New-York tribune., 1901-01-01
FROM CENTURY TO CENTURY.

FROU fEAIIR ny TO CEAIthl.
Good wishes not merely for the New Year
but for the New Century, are the greetings of to-
day. The occasion is of course, by no means
unprecedented yet TO those who witness Ii it
is and will ever be unique. Scarcely handful
of persons now living in the world can have
even the slightest remembrance of the last pre-
ceding century end and century beginning, and
scarcely handful now living will live 10 see
the dawn Of another century. Practically, then,
this is the only New Century's Day the present
inhabitants of the world have seen or will see.
That fact is in itself an impressive one, albeit
the century is an entirely artificial and arbi
trary division of time. Unlike the day, the
lunar month, the quarterly season and the year,
its bounds are set and are marked by no phe-
nomenon of nature. 1t is the creature of con-
venience and of our decimal system of arith-
metic-that is ALL Yet long custom of Observ-
ance and the great extent of the century itself,
SURPRISING. have indicated, the reason
able expectancy of human life, have made this
division of time the most impressive of all TO
the human mind, and have invested this cen
tenary cOmmemoration with an interest exceed
ing that of any conceivable anniversary in all
the calendar No othe. date has been or soon
will be so generally regarded. For all Chris
tendon joins i'm the observance. save Russia,
which still clings to the Old Style and will not
celebrate Christmas until next Monday and will
not begin the twentieth century until the day
which TO us will be January 13 Even in Ger
many. assume, despite the hasty Imperial
dictum, to-day is reckoned as the first of the
new era and the people will join the mass of
the civilized world in welcoming the dawn of
the twentieth century.
We are not unmndful of the fact that every
off fc of oraI r,oo
tury has ended, as well as a century has begun.
turn chiefly 10 the former as that of which
we have the only assured knowledge. We have,
indeed. not neglected the duty-and the pleas
ure-of retrospect, but shall presently make
snch detailed and authoritative review of the
nineteenth century in all its important phases
Of human activity, achievement and interest as
many columns of our space will permit For
the moment, however. the thrill of transition
the iutterings Of hope. the keen zest Of anticipa
tiOn and that speculative passion which is an all
but universal characteristic of the race incline
attention forward and fix il upon the future
rather than the past. The common thought OF
man today is not so much that the one century is
ended as that the other has begun The bell that
rings i'm the new speaks with a louder. clearer
note than that which rings out the old. We
welcome the coming. speed the parting, guest
And while provision and prophecy may all he
futile, and efforts 10 picture the coming years
be vain, still will the fond attempt be made
Nor will it be without profit TO the maker. For
utterly as il may fail 10 disclose even 10 i'm
agination the glories of the time 10 be. it will
unfailingly serve as a stimulus and as an in
individual and the world will the more dill
gently strive both 10 make the future great and
10 be worthy of the futures greatness
Civilization has been, and not ineptly, defined
as the sum of human progress. II is not exactly
that. for there have been some subtractlons, of
'lost arts" 1t would be well, too, if there
were more such elImiDatons, under the benef-
cent rule of natural selection, end selection that
is invariably for the good. For some so called
progfess is evil progress, and despite all our
fore-marching there some evils which we
seem never able TO outstrip The best IDEAL of
civilization would be the sum of all good deeds
with the failures and the outworn things and
the evil cast aside. We have not attained that
in our day, though we may be sure we are
nearer TO IL than our fathers were. We shall
not altogether attain IL In such part of the new
century shall see; no, nor will they attain
IL who celebrate a day like this hundred years
TO come. But we and they must draw nearer
and nearer 10 il with each new year. And this,
it seems 10 u.s. is the best exhortation and the
best hope this centenary brings. We know that
the nineteenth century surpassed the most ex-
travagant fancies of the eighteenth Tha man
who on January /. 1901, should have set forth a
plain tale of even the half Of what is realized
and is commonplace on January l. 1901, would
inevitably have been deemed a mailman So
we believe that this century, not only near
its close, ''in summers that we shall not see
but in the nearer years which are to be hoped
for by the existing generation, will develop a
progress and an achievement and splendor Of
greatness such as il does not now enter into the
mind of man 10 conceive. To place and TO keep
ourselves IN line with such progress and to
make ourselves as nearly as may be worthy To
wear its honors-that IS the calling TO which
mankind this day is summoned
From the old century to the new From
great achievements 10 greater. From the sum
OF progress in nineteen centuries 10 the sum In
twenty; remembering that the rate Of progress
is one OF geometrlca progression, so that each
new century may exceed In greatness not only
any of its predecessors, but all of them put to-
gether II has been said, and truly as we be-
lieye, that thus the nineteenth century sur
passed the sum total of all the eighteen that
had gone before in the Christian era II is not
wildly extravagant TO suppose that the TWEEN
tieth century is 10 surpass the sum total OF the
nineteen Best of all will il DE IL IL shall not
only exceed that sum In accumulated and
augmented good, but shall also make greater
record than all of them of evil withdrawn and
eliminated from the complex problems OF the
economy Of civilization. Thus will the farewell
to the old nineteenth century be fnrewell to
only its failures and its evils. All that was