The child's story of the greatest century

Front matter

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CHAPTER I A Railroad Ride Through the Century

All Aboard ! — From 1800 to 1900 — A Look Around in 1800 — What the World Looked Like — How People Lived — The Strange World of our Grandfathers — The Growth of the World During the Century 17

CHAPTER II The United States from a Car Window

America from 1600 to 1800 — How We Bought Louisiana — Lewis and Clark Go West — The War of 181 2 — National Progress — Slavery and War — The Wealth of Alaska 25

Chapter III

Europe in the Nineteenth Century — The Wars of Napoleon — The Blessings of Peace — Travel in Africa — England and Russia in Asia — Civilization in Japan — The Philippine Islands — The March of Progress 33

CHAPTER IV Napoleon, the Great Conqueror

What Makes Men Great — Napoleon's Early Days — Napoleon Crosses the Alps — Napoleon Crowned Emperor — The Grand Army in Russia — Napoleon in Exile — The Return from Elba — The Battle of Waterloo . . 40

CHAPTER V Nelson, the Sailor, and Wellington, the Soldier

The British Islands — Horatio Nelson — The Battle of the Nile — Victory and Death at Trafalgar — Wellington in Spain and Portugal — The Hundred Days — Waterloo and the Fall of Napoleon 49

X TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI ''^'^^ The Champion of Right and the Tribune of the

People

The Victories of Peace — Gladstone's First Great Speech — Naples and Bulgaria — Gladstone and Disraeli — Home Rule in Ireland — Gladstone as Prime Minister — John Bright, the People's Tribune 57

Chapter VII

The Peninsula of Italy — The Italian Patriots-^Garibaldi's Wanderings — He Fights for Rome — Visits the United States — The War with the Austrians — Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy — Rome and Defeat — Rome and Naples 65

Chapter VIII

The Extent of Russia — Life in Russia — The Colossus of the East — The Country of the Turks — Wars of Russia and Turkey — Sebastopol Taken The Bulgarian Horror — The Nations Hungry for China 73

Chapter IX

Napoleon the Eittle — France After Waterloo — Louis Philippe — The Revolt of 1 848 — Louis Napoleon in France — The New Emperor — Soldiers Sent to Rome — The War with Austria — The French in Mexico 79

Chapter X

An English Boast— The Colony of Canada — Progress of Australia— India Conquered— The Terrible Retreat from Cabul— The Indian Mutiny — • Partition of Africa — The Struggle in Egypt • 88

Chapter XI

King William and Count Bismarck — Prussia Grows Powerful — Louis Napoleon's Blunders—" On to Berlin "—The Victories of the Germans- Surrender of Metz and Paris— The Crowning of William 95

TABLE OF CONTENTS xi

CHAPTER XII J'AOB Bolivar, the Liberator, and Touissant, the Brave

Spain and Her Colonies — Simon Bolivar — An Assassin Foiled — Crossing the Andes — Bolivar's Victories — The Reward of the Liberator — The Outbreak in Haj'ti — A Negro Conqueror and Ruler — Treachery of Napoleon . 105

Chapter XIII

Conditions in 1800 — Settling a Great Territory — Wars with England and Mexico — The City of Mexico — The Triumphs of Peace — Growth of Trade and Industry — Steamboats and Railroads — The Rule of the People . . 112

Chapter XIV

A New Variety of People — Black and Red Men — The Indians Fight for Their Homes — Beyond the Mississippi — Present State of the Indians — The Blacks in America — The Institution of Slavery — The Abolitionists . . 120

CHAPTER XV Abraham Lincoln and the Freedom of the Slave

The Life of a Poor Boy — From Rail-splitting to Congress — The Debate with Douglas — The Question of Slavery — Lincoln is Made President — The Slaves Set Free — An Assassin's Cruel Deed 127

Chapter XVI

The North and South in Arms — Vicksburg and Gettysburg — Grant Commander-in-Chief^Sherman's March to Atlanta — Crossing Georgia — The Siege of Petersburg — Thomas at Nashville — Lee's Retreat and Surrender 133

CHAPTER XVII The Battle of the Ironclads and the Birth of the

New Navy

Two Strange Vessels — The Monitor and the Merriniac — Farragut at New Orleans and Mobile — The Sinking of the Albemarle — The Kearsarge and the Aladaf7ia — Steelclad Fighters — The World's New Navies . . . 139 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVIII p^°«

How Japan and China Woke Out of Their Long Sleep

The Realm of Yellow Faces — The Opening of Japan — The Mikado m Power The Pride of China — Opening of the Ports — The Capture of Pekin — The War with Japan — The Question of Partition — The Boxers' War . 145

