The sun., 1901-10-03
WILL LEAD WORLD.
This Country Destined in Short
Time to Take First Place.
Resources and Enterprise Combined
with Absence of Class Distinc-
tions Give Advantage over
other Nations.

other Nations.
No competent observer can doubt
that in wealth, manufactures, mate.
rial progress of all kinds, the United
States, in very few years, must hold
the first place in the world without
dispute. Its population will soon
double that of any nation of western
Europe. That population will have
an education second only to that oil
Germany and Switzerland, and su-
perior to that Of any other European
nation, says Frederic Harrison, in thu
Nineteenth Century.
The natural resources of theft
country exceed those of all Europa
put together Their energy exceeds
that of the British; their intelligence
is hardly second to that of Germany
and France. And their social and Po'
litical system is more favorable I'd
material development than any other
society ever devised by man. Thi'
extraordinary combination of nation.
nj aud social qualities, with vast mum
bers and unbounded physical re-
sources, cannot fail to give America
the undisputcd lead in all material
things. 1t is curious instance OF
the power Of national egotisn that
Europe fails to grasp this truth
that Germans, with their wretchedly
poor country, narrow seaboard and
scantN rivers, ports aud minerals
still aspire to the first place; that
freuchmcn fail to see how their pas
sion for art, rest and home has
handicapped them in the race for stl'
Ertons, in their narrow island and
their comfortable traditions, will not
recognize that the industrial prizes
must ultimately go to numbers, ma
tional unity, physical resources, geo
graphical opportunities, trained in
telligence and restless ambition.
The ease with which men can pass
from one locality to another, from
one climate to another, from one
business TO another, the entire alb
sence of social barriers or class dis.
tigctions, the abundant means oil
technical and scientific education
leave it open to each man and woman
TO make their own lives. The vast
continent, with its varieties Of eli.
mate and soil, produces almost every
thing except champagne, diamonds
and ancient buildings. With New
York and San Francisco, the two
grandest natural ports in the world,
open TO the ships of the Atlantic and
the Pacific, with Chicago or st.
Louis as the center of traffic, the
clearing house of this boundlesS
trade, the material prosperity Of the
American continent must reach in
the twentieth century a height OF
which the nineteen centuries before
it never dreamed. When the English
man talks about the evils of protec-
tlon and the benefits of free trade
he is reminded that the United States
occupies continent self-sufticing,
except for a few luxuries, which has
its own free trade on gigantic
scale, over an area far greater than
al western Europe. 1t seems i'm
pertinent to lecture men about their
neglect of free trade, when in their
own country they can travel III every
direction thousands of wilcs without
even meeting customs frontier.
They insist that they are the great
est free trade people on earth.
OF course. for the American citizen
and the thoughtful visitor the real
problem is whether this vast pros
peritH, this boundless future OF
theirs, rests upon an equal eXpan-
sion in the social, intellectual ana
moral sphere. They would be bold
critics who should maintain il. and
few thinking men in the United
Stntes Do 50 without qualifications
aud msgivings. As to the universal
diffusion Of education, the energy
which is thrown into II ana M.
wealth lavished on it from sources
pubic and private, no doubt can AZ
iSt. Universities, richly endowed. cx-
Isl hy scores, colleges by many hun.
dreds, in every part of the union,
Art schools, training colleges, tech.
nical schools, laboratories, polytech.
MES and libraries are met Win in
every thriving town. The impression
l"ft on my mind is that the whole ed.
1eationnl machinery must be nj
I@ast tcnfold that of the United
Kingdom. That open to women mu.t
=" NJ least twentyfnld greater than
with us, and It IS rapidly advancing
TO meet that Of men. both in number
and IN quality. Nor can resist the
Impression that the education in M
pfA'i"s Is less perfunctory, amateur.
lSf and casual than IS too often our
own experience at home TIE libra.
rles laboratories, museums and gym. |
naalh "f the best universities ana
COLLEGES are models Of equipment and !
The "pions founder"
mas lenr died ont in Europe. lie is
a'i'r n Nmcrira, and seems "a ms
seSS some magic Source of inexhaus.
lDle mlutliCrncp