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Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Justinian II." to "Kells", Volume 15, Slice 6

VOLUME XV SLICE VI Justinian II. to Kells (continued 6)

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Agriculture.—The United States Census of 1900 shows that of the farming area of the state in 1900 (41,662,970 acres, 79.6% of the total area), 60.1% was “improved.” The value of all farm property was $864,100,286—of which land and improvements (including buildings), livestock and implements and machinery represented respectively 74.5, 22.1 and 3.4%. Almost nine-tenths of all farms derived their principal income from livestock or hay and grain, these two sources being about equally important. Of the total value of farm products in 1899 ($209,895,542), crops represented 53.7, animal products 45.9 and forest products only 0.4%. In 1899 the wheat crop was 38,778,450 bushels, being less than that of Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio or South Dakota. According to the Year Book of the United States Department of Agriculture, the crop in 1906 was 81,830,611 bushels, almost one-ninth of the crop of the entire country for that year, and much more than the crop of any other state. In 1909 it was 87,203,000 bushels (less than the crops of either Minnesota or North Dakota). Winter wheat constitutes almost the entire output. The hard varieties rank in the flour market with the finest Minnesota wheat. The wheat belt crosses the state from north to south in its central third. Greater even than wheat in absolute output, though not relatively to the output of other states, is Indian corn. In 1906 the crop was 195,075,000 bushels, and in 1909 it was 154,225,000. The crop is very variable, according to seasons and prospective markets; ranging e.g. in the decade 1892-1901 from 42.6 (1901) to 225.1 (1899) million bushels. The Indian corn belt is mainly in the eastern third of the state. In the five years 1896-1900 the combined value of the crops of Indian corn and wheat exceeded the value of the same crops in any other state of the Union (Illinois being a close second). In the western third irrigation has been tried, in the earlier years unsuccessfully; in all Kansas, in 1899, there were 23,620 acres irrigated, of which 8939 were in Finney and 7071 in Kearney county. In this western third the rainfall is insufficient for Indian corn; but Kafir corn, an exceptional drought-resisting cereal, has made extraordinary progress in this region, and indeed generally over the state, since 1893, its acreage increasing 416.1% in the decade 1895-1904. With the saccharine variety of sorghum, which increased greatly in the same period, this grain is replacing Indian corn. Oats are the third great cereal crop, the yield being 24,780,000 bushels in 1906 and 27,185,000 in 1909. Alfalfa showed an increased acreage in 1895-1904 of 310.8%; it is valuable in the west for the same qualities as the Kafir corn. The hay crop in 1909 was 2,652,000 tons. Alfalfa, the Japanese soy bean and the wheat fields—which furnish the finest of pasture in the early spring and ordinarily well into the winter season—are the props of a prosperous dairy industry. In the early ’eighties the organization of creameries and cheese factories began in the county-seats; they depended upon gathered cream. About 1889 separators and the whole-milk system were introduced, and about the same time began the service of refrigerator cars on the railways; the hand separator became common about 1901. Western Kansas is the dairy country. Its great ranges, whose insufficient rainfall makes impossible the certain, and therefore the profitable, cultivation of cereals, or other settled agriculture, lend themselves with profit to stock and dairy farming. Dairy products increased 60.6% in value from 1895 to 1904, amounting in the latter year to $16,420,095. This value was almost equalled by that of eggs and poultry ($14,050,727), which increased 79.7% in the same decade. The livestock interest is stimulated by the enormous demand for beef-cattle at Kansas City.

Sugar-beet culture was tried in the years following 1890 with indifferent success until the introduction of bounties in 1901. It has extended along the Arkansas valley from the Colorado beet district and into the north-western counties. There is a large beet-sugar factory at Garden City, Finney county. Experiments have been made unsuccessfully in sugar cane (1885) and silk culture (1885 seq.). The bright climate and pure atmosphere are admirably adapted to the growth of the apple, pear, peach, plum, grape and cherry. The smaller fruits also, with scarce an exception, flourish finely. The fruit product of Kansas ($2,431,773 in 1899) is not, however, as yet particularly notable when compared with that of various other states.

According to the estimates of the state department of agriculture, of the total value of all agricultural products in the twenty years 1885-1904 ($3,078,999,855), Indian corn and wheat together represented more than two-fifths (821.3 and 518.1 million dollars respectively), and livestock products nearly one-third (1024.9 millions). The aggregate value of all agricultural products in 1903-1904 was $754,954,208.

Minerals.—In the east portion of the state are immense beds of bituminous coal, often at shallow depths or cropping out on the surface. In 1907 more than 95% of the coal came from Crawford, Cherokee, Leavenworth and Osage counties, and about 91.5% from the first two. The total value of the production of coal in 1905 (6,423,979 tons) was $9,350,542, and in 1908 (6,245,508 tons) $9,292,222. In the central portion, which belongs to the Triassic formation, magnesian limestone, ferruginous sandstone and gypsum are representative rocks. Gypsum (in beautiful crystalline form) is found in an almost continuous bed across the state running north-east and south-west with three principal areas, the northern in Marshall county, the central in Dickinson and Saline counties, and the southern (the heaviest, being 3 to 40 ft. thick) in Barber and Comanche counties. The product in 1908 was valued at $281,339. Magnesian limestone, or dolomite, is especially plentiful along the Blue, Republican and Neosho rivers and their tributaries. This beautiful stone, resembling white, grey and cream-coloured marble, is exceedingly useful for building purposes. It crops out in the bluffs in endless quantities, and is easily worked. The stone resources of the state are largely, but by no means exclusively, confined to the central part. There are marbles in Osage and other counties, shell marble in Montgomery county, white limestone in Chase county, a valuable bandera flagstone and hydraulic cement rock near Fort Scott, &c. The limestones produced in 1908 were valued at $403,176 and the sandstones at $67,950. In the central region salt is produced in immense quantities, within a great north to south belt about Hutchinson. The beds, which are exploited by the brine method at Hutchinson, at Ellsworth (Ellsworth county), at Anthony (Harper county) and at Sterling (Rice county), lie from 400 to 1200 ft. underground, and are in places as much as 350 ft. thick and 99% pure. At Kanopolis in Ellsworth county, at Lyons in Rice county and at Kingman, Kingman county, the salt is mined and sold as rock-salt. In the south-west salt is found in beds and dry incrustations, varying in thickness from a few inches to 2 ft. The total product from 1880-1899 was valued at $5,538,855; the product of 1908 (when Kansas ranked fourth among the states producing salt) was valued at $882,984. The development has been mainly since 1887 at Hutchinson and since about 1890 in the rock-salt mines. In the west portion of the state, which belongs to the Cretaceous formation, chalks and a species of native quicklime are very prominent in the river bluffs. The white and cream-coloured chalks are much used for building purposes, but the blue is usually too soft for exposure to the weather. The quicklime as quarried from the bluffs slakes perfectly, and with sand makes a fairly good mortar, without calcination or other previous preparation. The lignite found near the Colorado line makes a valuable domestic fuel.

Natural gas, oil, zinc and lead have been discovered in south-east Kansas and have given that section an extraordinary growth and prosperity. Indications of gas were found about the time of the Civil War, but only in the early ’seventies were they recognized as unmistakable, and they were not successfully developed until the ’eighties. Iola, in Allen county, is the centre of the field, and the gas yields heat, light, and a cheap fuel for smelters, cement-works and other manufacturing plants throughout a large region. The pools lie from 400 to 950 ft. below the surface; some wells have been drilled 1500 ft. deep. The value of the natural gas produced in the state was $15,873 in 1889, $2,261,836 in 1905 and $7,691,587 in 1908, when there were 1917 producing wells, and Kansas ranked fourth of the states of the United States in the value of the natural gas product, being surpassed by Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Petroleum was discovered about 1865 in Miami and Bourbon counties, and about 1892 at Neodesha, Wilson county. There was only slight commercial exploitation before 1900. The production increased from 74,714 barrels in that year to 4,250,779 in 1904; in 1908 it was 1,801,781 barrels. Chanute has been the most active centre of production. The field was prospected here in the ’nineties, but developed only after 1900. In 1877 an immense deposit of lead was discovered on land now within the limits of Galena. Rich zinc blendes were at first thrown away among the by-products of the lead mines. After the discovery of their true nature there was a slow development, and at the end of the century a notable boom in the fields. From 1876 to 1897 the total value of the output of the Galena field was between $25,000,000 and $26,000,000; but at present Kansas is far more important as a smelter than as a miner of zinc and lead, and in 1906 58% of all spelter produced in the United States came from smelters in Kansas. In 1908 the mines’ output was 2293 tons of lead valued at $192,612 and 8628 tons of zinc valued at $811,032. Pottery, fire, ochre and brick clays are abundant, the first two mainly in the eastern part of the state. Coffeyville has large vitrified brick interests. In 1908 the total value of all the mineral products (incompletely reported) of Kansas was $26,162,213.

Industry and Trade.—Manufactures are not characteristic of the state. The rank of the state in manufactures in 1900 was sixteenth and in farm products seventh in the Union. The value of the manufactured product in 1900, according to the Twelfth United States Census, was $172,129,398, an increase of 56.2% over the output of 1890; of this total value, the part representing establishments under the “factory system” was $154,008,544,2 and in 1905 the value of the factory product was $198,244,992, an increase of 28.7%. Kansas City, Topeka, Wichita, Leavenworth and Atchison were the only cities which had manufactures whose gross product was valued in 1905 at more than $3,000,000 each; their joint product was valued at $126,515,804, and that of Kansas City alone was $96,473,050, almost half the output of the state. The most important manufacturing industry, both in 1900 and in 1905, was slaughtering and meat-packing—for which Kansas City is the second centre of the country—with a product for the state valued at $77,411,883 in 1900, and $96,375,639 in 1905; in both these years the value of the product of Kansas was exceeded only by that of Illinois. The flour and grist mill industry ranked next, with a product valued at $21,328,747 in 1900 and nearly twice that amount, $42,034,019, in 1905. In 1900 a quarter of the wheat crop was handled by the mills of the state. Lesser manufacturing interests are railway shop construction (value in 1905, $11,521,144); zinc smelting and refining (value in 1905, $10,999,468); the manufacture of cheese, butter and condensed milk (value in 1905, $3,946,349); and of foundry and machine shop products (value in 1905, $3,756,825).

