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Improvement   /ɪmprˈuvmənt/   Listen
Improvement

noun
1.
A change for the better; progress in development.  Synonyms: advance, betterment.
2.
The act of improving something.
3.
A condition superior to an earlier condition.  Synonym: melioration.



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"Improvement" Quotes from Famous Books



... fairly—with the last of the vexatiously controverted episodes which need perplex our narrative. Byron, in wishing Moore from Ravenna a merry Christmas for 1820, proposes that they shall embark together in a newspaper, "with some improvement on the plan of the present scoundrels," "to give the age some new lights on policy, poesy, biography, criticism, morality, theology," &c. Moore absolutely refusing to entertain the idea, Hunt's name was brought forward in connexion with it, during ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... employment to keep his mind from preying upon itself and shortening his days. During his long though afflicted leisure he versified the Psalms, wrote a treatise on Logic, an Introduction to the Study of Astronomy and Geography, and a work On the Improvement of the Mind; and died in 1748, at ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... whenever you propose any alteration in the frame of it,—whether that alteration means the revival of some former antiquated and forsaken constitution of state, or the introduction of some new improvement in the commonwealth. The object of our deliberation is, to promote the good purposes for which elections have been instituted, and to prevent their inconveniences. If we thought frequent elections attended with no inconvenience, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... souls and the protest of philosophers, there was, amid the prevailing immorality and the agnosticism and scepticism bred by decayed Buddhism and the materialistic philosophy based on Confucius, some earnest struggles for the purification of morals and the spiritual improvement ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... The Spanish language, the traditions and customs of the dominant class, and a "republican" form of government, were practically the sole ties which remained. Laws, to be sure, had been enacted, providing for the immediate or gradual abolition of negro slavery and for an improvement in the status of the Indian and half-caste; but the bulk of the inhabitants, as in colonial times, remained outside of the body politic and social. Though the so-called "constitutions" might confer upon the colored inhabitants all the privileges ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd

... substantial grange. It was inhabited by a young couple. The good woman showed every part of the establishment with decent pride, exulting in its comfort and respectability. Her husband, I understood, had risen in consequence with the improvement of his mansion, and now began to be known among his rustic neighbors by the appellation of "the ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... sailed for Hamburg, in the hope that their imperfect acquaintance with the German language might be improved by the heroic remedy of a winter at Goslar. But at Goslar they do not seem to have made any acquaintances, and their self-improvement consisted mainly in reading German books to themselves. The four months spent at Goslar, however, were the very bloom of Wordsworth's poetic career. Through none of his poems has the peculiar loveliness of English scenery and English girlhood shone more delicately ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... after another was finished, and it gave them considerable satisfaction to find how much of an improvement this sort of work made ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen

... Englishmen at sight, and that he himself was, beneath his mud, one of the last-named. Being rather the quicker-witted of the two, he had put in three thoughts to the other fellow's one; but the position showed no improvement in the result, and the enemy's second thought, slowly dawning, was obviously of a more practical and drastic nature. His undecided fidgeting with his rifle made this abundantly clear. No time was to be lost. Our friend realised dimly that at all costs ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various

... man has passed seventy-three, as I have done, he may be excused in doubting his chance of yet another Australian visit. But while he has been waiting these many years, he has seen such vast improvement in inter-communication facilities of every kind, as to establish, he might say, a complete counterbalance to the increasing infirmities of years. Imagine, therefore, the Australian liner of the next few years to be a great and comfortable hotel, as though one went ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth

... the village community. Possibly, in these days of Poor Law Unions, District and County Councils, our affairs may be managed better; but there is much to be said in favour of the older system, and Parish Councils are not much of an improvement on ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... spotless as the lily, to be crisp as the ivy-leaf, and as clear in complexion as a rose,—is it not, O gentle readers, felt to be a disgrace? It came to pass, therefore, that many were now very cross. Carriages were ordered under the idea that some improvement might be made at the inn which was nearly a mile distant. Very few, however, had their own carriages, and there was jockeying for the vehicles. In the midst of all this Silverbridge remained as near to Miss Boncassen as circumstances would admit. "You are not waiting ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... agricultural folk, as the calendar shows, with a simple economy and simple needs, it is legitimate to connect the arrival of the goddess with the growth of town life and the demand for articles once made in rude fashion chiefly on the farms, and with a period of improvement in manufacture, and the use of better materials and better methods. Whence, then, did these improvements come? This is only another way of asking the question, Whence ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... Some writers friendly toward Ireland have declared that the famine proved one of the greatest blessings to the country; that it hastened free trade, better drainage of the island, and the passage of the Land Improvement Act; that it relieved the overcrowded labor market, led to more scientific farming, and in other ways produced changes that have been of lasting benefit. But though all this be true, the misfortune itself gave to modern history one of its ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... for being egotistical. In this particular I attempt an improvement on other autobiographies. Other autobiographies weary one with excuses for their egotism. What matters it to you if I am egotistical? What matters it to you though it should matter that ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... progressive motion.] Progression. — N. progress, progression, progressiveness; advancing &c. v.; advance, advancement; ongoing; flood, tide, headway; march &c. 266; rise; improvement &c. 658. V. advance; proceed, progress; get on, get along, get over the ground; gain ground; forge ahead; jog on, rub on, wag on; go with the stream; keep one;s course, hold on one's course; go on, move ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... hygiene. In order to get the benefit of the other rules, there must be no worrying or watching of symptoms. After the regimen of exercise, baths, diet, etc., has been selected, it must be followed as a matter of course, with confidence that it will help, and with patience as to the rate of improvement which will follow. ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... such-and-such 'sunken lots,' and as the Castle Rock was digged down and dumped in, tax-payers would rejoice over the saved cartage. Having thus killed off Nature, we would put up squares of houses upon the dead level, while the local papers would comment upon the 'improvement of property.' ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... Swancourt. 'Some of them are even more striking in colour than any real ones. Look at that beautiful rose worn by the lady inside the rails. Elegant vine-tendrils introduced upon the stem as an improvement upon prickles, and all growing so naturally just over her ear—I say growing advisedly, for the pink of the petals and the pink of her handsome cheeks are equally from Nature's hand to the eyes ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... the ice before I could cut the traces. There was leather enough on the leaders to bind those shoes on, but"—and the humorous lines deepened again—"a couple of straps, from an old suitcase, if you happen to have one, would be an improvement." ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... were to take all the trouble and all the expense off your hands, Mr. Wendover, would it be impossible for you to authorise me to make one or two alterations most urgently necessary for the improvement of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... philosophy is that we are to raise humanity to a higher plane. This is not the Gospel. On the contrary, the teaching of the cross is that humanity must die and sink out of sight and then be resurrected, not raised. Resurrection is not improvement. It is not elevation, but it is a new supernatural life lifting us from nothingness into God and making us partakers of the Divine nature. It is a new creation. It is an infinite elevation above the highest plane. Let us not ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... The late Mr. Gildon was one attached to Rymer by a similar way of Thinking and Studies. They were both of that Species of Criticks, who are desirous of displaying their Powers rather in finding Faults, than in consulting the Improvement of the World: the hypercritical Part of the Science ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... he said that Western Cuba was pacified, and that he had effected a great improvement in the condition of Cuba since his arrival there. He stated that he had given Cuba a fresh lease of life, that trains were running regularly throughout the island, the telegraph was in working order, and the troops, in spite of the fact that their pay was ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 50, October 21, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... the Pakeha.[1] Three years ago the Government re-organized the native schools, had the children taught sanitary lessons with the help of magic lanterns, and gave power to committees of native villagers to prosecute the parents of truants. The result has been a prompt, marked and growing improvement in the attendance and the general interest. Better still, the educated Maori youths are awakening to the sad plight of their people. Pathetic as their regrets are, the healthy discontent they show may lead ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... in my closet. I also enjoin him to search for a manuscript, which I think he will find in the third and lowest left-hand drawer of the mahogany chest standing under that portrait,—it is among some papers of no value, such as manuscript sermons, and pamphlets on the improvement of Ireland, and such stuff; he will distinguish it by its being tied round with a black tape, and the paper being very moldy and discolored. He may read it if he will;—I think he had better not. At all events, I adjure him, if ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... man should have few wants, and made it a crime to increase and a virtue to reduce them. A legislator should teach, on the contrary, that man should have many wants: for wants are not only the sources of enjoyment,—they are the sources of improvement; and that nation will be the most enlightened among whose populace they are found the most numerous. You, Sire, by circulating the arts, the graces, create a vast herd of moral wants hitherto unknown, and in those wants ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... this time that Mme. Fauvel, charmed with the improvement in Raoul, asked her husband to give him ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... exercise tests suggested by Barringer (only, the dumb-bells may be of lighter weight) are valuable to note the gradual improvement in heart strength of ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... compact method of storing power. Oddly enough, it was similar to the method Dr. Richard Arcot had discovered a hundred thousand light centuries away! It did not store nearly the power, and was inefficient, but it was a great improvement over their older method of generating energy in the ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell

... for the sake of their faith, and to rescue wild heathens from depravity and barbarism, and win them over to the Christian religion? Do you not deem that a noble work? Consider their admirable regulations as regards education; are they not excellent? I look for the greatest improvement in Adele, as the result of her stay here.—But it seems to me I have turned into the wrong street, for the Sisters' house is ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus

... of this is verified to us on the present occasion. We have come together at this delightful spot, and on this beautiful spring day, not only for the enjoyment of a festive season, but also for the improvement of our minds and the increase of our present stock of knowledge on subjects with which our several interests and our respective tastes are more ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo

... white enamel; a good job too. But as she stood back and looked at it, it did not quite fill the bill; it was rather thin; the tin showed through in spots. Well, if one coat was good, two coats ought to be better; so she went back and put on another coat. It was a great improvement; wonderful, in fact; a third coat would make it look like the finest marble; so ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy

... nevertheless its marked advantages. Perceiving that the sword alone could keep what the sword had won, the Hohenzollerns have ever striven to identify their dynastic interests with the well-being of their people, to make their regime one of order and improvement, to repress the power of the nobility without crushing its spirit, to adjust a satisfactory compromise between centralization and local independence, and to stamp their own uncompromising spirit upon each individual subject. Hence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... one of the greatest misfortunes which has ever befallen Michigan, for, in addition to its having deprived us of all certain and speedy communication with the civilized world, I am fearful it will greatly check the progress of immigration and improvement." ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... in surprise. "Oh, yes, I have indeed spoken ill of them; but is there not room for improvement in them? Ah! Mary, silly Mary, why are you not a man, to carry ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... whereas savages look upon death as the result of a deplorable accident, our men of science regard it as a beneficent reform instituted by nature as a means of adjusting the numbers of living beings to the quantity of the food supply, and so tending to the improvement and therefore on the whole to the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... of woman has undergone steady improvement in higher civilization by the progress of altruism. This is why culture, in India, China, Greece, Rome and Germany, etc., has gradually discredited marriage by purchase. This was at first replaced ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... characteristic of man in all ages and climates. So far, however, from being an evil, as at first might be supposed, it has been the great civiliser of our race; and has tended, more than anything else, to raise us above the condition of the brutes. But the same discontent which has been the source of all improvement, has been the parent of no small progeny of follies and absurdities; to trace these latter is the object of the present volume. Vast as the subject appears, it is easily reducible within such limits as will make it comprehensive without being wearisome, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... as an excellent opportunity for you to cut adrift from the objectionable associations you have formed during the past few months. With a fresh start, and surroundings calculated to inspire in you a desire for self-improvement, it will not be too late to hope for better things. I have every confidence in the natural stability of your character if you are once put upon the right track. I blame your advisers more ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... me! bad and blood-thirsty as I was, I could not do that. The corpse had been soaking in the wine a full week; I was convinced that the liquid was pretty thoroughly impregnated with the flavor of my scientific improvement; and even my stomach revolted at the idea of drinking wine tainted and reeking with the dead flesh and blood of the man ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... hours in trying to show what could be done with this old house, should any one care to lay out a reasonable sum upon it. Frankly, old houses never repay much expenditure of money, yet there is a certain satisfaction in working out the details of restoration and improvement which makes interesting study. Purely as a matter of that sort I have fancied such extensions ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond

... most ancient remains of the Asiatic nations. Some writers say that "this amounts to nothing more than a few scattered hints or mutilated recollections, and may all be referred to the common origin of mankind, and the necessary influence of that district of the world in which mental improvement of our species was first considered as an object of general concern." But this proves at least that there was an older civilization and literature than the Greeks, and that that civilization had its root in the East. According ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis

... knowledge in thievish arts of every description. At the commencement of the fifteenth century no nation in Europe was at all calculated to vie with the Italian in arts of any kind, whether those whose tendency was the benefit or improvement of society, or those the practice of which serves to injure and undermine it. The artists and artisans of Italy were to be found in all the countries of Europe, from Madrid to Moscow, and so were its charlatans, its jugglers, and multitudes of ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... reputation is by no means high, and can himself convey by water his vegetables and fruits to the Srinagar market. The production of fruit in Kashmir is very large, and the extension of the railway to Srinagar should lead to much improvement in the quality and in the extent of the trade. It may also improve the prospects ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... Fitzclarence has confirmed it with this additional observation, in his Journal of a Route, &c. page 493: "Upon enquiring about Timbuctoo the Hage laughed at our pronunciation, the name of the city being Timbuctoo." The next improvement in African geographical orthography, will probably be the conversion of Fez into Fas (for there is absolutely no more reason for calling it Fez than there has been for calling Timbuctoo, Timbuctoo), ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... province—and indeed of all the provinces—was in no way better than they had been under the dominion of Portugal, though they presented one of the finest fields imaginable for improvement. All the old colonial imposts and duties remained without alteration—the manifold hindrances to commerce and agriculture still existed—and arbitrary power was everywhere exercised uncontrolled; so that in ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... Modern improvement has a particular spite against the landmarks of antiquity. The railroad to Baltimore slices off a part of the Swedish graveyard—an institution much more ancient than the church which stands on it. And the rock by old Fort Christina, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... for the house and a few head of stock; well, in a good wet year a person could raise a little garden, maybe; few radishes and beans, and things like that. But uh course, that can't hardly be called an improvement, 'cause it was there when I took the place. A greaser, he had the land fenced and was usin' the spring 'n' range like it was his own, and most folks, they was scared to file on it. But she's sure filed on now, and I've got six ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... been ever at war with genius and talent, because well-informed men perceive, that superstition shackles the human mind, and would keep it in eternal infancy, occupied solely by fables and frightened by phantoms. Incapable of improvement itself, Theology opposed insurmountable barriers to the progress of true knowledge; its sole object is to keep nations and their rulers in the most profound ignorance of their duties, and of the real motives, that should incline them to do good. It obscures ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... occupied, and in which it is subject to no opposition from beings of its own class, or where it attains so great a perfection as to be able easily to overcome all opposition, the character eventually loses its original plasticity, or tendency to vary, since improvement in such a case would be superfluous, and becomes, so to speak, crystallized in that form which continues thereafter unaltered. It is, at any rate, clear that while all other birds rub together in the struggle ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... deposited. They are arranged in the supposed chronological order in which they were manufactured; the clumsy and coarse ware being placed in the first case, as exhibiting the dawn of the potter's art, and the more elaborate and highly-wrought specimens being arranged in regular order of improvement in the ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold

... China and Japan some changes are desirable in our present system of consular jurisdiction. I hope at some future time to lay before you a scheme for its improvement in the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... English social reformer, born in Manchester, associated with measures bearing upon sanitation and the improvement of the poor-laws, and connected with the administration of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... attempted to establish the series of numbers and to define their properties. "They also began by counting on their fingers, by fives and tens, or in other words by units of five; later on they adopted a notation by sixes and twelves as an improvement upon the primitive system, in which the chief element, the ten, could be divided neither into three nor four equal parts."[94] Two regular series were thus formed, one in units of six, the other in units of five. Their commonest terms were, of course, those that occur in both series. We know from ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... radical reform of the civil service, making a broader and more precise enunciation than was contained in the Liberal platform of 1872, though the assigned reason for that revolt, as given by its champions, was the alleged hostility of the Republican party to improvement in the Government service. The Protective policy was upheld; the extirpation of polygamy was demanded; and an investigation into the Chinese question, then beginning to distract California, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... consumption extreme emaciation of the patient is brought about. All tissues are subject to the same, most marked is the disappearance of adipose tissue. This symptom is of the greatest importance as a continued increase in weight means improvement and even cure. Therefore weighing the patient from time to time gives a sure meter for the ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum

... by establishing an uniform militia throughout the United States" has organized them so as to produce their full effect; whether your own experience in the several States has not detected some imperfections in the scheme, and whether a material feature in an improvement of it ought not to be to afford an opportunity for the study of those branches of the military art which can scarcely ever be ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... belief, based on elaborate inquiries and long meditation, is that the grant of the ballot to women marks the concealed but none the less real beginning of an improvement in our politics, and, in the end, in our whole theory of government. As things stand, an intelligent grappling with some of the capital problems of the commonwealth is almost impossible. A politician normally prospers under democracy, not in proportion ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... statesman of wonderful magnetic power, was the eloquent champion of the "American system," and enlisted in his favor the large manufacturing interest in the North and the friends of internal improvement in the West. These measures were made national issues, and Mr. Clay, Speaker of the House of Representatives, appropriated them to his personal advancement, and was their recognized leading advocate. Mr. Calhoun could not be ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... place with great splendour on the 30th ult., and the next will be arranged for the ensuing month, when everybody suspected of the plague will receive orders from the government to remain in their dwellings until they are entirely consumed. By this salutary arrangement, it is expected that much improvement will take place in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... we to do, you mean," retorted Belle. "Well, in view of the fact that we haven't got the cash the folks here think we have, we must do something. Twenty-five hundred dollars a year is an improvement on three hundred a year, and as there is no other positive offer in ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... World progress would shed-prosperity over the land; prosperity, not to the old dwellers and of the old type, but to the new-comers and of the new order of things. Small wonder, then, if the little community, resenting all this threatened improvement off the face of the earth, got their powder-horns ready, took the covers off their trading flint-guns, and with much gesticulation summarily interfered with several anticipatory surveys of their farms, doubling up the sextants, bundling the surveying parties out of ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... so filled with admiration of Jack's magnificent beard and moustache, that Peterkin and I had resolved to cultivate ours while in Africa; but I must say that, as I looked at Peterkin's face, the additional hair was not at that time an improvement, and I believe that much more could not have been said for myself. The effect on my little comrade was to cause the lower part of his otherwise good-looking face to appear ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... is the primary condition of any real improvement in the lives of the sweated workers. So the point is this. Can we do anything by law to screw up the remuneration of the worst-paid workers to the minimum necessary for tolerable human existence? I know ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner

... penetrated into these regions is very uncertain. Bhim Sen, the son of Pandu, is said to have penetrated into these parts, and probably was the first who introduced any sort of improvement. He still continues to be a favourite object with the rude tribes, not only on the mountains, but in their vicinity. Probably at no great distance from the time of that prince, and about the commencement ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... tall staid lady of about fifty, whose face betokened that her mind was full of grammars and dictionaries, smiled a little, and answered, "I have been informing your father of the marked improvement which you have lately ...
— The Boy Artist. - A Tale for the Young • F.M. S.