Chapter XIX

The Dark Continent — Exploration and Partition — The Boers and the English — Troubles of the Transvaal — Diamonds and Gold — A Declaration of War — How the Boers Fought — Fate of the Boer Republic 153

CHAATER XX

Livingstone and Stanley, the Great African

Travelers

Travel in Africa — Mungo Park and James Bruce — Livingstone, the Missionary — Lost to Sight — Stanley to the Rescue — Stanley's Great Journey Down the Congo — Emin Pasha and His Peril 160

Chapter XXI

The Northwest Passage and the Pole — Explorers of the Icy Seas — Sir John Franklin and His Loss — Greeley and His Misfortunes — Nansen and His Adventures — Peary in Greenland — His Break for the Pole 168

CHAPTER XXII The Treasures of the Hills

The Wealth of the Rocks — The California Gold Placers — Australia and South Africa — The Gold of Alaska — The Bonanza Silver Mines — The Diamonds of Africa — Vast Coal Deposits — Coal Oil Discoveries — Copper Mines . . 175

CHAPTER XXIII The Marvels of Machinery and the Great Inventors

Old and New Work in the Fields— The Tools of Our Grandfathers— The Era of Invention — Wonderful Progress in Machinery — Fulton and the Steamboat — Howe and the Sewing Machine — Goodyear and Rubber .... 181

TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER XXIV ^agr Morse and Edison, and the Marvels o'f Electricity

The Source of the Lightning — From Franklin to Morse — The Discovery of the Telegraph — Field and the Ocean Cable — Bell and the Telephone — The Electric Eight — Edison and His Discoveries 1 88

Chapter XXV

Science and Invention — What Makes Heat — Eight and Its Wonders — The Marvelous X-Ray — The Sun and the Stars — Geology and its Marvels — Plants and Animals — Man , Ancient and Modern — The Study of the Mind . 1 96

CHAPTER XXVI The Man Behind the Machine

Man the Worker — Old and New Systems of Industry — The Trades Union and the Strike — Combination of Labor and Capital — Profit Sharing and Co-operation — Socialism — The Status of the Laborer 203

CHAPTER XXVII The Growth of Commerce and Industry

Commerce in 1800 — Activity in England — Growth of Commerce in America and Germany — Industry in England, France and Germany — Activity of American Industry — Vast Productive Power — New Markets ..... 211

Chapter XXVIII

Contrast of 1800 with 1900 — Present Condition of the World — Modern Art Industry and Organization — Progress of Education — The Great Writers of the Century — Libraries and Art Galleries — Charity and Benevolence . 219

THE THOUGHTFUL BOY WHO INVENTED THE STEAM ENGINE

fames Watt the inventor of the first successful steam engine died in i8ig. His discovery made possible the

railroads, steamships and our most powerful machinery. The wonderful 19th Century owes more,

perhaps, to this thoughtful boy than to any other inventor.

Chapter I

ILL ABOARD!" Crowd in, boys and girls, all of you. Bring your field glasses and cameras, for there is much to be seen and many pictures which you will like to take. And don't forget your lunch boxes, lest you should grow hungry on the road. "All aboard ! Go ahead !"

It is a strange journey we are going to take. Our route lies not through space, but through time. Not over land and water, but backward over the years. Not to where your friends live in some distant city or state, but to where your grandfathers lived in a distant time. We are going back at lightning speed for a hundred ^ "" o^d years ; then we will come on by accommodation train to the present time, stopping at all the important stations for a long look around. But no one must leave the train until the engine comes puffing in to the station 1900, at the end of the journey.

It is a trip from 1800 to 1900 that I wish you to take, and you must try to see all that is worth seeing on the road. Here you will go through great cities and there over broad plains. Here you will see men working, and there you will see men fighting. Here you will see the first locomotive and telegraph, and there you will see flags flying and hear the trumpet and drum. It is a wonderful journey that lies before you, with much to see and much to think about "All aboard ! Go ahead ! "

Here we are at station 1800. Jump out briskly. Tell the engineer to wait for orders. Before we get on the cars to start back I want you to take a good look around this station. You all know something about what the year 1900 is like, and I want you to know what the world looked like a hundred years before, the\world your grandfathers were born into.

I wish we h^d a map of the world a century old ; it would be of use just now. Have you ever seen such a map of the United States ? It was a pretty big country then, but it has grown from a child into a man since that time. It stopped short at the Mississippi River, and all the vast country west of this river belonged to Spain. It did not states in 1800 ^vcn go as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, for Spain owned Florida and a strip of land many miles wide along the Gulf. So our forefathers were pretty well crowded in, you see. They could not even go down to the mouth of the Mississippi without passing through a foreign country, for the lower channel of this great river belonged to Spain.

