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efforts of ours, but that even we appreciated their importance so little.
If the calculations of Canon Zincke are correct, in his celebrated pamphlet, the civilization which we are organizing is the great civilization of the future.
He computes that in 1980 the English-speaking population of the globe will be, at the present rate of progress, one billion; and that of this number, eight hundred million will dwell in the United States.
Now, all the interest we take in our schools, colleges, libraries, galleries, is but preliminary work in founding this great future civilization.
Toils and sacrifices for this end may be compared, as Longfellow compares the secret studies of an author, to the submerged piers of a bridge: they are out of sight, but without them no structure can endure.
If American society is really unimportant, and is foredoomed to fail, all these efforts will go with it; but if it has a chance of success, these are to be its foundations.
If they are to be laid, they must be laid seriously.
‘No man can do anything well,’ says Emerson, ‘who does not think that what he does is the centre of the visible universe.’
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