WE

II.

E have seen that for eighteen centuries imperialism has been decaying and democracy has been developing; we have traced the twofold progress, of decay and of development, in government, industry, education, and religion; we have seen that what we call Anglo-Saxon civilization has its roots in the Hebraic Commonwealth and its life in the principle that the world is for the all, not for the few; we have seen that the Anglo-Saxon race has apprehended and appreciated this principle more fully and embodied it in their institutions more thoroughly than any other race; we have seen that it involves not merely a national but an international unity as a preparation for and a prophecy of the brotherhood of the whole human race; and we have seen that this international unity, this combination of union with that self-government which is the ultimate goal of social progress, is further advanced toward its ideal in the United States of America than in any

other form of world-empire. What does all this mean but that the Anglo-Saxon race is to act as a leader, and in the Anglo-Saxon race the United States of America is to take no inferior place in that leadership, toward that brotherhood of man founded on justice and liberty which is the kingdom of God?

To this place of leadership history with irresistible force propels us; to this place of leadership an inward force no less impels us. America is a Nation of pioneers. The first colonists were pioneers. Pioneers selected from these pioneers pushed out from the older colonies into the wilderness, and led the way for others to follow. Those that did follow were again the pioneers selected from the Old World, who came across to make in the New World homes for themselves and their children. They were the men of hope, expectation, enterprise, energy. The men without hope, expectation, enterprise, energy, the men of dull content or more dull despair, remained, old men in the old world. From the days of Columbus's discovery of America to the present day, this Nation has been populated by the pioneers. Therefore it is that this Nation

has in it more energy, more enterprise, more expansive power, than any other nation on the face of the globe.

This impelling power within combines with public events propelling from without to urge the Nation forward. It is idle to tell the natural leaders of great commercial enterprises that they must not send their ships across the sea, the masters of great railroads that they must not look for a commerce from other lands, the energetic manufacturers ever looking for new worlds to conquer that they cannot manufacture for any people but Americans, the progressive American farmers that they can raise corn only for the neighbor at their doors. The world is ours. We know it, and the impelling power within and the currents of history from the past urge us forward into world-relations. It is in vain to tell the people that the spirit of enterprise is not safe; the American courts danger. It is in vain to tell them that Americans are not competent; the ready answer is upon their lips we can make ourselves competent, and we will. We may fail; but no fear of failure will prevent us from trying the experiment. We are a world-power; we are likely to be a leader among the world-powers. We could not help ourselves if we would; we would not help ourselves if we could.

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What duty does this fact lay upon us? The duty of promoting the world's civilization. What, then, are the essentials of civilization?

The first essential of civilization is law, conformed to justice, uttered with authority, and enforced by power. Without law and obedience to law there can be no civilization. This is the first lesson to be taught the child; it is the first lesson to be taught the community. The babe is lawless; if he is what his mother calls him, an angel, he is a lawless angel. The first lesson he must be taught is that he is in subjection to a stronger will. The first duty of father or mother to the babe is to compel obedience to Thou shalt; the first function of the paternal prophet is to be a Moses coming down from the mountain with a ten commandments to the little child below. And what is true of the child is true of the child-race. It must learn obedience. There is no road to liberty excepting the road that leads

through obedience to law. There is no liberty which is not founded on justice, and no justice which is not formulated and regulated by law. Law, with force behind it to compel obedience to it, is the sine qua non of a civilized condition.

All civilized communities have passed through this tutelage under law. Europe is a civilized continent, more so than any other of the Old World. Why? Because for centuries Europe was under Roman law, learned how to obey law, learned the sanctity and worth and value of law. Of all European countries, England leads in civilization, because, of all European countries, England best learned the authority and the value of law. The Norman Conquest, with a mailed hand, compelled her to obey; the Plantagenet kings, through their judges, with sheriffs to enforce their decrees, created throughout England "common law"--that is, a law common to all England. There was no such common law in France; every province had its own law; and therefore in France a Dreyfus trial is possible-never in England. The first step in any civilizing process is to bring a lawless, barbaric, independent people under the dominion of law; all else rests upon that. There can be no commerce or trade or manufactures unless there is law protecting persons and property. There cannot be churches nor schools nor a free press nor free speech unless there is law protecting persons and property and liberty. Law is the foundation; all else is built on it. Law therefore precedes, necessarily precedes, commerce, education, religion. This is the divine. order: first comes Sinai, afterwards Bethlehem; the law of God must be promulgated, and a sense of the divine authority of law must be wrought into the consciousness of the Hebrew race, before it can be ready for the other message. Christ's first great public message is a message of law-the Sermon on the Mount. And throughout his ministry he "speaks with authority;" no man is allowed to call himself a disciple unless he accepts that authority with unquestioning obedience. Law is the foundation of civilization, the foundation of Christianity, the foundation of religion.

