Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876 — John Shaqi
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
It could hardly have been a recognition of carriage-making as one of
the fine arts that caused the placing of an immense receptacle for
such vehicles in so prominent a position near Memorial Hall. This
structure stands opposite the western half of the Main Building.
Combined with the annex erected for a like purpose by the Bureau of
Agriculture, which covers three acres, it would seem to afford room
for specimens of every construction ever placed on wheels since
Pharaoh's war-chariots limbered up for the Red Sea campaign. These
collections have no trifling significance as a sign of progress.
They are the product of good roads, one of the surest traces of
civilization. A century ago, a really good road was almost an unknown
thing. So recently as half so long since one of the light equipages
now so familiar to us would have been a simple impossibility. What
words of ecstasy Dr. Johnson, who pronounced the height of bliss to be
a drive over a turnpike of his day in a cranky post-chaise, would have
applied to a "spin" in one of these wagons, no imagination can guess.
Let us not boast ourselves over the sages who had the misfortune of
living too soon. It would be falling into the same blunder Macaulay
ascribed to Johnson in alleging that the philosopher thought the
Athenian populace the inferiors of Black Frank his valet, because they
could not read and Frank could. Our heads are apt to be turned by
our success in throwing together iron, timber, stone and other dead
matter. Let us remember that we are still at school, with no near
prospect of graduating. Many of our contemporary nations, to say
nothing of those who are to come after us, claim the ability to teach
us, as their being here proves. The assumption speaks from the stiff
British chimneys, the pert gables of the Swedes and the laboriously
wrought porticoes of the Japanese. This is well. It would be a bad
thing for its own future and for that of general progress could any
one people pronounce itself satisfied with what it had accomplished
and ready to set the seal to its labors.
GLIMPSES OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
TWO PAPERS.--I.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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