The educational value of geography
in the common schools.
Thomas F. Ilarr is on.
Nev; Yori,1894.

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The

Educational Value of Geography
in the Common Schools

A paper read before the New York
Society of Pedagogy, Feb'y 28, 1894

By THOMAS F. HARRISON
ex-assistant superintendent of public schools of new YORK city and
author of harper's school geography

$

Prifited for the Society
t

NEW YORK • CINCINNATI ¦ CHICAGO
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
1894

PREFATORY.

In the preparation of the following paper, the author
has availed himself of material and suggestions from a
great variety of sources, some of which are, —
On the Improvement of Geographical Teaching.— Prof.
William Morris Davis.
Commercial Geography. — Hugh Robert Neill.
On the Teaching of Physiography. — P. Krapotkin.
Cyclopedia of Education. — Kiddle and Schem.
Article on Geography. — Thos. F. Harrison.
Cosmos. — Alex. Von Humboldt.
Proceedings of the International Geographic Confer
ence in Chicago, July, 1893, including,
Relations of Air and Water to Temperature and
Life. — Hon. Gardiner G. Hubbard, President of
National Geographical Society.
Relations of Geography to History.— Francis W.
Parker. ^r
i|i ..
Relations of Geology to Physiography in our
Educational System.— T. C. Chamberlin.
Geographical Instruction in Public Schools.— w,
B. Powell.

Copyright, 1894, by
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY.

The
Educational Value of Geography
in the Common Schools

THE results of the industrial and other social changes
that, during the latter half of the 19th century, have
so profoundly affected the condition and interests of
mankind in every country of the civilized world, are the
constant and ever varied theme of the press, the pulpit, the
legislator, and the statesman. We are never weary of re
counting the wonders of our age, — the effects wrought by
steam, electricity, and all the forms of applied science,
upon the well-being of .society.
The material progress marked by the marvelous changes
that have thus been wrought has its parallel in other
changes now in process of development in every depart
ment of human thought. The stir in the intellectual fully
equals that which is going on in the material world, and
will probably be even more momentous in its consequences.
Ethics and aesthetics, politics and economics, history and
theology, are all undergoing vigorous, searching, and
detailed inquiry, the full and final results of which no man
can foresee.
Prominent among these departments of renewed and
intense intellectual activity is the subject of the education
of the young, that they shall become intelligent, virtuous,
self-reliant, and patriotic citizens. Our vast American
system of Common Schools, supported as they are 'by a tax
upon the whole community in the several States, has no
other just reason for its existence. Now, more than ever

before, "the schoolmaster is abroad in the land," and, what
is far more, he is getting to be thoroughly wide awake.
It is now fully realized that the elementary education which
sufficed for a not distant past, no longer meets the neces
sities of the greatly changed state of society. Yet in
scarcely any other department is the conservative force
of tradition and long-established usage so persistent, so
unyielding, as in the department of education. Never
theless, step by step, real progress is being made, even
though, in a great degree, our best ideas and best views
are those of men who as yet but " see through a glass
darkly." As was so well said recently at the International Geo
graphic Conference at Chicago, "it is high time that we
should unload." In our own local system much lopping
and pruning has already been done, but far more, with
many a rejection and many a modification and substitution,
is imperatively necessary ; and in this important work we
have reason to look to our society, and to similar educa
tional bodies, to be not merely followers, but leaders also.
We are not to forget in these discussions, that whatever
may be the highly scientific plan of the doctrinaire, and we
have a superabundance of them, the vast mass of our pupils
must of necessity leave school early in life. It behooves
us, therefore, to consider well in what subjects, and parts
of subjects, they should receive instruction ; not what is
desirable, but what is reasonably possible. Though so much
has already been done to lighten the load, conscientious,
earnest, and skillful teachers still feel oppressed by its
magnitude. The march of education should at no time be
a forced march. As it is with us, so it doubtless is in
various degrees with other city systems throughout the
land. So many subjects ! So little time ! Such anxious
watching of the clock to make sure that the whole grist
shall be ground within the assigned period ! It reminds
one, in part at least, of the story of the "required tale of
the brIcTks." Nevertheless " there is a good time coming,"
though we must learn to labor as well as to wait for it.
Even as it is, most excellent work is done under these

