p. 1 | OUR COUNTRY'S PROGRESS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 9, 1876

OUR COUNTRY'S PROGRESS.

(Concluded.)

The Arts, Sciences, and Invention have made great progress in our country during the last hundred years. These, at the close of the Revolution, were of little account in estimating the advance of the race. The practitioners of the Arts of Design, at that period, were chiefly Europeans. Of native artists, C. W. Peale and J. S. Copley stood at the head of painters. There were no sculptors, and no engravers of any eminence. Architects, in the proper sense, there were none. After the Revolution a few good painters appeared, and these have gradually increased in numbers and excellence, without much encouragement, except in portraiture, until within the last twenty-five years. We have now good sculptors, architects, engravers, and lithographers; and in all of these departments, as well as in photography, very great progress has been made within the last thirty or forty years. In wood engraving, especially, the improvement has been wonderful. Forty years ago there were not more than a dozen practitioners of the art in this country; now there are between four and five hundred. At the head of that class of artists stands the name of Dr. Alexander Anderson, who was the first man who engraved on wood in the United States. He died in 1870 at the age of ninety-five years. In bank-note engraving we have attained to greater excellence than any other people. It is considered the most perfect branch of the art in design and execution.

Associations have been formed for improvements in the Arts of Design. The first was organized in Philadelphia in 1791, by C. W. Peale, in connection with Ceracchi, the Italian sculptor. It failed. In 1802 the American Academy of Fine Arts was organized in the city of New York, and in 1807 the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, yet in existence, was established in Philadelphia. In 1826 the American Academy of Fine Arts was superseded by the National Academy of Design, in the city of New York, which is now a flourishing institution.

In education and literature our progress has kept pace with other things. At the very beginning of settlements, the common school was made the special care of the State in New England. Not so much attention was given to this matter elsewhere in the Colonies. The need of higher institutions of learning was early felt; and eighteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims from the May Flower, Harvard College was founded. When the war for independence began there were nine colleges in the Colonies, namely, Harvard, at Cambridge, Mass.; William and Mary, at Williamsburg, Va.; Yale, at New Haven, Conn.; College of New Jersey, at Princeton; University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia; King's (now Columbia) in the city of New York; Brown University, at Providence, R. I.; Dartmouth, at Hanover, N. H.; and Rutgers at New Brunswick, N. J. There are now about 300 colleges in the United States.

At the period of the Revolution, teaching in the common schools was very meagre, and remained so for full thirty years. Only reading, spelling, and arithmetic, were regularly taught. The Psalter, the New Testament, and the Bible, constituted the reading-books. No history was read; no geography or grammar were taught; and until the putting forth of Webster's Spelling Book in 1783, pronunciation was left to the judgment of teachers. That book produced a revolution.

As the nation advanced in wealth and intelligence, the necessity for correct popular education became more and more manifest, and associated efforts were made for the improvement of the schools by providing for the training of teachers, under the respective phases of Teachers' Associations, Educational Periodicals, Normal Schools, and Teachers' Institutes. The first of these societies in this country was the “Middlesex County Association for the Improvement of Common Schools,” established at Middletown, Connecticut, in 1799. But little of importance was done in that direction until within the last forty-five years. Now provision is made in all sections of the Union, not only for the support of common schools, but for training-schools for teachers. Since the civil war, great efforts have been made to establish common-school systems in the late slave-labor States, that should include among the beneficiaries the colored population. Much has been done in that regard.

Very great improvements have been made in the organization and discipline of the public schools in cities within the last thirty years. Free schools are rapidly spreading their beneficent influence over the whole Union, and in some States laws have been made that compel all children of a certain age to go to school. Institutions for the special culture of young women in all that pertains to college education, have been established within a few years. The pioneer in this work is Vassar College, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., which was first opened in the year 1865.

Besides the ordinary means for education, others have been established for special purposes. There are Law, Scientific, Medical, Theological, Military, Commercial, and Agricultural Schools, and seminaries for the deaf, dumb, and blind. In many States school district libraries have been established. There are continually enlarging means provided for the education of the whole people. Edmund Burke said, “Education is the cheap defense of nations.”