Communications.—Kansas is excellently provided with railways, with an aggregate length in January 1909 of 8914.77 m. (in 1870, 1880, 1890 respectively, 1,501, 3,244 and 8,710 m.). The most important systems are the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Missouri Pacific, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Union Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the St Louis & San Francisco systems. The first train entered Kansas on the Union Pacific in 1860. During the following decade the lines of the Missouri Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas and the Santa Fé were well under construction. These roads give excellent connexions with Chicago, the Gulf and the Pacific. Kansas has an eastern river front of 150 m. on the Missouri, which is navigable for steamboats of good size. The internal rivers of the state are not utilized for commercial purposes.

Population.—In population Kansas ranked in 1900 and 1910 (1,690,949) twenty-second in the Union. The decennial increases of population from 1860 to 1900 were 239.9, 173.4, 43.3 and 3.0%, the population in 1900 being 1,470,495, or 18 to the sq. m.3 Of this number 22.5% lived in cities of 2500 or more inhabitants. Nine cities numbered more than 10,000 inhabitants: Kansas City (51,418), Topeka—the state capital (33,608), Wichita (24,671), Leavenworth (20,735), Atchison (15,722), Lawrence—the seat of the state university (10,862), Fort Scott (10,322), Galena (10,155) and Pittsburg (10,112). The life of all of these save the last two goes back to Territorial days; but the importance of Fort Scott, like that of Galena and Pittsburg, is due to the development of the mineral counties in the south-east. Other cities of above 5000 inhabitants were Hutchinson (9379), Emporia (8223), Parsons (7682), Ottawa (6934), Newton (6208), Arkansas City (6140), Salina (6074), Argentine (5878) and Iola (5791). The number of negroes (3.5%) is somewhat large for a northern and western state. This is largely owing to an exodus of coloured people from the South in 1878-1880, at a time when their condition was an unusually hard one: an exodus turned mainly toward Kansas. The population is very largely American-born (91.4% in 1900; 47.1% being natives of Kansas). Germans, British, Scandinavians and Russians constitute the bulk of the foreign-born. The west third of the state is comparatively scantily populated, owing to its aridity. In the ’seventies, after a succession of wet seasons, and again in the ’eighties, settlement was pushed far westward, beyond the limits of safe agriculture, but hundreds of settlers—and indeed many entire communities—were literally starved out by the recurrence of droughts. Irrigation has made a surer future for limited areas, however, and the introduction of drought-resisting crops and the substitution of dairy and livestock interests in the place of agriculture have brightened the outlook in the western counties, whose population increased rapidly after 1900. The early ’eighties were made notable by a tremendous “boom” in real estate, rural and urban, throughout the commonwealth. As regards the distribution of religious sects, in 1906 there were 458,190 communicants of all denominations, and of this number 121,208 were Methodists (108,097 being Methodist Episcopalians of the Northern Church), 93,195 were Roman Catholics, 46,299 were Baptists (34,975 being members of the Northern Baptist Convention and 10,011 of the National (Colored) Baptist Convention), 40,765 were Presbyterians (33,465 being members of the Northern Church) and 40,356 were Disciples of Christ. The German-Russian Mennonites, whose immigration became notable about 1874, furnished at first many examples of communal economy, but these were later abandoned. In 1906 the total number of Mennonites was 7445, of whom 3581 were members of the General Conference of Mennonites of North America, 1825 belonged to the Schellenberger Brüder-gemeinde, and the others were distributed among seven other sects.

Government.—The constitution is that adopted at Wyandotte on the 29th of July 1859 and ratified by the people on the 4th of October 1859; it came into operation on the 29th of January 1861, and was amended in 1861, 1864, 1867, 1873, 1875, 1876, 1880, 1888, 1900, 1902, 1904 and 1906. An amendment may be proposed by either branch of the legislature, and, if approved by two-thirds of the members elected to each house as well as by a majority of the electors voting on it at a general election, it is adopted. A constitutional convention to revise or amend the constitution may be called in the same manner. Universal manhood suffrage is the rule, but women may vote in school and municipal elections, Kansas being the first state to grant women municipal suffrage as well as the right to hold municipal offices (1887). General elections to state, county and township offices are biennial, in even-numbered years, and take place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The state executive officers are a governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, attorney-general and superintendent of public instruction, all elected for a term of two years. The governor appoints, with the approval of the Senate, a board of public works and some other administrative boards, and he may veto any bill from the legislature, which cannot thereafter become a law unless again approved by two-thirds of the members elected to each house.

The legislature, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives, meets in regular session at Topeka, the capital, on the second Tuesday of January in odd-numbered years. The membership of the senate is limited to 40, and that of the house of representatives to 125. Senators are elected for four years and representatives for two years. In regular sessions not exceeding fifty days and in special sessions not exceeding thirty days the members of both houses are paid three dollars a day besides an allowance for travelling expenses, but they receive no compensation for the extra time of longer sessions. In 1908 a direct primary law was passed applicable to all nominations except for presidential electors, school district officers and officers in cities of less than 5000 inhabitants; like public elections the primaries are made a public charge; nomination is by petition signed by a certain percentage (for state office, at least 1%; for district office, at least 2%; for sub-district or county office, at least 3%) of the party vote; the direct nominating system applies to the candidates for the United States Senate, the nominee chosen by the direct primaries of each party being the nominee of the party.

The judicial power is vested in one supreme court, thirty-eight district courts, one probate court for each county, and two or more justices of the peace for each township. All justices are elected: those of the supreme court, seven in number, for six years, two or three every two years; those of the district courts for four years; and those of the probate courts and the justices of the peace for two years. The more important affairs of each county are managed by a board of commissioners, who are elected by districts for four years, but each county elects also a clerk, a treasurer, a probate judge, a register of deeds, a sheriff, a coroner, an attorney, a clerk of the district court, and a surveyor, and the district court for the county appoints a county auditor. The township officers, all elected for two years, are a trustee, a clerk, a treasurer, two or more justices of the peace, two constables and one road overseer for each road district. Cities are governed under a general law, but by this law they are divided into three classes according to size, and the government is different for each class. Those having a population of more than 15,000 constitute the first class, those having a population of more than 2000 but not more than 15,000 constitute the second class, and those having a population not exceeding 2000 constitute the third class. Municipal elections are far removed from those of the state, being held in odd-numbered years in April. In cities of the first class the state law requires the election of a mayor, city clerk, city treasurer, police judge and councilmen; in those of the second class it requires the election of a mayor, police judge, city treasurer, councilmen, board of education, justices of the peace and constables; and in those of the third class it requires the election of a mayor, police judge and councilmen. Several other offices provided for in each class are filled by the appointment of the mayor.

The principal grounds for a divorce in Kansas are adultery, extreme cruelty, habitual drunkenness, abandonment for one year, gross neglect of duty, and imprisonment in the penitentiary as a felon subsequent to marriage, but the applicant for a divorce must have resided in the state the entire year preceding the presentment of the petition. A married woman has the same rights to her property after marriage as before marriage, except that she is not permitted to bequeath away from her husband more than one-half of it without his written consent, and no will made by the husband can affect the right of the wife, if she survive him, to one-half of the property of which he died seized. Whenever a husband dies intestate, leaving a farm or a house and lot in a town or city which was the residence of the family at his death, his widow, widow and children, or children alone if there be no widow, may hold the same as a homestead to the extent of 160 acres if it be a farm, or one acre if it be a town or city lot. A homestead of this size is exempt from levy for the debts of the intestate except in case of an incumbrance given by consent of both husband and wife, or of obligations for purchase money, or of liens for making improvements, and the homestead of a family cannot be alienated without the joint consent of husband and wife. The homestead status ceases, however, whenever the widow marries again or when all the children arrive at the age of majority. An eight-hour labour law was passed in 1891 and was upheld by the state supreme court. In 1909 a law was passed for state regulation of fire insurance rates (except in the case of farmers’ mutuals insuring farm property only) and forbidding local discrimination of rates within the state. In the same year a law was passed requiring that any corporation acting as a common carrier in the state must receive the permission of the state board of railway commissioners for the issue of stocks, bonds or other evidences of indebtedness.

The manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors except for medical, scientific and mechanical purposes were prohibited by a constitutional amendment adopted in 1880. The Murray liquor law of 1881, providing for the enforcement of the amendment, was declared constitutional by the state supreme court in 1883. At many sessions of the legislature its enemies vainly attempted its repeal. It was more seriously threatened in 1890 by the “Original Package Decision,” of the United States Supreme Court, the decision, namely, that the state law could not apply to liquor introduced into Kansas from another state and sold from the original package, such inter-state commerce being within the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. That body thereupon gave Kansas the power needed, and its action was upheld by the Federal Supreme Court. The enforcement of the law has varied, however, enormously according to the locality. In 1906-1907 a fresh crusade to enforce the law was begun by the attorney-general, who brought ouster suits against the mayors of Wichita, Junction City, Pittsburg and Leavenworth for not enforcing the law and for replacing it with the “fine” system, which was merely an irregular licence. In 1907 the attorney-general’s office turned its attention to outside brewing companies doing business in the state and secured injunctions against such breweries doing business in the state and the appointment of receivers of their property. The provision of the law permitting the sale of whisky for medicinal, scientific or mechanical purposes was repealed by a law of 1909 prohibiting the sale, manufacture or barter of spirituous, malt, vinous or any other intoxicating liquors within the state. The severity of this law was ascribed to efforts of the liquor interests to render it objectionable.

The constitution forbids the contraction of a state debt exceeding $1,000,000. The actual debt on the 30th of June 1908 was $605,000, which was a permanent school fund. Taxation is on the general-property system. The entire system has been—as in other states where it prevails—extremely irregular and arbitrary as regards local assessments, and very imperfect; and the figures of total valuation (in 1880 $160,570,761, in 1890 $347,717,218, in 1906 $408,329,749, and in 1908, when it was supposed to be the actual valuation of all taxable property, $2,453,691,859), though significant of taxation methods, are not significant of the general condition or progress of the state.

