The Saint Paul globe., 1899-07-09
PoTENTIALITIEs OF AFRICA.

Until very recently Sundry citizens of "Usona"
of speculative tendencies thought that they could
see, in the surprising withholding of this western
hemisphere from the knowledge of Europeans for ff-
teen centuries after the dawn of the Christian era.
a design of Providence They argued quite pIau-
sbly that it only consistent with occult pur
pose of directing and guiding power that these
great continents should have been kept in prmeval
conditions until the Aryans of the East should have
risen out of barbariSm differentiated nationalities
each with it's peculiar temperament and character
istics, and developed an advanced civilization. Then
came the revelation of the world and humanity
has since been pouring into it from all the
various nations. into great kneading trough, to
be again mingled and mixed that out of the inter
mngling of racial temper and character there might
be evolved new type of humanity. very pretty
coneeit u plausible conjecture, if it does lack the
gertrude of a theory
The process has been going on with marked
rapidty in the century closing and it may DE
said without exposing to charge of egotisn,
with marked success. Already the term american
ISM is coming into vogue to designate something
yet incapable of precise demitation and yet
sciousy recognized everywhere. 1t has wholly
partially solved many intricate social and material
problems and has stored up fund of experience that
should be valuable to any other nation setting Itself
up in business its account Almost every
thing, from government making to governing, had
be learned empricaly by these generations that have
carved states and cities out of the wilderness, and
they learned, beginners always do by the mis-
takes they made Some of these are irremediable;
others being remeded at large and with
infinite trouble. We have gone yet going,
that school whose terms of tuition very high.
But making progress in solving the great
problem, for the working out of which this continent
reserved if there be in the specuationS
of our disciples of design.
These gentlemen have opportunity
pand their theory If America was reserved from.
settlement by the progressive until the fifteenth
century, for what purpose Africa, for the
fringe of civilized sem-civzed and semi -barbarous
peoples about it's border, kept clark continent"
unless it were that there this high humanity might
begin construction free from the errors made here,
with all the wisdom acquired hardly here. and
there the ideal national state municipal and
rural conditions? Contemplate, for Instance, the
poentiaties of municipal construction there, where
the right start may be at the very foundations if
only the experience of this and other countries be
utilized their avoided and their best products
artistic landscape gardener instead of being patch
work of 'additions;" water lighting and railway sys-
TENS constructed and owned by the municipalities;
sewage water, gas and electric cOnCuits located in
tunneled alleys streets permanently paved and
disturbed; school grounds of ample dimensions Sc
cured; parks reserved the vexatious question of tax
alton solved by reserving the fee to the city and col
lectng ground rents for the public sc all these aud
more are among the potentiates of the new nations
that are to occupy and develop what was within the
memory of this generation. the dark continent whose
penetration by Livingstone and Stanley seems tale
of but yesterdays achievement