IF YOU WANT TO KNOW THE REAL MEANING OF THE PROGRESSIVE ERA OF THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY THE ERA TODAY'S #GOP HATES
WHERE #RADICALS, #CONSERVATIVES AND #LIBERALS ALL AGREED THAT THE FUTURE WAS OURS TO BUILD (IN FACT THEY WERE ALL CLASSIC LIBERALS, EVEN #FABIAN SOCIALIST HG WELLS )
II THE DANGER
Problems To Be Met Theodore Roosevelt, LL.D.,
President of the United States.
VII. THE BIRTH OF CONSCIENCE
Morality of Nature
Prince Peter Alexeyevich Kropotkin.
XXX. #ANARCHISM
Thou Shalt Not Kill
Count Leo Tolstoi.
XL OUR COUNTRY
The Making of the Nation
Woodrow Wilson, LL.D.,
President of Princeton University
XXVIII. THE TOILERS
Labor Organizations in America
Carroll D. Wright, LL.D.,
President of Clark College;
former Labor Commissioner of the United States.
XX. THE CHILD
The Beginnings of the Mind
H. G. Wells, B.Sc.
IT INCLUDED SCIENCE AND METAPHYSICSXX. THE CHILD
The Beginnings of the Mind
H. G. Wells, B.Sc.
III. THE BELIEFS
Religion, Science, and Miracle
Sir Oliver Lodge, LL.D.,
President University of Birmingham, England.
IN SHORT IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF #MODERNISM
THEN THIS SMALL VOLUME OF ESSAYS (904 PAGES) IS THE BOOK TO READ HERE IS ITS CONTENTS AND FORWARD TO WET YOUR APPETITE
The meaning of modern life as sought for and interpreted in a series of lectures and addresses by the leaders of modern thought and modern action;
Published 1907
Lecture
I. THE OUTLOOK
The Trend of the Century
^ Seth Low, LL.D.,
Former President of Columbia University.
III. THE BELIEFS
Religion, Science, and Miracle
Sir Oliver Lodge, LL.D.,
President University of Birmingham, England.
IV. THE SUCCESSES
Five American Contributions to Civilization
Charles W. Eliot, LL.D.,
President of Harvard University.
V. THE BEGINNINGS
The Man of the Past
E. Kay Robinson.
VI. THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
Its Chemical Creation by Science
John Butler Burke, M.A.,
Cambridge University.
VII. THE BIRTH OF CONSCIENCE
Morality of Nature
VIII. THE SOUL IN BEASTS
Growth of Modern Idea of Animals
Countess E. Martinengo Cesaresco.
IX. THE FAILURE OF EVOLUTION
Evolution and Marriage
Alfred R. Wallace, LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S.
X. THE LATEST KNOWLEDGE
Scientific Investigation and Progress
Ira Remsen, LL.D.,
President of Johns Hopkins University
XL OUR COUNTRY
The Making of the Nation
Woodrow Wilson, LL.D.,
President of Princeton University.
Xil. PATRIOTISM AND POLITICS
The Duties of Good Citizenship
His Eminence James, Cardinal Gibbons.
XIII. AMBITION
The Conditions of Success
Max Nordau, M.D., ''
President of Congress of Zionists.
XIV. OUR PAST
The Lesson of the Past
Maurice Maeterlinck.
XV. ART
The What and the How in Art
William Dean Howells, A.M., L.H.D..
XVI. ART AND MORALITY
Their Essential Union for Culture
Ferdinand Brunetiere, LL.D.,
Ex-President of L'Academie
Francaise.
XVII. WOMAN
Marriage Customs and Their Moral Value
Elizabeth Diack,
William S. Lilly, M.A., J.P.,
Secretary of the Catholic Society of Great Britain.
XVIII. UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE
The Essential Equality of Man and Woman
' Frances Cobbe, William K. Hill.
XIX. SOCIETY
The Role of Women in Society
Lady Mary Ponsonby.
XX. THE CHILD
The Beginnings of the Mind
H. G. Wells, B.Sc.
XXI. LIFE'S INTERCOURSE
Language as the Interpreter of Life
Benjamin Ide Wheeler, LL.D.,
President of the University of California.
