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Improvement   Listen
noun
Improvement  n.  
1.
The act of improving; advancement or growth; promotion in desirable qualities; progress toward what is better; melioration; as, the improvement of the mind, of land, roads, etc. "I look upon your city as the best place of improvement." "Exercise is the chief source of improvement in all our faculties."
2.
The act of making profitable use or applicaton of anything, or the state of being profitably employed; a turning to good account; practical application, as of a doctrine, principle, or theory, stated in a discourse. "A good improvement of his reason." "I shall make some improvement of this doctrine."
3.
The state of being improved; betterment; advance; also, that which is improved; as, the new edition is an improvement on the old. "The parts of Sinon, Camilla, and some few others, are improvements on the Greek poet."
4.
Increase; growth; progress; advance. "There is a design of publishing the history of architecture, with its several improvements and decays." "Those vices which more particularly receive improvement by prosperity."
5.
pl. Valuable additions or betterments, as buildings, clearings, drains, fences, etc., on land or premises; as, to convey the land together with all improvements.
6.
(Patent Laws) A useful addition to, or modification of, a machine, manufacture, or composition.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Improvement" Quotes from Famous Books



... kind of Cento like the Carmen Nuptiale of Ausonius, than original productions. The Roman Satire differed from these in being essentially didactic. Besides ridiculing the vices and absurdities of individuals or of society, it had a serious practical purpose, viz. the improvement of public culture or morals. Thus it followed the old Comedy of Athens in its plain speaking, and the method of Archilochus in its bitter hostility to those who provoked attack. But it differed from the former in its non-political bias, as well as its non-dramatic ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... to Poland to encourage Augustus to the most vigorous prosecution of the war, promising to send him speedily twenty thousand troops. In the midst of these disasters and turmoil, the tzar continued to prosecute his plans for the internal improvement of his empire, and commenced the vast enterprise of digging a canal which should unite the waters of the Baltic with the Caspian, first, by connecting the Don with the Volga, and then by connecting the Don ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... heart and mind prompted me to be kind and tender, and I was ever inclined to accomplish great deeds. But only think that, during the last six years, I have been in a wretched condition, rendered worse by unintelligent physicians, deceived from year to year with hopes of improvement, and then finally forced to the prospect of lasting infirmity (which may last for years, or even be totally incurable). Born with a fiery, active temperament, even susceptive of the diversions of society, I had soon to retire from the world, to live a solitary ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... eminent engineer, born at Birmingham; entered into partnership with James Watt, and established with him a manufactory of steam-engines at Soho, on a barren heath near his native place; contributed to the improvement of the coinage (1728-1809). ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... ink. It had cost much trouble, she said, for much of the pencil writing had been made under such disadvantages and was so faint that at times she could decipher it only under direct sunlight. She had succeeded, however, in making a copy, verbatim except for occasional improvement in the grammatical form of a sentence, or now and then the omission, for brevity's sake, of something unessential. The narrative has since been severely abridged to bring it within the ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... now piped to breakfast, as if nothing particular was occurring. The spirits of all on board were somewhat raised by observing the evident improvement in the weather. The carpenter reported that the water was gaining less rapidly on the pumps, but still it was gaining. Another sail, however, was got up from below, fothered like the last, and passed ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... in charge appear to have a fixed idea that the "beef-stuk," which is the piece de resistance, should be served up raw. In course of time, doubtless, the railway management will be able to turn its attention to the commissariat arrangements, with a view to their improvement, and, when they do so, we hope they will leave out the beefsteak altogether and provide more variety and daintier, more ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid

... An extraordinary improvement in the musical side of vaudeville has taken place within the last fifteen years. Go to any hall any night, and you will almost certainly hear something of Wagner, Mendelssohn, Weber, Mozart. I think, too, that the songs are infinitely better than ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... getting stronger; I've noticed a marked improvement, since I came. But we were speaking of India. You were on the North-West frontier, ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... Pamela, "you are cruel to the girl I once was. The years mellow. Surely you welcome improvement, even while you remind me of my sins and faults ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... called the process "deterioration," but that, of course, is matter of opinion. A Cabinet Minister, at a recent Conference in London, is reported to have congratulated the press on its progressive improvement during recent years. And Lord Northcliffe is a peer. The more the English press approximates to the American, the more, it would seem, it may hope for public esteem and honour. And that is natural, ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... great wars which it has endured.' And in this condition it has remained ever since. Though the period which followed the Treaty of Rastadt in 1714, when Flanders passed into the possession of the Emperor Charles VI., and became a part of the 'Austrian Netherlands,' was a period of considerable improvement, Ypres never recovered its position, not even during the peaceful reign of the Empress Maria Theresa. The revolution against Joseph II. disturbed everything, and in June, 1794, the town yielded, after a short siege, to the army of the French Republic. The name of Flanders ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... of his injuries when Wyatt came back. Wyatt was worn out, but cheerful. The school had finished sixth for the Ashburton, which was an improvement of eight places on their last year's form, and he himself had scored thirty at the two hundred and twenty-seven at the five hundred totals, which had put him in a very good humour ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... elder woman; she could not remember where she had left the link-chain or goad-whip, though but a few minutes out of her hand. I must confess that, looking on that labour-crooked group, I felt a dislike, strong and definite, to that system which takes away even the hope of improvement, crushing down the principle of self-esteem in the man, until it reaches the passive and unambitious existence of the oxen which he drives. And looking on those women, negroes though they were, so unnaturally masculine, so ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike

... at that period, and to give him those mental and personal accomplishments deemed proper for a prince. Perhaps in this respect his imprisonment was an advantage, as it enabled him to apply himself the more exclusively to his improvement, and quietly to imbibe that rich fund of knowledge and to cherish those elegant tastes which have given such a lustre to his memory. The picture drawn of him in early life by the Scottish historians is highly captivating, and seems rather ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... better; the feverishness had been removed by her long sleep of despair, and her energy revived under the bodily relief, and the fixed purpose of recovering in time to see her brother again; but the improvement was not yet trusted by Henry, who feared her doing too much unless he was himself watching over her, and therefore only paid Leonard a short visit in the forenoon, going and returning by ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... some improvement Borderland between literature and common sense Casualties as the chief news Continue to turn round when there is no grist to grind Elevates the trivial in life above the essential If it does not pay ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner

... room left for more improvement, as you'd know if she lived in the same house with you," answered Miranda. "She's into every namable thing in the neighborhood, an' not only into it, but generally at the head an' front of it, especially when it's ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... for me, for I was not young now, and could not look for any improvement in my condition. Since I left Birtwick I had never been so happy as with my dear master Jerry; but three years of cab work, even under the best conditions, will tell on one's strength, and I felt that I was not the horse ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell

... literary watch-tower upon the mortal struggles of a society in revolution. In measuring other men of science—as his two volumes of Eloges abundantly show—one cannot help being struck by the eagerness with which he seizes on any trait of zeal for social improvement, any signal of anxiety that the lives and characters of our fellows should be better worth having. He was himself too absolutely possessed by this social spirit to have flinched from his career, even if he had foreseen the martyrdom which ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley

... are sent from New South Wales to the neighbouring colonies and to England in considerable quantities. Timber for shipbuilding is rising in estimation in the English market. Australian wines are said to be fully equal to Rhenish; and a Vineyard Association has been formed for the purpose of improvement. Wool, however, is at present the great staple; and the Circular seems to derive some consolation from the idea, that if the crop should continue deficient, prices in England will probably be maintained. 'To anticipate the future prices for our staples,' it says, 'in a market ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various

... the duties of, and assigns divisions of canals to engineers, visits and inspects canals, prescribes surveys, maps, plans, estimates, etc., in the construction and improvement of a canal, is a member of the Canal Board, of State Canvassers, a commissioner of the Land Office and a trustee of ...
— Civil Government for Common Schools • Henry C. Northam