systems, defective as they still are notwithstanding the
great and varied improvements of the last ten or twenty
years. As for ourselves, Chicago plainly showed that New
York is at least not one whit behind her sister cities in the
quality of the instruction given in her over-crowded public
schools. It may be considered as a pedagogical axiom, that no
study that is not both disciplinary and utilitarian should
have any place in our common schools. Geography, when
properly presented, meets both of these requirements.
The vast difference between the geographical teaching
of thirty or even twenty years ago, and that which may
be had in our day, was strikingly shown in that suggestive
" Exhibition of Geographical Appliances " which was last
year laid before the public of Brooklyn, Boston, and New
York by the Brooklyn Institute, and in which the teachers
of our own city took so deep and honorable an interest.
Though these appliances were gathered from many lands,
those from Germany were by far the most numerous, varied,
and efficient. In no other country has the study of
geography taken so high a position as in that most practical
of lands. The directors and leaders of its educational
interests seem to realize thoroughly the importance of this
branch to the agriculturist, the merchant, and the manu
facturer, to the interests of commerce, and to the nation
generally. And so it is in various degrees throughout the civilized
world. The long list of eminent names, beginning with
those of Ritter and Humboldt, and continuing with ever-
increasing numbers to the present day, together with the
scores of national geographical societies and the high intel
lectual character of their general membership, bear unmis
takable testimony to the importance and to the interesting
nature of this ever-expanding branch of human knowledge.
The slow growth of a proper recognition of its educational
value is one of the most curious examples of the power of
traditional conservatism.
In our elementary schools, geography has for many years
received a share of attention only less than that paid to

reading, spelling, and arithmetic. Yet, owing to faulty
methods of instruction by ill-prepared and therefore incom
petent teachers, and by means of badly constructed maps
and text-books, it has until quite recently, as evidenced by
the experience of thousands of educators, produced exceed
ingly unsatisfactory results.
This has brought the study into some degree of disre
pute, and has led to a widespread impression that geography,
as a matter of elementary education, is a subject of the
second, or even of the third, order of importance. But the
causes of this state of things are not inherent to the subject,
nor are they far to seek ; and better appliances and more
thoroughly prepared teachers are already lifting it to its
proper rank as a school study.
The old Geography, as many of us well remember, was
mainly an incoherent mass of details, a large part of which was
of no practical moment whatever. Its discipline was a dis
cipline of the memory only, — mostly a memory of symbols.
It has justly been called a "rope of sand." Itwas inco
herent, because based on no unifying scientific principles.
With the exception of an introductory series of altogether
unnecessary definitions, it might be begun at almost any
page of the text-book. The map exercises consisted mainly
of monotonous so-called descriptions of continents, islands,
peninsulas, capes, seas, bays, lakes, and rivers, by means of
unvarying formulee. " The Susquehanna River rises in the
southern part of the State of New York, takes an irregular
southerly winding course, crosses the boundary between
New York and Pennsylvania three times, and empties into
Chesapeake Bay." It was mainly a dreary study of the
unarticulated "bones" of the subject.
To Professor Arnold Guyot, American teachers of
geography owe a lasting debt of gratitude. His little book
entitled "The Earth and Man," published in 1853, was the
first to arouse our educators to the true province and
grandeur of geography. After a long interval, he followed
it (1866 to 1875) by a series of maps and graded text
books, which, though filled with admirable material, were
not altogether adapted to the wants of our American

