The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1883-08-02


ton Of wisdom into one little brain?
Why, you have increased the cerebra-
ton, you have intensified the nervous
action, but you have not enlarged the
Uranium, or, if you have, the chances
are you have done so at the expense of
the physical vigor.
But you say by your education we
have moved forward the limit of the in
dividual life. For thirty centuries, and
l know not how much longer, the
Psalmist's three score years and ten have
been the memorable horizon of earthly
existence; we cannot change this, but we
do practically extend it by charging its
vista; our life keeps quick step to the
wonderful march of science; we ride with
the storm, we write with the lightning,
We paint with the sunbeam; everything
is by the instantaneous process. As Poe
said of the singer Malibran, "She
crowded ages into hours; she left the
world at twenty nine, having existed her
thousands of years." I grant you, if
this were the final age. nothing could be
more desirable; if this was the closing
scene and no coming time. no children
to inherit our exhausted vitality and to
call us anything but blessed.
In bookstore, the other day, the first
volumne that met my eye was IA New
Form of Nervous Disease" New form?
Why their name is legion. A treatise on
the neurotic disorders now makes one of
the largest works in physicians Ii.
brary. 1t is an age spendthrift alike in
brain and material. OF the heat and
power that have been slowly accumu-
lated in the coal measures through the
cons of geologic time, which would last
with careful consumption for myriad
generations, we take 2per cent. for our
purpose, sending the remaining % per
cent to be dissipated in warming inter
stellar space. To the charge of wasteful
expenditure, m odern science answers that
future generations can make available
the energy of the tides and keep warm
by electricity stored mp in reservoirs
whose feasibility is even now being de-
monstrated. They will need it, for the
ruthless destruction Of the forests will
not even leave them the luxury Of q
wood fire. Yes, power is convertible
into everything short of mind, but that
I doubt. The "Promethean heat" once
exhausted, the vital energy OF . race de-
stroyed, science, that tells us 50 much,
AhOWS Va NJ " lCotOI0 H. onu AlS-
tory points us only to the Huns and
the Cloths.
The danger to our civilization to-day
lies in the direction Of nervous exhaus-
ton. know that those who believe that
We are just on the dawn of an intellect
ual and q material millennium will smile
at this, and they will tell you
that never in the history of
the world was there higher
manhood, or a time when the individual
man was SO grandly cared for and had
such possibilities as at present. The
world, in its successive epochs of civil
ization, has always shown a elimination
of prosperity and an intellectual bios.
soming Just before its decline. Witness
the Augustan era and that age Of gold, of
Spanish conquest and renown. This is
the age of brain; the marvellous discov
cries Of science are utilized to intensity
our struggle for wealth, for vantage
ground, to make all the universe tribu.
tary to the little span OF our human life.
The Injuries Of the last generation have
become the necessities of this; wealth is
only relative, and power never brings
content; there is constant increment Of
strain, aud woe to the brain that goes
halt or inclined into that battle.
Do you say this is the mere vsgary Of
an alarmist, the Cassandra-like cry that
finds no believers? All, but while it was
in the infinite DEGREES that Cassandra
should not be believed in that fsted city,
none the less did the divine afiatus com.
pei her to prophecy, none the less we're
her forebodings true. Do not under
stand me to mean that our school educa-
ton is responsible for ali this; no. not
even for any considerable part Of what
we are pleased to call the spirit of the
times; but what do say is that it is the
duty of the teacher, instead Of drifting
with the tide and accepting the tendon
cies Of the age az something inevitable
and not to be overcome, to stand up in
the dignity OF his great Office, and OF his
manhood, and call o halt to this ON.
rushing madness, and to so instruct the
coming generation the youths who shall
take our places, those who "shall be
kings hereafter, rs to lead them into q
more excellent way"
In truth, We are sponsors for the fu-
ture as we'll AZ pOssessors of the present,
and are morally bound to transmit this
earth, which is ours to-day and the vigor
OF this human life, which for Q span We
hold, unimpsired to those Who In the
endless procession shall come after us, a.
the miller may use the water in the river
to turn his wheel and pass it on to an.
other. but has no right to divert the
channel or poison the stream.