You can see we did not have a very large country then alongside of the United States of to-day, spreading out, as it does, from ocean to ocean across the continent. But, for all that, it was too large for the people in it. Great part of it was wild forest, in which only wild beasts and savage Indians lived. Most of our people had their homes in the states along the Atlantic coast, and all their cities lay close to the ocean side. These were not much of cities. We would call most of them towns to-day. When w^e look at such great cities as New York and Philadelphia, each with much more than a million people, and look back at what they were then, we seem to see a mere handful of people brought together.

Would you have liked to live in those cities ? I do not think you would. George Washington and Benjamin

Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and other great men Hved in them and thought them very fine, but if they had ever lived in the way people live to-day they might have changed their minds. Most of the streets at that time were like country roads, dusty in summer and muddy in winter. Our smooth asphalt and brick pavements had not been thought of then. Yet I ought to go back a little farther, for the great age of invention began in the eighteenth century. It was then we got the steam-engine, which I may call the father of invention, for if it had not been for this, much of the machinery we now have would be of no use. Some of our machines, such as the bicycle and the sewing-machine are worked by foot-power ; some of them, like the mowing- , ^ ather of

•' ^ . . ^ Invention

and reaping machines, are worked by horsepower ; but the large and swift machines are worked by steam-power ; so we would be very badly off indeed without the steam-engine. Some day the electric-engine may take its place, but that day has not come yet.

Other important machines were invented in the eighteenth century. These were machines for spinning and weaving, the cotton-gin, the first steamboat, and various others. But for all that the nineteenth century has been much the greatest century for invention the world has ever known.

I mean to tell you in a later chapter something about our inventors. I cannot tell you much ; there were too many of them ; their inventions run far up into the thousands, though you may not think it. And some of the smallest of these took as nmch brain work to make as some of the largest. It took as much hard thought to invent a machine to make a pin as to produce one that would make a great steel engine-shaft. So I shall not trouble myself much about big or little in telling you about a few of our leading inventors.

At night the streets were Ht up by oil lamps, and often not lit up at all. No one dreamed of gas or electric lights. After dark people who had to go out stumbled about the best they could, and many of them carried lanterns with tallow candles in them.

It was as bad inside as outside. In most houses there was only one room well heated — the kitchen, with its great fireplace and blazing logs. The bedrooms in winter were as cold as Greenland. Father and mother and the little ones went shivering to bed, with only a tallow candle to light them, and got up shivering in the morning. ^ '^T^ Often they had to break the ice in the basin to

Comforts -^

wash their faces. They had very few of the comforts we have to-day. Not one floor in a hundred had a carpet ; furniture was rude and plain ; pictures and books were few and poor ; a hundred little comforts which we have were not thought of ; not as much as a match was to be had : you can thank your lucky stars that you live to-day instead of living then.

I might say a great deal more about the United States in those days, but we must leave that country and look at the rest of the world. If any of you had lived a hundred years ago, and gone up to a great height in a balloon, and looked down on the world spread out below you like a vast map, you would have seen life and activity almost everywhere. But the maps which men had in those days did not show much of this, for very little was then known of the world.

Civilized people knew a good deal about Europe and something about America, but they did not know much about the rest of the earth. If you had looked on a map of Africa at that time you would have seen a narrow strip around the coast with names and places, and a broad region inside quite bare of names. Nothing was known about this great interior.

Since then travelers have gone all over Africa, and the maps of it we have to-day are full of names of mountains, lakes, rivers, countries and tribes, none of which were known a century ago. It is almost as if we had discovered a new world.

The map of Asia had not much more to show. A good deal was known about India, Persia, and Arabia, but most of the continent seemed a broad, blank space. Hardly anything was known about China and less about Japan — though we know a great deal about those l^^""^ l^^^ countries to-day — and the centre and north of Asia might as well have been in the moon. The great island of Australia was not much better known, and many of the islands of the Pacific Ocean had never been seen.

If you had lived in 1800 and had seen a map of the world as it was known then, I am afraid you would have stared at it and asked what all those blank places meant, and if they were all great deserts. You might have asked who lived in Africa, and what countries there were in Asia, and what was to be seen in Australia. Nobody could have answered you. But to-day you could be told nearly all about those countries. This is one of the most wonderful things that has been done in the nineteenth century. The world has been discovered. For the first time in the history of man we are able to make a map of nearly the whole earth. I think that is a great deal to say, for it has been the work of hundreds of brave travelers, who went among savage peoples at the risk of their lives. Many of them never came back again. Some were killed and some starved to death ; some perished of cold in the Arctic ice and some of heat on the equator. When you are thinking of the courage of brave soldiers, just think of these men, who were in their way the bravest of soldiers, and gave their lives for the good of mankind.