schools. They were widely adopted ; but, after a brief
period of trial, they were generally pronounced unsatis
factory, notwithstanding many subsequent modifications.
The fault, perhaps, was not so much in the books themselves,
as in the unprepared condition of by far the greater part of
the teachers who were called upon to use them. Their
practical failure has led to the issue of a large number of
text-books, which are of very various degrees of merit, and
may be called text-books ad iriterim. With few exceptions,
these are the books now in the hands of our pupils. They
have to a great extent bridged over the gulf between the
old geography and those of Ritter, Humboldt, and Guyot.
Much good work has already been done ; and, in the hands
of more competent teachers, the best books are taking their
true place as aids and " appliances," and not as substitutes
for the teacher.
The New Geography, as it may well be called, is radically
different from the old. It is not "a rope of sand." It is
based on simple, definite, and systematically presented
principles, and is a true and comprehensive science. There
is no better brief definition of its theme than that given us
by Guyot, " The Earth as the Abode of Man," or, " Man
and his Dwelling Place."
It is evident that a subject so vast and comprehensive
cannot be exhaustively treated in any ordinary school course
of study. Indeed, no study should be or can be. A very
large part of the entire subject must necessarily be omitted,
partly because of the immaturity of the pupil's mind, and
partly because of the pressure of other subjects upon his
time and attention. As far as the gaining of information
goes, the contents of the modern daily newspaper furnish,
perhaps, the best general indication of what should con
stitute the utilitarian portion of the proper course in
geography for the masses of pupils who attend our common
schools. With most persons, the newspaper furnishes by
far the greater part of their reading, and is the chief, if not
the only, source of their stock of general information. Its
telegrams, editorials, and communications, as well as its
advertisements, relate to every great human interest,

political and commercial, social and religious. They are
from every part of the world ; and those of chief interest
involve geographical knowledge which the editor must
necessarily assume to be already possessed by the reader.
In order to be truly " practical," a course of study in
geography should therefore recognize the fact, that after
reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic, a knowledge of
no other subject studied in school is so frequently called
into practical use as a knowledge of geography.
But the study of geography, when properly taught, is
not merely the giving of information, however valuable ;
not merely committing selected facts to memory ; it is not
merely to train the perceptive and the reasoning faculties :
but it is a judicious combination of all of these objects, which
are indeed inseparable. In its initiatory stages, it should be
prepared for by a brief series of simple oral exercises on a
few very common phenomena, — phenomena in which the
young mind always takes a deep interest when they are so
presented as to call upon the powers of observation. I
mention only a few essentials, and shall refer to them with
synoptical brevity. No matter if they do not at first sight
seem to relate directly to geography, they are, notwith
standing, a part of its very " gamut."
I. Evaporation, and the Air as a Sponge. — The vapor
from the teakettle : what has become of it when it
is invisible ? — The drying of the clothes of the wash : what
has become of the water ? — The drying of the sidewalks
after the rain, and other similar common and well-known
facts. —Why is the breath visible as a cloud (similar to the
kettle cloud) in cold weather, and invisible in the warm
weather ?
2. Condensation. — The washroom windows on a cold
day. — The frost flowers of the bedroom windowpane. —
The breath upon a fragment of cold glass even in summer.
— The " sweat," so called, upon the pitcher of ice water.
These, carefully presented, will lead the young mind to see
that the air always contains more or less water dissolved in it
and rendered invisible, but condensed and thus again made
visible by cold.

3. The Clouds. — The kettle cloud. — Clouds not smoke.
— High educational significance of this universal youthful
inference. — Further condensation and the rainfalls. — Origin
of the clouds. — The vast evaporation from ocean and land
surface. — Summer cumulus cloud.
4. Erosion. — The mud swept off the streets by heavy
rains. — Turbid little streams, leading to a knowledge of
great ones, and their comminuted solid contents. What
becomes of them ?
5. The Frost. — It bursts the water pitcher, if exposed.
Why ? — -The water-soaked stone : what the frost does to it,
— Brownstone fronts : the shelly condition of many layers.
Why? — What the frost is slowly doing to the millions of
stones in the fields. — The shelling of the Obelisk in Central
Park, — The slow gnawing down of the mountains, — How
the streams from the hills and mountains carry off the fine
fragments as mud and sand (this will in due time lead to
a clear knowledge of how gullies, then valleys, of erosion
are made). Pictures will greatly help now, and ere long
the young student looks intelligently at a picture of
Yosemite Valley, of the Bad Lands of Dakota, or of the
canyons of the Yellowstone or the Colorado.
If patiently taught, not by telling, but by skillful ques
tioning, and by just sufficient repetition to make sure that
these things are fairly understood, the teacher will find that
few educational seeds will yield in due time so rich a harvest.
The carving power of the rains and frosts, and the deposit
of the comminuted debris in the lowlands, lead to a clear
understanding of the origin and significance of the fertile
soils of the broad valleys of the Mississippi, the Amazon,
of China and of India, — the horftes of three fourths or more
of the human race.
Incidentally, the consideration of the obviously slow
process of these erosive agencies easily leads, as nothing
else can, to the conception of the vast periods of time that
must have been required for them to do their beneficent
work of preparing these valleys and plains to be the abode
of civilized man;
When thus properly prepared for, Geography is a fasci-