XXII. THE BOY
His Preparation for Manhood
Daniel Coit Oilman, LL.D.,
Former President of Johns Hopkins University
and of the Carnegie Institution.
XXIII. HOW TO THINK
Edward Everett Hale, LL.D.,
Chaplain of the United State^ Senate.
XXIV. THE GIRL
The Thing To Do
Whitelaw Reid, LL.D.,
Chancellor of the University of the State of New
York; Ambassador to England.
XXV. MANHOOD
Selection of One's Life-Work
E. Benjamin Andrews, LL.D.,
President of the University of Nebraska.
XXVI. THE COLLEGE GRADUATE
• The College Man in Business
Charles F. Thwing, LL.D.,
President of Western Reserve University.
XXVII. SPORT
The Mission of Sport and Outdoor Life
Grover Cleveland, LL.D.,
Ex-President of the United States.
XXVIII. THE TOILERS
Labor Organizations in America
Carroll D. Wright, LL.D.,
President of Clark College; former Labor Com-
missioner of the United States.
XXIX. THE SOIL
Land and Its Ownership in the Past
Alfred R. Wallace, LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S.,
President of the Land Naturalization Society.
XXX. ANARCHISM
Thou Shalt Not Kill
Count Leo Tolstoi.
XXXI. WAR
A Demonstration of Its Futility
David Starr Jordan, LL.D.,
President of Leland Stanford University;
Carl Schurz, LL.D.,
Former United States Senator.
XXXII. ARBITRATION
A League of Peace
Andrew Carnegie, LL.D.,
Lord Rector St. Andrews University.
XXXIII. HISTORY
Value oj History in the Formation oj Character
Caroline Hazard, M.A., Litt.D.,
President of Wellesley College.
XXXIV. THE POWER OF RELIGION
Religion Still the Key to History
Simeon Eben Baldwin, LL.D.,
Former President American Historical Associa-
tion, Professor of Constitutional Law at Yale
University.
XXXV. CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILIZATION
Social Culture in Education and Religion
William T. Harris, LL.D.,
Former United States Commissioner of Education.
XXXVI. THE MYSTERIES
What Has Psychic Research Accomplished?
William F. Barrett, F.R.S., J.P.,
Royal College, Dublin; former President of the
Society for Psychical Research.
XXXVII. HYPNOTISM
Its History, Nature, and Use
Harold M. Hays, M.D.,
Mount Sinai Hospital.
XXXVIII. THE WILL
Its Cultivation and Power
Jules Finot, LL.D.,
Editor of the Revue.
XXXIX. OUR HOPE
The Unknown God
Sir Henry Thompson, M.D.
XL. OUR GOAL
The Making of a National Spirit
Edwin A. Alderman. LL.D.,
President of the University of Virginia.
Education and Democracy
George Harris, LL.D.,
President of Amherst College.
FOREWORD WHEN, as sometimes happens, a tattered manuscript of medieval times is resurrected from amid forgotten rubbish heaps, scholars hesitate and argue as to the century of its production. Accidental outward marks may guide them ; but as to the thought, the outlook, the opinions, there is little to discriminate one century from the next, or the next. Mankind did march onward, it is true, but with such slow step that they seemed often to he merely marking time without advance. The unsolved problems of one generation were still disputed by their children's children.
Now, however, we move at railroad speed. The problems of to-day are not those of two decades ago and at such accelerating rate do we rush onward that soon a year may see changes such as once engrossed a century. Nay, so swiftly are we swept
face to face with new issues that the dead past at times forgets to bury its dead. There are elderly gentlemen among us, held by a comfortable income in some eddy of the current, who still maintain that the only vital issue of to-day is England's attitude towards us in the Civil War or the fact that Japan began her modern career under our tutelage in 1834.
