A Summary of Progress.— Historically measured, the 19th century extends from 1789 to 1914—from the French Revolution to the World War. That °wonderful century* of progress transformed the world as no previous millenium had ever done. Its three mighty agents have been democracy, humane sentiment and scientific invention. The growth of democ racy in politics, and, in less degree, in industry, has been the special theme of the latter part of this article. The gentler spirit of recent so ciety, likewise touched upon, has abolished slavery and serfdom, ameliorated law and given birth to a °war upon poverty,° with zealous and intelligent effort to lessen misery and sin. But the most marvelous phase is the scientific advance. Ancient science was the plaything of philosophers: to-day science has become the servant of mankind.
The rate of this form of progress is roughly indicated by the records of the United States Patent Office. From the inauguration of Wash ington to the War of 1812, patents for new in ventions averaged less than 80 a year. From 1812 to 1820 they rose to nearly 200 a year, and in 1830— the year of a new democracy in politics and industry— the number was 544. Twenty years later the 1,000 mark was passed, and in 1860 the number was nearly 5,000. These inventions mostly saved time or tended to make life more comfortable or more attractive. De tailed treatment, with technical features, be longs to special articles such as may be found elsewhere in THE AME1UCANA. Three groups only will be mentioned briefly here. The re markable series that underlay the industrial revolution, just before 1800, has been partially surveyed above, and we may now add that America, with its vast spaces and with its rivers for almost its only roads, soon modified the steam engine, one invention of that series, into an engine for locomotion by water, giving the world the steamboat. The next great group belongs to the second quarter of the century. Just after 1830, in both England and America, the steam railway became a .success. English friction matches (1837) made the first im provement on prehistoric methods of fire making, and soon afterward illuminating gas for city streets began to improve public morals. Stern-wheel propellers replaced the old side wheel arrangement for steamers, and in 1838 the Great Western established steam naviga tion across the Atlantic. In 1839, in France, Daguerre began photography; and still earlier French chemistry had taught the world to can foods. In America, the McCormick reaper (1831), with the quickly following self-binders, mowers and other like machines, made it possi ble to apply horse power to agriculture in other ways beside preparing the soil; the year 1838 saw the invention of the steam hammer and the successful application of anthracite coal to smelting iron; the anaesthetic value of ether was discovered for the relief of suffering humanity in 1841; the magnetic telegraph, in vented in 1835, became a practical working success in 1844; Howe's sewing machine (1846) relieved the overburdened housewife; and the i long line of improvements upon it, including machinery for sewing leather, soon revolution ized tailoring and created new industries in clothing factories and shoe manufacturing; and in 1847 the rotary printing press marked the dawn of a new intellectual day. The period
of °blood and iron° (1854-78) saw a circle of inventions in Europe and America relating largely to warfare; and then came the third group to be considered here, replacing the age of steam by the age of electricity and trans forming the face of the world and all habits of life once more before the eyes of men still under middle age. Here belong electric lights and the electric street railway, telephone and phonograph, wireless telegraphy, automobile and auto truck (with a °horseless age for city and farm), submarine and aeroplane, along with such a transformation of all earlier ma chines and processes of production as to make those of objects for a museum of natural curiosities.
It remains to mention, for this last period, the new relation of science to medicine. In the 80's. Pasteur broke the way, proving the germ theory of disease and inventing methods of inoculation against some of the most dreaded forms, like hydrophobia. Devoted dis ciples followed in his footsteps. During the American occupation of Cuba after the Span ish-American War, Major Walter Reed showed that ordinary malaria and the deadly yellow fever alike were spread by the bite of mos quitoes. In like manner it has been proved that certain fleas, carried by rats, spread the bubonic plague. In 1903 Dr. Charles W. Stiles proved that the inefficiency and low vitality of the "poor whites" in the southern United States were due to the parasitic hookworm. The special causes of typhoid and tuberculosis have become well known; and the germ that causes infantile paralysis has been discovered. Each such discovery has enabled men to fight dis ease more successfully. It is not improbable that in the not distant future all deadly con tagious disease may be practically banished from the earth. Between 1850 and 1900 the average human life in civilized lands had been lengthened by a fourth, and population has been trebled.