The next element in the production of civilization is trade, commerce, manufactures. So long as every man by his own handiwork produces all that he needs for

himself and his family, there cannot be wealth, nor comfort, nor development of character; the individual is too busy get ting his bread out of the soil; he has no opportunity for the development of character; he cannot by his independent efforts acquire enough even to make life comfortable. There are two essentials of our industrial civilization. The first. is a knowledge of Nature's forces we set them to work, and they do our drudgery for us; they grind our grist, run our trains, light our houses, manufacture our wares, and so give us time for brain and heart development. The second is the individualization of industry: one man makes shoes, a second clothes, a third books, a fourth teaches school, and all these men interchange industries one with another. This harnessing of Nature to do our drudgery, coupled with this individualization of industry, makes possible civilization.

Commerce cannot be carried anywhither without carrying some ills with it. The larger the life, the more the peril. But the ills that commerce carries with it are but the incident. If we ship goods to China, alcoholic liquors may also be shipped; but the liquor-shop is but a spot on the sun. I hope, indeed, the time will come when Americans will say, "As we do not allow any saloon to sell liquor to children, so we will allow no American to export liquor to a child-race;" but whether we do or not, the fundamental fact is that commerce is a life-giver. Where commerce goes, the life is larger, the comfort greater, the home better. Twenty-five years ago the wheelbarrow was the only vehicle in China; to-day they are importing bicycles and locomotives. Twenty years ago rice was almost the only staple in China; to-day we are sending over shiploads of wheat, to supplement the rice and fill the vacant place when the rice crop fails. Commerce fills millions of mouths where philanthropy feeds but hundreds. Commerce clothes millions of the naked where philanthropy clothes but scores. Men condemn the commercial spirit of the age; if it is a spirit of greed and spoliation, it deserves the condemnation; but the commercial spirit is not necessarily a spirit of greed or spoliation. When a nation subjugates a province, holds it under its control,

taxes it, for its own benefit, as Rome taxed Palestine and as Spain taxed Cuba, it is highway robbery. When it uses its power to clutch a poorer nation by the throat and rifle its pockets, it is a highway robber and should be treated as one. But when a nation sends its wheat and corn, its locomotives and bicycles, its sewingmachines and agricultural products, to a far-distant country, and brings back some product in return, it is doing a great service. The commercial spirit is essentially a spirit of mutuality of service; for commerce is the interchange of one nation's industry with that of another, as trade is the interchange of one individual's industry with that of another. Let us have done with the idea that material progress is inimical to human welfare, and that the opening of China and of Africa is to be looked on with suspicion because Russian, German, and American capitalists are taking advantage of it to build great railroads and establish steamship lines as profitable investments. These are the beginnings of international unity, because these annihilate distance and make every community neighbor to every other community.

The third great factor is education, as Mr. Huxley defines it: "The instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature-under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with these laws."

When we have laid the foundations for civilization by law, established and maintained against the lawless, we must pour into the uncivilized regions the moral forces that make for civilization. We must follow the power that compels obedience with the powers that make for life. Where we have established the foundations of law, there we must see that the free press, the free school, free industry, and a free church go also. George Kennan writes that when he first went into Santiago, Cuba, there was not what could properly be called a free school in the citynot one that had a building properly constructed for it, and maintained at the public expense. Ecclesiastical schools there were, no doubt. But shortly after the American occupation there were

T

HE people read.

Modern conditions in even our rural communities have begotten a public that reads something. The agencies that supply the coarse and the impure are continually on the alert to furnish those who will read it with that sort of literature, and these same agencies are persistently at work laying hold upon the young and cultivating in them a taste for that which they supply. It is almost a question as to whether the cheapening of literature has been to the help or the hurt of the community life. A great deal of good literature has been cheapened in price, but the great mass of cheap literature is not only cheap in price but cheap in quality. It holds true in the printer's world as in the commercial world that "that which costs but little is usually worth but little." Men who have the ability to produce the best cannot be procured for a song. This idea of cheapness has wrought special harm in our smaller communities, since it has led the uneducated to a disregard of quality and opened the way for a great influx of that which vitiates the taste, undermines the character, and ruins the life of children brought up in touch with it. The supreme question, particularly in our smaller communities, is not simply to educate the people to read, but so to cultivate the taste that they shall read only the best. This, then, in view of these recognized facts, may be laid down as a general proposition, that every community owes it to itself, owes it to the young people growing up within its borders, that there shall be established a free public institution to furnish the best to those who read.

