MODERNISM.

The latest notable addition to the English vocabulary is the newly-coined word "modernism." Under its various synonyms it has also been incorporated in most European languages. Whenever the etymological mint is resorted to in this way it is to supply a deficiency in the verbal currency caused by the definite shaping of some new idea, for which a terse and accurate medium of expression is required. What is the idea expressed by the word modernism? Every age is in its own time a modern age. The modernity of to-day becomes the antiquity of to-morrow. The term modernism is, however, now used to connote a stage of human development which calls for a special punctuation mark in the world's history. It brings us to the end of the first chapter in the book of the renaissance. "Modernism" is the heading that has been given to the commencement of the second. A clumsy title, perhaps, but expressive enough all the same. Although the word is made special use of in connection with developments of religious thought, nothing would be more erroneous than to consider its application as limited to that particular sphere. A scholarly ecclesiastic giving up the problem of reconciling the "Leges Credendi" with the revelations of science, and an enfranchised woman voter demanding a reform of the tariff, are equally correct illustrations of what is meant by modernism, in the theological world modernism represents the resting-place of the tired truth-seeker, who does not admit that because the world goes round Christianity is necessarily a failure, and wants to believe that the morality of the Decalogue is not dependent on whether Joshua made the sun stand still or a flood ever rose fifteen cubits over the highest peak of the Alps. The man who does not want either to leave his Church or to turn his eyes away from the light of latter-day science makes what his conscience deems a fair compromise between reason and faith, and that compromise is one of the things which the word modernism is colloquially used to denote. How the Churches will accommodate themselves to this development, which is now affecting not only one, but all of them, is amongst the most interesting of the problems that the near future has to solve. There are also many serious problems which modernism sets before secular society for solution, and it is at some of these that we now propose to glance.
 Hallam draws the line between medieval and modern history near the end of the fifteenth century, when the Tudor dynasty succeeded to the British throne. The feudal system practically ended with the Wars of the Roses, though its spirit still remained, and life continued to take its color therefrom. This had to fade gradually out before modernism came in. It was not until "the schoolmaster went abroad" in the last century that the cult of modernism actually took shape. The schoolmaster banished the ghost from the old Manor House; made Hodge change his smock frock for a tailor-made coat; sent him to get his information about the outside world from the daily newspapers instead of the returned mariner, with his highly-colored stories of the Spanish Main and the Dry Tortugas; in a word, he took all the old bright romantic color out of his life and painted it over with cold utilitarian grey. The real herald of modernism was the fashion edict which abolished the distinctions of dress between classes and callings, so that it became impossible to tell whether the stranger walking beside you in the street was a draper's assistant or a duke. The floodgates of democracy were then let loose, and all the rest, from one adult one vote to the University open for all classes and both sexes, followed in inevitable sequence. A new literature was called for, a new drama, new music, new art, new standards of criticism. No more "Mysteries of Udolpho," and Scott with his gay romanticism superseded by the writer of the "novel with a purpose," who is, maybe, a woman, and perhaps a University graduate. Modernism has brought women out of the domestic sphere into politics, commerce, and industry, where they are made competitors against men. And, instead of competing as individuals, industrial warfare is now carried on by disciplined battalions under the system of trades-unionism. Time was when any tradesman could hang out his sign, and make a living in his own way. Modernism makes him a conscript in a drilled army of employees at a factory, and his wages and hours and conditions of labor are determined for him by a Court. His chances of ever getting out of the ruck are thus minimised, and the main incentive to effort thereby taken away. Modernism has deprived him of most of the simple pleasures that his less enlightened ancestors enjoyed, but has yet to provide an adequate substitute.
 The most serious problem arising out of it all, however, is that presented by the declining marriage and birth rates. With her modern education, the daughter of the manual laborer as a typewriter or a clerk or a saleswoman (she scorns domestic service) can support herself in more comfort than that usually enjoyed by the wife of a man belonging to her class. She therefore declines to marry, unless someone in a higher position asks her, and by remaining single she keeps down the wage rate, thereby rendering marriage more difficult to those who would otherwise face its responsibilities with a light heart. Besides, many of the men and women of the present day hesitate to expose their children to the risks of penury, and the difficulty of foreseeing how to make decent provision for families acts as an ever-increasing deterrent to matrimony. The result of this combination of causes is that the age at which people marry is going up. As modernism removes people further and further from nature, the operation of natural laws is hampered, while with every advance made in that direction the riddle of existence grows more and more complicated. Amongst the greatest achievement claimed for modernism is "the emancipation of woman." What has to be seen is whether this so-called emancipation does not mean servitude to a new set of social conditions that will ultimately prove less tolerable than the old ones from which she has been rescued. A vote may after all prove a poor substitute for a husband, and the clerk-ship in an office, given to her by modernism, a rather inadequate exchange for the position of mistress in a home, of which it tends to deprive the modern girl. It is not only in the old domains of dogmatic religion, therefore, that modernism is causing anxiety for the future. For the statesman and the economist it is raising perplexities quite equal to those with which it is surrounding the theologian. Modernism is not a definite proposition that either can take hold of and deal with. It is a matter neither of creed nor of platform; it postulates nothing; it asserts nothing; all its philosophy is curtly summed up in the soul-freezing questions— why and how ? These are its tests of everything. Whereas medievalism took all for granted, modernism takes nothing. It is impossible to suppose that the translation of the white race from a social and mental atmosphere to another so totally different should not be followed by alterations of character commensurate with the change of the conditions under which character is developed. Will that alteration make for increased happiness or for the reverse? It is by that test that modernism has to be judged, but the evidence of results on which the verdict has to be founded, conflicting as it is in many points, is not yet complete.

Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 - 1930), Saturday 18 January 1908, page 8