The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-01-25
The Twentieth Century.


The twentieth century has dawned
quietly, unostentatiously, and without
any great flourish of trumpet to herald
it's coming. The old century died as
peacefully as an infant falls to sleep at
night, without any commissions or death
agonies.
We are now living in new age, and
the newly risen sun smiles down upon
US with every promise of grand and
glorious future. The hundred years
lie before us with their wealth of golden
opportunities and possibilities hidden
in the treasure vaults of the future
which will unlock the doors and reveal
to us their coveted mysteries.
No one can tell what marvellous things
may be accomplished ere another hun
dred years will roll away. We can
only judge of the future by the past,
and from the wonderful strides made
in every line of human progress during
the past decades we know that the
present century will see undreamed-of
achievements. Wise men and fools ali
over the world are casting visionary
eyes into the future and uttering fanci-
full prophecies. The writer, being a
dreamer, naturally, has had dreams of
the golden age, which lies before US,
and here relates few of his prophecies.
The sciences will be the main study
of all mankind, and even the most
ignorant will know more than the most
brilliant college professors of today.
The sciences of medicine and surgery
will have been abolished, and pill
boxes, bottles, and surgical instruments
will be found only in museums as relics
of an age of ignorance. Natural law
will be so well understood that in in
jury and sickness Zach of US will be
our own physician, and be able to pro-
long life indefinitely.
Art will be nature, and our eyes will
be so well trained that we can see only
the beautiful in all around us. In
music, too, we will realize perfection,
and our delicate ears will hear only the
voices of nature harmonlzed. An in
strument may be invented which will
catch and hold the grand symphony
caused by the movement of the myriad
spheres in space, and thus the dream of
the ancients become reality. The
fascinating study of astronomy will
become merely q primary study of
childhood, for we will have esta blished
communication with all the inhabited
planets and become educated in their
knowledge.
Wireless telegraphic messages will be
continually gliding over the waves of
ether in space, and Mars will be our
friendly next door neighbor, from
whom we may borrow and to whom we
will as cheerfully lend.
The price of coal will not worry us
for we will use the mighty forces of
wind. tide and waterfall to drive our
ponderous machinery and utilize the
suns rays to give US heat. Liquid air
will take the place of ice in many ways,
and will be manufactured far more
cheaply. By artificial means we will
us, and thus regulate the temperature
at all times of the year to suit our
selves.
The banquets of the twentieth CEN
fury will not be tables groaning be-
meath the weight of good things, for
methods will be discovered to extract
the very essence of all articles of food,
and man can carry enough provisions
in one pocket to last for several days.
Our houses will be palaces of con-
veniences and the drudgery of house
keeping will be done away with, for
there will be all kinds of electrical ap-
pliances to do the work about the
home. In the morning when we awake
we will need only to touch an electric
button and the suns heat, which has
bssn stored ip a patent furnace, viii be