Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/39

Rh made possible by the enormous increase in the volume of production. The story of Philadelphia will, to an increasing extent, be that of the best housed and most contented of all the great communities in the world, full of evidences of private thrift and the domestic virtues, while exhibiting the paradox of a relatively low degree of efficiency in matters of common concern like municipal administration.

The historic towns of the Middle States are now engaged in the making of history in ways very different from those of the Colonial and Revolutionary periods, but in ways certainly not less important. But their future will be the wiser and happier for a studious devotion to the records of their honorable past, and they cannot be too zealous in the perpetuation of the old landmarks.