... never cease to pray for my internal welfare! Talking of babus, one wrote to Mr. Royle the other day about a pair of riding-breeches, and said, "I have your Honour's measurements, but will be glad to know if there is any improvement in the girth." Don't you think that was a very pretty way of asking if he ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... was bent upon no mission of self- improvement. Long fishing-poles projecting from the back of the buggy, protested against the commercialism of the age; their yellow hue streaked the somber background of a money-getting world, while the very joints of the poles ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... Seen from the outside the cottage was charming; and if the captain and his family could only have lived over the way, and looked at it, they would have had full value for the money invested in its improvement. Small as the rooms were, however, and despite that dark slander which hung over the chimneys, Captain Winstanley declared that the cottage ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... he experienced a sensible improvement. The effect of the injection seemed truly miraculous; and he was able to sit up in bed, his back resting against the pillows. He spoke clearly, and with more ease, and never had the lucidity of his mind ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... upon him not as their friend but their father." Councillor van Maldere, President of the States of Zealand, and a confidential friend of Maurice, was going about the Hague saying that "one must string up seven or eight Remonstrants on the gallows; then there might be some improvement." ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... merely physical point of view—are most fit to die. Everything which makes it more easy to live; every sanatory reform, prevention of pestilence, medical discovery, amelioration of climate, drainage of soil, improvement in dwelling-houses, workhouses, gaols; every reformatory school, every hospital, every cure of drunkenness, every influence, in short, which has—so I am told—increased the average length of life in these islands, by nearly one-third, since the first establishment of life insurances, ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... an element of their environment, has been their creator as well as the director of their historical transformations. The result of their changes has been greater efficiency and better adjustment or adaptation to certain requirements fixed by man himself. The whole process of improvement has been one, in brief, of trial and error; new inventions have often been worthless, and they have been relegated to the scrap-heap, while the better part has been finally incorporated in the type machine. In brief, then, the important elements ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... San Francisco, and offered her a two weeks' engagement. But California would have none of her. The public were cold and unsympathetic, the press actually hostile. The critics declared not only that she could not act, but that she was devoid of all capability of improvement. One, more gallant than his fellows, was gracious enough to remark that, in spite of her mean capacity as an artist, she possessed a neck like a column of marble. It was only when she appeared as Meg Merrilies that the Californians thawed a little, ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... stretch out before you in valley, mountain and plain. Visit the mines of Leadville and Cripple Creek, the store houses of a part of the nation's wealth. Visit Denver and see the strides made in the improvement of the west in a short time. Board the Denver & Rio Grande train and note the magnificent scenery of mountain, canyons, gorges and the beautiful mountain lakes and streams, note the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, the royal gorge. Now note the great white expanse of the great Salt Lake, as it ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love

... on the other hand, are still zealous churchmen, and spend their time and money on masses and religious duties so perseveringly that one wishes they had a religion which was of some use to them. As it is, I cannot ascertain that Christianity has produced any improvement in the Mexican people. They no longer sacrifice and eat their enemies, it is true, but against this we must debit them with a great increase of dishonesty and general immorality, which will ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... shown that important preparations have been made for it. We are approaching more nearly to it by the ways of the more and more cosmopolitan character of science, the increasing international cooeperation of labor, the improvement in the means of transportation, growing emigration, the greater love of peace, and the greater ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... Heart hear the call of Spring! You ask me why mere friendship so Outweighs all else that but comes to go?... A truce, a truce to questioning: "We two are friends," tells everything. I think it vile to pigeon-hole The pros and cons of a kindred soul. (From Melissa's Improvement ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... shows how the "D" isolator permits the separators to completely cover and project slightly beyond the edges of the plates, whereas in the old construction there is an edge just above the isolators where the plates are not covered. This improvement means protection against shorts due to flaking, always so likely to occur during the summer "overcharging" season. Overcharging is, of course, a form of abuse, and Type "D" batteries are designed to meet this sort of service. Another ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte

... to the garden gate. Mr. Keene was just outside; Alice beckoned to him to enter. His appearance was a great improvement on the old days; he had grown a beard, and in his eye you saw the responsible editor. Altogether he seemed to have gained in moral solidity. None the less, his manner of approaching Adela, hat in hand, awoke reminiscences ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... off, and made a hasty search around the station. A woman's face—scarcely an improvement on the man's—leaned out of the car window and jeered at the hunter, ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips

... steadily plodded our way across the Indian Ocean, close-hauled day after day, with nothing more eventful than the occasional capture of a shark, or a capful of wind, to break the somewhat wearisome monotony of the voyage, during which I devoted an hour or two every day to the improvement of Master Billy Stenson's education; also giving a considerable amount of study to the late skipper's diary, in the endeavour to arrive at some sort of conclusion as to the whereabouts of the spot where ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... seen him walk into a crowd of sawin' rowdies and tell some droll yarn and bust them all up. It was the same after he got to be a lawyer. All eyes was on him whenever he riz. There was suthin' peculiarsome about him. I moved from Indiana to Illinois when Abe did. I bought a little improvement near him, six miles from Decatur. Here the famous rails were split that were carried round in the campaign. They were called his rails, but you never can tell. I split some of 'em. He was a master hand at maulin' rails. I heard him say in a speech ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all—gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress, and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty—none less inclined to touch or take aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power they already possess, and which, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... sat apart, like Milton's angels, and held high converse upon themes beyond the grasp of ordinary intellects. Glencoe possessed a kind of philosophic chivalry, in imitation of the old peripatetic sages, and was continually dreaming of romantic enterprises in morals, and splendid systems for the improvement of society. He had a fanciful mode of illustrating abstract subjects, peculiarly to my taste; clothing them with the language of poetry, and throwing round them almost the magic hues of fiction. "How charming," thought I, "is divine philosophy;" not harsh and crabbed, ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... after the dinner-party at Hampton Privets Mr. Fenwick made his little excursion out in the direction towards Devizes, of which he had spoken to his wife. The dinner had gone off very quietly, and there was considerable improvement in the coffee. There was some gentle sparring between the two clergymen, if that can be called sparring in which all the active pugnacity was on one side. Mr. Fenwick endeavoured to entrap Mr. Chamberlaine into arguments, but the Prebendary escaped with ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... said a word about cultivation!" Billy, who had been apparently deep in his book, looked up to snap angrily. Any allusion to his efforts at self-improvement always touched him in a very ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... neglects this part, and passes over the season for such improvement, he very rarely ever recovers it; for this part has its season, and that more remarkable than in many other cases, and that season lost, never comes again; a judgment in goods taken in early, is never lost, and a judgment taken in late ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... in which liberty, justice, and equality of opportunity shall increasingly prevail, they will go out of their way to acquire the English language, a knowledge of our institutions and ways, and all the instruments necessary to the task of collaborating with us in the improvement of ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... Consulares! And they were prepared with such care that Cicero specially boasted of them to Atticus, and declares that they should be put into the hands of all young orators. Montesquieu says that the Roman legislators, in establishing their religion, had no view of using it for the improvement of manners or of morals.[7] The nature of their rites and ceremonies gives us evidence enough that it was so. If further testimony were wanting, it might be found in this address, Ad Pontifices. Cicero himself was a man of singularly clean life as a Roman nobleman, ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... rest of my life to select my own subjects and write without care for remuneration. This is what I call the true (and, perhaps, alas! the rare) independence of him who devotes himself to letters. Norreys, having seen my boyish plan for the improvement of certain machinery in the steam-engine, insisted on my giving much time to mechanics. The study that once pleased me so greatly, now seemed dull; but I went into it with a good heart; and the result is, that I have improved so far on my original idea, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... to make this locality the centre of the financial operations of the city. Other institutions and private bankers soon followed, and the character and architecture of the street began to undergo a change. The work of improvement went on steadily, and the Wall street of to-day is the result. Famous lawyers have also had their offices in this street. Alexander Hamilton's sign might once have been seen here, not far from where ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... a cheap substitute for wit; regardful of criticism, which is often provocative or promotive of improvement, inspired with the dignity of their high calling, and with a fine vision that projects itself into the future, the librarians engaged in the work with children willingly give thereto the finest and the best ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... offspring of feudalism, begun under castle walls and continued after walls and castle had crumbled, as their area enlarged, with some improvement, perhaps, in the suburban parts, still retained this patch of mediaevalism, until obliterated by war, or fire, or later by modern progress. Look at Edinburgh, for example. With all its Scotch thrift and neatness, there yet remains the ill-conditioned and once filthy quarter, beside which rise the ...
— Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam • Hubert Howe Bancroft

