teacher, now find echoes in both hemispheres and in every continent.  From a new discovery in science to a new method of combating or applying Socialism, there is no movement of note which can take place in any part of the globe without powerfully affecting masses of people in Europe, America, and Australia, in Asia and Africa.  For weal or for woe, the peoples of mankind are knit together far closer than ever before.

So much for the geographical side of the expansion of modern civilization.  But only a few of the many and intense activities of modern civilization have found their expression on this side.  The movement has been just as striking in its conquest over natural forces, in its searching inquiry into and about the soul of things.

The conquest over Nature has included an extraordinary increase in every form of knowledge of the world we live in, and also an extraordinary increase in the power of utilizing the forces of Nature.  In both directions the advance has been very great during the past four or five centuries, and in both directions it has gone on with ever-increasing rapidity during the last century.  After the great age of Rome had passed, the boundaries of knowledge shrank, and in many cases it was not until well-nigh our own times that her domain was once again pushed beyond the ancient landmarks.  About the year 150 A.D., Ptolemy, the geographer, published his map of central Africa and the sources of the Nile, and this map was more accurate than any which we had as late as 1850 A.D.  More was known of physical science, and more of the truth about the physical world was guessed at, in the days of Pliny, than was known or guessed until the modern movement began.  The case was the same as regards military science.  At the close of the Middle Ages the weapons were what they had always been—­sword, shield, bow, spear; and any improvement in them was more than offset by the loss in knowledge of military organization, in the science of war, and in military leadership since the days of Hannibal and Caesar.  A hundred years ago, when this University was founded, the methods of transportation did not differ in the essentials from what they had been among the highly civilized nations of antiquity.  Travellers and merchandise went by land in wheeled vehicles or on beasts of burden, and by sea in boats propelled by sails or by oars; and news was conveyed as it always had been conveyed.  What improvements there had been had been in degree only and not in kind; and in some respects there had been retrogression rather than advance.  There were many parts of Europe where the roads were certainly worse than the old Roman post-roads; and the Mediterranean Sea, for instance, was by no means as well policed as in the days of Trajan.  Now steam and electricity have worked a complete revolution; and the resulting immensely increased ease of communication has in its turn completely changed all the physical questions of human life.