Education.—Of higher educational institutions, the state supports the university of Kansas at Lawrence (1866), an agricultural college at Manhattan (1863; aided by the United States government); a normal school at Emporia (1865), a western branch of the same at Hays (1902); a manual training normal school (1903) at Pittsburg, western university (Quindaro) for negroes and the Topeka industrial and educational institute (1896, reorganized on the plan of Tuskegee institute in 1900) also for negroes. The university of Kansas was organized in 1864 and opened in 1866. Its engineering department was established in 1870, its normal department in 1876 (abolished 1885), its department of music in 1877, its department of law in 1878, and the department of pharmacy in 1885; in 1891 the preparatory department was abolished and the university was reorganized with “schools” in place of the former “departments.” In 1899 a school of medicine was established, in connexion with which the Eleanor Taylor Bell memorial hospital was erected in 1905. In 1907-1908 the university had a faculty of 211, an enrolment of 2063 (1361 men and 702 women); the university library contained 60,000 volumes and 37,000 pamphlets. An efficient compulsory education law was passed in 1903. Kansas ranks very high among the states in its small percentage of illiteracy (inability to write)—in 1900 only 2.9% of persons at least ten years of age; the figures for native whites, foreign whites and negroes being respectively 1.3, 8.5, 22.3. In addition to the state schools, various flourishing private or denominational institutions are maintained. The largest of these are the Kansas Wesleyan University (Methodist Episcopal, 1886) at Salina and Baker University (Methodist Episcopal, 1858) at Baldwin. Among the many smaller colleges are Washburn College (Congregational, 1869) at Topeka, the South-west Kansas College (Methodist Episcopal, opened 1886) at Winfield, the College of Emporia (Presbyterian, 1883) at Emporia, Bethany College (Lutheran, 1881) at Lindsborg, Fairmount College (non-sectarian, 1895) at Wichita, St Mary’s College (Roman Catholic, 1869) at St Mary’s, and Ottawa University (Baptist, 1865) at Ottawa. At Topeka is the College of the Sisters of Bethany (Protestant Episcopal, 1861) for women. There are also various small professional schools and private normal schools. An industrial school for Indian children is maintained by the United States near Lawrence (Haskell Institute, 1884). Among the state charitable and reformatory institutions are state hospitals for the insane at Topeka and Osawatomie and a hospital for epileptics at Parsons; industrial reform schools for girls at Beloit, for boys at Topeka, and for criminals under twenty-five at Hutchinson; a penitentiary at Lansing; a soldiers’ orphans’ home at Atchison and a soldiers’ home at Dodge City; and schools for feeble-minded youth at Winfield, for the deaf at Olathe, and for the blind at Kansas City. These institutions are under the supervision of a state board of control. The state contributes also to many institutions on a private basis. Most of the counties maintain poor farms and administer outdoor relief, and some care for insane patients at the cost of the state.

History.—The territory now included in Kansas was first visited by Europeans in 1541, when Francisco de Coronado led his Spaniards from New Mexico across the buffalo plains in search of the wealth of “Quivira,” a region located by Bandelier and other authorities in Kansas north-east of the Great Bend of the Arkansas. Thereafter, save for a brief French occupation, 1719-1725, and possibly slight explorations equally inconsequential, Kansas remained in undisturbed possession of the Indians until in 1803 it passed to the United States (all save the part west of 100° long. and south of the Arkansas river) as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The explorations for the United States of Z. M. Pike (1807) and S. H. Long (1819) tended to confirm old ideas of sandy wastes west of the Mississippi. But with the establishment of prairie commerce to Santa Fé (New Mexico), the waves of emigration to the Mormon land and to California, the growth of traffic to Salt Lake, and the explorations for a transcontinental railway, Kansas became well known, and was taken out of that mythical “Great American Desert,” in which, thanks especially to Pike and to Washington Irving, it had been supposed to lie. The trade with Santa Fé began about 1804, although regular caravans were begun only about 1825. This trade is one of the most picturesque chapters in border history, and picturesque in retrospect, too, is the army of emigrants crossing the continent in “prairie schooners” to California or Utah, of whom almost all went through Kansas.

But this movement of hunters, trappers, traders, Mormons, miners and homeseekers left nothing to show of settlement in Kansas, for which, therefore, the succession of Territorial governments organized for the northern portion of the Louisiana Purchase had no real significance. Before 1854 Kansas was an Indian land, although on its Indian reservations (created in its east part for eastern tribes removed thither after 1830) some few whites resided: missionaries, blacksmiths, agents, farmers supposed to teach the Indians agriculture, and land “squatters,”—possibly 800 in all. Fort Leavenworth was established in 1827, Fort Scott in 1842, Fort Riley in 1853. There were Methodist (1829), Baptist, Quaker, Catholic and Presbyterian missions active by 1837. Importunities to Congress to institute a Territorial government began in 1852. This was realized by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854.

By that Act Kansas (which from 1854 to 1861 included a large part of Colorado) became, for almost a decade, the storm centre of national political passion, and her history of prime significance in the unfolding prologue of the Civil War. Despite the Missouri Compromise, which had prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Purchase N. of 36° 30′ N. lat. (except in Missouri), slaves were living at the missions and elsewhere, among Indians and whites, in 1854. The “popular sovereignty” principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill involved a sectional struggle for the new Territory. Time showed that the winning of Kansas was a question of the lightest-footed immigrant. Slaveholders were not footloose; they had all to lose if they should carry their blacks into Kansas and should nevertheless fail to make it a slave-state. Thus the South had to establish slavery by other than actual slaveholders, unless Missouri should act for her to establish it. But Missouri did not move her slaves; while her vicinity encouraged border partisans to seek such establishment even without residence—by intimidation, election frauds and outrage. This determined at once the nature of the Kansas struggle and its outcome; and after the South had played and lost in Kansas, “the war for the Union caught up and nationalized the verdict of the Territorial broil.”

In the summer of 1854 Missouri “squatters” began to post claims to border lands and warn away intending anti-slavery settlers. The immigration of these from the North was fostered in every way, notably through the New England Emigrant Aid Company (see Lawrence, A. A.), whose example was widely imitated. Little organized effort was made in the South to settle the Territory; Lawrence (Wakarusa) and Topeka, free-state centres, and Leavenworth, Lecompton and Atchison, pro-slavery towns, were among those settled in 1854.

At the first election (Nov. 1854), held for a delegate to Congress, some 1700 armed Missourians invaded Kansas and stuffed the ballot boxes; and this intimidation and fraud was practised on a much larger scale in the election of a Territorial legislature in March 1855. The resultant legislature (at Pawnee, later at Shawnee Mission) adopted the laws of Missouri almost en bloc, made it a felony to utter a word against slavery, made extreme pro-slavery views a qualification for office, declared death the penalty for aiding a slave to escape, and in general repudiated liberty for its opponents. The radical free-state men thereupon began the importation of rifles. All criticism of this is inconsequent; “fighting gear” was notoriously the only effective asset of Missourians in Kansas, every Southern band in Kansas was militarily organized and armed, and the free-state men armed only under necessity. Furthermore, a free-state “government” was set up, the “bogus” legislature at Shawnee being “repudiated.” Perfecting their organization in a series of popular conventions, they adopted (Dec. 1855) the Topeka Constitution—which declared the exclusion of negroes from Kansas—elected state officials, and sent a contestant delegate to Congress. The Topeka “government” was simply a craftily impressive organization, a standing protest. It met now and then, and directed sentiment, being twice dispersed by United States troops; but it passed no laws, and did nothing that conflicted with the Territorial government countenanced by Congress. On the other hand, the laws of the “bogus” legislature were generally ignored by the free-state partisans, except in cases (e.g. the service of a writ) where that was impossible without apparent actual rebellion against the authority of the legislature, and therefore of Congress.

Meanwhile the “border war” began. During the (almost bloodless) “Wakarusa War” Lawrence was threatened by an armed force from Missouri, but was saved by the intervention of Governor Shannon. Up to this time the initiative and the bulk of outrages lay assuredly heavily on the pro-slavery side; hereafter they became increasingly common and more evenly divided. In May 1856 another Missouri force entered Lawrence without resistance, destroyed its printing offices, wrecked buildings and pillaged generally. This was the day before the assault on Charles Sumner (q.v.) in the Senate of the United States. These two outrages fired Northern passion and determination. In Kansas they were a stimulus to the most radical elements. Immediately after the sack of Lawrence, John Brown and a small band murdered and mutilated five pro-slavery men, on Pottawatomie Creek; a horrible deed, showing a new spirit on the free-state side, and of ghastly consequence—for it contributed powerfully to widen further the licence of highway robbery, pillage and arson, the ruin of homes, the driving off of settlers, marauding expeditions, attacks on towns, outrages in short of every kind, that made the following months a welter of lawlessness and crime, until Governor Geary—by putting himself above all partisanship, repudiating Missouri, and using Federal troops—put an end to them late in 1856. (In the isolated south-eastern counties they continued through 1856-1858, mainly to the advantage of the “jay-hawkers” of free-state Kansas and to the terror of Missouri.)

The struggle now passed into another phase, in which questions of state predominate. But something may be remarked in passing of the leaders in the period of turbulence. John Brown wished to deal a blow against slavery, but did nothing to aid any conservative political organization to that end. James H. Lane was another radical, and always favoured force. He was a political adventurer, an enthusiastic, energetic, ambitious, ill-balanced man, shrewd and magnetic. He assuredly did much for the free-state cause; meek politics were not alone sufficient in those years in Kansas. The leader of the conservative free-soilers was Charles Robinson (1818-1894). He was born in Massachusetts, studied medicine at the Berkshire Medical School, and had had political experience in California, whither he had gone in 1849, and where in 1850-1852 he was a member of the legislature and a successful anti-slavery leader. In 1854 he had come to Kansas as an agent of the Emigrant Aid Company. He was the author of the Topeka government idea, or at least was its moving spirit, serving throughout as the “governor” under it; though averse to force, he would use it if necessary, and was first in command in the “Wakarusa War.” His partisans say that he saved Kansas, and regard Lane as a fomenter of trouble who accomplished nothing. Andrew H. Reeder (1807-1864), who showed himself a pro-slavery sympathizer as first Territorial governor, was removed from office for favouring the free-state party; he became a leader in the free-state cause. Every governor who followed him was forced by the logic of events and truth tacitly to acknowledge that right lay with the free-state party. Reeder and Shannon fled the Territory in fear of assassination by the pro-slavery party, with which at first they had had most sympathy. Among the pro-slavery leaders David Rice Atchison (1807-1886), United States Senator in 1843-1855, accompanied both expeditions against Lawrence; but he urged moderation, as always, at the end of what was a legitimate result of his radical agitation.