... at all!" was the gracious rejoinder. "I see at a glance, in spite of your misfortunes, that you are one of us, which is not what I say to everybody. True blood will show under all circumstances, though there is such an improvement. Did any one ever see the like before? Why, my dear, you were blistered and black when we picked you up, and afterward sienna-colored; now you are ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... charge of these creatures may be regarded rather as a national than a provincial concern. Being members of a great empire, living under its supreme care and jurisdiction, and contributing to the increase of trade and commerce, to the improvement and opulence of the British dominions, they are unquestionably entitled to a share of national benevolence and Christian charity. An institution for their religious instruction was an object of such usefulness and importance, that it merited the attention of the ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... for the improvement and happiness of conversation, if society could be formed on this equality; but, as men are not ranked in this world by the different degrees of their understanding, but by other methods, and consequently all degrees of understanding often meet in the same class, and must ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... devote all my effort to telling you how it seems to me. The notch and the feathers are so close together, when carefully examined, that the line of separation is as fine as a hair's breadth; but the notch is so smooth and straight that in it surely no improvement could be made. The feathers are coloured as if they were of gold or gilt; but gilt is here beside the mark, for I know these feathers were more brilliant than any gilt. This dart is barbed with the golden tresses ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... original writer on glancing over his printed text or to a poet of kindred power, who, while busied in retouching and filling out the sketch of his predecessor, might be struck by the opening for so great an improvement at so small a cost of suppression. My own conjecture would incline to the belief that we have here a perfect example of the manner in which Shakespeare may be presumed, when such a task was set before him, to have ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... title to all mines in Mexico rests solely upon discovery and improvement, without any regard to the proprietorship to the land on which the mines are located; but the proof of discovery and improvement must be made and recorded in the mineral courts, except in Sonora, where the ordinary ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... glad of his father's improvement, was sorry to have been recalled for nothing to a country which brought his old life back again, with all its forms and ceremonies, reviving his dread lest Katy should not acquit herself as was becoming Mrs. Wilford Cameron. In his selfishness he had kept her almost wholly to himself, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... Cavour and what they think the peace party. Now Italy must have a little rest for organisation, civil as well as military. They do not give the Government time to do or even propose good measures for the improvement of the country. No sooner are one set of ministers installed than intrigues are on foot to upset them. I firmly believe that the only hope for Southern Italy and Sicily is in a strong military Government. These districts must be treated as conquered provinces, and the people ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... Isabel ignorantly abandoned herself to the charm of the place, which she found unimpaired, in spite of the reported ravages of improvement about Niagara. Goat Island was still the sylvan solitude of twelve years ago, haunted by even fewer nymphs and dryads than of old. The air was full of the perfume that scented it at Prospect Park; the leaves showered them with shade and sun, as they drove along. "If it were not for the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... deputation, as I have represented; I think it best, therefore, to say here that, from all I can learn, General Vincent was an honourable and useful man, and that the delineation of character under that name in my book is purely fictitious. The following extract from Clarkson's pamphlet on Negro Improvement will show in what estimation General Vincent is held by one whose testimony is of the ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... hardest, and touch the dark spots with light, in Ellen's future. The thoughts which had passed through her head that first morning as she had stood at her window, now came back again. Thoughts of wonderful improvement to be made during her mother's absence; of unheard-of efforts to learn and amend, which should all be crowned with success; and, above all, thoughts of that "coming home," when all these attainments and accomplishments should be displayed to the mother's delighted ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... and pay for my sons' education, I determined to educate them myself, to make them gentlemen and men of feeling. By investing my money in the funds I have been enabled to pay off my obligation sooner than I had dared to hope, for I took advantage of the opportunities afforded by the improvement in prices. If I had kept four thousand francs a year for my boys and myself, I could only have paid off twenty thousand crowns a year, and it would have taken almost eighteen years to achieve my freedom. As it is, I have ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... shrinkage, then they had broken into holes, and so on. They were finally missed from my wardrobe, and I compromised by stipulating that I should return to the shirt and collars and cuffs, and agreed they might be all pure white—provided that little or no starch should be used—this is an improvement, but linen is the most uncomfortable material known, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... did Washington continue to enjoy the pleasures and fulfil the duties of an independent country gentleman. Field-sports divided his time with the cultivation and improvement of his land, and the sales of his tobacco; he showed kindness to his dependents, and hospitality to his friends; and having been elected one of the House of Burgesses in Virginia, he was, whenever that House met, exact in his attendance. To that well-regulated mind nothing within ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... opportunity for anything better. In this respect it may be anticipated that the excellent education and training now afforded by Government in secondary schools for very small fees will produce a great improvement; and that the next generation of educated Hindus will be considerably more manly and intelligent, and it may be hoped at the same time not less honest, industrious and loyal ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... in old-fashioned churches, (by the way, why do Puseyites object to pews?) and by the erection of a hydrant near the conductor's seat, so that when the audience can endure STOEPEL'S music no longer, they can turn on the water and drown him and his long-winded orchestra. This latter improvement meets with our hearty approval, and we earnestly hope to see it put to the excellent use for which it is designed without further delay. Manager DALY is now offering to his patrons the new comedy of Man and Wife. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various