nating as well as highly profitable subject. The location,
contours, and reliefs of the great continental masses and
islands ; the simple principles of climate as it is affected by
latitude, elevation, and distance from the sea, and especially
by the great aerial and oceanic currents ; then the influences
of climate in determining and differentiating the chief
industries of man, — all these are easily comprehended.
The geographical locations of the chief mineral treasures
of the earth have produced great and lasting effects upon
political and social history. The search by sea for the gold
and spices and rich fabrics of India, evolved first Prince
Henry the Navigator, and then Columbus and Da Gama,
and led at last, by sure steps, to what is still in progress
before our eyes, — the second dispersion of mankind. The
establishment of new states and nations by migration,
the influences of the discovery of gold in California and
Australia, of diamonds in South Africa, of guano and the
desert nitrates, are all simple though important facts, highly
interesting to the awakened and hungry youthful mind, and
may readily be presented in simple outline.
The adaptation of certain climates to the successful
transplanting from their original homes of coffee, tea, sugar,
cotton, fruits, the bread grains, and the domestic animals,
with the resulting effects upon man's comfort and the wealth
and history of nations, upon agriculture, manufactures, and
commerce, and upon transportation and other commercial
facilities, and of these again upon the great manufacturing
communities in producing that ever-growing internal pres
sure that demands new and wider markets for their steadil}--
increasing surplus products, — all these are essentially geo
graphical items, and they should find a sure place in school
instruction. A single instance will show the great influence
which such things have upon national history. Our South
ern States were found to be remarkably well adapted to
the cultivation of cotton, which is not there a native plant.
It is easy to trace the chain of events, — human slavery, its
highly profitable maintenance and spread, followed at last
by our civil war, with the many subsequent results, which
still so profoundly affect our national well-being.

What is the meaning, what the cause or causes, of this
extraordinary and shameless scramble of the great maritime
nations of Europe in the wholesale partitioning of the vast
continent of Africa since the opening of the Suez Canal
and the exploration of the Kongo by Livingstone and
Stanley ? Why these seizures of the hitherto neglected
islands scattered over the broad Pacific ? What was our
Alaska difficulty but a commercial and geographical ques
tion ? What the Samoan squabble? What will determine
the final political relations of the Hawaiian Islands, which
occupy so advantageous a position for the rapidly growing
commerce of the Pacific ?
Take a map of the world and mark well the chief out
lying fortified naval stations of Great Britain. They are
all strongly protected depots for coal and other naval sup
plies, without which her gigantic armed and commercial
marine would be as Samson shorn of his locks. Here are
Gibraltar at the door, Malta in the middle, and Cyprus at
the eastern end of the Mediterranean, guarding the Suez
Canal and the whole vast system of India commerce as well
as other British commercial interests. On the South
African route we find St. Helena, Cape Town, Mauritius,
and Zanzibar. Here are Aden at the door of the Red Sea,
the Bahrein Islands near the mouth of the Persian Gulf,
Singapore at the southern end of the China Sea, and Hong
kong at the northern, besides the new station of Port
Kennedy on Torres Straits. In our own neighborhood we
find the strongly fortified Bermudas at our very door, con
nected with Halifax, also fortified, by an Atlantic cable.
On the south are St. Vincent, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and
other strongholds in the West 'Indies, and on the Pacific
side we find the new fortified station of Esquimault on
the very border of our own Puget Sound. These stations
dominate the chief thoroughfares of the oceanic commerce
of the world. They are geographical and commercial, and
therefore highly significant political facts, and a presentation
of them in outline is a necessity to the youth who is to be
an intelligent reader of the daily newspaper. In reflecting
upon the possible significance of this chain of strongholds