In June 1857 delegates were elected to a constitutional convention. The election Act did not provide for any popular vote upon the constitution they should form, and was passed over Governor John W. Geary’s veto. A census, miserably deficient (largely owing to free-state abstention and obstruction), was the basis of apportionment of delegates. The free-state party demanded a popular vote on the constitution. On the justice of this Governor Robert J. Walker and President Buchanan were at first unequivocally agreed, and the governor promised fairplay. Nevertheless only pro-slavery men voted, and the convention was thus pro-slavery. The document it framed is known as the Lecompton Constitution. Before the convention met, the free-state party, abandoning its policy of political inaction, captured the Territorial legislature. On the constitutional convention rested, then, all hope of saving Kansas for slavery; and that would be impossible if they should submit their handiwork to the people. The convention declared slave property to be “before and higher than any constitutional sanction” and forbade amendments affecting it; but it provided for a popular vote on the alternatives, the “constitution with slavery” or the “constitution with no slavery.” If the latter should be adopted, slavery should cease “except” that the right to property in slaves in the Territory should not be interfered with. The free-state men regarded this as including the right to property in offspring of slaves, and therefore as pure fraud. Governor Walker stood firmly against this iniquitous scheme; he saw that slavery was, otherwise, doomed, but he thought Kansas could be saved to the Democratic party though lost to slavery. But President Buchanan, under Southern influence, repudiated his former assurances. There is reason to believe that the whole scheme was originated at Washington, and though Buchanan was not privy to it before the event, yet he adopted it. He abandoned Walker, who left Kansas; and he dismissed Acting-Governor Frederick P. Stanton for convoking the (now free-state) legislature. This body promptly ordered a vote on the third alternative, “Against the Constitution.”

The free-state men ignored the alternatives set by the Lecompton Convention; but they participated nevertheless in the provisional election for officers under the Lecompton government, capturing all offices, and then, the same day, voted overwhelmingly against the constitution (Jan. 4, 1858).

Nevertheless, Buchanan, against the urgent counsel of Governor Denver, urged on Congress (Feb. 2) the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution. He was opposed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the leader of the Northern Democracy. The Senate upheld the President; the House of Representatives voted down his policy; and finally both houses accepted the English Bill, by which Kansas was virtually offered some millions of acres of public lands if she should accept the Lecompton Constitution.4 On the 21st of August 1858, by a vote of 11,300 to 1788, Kansas resisted this temptation. The plan of the Administration thus effectually miscarried, and its final result was a profound split in the Democratic party.

The free-state men framed an excellent anti-slavery constitution at Leavenworth in March-April 1858, but the origins of the convention were illegal and their work was still-born. On the 29th of July 1859 still another constitution was therefore framed at Wyandotte, and on the 4th of October it was ratified by the people. Meanwhile the Topeka “government” disappeared, and also, with its single purpose equally served, the free-state party, most of it (once largely Democratic) passing into the Republican party, now first organized in the Territory. On the 29th of January 1861 Kansas was admitted to the Union under the Wyandotte Constitution. The United States Census of 1860 gave her a population of 107,204 inhabitants. The struggle in Kansas, the first physical national struggle over slavery, was of paramount importance in the breaking up of the Whig party, the firm establishment of an uncompromisingly anti-slavery party, the sectionalization of the Democracy, and the general preparation of the country for the Civil War.

Drought and famine came in 1860, and then upon the impoverished state came the strain of the Civil War. Nevertheless Kansas furnished proportionally a very large quota of men to the Union armies. Military operations within her own borders were largely confined to a guerrilla warfare, carrying on the bitter neighbourhood strife between Kansas and Missouri. The Confederate officers began by repressing predatory plundering from Missouri; but after James H. Lane, with an undisciplined brigade, had crossed the border, sacking, burning and killing in his progress, Missouri “bushrangers” retaliated in kind. Freebooters trained in Territorial licence had a free hand on both sides. Kansas bands were long the more successful. But William C. Quantrell, after sacking various small Kansas towns along the Missouri river (1862-63), in August 1863 took Lawrence (q.v.) and put it mercilessly to fire and sword—the most ghastly episode in border history. In the autumn of 1864 the Confederate general, Sterling Price, aiming to enter Kansas from Missouri but defeated by General Pleasanton’s cavalry, retreated southward, zig-zagging on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas line. This ended for Kansas the border raids and the war. Lane was probably the first United States officer to enlist negroes as soldiers. Many of them (and Indians too) fought bravely for the state. Indian raids and wars troubled the state from 1864 to 1878. The tribes domiciled in Kansas were rapidly moved to Indian Territory after 1868.

After the Civil War the Republicans held uninterrupted supremacy in national elections, and almost as complete control in the state government, until 1892. From about 1870 onward, however, elements of reform and of discontent were embodied in a succession of radical parties of protest. Prohibition arose thus, was accepted by the Republicans, and passed into the constitution. Woman suffrage became a vital political issue. Much legislation has been passed to control the railways. General control of the media of commerce, economic co-operation, tax reform, banking reforms, legislation against monopolies, disposal of state lands, legislation in aid of the farmer and labourer, have been issues of one party or another. The movement of the Patrons of Industry (1874), growing into the Grange, Farmers’ Alliance, and finally into the People’s (Populist) party (see Farmers’ Movement), was perhaps of greatest importance. In conjunction with the Democrats the Populists controlled the State government in 1892-1894 and 1896-1898. These two parties decidedly outnumbered the Republicans at the polls from 1890-1898, but they could win only by fusion. In 1892-1893, when the Populists elected the governor and the Senate, and the Republicans (as the courts eventually determined) the House of Representatives, political passion was so high as to threaten armed conflicts in the capital. The Australian ballot was introduced in 1893. In the decade following 1880, struggles in the western counties for the location of county seats (the bitterest local political fights known in western states) repeatedly led to bloodshed and the interference of state militia.

Territorial Governors5

Andrew H. Reeder July 7, 1854-Aug. 16, ’55

Wilson Shannon Sept. 7, 1855-Aug. 18, ’56

John W. Geary Sept. 9, 1856-Mar. 12, ’57

Robert J. Walker May 27, 1857-Nov. 16, ’57

James W. Denver May 12, 1858-Oct. 10, ’58

Samuel Medary Dec. 18, 1858-Dec. 17, ’60

Acting Governors6

Aggregate

Daniel Woodson 5 times (164 days) Apr. 17, 1855-Apr. 16, ’57

Frederick P. Stanton 2 ” ( 78 days) Apr. 16, 1857-Dec. 21, ’57

James W. Denver 1 ” ( 23 days) Dec. 21, 1857-May 12, ’58

Hugh S. Walsh 4(5?) ” (177 days) July 3, 1858-June 16, ’60

George M. Beebe 2 ” (131 days) Sept. 11, 1860-Feb. 9, ’61

State Governors

Charles Robinson Republican 1861-1863

Thomas Carney ” 1863-1865

Samuel J. Crawford ” 1865-1869

N. Green (to fill vacancy) ” 1869 (3 months)

James M. Harvey ” 1869-1873

Thomas A. Osborn ” 1873-1877

George T. Anthony ” 1877-1879

John P. St John ” 1879-1883

George W. Glick Democrat 1883-1885

John A. Martin Republican 1885-1889

Lyman U. Humphrey ” 1889-1893

Lorenzo D. Lewelling Populist 1893-1895

Edmund N. Morrill Republican 1895-1897

John W. Leedy Democrat-Populist 1897-1899

W. E. Stanley Republican 1899-1903

Willis J. Bailey ” 1903-1905

Edward W. Hoch ” 1905-1909

Walter R. Stubbs ” 1909-

Authorities.—Consult for physiographic descriptions general works on the United States, exploration, surveys, &c., also paper by George I. Adams in American Geographical Society, Bulletin 34 (1902), pp. 89-104. On climate see U.S. Department of Agriculture, Kansas Climate and Crop Service (monthly, since 1887). On soil and agriculture, see Biennial Reports (Topeka, 1877 seq.) of the State Board of Agriculture; Experiment Station Bulletin of the Kansas Agricultural College (Manhattan); and statistics in the United States Statistical Abstract (annual, Washington), and Federal Census reports. On manufactures see Federal Census reports; Kansas Bureau of Labor and Industry, Annual Report (1885 seq.); Kansas Inspector of Coal Mines, Annual Report (1887 seq.). On administration consult the State of Kansas Blue Book (Topeka, periodical), and reports of the various state officers (Treasurer, annual, then biennial since 1877-1878; Board of Trustees of State Charities and Corrections, biennial, 1877-1878 seq.; State Board of Health, founded 1885, annual, then biennial reports since 1901-1902; Bureau of Labor Statistics, founded 1885, annual reports; Irrigation Commission, organized 1895, annual reports, &c.). On taxation see Report and Bill of the State Tax Commission, created 1901 (Topeka, 1901). On the history of the state, see A. T. Andreas, History of Kansas (Chicago, 1883; compiled mainly by J. C. Hebbard); D. W. Wilder’s Annals of Kansas (Topeka, 1875 and later), indispensable for reference; L. W. Spring’s Kansas (Boston, 1885, in the American Commonwealth Series); Charles Robinson, The Kansas Conflict (New York, 1892); Eli Thayer, The Kansas Crusade (New York, 1889); the Proceedings of the Kansas State Historical Society (Topeka, 1891 seq.), full of the most valuable material; W. E. Connelley, Kansas Territorial Governors (Topeka, 1900); W. E. Miller, The Peopling of Kansas (Columbus, O., 1906), a doctoral dissertation of Columbia University; and for the controversy touching John Brown, G. W. Brown’s The Truth at Last, Reminiscences of Old John Brown (Rockford, Ill., 1880), and W. E. Connelley, An Appeal to the Record ... Refuting ... Things Written for ... Charles Robinson and G. W. Brown (Topeka, 1903). W. C. Webb’s Republican Election Methods in Kansas, General Election of 1892, and Legislative Investigations (Topeka, 1893) may also be mentioned.

1 For the thirty years 1877-1906 the mean rainfall for ten-year periods was: at Dodge, 22.8 in., 18.4 in. and 22.7 in.; and at Lawrence, 35.1 in., 39.2 in. and 36.7 in. for the first, second and third periods respectively.

2 All subsequent figures in this paragraph for manufactures in 1900 are given for establishments under the “factory system” only, so as to be comparable with statistics for 1905, which do not include minor establishments.