... advertisements he secured for the periodicals in his charge, he made suggestions for the improvement of their announcements, and found his suggestions accepted. He early saw the value of white space as one of the most effective factors in advertising; but this was a difficult argument, he soon found, to convey successfully to ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... before; but when her heart warmed to the work, in which Miss Anne was taking an active part, she began to feel something like pleasure in making the new home like the old one, as far as the interior went. Out of doors, no improvement could be made until soil could be carried up the barren and steep bank, to make a little plot of garden ground. But within, the work went on so heartily that, when Stephen returned from the pit, half an ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton

... the morrow, greatly to the pleasure and advantage of both. To Elsli especially, it was a new and delightful sensation to go to her class with a perfectly prepared lesson, and to hear the praises which the teacher daily bestowed upon her improvement; while Nora, whose invalidism had long cut her off from her books, found a fresh zest in resuming her studies with her eager friend. After lessons came supper, and then the evening with its long talks. These were generally about the ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri

... was announced. He won Wilbur's heart at once by an appreciative story of a young Chinese boy, a civil service student in his native province, who had accompanied him on a portion of his trip through China in order to learn what might be done toward the improvement of his country. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... immediately reduced. In such conditions the addition of a slight amount of some alkaline (such as soda, magnesia or lime water) to the food often produces good results. Great patience must be exercised with a child that suffers from flatulence, for immediate improvement can hardly be expected; time is required for ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... delivery-wagons. They spent their evenings at pool-tables or on corners. The elder girls had accepted positions in the various emporia of the village as soon as they could. They counted the long hours of the shop life as an escape from worse. Their free evenings were not devoted to self-improvement. They did not turn out to be really very good girls. They were up to all sorts of village mischief and shabby frivolity. Their poor mother could not account for it. She could scold them well, but she could not scold ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... which is 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 fine ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... whose estimation order and cleanliness ranked high among personal virtues, gladly complied with a request so reasonable; and the change of dress which Jeanie's bundle furnished made so important an improvement in her appearance, that the old lady hardly knew the soiled and disordered traveller, whose attire showed the violence she had sustained, in the neat, clean, quiet-looking little Scotch-woman, who now stood before her. Encouraged by such a favourable alteration in ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... brooms, denotes thrift and rapid improvement in your fortune, if the brooms are new. If they are seen in use, you will lose in speculation. For a woman to lose a broom, foretells that she will prove a disagreeable and slovenly wife ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... connexion of scenic exhibitions with the improvement or corruption of the manners of men, has been universally recognized: in other words, the presence or absence of poetry in its most perfect and universal form, has been found to be connected with good and evil in conduct or habit. The corruption ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... Steelman; then after a moment's reflection: "I am travelling for my own amusement and improvement, and also in the interest of science, which amounts to the same thing. I am a member of the Royal Geological Society—vice-president in fact of a leading Australian branch;" and then, as if conscious that he had appeared guilty of ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... traditionally been dependent on development aid, private family remittances from overseas, and agricultural exports. Increasingly, tourism is becoming a significant source of revenue, earning approximately $34 million in 1995. While registering an overall economic improvement in 1995, however, the country continues to struggle with a series of natural disasters from the early 1990s which wiped out the nation's infrastructure as well as its then-major export crop, taro root. ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... year or two. Looking at the country through which it lies, the only wonder is that it ever reached completion. As it is, I believe its proprietors do not consider it quite finished, and are continually working upon its improvement. Good or bad, it seems to me to be much the best road anywhere in the region. The pitches and holes that would fain make coaching on the common roads so precarious are entirely left out here. The ascent is continuous. Not a step but leads upward. The rise was directed never ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... anything nearly so fine. "This is the way I ought to look all the time," thought she. "And this is the way I will look!" Only better—much better. Already her true eye was seeing the defects, the chances for improvement—how the hat could be re-bent and re-trimmed to adapt it to her features, how the dress could be altered to make it more tasteful, more effective in subtly attracting attention to ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... at Lyons since I formerly passed through it. Its manufactories are, nevertheless, flourishing, though less improvement than could be expected is visible in the external ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... or improvement of machinery so as to utilise more fully the productive power of nature or man. Improvements enabling one man to tend more spindles, or enabling the same engine at the same boiler-pressure to turn more wheels, belong to ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... Lucille," Lady Carey said with suave and deadly satire, "what improvement is possible? You have all that you could desire. It is much less fortunate persons, such as myself, to whom Utopia must seem such ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... improvement of these advantages will make the progress of the higher classes more than commensurate with that of the lower. It is obvious, that the former have resources which cannot be obtained by the latter. They ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... lapse of two hundred years, it is not unlikely that the building had fallen somewhat into a state of dilapidation and for that reason, as well, perhaps, from a desire for improvement and display, large works of alteration and rebuilding were undertaken at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Prior John Walford, of whom little is known, except that he was summoned to a convocation at Oxford in 1407, is credited with the work, which embraced the new ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... with them in the beginning, but when he discovered that the members of the society were much more interested in getting up costumes than they were in their own mental improvement, and that the whole thing was degenerating into private theatricals, he withdrew, and urged his wife to do the same, but no amount of persuasion could move her in the least; her own will had been her law too long. And this was the ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