Our literature is as varied as the tastes of the people. No subject escapes the attention of our native scholars and authors. At the period of the Revolution, books were few in variety and numbers. A larger portion of them were devoted to theological subjects. Booksellers were few, and were only found in the larger cities. Various subjects were discussed in pamphlets—not generally in newspapers as now. The editions of books were small, and, as stereotyping was unknown, they became rare in a few years, because there was only a costly way of reproduction.

In the year 1801, a new impetus was given to the book trade by the formation of the “American Company of Booksellers”—a kind of “union.” Twenty years later competition broke up the association. Before the war of 1812 the book trade in the United States was small. School books only had very large sales. Webster's Spelling Book was an example of the increasing demand for such helps to education. During the twenty years he was engaged on his Dictionary, the income from his Spelling Book supported him and his family. It was published in 1783, and its sales have continually increased to the present time, when they amount to over 1,000,000 copies a year. Other school books of every kind now have an immense annual circulation. The general book trade in this country is now immense in the number of volumes issued and the capital and labor employed. Readers are rapidly increasing. An ardent thirst for knowledge or entertainment to be found in books, magazines, and newspapers, makes a very large demand for these vehicles, while, at the same time, they produce widespread intelligence. The magazine literature, now generally healthful, is a powerful adjunct of books in this popular culture; and the newspaper, not always so healthful, supplies the daily and weekly demand for ephemerals in literature and general knowledge. To supply that demand required great improvements in printing machinery, and these have been supplied.

The printing-press, at the time of the Revolution, is shown in that used by Franklin, in which the pressure force was obtained by means of a screw. The ink was applied by huge balls; and an expert workman could furnish about fifty impressions an hour. This was improved by Earl Stanhope in 1815, by substituting for the screw a jointed lever. Then came inking machines, and one man could work off 250 copies an hour. Years passed on, and the cylinder press was invented; and in 1847 it was perfected by Richard M. Hoe, of New York. This has been further improved lately, and a printing-press is now used which will strike off 15,000 newspapers printed on both sides, every hour.

The newspapers printed in the United States at the beginning of the Revolution were few in number, small in size, and very meagre in information of any kind. They were issued weekly, semi-weekly, and tri-weekly. The first daily newspaper issued in this country was the American Daily Advertiser, established in Philadelphia in 1784. In 1775 there were 37 newspapers and periodicals in the United States, with an aggregate issue that year of 1,200,000 copies. In 1870 the number of daily newspapers in the United States was 542; and of weeklies, 4,425. Of the dailies, 800,000,000 were issued that year; of the weeklies, 600,000,000, and of other serial publications 100,000,000, making an aggregate of full 1,500,000,000 copies. To these figures should be made a large addition at the close of 1875. There are now about forty newspapers in the United States which have existed over fifty years.

In the providing of means for moral and religious culture and benevolent enterprises, there has been great progress in this country during the century now closing. The various religious denominations have increased in membership fully in proportion to the increase of population. Asylums of every kind for the unfortunate and friendless have been multiplied in an equal ratio, and provision is made for all.

One of the most conspicuous examples of the growth of our republic is represented by the postal service. Dr. Franklin had been Colonial Postmaster-General, and he was appointed to the same office for one year by the Continental Congress in the Summer of 1775. He held the position a little more than a year, and at the end of his official term there were about 50 post-offices in the United States. All the accounts of the General Post-Office Department during that period were contained in a small book consisting of about two quires of foolscap paper, which is preserved in the Department at Washington City. Through all the gloomy years of the weak Confederacy the business of the Department was comparatively light; and when the national government began its career in 1789 there were only about seventy-five post-offices, with an aggregate length of post-roads of about 1,900 miles. The annual income was $28,000, and the annual expenditures were $32,000. The mails were carried by postmen on horseback, and sometimes on foot. Now the number of post-offices is over 33,000; the aggregate length of post-routes 256,000 miles; the annual revenue $23,000,000, and the annual expenditures $29,000,000.

We may safely claim for our people and country a progress in all that constitutes a vigorous and prosperous nation during the century just passed, equal, if not superior to that of any other on the globe. And to the inventive genius and skill of the Americans may be fairly awarded a large share of the honor acquired by the construction of machinery which has so largely taken the place of manual labor. In that progress the American citizen beholds a tangible prophecy of a brilliant future for his country.