When I first entered the large hall of Shawmut College, where I was to deliver my lectures, I noticed near the door of the room a gentleman of about forty years of age. He was too old to be one of the students and as I had not seen him when Dr. Leete introduced me to the professors of the institution, I was somewhat curious to know in what capacity he honored my debut. The cordial reception I had met at the hands of the professors, the fact that every seat of the large hall was occupied, acted as a stimulus and when Dr. White, the president of Shawmut College had introduced me with a few complimentary remarks as a living witness of the nineteenth century, I began my first lecture in the best of spirits. My speech contained naturally many of the points that Dr. Leete had most dwelt upon, when, in his conversations with me, he had compared the organization of society of the nineteenth and that of the twentieth centuries. I said in substance, that my hearers must not expect a synopsis of the civilization of the two centuries or a panegyric of the present state of affairs. I would point out but a few conditions, regulations and institutions that could serve as criterion of the spirit of their times. As characteristic of the spirit of the civilization of the nineteenth century, I described the insane competition, where a man in a foul fight must “cheat, overreach, supplant, defraud, buy below worth and sell above, break down the business by which his neighbor fed his young ones, tempt men to buy what they ought not and to sell what they should not, grind their laborers, sweat their debtors, cozen their creditors,”[1] in order to be able to support those dependent on him. I showed “that there had been many a man among the people of the nineteenth century who, if it had been merely a question of his own life would sooner have given it up than nourished it by bread snatched from others.”[2] I pictured the consequences of this insane and annihilating competition as a constant wear on the brains and bodies of the past generation, intensified by the permanent fear of poverty. The spectre of uncertainty walked constantly beside the man of the nineteenth century, sat at his table and went to bed with him, even whispering in his ears: “Do your work ever so well, rise early and toil till late, rob cunningly or serve faithfully, you shall never know security. Rich you may be now and still come to poverty at last. Leave ever so much wealth to your children, you can not buy the assurance, that your son may not be the servant of your servant or that your daughter will not sell herself for bread.”[3] [1] Such parts of Mr. Bellamy’s book as are characteristic of his manner of dealing with the present and with the future, I give with marks of quotation, adding in a foot note the page of “Looking Backward,” where the sentence may be found. The above remarks are taken from page 277. [2] Page 277. [3] Page 321.