The late Professor Dolbear, of Tuft’s College, summed up the progress of the nineteenth century as follows:
The nineteenth century received from its predecessor the horse; we bequeath the locomotive, the bicycle, and the automotor. We received the scythe; we bequeathed the mowing-machine. We received the painter’s brush; we bequeathed lithography, the camera, and color photography. We received twenty-three chemical elements; we bequeathed eighty. We received the sailing ship; we bequeathed the magnificent steamships which are the glory of Belfast and of Ireland. We received the beacon signal-fire; we bequeathed the telephone and wireless telegraphy. Best of all, we received unalleviable pain, and we bequeathed aseptics, chloroform, ether, and cocaine. We received an average duration of life for thirty years; we bequeathed forty years. (Text.)
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Progress of Indians—See [Indians, American].
Progress Resisted—See [Drought, Responsibility for].
PROGRESS, TRUE
Surely we should judge of a man’s progress by inquiring what he has been rather than by his present stage alone:
Men march toward civilization in column formation, and by the time the van has learned to admire the masters the rear is drawing reluctantly away from the totem-pole. Anywhere in the middle you may find a veneration for china pugdogs or an enthusiasm for Marie Corelli—still an advance. Literary people seem to think that every time a volume of Hall Caine is sold, Shakespeare is to that extent neglected. It merely means that some semisavage has reached the Hall Caine stage, and we should wish him godspeed on his way to Shakespeare. It is only when a pretended Shakespeare man lapses into Hall Cainery that one need be excited.—Frank Moore Colby, “Imaginary Obligations.”
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PROGRESS UNFINISHED