The New York herald., 1876-01-01

an ordinary New Years Day, but we do not
quite see how its peculiar importance is to
be recognized in the form of greetings ad-
dressed to the wives and mothers of the
Republic by the friends who call to pay
their respects at the beginning of the year.
In the calendar of the gentler sex years are
frankly owned up to, but not centuries.
"Mademoiselle, l wish you happiness for
another century, and many of them, is a
form of speech which it would require social
courage to address to maiden who has for
one or two decades declined to acknowledge
more years than twenty-three. None of
the sex can be suspected to have graced
society for even half century, and ref
erence to any larger cycle of time
than mere years might, in certain cases, be
thought to convey unpleasant innuendoes.
No gentleman would willingly mar the
courtesies of this festive day by gaucherie
bearing the most distant resemblance to sug-
gesting the age of lady No in spite of
the impertinent intrusion of a year so
suggestive of time as the Centennial, it is the
faith of q true gentleman that every Amer-
can lady, whether she be spinster or matron
is like the goddess Hebe, ''ever fair and ever
! young" with the "dew of youth" always on
her sweet lips. Gallantry forbids that any
caller on the ladies shall make the faintest
allusion to centuries on this interesting occa-
sion.
But still, pleasant social fctions apart,
we are at the beginning of the CEN
tennial year, and if we could imagine
n presiding goddess of America, with
youth as perpetual that of Hebe,
every citizen of the Republic might make
her New Years call to-day Offering COM
pliments which her delieacy would not
spurn on the homage which events have paid
her for q full century, and wishing ''many
returns" of so happy Centennial. The last
hundred years have been the most fruitful and
the most glorious period of equal length in
the history of the human race. 1t is not
merely what we in this country have done,
but what the world has done, that may come
within the scope of our exulting congratuia-
tons. The ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS was the imme-
date forerunner and parent of the Revolution
in France, and taken together these two revo-
lutions are the master events in the history of
modern times and of the human race The
politics of the world were born anew in our
Revolution. The warm sympathy given us
by France in our struggle for indie
pendence, the participation of her illus
trious Lafayette and the French alliance
and military assistance after 177S turned the
public thought of France toward republican
ism, and was followed by the stupendous re-
suits with which every reader of history is
familiar. The American Revolution was the
beginning of a mighty change in the politi-
cal thought of the world, and many centuries
must yet elapse before the full greatness of
the event as disclosed in its consequences,
will be apparent But the experience of one
century suflices to show that the most power
full impulse ever given to the human mind
III the direction of political progress had its
origin one hundred years ago in the American
Revolution, whose influence was soon felt in
France in the mightiest upheaval that has
taken place in human affairs, and which
will give shape and color to the
politics of nations for a thousand years
to come The ultimate government of ma
tons, wherever the world is civilized, will
be founded on the republican idea, whose
great starting point, in modern times, was
the American Revolution. The transactions
of our revered forefathers in 1776 were like
the sources of a great river, whose bed is
deepened and broadened in its flow until it
expands into the everlasting ocean which it
feeds.
The merely political consequences of great
movements which stir public thought to its
profoundest depths are perhaps the smallest
part of this influence. The universal fer
ment of intellectual activity which they set
in motion is felt beyond the domain of poll
tics All the splendid eras in literature and
science have followed a mighty tide in pub
lie events, like the great outburst of intellect
which followed the Persian wars in Greece,
the Protestant movement in Europe and the
French Revolution in our own century.
1t may be said, without exaggeration,
that the additions which have been made to
human knowledge since the Declaration of
American independence in l77G are of
greater value than everything which had
been previously discovered since the land
ing of Noah's Ark on the summit of Ararat.
The application of steam to locomotion on
land and water and of electricity to the
swift communication of intelligence, may be
mentioned among the thousands of exam
pies which could not be enumerated without
giving this article the tedious dryness of
catalogue The art of taking Photographic
machine may be mentioned additional
illustrations of the multitudinous inventions
of which we cannot give detailed inven-
tory. These are mere applications of science,
but the discoveries in science itself within