The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-05-12

increase in the power of utilizing the
forces of Nature. In both directions
the advance has been very great dur
ing the past four or five centuries, and
in both directions it has gone on with
ever increasing rapidity during the last
century. After the great age of Rome
had passed, the boundaries Of knowl-
edge shrank, and in many cases it was
not until well nigh our own times that
her domain was once again pushed be-
yond the ancient landmarks. About the
year $50 A. D., Ptolemy. the geog-
rapher, published his map of Central
Africa and the sources of the Nile.
and this map was more accurate than
any which we had as late as 1850 A D.
In the Days of Pliny.
More was known of physical science,
and more of the truth about the physi-
cal world was guessed at, in the days
of Pliny, than was known or guessed
until the modern movement began The
case was the same as regards military
science. At the close of the Middle
Ages the weapons were what they had
always been-sword, shield, bow, spear;
and any Improvement in them was
more than offset by the loss in knowl-
edge Of military organization, in the
science of war, and in military leader
ship since the days of Hannibal and
Caesar. A hundred years ago, when
this university was founded, the meth
DDS of transportation did not differ il
the essentials from what they had been
among the highly civilized nations of
antiquity Travellers and merchandise
went by land in wheeled vehicles or on
beasts of burden, and by sea in boats
propelled by sails or by oars; and news
was conveyed as it always had been
conveyed. What improvements there
had been had been in degree only and
not in kind; and in some respects
there had been retrogression rather
than advance. There were many parts
of Europe where the roads were GER
tainly worse than the old Roman post
roads; and the Mediterranean sea, for
instance. was by no means as we'll po-
Iced as in the days of Trajan. Now
steam and electricity have worked a
complete revolution; and the resulting
immensely increased ease of communi-
cation has in its turn completely
changed all the physical questions of
human life. A voyage from Egypt to
England was nearly as serious an af
fair in the eighteenth century as in
the second; and the news communica-
lions between the two lands were not
materially improved. A graduate of
your university today can go to mid
Asia or mid-Africa with far less con-
seriousness of performing a feat of note
than would have been the case a hum
dred years ago with a student who
visited Sicily and Andalusia- More
over, the invention and use of machin-
cry run by steam or electricity have
worked a revolution in industry as great
as the revolution in transportation; so
that here again the difference between
ancient and modern civilization is not
merely of degree but of kind In many
vital respects the huge modern city
differs more from all preceding cities
than any Of these differed one from
the other; and the giant factory town
is of and by itself one of the most
formidable problems of modern life
Steam and electricity have given the
race dominion over land and water
such as it never had before: and now
the conquest of the air is directly i'm
pending. AS books preserve thought
through time, so the telegraph and the
transmit it through the space
they annihilate, and therefore minds
are swayed one by another without re-
gard to the limitations Of space and
time which formerly forced each COM
munity to work in comparative isola-
ton. It is the same with the body
as with the brain. The machinery of
the factory and the farm enormously
multiplies bodily skill and vigor.
Countless trained intelligences are at
work to teach US how to avoid or coun-
teract the effects of waste.
Modern Agents of Development.
OF course some of the agents in the
modern scientific development of nat
ural resources deal with resources of
such kind that their development
means their destruction SO that ex-
ploitation on a grand scale means an
intense rapidity of development pur
chased at the cost of a speedy ex-
haustion. The enormous and con-
stantly increasing output of coal and
iron necessarily means the approach
of the day when our chfldren's chill
dren. or their children'S children, shall
dwell in an ironless age-and later on
in an age without coal-and will have
to try to invent or develop new sources
for the production of heat and use of
energy. But as regards many another
natural resource, scientific civilization
teaches US how to preserve 1t through
use. The best use of field and forest
will leave them decade by decade. cen
fury by century. more fruitful; and
we have barely begun to use the in
destructible power that comes from
harnessed water. The conquests of
surgery. of medicine, the conquests in
the entire field of hygiene and SANTA
ton, have been literally marvellous;
the advances in the past century or
two have been over more ground than
was covered during the entire previous
history of the human race
The advance in the realm of pure
intellect have been of equal note. and
thew have been both intensive and ex-
tensive. Great virgin fields of learn
ing and wisdom have been discovered
by the few, and at the same time
hIOM IGdSG HAS 81 eAAAACAA5 IAAO many
to a degree never dreamed of before.
Old men among US have seen in their
own generation the rise of the first
rational science of the evolution of
life The astronomer and the chem
ist the psychologist and the historian,
and all their brethren in, many differ
ent fields of wide endeavor. work with
a training and knowledge and method
which are in effect Instruments of pre-
cision, differentiating their laborS
from the Iabors of their predecessors
as the rifle is differentiated from
the bow.
The play of new forces is as evident
in the moral and spiritual world as
in the world of the mind and the body.
Forces for good and forces for evil
are everywhere evident, each acting
with a hundred or a thousand fold
the intensity with which it acted in
former ages over the whole earth