urst the chrysalis. The
heavens are before it."

There are those who have made strenuous objections to the ideals of
Edward Bellamy on the ground that they are based on nothing better
than purely material well-being. In the presence of the foregoing
utterance can they maintain that attitude?

SYLVESTER BAXTER.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Historical Section Shawmut College, Boston,
December 26, 2000.

Living as we do in the closing year of the twentieth century, enjoying
the blessings of a social order at once so simple and logical that it
seems but the triumph of common sense, it is no doubt difficult for
those whose studies have not been largely historical to realize that
the present organization of society is, in its completeness, less than
a century old. No historical fact is, however, better established than
that till nearly the end of the nineteenth century it was the general
belief that the ancient industrial system, with all its shocking
social consequences, was destined to last, with possibly a little
patching, to the end of time. How strange and wellnigh incredible does
it seem that so prodigious a moral and material transformation as has
taken place since then could have been accomplished in so brief an
interval? The readiness with which men accustom themselves, as
matters of course, to improvements in their condition, which, when
anticipated, seemed to leave nothing more to be desired, could not be
more strikingly illustrated. What reflection could be better
calculated to moderate the enthusiasm of reformers who count for their
reward on the lively gratitude of future ages!

The object of this volume is to assist persons who, while desiring to
gain a more definite idea of the social contrasts between the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are daunted by the formal aspect
of the histories which treat the subject. Warned by a teacher's
experience that learning is accounted a weariness to the flesh, the
author has sought to alleviate the instructive quality of the book by
casting it in the form of a romantic narrative, which he would be glad
to fancy not wholly devoid of interest on its own account.

The reader, to whom modern social institutions and their underlying
principles are matters of course, may at times find Dr. Leete's
explanations of them rather trite,--but it must be remembered that to
Dr. Leete's guest they were not matters of course, and that this book