Is that the locomotive I hear whistling ? Some one tell the engineer to hold on. We are not ready to start yet. There is a good deal still to be seen around the station 1800, and we must make our own time-table for this trip.

Take hold of hands, all of you. Now let us make a lightning leap to yonder mountain-top. We are traveling through time, you know, and there is no lead in our feet to hold us down. Here we are. Look down on the country spread before you, the country of 1800, and let me know what you see.

" There are no railroads," some one says. "I cannot

see an iron rail nor a locomotive anywhere." I fancy you

cannot. You are away back before the time of railroads and

locomotives. Look at the lumbering coach, drawn by four

or more sturdy horses, in the highroad yonder,

ayemga ^\\\i the driver ci-ackine: his whip proudly in

Century Ago o r r J

the air. Now he sounds his horses, and now the coach stops before a wayside inn, with a creaking sign at the top of a high post, and out leap the half dozen or whole dozen of travelers. That inn was the station of the year 1800.

" But are these all the travelers ? " you ask.

Yes, indeed ; you see the whole of them. When we stand in a modern railway station, with its hundreds of people coming and going, hour by hour, it is hard to believe that one or two stage coaches, with a dozen or two of passengers, made up the daily travel of a century ago. But such is the case. Men who had to go a hundred miles from home made their wills and bade good-bye to their families and friends, for they were afraid they would never see them again.

And on that river, where you would now see a dozen steamboats and a crowd of puffing tugboats, you can see, from our present outlook, only a few vessels moved by sails. The steamboat was yet to come. It is true that a little, awkward sort of boat was run by steam on the Delaware River before 1800, but it was not* the kind of craft that people cared to travel in, and it soon went out of sight again.

Look farther and see what else is in view. Far and wide stretch before you great forests, broken here and there by settlements, where farmers are busy at work in their fields. But just see the tools they are using ! There goes a row of brawny men, with long curved scythes, cutting down the tall grass of the fields. And yonder are other men, with short curved blades, called sickles, gathering and clipping off the wheat stalks as they go. And in the barns are other stalwart fellows, with long linked sticks, which they call flails, beatinof the straw to knock out the g^rains of wheat or oats. In some places we may see cattle and"pres'en** driven over the straw to tread out the grain.

How different is all this from farm work nowadays ! Why, you might go to-day almost from end to end of this country and not see a scythe, a wheat sickle, or a flail. Instead, you would see horses drawing light machines through the fields, which mow down the grass and cut and bind the wheat stalks, and plant the seed, and do almost everything else needed. And in the barn you would see threshing machines which make short work of separating the grain from the straw.

The nineteenth century has been the century of machines. In 1800 nearly all the work of the farm was done by hand. In 1900 it was nearly all done by machines, and one man could do as much as ten men in the past. And so it was with nearly all other kinds of work. Looking from your mountain-top you will see none of the great factories, filled with rattling machinery, in which the work of the world is now done. In 1800 very much of this work was done at home, with small, simple tools and machines, and the age of the factory was just coming on. The steam-engine had lately been invented, but it was like a baby still. Many years would be needed for it to grow into a giant.

Look aeain. What else has our mountain outlook to show ? One thing you may see is that people had to work very hard in 1800. Hand work is hard work; machine work is easy work. Then every one worked till the sun sank out of sight, and went to bed tired enough. Most of our people to-day hardly know what hard work is.

There was not much time for amusements. The very play was work. In the houses there were spinning and sewing, and quilting parties ; in the barns there were husking frolics ; after a wedding the neighbors came to ome lea j^^j^ ^^ ^j^^ house-raising ; men went hunting

and fishing for food more than for sport. They called all this amusement, but it was work as well. They could not afford to waste time in play. Yet I have no doubt they enjoyed it all. They were hearty, honest folks, who did not have many holidays, but got all the fun they could out of what they had.

Ha ! there sounds the whistle again ! Let us skip back to the station. If we stop to see more the train may start without us. Hurry up, little and big, boys and girls ! Jump on the cars! There screams the whistle with its "Toot! Too-00-oot ! Toot !" There sounds the engine bell, with its '' Clang ! Cling ! Clang ! " " All aboard ! Go ahead ! "

NAPOLEON CROSSING THE ALPS

CHAPTER II. America from a Car Window

WAY we go, rattling down the century. A queer sort of railroad ride, isn't it? If you look from the car windows you will not see fields and woods and towns sweeping past, as we do when we travel through the country ; but you will see events taking place ; you will see the years pass before you like a panorama ; you will see forests falling, and cities growing, and men marching and working, and all those things going on which make up the history of a century.

