Thus, Rome did not fall because of the barbarians, but because of herself. She fell because her people allowed the Machine which she had built up, in spite of the barbarians outside, at so much cost of labor and blood, to become so weak that it could no longer protect itself. Can this happen to our Machine? Yes, and it will happen as surely as effect follows after cause, unless means be taken to see that men are trained to care for the Machine more carefully than they are trained now. _In no country is there any serious effort made to train men to operate the Machine of Government_, except those parts of the Machine that are called the army and the navy:--though some tremendous efforts are made in private life to train men to handle corporations and business enterprises, and to learn all that can be learned in medicine, engineering, the Law and all the "learned professions." And even the efforts made to train officers to handle armies and navies are in great part neutralized by placing men at the head of those armies and navies who are not trained in the slightest. The Roman Machine fell with a crash that was proportional to the magnitude of the Machine. The Machine of today is much larger and heavier than the Roman. If it falls, as it may, the crash will be proportionally greater. What will follow, the mind recoils from contemplating. CHAPTER X CERTAIN IMPORTANT CREATIONS OF INVENTION, AND THEIR BENEFICENT INFLUENCE In 1843 Charles Thurber invented the typewriter. Few inventions are more typical. In 1843, the conditions of life were such that the first stage in inventing the typewriter must have been the conception of an extremely brilliant and original idea. After that, the difficulties of embodying the idea in a concrete form must have been very great; for it was not until about 1875 that instruments of practical usefulness were in general use. Since then, typewriters have penetrated into virtually every office in the civilized world.