II. NEW MODIFYING FORCES
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE. The first and most important of these nineteenth-century forces, and the one which preceded and conditioned all the others, was the great increase of accurate knowledge as to the forces and laws of the physical world, arising from the application of scientific method to the investigation of the phenomena of the material world (R. 337). During the nineteenth century the intellect of man was stimulated to activity as it had not been before since the days when little Athens was the intellectual center of the world. What the Revival of Learning was to the classical scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the movement for scientific knowledge and its application to human affairs was to the nineteenth. It changed the outlook of man on the problems of life, vastly enlarged the intellectual horizon, and gave a new trend to education and to scholarly effort. What the scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had been slowly gathering together as interesting and classified phenomena, the scientific scholars of the nineteenth century organized, interpreted, expanded, and applied. Since the day of Copernicus (p. 386) and Newton (p. 388) a growing appreciation of the permanence and scope of natural law in the universe had been slowly developing, and this the scholars of the nineteenth century fixed as a principle and applied in many new directions. A few of the more important of these new directions may profitably be indicated here.
[Illustration: FIG. 215. BARON JUSTUS VON LIEBIG (1803-73)]
In the domain of the physical sciences very important advances characterized the century. Chemistry, up to the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century largely a collection of unrelated facts, was transformed by the labors of such men as Dalton (1766-1844), Faraday (1791-1867), and Liebig into a wonderfully well-organized and vastly important science. Liebig carried chemistry over into the study of the processes of digestion and the functioning of the internal organs, and reshaped much of the instruction in medicine. Liebig is also important as having opened, at Giessen, in 1826, the first laboratory instruction in chemistry for students provided in any university in the world. By many subsequent workers chemistry has been so applied to the arts that it is not too much to say that a knowledge of chemistry underlies the whole manufacturing and industrial life of the present, and that the degree of industrial preeminence held by a nation to-day is largely determined by its mastery of chemical processes.
Physics has experienced an equally important development. It, too, at the beginning of the nineteenth century was in the preliminary state of collecting, coördinating, and trying to interpret data. In a century physics has, by experimentation and the application of mathematics to its problems, been organized into a number of exceedingly important sciences. In dynamics, heat, light, and particularly in electricity, discoveries and extension of previous knowledge of the most far-reaching significance have been made. What at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a small textbook study of natural philosophy has since been subdivided into the two great sciences of physics and chemistry, and these in turn into numerous well-organized branches. Today these are taught, not from textbooks, but in large and costly laboratories, while manufacturing establishments and governments now find it both necessary and profitable to maintain large scientific institutions for chemical and physical research.
The great triumph of physics, from the point of view of the reign of law in the world of matter, was the experimental establishment (1849) of the fundamental principle of the conservation of energy. This ranks in importance in the world of the physical sciences with the theory of evolution in the biological. The perfection of the spectroscope (1859) revealed the rule of chemical law among the stars, and clinched the theory of evolution as applied to the celestial universe. The atomic theory of matter [10] was an extension of natural laws in another direction. In 1846 occurred the most spectacular proof of the reign of natural law which the nineteenth century witnessed. Two scientists, in different lands, [11] working independently, calculated the orbit of a new planet, Neptune, and when the telescope was turned to the point in the heavens indicated by their calculations the planet was there. It was a tremendous triumph for both mathematics and astronomy. Such work as this meant the firm establishment of scientific accuracy, and the ultimate elimination of the old theories of witchcraft, diabolic action, and superstition as controlling forces in the world of human affairs.
The publication by Charles Lyell (1797-1875) of his Principles of Geology, in 1830, marked another important advance in the knowledge of the operations of natural law in the physical world, and likewise a revolution in thinking in regard to the age and past history of the earth. Few books have ever more deeply influenced human thinking. The old theological conception of earthly "catastrophes" [12] was overthrown, and in its place was substituted the idea of a very long and a very orderly evolution of the planet. Geology was created as a new science, and out of this has come, by subsequent evolution, a number of other new sciences [13] which have contributed much to human progress.
[Illustration: FIG. 216. CHARLES DARWIN (1809-82)]
Another of the great books of all time appeared in 1859, when Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published the results of thirty years of careful biological research in his Origin of Species. This swept away the old theory of special and individual creation which had been cherished since early antiquity; and substituted in its place the reign of law in the field of biological life. This substitution of the principle of orderly evolution for the old theory of special creation marked another forward step in human thinking, [14] and gave an entirely new direction to the old study of natural history. [15] In the hands of such workers as Wallace (1823-1913), Asa Gray (1810-88), Huxley (1825-94), and Spencer (1820-1903) it now proved a fruitful field.