... time forward, all the requests of Rosecrans for the improvement of the efficiency of his army were treated with great coolness, and in many instances it was only after the greatest importunity that he was able to secure the least attention to his recommendations for the increased usefulness of his command. His repeated applications for more cavalry, and ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist

... sloop-rig the Spray made that part of her voyage reaching from Boston through the Strait of Magellan, during which she experienced the greatest variety of weather conditions. The yawl-rig then adopted was an improvement only in that it reduced the size of a rather heavy mainsail and slightly improved her steering qualities on the wind. When the wind was aft the jigger was not in use; invariably it was then furled. With her boom ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... types of the whole Manvantara, but the superintending the formation and education of each Root Race in turn. The following quotation refers to these arrangements: "There are also Manus whose duty it is to act in a similar way for each Root Race on each Planet of the Round, the Seed Manu planning the improvement in type which each successive Root Race inaugurates and the Root Manu actually incarnating amongst the new Race as a leader and teacher to direct the development and ensure ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot

... Kurzet-el-Enab (Kirjath-Jearim), Saris and Bab-el-Wad, to Ramleh and Jaffa; this is the road followed by the Pilgrims. Other paths were shown upon the map, but these were found to be mere tracks on the hillside or up the stony beds of wadis, and, without considerable improvement, were impracticable for wheeled guns or transport. The only routes along which guns, other than mountain artillery, could be moved, were the two first-class roads running northwards and westwards ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock

... A gradual improvement in all the departments of the public service commenced from the time of Mr. Pitt's accession to power; and the worst of these abuses had been corrected long before 1797. Still so much remained, that the demands ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... glad," said Polly. "I liked Mr. Perkins very well, but Miss Ainslee is such an improvement on him. Is she to go out ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard

... people who journey from place to place, and the herds of cattle that move to and fro, naturally fall into the same lines of travel, and thus, in time, wear great trails, as cows make paths in a pasture. These, with a little artificial improvement at certain points, make very good summer roads, and in the winter it is not necessary to use ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... decimal system, which is the prime element of their importance. Knowledge is not forthcoming as to just when or by whom such application was made. If this was an Arabic innovation, it was perhaps the most important one with which that nation is to be credited. Another mathematical improvement was the introduction into trigonometry of the sine—the half-chord of the double arc—instead of the chord of the arc itself which the Greek astronomers had employed. This improvement was due to the famous Albategnius, whose work in other fields we shall ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... to study availed themselves at least of the means for mutual improvement at their disposal. They organized societies for the study of certain branches of Jewish lore, and for the meetings of these societies the busiest spared time and the poorest put aside his work. It was a people composed of scholars and those who maintained scholars, and ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... gauntlets, saline infusion apparatus, sterilizer, aseptic towels, chloroform, bandages, gauze, wool, sponges, drainage-tubing, inhaler, silk skeins, syringes, field tourniquets, waterproof cloth, stethoscope—everything, and the whole outfit, table and all, weighing forty pounds. This would be an improvement on the system of having to open half a dozen medical and surgical cases when operating on the line of march, cases requiring the most expert repacking ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... draw a check with his pen. But by thus giving two dollars' worth of thought to every dollar of expenditure, he made his money go a long way, and the lively and personal interest he took in every little improvement, made a garden fence to him of as much importance and satisfaction as a new post-office would have been to ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... he had no faith in doctors; he would give the boy a good purge. His illness was due, he said, to a venereal disorder and the drugs which he had been taking in order to cure it; it was a priest the boy needed rather than a doctor. On the Thursday and Friday the boy's condition showed little improvement; the vomiting continued. But on Saturday M. Beaupre declared himself as highly delighted with the success of his medicine. The same night the boy was dead. The priest, urgently sent for by his devout uncle, arrived to find a ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... the condition of our Women may seen truly deplorable, and so indeed it is. A Male of the lowest type of the Isosceles may look forward to some improvement of his angle, and to the ultimate elevation of the whole of his degraded caste; but no Woman can entertain such hopes for her sex. "Once a Woman, always a Woman" is a Decree of Nature; and the very Laws of Evolution ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott

... Catholicism became the Dark Ages; and the Dark Ages were finally enlightened by the Protestant instincts of the English race. The whole process is summed up as Progress with a capital P. And any elderly gentleman of Progressive temperament will testify that the improvement since he was a boy ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... therefore is heavier per horsepower. A partial solution of this difficulty is the two-cycle operation, which seems almost a requirement if the Diesel cycle is to be considered at all for aircraft. For any normal commercial operation in the United States there seems to be little or no improvement to be had from the Diesel. After all, it is not entirely a question of fuel cost but payloads carried for a given horsepower. It seemed at one time as though the Diesel was particularly desirable for Zeppelin work. Now that blau gas has been introduced, which obviates the need of valving ...
— The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928 • Robert B. Meyer

