The Yellowstone journal. [volume] (Miles City, Mont.) 1893-1901, 1893-04-02

it is a fact sumptuary laws will be as i'm.
possible as witch burning is now.
KATE FIELD.
Nym Crirkle on Literature and the Drama.
What will be the condition of literature
and drania 100 years hence?
To keep the answer to this question ont
of the category of mere guesses on the one
land and save it from the imputation of
rash prediction on the other. it must he de
duced from the indications of the present.
There is Il 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
Il book. As "A rule. it is ii superficial book,
but il swellS the bulk and it indicates the
cerebral unrest that is trying to express it.
self. We have arrived 1T II condition IN
Which more books are printed than the
world can read. This is true not only Of
books that are tot worth reading, but il is
true Of the books that are.
All this | take to he the result of an in
tellectual Acknowledgement that is new, and
of IL dissemination of knowledge instead of
a concentration of culture. Everybody
wants to say something. But it is slowly
growing upon the world that everybody
has not got something to say.
Therefore ole may even ut this moment
detect the causes which will produce reac-
tion. In 100 years there will not be SO many
books printed, but there will be more said.
That seems to me to be inevitable. 1t Is
certainly in the direction of intellectual de-
velopment, which implies that man reaches
n condition individually and socially, if be
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 rs ii mass it is more
active than profound, there is nevertheless
IN observable tendency in tit is measnr
ably moving toward Il somewhat.
Ii 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 amy one can diligently
investigate the material without perceiying
that its slow advance is toward "A better
humanity, Ii closer fraternity, "A broader
charity. These signs are unnistakable even
in its lighter veins OF cynicism and persi-
flage.
Nine-tenths of all the imaginative writers
are Jibing at the wrongs of society. The
other tenth are jibing ut the political short
comings. Ofcourse they nave ideals, against
which they nd II the real. Some of these
ideals are made of moonbeams; some are
wildly impracticable; Others are fantasies
on Plato's notion or trayesties of More's
dream. But the incentive is a restless sense
of ilnperfection and a growing conscious
ness Of "A central sun somewhere in the
moral and intellectual universe which is
pulling all things to it. When this is not
IA distinctly theistic feeling, it is a vague
philosophic counterpart Of it.
SO far as this is a gain in unity and ret.
sonab!cness, it is a 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 an extreme
optimist to see that there is a distinct ethic-
nj gain in the aggregate of intellectual
work. When it does not lead it reflects, in
broken and uncertain CLEANS, the spirit of
the age. IA that spirit stands for "A better
solidarity and "A nobler destiny for man.
Under all the factors hat must influence
the intellectual future. broader and deeper
than any OF them lies education. If you
want to find out what the future man viii
say you will have to ask, What will he
know
At this moment the whole educational
energy of the country is centering itself on
the want of an ethical basis of instruction.
1t Is not alOue tue IatDOiiC clQfcn 1nat OBJ
iects to the system which makes smart men
instead of good men. Some of the wisest of
Protestant teachers nave conceded that our
public school system is fatally deficient in
the elemental teaching which develops the
moral sense aud makes honest citizens.
This protest, | take it, is another form
of the reaction against the intense materi-
aiism Of the time. But it Is also a sign of
intellectual development. No one who
studies it Can doubt that the education Of
cur youth during the next fifty years will
De in "A measure freed from the mathemst
icai restrictions Of the present courses.
II we aafs recognize tie fact tlat labor
everywhere Is insisting that more time to
study aud TT shah bctafea from toll, and
add this 10 tie iact limit the studies promise
TO improve in lie direction Of ethics, | do
not 5ss EB#s ~ 4#a avoid the conclusion
that, barring some great and incalculaale
CONFUSION that would throw mankind