In seven different ways has the world been on the point of being regenerated since the Spanish-American War. For the completeness with which the world has been reconstructed consult the current files of the newspapers.

The world was to be made over by the bicycle. The strap-hanger was to abandon his strap and ride joyfully down the Broadway cable-slot, snapping his fingers at traction magnates and imbibing ozone. The factory-hand was to abandon his city flat and live in the open country, going to and from his work through the green lanes at fifteen miles an hour, with his lunch on the handle bars. The old were to grow young again and the young were to dream close to the heart of Nature. The doctors were to perish of starvation. But where is the bicycle to-day?

The world was to be made over by jiu-jitsu. Elderly gentlemen were to regain the waistline of their youth by ten minutes' attention every morning to the secrets of the Samurai. Slim young women, when attacked by heavy ruffians, were to seize their assailants by the wrist and hurl them over the right shoulder. The police were to discard their revolvers and their night sticks, and suppress rioters by mere muscular contraction. The doctors, as before, were to grow extinct through the rapid process of starvation. But where is jiu-jitsu to-day?

The world was to be regenerated by denatured alcohol. Congress had merely to remove the internal revenue tax and a new motive power would be let loose, far transcending the total available horsepower of our coal mines. Denatured alcohol was to drive the farmer's machines, propel our war automobiles, run our factories, and reduce the cost of living to a ridiculous minimum. But where is denatured alcohol to-day?

The world was to be redeemed by the bungalow. The landlord was to disappear and in his place would come a race of free-men bowing the head to no man and raising their own vegetables. Kitchen drudgery was to be eliminated by the simple device of abolishing the kitchen and calling it a kitchenette. With no more stairs to climb, rheumatism would pass into history. So would the doctors. The bungalow is still with us, and alas, so are the doctors.

The world was to be regenerated by sour milk; by the simple life; by sleeping in the open air. But where now are Prof. Metchnikoff and Pastor Wagner? And the pictures of rose-embowered sleeping porches in the garden magazines have been supplanted by pictures of colonial farmhouses transformed into charming interiors by two coats of white-wash and a thin-paper edition of the classics.

Does this show that we must give up all hope of seeing a new world around us before 1915? By no means. We still have Eugenics.