Transcript
Introduction
Every century or so, our Republic has been remade by a new technology. 170 years ago was the railroad. In our time, it's the microprocessor. These technologies do more than change our habits. They change the way we think. Henry David Thoreau, hearing the trains passing once wrote, "Have not man improved somewhat in punctuality since the railroad was invented? Do they not talk and think faster in the depot than they did in the stage office?"
And of course, anyone knows what computers and the Internet are doing to us now. In between the steam locomotive and the Apple came Henry Ford's Model T. One day, toward the end of his life, its maker was talking with a local high school boy, and they got into the subject of education. Ford spoke of the virtues of the McGuffey's Reader era. Those were textbooks that he used to educate himself. And this sounded pretty fuzzy to the boy. "But, sir", he protested. "these are different times. This is the modern age and -- " "Young man," Ford snapped, "I invented the modern age." The claim is as per preposterous as it is megalomaniacal. It is also largely true.