The Windham County reformer. (Battleboro, Vt.) 1876-1897, 1893-03-24

and Abraham Lincoln of this generation.
Where will be our greatest city?
In all probability Chicago There vii
be wonderful cities in the west, mono NOR
beautiful and extensive than Salt LAX
City; but unless all signs fail Chicago will
take precedence.
Will the race be happier, healthier ant
handsomer than now?
All depends on our women. If they MARI,
for love and not for convenience; if the,
cultivate the inside of their heads as sedu
lousy as they now study fashion; if the,
Ego in" for sound bodies such as nature in
tended tho mothers of the human race tt
possess; if they teach their children self re
spect and respect for authority, Americans
of 1898 will regard their ancestors of 1898 n:
little less than vulgar, ignorant heathens.
What is the future of the servant prob
lem?
Again, all depends on women. When
they know THERE own business and learn the
meaning of Christianity there will be nc
servant problem.
| In dress?
Once moro the question must be settled
by women. Should American women do
their own thinking in the next hundred
years they will not import their fashions,
and they will wear nothing that interferes
with a magnificent physical development.
Trains will be reserved for tho house; cor
sets and high heels will besent to coventry;
the waist line will be just below the bosom,
and Atalanta will live again.
Is the condition of the laboring class
likely to become more or less dependent?
There has been a steady improvement in
the condition of what is falsely called tho
"laboring class" as though no one worked
except the manual laborer. 1 only hope
that the brain worker will be as well paid
in 1893 as will be the manual laborer, who
is fast controlling the fates OF this republic
and reducing human capacity to n dead
level of mediocrity. All men should be
born free, but all men are not born equal,
trades unions to the contrary. There always
have been, as there always will be, leaders.
In temperance legislation?
So called temperance legislation is tenn
porary alteration of well meaning but mar
row minded men and women with whom
sentimentality supplants reason, and who
actually think morals are an affair of legis-
lation. One hundred years hence personal
liberty will be more than a phrase. When
it is a fact sumptuary laws will be as i'm
possible as witch burning is now.
KATE FIELD.
Nym Crink1e 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 guesses 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 feverish energy in every de-
partment Of intellectual life just now that
is symptomatic. Every person of fairly
good education and of restless mind writes
4 book. AS Il rule, it is a superficial book, |
out it swells the bulk and it indicates the !
cerebral unrest that is trying to express it. /
elf. We have arrived at 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
rue of the books that are
All this l take to be the result of an in
Acknowledgement that is new, and
# dissemination of knowledge instead of
concentration OF culture. Everybody
wants to say something. But it is slowly
rowing upon the world that everybody
las not got something to say
Therefore one may even at this moment
eject the causes which will produce reac-
ion. In 100 years there will not be so many
looks printed, but there will be more said
hat seems TO me to be inevitable. 1t is
in the direction of intellectual de-
which implies that man reaches
condition individually and socially, if he
progresses at all, in which he cares less
bout talking than about doing
But, taking the whole bulk of current
terature, good, bad and Indifferent, and
that as a mass it is more
ctive than profound, there is nevertheless
n observable tendency in tit is measur-
bly, moving toward a somewhat!
If we can get the direction and the ratio
e may reasonably measure its progress
uring the next century.
Now what is that tendency?
do not see how any one can diligently
lvestigate the material without perceiving
lat its slow advance is toward better !.
a closer fraternity, a broader
rarity. These signs are unmistakable even
its lighter veins of cynicism and persi-
age.
Nine-tenths of all the imaginative writers
e jibing at the wrongs of society. The
her tenth are jibing at the political short c
innings Ofcourse they have ideals, against a
hich they adjust the real Some of these b
calls are made of moonbeams; some arc ?
idly impracticable others are fantasies t
/ Plato's notion or travesties of More's
cam. But the incentive is restless sense t
imperfection and Il growing conscious
,ss of a central sun somewhere in the :
oral and intellectual universe which is G
Hing all things to it. When this is not b
distinctly theistic feeling, it is vague b
lilosophic counterpart of it. n
So far as this is gain in unity and rea- o
it is a permanent gain. l can o
nceive of no political or social disaster d
at will destroy it.
The philosopher who undertakes to sur q
y this ground needs not be ON extreme \
timist to see that there is distinct ethic- W
gain in the aggregate of intellectual CT
ork When it does not lead it reflects, in le
oxen and uncertain CLEANS, the spirit of a
G age, and that spirit stands for better q
lidarity and nobler destiny for man. !,
Under all the factors that must influence L
e intellectual future, broader and deeper ID
an any of them lies education. If you
INT to find out what the future man will g
Y YOU will have to ask, What will he d
ow! e
At this moment the whole educational .!
ergy of the country is centering itself. on Il
g want of an ethical basis of instruction IL
is not alone the Catholic church that OBJ II
is TO the system which makes smart men sr
stead of good men. Some of the wisest of
otestant teachers have conceded that our III
bile school system is fatally deficient in &c
3 elemental teaching which develops the m
,ral CON ca and N, akes honest citizapc re