The Kansas herald of freedom., 1859-10-08
rsrms:--Two Dollar. Per Annun,- I'm Advance.
Pas, and p-.....


1t is not halfso poetical as the age of chiv
airy, when women were worshipped for
their beauty alone, and when men could
Ind no more dignified or useful occupa-
ton than worshipping and fighting for pret-
ty women. But that boasted age of chiv.
airy was an age of ignorance and folly,
and it is only the ignorant and foolish that
can now regret it. The age of steam and
electricity, of freedom and education, of
labofsand progress, is the true golden age
of the world, and this nineteenth century
sees the world in a much prouder eondi
ton, and mankind in a much happier state,
than any century that has preceded IT,
50 We exut over the progress we have
made since the "good old times" that
croakers are continually lamenting, and
we despise the cant which complains of
this age because it is practical, utihtarian
age. Mankind were never So enlightened,
so refined, so moral and so free as they now
Are. They have become so because they
have cast off the romantic notions of feu-
dal days, and have grown to be practical
and utilitarian. .sa l-.. -. ..l-
The inventor of the steam engine did
more for the human race than all the
knights that ever lived, from Artbur's
Round Table down. Miss Dix, Mrs. Fry,
and Miss Nightingale. have been better
and more useful women and more deserv-
ing of mems applause, than all the queens
of love and beauty that ever were crowned
at tournaments. The men of the Ameri-
can Revolution, who abolished the mo-
narchial system on an entire continent,
were greater benefactors of humanity than
all the, emperors, kings and princes thai
ever reigned in Europe The public
school system, as it exists in the American
States, is worth moreJ than all the public
institutions of Europe in the age of chiv-
airy. The free press, the free exercise of
religion, the right of suffrage, the repre-
sentative system of government-these
and many other invaluable institutions of
the present age are exclusively modern,
and could not have existed in time of
feudalism and chivalry. There is nothing,
in such an age as that was, that will aG-
NIT of mention alongside of the railroad
ard the telegraph of these times, and there
are thousands of modern mechanical con-
trivances, the results of free education and
the free exercise. of thought, that make
this period incomparably superior to that
of several hundred years ago.
In one thing alone can we recognize any
superiority in the people of the Middle
Ages over those of the present age. They
built better churches. But even this, was
the effect of their superstitious subservi-
ence to hierarchy, whose exactions
monopolized all the energies and, all the
wealth. of the masses. They built scarce
ly anything else that was fit to look at or
live in, if we except the castles erected
by the lords to overawe the people and
restrain all ideas Of popular liberty. At
the present day we build no castles and
no great churches or cathedrals. But we
build railroads and steamships. colleges
and free schools to study in, churches to
worship in and not merely to, admire,
palatial hotels, fine mansions for the rich,
and comfortable dwellings, with all the
modern Improvements" for the poor
There can be no question which system is
the best for the happiness of mankind, the
past or the present. The romance-writer
| alone loses certain materials for his compo-
sitions, when he comes to the present day.
He can find little that is picturesque about
railroad, or .poetical about steamboat.
He sees no romance about free press or a
free school. He can make no heroine out
of Dorothea Dix, or Elizabeth Fry. or
Florence Nightingale, or any imaginary
character that resembles either of them
Even Sir Walter Scott himself, the prince
Of romance writers, would have been con.
founded, if he had had to employ the
characters, the ideas, the institutions and
the machinery of modern civilized society
in constructing his enchanting stories.-
But the loss of the romance-writer is the
gain of the world at large. The senti-
mental young lady may lament, and the
sentimental young gentleman may scof
at the present state of society. But in
reality much, of the heroism of old times
was as little wise as was the heroism ol
Don Quixote. The true heroes, and the
worthiest of respect are those men who
labor earnestly in some great moral cause
which concerns the present and the future
of the human race. The true heroines are
the thousands Sof noble women of the
| present time, who would not figure we'll in
romance, or look well as the queen of love
and beauty, but who are pure, virtuous
wives, mothers and daughters, and earnest
!, coadjutors Of the noble men of the age il
all good works of education, philanthropy
and religion.-Phh. Bulletin.