peal by the central government." England and English institutions are living and sufficient refutations of this statement. And brutality is not engendered by such campaigns as the one just closed. On the other hand, the recent war has done more to awaken and stimulate the best and noblest instincts of the people than a century of peace. It has produced a generation of heroes. It has given our young men an opportunity to prove to the world that the fire of patriotism burns as brightly now as it did in those far days when its fierce glow warmed the snows of Valley Forge beneath the bare feet of the soldier of- a new-born nation. "No leaders," is the protest of a child afraid of the dark, and is as without excuse or reason, since in every age, in every land, whenever and wherever the need has arisen, has also arisen the man to meet it. Unquestionably, there are many tendencies in American politics that point to a gloomy future, if we continue along the lines they indicate, but there are many brighter and more promising tendencies that predict for us a splendid consummation of the dreams of our country's founders.
***
Except among the highest and best-educated classes in England, Germany and France, and indeed to some extent among even these, there exists a popular misconception of America and American ideals. This was exemplified to a startling degree shortly before the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Spain. Editors of magazines and newspapers who were supposed to know better made the most inexcusable blunders concerning the geography of this country, and displayed the greatest ignorance of American institutions and of the motives which were likely to move the masses here. The reception which President McKinley's war message met with in France and Germany opened the eyes of the American public to the attitude of Continental Europe, revealing as it did the light in which these nations viewed our country and our actions. The humanitarian principle which, in its inner consciousness, the whole nation recognized as the leading one — a settled conviction in the hearts and minds of the people that the time had come for armed intervention in behalf of oppressed and suffering Cuba — was ridiculed by nearly every journal on the Continent. The few that gave us credit for acting from some other motive than selfishness were so weak in their defense, if defense it might be called, that the effect of what they said was lost in the almost unanimous condemnation of the United States. The war has, in some degree, modified this expression of unfriendly feeling, and forced Europe to acknowledge, however reluctantly, an admiration of our splendid victories by land and sea, and to admit that humanitarianism may to some extent have actuated us in the recent war. But humanitarianism, they cry, is a new development in American character, a result of the war, not the cause of it, when, in fact, the reverse is true. For it was a war of the people for the relief of a sister country, for the amelioration of conditions that could no longer be suffered to exist on this hemi- sphere, where the rights of man are re spected and upheld from purely human- itarian motives. From the beginning, all through our colonial history, in every act. and in every event in our national life, this great principle can be clearly traced. Indeed, the one thing more than any other that has attracted the attention of the masses of Europe and has made our land a refuge for the oppressed, has been a feeling among them that America is a humanitarian nation, whose very name : s. and has always been, a synonym for re- lief from oppression. In view of this fact, it seems inconceivable that our mo- tives in the late war should have been so misinterpreted.
***
Of the many lines of progress that have characterized this century, probably none have been more important in contributing to the comfort and convenience of mankind than the advances that have been made in the production of light, and yet none has received so little attention from the press. As a consequence, the people have considered each advance as a matter of course. They have taken up each new device and passed on to the next with little or no thought. If by some sudden calamity we were to be deprived of the brilliant lights that make our crowded thoroughfares almost day, if the soft glow of the modern globed electric light could be taken from our reading tables and desks and we were brought back to fifty years ago, something of the advantages of our day in the way of light could be fully realized. For, strange as it may seem, all of the advances that have been made in the production of light have taken place in the last fifty years, and, if we leave out of consideration kerosene, we may even limit the time to the last twenty-five years. So that we ourselves have seen the remarkable changes that have taken place, and our fathers can recall the time when night meant a flickering candle that sputtered its unsteady light over the pages and ruined eyes, or else it meant the dangerous explosive camphine or "burning fluid," that gave as sickly and unsatisfactory a light. Kerosene came like a God-send, and with it commenced two remarkable evolutions along distinct lines. First, an evolution along