3 According to the state census Kansas had in 1905 a total population of 1,544,968; nearly 28% lived in cities of 2500 or more inhabitants; 13 cities had more than 10,000 inhabitants: Kansas City (67,614). Topeka (37,641), Wichita (31,110), Leavenworth (20,934), Atchison (18,159), Pittsburg (15,012), Coffeyville (13,196), Fort Scott (12,248), Parsons (11,720), Lawrence (11,708), Hutchinson (11,215), Independence (11,206), and Iola (10,287). Other cities of above 5000 inhabitants each were: Chanute (9704), Emporia (8974), Winfield (7845), Salina (7829), Ottawa (7727), Arkansas City (7634), Newton (6601), Galena (6449), Argentine (6053), Junction City (5264) and Cherryvale (5089).

4 The English Bill was not a bribe to the degree that it has usually been considered to be, inasmuch as it “reduced the grant of land demanded by the Lecompton Ordinance from 23,500,000 acres to 3,500,000 acres, and offered only the normal cession to new states.” But this grant of 3,500,000 acres was conditioned on the acceptance of the Lecompton Constitution, and Congress made no promise of any grant if that Constitution were not adopted. The bill was introduced by William Hayden English (1822-1896), a Democratic representative in Congress in 1853-1861 (see Frank H. Hodder, “Some Aspects of the English Bill for the Admission of Kansas,” in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1906, i. 201-210).

5 Terms of actual service in Kansas, not period of commissions. The appointment was for four years. Reeder was removed, all the others resigned.

6 Secretaries of the Territory who served as governors in the interims of gubernatorial terms or when the governor was absent from the Territory. In the case of H. S. Walsh several dates cannot be fixed with exactness.

Illustration from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Justinian II." to "Kells" Volume 15, Slice 6

KANSAS CITY, a city and the county-seat of Wyandotte county, Kansas, U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Missouri River, at the mouth of the Kansas, altitude about 800 ft. It is separated from its greater neighbour, Kansas City, Missouri, only by the state line, and is the largest city in the state. Pop. (1890), 38,315; (1900), 51,418, of whom 6,377 were foreign-born and 6509 were negroes; (1910 census) 82,331. It is served by the Union Pacific, the Missouri Pacific, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and the Chicago Great Western railways, and by electric lines connecting with Leavenworth and with Kansas City, Missouri. There are several bridges across the Kansas river. The city covers the low, level bottom-land at the junction of the two rivers, and spreads over the surrounding highlands to the W., the principal residential district. Its plan is regular. The first effective steps toward a city park and boulevard system were taken in 1907, when a board of park commissioners, consisting of three members, was appointed by the mayor. The city has been divided into the South Park District and the North Park District, and at the close of 1908 there were 10 m. of boulevards and parks aggregating 160 acres. A massive steel and concrete toll viaduct, about 1¾ m. in length, extends from the bluffs of Kansas City, Kan., across the Kansas valley to the bluffs of Kansas City, Mo., and is used by pedestrians, vehicles and street cars. There is a fine public library building given by Andrew Carnegie. The charities of the city are co-ordinated through the associated charities. Among charitable state-aided institutions are the St Margaret’s hospital (Roman Catholic), Bethany hospital (Methodist), a children’s home (1893), and, for negroes, the Douglass hospital training school for nurses (1898)—the last the largest private charity of the state. The medical department of the Kansas state university, the other departments of which are in Lawrence, is in Kansas City; and among the other educational institutions of the city are the Western university and industrial school (a co-educational school for negroes), the Kansas City Baptist theological seminary (1902), and the Kansas City university (Methodist Protestant, 1896), which had 454 students in 1908-1909 and comprises Mather college (for liberal arts), Wilson high school (preparatory), a school of elocution and oratory (in Kansas City, Mo.), a Normal School, Kansas City Hahnemann Medical College (in Kansas City, Mo.), and a school of theology. The city is the seat of the Kansas (State) school for the blind. Kansas City is one of the largest cities in the country without a drinking saloon. Industrially the city is important for its stockyards and its meat-packing interests. With the exception of Chicago, it is the largest livestock market in the United States. The product-value of the city’s factories in 1905 was $96,473,050; 93.5% consisting of the product of the wholesale slaughtering and meat-packing houses. Especially in the South-west markets Kansas City has an advantage over Chicago, St Louis, and other large packing centres (except St Joseph), not only in freights, but in its situation among the “corn and beef” states; it shares also the extraordinary railway facilities of Kansas City, Missouri. There are various important manufactures, such as soap and candles, subsidiary to the packing industry; and the city has large flour mills, railway and machine shops, and foundries. A large cotton-mill, producing coarse fabrics, was opened in 1907. Natural gas derived from the Kansas fields became available for lighting and heating, and crude oil for fuel, in 1906.

Kansas City was founded in 1886 by the consolidation of “old” Kansas City, Armourdale and Wyandotte (in which Armstrong and Riverview were then included). Of these municipalities Wyandotte, the oldest, was originally settled by the Wyandotte Indians in 1843; it was platted and settled by whites in 1857; and was incorporated as a town in 1858, and as a city in 1859. At Wyandotte were made the first moves for the Territorial organization of Kansas and Nebraska. During the Kansas struggle Wyandotte was a pro-slavery town, while Quindaro (1856), a few miles up the Missouri, was a free-state settlement and Wyandotte’s commercial rival until after the Civil War. The convention that framed the constitution, the Wyandotte Constitution, under which Kansas was admitted to the Union, met here in July 1859. “Old” Kansas City was surveyed in 1869 and was incorporated as a city in 1872. Armourdale was laid out in 1880 and incorporated in 1882. The packing interest was first established in 1867; the first large packing plant was that of Armour & Co., which was removed to what is now Kansas City in 1871. Kansas City adopted government by commission in 1909.

Illustration from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Justinian II." to "Kells" Volume 15, Slice 6

KANSAS CITY, a city and port of entry of Jackson county, Missouri, U.S.A., the second in size and importance in the state, situated at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers, adjoining Kansas City, Kansas, and 235 m. W. by N. of St Louis. Pop. (1890), 132,716; (1900), 163,752, of whom 18,410 were foreign born (German, 4816; Irish, 3507; Swedish, 1869; English, 1863; English-Canadian, 1369; Italian, 1034), and 17,567 were negroes; (1910 census) 248,381. Kansas City, the gateway to the South-west, is one of the leading railway centres of the United States. It is served by the Union Pacific, the Missouri Pacific, the ’Frisco System, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Chicago Great Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, the Chicago & Alton, the Wabash, the Kansas City Southern, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the Leavenworth, Kansas & Western, the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient, the St Louis, Kansas City & Colorado, the Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City, and the St Joseph & Grand Island railways, and by steamboat lines to numerous river ports.

The present retail, office, and wholesale sections were once high bluffs and deep ravines, but through and across these well graded streets were constructed. South and west of this highland, along the Kansas river, is a low, level tract occupied chiefly by railway yards, stock yards, wholesale houses and manufacturing establishments; north and east of the highland is a flat section, the Missouri River bottoms, occupied largely by manufactories, railway yards, grain elevators and homes of employés. Much high and dry “made” land has been reclaimed from the river flood-plain. Two great railway bridges across the Missouri, many smaller bridges across the Kansas, and a great inter-state toll viaduct extending from bluff to bluff across the valley of the latter river, lie within the metropolitan area of the two cities. The streets of the Missouri city are generally wide and excellently paved. The city-hall (1890-1893), the courthouse (1888-1892), and the Federal Building (1892-1900) are the most imposing of the public buildings. A convention hall, 314 ft. long and 198 ft. wide, with a seating capacity of about 15,000, is covered by a steel-frame roof without a column for its support; the exterior of the walls is cut stone and brick. The building was erected within three months, to replace one destroyed by fire, for the National Democratic Convention which met here on the 4th of July 1900. The Public Library with walls of white limestone and Texas granite, contained (1908) 95,000 volumes. The Congregational, the Calvary Baptist, the Second Presbyterian, the Independence Avenue Christian, the Independence Avenue Methodist, and the Second Christian Science churches are the finest church buildings. The board of trade building, the building of the Star newspaper, and several large office buildings (including the Scarritt, Long, and New York Life Insurance buildings) are worthy of mention.

Kansas City has over 2000 acres in public parks; but Swope Park, containing 1354 acres, lies south of the city limits. The others are distributed with a design to give each section a recreation ground within easy walking distance, and all (including Swope) are connected by parkways, boulevards and street-car lines. The Paseo Parkway, 250 ft. wide, extends from N. to S. through the centre of the city for a distance of 2½ m., and adjoining it near its middle is the Parade, or principal playground. The city has eight cemeteries, the largest of which are Union, Elmwood, Mt Washington, St Mary’s and Forest Hill. The charitable institutions and professional schools included in 1908 about thirty hospitals, several children’s homes and homes for the aged, an industrial home, the Kansas City school of law, the University medical college, and the Scarritt training school. The city has an excellent public school system. A Methodist Episcopal institutional church, admirably equipped, was opened in 1906. The city has a juvenile court, and maintains a free employment bureau.

Kansas City is primarily a commercial centre, and its trade in livestock, grain and agricultural implements is especially large. The annual pure-bred livestock show is of national importance. The city’s factory product increased from $23,588,653 in 1900 to $35,573,049 in 1905, or 50.8%. Natural gas and crude petroleum from Kansas fields became of industrial importance about 1906. Natural gas is used to light the residence streets and to heat many of the residences.