... his new official life very much. Whitehall was a great improvement on Somerset House, and he had sufficient experience of the civil service to duly appreciate the advantage of being permanently quartered in one of the chief departments of the state, instead of obscurely labouring in a subordinate office, with a limited future, and detached from all the ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... was heard; they all hurried to the sick man's bedside. His improvement had been only momentary; the fever, caused by a cerebral attack, had reached its height, and in a few hours terminated his life, without his having returned to ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various

... brings with it, than all the improvements made afterwards by any man whatsoever when works are brought to the height of perfection, for the reason that if a beginning were never given to anything, there would be no advance and improvement in the middle stages, and the end would not become excellent and of a marvellous beauty. Duccio, then, painter of Siena and much esteemed, deserved to carry off the palm from those who came many years after him, since in the pavement ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari

... large brown eyes, as handsome and as opaque as chestnuts, in the direction of his son. Though he would never have observed the improvement unless his wife had called his attention to it, his kind heart was honestly relieved to discover that Stephen looked better. He had worried a good deal in his sluggish way over what he thought of as "the effect of the war" on his son. With the strong paternal instinct which beheld every child as ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... trenches on their long journey half across the world. The food, taking everything into consideration, was good, although of necessity it had to greatly consist of tinned and dried varieties and we suffered somewhat from lack of fresh vegetables. Later an improvement ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous

... superiority of the civil, over the common law code, as a system of perfect justice, yet an incorporation of the two would be like Nebuchadnezzar's image of metals and clay, a thing without cohesion of parts. The only natural improvement of the common law, is through its homogeneous ally, the chancery, in which new principles are to be examined, concocted, and digested. But when, by repeated decisions and modifications, they are ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... boarding school and of the possibility of her having to remain there a long time, but she brightened up on his going on to say that the period might be considerably shortened if she made a rapid improvement. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... provinces the same aids as during the war, and even greater; he who, at the same time, proffered to the monarch's amiable impatience the resources necessary in order to commence, in the midst of war, the improvement of the prisons and the hospitals; he who indulged his generous inclinations by inspiring him with the desire of extinguishing the remnants of serfage; he who, rendering homage to the monarch's character, seconded his disposition towards order and economy; he who pleaded for the establishment ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... these factors taken together. A change in any one of them alters to some extent the nature of the problem. The problems change, for example, (a) with the discovery or the exhaustion (or the increase or decrease) of any kind of basic material resources; (b) with the multiplication or the improvement of tools and machinery or the invention of better industrial equipment; (c) with changes in the ideals, education, and capacities of any portion of the people whether or not due to changes in the race composition ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... the night being spent in the circulation of a cheerful glass, the company broke up; and next morning Peregrine went out with a view of making his mistress acquainted with his uncle's intention of sending him out of the kingdom for his improvement, and of saying everything which he thought necessary for the interest of his love. He found her at breakfast with her cousin; and, as he was very full of the subject of his visit, had scarce fixed himself in his seat, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... improvement and the increasing security of the times had, however, tempted its successive proprietors, if not to adorn, at least to enlarge their premises, and at about the middle of the last century, when the castle was last inhabited, the original ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... faith, my lord! thou dost try our patience," said Elizabeth sharply. "Said we not that affairs of state awaited us. We go at once to the council chamber. My lord chamberlain," turning to that official whose white staff indicated his office, "place this lad where his manners will meet with the most improvement." ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... for several days, and even in danger, in consequence of this adventure, which did not improve the credit of M. le Prince de Conti, much as it needed improvement. ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... to any refinement of the senses of touch, hearing or smell, but to a greater keenness in the interpretation of the information furnished by these senses. Diderot says, "the help which our senses reciprocally afford to each other, hinders their improvement," and so the person in possession of all the senses regards the blind man as a marvel of intelligence and skill, just because, on losing his eyesight, his remaining senses come to the rescue, and he continues to live and move and have his being without the most precious of all ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... the time occupied, and the date and number of the charge, as this enables the foreman of the danger area at any time to see how many charges have been nitrated, and gives him other useful information conducive to safe working. Edward Liebert has devised an improvement in the treatment of nitro-glycerine. He adds ammonium sulphate or ammonium nitrate to the mixed acids during the operation of nitrating, which he claims destroys the nitrous acid formed according ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... the John Dory, or Jaune Doree. Sir Joseph Banks's observation, that it should be spelled and acknowledged "adoree," because it is the most valuable (or worshipful) of fish, as requiring no sauce, is equally absurd and unwarranted; for so far from its being incapable of improvement from such adjuncts, its relish is materially augmented by any one of the three most usual side tureens. The dory attains its fullest growth in the Adriatic, and is a favourite dish in Venice, where, as in all the Italian ports of the Mediterranean, it is called Janitore, or the gate-keeper, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various

