better day for the public school and the public school teacher. The press is daily teeming with arguments for our cause; for the principles of a good civil service are essentially the same as the principles of a good educational service. Hence the achievement of the civil service reform will prepare the way for this reform. The spoils system and the annual election are twin barbarisms, and with the abolition of the former the latter must go.

But permanent tenure is not to be brought into successful operation by a single legislative act. This radical reform must be reached by a series of steps. Initiatory steps have already been taken in various quarters. It is worthy of mention that, at the late session of the Massachusetts Legislature, the chairman of the Committee on Public Service offered to include the teaching service in the provision of the civil service reform bill reported by his committee. This reform must begin practically in the cities and larger towns. Teachers have their duty in connection with this task. Everywhere they should pour in their petitions and memorials upon the legislatures, throughout the country, and do their share of the work in creating public opinion which shall demand this reform.

XV.

MANIFEST DESTINY.

The Destiny of the English Race of America and of the

World.

BY JOHN FISKE, LL.D.

[ABSTRACT.]

The manifest destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race is a fruitful theme for many Fourth-of-July orations, but there is also a philosophical and historical side to this interesting question. I would, however, prefer to call it the race, English; for, like the Englishman of England, the American may have absorbed many foreign elements, but is as essentially English to-day in political habits and aptitudes as were his ancestors in the days of DeMontfort, Hampden, or Washington.

Looking first at civilization, we may premise that it means primarily the gradual substitution of a state of peace for a state of war. This change is the condition precedent for all other kinds of improvement that are connected by such a term as "civilization." The next step is the union of small political groups into larger groups for common protection, without sacrificing local independence. But, in order that the pacific community may be able to go on doing its work, it must be strong enough to overcome quarrelsome or barbarous neighbors. Hence the most pacific communities should have the greatest military strength, - peace obtainable only through war

This point has been slowly gained, and much of the murderous warfare of the past was necessary for future civilization. But all this prodigious slaughtering made the problem of pacific life more difficult. The turbulence constantly prevented closely coherent communities from being formed; endangered the people's liberties; gave ever-recurring opportunities for one-man power; or led to the ever-fatal tendency of despotically governing conquered or dependent people. Thus succumbed Greek and Roman, and so in later days all Europe. But what of England? Its strategic position saved it. It was never necessary to keep a great standing army; its navy was all-sufficient: a navy could defend, but could not oppress the nation. The nation's normal political development, though checked, could still go onward. In England, and England alone, the free government of the primitive Aryans has, to this day, been uninterruptedly maintained. Everywhere else it has been impaired or lost.

Recognizing this advantage, we can see the significance of the stupendous expansion of the English race, which first became possible through the discovery and settlement of North America, one of the most prodigious events in the political annals of mankind. Mark the epoch! It was the time of the great struggle between Protestantism and Asiaticism, whether the Aryan race should go on in its progress, or sink into the barren and monotonous way of living and thinking which has always distinguished the half-civilized populations of Asia, Holland and England on the one side; Spain and the Pope on the other. In Europe there were varying successes. But vast America came upon the field. The race which here should gain the victory was clearly destined to lead the world. The colonies would inevita

bly rival the State that planted them. Their political influence would overshadow all. It was not until the American Revolution that this began to be dimly realized by a few prescient thinkers. Even now it has an air of novelty. But, when the highly civilized community, representing the ripest political ideas of England, was planted in America, removed from the manifold checks of the old world, its growth was rapid and steady. There was now no occasion for a military aspect. Principles of self-government were at once put into operation ; no one thought of calling them into question. When the neighboring civilization of inferior type, the French in Canada, became seriously troublesome, it was struck down at a blow. When ignorant king and short-sighted ministers attempted to enforce on the new communities their antiquated theories, the political bond with the mother-country was severed. But it was no war between different peoples of antagonistic theories and policies. Like the war of the barons, it was a war for principles dear to all.

From that date the astonished world saw two Englands prepared to work with might and main for the political regeneration of mankind. What can be the outcome of this increase of the English race in America? Obviously the multiplication of an orderly and industrious people must make for order and industry. What, then, are our possibilities? The United States, if half as dense as Belgium, would hold fifteen hundred millions. It used to be said that so large a people as this could not be kept together as a single national aggregate; or, if kept together at all, could only be so by means of a powerfully centralized government like Rome under the emperors. Strange mistake. If the Roman Empire could have possessed

that political vitality in all its parts which is secured to the United States by the principles of equal representation and of limited State sovereignty, it might well have defied all the shocks which barbarism directed against it. As it was, its strong centralized government did not save it from political disintegration. Its political weakness was that it was a close corporation governing a score of provinces in its own interest rather than in the interest of the provincials. In contrast with such a system as that of the Roman Empire, the skilfully elaborated American system of federalism appears as one of the most important contributions that the English race has made to the general work of civilization.

And here we may see the real issue in our late civil war; not the emancipation of the negro, priceless gain as it was, but the more weighty question, whether this great pacific principle of union joined with independence should be overthrown by the first deep-seated social difficulty it had to encounter, or should stand as an example of priceless value to other ages and to other lands. The solution was worthy the effort, for it was an carnest of peace for the world. It dispensed with future fortresses and vast armies. It demonstrated that a pacific people can yet be strongly military; can raise vast armies and as quickly return them to their plowshares; can conquer a territory and yet re-admit its people to voluntary citizenship. Such has been the result of the first attempt to break up the Federal Union. It is not probable that another attempt can ever be made with anything like an equal chance of success. It was a defeat that wrought conviction, a conviction that, no matter how grave the future political questions, they must hereafter be settled in accordance with the Constitution.