New England has long recognized the necessity and provided for it. The town and village libraries that are everywhere found in New England are, to a large extent, the explanation of that sturdy and strong New England character that still is, as in the days of yore, the backbone of our National life. One needs only look at our halls of National legislation to see how the New England influence dominates and controls us. The center of popula

tion has gradually moved westward, but the center of power has not kept pace with the population. The young West, giant though she is, has not yet reached her full power, nor will she until she begins to understand that next the school-house in every community, even the most rural, must stand the free public library furnishing to the brain and heart the culture and stimulus that mean power. New England will never lose her prestige and her power merely because numbers are against her, nor will the West gain control because numbers are with her. Quality and not quantity determines power.

But a discussion of theories and possibilities along this line amounts to but little. There is an awakening already, there is a desire at this point, and the question is as to how this may be crystallized into practical result. An actual experience in an average town may be of some help to those who are beginning to face the problem.

I am going to tell a plain, unvarnished story of how the people in one community have set about to meet the pressing need. To begin with my story, the town, according to the last census, numbers about six thousand, and is located in eastern Pennsylvania on the banks of the beautiful Susquehanna River. Across the river is located a city of about twelve thousand inhabitants, largely made up of working people; but this really cuts no figure in the story, as only a very small percentage of the people are interested in or use the new enterprise. My story has to do simply with the village. Perhaps the grade of intelligence is a little above the average of Pennsylvania towns of the same size. One of the first settlers, some sixty years ago, and a man who still lives, was of New England birth and blood, a graduate of Yale University, and his influence has been wonderfully formative and effective. To his influence, perhaps more than to any other, is due the high grade of intelligence and refinement that exists,

Gradually many of the smaller trades. men and mechanics have moved across the river and built their homes in the

village, and, as a result, a great crowd of children and young people are growing up in the community. Some twenty-five or thirty years ago an effort was made to establish a library on the joint-stock company plan. The result was a thousand volumes, many of them utterly useless for any good purpose save to start a bonfire, two shacks, a desk, and two or three chairs. So many efforts had been made to resurrect this old enterprise that it was just a little uncertain as to whether it was under or above ground. For years it had been stored away in the fourth story of one of the bank buildings, accumulating debt for the rent of the room, and all the stockholders so hopelessly behind in dues that in some cases it would have required a sheriff's sale to collect. That is a fair description of the conditions until about two years ago.

Incidentally, two or three men began to talk on the general subject of a public library, and one word led to another, until a suggestion was made that a meeting of the citizens be called in the little Town Hall to consider the question of a public library. The public did not respond with any degree of alacrity to the call. The promoters of the scheme did not grow discouraged, but finally prevailed on some twenty men each to subscribe for a share of stock in the old concern in order to get possession of the charter, pay off the debt, and get possession of the few books that were on the shelves. As soon as this result was accomplished, the stockholders held a meeting, elected a new board of directors in sympathy with the new effort, by legal action changed the character of the library and made it free, decided to establish in connection with it a readingroom, and reached the point of establishing the enterprise with scarcely a dollar of assets and only their faith in an aroused public sentiment to build on for the future. The first thing was to secure a habitation. After some investigation, the lower story of a dwelling-house, in rather a prominent part of the town, was secured at a rental of ten dollars per month. There were three rooms-a small front room, used as an office and reading-room, a larger room back of it where the book shacks were placed, and what had been a kitchen, for the refuse. The old furniture and books were moved in, and a num

ber of magazines and papers were ordered for the reading-room.

The next step was to secure some one who would take charge of the rooms. The directors had decided to open the rooms daily, from 3 to 6 P.M. and from 7 to 9 P.M. That meant a great deal of work, and there was no money to pay for the service. A number of young ladies were interested, and they agreed to take charge, one each afternoon and evening. In the meantime the sympathy and co-operation of two or three reading clubs had been secured, and generous contributions of literature were made, bringing the library somewhat up to date. A reception was held at the rooms, to which the whole community was invited, and then the doors were thrown open for business. An appeal was printed in the evening paper asking for sympathy and support, and private, personal appeals were made by the directors. It was slow work at first. A great many of the best people in the town had no confidence in the permanency of the enterprise. They expected it to last for a few months and then die. Without any effort to do great things, the directors put their money into it, put their faith into it, and little by little the lack of faith has given way, and the library has become a permanent institution of the town.

From the first, a judicious book committee has been at work replenishing the shelves with the best of books as money came their way. It has been the effort to put ten dollars a month into new books, and in this way a steady stream of new books have continued to go on the shelves, and as they have come the list has been published in the evening paper, and readers have been attracted. The effort has been, not simply to provide the latest fiction, but to build on a solid, substantial footing by putting the best histories, books on art, mechanics, science, and religion on the shelves.

In the way of financial support, the community has furnished it without any great effort. A few musical entertainments, a reception or two, a "rummage sale "-through these means some money has been obtained, but the larger part of the money has come from voluntary subscriptions by the business men of the community.

The experiment has been carried on