What the 

 intellectual exigencies of future generations may be who can tell 1 

 Education is spreading every day, and in every country. A. love of 

 knowledge, of science, of literature is penetrating all communities 

 deeper and deeper, and will, in the onward march of civilization, be 

 universal. Doubtless men in the future as in the past will continue to 

 develope contrivances answerable to all needs. Photography and elec- 

 tricity may be enlisted yet further than they have already been in the 

 service of letters, and appliances for satisfying the mental hunger of 

 the human i-ace, having photogi-aphy and electricity as co-efficients, may 

 possibly be thought of which to us now would seem to involve the 

 incredible, but which to our descendants will be things of coui'se, and 

 classed by them among tlie ordinary conveniences of every day life. 

 Nothing is now impossible. 



t ord Justice Fry not long ago wrote an article in the Contempor- 

 ary Review on the subject of imitation as a factor in human progress. 

 He says " how far the manual and techical arts of human life owe their 



