DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING
Before you can write upon any such subject as the one upon which Mr. Wells wrote it will be necessary for you to obtain a wide amount of information. Go to any encyclopedia and find lines along which you can investigate further. Then consult special books that you may obtain in a good library. When you have gained full information remember that it is your business not to transmit the information that you have gained, but to put down on paper the thoughts to which the information has led you. Try to show the relation between the past and the present, and to indicate some forecast for the future. Do all this in a pleasantly straightforward style as though you were talking earnestly.
FOOTNOTES:
[96] From “Anticipations” by H. G. Wells. Copyright by the North American Review Publishing Company, 1901; copyright by Harper and Brother, 1902.
[97] Newton, Shakespeare, or Darwin. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). A great English mathematician, especially noted for his establishment of knowledge of the law of gravitation. William Shakespeare (1564-1616). The great English dramatist, regarded as the greatest of English writers. Charles Darwin (1809-1882). The English naturalist, who established a theory of evolution. Three of the most intellectual men of all time.
[98] Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626). A great English philosopher, who established the inductive study of science, that is, study through investigation and experiment.
[99] The Royal Society. Established about 1660 in London, England, for the study of science. It has had a great influence in developing scientific knowledge.
[100] Richard Trevithick (1771-1833). An English inventor who did much to improve the steam engine. In 1801 his locomotive conveyed the first passengers ever carried by steam.
[101] Oliver Evans (1755-1819). An American inventor who was one of the first to use steam at high pressure.
[102] Sadi Carnot (1796-1832). A French physicist whose “principle” concerns the development of power through the use of heat.
[103] Stephenson's Rocket. A locomotive made in 1829 by George Stephenson (1781-1848), which was so successful that it won a prize of £500. Stephenson was one of the most potent forces in developing steam locomotion.
[104] De Novo. As something entirely new.
[105] It might have been used in the same way in Italy in the first century, had not the grandiose taste for aqueducts prevailed.
[106] And also into the Cornwall mines, be it noted.
[107] Captain Thomas Savery (1650?-1715). An English engineer who made one of the first steam engines in 1705, working in connection with Thomas Newcome.
[108] James Watt (1736-1819). A Scotch inventor who in 1765 perfected the condensing steam engine.
[109] Palæoferric creature. Ancient iron creature.
[110] Cul-de-sac. A passage closed at one end.
[111] Utopian. In 1516 Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) wrote about an island called Utopia on which was an ideal government. The word “Utopian” means “ideal beyond hope of attainment”.
[112] Nemine contradicente. No one saying anything against it.
[113] It might be worse. If the biggest horses had been Shetland ponies, we should be traveling now in railway carriages to hold two each side at a maximum speed of perhaps twenty miles an hour. There is hardly any reason, beyond this tradition of the horse, why the railway carriage should not be even nine or ten feet wide, the width that is, of the smallest room in which people can live in comfort, hung on such springs and wheels as would effectually destroy all vibration, and furnished with all the equipment of comfortable chambers.