自序
    历史科肖马特学院，波士顿，2000年12月26日
    因为我们生活在20世纪最后一年，享受一次如此简单和合乎逻辑的，但它似乎是常识的胜利，这无疑是困难的社会秩序的祝福那些还没有被大部分的历史研究认识到目前的社会组织，在其完整性，不到一个世纪的历史。没有历史的事实是，但是，优于直到接近19世纪末，这是一般认为，古建立工业体系，与所有的令人震惊的社会后果，是注定要过去，又可能是一个小补丁，到结束时间。如何奇怪，它似乎令人难以置信wellnigh这么巨大的道义和物质转化为自那时起已发生本来可以在如此短暂的时间间隔来完成！与哪些人熟习，作为当然的事项准备，在他们的状况，而当预期，似乎没有留下更多的是需要改进，不能更惊人的说明。有什么可以更好地反映计算温和的改革者谁他们对未来数奖励年龄活泼热情的感谢！
    这个数量的目的是协助者谁，而渴望获得社会更明确的想法之间的对比19世纪和20世纪，是由历史，这方面处理这一问题的正式吓倒。由一名教师的经验警示，学习是占一个厌倦，肉中刺，笔者设法减轻铸造了一个浪漫的故事，他将很乐意想象没有完全丧失了兴趣的形式书的启发质量在其自己的帐户。
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    AUTHOR'S PREFACE
    Historical Section Shawmut College, Boston, December 26, 2000
    Living as we do in the closing year of the twentieth century, enjoying the blessings of a social order at once so simple and logical that it seems but the triumph of common sense, it is no doubt difficult for those whose studies have not been largely historical to realize that the present organization of society is, in its completeness, less than a century old. No historical fact is, however, better established than that till nearly the end of the nineteenth century it was the general belief that the ancient industrial system, with all its shocking social consequences, was destined to last, with possibly a little patching, to the end of time. How strange and wellnigh incredible does it seem that so prodigious a moral and material transformation as has taken place since then could have been accomplished in so brief an interval! The readiness with which men accustom themselves, as matters of course, to improvements in their condition, which, when anticipated, seemed to leave nothing more to be desired, could not be more strikingly illustrated. What reflection could be better calculated to moderate the enthusiasm of reformers who count for their reward on the lively gratitude of future ages!
    The object of this volume is to assist persons who, while desiring to gain a more definite idea of the social contrasts between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are daunted by the formal aspect of the histories which treat the subject. Warned by a teacher's experience that learning is accounted a weariness to the flesh, the author has sought to alleviate the instructive quality of the book by casting it in the form of a romantic narrative, which he would be glad to fancy not wholly devoid of interest on its own account.