Show HUMANITY NOT RETROGRADING The saying of President Patton of Princeton that tho Twentieth Century dawns upon a race that Is mediocre falls altogether in originality and is not correct as a fact There has never been an age of which wo have any record that was not compared com-pared unfavorably with ages that had gono before And yet probably the only periods of mans existence that really showed 1a pronounced and general gen-eral deterioration were at the Greek decadence and the Dark ages so called In Europe There Is I no reason at all to compare our present times or men unfavorably with the times and men of any age whatever Whether In scholarship art Invention material triumphs of tlie industrial and commercial com-mercial IKe In intrepidity of exploration tion in Charities gifts for education in religion or research there relgion has never been a time In the history of tho world that can approach the present Wo know more ofjhe history of the human hu-man race in Its beginnings in Its do veopments and In its tendencies than our ancestors did and make better and more honest use of It than they would have done had they had It art is more advanced and loss subject to crudities crudi-ties and barbarisms In invention no ago Is comparable to our ownwhethcr ownwtethcr we consider the great advanccnipntg Of applied science and daring conceptions or the mal conveniences of llcwc are lodged better fed hotter clothed better and live longer than men overdid over-did before our Ideas of morality and decency In conduct arc more elevated than were ever before prevalent among mankind our general standards of 1IV ing and of thought aro higher than any generation of men over before attained at-tained our public Ideals arc mpro lofty officials net less on sordid and personal motives than ever before though there arc occasional lamentable failures now whereas thero waS much grOMer proportion pro-portion oC lapses formerly than we ex perlcnccrthcrclsamore generaldeulre to benefit mankind that needs help and this desire is more extensively aqd effectively put Into effect than ever before So that we maintain we are on the up grade and not on the decline de-cline wo progress In all deslrable growth and do not deteriorate The more civilized humane anti moral races of the earth have gained not only relatively rela-tively but absolutely over the depraved and unenlightened races wheeas at the close of the Eighteenth Ccntury tho enlightened population oflle world comprised and swayed but a small portion of tho worlds aggregate population popu-lation that enlightened population comprises now fully onethird of the total population of the earth and controls con-trols twothirds of the whole before this century Is many decades old it Will control practically all of It and will ameliorate the condition of the inferior wi amelorate ferior races to such an extent that they may well believe the millennium has come For say what you will the rule of the sovereign races of the earth Is i mild just and goodly in every feature compared with the cruel bloody and rapacious rule of horror that commonly common-ly prevails among the dark races In view of what Is well known Indisputable Indisputa-ble and easy to be seen of all this Is no period to set up walls of sorrow either for lost glories or for decadence In men for men capable of so transforming trans-forming the world as civilized men are now doing arc not mediocre either In grasp of intellect or in any of the high qualities that make humanity the chief of all created things the pride of the world and the heritor of eternal glory |