THE NEW ERA.
When we consider the number of new
products for whose existence we are indebted to electricity,
and the number of old products that have heretofore
existed experimentally, in the laboratory of the chemist
only, that have now been brought into play as useful
agents in the various arts and industries, we begin
to realize that this is truly an electrical age and
the dawning of a new era. How many, many things
there are, familiar to the children of to-day, that
were not even imagined by the children of twenty-five
to fifty years ago. Fifty years ago the only
useful purpose to which electricity was put was that
of transmitting news from city to city by the Morse
telegraphic code. It will be fifty-seven years
the first of April, 1901, since the first telegraph-line
was thrown open to the public. Less than thirty
years ago but little advance had been made in the
use of electrical appliances beyond the perfection
of certain private-line instruments, and a means for
multiple transmission. About twenty years ago
there were evidences of the beginning of a new era
in electrical development. At no time in the
history of the world has wonder succeeded wonder with
such rapidity, producing such astounding results that
have revolutionized all our modes of doing business
and all of the operations of commercial and domestic
life, as during the last two decades. We set our
watches by time furnished by electricity from one
central point of observation. We read the tape
from hour to hour, upon which is recorded the commercial
pulse of the world, as it throbs in the marts of trade,
by means of this same speedy messenger. We enter
a street-car that is lighted and heated, and at the
same time propelled by the same wonderful agent.
In our homes and on our streets night is turned into
day by a light that outrivals all other illuminants.
When we wish to speak to a friend
who may be a mile or a thousand miles away we step
to the end of a wire that comes within the walls of
our dwelling and we talk to him as though face to
face, and means are at hand by which we may write
a letter to that same friend and deliver it to him
in our own handwriting and over our own signatures,
so quickly that it will appear before him in full
form and completeness as soon as the last period is
made at the end of the last line.
One sees, and hears, and lives more
in a single day in this age of electricity and steam
than he did in twelve months sixty years ago.
And yet there are those who cry out against modern
inventions and modern civilization, and are constantly
quoting the days of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers
when “life was simple” and there was “time
to rest.” “Why are we tormented with
this thought-stimulating age?” they say.
“Why are our emotions called into action by modern
music and modern art? Why are we called upon
to help the downtrodden and oppressed, and to help
to elevate mankind to a higher level? Why cannot
we be left alone in peace and quiet, to live in the
easiest way?”
If this be good philosophy, then the
swine, if he were a reasoning being, ought to be ranked
among the greatest of philosophers when
he seeks a wallow in the sunshine and sleeps away
his useless existence. If he is useful it is
because some other being of a higher order uses him
to help along his own existence. The man in these
days who does not “keep up with the procession”
is soon trodden under foot and some other man uses
him as a stepping-stone to elevate himself.
Yet this is a selfish motive, after
all. The world is now rapidly advancing in light,
in knowledge, in power to use the infinite gifts that
the Creator has hidden in nature; but hidden only to
stimulate and reward our seeking. Every man can
help in this grand progress, if not by
research and positive thought-power, at least by grateful
acceptance and realization of what is gained. Look
forward! As Emerson puts it: “To make
habitually a new estimate that is elevation.”