10

on our own eastern, southern, and western coasts, at our
very doors as it were, who can avoid being reminded of a
passage in Patrick Henry's famous speech ? " What means
this martial array ? . . . They are meant for us. They
can be meant for none other,"
For the disciplinary influence of the study of geography,
a leading element is found in the use of the comparative
method, as is the case in language, ethnology, history, etc.
It need take but little time in a geographical course to fix
in the learner's mind the grand historic significance of cer
tain prominent features in the physical geography of the
several continents,
Asia, the old home of the race ; a vast, high, cold, and
barren central mass, with a fringe of immense peninsulas
and islands, its fertile lowland plains crowded with millions
of men, the origin of whose civilization lies beyond the
bounds of historic time, — the long-continued isolation of
these nations, separated by lofty mountain ranges and (to
them) practically impassable seas and deserts, long ages ago
resulted in permanent differences in race, language, religion,
and other characteristics which have profoundly affected the
whole subsequent course of man's history.
Europe is even more diversified. Its great eastern plain
is essentially Asiatic, and, as with all the great communities
of Asia itself, is still the home of depressing despotism.
Historic Europe is a vast peninsula, fringed with many
subordinate peninsulas and islands. Its physical geography,
in like manner, and chiefly from the same causes as in Asia,
evolved a surprising number of long-isolated but much
smaller communities. In these, far removed from the
repressing and destructive power of the gigantic despotisms
of the East, were evolved the beginnings of our social and
intellectual freedom and its subsequent outgrowth.
Asia, with its high, cold, desert, and therefore sparsely
populated center, has been likened to an inverted saucer ;
and North America, to the saucer in its normal position.
Its capacious and fertile basin plain has become the place for
a grand gathering and unifying of all that is best and most
vigorous in the free communities of Europe. Here is the

predestined and long-reserved field for the true gathering of
the nations. No longer separated by mountain walls, dense
forests, broad seas, and other physical obstacles to unity, a
people of true homogeneity is being rapidly evolved out of
representatives of nearly every one of the long-divided and
scattered fragments of the Aryan race, here once more
fusing into one reunited people to form the freest and
grandest community of all recorded time. "Time's noblest
offspring is the last," was indeed a true prophecy. I said
that it was a long-reserved field. How different would have
been the condition of the world to-day had the great
Mississippi Valley been found to be already occupied by a
vast and crowded population like that of China !
While geography thus selects and incorporates certain
facts from history and from the various natural and physical
sciences, it is by no means necessary to enter systematically
into any of these sciences, nor that the subject should receive
an inordinate amount of the pupil's time and attention. It
should be judiciously distributed along the school course.
By far the greater part would be best given by means of a
properly prepared course of illustrated geographical readers
without special and minute recitation exercises. For
instance, a pupil need not be an astronomer to know that
the earth is a globe or to grasp fairly the ideas of its sim
plest yet most important astronomical relations. He finds
no difficulty in understanding the causes of the succession
of day and night or of the wonderful changes of the seasons.
The general relations of these to animal and vegetable life
are easily illustrated.
Farther on in the course he can readily be led to
appreciate that grand yet simple declaration of Sir John
Herschel, "the prince of modern philosophers," when,
towards the close of a long life, he wrote : " Of all the
multitude of facts disclosed by physical science, I know
of no other so wonderful as the simple fact that the earth
revolves around the sun with its axis inclined toward the
plane of its orbit. From it have resulted many things of
the highest moment to the well-being of mankind."
Now, it is by no means a difficult task to lead the young