First, there spreads before us the republic of the west, the United States. Let us take our pioneer trip through that fresh young land. If you look back to the year 1600 you will see there only a wilderness, the home of the wild beast and the savage Indian. Go on to 1700 and you behold a few settlements of white men near the ocean shores, but all the vast back country is a wilderness still. Now onward to 1800. See what a change! The settlements have grown and spread until there are more than five million white men in the land, and a new nation has arisen, a nation without a king or a duke, a lord or a baron, and in which the only nobles are the people themselves. Leap now to 1900, and we find this young nation to be one of the greatest and strongest and richest and noblest on the face of the earth.

Onward we fly down the years, but not to the century's end ; we are brought to a halt by a great event in the history

26 AMERICA I ROM A CAR WINDOW

of the new-born nation. In 1800 it went west to the Mississippi River, and there it stopped. Any of your forefathers who crossed that stream found himself in a foreign land, for all the vast country on the other side belonged to Spain.

That country had once belonged to France, whose people called it Louisiana, after their king, Louis XIV. Then it was given to Spain, and in 1801 Spain gave it back to France. It was like a bad penny, passing from hand to hand. And now an important event took place which w^e must stop to observe before we rattle on.

The Americans of that time did not want this vast wilderness of Louisiana. They had more land already than they knew what to do with. What they did want was the city of New Orleans. They wished their vessels to go down the Mississippi to the sea without sailing through The Louisiana ^^^^ ^^j^ , ^^^ soldicrs of Spain or France, and

Purchase -^ ^ ^

which might be closed against them at any time.

Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then the emperor of France, was asked to sell New Orleans to the United States. He was then at war with England and other countries, and did not care a fig for all the wild land beyond the seas. What he wanted was money to buy food and arms for his soldiers. So he offered to sell, not only New Orleans, but the whole vast country of Louisiana, to the United States for fifteen million dollars. Thomas Jefferson was then President. He agreed to buy that great region, and by a stroke of the pen it became part of the United States.

Look out from your car windows on the year 1803, and see what it has to show. You behold the United States sweeping across the Mississippi River and away west to the Rocky Mountains, and growing in a moment to more than double its old size. It is like some of the stories you may have read of a man planting a twig at night and finding a tree in the morning. But if you look westward from the station 1803 over this new territory I fear you will see nothing but mist and fog. You know that it has its tribes of Indians, its strange animals, its mighty mountains, its wonders of nature, but you see them only like dim ghosts of things. President Jefferson had made a leap in the dark. He did not know what he had bought. So he sent out two daring men, Captains Lewis and Clark, to travel as far west as they could and come back and tell him what they had seen.

These bold men plunged into that unknown land as we might plunge into a deep cloud. For two years and a half they were lost to sight ; no one knew if they were dead or alive. Then they came back ag^ain, after e^oiner . . ,^. .

^ . , if Lewis and Clark

over eight thousand miles of unknown land.

They had a wonderful story to tell of broad plains and great rivers, of mighty mountains and grand forests, of strange tribes of Indians and endless troops of buffaloes. They had gone on till they reached the great Pacific Ocean, and then turned back. People read the story of their adventures as we read to-day an exciting tale of travel. Only then did the people begin to see how rich and great a country President Jefferson had bought.

We are off again now for the next station in our journey. As we pass swiftly on we see rapid changes taking place around us. People are going west in wagons with their families and goods, or floating down the rivers in rude boats. The trees are falling, the fields are being planted, new homes are rising, towns are extending. The nation is growing. And soon we see something new on the inland streams. The steamboat appears and begins to beat the water with its broad paddles and glides on without oars or sails.

The people are looking angrily out to sea. What do they behold ? There is trouble on the ocean waves. British warships are stopping our merchant vessels and taking men from them. Many deep-laden ships are seized and all their cargoes taken. The Indians are being stirred up to war by British scouts. All over the land you may see the people talking in anger. They have had a war for liberty with England, now they want a war for justice and right. We hear them cry, " Free trade and Sailors' rights ! "

In a moment more we are in the year 1812. Drums are beating and soldiers are marching. War has begun. Fighting takes place, by land and sea. Now the British win battles and now the Americans, but neither side is much the better for the fighting, and not much glory is gained on shore.

Let us leave the land and look out to sea. Before our