... of the act of the New Haven colonists in adopting the laws of Moses as the statute-book of the colony, in the "Thirteen Historical Discourses of L. Bacon," pp. 29-32. "The greatest and boldest improvement which has been made in criminal jurisprudence by any one act since the dark ages was that which was made by our fathers when they determined 'that the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... many sorts of primitive improvement are pernicious to war; an exquisite sense of beauty, a love of meditation, a tendency to cultivate the force of the mind at the expense of the force of the body, for example, help in their respective degrees ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot

... cannot," replied the old gentleman. "You know that at present these shares are scarcely saleable except at a ruinous discount, and it would be a pity to part with them just now, seeing that there is some hope of improvement at this time. There is nothing for it but to sell my estate, and I don't think there will be enough left to buy butter to my bread after this unhappy affair is settled, for it amounts ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... such as believe that the quaint product called French civilization would be an improvement upon the civilization of New Guinea and the like, the snatching of Madagascar and the laying on of French civilization there will be fully justified. But why did the English allow the French to have Madagascar? Did she respect a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... people" as Mrs. Appleton called them, in improvement on their Maker's classification, were leaving town either for the lake or for some more distant breathing place, but she was tied at home, first because Mrs. Percival the elder, whom Dick refused to desert, preferred the wide quiet of her rooms, and second because Dick himself grew daily more absorbed ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... was evidently intended as an improvement on that immediately preceding it. The purport of both is essentially the same, but the first is pitched in a key of ill-disguised annoyance which is absent from the second. I do not see how these two versions can be reconciled with the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... industrializing countries; three of every four villages have no telephone service; only 5% of India's villages have long-distance service; poor telephone service significantly impedes commercial and industrial growth and penalizes India in global markets; slow improvement is taking place with the recent admission of private and private-public investors, but demand for communication services is also growing rapidly domestic: local service is provided mostly by open wire and obsolete electromechanical ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... come attend to reading, exhortation, teaching. [4:14] Neglect not the gift which is in you, which was given you by prophecy, with the imposition of hands of the eldership. [4:15]Study these things, be much in them, that your improvement may be manifest to all. [4:16]Attend to yourself, and to teaching; continue in it, for doing this you will both save yourself and those ...
— The New Testament • Various

... of paralysis on the twenty-second. The strength she got in the Adirondacks soon began to leave her by degrees; the doctor—who is mine, you know—told me the other day that it meant nothing but a temporary improvement at any time; but he had hoped that she would live for several years yet. Betty, what on earth do you find so interesting in Fifth Avenue? I hate it, ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... gratify a hearty admiration of the wonderful works of Nature, and to learn to love their neighbour better by seeking him at his own home—regarding it, at the same time, as a peculiar privilege, to derive their satisfaction and gain their improvement from experiences on English ground. Take care of this; and who knows into what high society you may not be able to introduce the bearer of the present letter! In spite of his habit of rambling from subject to subject in his talk, much as he rambled from ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... principle as our present organs, only that water was the inflating power. Vitruvius (iv. ix.) mentions the instrument as the invention of Ctesibus of Alexandria. It is also well described by Tertullian, De Anima, c. xiv. The pneumatic organ appears to have been a later improvement. We have before us a contorniate medallion, of Caracalla, from the collection of Mr. W. S. Bohn, upon which one or other of these instruments figures. On the obverse is the bust of the emperor in armour, laureated, with the inscription as AURELIUS ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... could get the support of the Niagara farmers for any move which had practice and not theory to recommend it, Manager Peet next began to agitate for an improvement in city-marketing conditions in Lockport. Up to August, 1915, the system—if system it might be called—of distributing farm produce for Lockport's consumption consisted of sporadic visits by producers ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... deg. W.; as neither their situation nor existence are well known. The truth is, I was unwilling to prolong the passage in searching for what I was not sure to find; nor was I willing to give up every object, which might tend to the improvement of navigation or geography, for the sake of getting home a week or a fortnight sooner. It is but seldom that opportunities of this kind offer; and when they do, they are ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... him, out of sheer waggery, whether he didn't think a touch of powder, and even, very judiciously applied, a touch of rouge, was an improvement to woman. His ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... rest of Europe, and you were disposed to see how things were going on, and permitted me to accompany you, I should feel perfectly happy; in the meantime, I have great pleasure in thinking that I shall pass some mornings with you at your own house, and I promise myself as much improvement as amusement from conversing with you, if you are so kind as to grant me some ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... carried through this riotous mle of flimsiness and sham. I cannot help but feel that this hodgepodge will convince the most doubting Thomas who might believe in the mob rule of hundreds of conflicting tastes. The Zone is not an improvement on similar things in former Expositions. Save for certain minor exceptions at the entrance, it will serve as a wonderfully effective illustration of the taste of the great masses of the people, and as a ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery. The moment you leave the Eastern States, and enter New York, the effects of the institution become visible. Passing through the Jerseys and entering Pennsylvania, every criterion of superior improvement witnesses the change. Proceed southwardly, and every step you take, through the great regions of slaves, presents a desert increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings. Upon what ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... and no one doubted their ultimate value, either by redemption or by being converted into city bonds. The notes also of H. Meiggs, Neeley Thompson & Co., etc., lumber-dealers, were favorite notes, for they paid their interest promptly, and lodged large margins of these street-improvement warrants as collateral. At that time, Meiggs was a prominent man, lived in style in a large house on Broadway, was a member of the City Council, and owned large saw-mills up the coast about Mendocino. In him Nisbet had unbounded faith, but, for some reason, I feared ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... princely luxury that surrounded him, his own habits were simple and frugal. He had never had an attendant for his own person. His large income he consecrated almost entirely to the improvement of his estate or to the purchase of more land. And yet, he was not avaricious. In all that concerned his wife or children, he did not count the cost. His son, Jean, had been educated in Paris; he wished him to be fitted for any position. ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... improvement on your plan, Mary,' he said, with triumph. 'Look at that,' and he flung a ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... acquiring and comparing the different classics. On him, as a teacher, Coleridge loved to dwell; and, with his grateful feelings, ever ready to acknowledge the sense of his obligations to him, particularly those relating to his mental improvement, he has, in his Biog. Lit. vol. i. p. 7, expressed himself in ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... place, because the less complicated a business is, the greater the profits to the owners," answered Sibilet. "Besides which, their income is more secure; and in all matters of rural improvement and development that is the main thing, as you will find out. Then, too, Monsieur Gaubertin is the friend and patron of working-men; he pays them well and keeps them always at work; therefore, though their families live on the estates, the woods leased to dealers and belonging ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... time by growing fatter and at another time by growing thinner. But you cannot say that they are improved by ceasing to wish to be elegant and beginning to wish to be oblong. If the standard changes, how can there be improvement, which implies a standard? Nietzsche started a nonsensical idea that men had once sought as good what we now call evil; if it were so, we could not talk of surpassing or even falling short of them. How can you overtake Jones if you walk in the other direction? You cannot discuss whether one ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton

... of Confederation there had been a treasury board of several commissioners, and a superintendent of finance. The new arrangement, making one man responsible, was a great improvement. A law was passed forbidding the Secretary of the Treasury to be concerned in trade or commerce, that is, to be a merchant. The late A. T. Stewart, appointed by President Grant to the office, was rejected as ineligible under this law. Yet no department of our Government ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... several years past been from time to time added to juvenile literature by SOPHIE MAY. They have received the unqualified praise of many of the most practical scholars of New England for their charming simplicity and purity of sentiment. The delightful story shows the gradual improvement of dear little Flaxie's character under the various disciplines of child-life and the sweet influence of a good and happy home. The illustrations are charming ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May

... TRAVELLING WHATSOEVER, and to oppose EVERY BILL which may hereafter be brought into Parliament, unless it shall contain a clause to that effect. It is also their intention to take up the cause of the poor and neglected STOKER, for whose accommodation, and social, moral, religious, and intellectual improvement a large stock of evangelical tracts will speedily be required. Tenders of these, in quantities of not less than 12,000, may be sent in to the interim secretary. Shares must be applied for within ten ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... Colleges, Churches, and other institutions, was the hunting ground of the aborigines, and the scene of border warfare. These States have been unparalleled in their growth, both in the increase of population and property, and in the advance of intellectual and moral improvement. Such an extent of forest was never before cleared,—such a vast field of prairie was never before subdued and cultivated by the hand of man, in the same short period of time. Cities, and towns, and villages, and counties, and States never before rushed into existence, and ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... way the brain that is given to us is to lead the life of a MAN, a life of self-control, a life that is worth while, that leads to something and helps forward the improvement ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... fifty into a six-inch bull's-eye. I might not know what the shooter is using, but I would know beyond any shadow of doubt that it was not an ordinary revolver. More, I would know that it could not be any possible improvement upon the revolver. It simply would have to be an instrument of an ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... dislike to these frivolous amusements, condescended to appear in the Circus; and after bestowing a careless glance at five or six of the races, he hastily withdrew with the impatience of a philosopher, who considered every moment as lost that was not devoted to the advantage of the public or the improvement of his own mind. By this avarice of time, he seemed to protract the short duration of his reign; and if the dates were less securely ascertained, we should refuse to believe, that only sixteen months elapsed between the death of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... the following conversation took place, Maude Bereford was preparing to hasten homeward. Lady Rosamond sent cheerful accounts of her husband's rapid improvement. They were still visiting amid the ruins in hopes ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour

... not accompanied by some form of selection (i. e., eugenics) ultimately defeats its own end. If it is accompanied by rational selection, it can usually be indorsed. Eugenics, on the other hand, is likewise inadequate unless accompanied by constant improvement in the surroundings; and its advocates must demand euthenics as an accompaniment of selection, in order that the opportunity for getting a fair selection may be as free as possible. If the euthenist likewise takes pains not to ignore the existence of the racial ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... intemperance in its modern forms; for the dearth of the article drives people to spirits, and other intoxicating agents. Let the light claret (vin ordinaire) of France become a cheap and accessible drink, and we say advisedly that there would soon be a marked improvement in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various

