of ideas—triumphs achieved by individuals through heroic self-sacrifice, and unwearying labor, in the seclusion of the laboratory, the study, and the workshop. And, as regards popular history, it is now pertinent to ask if it might not be wisely extended over this field of human exploit. The records of inventive, scientific, and social progress might lack something of the tragic excitement that belongs to the chronicles of battles and campaigns, and might be read with less avidity than accounts of cabinet intrigues, partisan strife, and gossiping sketches of men who have got themselves voted into the category of the great; but, for the serious purposes of education, would not histories of the former type be better suited for the wants of an enterprising, practical, self-governing people, than those which are now pressed upon our schools? We need popular histories of the arts and sciences, of inventions and discoveries, of industries and commerce, the development of ideas, the order of social changes, and the working of those deeper forces in human affairs which history has hitherto overlooked, and of which, indeed, mankind has only become fully conscious in recent years. We need them, but the need is probably no measure of the demand for them. If they were written, the chances for their "adoption" would, perhaps, not be very encouraging. But we may indulge the hope that the influence of the Centennial Exhibition will, at any rate, be favorable to the growth of this branch of literature.
RETROSPECTS OF OUR PAST HUNDRED YEARS.
The reviews that have been published of what has been done in this country in the great departments of thought, during the past century, are not without promise that the mind of the time is moving in the direction desiderated in the preceding article. The North American Review, for example, has published a centennial number, devoted entirely to the course of American thought in religion, politics, abstract science, economic science, law, and education, from 1776 to 1870. The papers are able, calm, and philosophic, without a glimpse of the "spread eagle" or trace of the "stump," and their general tone, in fact, is by no means that of jubilation.
Mr. J. L. Diman begins by giving an instructive account of religion in America, and pointing out the leading changes that have taken place, most important of which is the complete separation which has been effected between church and state. He shows how deep was the conviction in our early history that laws for "maintaining public worship, and decently supporting the teachers of religion," are "absolutely necessary for the well-being of society." This view was not the result of ecclesiastical prejudice, but was most strongly advocated by laymen. Chief-Justice Parsons, not a member of a church, in entering upon his official career, expressed his most solemn conviction "of the necessity of a public support of religious institutions;" and, still later, Judge Story maintained the same view. This ground, now generally abandoned by American Protestants, is that still held by the Catholic Church, and gives rise to one of the gravest difficulties of public policy, that in relation to religion and state education.
As regards the growth of sects, it is stated that "a century ago the more important religious bodies (tested by the number of churches) were ranked in the following order: Congregational. Baptist, Church of England, Presbyterian, Lutheran, German Reformed, Dutch Reformed, Roman Catholic. By the census of 1870 they stood: Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Christian, Lutheran, Congregational, Protestant Episcopal." The growth of religious organizations has outstripped the growth of population. At the beginning of the Revolution
