eth century depends upon the future work of those
inventors and industrial promoters whose names have become most
famous during the latter half of the nineteenth. But this personal
treatment of the subject will be found to be in the last degree
unsatisfactory, when judged in the light both of past experience and
of some of the utterances of those eminent inventors who have tried to
forecast the future in their own particular lines of research.

If, therefore, we look at the whole subject from the entirely
impersonal point of view, and face the task of forecasting the
progress of industry during the twentieth century, in this aspect we
shall find that we have entered upon a chapter in the evolution of the
human race--dealing, in fact, with a branch of anthropology. We see
certain industrial and inventive forces at work, producing certain
initial effects, but plainly, as yet, falling immeasurably short of an
entire fulfilment of their possibilities; setting to work a multitude
of busy brains, planning and arranging, and gradually preparing the
minds of the more apathetic portion of humanity for the reception of
new ideas and the adoption of improved methods of life and of work.
Whither is it all tending? Will the twentieth century bring about as
great a change upon the earth--man's habitat--as the nineteenth did?
Or have the possibilities of really great and effective industrial
revolutions been practically exhausted? The belief impressed upon the
Author's mind, by facts and considerations evoked during the
collection of materials for this book, is that the march of industrial
progress is only just beginning, and that the twentieth century will
witness a far greater development than the nineteenth has seen.

The great majority of mankind still require to be released from the
drudgery of irksome, physical exertion, which, when power has been
cheapened, will be seen to be to a very large extent avoidable.
Pleasurable exercise will be substituted for the monotonous, manual
labour which, while it continues, generally precludes the possibility
of mental improvement. Hygienic science will insist more strenuously
than ever upon the great truth that, in order to be really serviceable
in promoting the health of mind and body, physical exertion must be in
some degree exhilarating, and the bad old practice of "all work and no
play," which was based upon the assumption that a boy can get as much
good out of chopping wood for an hour