In 1856 the German Virchow (1821-1902) made his far-reaching contribution of cellular pathology to medical science; between 1859 and 1865 the French scientist Pasteur (1822-95) established the germ theory of fermentation, putrefaction, and disease; about the same time the English surgeon Lister (1827-1914) began to use antiseptics in surgery; and, in 1879, the bacillus of typhoid fever was found. Out of this work the modern sciences of pathology, aseptic surgery, bacteriology, and immunity were created, and the cause and mode of transmission of the great diseases [16] which once decimated armies and cities—plague, cholera, malaria, typhoid, typhus, yellow fever, dysentery—as well as the scourges of tuberculosis, diphtheria, and lockjaw, have been determined. The importance of these discoveries for the future welfare and happiness of mankind can scarcely be overestimated. Sanitary science arose as an application of these discoveries, and since about 1875 a sanitary and hygienic revolution has taken place.
[Illustration: FIG. 217 LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-95)]
The above represent but a few of the more important of the many great scientific advances of the nineteenth century. What the thinkers of the eighteenth century had sowed broadcast through a general interest in science, their successors in the nineteenth reaped as an abundant harvest. The three great master keys of science—the higher mathematics, the principle of the conservation of energy, and the principle of orderly evolution of life according to law—so long unknown to man, had at last been discovered, and, with these in their possession, men have since opened up many of the long-hidden secrets of cause and growth and form and function, both in the heavens and on the earth, and have revealed to a wondering world the prodigious and eternal forces of an orderly universe. The fruitfulness of the Baconian method (p. 390) in the hands of his successors has far surpassed his most sanguine expectations.
THE APPLICATIONS OF SCIENCE AND THE RESULT. All this work, as has been frequently pointed out (R. 338), had of necessity to precede the applications of science to the arts and to the advancement of the comforts and happiness of mankind. The new studies soon caught the attention of younger scholars; special schools for their study began to be established by the middle of the nineteenth century; [17] enthusiastic students of science began forcefully to challenge the centuries-long supremacy of classical studies; funds for scientific research began to be provided; the printing-press disseminated the new ideas; and thousands of applications of science to trade and industry and human welfare began to attract public attention and create a new demand for schools and for a new extension of learning. During the past century the applications of this new learning to matters that intimately touch the life of man have been so numerous and so far-reaching in their effects that they have produced a revolution in life conditions unlike anything the world ever experienced before. In all the days from the time of the Crusades to the end of the Napoleonic Wars the changes in living effected were less, both in scope and importance, than have taken place in the century since Napoleon was sent to Saint Helena.
THIS TRANSFORMATION WE CALL THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. This, as we pointed out earlier (p. 492), began in England in the late eighteenth century. France did not experience its beginnings until after the Napoleonic Wars, though after about 1820 the transformations there were rapid and far- reaching. In the United States it began about 1810-15, and between 1820 and 1860 the industrial methods of the people of the northeastern quarter of the United States were revolutionized. Between 1860 and 1900 they were revolutionized again. In the German States the transformation began about 1840, though it did not reach its great development until after the establishment of the Empire, in 1871. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, with the development of factories, the building of railroads, and the extension of steamship lines, even the most remote countries have been affected by the new forces. Nations long primitive and secluded have been modernized and industrialized; century-old trades and skills have been destroyed by machinery; the old home and village industries have been replaced by the factory system; cities for manufacturing and trade have everywhere experienced a rapid development; and even on the farm the agricultural methods of bygone days have been replaced by the discoveries of science and the products of invention. Almost nothing is done to-day as it was a century ago, and only in remote places do people live as they used to live. The nature and extent of the change which has been wrought, and some estimate as to its effect upon educational procedure, may perhaps be better comprehended if we first contrast living conditions before and after this industrial transformation.
[Illustration: FIG. 218. MAN POWER BEFORE THE DAYS OF STEAM Foot power a century ago. (From a cut by Anderson, America's first important engraver)]
LIVING CONDITIONS A CENTURY AGO. A century ago people everywhere lived comparatively simple lives. The steam engine, while beginning to be put to use (p. 493), had not as yet been extensively applied and made the willing and obedient slave of man. The lightning had not as yet been harnessed, and the now omnipresent electric motor was then still unknown. Only in England had manufacturing reached any large proportions, and even there the methods were somewhat primitive. Thousands of processes which we now perform simply and effectively by the use of steam or electric power, a century ago were done slowly and painfully by human labor. The chief sources of power were then man and horse power. The home was a center in which most of the arts and trades were practiced, and in the long winter evenings the old crafts and skills were turned to commercial account. What every family used and wore was largely made in the home, the village, or the neighborhood.
