Dante: The Central Man of All the World | Page 3

of Dante's century and then consider
the more particular events and circumstances of his environment.

It may be a surprise to you to know that there is a book entitled The
Thirteenth, the Greatest of Centuries by Dr. James J. Walsh, in its fifth
edition with a sale of 70,000 copies. He indeed is not the only man of
letters who signalizes that century for its greatness. To confine the
quotations to two writers well known in our day, I find that Fiske in his
Beginnings of New England says of the thirteenth century: "It was a
wonderful time but after all less memorable as the culmination of
medieval empire and medieval church than as the dawning of the new
era in which we live today." Frederic Harrison, in his Survey of the
Thirteenth Century says, "Of all the epochs of effort after a new life
that ... is the most spiritual, the most really constructive and indeed the
most truly philosophic. It had great thinkers, great rulers, great teachers,
great poets, great artists, great moralists, and great workmen. It could
not be called the material age, the devotional age, the political age or
the poetic age in any special degree. It was equally poetic, political,
industrial, artistic, practical, intellectual and devotional. And these
qualities acted on a uniform conception of life with a real symmetry of
purpose."
Ours is an age of thought but of thought finding concrete expression in
practical invention and especially in activities in the line of
manufacture and commerce. Posterity will probably characterize our
age as the Industrial Age, a phrase that will signalize our period both
for the development of industries not thought possible a century ago
and for the evolution of the industrial worker to a position of striking
importance and power. For the first time in the history of humanity the
workman's status is the subject of international agreement. The League
of Nations promises to treat Labor from a humanitarian point of view
and so to place it on the broad, firm pathway leading to industrial peace
and economical solidarity for the common good. That would seem a
necessity in view of the strides of progress in other directions.
Now wireless telegraphy crosses oceans and unites continents. The
wireless telephone between ships and shore is in operation. It has been
found practicable to transport by submarine a cargo from Bremen to
Baltimore. In aircraft the development has been just as wonderful. Less
than ten years ago the world's record for long flight by aeroplane was

made, with no regard for time, with two stops between Albany and
New York. In July, 1919, an aeroplane making no stop covered the
distance between New York and Chicago in some six hours.
Furthermore an American seaplane, in three stages made the trip from
New York to England and then a British Dirigible without making a
stop came from England to Long Island in ninety-six hours. "This is the
end and the beginning of an age" says the author of Mr. Brittling Sees
It Through. "This is something far greater than the French Revolution
or the Reformation and we live in it."
We indeed consider it the age of "big things." Dynasties fall and
republics spring up. When war breaks out it is a World War involving
twenty-four nations and causing 7,781,806 deaths (Nelson's
Encyclopedia, V. iv, p. 519) and costing $200,000,000,000. In the first
year in which we were at war, our country spent more than had been
the cost of conducting the government for 124 years, including the
expenses of the Civil and the Spanish-American Wars. Yes, it is an age
of "big things." The Allies in the Champagne offensive of September,
1915, threw 50,000,000 shells into the German lines in three days. Was
it one out of sympathy with "big things," one intent on the quiet of the
higher life as contrasted with the din of the day, who said that "modern
civilization is noise and the more civilization progresses, the greater
will be the noise?" In any event the muses who inspired Dante, are
almost dumb. Now the captains of industry are the commanding figures
of the day and the student, the poet, the philosopher, the statesman have
gone into innocuous desuetude. Amy Lowell is preferred to Longfellow:
Charlie Chaplin draws bigger crowds than Shakespeare can interest.
Trainmen get wages higher than are the salaries of some of our
governors. Unskilled labor is paid more than the teachers of our youth
receive. The cost of living was never higher in the history of mankind.
How illuminating to turn from this picture to that of Dante's age. Then
in Florence, a bushel of wheat cost about fifteen cents, a carpenter
could buy a broad ax for five cents, a saw for three cents, a plane