... quotation is evidently a plug in a leak, an apology for a gap in your own words. But your vulgar author will even go out of his way to make the clothing of his thoughts thus heterogeneous. He counts every stolen scrap he can work in an improvement—a literary caddis worm. Yet would he consider it improvement to put a piece of even the richest of old tapestry or gold embroidery into his new pair ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... of the Encyclopaedists, and in that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and of Thomas Paine. In the East, the swift changes in Japan, the success of the Japanese Empire against Russia, the downfall of the Manchu dynasty in China and the establishment of a Chinese Republic, the efforts at improvement in Persia, hindered by the interference of Russia and Great Britain with their growing ambitions, and the creation of British and Russian "spheres of influence," depriving her of her just liberty, and now the Russian Revolution and the probable rise ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant

... Gussie as I spoke these heartening words. His brow cleared, his eyes brightened, he lost that fishy look, and he gazed at the slug, which was still on the long, long trail with something approaching bonhomie. A marked improvement. ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... be found some record of what followed. Suffice it here to say, that the Railway is made, not on the route I advocated: but it is in course of improvement, so that the shortest iron road from the great harbour of Halifax, in Nova Scotia, to the Pacific may be secured. The vast western country, bigger than Russia in Europe, more or less possessed and ruled over, ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... Quadri, immediately across the Piazza, there was a scene of equal hopefulness. But there, all was a glitter of uniforms, and the idling was carried on with a great noise of conversation in Austrian- German. Heaven knows what it was all about, but I presume the talk was upon topics of mutual improvement, calculated to advance the interests of self-government and mankind. These officers were very comely, intelligent- looking people with the most good-natured faces. They came and went restlessly, sitting down and knocking ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... of a sagacious and comprehensive intellect to his own political aggrandizement; the latter devoted his more modest talents to the improvement of a mechanical engine. The former was and is, par excellence, a hero of history—we should scarcely find in the works of the most voluminous annalists the name of the latter. What has Napoleon done to entitle his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... by all ranks to the improvement of our trenches and to sleep when we were satisfied with our handiwork. More rain fell, and we got very wet and smeared with that remarkably tenacious mud which ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... tea-pot in the drawing-room. Mrs. Knaggs was a large lady who spoke her mind with much freedom, at all events to the young. She remarked how much Upton (so she addressed him) had altered; but her tone left Pocket in doubt as to whether any improvement was implied. She for one did not approve of his luncheon in Oxford Street, much less of the way he had spent a summer's afternoon; indeed, she rather wondered at his being allowed alone in London at all. Pocket, who could sometimes shine in conversation with his elders, ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... that my 'Statement of the Evil Wrought by the Navigation Laws to His Majesty's Colony of Virginia' won't be finished in time for the sailing of the God-Speed. So I told Woodson to find me some one among the men who knew how to write. He brought me this fellow, and I vow he is an improvement on young Shaw. He doesn't ask questions, and he is a very pretty Latinist. The paper will be finished to-day. I was but searching for a neat quotation to close with. Then the fellow will go back to ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... thing," said Stedman. "In all your plans, you've arranged for the people's improvement, but not for their amusement; and they are a peaceful, jolly, simple sort of people, and ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... introducing, possibly, a few more vegetables, and having the ground more parsimoniously tended than at present. The magnesia in the water is hostile to the majority of delicate European growths. Something, no doubt, could be done in the way of improvement, but as a set-off to a visionary project of this kind, which is averse to the whole spirit of French rule in Tunisia, there would be a great rise in prices: Italians would form their inevitable ring. The extent of the ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... and to compare the licence of that age with that of SHAKSPEARE's time, when a Virgin Queen, and not a Merry Monarch, was on the throne. And, when we come to SHERIDAN's time, how about The Duenna, and The Trip to Scarborough, which was supposed to be an improvement on the original? However, puris pura puerisque puellis, as my excellent friend, Miss MAXIMA DE BETUR observes. But one ought not to look a gift pony in the mouth any more than one ought to critically examine a jest which is passed off in good company. The jest was not meant to be criticised, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various

... it's a matter of doing something rather than nothing, for a schedule is always subject to improvement. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various

... true of singers. I earnestly hope that I may leave them something, in my researches, experiences, and studies, that will be of use. I regard it as my duty; and I confide it to all who are striving earnestly for improvement. ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann

... him, clinging closely to his arm, her modern attire looking almost odd where everything else was old-fashioned, and throwing over the familiar garniture of the trees a homeliness that seemed to demand improvement by the addition of a few contemporary novelties also. Grace seemed to regard the selling with the interest which attaches to memories revived after ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... my convictions that all civilizations are false, which do not civilize the lowest units of any social order, I have written Solaris Farm as my contribution towards the improvement of agriculturists as a class, of the race as a whole; towards the establishment of a truer civilization, organized for the purpose of securing the same degree of progress for the lowest orders of humanity, which have been or can be attained by the highest. In any ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson



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