Different nations have accomplished different things and have scattered the seeds of these accomplishments among other nations. Certain individuals have seen farther in certain directions than their fellows and have contributed to civilization the results of their vision. Whoever has added to the safety, the happiness, the power, or the convenience of society; whoever discovers a star or a microbe; whoever paints a picture or plants a tree, builds a bridge or fights a righteous battle; whoever makes two ears of corn grow where there grew but one before; whoever lets the light shine in upon a darkened street or a darkened spirit is an agent of civilization. The history of civilization is largely a history of man's struggle against the forces of nature and of his victory over them. Nature is always saying to man, "Thou shalt not"; and man is always replying, "I will." If diseases lurk in air and water, cures are ready in the mind of man. Nature shoves men apart with lofty mountains; but man drives his iron horse over the mountains or through them. Vast oceans roll and mighty winds blow between continents; but steam laughs at stormy seas. The moon's light is not sufficient for man's purposes and he makes a brighter one. When winter blows his icy breath, man warms himself with coal and fire. The South pours down upon him her scorching summer; but he has learned how to freeze water into ice. Time and space conspire together for human isolation; man conjures with electricity and with it destroys both. The stars seek to hide their secrets behind immeasurable distances; but an Italian gives man a glass that brings the heavens closer before his vision. History tries to conceal itself in the rubbish of ages; but with ink man preserves the past. His asylums, hospitals, churches, schools, libraries, and universities are lights along the shore guiding the human race in its voyage down the ever widening stream of growth and possibility. The centuries do not yield to man equal advancement. Some are very fertile; others are almost, if not quite, barren. The entire period of a thousand years stretching from the fall of Rome to the discovery of America was as sterile as a heath. On the other hand, the nineteenth century was the greatest in history in point of human progress, especially in the field of inventions. It alone gave to man far more of civilization than the whole ten centuries before the discovery of America or indeed any other period of a thousand years. One hundred years ago there was not a mile of railroad, ocean cable, or telegraph wire in the world; not a telephone, automobile, electric light, or typewriter. The people were then deriding the new-born idea of the steamboat, and wireless telegraphy had not been dreamed of.