Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/336

320 become regular institutions, while they were formerly indulged only in cases of sickness; and the excursions of school vacations, the pleasure-trains and the extra trains on holidays, long wedding tours, excursion parties to foreign lands, or around the world, are evidences of the taste for traveling that modern men feel, and of the ease with which it is gratified. Then there are the journeys to meetings of men of a common calling, to scientific congresses or social unions. There is hardly a condition or a professional society that does not feel the need of bringing its members together, and of holding at different but always agreeable places social unions. To these we may add exhibitions, in which fisheries and agriculture, the industries and the fine arts display and compare their efforts, with their culmination in periodical world's fairs. Without railroads this mobility and this releasing of men from their soil, which answer a deep longing f our nature, would be possible only within the narrowest limits.

It can not be denied that with all this are connected a great enrichment, with new views and feelings, a considerable enlargement of mental scope, and a strong stimulus to mental activity, even where no intention of the kind is entertained. Errors are cleared up and prejudices are overcome. Deficiencies at home are revealed by comparison with what is seen abroad, and all that is recognized as better is imitated and improved upon. Habits are also disciplined. Railroads demand an exact account of time, and require all who use them to conform to their regulations. They train people in the most efficient manner to punctuality, to quick decision, and to the omission of formalities.

The forms of intercourse and family relations are also not slightly affected. It can hardly be said that the influence in the former case is always beneficial. Politeness and regard for fellow-travelers, if they happen to interfere with one's own comfort, are not exactly cultivated with zest by railroad-passengers. But we frequently meet polite and interesting traveling-companions, whose intercourse gives us pleasure. Moreover, railroad-traveling brings persons of different degrees of cultivation together, and is fitted to smooth the forms of intercourse, and to have, on the whole, a refining influence, provided cultivated persons set good examples.

I am uncertain whether heart-connections leading to marriage are often formed on railway-journeys. If we may trust the novelists and playwrights, this is the case. At any rate, railway-traveling has an influence on relations of this kind to the extent that it favors the forming of acquaintances between persons living at a distance from one another, out of which family relations may grow. Marriages certainly are negotiated over a much wider scope than formerly, both within the country of residence and as reaching into foreign countries. Distance offers no obstacle to the father's informing himself concerning the circumstances of his daughter's suitor; and the careful mother can