The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-27


 tury that gathered up the scattered treasures of preceding ages and laid the foundation for modern civilization. Its lines of progress, however were ma terial rather than intellectual or moral. Its energies were concentrated upon matter rather than upon man. It gave hitherto unknown continents to civil ization, but 1t accomplished little for man as moral and social being. In the sixteenth century, We find a marked departure from the material plane of the fifteenth. In this cen tury history turns upon the pivot of human interest. It was an era of re- ligious and spiritual awakening, and the emotional element of the individual manifested itself in sentimental liter ature and in fanaticism; in the inquisi- tion, in persecution and martyrdom, and in a series of cruel, religious wars. It was the era of that religious up- heaval in Europe known as the Refor- nation; and the events of It's history are clustered about such names as Luther and Zwingli, Erasmus Me lanctthon, Calvin, John Knox and scores of other names associated with the great religious movements of the century. It was also the beginning of the era of colonization, a movement prolific in Its results to the individual
 
 developed the individual on the emo tional side.
 The seventeenth century was ushered in by the Elizabeth age of litera ture In England, and was made illustrious by the names of Shakespeare. Milton, Dryden and Pope, Addison and Steele, Bacon, Locke and Newton. In France 1t included the classical age of Louis XIV and the founding of the French l tn. Ia.,, ,4.I names are those of Moliere and Racine, Fenelon and Descartes. All Europe ex- perienced an intellectual awakening; and the masses, through the dissemina- ton of general Knowledge, were brought to a consciousness of their in tellectual powers and of their needs and rights as men. The seventeenth cen tury developed the individual on the intellectual side.
 In the eighteenth century, the domi- nant idea was the positive assertion of political rights by the individual The masses of the people, having developed a consciousness of their selfhood, now turned under the heel of tyranny. Emo tion and intellect find expression In will It was the era of popular de- mand for civil and religious freedom. It eliminated in the liberation of the American colonies, the birth of the American republic. and the French revolution. It abolished feudalism, gave the death blow to absolute mon archy established the principle of polit- l ical equality, and substituted the mod l ern for the mediaeval state. The eight | teenth century developed the individ- ual on the executive side, and the cycle of dominant individualism was com plete; emotion and intellect had found 1 forceful expression in will.
 In the nineteenth century, civiliza- | tion returned to the material plane of the fifteenth century. A new cycle be- gan, and history repeated itself. The fifteenth century was characterized by great inventions and was an era of unprecedented geographical discovery and territorial expansion. The nine teenth century gave Us very striking parallel. Its discoveries and eXpan- sion movements eclipsed those of all the preceding centuries. The increased powers of the individual were concen- trated upon the conquest of mans ma terial environment The spirit of in dustrialism and of commercialism dom mated all of the activities of the cen tury. But the extraordinary progress of invention, the application of ma chinery to wealth production, and the rapid increase of cheap transportation facilities, developed entirely new
 
 this development, we find enormously increased capital and production, the concentration of large masses of people in cities. and the growth of commercial and social organizations, and of com binatons of labor and capital. The material development of the ninteenth century was based upon individualism, but the results and tendencies of this development. were distinctiveiy social. St- of Ia in laying the material foundation for the social development of the race, and its economic problems were the natural and logiscal results of its industrial activities. The nineteenth century pre- pared the way for the social reorgan- ization of the race, as the fifteenth cen tury did for the uplifting of the indi- vdual.
 In this new cycle of progress, what is to be the mission of the twentieth century? The orderly sequence of his- tory would naturally lead us to expect that the twentieth century should be the historical analogue of the six teenth; that human interests should prevail over material development; that emotional activity should be expanded into aesthetic and ethical life. From the character of nineteenth century progress, the inference is also justi fable that indivdualism, as a motive force will bo superseded by socialism. While the individual must still be em- phasized 1t will be the individual as social and institutional being, as member of the state and of society, and, as such, in sympathetic touch with all mankind. Egoism must yield to al- truism, and selfishness in individuals and in organizations must be sacrificed for the well-being of the race.
 An industrial and manufacturing era like the nineteenth century had to deal with the problems of daily existence. Physics, chemistry and political economy, naturally and properly, became the pop ular sciences of the schools because the ethical and sociological problems involved could not be anticipated But these new problems developed by the industrialism of the century are already pressing for solution. In the twentieth century eco homie thought will be directed chiefly, not to wealth production, but to wealth distribution. The old science of political economy will be largely superseded in it's hold upon the popular mind by the new science of sociology Physics and chem istry will yield their supremacy in the curricuula of our schools to psychology, ethics, and aesthetics. The study of man will be esteemed more highly than that of matter; and the ethical adjustment of human relations will be deemed more deserving of mans deepest study than the mechanical adjustment of, material means and ends, for the qualification of selfish desires. As the nineteenth cen tury gave man a new material environ ment the twentieth century must develop for him higher ethical and spiritual