To these pleasantly reminiscent gentlemen, charming after-
dinner speakers, interesting relics of an extinct age, the present
series of addresses can possess little interest, except for its ''new-
ness," the radical spirit of its thought. But to more active brains,
to the men who, in office, in factory, or in field, are "making the
nation'' of to-day, it must have an obvious value. Each one
of us is so busy in his own life that he cannot keep abreast of the
lives of others. A well- known literary man, a twenty years^
graduate of my college, wrote me the other day for a copy of the
college register. By mistake a clerk forwarded him instead a
pamphlet containing the requisites for admission to the freshman
class, whereon my literary friend wrote back to me, only half
in jest, that despite my vigorous hint he must abandon any idea
of retaking his college course, as he could not possibly pass the
entrance examinations.
The schools of to-day do not teach what was taught twenty
years ago. Our colleges are wholly different institutions. The
man who closed his scholastic education in the " eighties,^^
perhaps even in the "nineties,''^ and went out into life, his brain
awhirl with certain problems which he and his generation must
some day solve perforce, that man is surprised now by stumbling,
in his newspaper, on some casual reference to his special diffi-
culty as a thing done with, dismissed, and half forgotten. He
realizes for a moment that the age has somehow swept along with-
out him, that progress has passed him by. Then, being a busy
man, he turns again to his own personal problem, with perhaps
only a half-formed wish that he had kept more nearly abreast
of the times, a half -formed resolve that ''some day'' he will "read
up'' again.
To that man, and to every one among us who seeks to maintain
the fulness of his heritage as " heir to all the ages, " is offered
the present series of addresses. They give the most recent thought
on each vital issue of the moment. They are written by men and
women, the foremost leaders of the battle. Each name is a guarantee
not only that the address is notable and worth the reading,
but also that it is broadly thoughtful and deeply true. These
are no hurried, superficial views, held to-day to be dismissed
to-morrow ; they are the meditated opinions of the greatest
specialists. Each address is worth incorporating into the
reader's permanent body of thought, his outlook upon life.
Several of the series have already received the stamp of public
approval. They have been delivered as recent speeches, some
before vast audiences of the people, others before learned societies,
small bodies of the selected few. Surely, under such circum-
stances if ever, under the criticism and approval of his fellow men,
restrained from exaggeration by the sceptic's smile, stimulated
to passion and power by the applause of all whose voiceless
thoughts he has nobly interpreted in speech, then if ever does a
speaker rise above his hearers, above himself, and become '^inspired."
Essays of inspiration these, and needful indeed was
it that their earnest words should not perish on the breeze that
caught them, but should be here preserved in print and given
permanent weight — heralded to a wider audience. Others of the
series have been written specially for this occasion. Others again
have appeared in some temporary printed shape, and are now
given permanent form. These, wherever necessary, have been
revised by the author, or under his supervision, for the present
purpose.
For there is a purpose, an ''increasing purpose," which
runs through them all. They are liot a hap- hazard collection
of famous speeches, chance thrown together. Their themes have
been laboriously selected, their sequence studied, their expression
placed in the hands of those best fitted for the task. Thus, though
each author speaks upon a different subject, there is a carefully
outlined harmony runs through the whole. Here is, in brief,
not many books, but one book. Each address does but face an-
other aspect of the same great riddle and gives a strong man's
reading of its secret. Taken as a whole, the series may be found
to answer better than any one volume could, better than any one
man could, the question that faces each among us, the question
suggested by the title as to the meaning, the cause, and the issue
of the life we live.
A special introduction for this opening number of the series
seems scarcely needful. Seth Low is so widely known for his
long and honorable career, as President of Columbia University
during its period of widest development, as Mayor of New York
in days of peculiar stress and strain, as one of the foremost citizens
of our land in every moment of need, that his voice must every-
where receive attention, his views command respect. This
address, delivered by him before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of
Harvard, was published in the Atlantic Monthly and is here
reproduced by the kind permission of the publishers, after being
revised under Mr. Low^s supervision for its present use. It
looks, as its title page suggests, over the general field of life, and
indicates briefly the general character of some of the problems
which the ensuing addresses must view at closer range.
Perhaps he who will go step by step with our authors through
each one's thought may before closing with the last find himself
strengthened to give his own answer to the riddle. He may
take a new attitude more confident, more self-assured towards
life itself.
C. F. H.