Page:Back to the Republic.djvu/20

 stood the strain of the great Civil War and came out of it stronger and better.

The governmental atmosphere of individual security seemed to stimulate individual effort toward discovery and invention, so that we made material and commercial progress that has had no parallel in history. We advanced from the wooden spade to the steam plow, from the ox-cart to the freight train, from the blacksmith shop to the great manufacturing plant, from the flail to the steam thresher, from the cradle to the self-binder, from the needle to the sewing-machine, from the spinning-wheel to the great textile mills, from the stage coach to the Pullman palace car, from the messenger boy on foot or horseback to the telephone and telegraph, from the prairie schooner to the automobile. And equal progress has been made along many other lines since the founding of this republic. While doing all this we advanced from the education of the few to the great public-school system, from slavery to political equality, from religious bondage to religious liberty.

Other nations of the world were struck with awe and admiration by the marvelous manner in which the new republic was solving its problems and securing to its people political privileges such as the world theretofore had not known.