from these general considerations to the evidences that this
is an "era of progress" in the condition of individual men, we are met by
more specific denials. Granted, it is said, all your facilities for
travel and communication, for cheap and easy manufacture, for the
distribution of cheap literature and news, your cheap education, better
homes, and all the comforts and luxuries of your machine civilization, is
the average man, the agriculturist, the machinist, the laborer any better
for it all? Are there more purity, more honest, fair dealing, genuine
work, fear and honor of God? Are the proceeds of labor more evenly
distributed? These, it is said, are the criteria of progress; all else is
misleading.

Now, it is true that the ultimate end of any system of government or
civilization should be the improvement of the individual man. And yet
this truth, as Mr. Froude puts it, is only a half-truth, so that this
single test of any system may not do for a given time and a limited area.
Other and wider considerations come in. Disturbances, which for a while
unsettle society and do not bring good results to individuals, may,
nevertheless, be necessary, and may be a sign of progress. Take the
favorite illustration of Mr. Froude and Mr. Ruskin--the condition of the
agricultural laborer of England. If I understand them, the civilization
of the last century has not helped his position as a man. If I understand
them, he was a better man, in a better condition of earthly happiness,
and with a better chance of heaven, fifty years ago than now, before the
"era of progress" found him out. (It ought to be noticed here, that the
report of the Parliamentary Commission on the condition of the English
agricultural laborer does not sustain Mr. Froude's assumptions. On the
contrary, the report shows that his condition is in almost all respects
vastly better than it was fifty years ago.) Mr. Ruskin would remove the
steam-engine and all its devilish works from his vicinity; he would
abolish factories, speedy travel by rail, new-fangled instruments of
agriculture, our patent education, and remit him to his ancient
condition--tied for life to a bit of ground, which should supply all his
simple wants; his wife should weave the clothes for the family; his
children should learn nothing but the catechism and to speak the truth;
he should take his religion without question from the hearty, fox-hunting
parson, and live and die undisturbed by ideas. Now