Kansas City is one of the few cities in the United States empowered to frame its own charter. The first was adopted in 1875 and the second in 1889. In 1905 a new charter, drawn on the lines of the model “municipal program” advocated by the National Municipal League, was submitted to popular vote, but was defeated by the influence of the saloons and other special interests. The charter of 1908 is a revision of this proposed charter of 1905 with the objectionable features eliminated; it was adopted by a large majority vote. Under the provisions of the charter of 1908 the people elect a mayor, city treasurer, city comptroller, and judges of the municipal court, each for a term of two years. The legislative body is the common council composed of two houses, each having as many members as there are wards in the city—14 in 1908. The members of the lower house are elected, one by each ward, in the spring of each even numbered year. The upper house members are elected by the city at large and serve four years. A board of public works, board of park commissioners, board of fire and water commissioners, a board of civil service, a city counsellor, a city auditor, a city assessor, a purchasing agent, and subordinate officers, are appointed by the mayor, without confirmation by the common council. A non-partisan board composed of citizens who must not be physicians has general control of the city’s hospitals and health department. A new hospital at a cost of half a million dollars was completed in 1908. The charter provides for a referendum vote on franchises, which may be ordered by the council or by petition of the people, the signatures of 20% of the registered voters being sufficient to force such election. Public work may be prevented by remonstrance of interested property owners except in certain instances, when the city, by vote of the people, may overrule all remonstrances. A civic league attempts to give a non-partisan estimate of all municipal candidates. The juvenile court, the arts and tenement commissions, the municipal employment bureau, and a park board are provided for by the charter. All the members of the city board of election commissioners and a majority of the police board are appointed by the governor of the state; and the police control the grant of liquor licences. The city is supplied with water drawn from the Missouri river above the mouth of the Kansas or Kaw (which is used as a sewer by Kansas City, Kan.); the main pumping station and settling basins being at Quindaro, several miles up the river in Kansas; whence the water is carried beneath the Kansas, through a tunnel, to a high-pressure distributing station in the west bottoms. The waterworks (direct pressure system) were acquired by the city in 1895. All other public services are in private hands. The street-railway service is based on a universal 5-cent transfer throughout the metropolitan area. Some of the first overhead electric trolleys used in the United States were used here in 1885.

The first permanent settlement within the present limits of Kansas City, which took its name from Kansas river,1 was established by French fur traders about 1821. Westport, a little inland town—platted 1833, a city 1857, merged in Kansas City in 1899—now a fashionable residence district of Kansas City—was a rival of Independence in the Santa Fé trade which she gained almost in toto in 1844 when the great Missouri flood (the greatest the river has known) destroyed the river landing utilized by Independence. Meanwhile, what is now Kansas City, and was then Westport Landing, being on the river where a swift current wore a rocky shore, steadily increased in importance and overshadowed Westport. But in 1838 lots were surveyed and the name changed to the Town of Kansas. It was officially organized in part in 1847, formally incorporated as a town in 1850, chartered under its present name in 1853, re-chartered in 1875, in 1889 and in 1908. Before 1850 it was practically the exclusive eastern terminus on the river for the Santa Fé trade,2 and a great outfitting point for Californian emigrants. The history of this border trade is full of picturesque colour. During the Civil War both Independence and Westport were the scene of battles; Kansas City escaped, but her trade went to Leavenworth, where it had the protection of an army post and a quiet frontier. After the war the railways came, taking away the traffic to Santa Fé, and other cities farther up the Missouri river took over the trade to its upper valley. In 1866 Kansas City was entered by the first railway from St Louis; 1867 saw the beginning of the packing industry; in 1869 a railway bridge across the Missouri assured it predominance over Leavenworth and St Joseph; and since that time—save for a depression shortly after 1890, following a real-estate boom—the material progress of the city has been remarkable; the population increased from 4418 in 1860 to 32,260 in 1870, 55,785 in 1880, and 132,716 in 1890.

See T. S. Case (ed.), History of Kansas City, Missouri (Syracuse, 1888); William Griffith, History of Kansas City (Kansas City, 1900); for industrial history, the Greater Kansas City Yearbook (1907 seq.); for all features of municipal interest, the Kansas City Annual (Kansas City, 1907 seq.), prepared for the Business Men’s League.

1 “Kansas”—in archaic variants of spelling and pronunciation, “Kansaw,” and still called, locally and colloquially, the “Kaw.”

2 Before Kansas City, first Old Franklin (opposite Boonville), then Ft. Osage, Liberty, Sibley, Lexington, Independence and Westport had successively been abandoned as terminals, as the transfer-point from boat to prairie caravan was moved steadily up the Missouri. Whisky, groceries, prints and notions were staples sent to Santa Fé; wool, buffalo robes and dried buffalo meat, Mexican silver coin, gold and silver dust and ore came in return. In 1860 the trade employed 3000 wagons and 7000 men, and amounted to millions of dollars in value.

Illustration from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Justinian II." to "Kells" Volume 15, Slice 6

KANSK, a town of eastern Siberia, in the government of Yeniseisk, 151 m. by rail E. of Krasnoyarsk, on the Kan River, a tributary of the Yenisei, and on the Siberian highway. Pop. (1897), 7504. It is the chief town of a district in which gold is found, but lies on low ground subject to inundation by the river.

Illustration from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Justinian II." to "Kells" Volume 15, Slice 6

KAN-SUH, a north-western province of China, bounded N. by Mongolia, E. by Shen-si, S. by Szech’uen, W. by Tibet and N.W. by Turkestan. The boundary on the N. remains undefined, but the province may be said to occupy the territory lying between 32° 30′40° N., and 108° and 98° 20′ E., and to contain about 260,000 sq. m. The population is estimated at 9,800,000. Western Kan-suh is mountainous, and largely a wilderness of sand and snow, but east of the Hwang-ho the country is cultivated. The principal river is the Hwang-ho, and in the mountains to the south of Lan-chow Fu rises the Wei-ho, which traverses Shen-si and flows into the Hwang-ho at Tung-kwan. The chief products of Kan-suh are cloth, horse hides, a kind of curd like butter which is known by the Mongols under the name of wuta, musk, plums, onions, dates, sweet melons and medicines. (See China.)

Illustration from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Justinian II." to "Kells" Volume 15, Slice 6

KANT, IMMANUEL (1724-1804), German philosopher, was born at Königsberg on the 22nd of April 1724. His grandfather was an emigrant from Scotland, and the name Cant is not uncommon in the north of Scotland, whence the family is said to have come. His father was a saddler in Königsberg, then a stronghold of Pietism, to the strong influence of which Kant was subjected in his early years. In his tenth year he was entered at the Collegium Fredericianum with the definite view of studying theology. His inclination at this time was towards classics, and he was recognized, with his school-fellow, David Ruhnken, as among the most promising classical scholars of the college. His taste for the greater Latin authors, particularly Lucretius, was never lost, and he acquired at school an unusual facility in Latin composition. With Greek authors he does not appear to have been equally familiar. During his university course, which began in 1740, Kant was principally attracted towards mathematics and physics. The lectures on classics do not seem to have satisfied him, and, though he attended courses on theology, and even preached on one or two occasions, he appears finally to have given up the intention of entering the Church. The last years of his university studies were much disturbed by poverty. His father died in 1746, and for nine years he was compelled to earn his own living as a private tutor. Although he disliked the life and was not specially qualified for it—as he used to say regarding the excellent precepts of his Pädagogik, he was never able to apply them—yet he added to his other accomplishments a grace and polish which he displayed ever afterwards to a degree somewhat unusual in a philosopher by profession.

In 1755 Kant became tutor in the family of Count Kayserling. By the kindness of a friend named Richter, he was enabled to resume his university career, and in the autumn of that year he graduated as doctor and qualified as privatdocent. For fifteen years he continued to labour in this position, his fame as writer and lecturer steadily increasing. Though twice he failed to obtain a professorship at Königsberg, he steadily refused appointments elsewhere. The only academic preferment received by him during the lengthy probation was the post of under-librarian (1766). His lectures, at first mainly upon physics, gradually expanded until nearly all descriptions of philosophy were included under them.

In 1770 he obtained the chair of logic and metaphysics at Königsberg, and delivered as his inaugural address the dissertation De mundi sensibilis et intelligibilis forma et principiis. Eleven years later appeared the Kritik of Pure Reason, the work towards which he had been steadily advancing, and of which all his later writings are developments. In 1783 he published the Prolegomena, intended as an introduction to the Kritik, which had been found to stand in need of some explanatory comment. A second edition of the Kritik, with some modifications, appeared in 1787, after which it remained unaltered.

In spite of its frequent obscurity, its novel terminology, and its declared opposition to prevailing systems, the Kantian philosophy made rapid progress in Germany. In the course of ten or twelve years from the publication of the Kritik of Pure Reason, it was expounded in all the leading universities, and it even penetrated into the schools of the Church of Rome. Such men as J. Schulz in Königsberg, J. G. Kiesewetter in Berlin, Jakob in Halle, Born and A. L. Heydenreich in Leipzig, K. L. Reinhold and E. Schmid in Jena, Buhle in Göttingen, Tennemann in Marburg, and Snell in Giessen, with many others, made it the basis of their philosophical teaching, while theologians like Tieftrunk, Stäudlin, and Ammon eagerly applied it to Christian doctrine and morality. Young men flocked to Königsberg as to a shrine of philosophy. The Prussian Government even undertook the expense of their support. Kant was hailed by some as a second Messiah. He was consulted as an oracle on all questions of casuistry—as, for example, on the lawfulness of inoculation for the small-pox. This universal homage for a long time left Kant unaffected; it was only in his later years that he spoke of his system as the limit of philosophy, and resented all further progress. He still pursued his quiet round of lecturing and authorship, and contributed from time to time papers to the literary journals. Of these, among the most remarkable was his review of Herder’s Philosophy of History, which greatly exasperated that author, and led to a violent act of retaliation some years after in his Metakritik of Pure Reason. Schiller at this period in vain sought to engage Kant upon his Horen. He remained true to the Berlin Journal, in which most of his criticisms appeared.

In 1792 Kant, in the full height of his reputation, was involved in a collision with the Government on the question of his religious doctrines. Naturally his philosophy had excited the declared opposition of all adherents of historical Christianity, since its plain tendency was towards a moral rationalism, and it could not be reconciled to the literal doctrines of the Lutheran Church. It would have been much better to permit his exposition of the philosophy of religion to enjoy the same literary rights as his earlier works, since Kant could not be interdicted without first silencing a multitude of theologians who were at least equally separated from positive Christianity. The Government, however, judged otherwise; and after the first part of his book, On Religion within the Limits of Reason alone, had appeared in the Berlin Journal, the publication of the remainder, which treats in a more rationalizing style of the peculiarities of Christianity, was forbidden. Kant, thus shut out from Berlin, availed himself of his local privilege, and, with the sanction of the theological faculty of his own university, published the full work in Königsberg. The Government, probably influenced as much by hatred and fear of the French Revolution, of which Kant was supposed to be a partisan, as by love of orthodoxy, resented the act; and a secret cabinet order was received by him intimating the displeasure of the king, Frederick William II., and exacting a pledge not to lecture or write at all on religious subjects in future. With this mandate Kant, after a struggle, complied, and kept his engagement till 1797, when the death of the king, according to his construction of his promise, set him free. This incident, however, produced a very unfavourable effect on his spirits. He withdrew in 1794 from society; next year he gave up all his classes but one public lecture on logic or metaphysics; and in 1797, before the removal of the interdict on his theological teaching, he ceased altogether his public labours, after an academic course of forty-two years. He previously, in the same year, finished his treatises on the Metaphysics of Ethics, which, with his Anthropology, completed in 1798, were the last considerable works that he revised with his own hand. His Lectures on Logic, on Physical Geography, on Paedagogics, were edited during his lifetime by his friends and pupils. By way of asserting his right to resume theological disquisition, he also issued in 1798 his Strife of the Faculties, in which all the strongest points of his work on religion were urged afresh, and the correspondence that had passed between himself and his censors was given to the world.

