79

Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow

There is a candy shop near where I live. On its sign it says, “Made Fresh Every Hour.” History is being made every day. It is being made fresh almost every hour. The newsboy even now is calling outside of my window, “Extra! Extra!” Is it a new war? Is it a new discovery? If you had clipped head-lines from the papers since the World War, here are some of the things you might have pasted in your scrapbook.

TREATY OF PEACE
SIGNED AT VERSAILLES

Nations Agree on Terms of Peace

The Mohammedan Turks in the East Are
Again Threatening the Christian
Nations of the West

THE IRISH FREE
STATE ESTABLISHED

After Centuries of Struggle to Become
Independent of England, Ireland at
Last, with England’s Permission, Has
Set Up a Government of Her Own

COLUMBUS OF THE AIR

Read, an American, Crosses Atlantic
Ocean for First Time in an Airplane;
Lands at the Azores and Then in
Portugal; Several Others Soon Follow,
and the Ocean Is Crossed a Number of
Times

WOMEN CAN VOTE AT LAST

All Through the Ages Women Have Had
Little or No “Say” in the Government;
Now, for the First Time, They Can
Vote in Our Country and in Most
Other Civilized Countries

STRONG DRINK PROHIBITED

The Use of Wine and Strong Drink,
Which Has Caused So Much Crime,
Disease, Death and Unhappiness, Has
Been Forbidden in the United States
and Limited in Many Other Countries;
in the Generations to Come, Men Will
Probably Marvel That There Was Once
a Time When People Drank Poison for
Pleasure

From now on you will have to read your history in the daily papers.

Up to this time, history has been marked by the story of one war after another, some big, some small, some short, some long. Almost always a fight has been going on somewhere. It has been War, War, War; Fight, Fight, Fight. Children scratch, kick, and bite. But the older we get, the less do we use our fists and feet to settle quarrels. So fighting seems to be a sign of childhood—that we are “kids”—and our fights, that we call wars, a sign of how young the world really is and we really are; a sign that the world is still but a minute or two old.

Now, we admire and praise as heroes Horatius, Leonidas, Joan of Arc, and General Foch and those others who have defended their countries against the attacks of the enemy, as we would admire a man who shoots a burglar or a murderer that attacks his family in the night. But those, whether kings, generals, or princes, who do the attacking and take life with no other excuse than to add to their power or wealth or glory, are no better than burglars who go forth with a gun and a blackjack to waylay, rob, and murder for the same purpose. War kills, war destroys, war costs millions of lives and billions of dollars—money that could be used to make us happy, instead of causing bitterness, suffering, misery, and unhappiness; blind men and cripples, widows and orphans. No one is better off, not even the winner. It is a terrible game, in which even the winner loses. And yet in the long run who knows? It may be the only way the world can grow!

But this is certain: if wars do not end, they will be fought with something more deadly, more terrible than shot and shell. Sooner or later, some man of science will invent a disease more catching than the terrible plague, more deadly than the Black Death with which to attack the enemy. But if such a disease is let loose, once started it will spread from one being to the next till every one has caught it and died and no one will escape. Or he will invent a poison to poison the air we breathe that will spread like the wind or like wildfire in dry grass, and there will be no stopping it. The air that wraps the globe will be a sea of poison gas. Every thing that breathes will take only one breath, and every man, woman, and child, every beast of the field, every bird and flying thing will drop dead. Or he will invent something a million times more powerful than gunpowder or dynamite—something so explosive that when discovered by some Mr. Swartz it will blow him, his house, his town, his country, and the whole world to kingdom come—and that will be the end of this little spark off the sun.

Perhaps you have looked through a microscope at what seem to be wars between germs. As germs might look up at the eye of the microscope through which we watch their life-and-death struggles, and wonder what is up above on the other side looking down at them, so we may look up at the blue eye of heaven above us and wonder what all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful being up there is watching our own life-and-death struggles here below.

Our little world, which seems so immense to us, is really only a tiny speck, only one of countless other specks floating in space; it is like one of the tiny motes which you may see any time in a sunbeam that shines in at the window. Who has an eye so keen that he can count the moving motes in such a beam of light? Who would miss one such grain of dust if it should disappear? So this grain of dust we call the World and all of us who live upon it could vanish without ever being noticed!

This story ends here, but only for the present, for history is a continued story and will never end.

If you were living in the Year 10,000 A.D., as some boy will be, your history would only be just begun when you had reached where we are now. Even the World War would then seem as long ago as the fights of the Stone Age men seem to us. You might think of us and all the inventions we consider so wonderful as we think of the discovery of copper and bronze.

Will the history that is written in the Year 10,000 have any wars to tell about? If the wars on Earth cease, will there be wars with other worlds?

And if there are no more wars, what will history tell about? Will it be new inventions? What kinds? Will it be new discoveries? We know every corner of the world now. Will it be the inside of this world or other new worlds or a spiritual world?

Perhaps then people will no longer use trains, steamboats, automobiles, or even flying-machines, but go from place to place as on some magic carpet, simply by wishing. Perhaps then they will no longer use letters, telephones, or telegraphs, or even radio, but read each other’s thoughts at any distance.

And so on—World without end—Amen!

PRONOUNCING INDEX

This list of the most important names in the book tells you on what page you may find each name and how to sound those you may not know.

Soundaasinhat.
“aw““saw.
“ah““ah!
“ee““see.
“e or eh““get.
“er““her.
“i or ih““hit
“igh““right.
“o““hot.
“oh““oh!
“ow““how.
“u or uh““up.
“ew““few.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

Perceived typographical errors have been changed.