Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/601

 OUR DUTY TO THE FUTURE S9S

future^ in which we are outdone many times over by the cnstoms of the ancient dwellers of Egypt and Babylon, We may have Halls of Fame^ and galleries of statues^ but they are necessarily somewhat too exclusive and intangible to satisfy the desires of the archeologists of the future. We might emulate the enterprise shown abroad in pre- serving phonograph records of living orators, singers, and instrumen- talists. But why stop there? Our modes of recording history and noteworthy events seem to be at the height of perfection, and the preservation of photographs, moving-picture films, as well as the voices of our leading national figures is to add to the future an untold wealth of interest in us and what we have done, together with a better under- standing. The selection, then, of that which we ought to make an especial eflEort to preserve would probably be based upon the relation of the objects and records to the history, progress, culture and life of the nation as a whole. That the project should be financed and carried out by the federal government will probably be agreed to by all.

As a secondary function of our hypothetical commission there re- mains the necessity of determining how we shall go about it to pre- serve these things, once they have been chosen. Our review of de- structive agents, noting what they have done and still may do, as well as the consideration of the amount of resistance to these agents pos- sessed by our present materials, causes us to confront the problem with some degree of anzieiy, since no one of the materials known to man will serve for all the requirements of the problem^s solution. This phase of the movement would likewise need careful thought and dis- cussion, and it would probably be found that only a combination of materials would satisfy the requirements.

To paraphrase a well-known quotation, we can not predict in what century the "New Zealander will gaze on the ruins of Brooklyn Bridge.** Nor can we say at what moment the hand of the invader will be stretched out to destroy or snatch away our treasures. It is true that in time of war, or under threat of ruin by fire, earthquake, glacier or volcano, we could remove a portion of our works of art, our relics of state, and our rarest collections to some safer quarter of the country. But would such a move be final or satisfactory? When the Washington monument and Grants tomb are but rocky ruins in a watery waste, what will have become of the lesser works of the nation that erected these tributes to the memory of two of their most illustrious men? Let us determine that what we do leave shall be as well pre- served as the remains of the trilobites of fifty million years ago, and that our mode of preservation shall contain less of accident and more of thoughtful design. Looking forward, can we see this as a portion of our duty to the future? If we can, let us set about the fulfilment of our duty, as becomes true Americans.

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