From the date of his retirement from the chair Kant declined in strength, and gave tokens of intellectual decay. His memory began to fail, and a large work at which he wrought night and day, on the connexion between physics and metaphysics, was found to be only a repetition of his already published doctrines. After 1802, finding himself attacked with a weakness in the limbs attended with frequent fits of falling, he mitigated the Spartan severity of his life, and consented to receive medical advice. A constant restlessness oppressed him; his sight gave way; his conversation became an extraordinary mixture of metaphors; and it was only at intervals that gleams of his former power broke out, especially when some old chord of association was struck in natural science or physical geography. A few days before his decease, with a great effort he thanked his medical attendant for his visits in the words, “I have not yet lost my feeling for humanity.” On the 12th of February 1804 he died, having almost completed his eightieth year. His stature was small, and his appearance feeble. He was little more than five feet high; his breast was almost concave, and, like Schleiermacher, he was deformed in the right shoulder. His senses were quick and delicate; and, though of weak constitution, he escaped by strict regimen all serious illness.

His life was arranged with mechanical regularity; and, as he never married, he kept the habits of his studious youth to old age. His man-servant, who awoke him summer and winter at five o’clock, testified that he had not once failed in thirty years to respond to the call. After rising he studied for two hours, then lectured other two, and spent the rest of the forenoon, till one, at his desk. He then dined at a restaurant, which he frequently changed, to avoid the influx of strangers, who crowded to see and hear him. This was his only regular meal; and he often prolonged the conversation till late in the afternoon. He then walked out for at least an hour in all weathers, and spent the evening in lighter reading, except an hour or two devoted to the preparation of his next day’s lectures, after which he retired between nine and ten to rest. In his earlier years he often spent his evenings in general society, where his knowledge and conversational talents made him the life of every party. He was especially intimate with the families of two English merchants of the name of Green and Motherby, where he found many opportunities of meeting ship-captains, and other travelled persons, and thus gratifying his passion for physical geography. This social circle included also the celebrated J. G. Hamann, the friend of Herder and Jacobi, who was thus a mediator between Kant and these philosophical adversaries.

Kant’s reading was of the most extensive and miscellaneous kind. He cared comparatively little for the history of speculation, but his acquaintance with books of science, general history, travels and belles lettres was boundless. He was well versed in English literature, chiefly of the age of Queen Anne, and had read English philosophy from Locke to Hume, and the Scottish school. He was at home in Voltaire and Rousseau, but had little or no acquaintance with the French sensational philosophy. He was familiar with all German literature up to the date of his Kritik, but ceased to follow it in its great development by Goethe and Schiller. It was his habit to obtain books in sheets from his publishers Kanter and Nicolovius; and he read over for many years all the new works in their catalogue, in order to keep abreast of universal knowledge. He was fond of newspapers and works on politics; and this was the only kind of reading that could interrupt his studies in philosophy.

As a lecturer, Kant avoided altogether that rigid style in which his books were written. He sat behind a low desk, with a few jottings on slips of paper, or textbooks marked on the margin, before him, and delivered an extemporaneous address, opening up the subject by partial glimpses, and with many anecdotes or familiar illustrations, till a complete idea of it was presented. His voice was extremely weak, but sometimes rose into eloquence, and always commanded perfect silence. Though kind to his students, he refused to remit their fees, as this, he thought, would discourage independence. It was another principle that his chief exertions should be bestowed on the intermediate class of talent, as the geniuses would help themselves, and the dunces were beyond remedy.

Simple, honourable, truthful, kind-hearted and high-minded as Kant was in all moral respects, he was somewhat deficient in the region of sentiment. He had little enthusiasm for the beauties of nature, and indeed never sailed out into the Baltic, or travelled more than 40 miles from Königsberg. Music he disregarded, and all poetry that was more than sententious prose. His ethics have been reproached with some justice as setting up too low an ideal for the female sex. Though faithful in a high degree to the duties of friendship, he could not bear to visit his friends in sickness, and after their death he repressed all allusion to their memory. His engrossing intellectual labours no doubt tended somewhat to harden his character; and in his zeal for rectitude of purpose he forgot the part which affection and sentiment must ever play in the human constitution.

On the 12th of February 1904, the hundredth anniversary of Kant’s death, a Kantian society (Kantgesellschaft) was formed at Halle under the leadership of Professor H. Vaihinger to promote Kantian studies. In 1909 it had an annual membership of 191; it supports the periodical Kantstudien (founded 1896; see Bibliography, ad init.).

The Writings of Kant

No other thinker of modern times has been throughout his work so penetrated with the fundamental conceptions of physical science; no other has been able to hold with such firmness the balance between empirical and speculative ideas. Beyond all question much of the influence which the critical philosophy has exercised and continues to exercise must be ascribed to this characteristic feature in the training of its great author.

The early writings of Kant are almost without exception on questions of physical science. It was only by degrees that philosophical problems began to engage his attention, and that the main portion of his literary activity was turned towards them. The following are the most important of the works which bear directly on physical science.

1. Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte (1747); an essay dealing with the famous dispute between the Cartesians and Leibnitzians regarding the expression for the amount of a force. According to the Cartesians, this quantity was directly proportional to velocity; according to their opponents, it varied with the square of the velocity. The dispute has now lost its interest, for physicists have learned to distinguish accurately the two quantities which are vaguely included under the expression amount of force, and consequently have been able to show in what each party was correct and in what it was in error. Kant’s essay, with some fallacious explanations and divisions, criticizes acutely the arguments of the Leibnitzians, and concludes with an attempt to show that both modes of expression are correct when correctly limited and interpreted.

2. Whether the Earth in its Revolution has experienced some Change since the Earliest Times (1754; ed. and trans., W. Hastie, 1900, Kant’s Cosmogony; cf. Lord Kelvin in The Age of the Earth, 1897, p. 7). In this brief essay Kant throws out a notion which has since been carried out, in ignorance of Kant’s priority, by Delaunay (1865) and Adams. He points out that the action of the moon in raising the waters of the earth must have a secondary effect in the slight retardation of the earth’s motion, and refers to a similar cause the fact that the moon turns always the same face to the earth.

3. Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels, published anonymously in 1755 (4th ed. 1808; republished H. Ebert, 1890). In this remarkable work Kant, proceeding from the Newtonian conception of the solar system, extends his consideration to the entire sidereal system, points out how the whole may be mechanically regarded, and throws out the important speculation which has since received the title of the nebular hypothesis. In some details, such e.g. as the regarding of the motion of the entire solar system as portion of the general cosmical mechanism, he had predecessors, among others Thomas Wright of Durham, but the work as a whole contains a wonderfully acute anticipation of much that was afterwards carried out by Herschel and Laplace. The hypothesis of the original nebular condition of the system, with the consequent explanation of the great phenomena of planetary formations and movements of the satellites and rings, is unquestionably to be assigned to Kant. (On this question see discussion in W. Hastie’s Kant’s Cosmogony, as above.)

4. Meditalionum quarundam de igne succincta delineatio (1755): an inaugural dissertation, containing little beyond the notion that bodies operate on one another through the medium of a uniformly diffused, elastic and subtle matter (ether) which is the underlying substance of heat and light. Both heat and light are regarded as vibrations of this diffused ether.

5. On the Causes of Earthquakes (1755); Description of the Earthquake of 1755 (1756); Consideration of some Recently Experienced Earthquakes (1756).

6. Explanatory Remarks on the Theory of the Winds (1756). In this brief tract, Kant, apparently in entire ignorance of the explanation given in 1735 by Hadley, points out how the varying velocity of rotation of the successive zones of the earth’s surface furnishes a key to the phenomena of periodic winds. His theory is in almost entire agreement with that now received. See the parallel statements from Kant’s tract and Dove’s essay on the influence of the rotation of the earth on the flow of its atmosphere (1835), given in Zöllner’s work, Ueber die Natur der Cometen, pp. 477-482.

7. On the Different Races of Men (1775); Determination of the Notion of a Human Race (1785); Conjectural Beginning of Human History (1786): three tracts containing some points of interest as regards the empirical grounds for Kant’s doctrine of teleology. Reference will be made to them in the notice of the Kritik of Judgment.

8. On the Volcanoes in the Moon (1785); On the Influence of the Moon on the Weather (1794). The second of these contains a remarkable discussion of the relation between the centre of the moon’s figure and its centre of gravity. From the difference between these Kant is led to conjecture that the climatic conditions of the side of the moon turned from us must be altogether unlike those of the face presented to us. His views have been restated by Hansen.

9. Lectures on Physical Geography (1822): published from notes of Kant’s lectures, with the approval of the author.

Consideration of these works is sufficient to show that Kant’s mastery of the science of his time was complete and thorough, and that his philosophy is to be dealt with as having throughout a reference to general scientific conceptions. For more detailed treatment of his importance in science, reference may be made to Zöllner’s essay on “Kant and his Merits on Natural Science” contained in the work on the Nature of Comets (pp. 426-484); to Dietrich, Kant and Newton; Schultze, Kant and Darwin; Reuschle’s careful analysis of the scientific works in the Deutsche Vierteljahrs-Schrift (1868); W. Hastie’s introduction to Kant’s Cosmogony (1900), which summarizes criticism to that date; and articles in Kant-Studien (1896 foll.).

The notice of the philosophical writings of Kant need not be more than bibliographical, as in the account of his philosophy it will be necessary to consider at some length the successive stages in the development of his thought. Arranged chronologically these works are as follows:—

1755. Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae novae dilucidatio.

