Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1893-07-20

Nym Crinkle on Literature and the Drama.
What will be the condition of literature
and drama 100 years hence?
To keep the answer to this question out
Of the category Of mere gucsscS on the one
hand and save it from the imputation OF
rash prediction on the other, it must be de-
duced from the indications of the present.
There is fcverish energy in every de
partment of intellectual life just now that
is symptomatic. Every person of fairly
good education and OF restless mind writes
IL book. AS IA rule it is a superficial book,
but it swells the bulk and it indicates the
cerebral unrest that Is trying to express it
self. We have arrived at "A condition in
which more books are printed than the
world can read. This is true not only Of
books that are not worth reading, but it is
( true of the books that are.
/ All this | take to be the result of an in
tcllectual Acknowledgement that is new, and
/ of IA dissemination Of knowledge instead Of
/ II concentration of culture. Everybody
wants to say something. But it is slowly
/ growing upon the world that erybody
/ has not got something to say.
Therefore one may even ut this moment
/ detect the causes which will produce reac-
/ ton. In 100 years there will not be SO many
! books printed, but there will be more said.
! That seems to me to he inevitable. 1t is
certainly in the direction of intellectual de
velOpment, which implies that man reaches
II condition individually and socially, if he
progresses at all, in which he cares less
about talking than about doing
But, taking the whole bulk of current
literature, good, bad and indifferent, and
acknowledging that as a mass it is more
active than profound, there is nevertheless
nm observable tendency in tit is measur-
| ably moving toward II somewhat
If we can get the direction and the ratio
we may reasonably measure its progress
during the next century.
| Now what is that tendency?
| do not see how any one can diligently
investigate the material without perceiving
that its slow advance is toward better
humanity, "A closer fraternity, a broader
charity These signs are unmistakable even
in its lighter veins Of cynicism and pcrsi-
ilagc.
Nine-tenths of all the imaginative writer's
Hre jibing at the wrongs Of society. The
other tenth are jibing at the political short
cOmings Ofcoursethey have ideals, against
which they adjust the real, Some Of these
ideals are made of moonbeams; some are
wildly impracticablc; others are fantasies
IN Plato's notion or travesties of More's
dream. But the incentive is restless sense
VT imperlection and Il growing conscious
hess of il central sun somewhere in the
moral and intellectual universe which is
pulling all things to it. When this is not
b distinctly thcistic feeling, it is a vague
philosophic counterpart of it.
SO far as this is "A gain in unity and rea-
condolences, it is II permanent gain. | can
conceive OF no political or social disaster
that will destroy it.
The philosopher who undertakes to sur
vey this ground needs not be on cXtrcme
optimist to see that there is a distinct ethic-
al gain in the aggregate of intellectual
work. When it does not lead it reflects, in
broken and uncertain CLEANS, the spirit of
Ihe age, and that spirit stands for q better
solidarity and nobler destiny for man.
Under all the factors that must influence
The intellectual future, broader and deeper
than any of them lies education. If you
want to find out what the future man will
,ay you will have to ask, What will he
,now?
At this moment the whole educational
snergy of the country is centering itself on
he want of an ethical basis of instruction.
II is not alone the Catholic church that OBJ
lects to the system which makes smart men
} Instead OF good men. Some OF the wlsest OF
Protestant teachers have conceded that our
public school system is fatally deficient in
! the elemental teaching which develops the
, moral sense and makes honest citizens.
This protest, | take it, is another form
, IF the reaction against the intense materi-
Ilism of the time But it is also sign OF
| Intellectual development. No one who
studies it can doubt that the education OF
pur youth during the next fifty years will
be in measure freed from the mathemat-
zeal restrictions of the present courses.
five now recognize the fact that labor
Everywhere is insisting that more time tc
= study and rest shall be taken from toll and
, hdd this to the fact that the studies promise
t 10 improve in the direction of ethics, dc
= not see how we can avoid the conclusion
| hat, barring some great and incalculabl'
/. sonyulsion that would throw pankind