pupil to see, not to tell him, that this physical fact is the
very corner stone of the vast fabric of man's physical,
mental, and social development. In the Northern Tem
perate Zone, that home of all the great historic nations, the
vicissitudes of the seasons have forced the development of
man's self-protective foresight, obliging him to provide
during the season of abundant vegetable growth his neces
sary food, shelter, and clothing for the winter. By thus
laying up the surplus of summer and autumn, he has
obtained leisure and opportunity for the cultivation of his
higher faculties. The listless and naked African .savage,
not forced by his climate to physical and mental actlvitj^ has
lived contented for unnumbered ages with no ideas or
wishes beyond his savagery. The fur-clad Esquimau,
condemned by his summerless clime to a ceaseless and
desperate struggle for food amidst the perils of the Arctic
seas, has neither leisure nor inclination for anything higher.
All this is merely a part of that study which treats of
the earth as the abode of man; of his social condition, and
the causes that have determined It.
The student need not be a geologist to understand the
nature and effects of erosion, and the vast importance of
that ceaseless agency which has so wonderfully diversified
the land surface of our globe. He need not be a mineralo
gist, nor a political economist, to know the chief sources and
the leading social functions of iron and coal, of gold and
silver, and the other great minerals of civilization. So, too,
with facts from climatology, electricity, magnetism, and
biology, each of which contributes something to this grand
science. What other study is so comprehensive, so ennobling, so
well fitted not only to discipline the mind of the student,
but to store it with knowledge which is not merely interest
ing and even wonderful, but highly practical, because in
dispensable to a proper understanding of the conditions of
the community in which he dwells, and of those material
and social changes in other parts of the world which are
laid before him in the daily paper? If the great purpose
of elementary education, especially In our common schools.

13
Is to make good and intelligent citizens, surely the New
Geography should not be considered a matter of second or
third rate importance.
Permit me, In conclusion, to add a few brief reflections
which seem to me inseparable from those higher aspects of
our subject, and which especially concern us as teachers.
" Among the many relations of man to his dwelling place,
none other has so profoundly affected his emotional and
intellectual being as his sympathy with the varied aspects
of Nature. This has been, through all the ages, an exhaust-
less theme, from the days of the sublime Hebrew poets to
those of our own Whittler and Bryant, Ancient Egypt,
Chaldea, India, Persia, Greece, Germany, and Scandinavia,
bear eloquent witness to its undying power. It has been a
chief instrument In developing man's spiritual nature.
Perhaps no one In modern times has more clearly and pro
foundly expressed this great truth than that majestic mind,
Alexander von Humboldt. In the introduction to "Cosmos,"
he says (vol, i, p. 3) : —
"In reflecting upon the different degrees of enjoyment
presented to us in the contemplation of nature, we find that
the first place must be assigned to a sensation or emotion,
which is wholly independent of an intimate acquaintance
with the physical phenomena presented to our view, or of
the peculiar character of the region surrounding us. In
the uniform plain bounded only by a distant horizon, where
the lowly heather, the cistus, or waving grasses, deck the
soil ; on the ocean shore, where the waves, softly rippling
over the beach, leave a track, green with the weeds of the
sea ; everywhere, the mind is penetrated by the same
sense of the grandeur and vast expanse of nature, revealing
to the soul, by a mysterious inspiration, the existence of
laws that regulate the forces of the universe. Mere com
munion with nature, mere contact with the free air, exercises
a soothing yet strengthening influence on the wearied
spirit, calms the storms of passion, and softens the heart
when shaken by sorrow to Its Inmost depths. Everywhere,
in every region of the globe, in every stage of intellectual
culture, the same sources of enjoyment are alike vouchsafed

14
to man. The earnest and solemn thoughts awakened by a
communion with nature intuitively arise from a presentiment
of the order and harmony pervading the whole universe,
and from the contrast we draw between the narrow limits
of our own existence and the image of infinity revealed on
every side, whether we look upwards to the starry vault of
heaven, scan the far-stretching plain before us, or seek to
trace the dim horizon across the vast expanse of ocean."
But there Is a still higher development of man's spiritual
nature, Man's sympathy with his fellow-man is already a
large element In the progressive unification of our race.
Famines and pestilences, earthquakes, tornadoes, fires,
floods, and other catastrophes, even of distant peoples,
awaken in our day a world-wide, practical sympathy. Slow
as was the progress of the sentiment of human brotherhood
in the past, it is now making rapid advances. The ages of
cruelty are passing away. Imprisonment for debt, Draconic
laws, the slave trade and human slavery, have already fallen,
and there are more to follow. But these are not the only
indications of the coming recognition of the brotherhood of
man. In our days, the various communities of the earth,
once exclusive or antagonistic, are becoming mutually
supplementary. The varied* wealth of material resources,
and of ideas mainly the outgrowth of separate development
In isolation, Is now, to a far greater extent than ever before,
poured into a common stock for the benefit of all.
The modern tendency to the combination of once rival
Interests springs from the same root of enlightened self-
Interest, and Is highly significant. It is sufficient but to
name express companies, telegraphs, railways, trusts, clearing
houses, and trades-unions. The establishment of the Kongo
State is another sign of the times. Everything seems to
be tending to some not yet comprehended form of social
unity for the whole human race, — "a unity in diversity."
Though its laws are as yet but vaguely understood, social
gravitation is as Inexorable as material gravitation.
The ancient migrations and transfers of peoples were
the occasions of wholesale massacre or slavery. The
peaceful and beneficent migrations of the last thirty or forty