1756. Metaphysicae cum geometria junctae usus in philosophia naturali, cujus specimen I. continet monadologiam physicam.

1762. Die falsche Spitzfindigkeit der vier syllogistischen Figuren, “The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures” (trans. T. K. Abbott, Kant’s Introduction to Logic and his Essay on the Mistaken Subtilty of the Figures, 1885).

1763. Versuch den Begriff der negativen Grössen in die Weltweisheit einzuführen, “Attempt to introduce the Notion of Negative Quantities into Philosophy.”

1763. Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes, “The only possible Foundation for a Demonstration of the Existence of God.”

1764. Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen (Riga, 1771; Königsberg, 1776).

1764. Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und Moral, “Essay on the Evidence (Clearness) of the Fundamental Propositions of Natural Theology and Ethics.”

1766. Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik, “Dreams of a Ghost-seer (or Clairvoyant), explained by the Dreams of Metaphysic” (Eng. trans. E. F. Goerwitz, with introd. by F. Sewall, 1900).

1768. Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raum, “Foundation for the Distinction of Positions in Space.”

The above may all be regarded as belonging to the precritical period of Kant’s development. The following introduce the notions and principles characteristic of the critical philosophy.

1770. De mundi sensibilis et intelligibilis forma et principiis.

1781. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, “Kritik of Pure Reason” (revised ed. 1787; ed. Vaihinger, 1881 foll. and B. Erdmann, 1900; Eng. trans., F. Max Müller, 1896, 2nd ed. 1907, and J. M. D. Meiklejohn, 1854).

1783. Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können, “Prolegomena to all Future Metaphysic which may present itself as Science” (ed. B. Erdmann, 1878; Eng. trans. J. P. Mahaffy and J. H. Bernard, 2nd ed. 1889; Belfort Bax, 1883 and Paul Carus, 1902; and cf. M. Apel, Kommentar zu Kants Prolegomena, 1908).

1784. Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte im weltbürgerlicher Absicht, “Notion of a Universal History in a Cosmopolitan Sense.” With this may be coupled the review of Herder in 1785.

1785. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, “Foundations of the Metaphysic of Ethics” (see T. K. Abbott, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Ethics, 3rd ed. 1907).

1786. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft, “Metaphysical Elements of Natural Science” (ed. A. Höfler, 1900; trans. Belfort Bax, Prolegomena and Metaphysical Foundations, 1883).

1788. Ueber den Gebrauch teleologischer Prinzipien in der Philosophie, “On the Employment of Teleological Principles in Philosophy.”

1788. Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, “Kritik of Practical Reason” (trans. T. K. Abbott, ed. 1898).

1790. Kritik der Urtheilskraft, “Kritik of Judgment” (trans. with notes J. H. Bernard, 1892).

1790. Ueber eine Entdeckung, nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll, “On a Discovery by which all the recent Critique of Pure Reason is superseded by a more ancient” (i.e. by Leibnitz’s philosophy).

1791. Ueber die wirklichen Fortschritte der Metaphysik seit Leibnitz und Wolff, “On the Real Advances of Metaphysics since Leibnitz and Wolff”; and Ueber das Misslingen aller philosophischen Versuche in der Theodicee.

1793. Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, “Religion within the Bounds of Reason only” (Eng. trans. J. W. Semple, 1838).

1794. Ueber Philosophie überhaupt, “On Philosophy generally,” and Das Ende aller Dinge.

1795. Zum ewigen Frieden (Eng. trans., M. Campbell Smith, 1903).

1797. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre (trans. W. Hastie), and Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre.

1798. Der Streit der Facultäten, “Contest of the Faculties.”

1798. Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht.

The Kantian Philosophy.1

Historians are accustomed to divide the general current of speculation into epochs or periods marked by the dominance of some single philosophic conception with its systematic evolution. Perhaps in no case is the character of an epoch more clearly apparent than in that of the critical philosophy. The great work of Kant absolutely closed the lines of speculation along which the philosophical literature of the 18th century had proceeded, and substituted for them a new and more comprehensive method of regarding the essential problems of thought, a method which has prescribed the course of philosophic speculation in the present age. The critical system has thus a twofold aspect. It takes up into itself what had characterized the previous efforts of modern thought, shows the imperfect nature of the fundamental notions therein employed, and offers a new solution of the problems to which these notions had been applied. It opens up a new series of questions upon which subsequent philosophic reflection has been directed, and gives to them the form, under which it is possible that they should be fruitfully regarded. A work of this kind is essentially epoch-making.

In any complete account of the Kantian system it is therefore necessary that there should be constant reference, on the one hand, to the peculiar character of the preceding 18th-century philosophy, and, on the other hand, to the problems left for renewed treatment to more modern thought. Fortunately the development of the Kantian system itself furnishes such treatment as is necessary of the former reference. For the critical philosophy was a work of slow growth. In the early writings of Kant we are able to trace with great definiteness the successive stages through which he passed from the notions of the preceding philosophy to the new and comprehensive method which gives its special character to the critical work. Scarcely any great mind, it has been said with justice, ever matured so slowly. In the early essays we find the principles of the current philosophies, those of Leibnitz and English empiricism, applied in various directions to those problems which serve as tests of their truth and completeness; we note the appearance of the difficulties or contradictions which manifest the one-sidedness or imperfection of the principle applied; and we can trace the gradual growth of the new conceptions which were destined, in the completed system, to take the place of the earlier method. To understand the Kantian work it is indispensable to trace the history of its growth in the mind of its author.

Of the two preceding stages of modern philosophy, only the second, that of Locke and Leibnitz, seems to have influenced practically the course of Kant’s speculation. With the Cartesian movement as a whole he shows little acquaintance and no sympathy, and his own philosophic conception is never brought into relation with the systematic treatment of metaphysical problems characteristic of the Cartesian method. The fundamental question for philosophic reflection presented itself to him in the form which it had assumed in the hands of Locke and his successors in England, of Leibnitz and the Leibnitzian school in Germany. The transition from the Cartesian movement to this second stage of modern thought had doubtless been natural and indeed necessary. Nevertheless the full bearings of the philosophic question were somewhat obscured by the comparatively limited fashion in which it was then regarded. The tendency towards what may be technically called subjectivism, a tendency which differentiates the modern from the ancient method of speculation, is expressed in Locke and Leibnitz in a definite and peculiar fashion. However widely the two systems differ in details, they are at one in a certain fundamental conception which dominates the whole course of their philosophic construction. They are throughout individualist, i.e. they accept as given fact the existence of the concrete, thinking subject, and endeavour to show how this subject, as an individual conscious being, is related to the wider universe of which he forms part. In dealing with such a problem, there are evidently two lines along which investigation may proceed. It may be asked how the individual mind comes to know himself and the system of things with which he is connected, how the varied contents of his experience are to be accounted for, and what certainty attaches to his subjective consciousness of things. Regarded from the individualist point of view, this line of inquiry becomes purely psychological, and the answer may be presented, as it was presented by Locke, in the fashion of a natural history of the growth of conscious experience in the mind of the subject. Or, it may be further asked, how is the individual really connected with the system of things apparently disclosed to him in conscious experience? what is the precise significance of the existence which he ascribes both to himself and to the objects of experience? what is the nature of the relation between himself as one part of the system, and the system as a whole? This second inquiry is specifically metaphysical in bearing, and the kind of answer furnished to it by Leibnitz on the one hand, by Berkeley on the other, is in fact prescribed or determined beforehand by the fundamental conception of the individualist method with which both begin their investigations. So soon as we make clear to ourselves the essential nature of this method, we are able to discern the specific difficulties or perplexities arising in the attempt to carry it out systematically, and thus to note with precision the special problems presented to Kant at the outset of his philosophic reflections.

Consider, first, the application of the method on its psychological side, as it appears in Locke. Starting with the assumption of conscious experience as the content or filling-in of the individual mind, Locke proceeds to explain its genesis and nature by reference to the real universe of things and its mechanical operation upon the mind. The result of the interaction of mind, i.e. the individual mind, and the system of things, is conscious experience, consisting of ideas, which may be variously compounded, divided, compared, or dealt with by the subjective faculties or powers with which the entity, Mind, is supposed to be endowed. Matter of fact and matter of knowledge are thus at a stroke dissevered. The very notion of relation between mind and things leads at once to the counter notion of the absolute restriction of mind to its own subjective nature. That Locke was unable to reconcile these opposed notions is not surprising; that the difficulties and obscurities of the Essay arise from the impossibility of reconciling them is evident on the slightest consideration of the main positions of that work. Of these difficulties the philosophies of Berkeley and Hume are systematic treatments. In Berkeley we find the resolute determination to accept only the one notion, that of mind as restricted to its own conscious experience, and to attempt by this means to explain the nature of the external reality to which obscure reference is made. Any success in the attempt is due only to the fact that Berkeley introduces alongside of his individualist notion a totally new conception, that of mind itself as not in the same way one of the matters of conscious experience, but as capable of reflection upon the whole of experience and of reference to the supreme mind as the ground of all reality. It is only in Hume that we have definitely and completely the evolution of the individualist notion as groundwork of a theory of knowledge; and it is in his writings, therefore, that we may expect to find the fundamental difficulty of that notion clearly apparent. It is not a little remarkable that we should find in Hume, not only the sceptical dissolution of all fixity of cognition, which is the inevitable result of the individualist method, but also the clearest consciousness of the very root of the difficulty. The systematic application of the doctrine that conscious experience consists only of isolated objects of knowledge, impressions or ideas, leads Hume to distinguish between truths reached by analysis and truths which involve real connexion of the objects of knowledge. The first he is willing to accept without further inquiry, though it is an error to suppose, as Kant seems to have supposed, that he regarded mathematical propositions as coming under this head (see Hume); with respect to the second, he finds himself, and confesses that he finds himself, hopelessly at fault. No real connexions between isolated objects of experience are perceived by us. No single matter of fact necessarily implies the existence of any other. In short, if the difficulty be put in its ultimate form, no existence thought as a distinct individual can transcend itself, or imply relation to any other existence. If the parts of conscious experience are regarded as so many distinct things, there is no possibility of connecting them other than contingently, if at all. If the individual mind be really thought as individual, it is impossible to explain how it should have knowledge or consciousness at all. “In short,” says Hume, “there are two principles which I cannot render consistent, nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences. Did our perceptions either inhere in something simple or individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among them, there would be no difficulty in the case” (App. to Treatise of Human Nature).

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