Now steam and
electricity have worked a complete revolution; and the resulting
immensely increased ease of communication has in its turn completely
changed all the physical questions of human life. A voyage from Egypt
to England was nearly as serious an affair in the eighteenth century
as in the second; and the news communications between the two lands
were not materially improved. A graduate of your University to-day can
go to mid-Asia or mid-Africa with far less consciousness of performing
a feat of note than would have been the case a hundred years ago with
a student who visited Sicily and Andalusia. Moreover, the invention
and use of machinery run by steam or electricity have worked a
revolution in industry as great as the revolution in transportation;
so that here again the difference between ancient and modern
civilization is one not merely of degree but of kind. In many vital
respects the huge modern city differs more from all preceding cities
than any of these differed one from the other; and the giant factory
town is of and by itself one of the most formidable problems of modern
life.
Steam and electricity have given the race dominion over land and water
such as it never had before; and now the conquest of the air is
directly impending.
Pages:
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137