Triumphs and Wonders of the 19th Century: The True Mirror of a Phenomenal Era / A volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress

by James P. Boyd

There never was an epoch when the struggle for existence was fiercer and when earthly possessions were more keenly prized. But despite the many survivals which still point to a semi-barbaric inheritance of selfishness descended through millenniums, a decided moral gain may, on the whole, be placed to the credit of our era. With the decrease of the sum total of ignorance, not only among the lower but among the upper classes, the sum total of well-doing and well-being has immeasurably increased.

The sympathy for suffering is more widespread than it has ever been. No middle-aged person can fail to note the rapid change which has taken place in the public mind with regard to the general treatment not only of children, but of animals. The present mode of dealing with school children according to their individual capacity, the trust in their honor which governs their relation to the teacher, the absence of any corporal punishment, form a recent departure in education well calculated to produce the best moral results.

The improvement of modern methods in relief work as well as in the treatment of vice—now viewed more in the light of a pathological condition than in that of a sin—must make this a memorable epoch in the ethical history of humanity. No branch of civilization has undergone greater change in modern times both in theory and practice than public and private charity. To-day the humanitarian endeavors to lift up the fallen and the needy, and almsgiving on the part of the well-to-do is fast becoming relegated to the category of a self-indulgence which is not to be encouraged. The distinction between the old methods and the new is given in the formula that “henceforth the chief test of charity will be the effect upon the recipient.” Any relief calculated to undermine self-reliance and independence is discouraged by those who have in view the prevention of our moral ills rather than their relief.

CAPTAIN ALFRED DREYFUS.

Indeed, the new school preaches scientific charity as against emotional charity. What it may have lost in impulse it has more than made up in effectiveness. The attempt to teach the needy to help themselves, the work of college settlements and of the organized efforts in the poorest and most neglected districts of large cities, with a view to fostering by personal contact and example habits of thrift and self-respect where those virtues are most lacking, are among the truest if more homely glories of the closing century.

Verily, never was a more thoughtful effort made everywhere to mitigate the cruel distinctions of race and sex, of wealth and poverty, and to “harmonize the social antagonisms” of modern life. Never was so much consideration given to the betterment of humanity, nor was the aggregate of earnestness so great.

In our more robust intellectual world the tree is judged by its fruit, and acts tell, not creed. The principle that well-doing, unless it is disinterested, forfeits its claim to the highest respect of men, is growing in strength, whilst the feeling is gaining ground among the thoughtful that in the development of personality may be found a sufficient motive for the exercise of virtue, and that character, not reward, being not having, are the highest aims.

If we resume the moral progress of the nineteenth century, allowing for its inconsistencies, carefully weighing its negative and positive results, and taking as a balance what is original in its contribution to the ethical development of the human race, we will find that this contribution mainly lies in the direction of tolerance and of altruism. This altruism is distinct from the charity of St. Vincent, which sacrificed self in a loving attempt to relieve individual distress. Such pure sacrifice, admirable as it is, is not only narrow in its scope, but because of its austerity must fail to survive in the struggle for existence. Modern altruism aims at removing the main cause of individual distress, and spends itself in educational efforts, in which the well-doer finds happiness in the consciousness of usefulness. It is also unlike the socialism of Condorcet, which reached down in an endeavor to make all institutions subservient to the interests of the poorer and most numerous classes, for it aims at lifting these to the highest possible plane. The mountain summits are not to be lowered, but the valleys are being filled. To raise the people, to build up, not to tear down, is the avowed end of all modern moral effort, and must ever stamp the humanitarian struggles of the present age as distinct from those of the eighteenth and preceding centuries.

With this we may claim an increase in individual freedom, and a perceptible tendency to a logical and ever broadening conception, not only of the rights, but of the duties of citizenship; to a more honest recognition of the place assigned by expediency to evil in the social and business intercourse of a practical life; to a growing scorn of casuistry, and to a stronger faith in the reality of right and of abstract truth as they are revealed in every thinking man’s heart, and the uniformity of which is reflected in the public conscience.