IS
years, so greatly exceeding even In mere numbers those of
the far past, are among the mightiest events of recorded
time. The barriers of mountain walls have fallen before
the locomotive whistle. Oceans no longer Isolate nations
and divide mankind, but have become a chief means of
universal and easy accessibility. The two great inter-
oceanlc canals, the recent Pan-American Convention, the
Columbian Exposition, the Congress of Religions, and the
Introduction of arbitration for the settlement of grave
international disputes, all, like converging lines, point to the
same grand consummation.
How closely Interdependent the nations have already
come to be, was startlingly exemplified when the recent
financial crashes In far-away Buenos Ayres and Australia
sent such a shock of alarm, such a thrill of anxiety, such an
apprehension of financial earthquake, through all the great
commercial centers of the globe. The blows of the miner's
pick and drill in our western silver mines have profoundly
affected the welfare of the hundreds of millions of people
In India and elsewhere ; and the rate of wages paid to the
toilers in the mines and mills and factories of Europe have
intimate relations to the prosperity of the same classes In
America, Like the motion caused by terrestrial gravitation,
this unifying tendency is accelerating. Already, in relation
to international exchanges of thought and commodities,
electricity and steam have virtually annihilated time and
space. A thought of the ominous war cloud in Europe may
check the glow of our optimism ; but though so many
millions of men stand armed for instant war, yet, If the
anticipated general war shall come, It cannot last long. The
fearfully destructive nature of the agencies employed, and
their enormous cost, must soon exhaust the resources of
even the most powerful nations. Such widespread recurring
catastrophes seem somehow associated as preliminaries with
every noted advance in the well-being of the masses of
mankind. It was so after the Irruption of the barbarians
which led to the fall of the Roman Empire, and after the
fearful wars of the periods of the Reformation and of the

i6
French Revolution. Trite as these facts may be, to recall
them is to gain new assurance that the present threatening
condition of the nations and of the general social order will
eventually be followed by a truer and more lasting peace
than has ever yet been enjoyed by mankind.
"Replenish the earth and subdue It," was4:he first com
mand divinely given to man. He disobeyed ; and. Instead
of so doing, he violently subdued his brother man, degrading
at once both his brother and himself. In our day the old
command Is better heeded, and with rich reward. The
material resources of the earth, together with those subtile
forms of its inherent energy that we call heat, electricity,
and magnetism, are Indeed becoming subdued to the service
of man, and peace and prosperity will be the outcome of
their subjugation.
Again we are told that "the earth was without form,
and void, and that the spirit of God moved upon the face of
the waters," — moved, that is, figuratively; hovered, brooded,
as a bird upon her eggs. In our subject, this partial anal
ogy of the egg further suggests itself. As the germinal
vesicle develops what In due time becomes a throbbing
heart and the delicate floating threads that become nerves
and blood vessels, and finally all the mutually related or
gans of that marvelous "unity in diversity" a living bird,
so, too, win it be in a yet grander evolution than that
from the once void earth. The great centers of commerce
and civilization, with their radiating lines of swiftly-moving
ships and their nerves of ocean cable, are all prophetic oi
some form of the coming solidarity of mankind. It em
phasizes the declaration of the poet, that
"Through the cycles of the ages one unchanging purpose runs,"
and leads us to hope that the time is not very far in the
future " When, man to man, the wide warld o'er
Shall brithers be, and a' that.''

: UNIVERSITY LIBRARY