Travel was slow and expensive and something only the well-to-do could afford. To go fifty miles a day by stage-coach, or one hundred by sailing packet on the water, was extraordinarily rapid. "One could not travel faster by sea or by land," as Huxley remarked, "than at any previous time in the world's history, and King George could send a message from London to York no faster than King John might have done." The steam train was not developed until about 1825, and through railway lines not for a quarter- century longer. It took four days by coach from London to York (188 miles); six weeks by sailing vessel from Southampton to Boston; and six months from England to India. People moved about but little. A journey of fifty miles was an event—for many something not experienced in a lifetime. To travel to a foreign land made a man a marked individual. Benjamin Franklin tells us that he was frequently pointed out on the streets of Philadelphia, then the largest city in the United States, as a man who had been to Europe. George Ticknor has left us an interesting record (R. 339) of his difficulties, in finding anything in print in the libraries of the time, about 1815, or any one who could tell him about the work of the German universities, which he, as a result of reading Madame de Staël's book on Germany, was desirous of attending. [18]
Everywhere it was a time of hard work and simple living. Every youngster had to become useful at an early age. The work of life, in town or on the farm, required hard and continual labor from all. Farm machinery had not been perfected, and hand labor performed all the operations of ploughing and sowing, reaping and harvesting. With the introduction of the factory system, men, women, and children were used to operate machinery, children being apprenticed to the mills at about eight years of age and working ten to twelve hours a day. This soon worked the life out of human beings, and in consequence sickness, wretchedness, juvenile delinquency, ignorance, drunkenness, pauperism, and crime increased greatly as cities grew and the factory system drew thousands from the farms to the towns. When Queen Victoria came to the throne (1837) one person in twelve in England was a pauper, and the lot of the poor was wretched in the extreme. In cities they lived in cellars and basements and hovels. There was practically no sanitation or drainage. Streets and alleys were filthy. Graveyards were commonly located in the heart of a town. A pure water-supply through water-mains was unknown. Pumps and water-carriers supplied nearly all the needs. There was in consequence much sickness, and such diseases as typhoid and malaria ran rampant.
[Illustration: FIG. 219. THRESHING WHEAT A CENTURY AGO
(After a woodcut by Jacque, in L'Illustration)]
CHANGE IN LIVING CONDITIONS TO-DAY. In a century all has been changed. Steam and electricity and sanitary science have transformed the world; the railway, steamship, telegraph, cable, and printing-press have made the world one. The output of the factory system has transformed living and labor conditions, even to the remote corners of the world; sanitary science and sanitary legislation have changed the primitive conditions of the home and made of it a clean and comfortable modern abode; men and women have been freed from an almost incalculable amount of drudgery and toil, and the human effort and time saved may now be devoted to other types of work or to enjoyment and learning. Thousands who once were needed for menial toil on farm or in shop and home are now freed for employment in satisfying new wants and new pleasures that mankind has come to know, [19] or may devote their time and energies to forms of service that advance the welfare of mankind or minister to the needs of the human spirit.
[Illustration: FIG. 220. A CITY WATER-SUPPLY ABOUT 1830
(After a lithograph by Bellange)]
Labor-saving devices and the applications of scientific work have touched all phases of life and labor of men and women, and under modern methods of transportation go everywhere. The American self-binding reaper is found in the grain-fields of Russia and the Argentine; one may buy cans of kerosene and tinned meats and vegetables almost anywhere in the world today; sewing machines and phonographs add to the comfort and pleasure of the African native and the dweller on the Yukon; "milady" in Siam uses cosmetics manufactured for the devotees of fashion in Paris; the Sultan of Sulu wears an elegant American wrist-watch; the Dahomeny tribesman has a safety razor, and a mirror of French plate; the Persian dandy wears shoes and haberdashery made in the United States; old Chinamen up the Yellow River Valley read their Confucius by the light of an Edison Mazda; the steam train wends its way up from Jaffa to Jerusalem; the gasoline power boat chugs its course up the Nile the Pharaohs sailed; and modern surgical methods and instruments are used in the hospitals of Manila and Singapore, Cairo and Cape Town. A rupee spent for thread at Calcutta starts the spindles going in Manchester; a new calico dress for a Mandalay belle helps the cotton-print mills of Leeds; a new carving set for a Fiji Islander means more labor for some cutlery works in Sheffield; a half- dollar for a new undershirt in Panama means increased work for a cotton mill in New England; a new blanket called for against the winter's cold of Siberia moves the looms of some Rhode Island town; a dime spent for a box of matches in Alaska means added labor and profit for a match factory in California; a new bath tub in Paraguay spells increased output for a factory at Milan or Turin; and the Christmas wishes of the children in Brazil give work to the toy factories of Nüremberg.
