Boston has been accused of being the hot-bed of isms, and as liable to be carried away by all sorts of false and superficial pretensions. Many facts give a plausible support to these charges, facts which we have no disposition needlessly to repeat.
Without directly contradicting this accusation, we may say, without fear of contradiction, that whether true or not, it is not from the relative ignorance and inferior development of the people. Taken as a whole, we think that on the score of intelligence Boston is inferior to no city in the world, and equalled by very few. This can be sustained banks an examination of its savings banks, its publications, its authors, its circulating libraries and its schools. It is therefore reasonable to attribute the phenomena on which the charge in question is based to a noble cause—a bold and hopeful inquisitiveness and trustfulness in the line of possible progress. They are inventive and progressive. This disposition is an inheritance; and it favors the general feeling that the developments of modern thought and science justify very great expectations in every line of human labor and research. But what shall be the form or direction of the coming new discoveries no one can certainly foretell; and hence hope and courage will try everything, even though they sometimes suffer for their temerity, as chemical experiments have sometimes resulted in disastrous explosions. This diversity of operations is promoting the end sought by all, though often at the expense of the operators.
But Boston is not so gullible as the Chinese type of intellect in America believes. To those who were made perfect through their ignorant ancestors ages ago, all capacity for progress is gullibility, and every new thought is a deception and a chimera.
