of the 'Journal of John Woolman.' And
while the dial is recording the distance covered on the five-foot shelf,
the blue liquid in this glass tube measures the rising level of culture.
It is a very ingenious application of President Eliot's idea, don't you
think?"

XXVI

THE COMMUTER

Whenever Harrington urges me to go to live in the country, his place is
only forty-three minutes from City Hall. But when he asked me last week
to spend Saturday afternoon with him, he told me that some trains are
slower than others and that I had better allow ten minutes for the
ferry. I have never known a commuter who told the truth about the time
it takes him to cover the distance from his office-door to his front
lawn. If he is exceptionally conscientious he will take into account the
preliminary ride on the Subway and possibly even the walk from his
office to the Subway station. But no commuter ever alludes to the
fifteen minutes' walk at the other end. I did know one man who never
under-estimated the length of his daily trips, but he was a cynic who
hated the country and lived there because his wife's mother owned the
house, and he multiplied by two the time it really took him to get into
town. The exact truth I have never had.

As a matter of fact, sitting there in a rather stuffy car which made its
way through much unlovely landscape, I reflected that there are really
three different schedules on which suburban traffic is conducted. One is
the time it takes a commuter's friends to come out to see him. Another
is the time he claims it takes him to come into town every day. The
third, and incomparably the shortest of the three, is the time your
friend says it will take him to come into town after the completion of
some very extensive railway improvements which, in practice, I have
found are never completed. I am quite aware that great bridges have
been built, and that railway tunnels have been opened into Long Island
and other railway tunnels into New Jersey, and that steam is being
rapidly replaced by electricity. But it is my firm belief that such of
my suburban friends as live within the zone affected by these
improvements will move away before the change for the better actually
comes. I am no pessimist. I base this expectation on the simple fact
that every commuter I know, for as long a period as I have known him,
has been looking forward to the completion of railway improvements
involving the expenditure of tens of