Trains and huge steamers move today along the great trade routes of the modern world, exchanging both the people and their products. The holds of the ships are filled with coal and grain and manufactured implements and commodities of every description, while their steerage space is crowded with modern Marco Polos and Magellans going forth to see the world. The Hindoo walks the streets of Cape Town, London, Sydney, New York, San Francisco, and Valparaiso; the Russian Jew is found in all the Old and New World cities; the Englishman and the American travel everywhere; the Japanese are fringing the Pacific with their laboring classes; toiling Italians and Greeks are found all over the world; peasants from the Balkans gather the prune and orange crops of California; the moujic from the Russian Caucasus tills the wheat-fields of the Dakotas; while the Irish, Scandinavians, and Teutons form the political, farming, and commercial classes in many far-distant lands. In the recent World War Serbs from Montana and Colorado fought side by side with Serbs from Belgrade and Nisch; Greeks from New York and San Francisco helped their brothers from Athens drive the Bulgars back up the Vardar Valley; Italians from New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro helped their kinsmen from the valley of the Po hold back the Hun from the Venetian plain; Chinese from the valleys of the Tong-long and the Yang-tse-Kiang backed up the Allied armies by tilling the fields of France; and Algerian and Senegalese natives helped the French hold back the Teutonic hordes from the ravishment of Paris. So completely has the old isolation been broken down! So completely is the world in flux! So small has the world become!
[Illustration: FIG. 221. THE GREAT TRADE ROUTES OF THE MODERN WORLD Broken lines, on land, indicate gaps soon to be closed. Compare this with the maps on pages 161 and 258, and note the progress in discovery and intercommunication. Ships and trains are constantly passing over these routes, bearing both freight and peoples.]
It was almost a century from the time instruction in Greek was revived in Florence (1396) until Linacre first lectured on Greek at Oxford (c. 1492); six months after the X-ray was perfected in Germany it was in use in the hospitals of San Francisco. In the Middle Ages thousands might have died of starvation in Persia or Egypt, a famous city in Asia Minor might have been destroyed by an earthquake and many people killed, or war might have raged for years in the Orient without a citizen of western Europe knowing of it all his life. Today any important event anywhere within the range of the telegraph or the cable would be reported in tomorrow morning's paper, and carefully described and illustrated in the magazines at an early date. Man is no longer a citizen of a town or a state, but of a nation and of the world. How intelligently he can use this larger citizenship depends today largely upon the character and the extent of the education he has received.
[Illustration: FIG. 222. AN EXAMPLE OF THE SHIFTING OF OCCUPATIONS.
Sawing boards by hand, before the introduction of steam power.]
EFFECT OF THESE CHANGES ON THE LABORING-CLASSES. At first the effect of the introduction of factory-made goods and labor-saving devices was to upset the old established institutions. Trades practiced by the guilds since the Middle Ages were destroyed, because factories could turn out goods faster and cheaper than guild workmen could make them. The age-old apprenticeship system began to break down. Everywhere people were thrown out of employment, and a vast shifting of occupations took place. There was much discontent, and laborers began to unite, where allowed to do so, [20] with a view to improving their economic and political condition by concerted action. The political revolutions of 1848 throughout Europe were in part a manifestation of this discontent, and the right to organize was everywhere demanded and in time generally obtained. Among the planks in their platform were equality of all before the law; the limitation of child and woman labor; better working conditions and wages; the provision of schools for their children at public expense; and the extension of the right of suffrage.
Despite certain unfortunate results following the change from age-old working conditions, the century of transition has seen the laboring man making gains unknown before in history, and the peasant has seen the abolition of serfdom [21] and feudal dues. Homes have gained tremendously. The drudgery and wasteful toil have been greatly mitigated. To-day there is a standard of comfort and sanitation, even for those in the humblest circumstances, beyond all previous conceptions. The poorest workman to-day can enjoy in his home lighting undreamed of in the days of tallow candles; warmth beyond the power of the old smoky soft-coal grate; food of a variety and quality his ancestors never knew; kitchen conveniences and an ease in kitchen work wholly unknown until recently; and sanitary conveniences and conditions beyond the reach of the wealthiest half a century ago. The caste system in industry has been broken down, and men and their children may now choose their occupations freely, [22] and move about at will. Wages have greatly increased, both actually and relatively to the greatly improved standard of living. The work of women and children is easier, and all work for shorter hours. Child labor is fast being eliminated in all progressive nations. In consequence of all these changes for the better, people to-day have a leisure for reading and thinking and personal enjoyment entirely unknown before the middle of the nineteenth century, and governments everywhere have found it both desirable and necessary to provide means for the utilization of this leisure and the gratification of the new desires. Along with these changes has gone the development of the greatest single agent for spreading liberalizing ideas —the modern newspaper—"the most inveterate enemy of absolutism and reaction." Despite censorships, suppressions, and confiscations, the press has by now established its freedom in all enlightened lands, and the cylinder press, the telegraph, and the cable have become "indispensable adjuncts to the development of that power which every absolutist has come to dread, and with which every prime minister must daily reckon."