The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-01-01
GREAT MEN OF THE CENTURY.
MOST OF THE PREs-EMINENT GEM
USES OF ANGLo-SAXON BLOOD.

stand Ahe1u OF " IN
The UnquestiOned Supremacy OF
Darwin as the Scientist of the Gem
4ury-WhO Is the Greatest Novelist:
Who ere the great men of the century?
At first glance this question appears more
difficult 10 answer than it reality is. III
would be hard to choose the great inven-
tors where there are many Of WORLDWIDE
celebrity: the great literary men would be
stil more difficult to select. But in each
department of human achievement there
has been one personality standing forth
head and shoulders above all Others, as
having given character 90 the whole cen
fury in his particular work. This has
been called the age of the railroad and
the telegraph-of swift transportation AMI
instantaneous communication. Behind
the railroads stands that greatEnglishman'
Stephenson behind the telegraph that
equally great American, Morse. Surely
these must be named among the ten who
have had the most influence on the life OF
the century
In natural science it is just as plain that
the directing influence has come from the
powerful originality OF Charles Darwin;
and in philosophy the majestic mind of
Herbert Spencer must be acknowledged rs
supreme. In the department of education
the great advance of the period goes back
TO Pestalozzi and Froebel, but it is the
practical study of child nature and the
reaching of it that gives the latter his
supremacy The discovery of the princi-
pie of incubation, the basis of the germ
theory of disease makes Jenner the COM
manding figure in medicine. That Bee
Sc 90 - Of ba n
the age may be questioned by those who
find the great musical originator In Wag-
ner but the influence of Beethoven has
certainly been far greater up this time.
Whether the other is indeed the music
Of the future, is aside from the present
purpose Thackeray must be put down
as the greatest novelist of the century.
the influence of whose wuCKs is greater
by far than that of even such a genius
as Balzac who produced but did not in
epire a school. There have been many
statesmen during these hundred years, yer
Lincoln stands out one of the most con-
structive of all statesmen, not even ex-
cepting Bismarck and Gladstone What
of the other departments of human en-
deavor? What of astronomy, chemistry,
archaeology. geology? There have been
great men in all these departments In our
age, but the orgination came from earlier
periods In art, too, while much may
have been produced, there has been moth
the old masters. Turner and Meissoner,
Veretschagin and Thorwaldsen-are they
of the same order as Michel Angelo and
DaVinci?
The Man who Conquered SMALLPOX.
Edward Jenner O7i9-1S23 did more to-
wards the prevention of disease than any
other physician before his day since.
When he devised vaccination as preven-
tive of small poX no fewer than five-sixths
of the Inhabitants of Europe had the dread
disease and one-fifth of them died. Since
his Introduction of vaccination, smallpox
has ceas 20 be a scourge appearing only
rarely and then through neglect of his pre-
Ventive. But he idea of incubation TO pre-
vent the worst forms of diseases has led
40 the discovery of lymphs which are used
10 cure or prevent cholera diphtheria and
probably the cure of other germ diseases
will follow along similar lines. He is with
out doubt one of the greatest benefactors
of the race in this or any century.
George Stephenson G7Sl-1Sl9 the son of
a sioker, managed to learn 10 read by the
time lie was seventeen and after studying
all that he could about steam engines. de-
cided that steam could he applied to
trans ortation. BY 1914 he had constTucte ed
the first locomotive in the world and ran
at the rate of four miles an hour with it,
BY 1927 he had SO improved his locomotive
that he could make IA miles an hour on
the ro9d between Stockton and Darling
ton. Then he saw the future OF the rail-
road and told his son that he would see
the day when the stage coach would be a
thing of the past and it would be cheaper
to ride by rail than to walk He fought
eturdily against the prejudices of his time
and when arguing for the construction of
the Manchester-L Liverpool railroad before
the House of Commons, he replied to their
ieers by saying: 4 can not describe it,
hut | can build it, And i'm 1929 with the
Rocket he showed that he could make
80 miles an hour or more. Thus the
rule of the railroad inaugurated by the I'M
taught son Of a stoker
Samuel Finley Breese Morse O79l-1S72)
was trained to be a painter. but he led the
world in the application of electricity 10
distant communication. He it is who has
connected the farthest ends of the earth
in flash. The experiments that scientists
were making with magnetism attracted
his attention I'm 1882, and by 1897 he had
perfected his instrument for sending
messages by electricity. The system of
dots and dashes invented by him and
called the Morse alphabet, has not vet
been superseded, though the first tee-
graph lines between Washington and Bal
timore was used in 1913. He had antici-
pated Europe by five years, and even then
Morse dreamed of an ocean cable. Others
may have known the properties of cleo
tricity. but the credit of its first important
application viii belong to Samuel Morse
for all time to come
The First kindergartner
Friedrich Froebel d7S2-1sj9 had no chill
dren of his own but claimed the children
of the world for his. lucky desire to be-
come an architect brought him in contact
with Petaozzi from whom he gathered
new ideas on pedagoslcs. The apparent
misfortune of the death of brother
brought him back home to teach that
brothers. children and the children Of
some neighbOrs Joined the classes when
they heard how delightful Froebel made
the path to knowledge. Soon made prin-
cipal OF a school in small German town
he began to commit his IDEAS on teaching
to paper publishing his first book in 1926
He wandered to Switzerland and then
back to Germany, where he opened the
first kindergarten In Blankenburg OS30
His later books, his games and songs have
spread the kindergarten all the world over.
from far Japan TO the Tinted Slafes The