... series of folk songs and dances. Mrs. Clement is too clever to force the growth of any tendency, but lets it develop and strengthen of its own accord. There is no set policy, rigidly followed, but changes are made whenever they are needed, and each new development aims to be a real improvement. There is a spirit of co-operation on the part of all those connected with the theater which has meant much ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various

... Office phalanx closed its ranks, and fought tooth and nail; but it was defeated: the Bison was bullyable. 'Three months from this day,' Miss Nightingale had written at last, 'I publish my experience of the Crimean Campaign, and my suggestions for improvement, unless there has been a fair and tangible pledge by that time for reform.' Who could ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... you didn't get quite all this stuff over the educator. The other projector worked that way, on one fixed band out of the nine thousand odd possible. But this one is an ultra-projector, an improvement invented at the last minute. Its carrier wave can be shifted at will from one band of the fifth order to any other one; and I'll bet a hat that's one thing the Fenachrone haven't got! Any other suggestions?... all right, let's ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... the question of patronage, I admit, so far as that goes, that the plan proposed by the right hon. Gentleman will be an improvement on the present system. But I do not understand that the particular arrangement of the covenanted service is to be broken up at all. That is a very important matter, because, although he might throw open the nominations to the Indian service to the free competition ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... her to be pleased, applied himself to playing with the dog, watching her face for some vestige of interest, and with so much gratification at the slightest sign of amusement as to show how melancholy must have been the state compared with which this was improvement. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Congress, owing to the new tariff and the predominance of pro-slavery issues in the war. Polk had but 110 votes against 118 when the new Congress met. Now the new tariff went into effect. Howe, the American inventor, secured a patent for an improvement in sewing-machines, which embodied the main features of the machine used at present; to wit, a grooved needle provided with an eye near its point, a shuttle operating on the side of the cloth opposite ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... was in a very happy mood, for, like all women, she could readily forget the large and general vexation of a reverse to her people in war if the immediate prospect was not unpleasant and things around were showing improvement Her eyes shone and sparkled, the ordinary sedate flow of her words was varied by little outbursts of gaiety. She had been visiting the child at Carlunnan, where it had been adopted by her kinswoman, who made a better guardian than its grandmother, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... thanks, sir; the claims of true friendship are imperative. In removing to his own house I trust Eugene's improvement may not be retarded." ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... the model prison at Pentonville; but though in some respects an improvement upon others I have seen,—though there was the appearance of great neatness and order in the arrangements of life, kindness and good judgment in the discipline of the prisoners,—yet there was also an air of bleak ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... designed by Prof. Gaetano Russo, who was born in Messina, Sicily, fifty-seven years ago. Craving opportunities for study and improvement, he made his way to Rome when a mere lad but ten years old. In this great art center his genius developed early, and his later years have been filled with success. Senator Monteverde of Italy, one of the best sculptors of modern times, says that this is one of the finest monuments ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... are clean unto you."[2] That which in the highest degree hurt his refined feeling was the air of assurance which the Pharisees carried into religious matters; their paltry worship, which ended in a vain seeking after precedents and titles, to the utter neglect of the improvement of their hearts. An admirable parable rendered this thought with infinite charm and justice. "Two men," said he, "went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... the printing trade; a study of conditions old and new; practical suggestions for improvement; protective appliances and rules ...
— Capitals - A Primer of Information about Capitalization with some - Practical Typographic Hints as to the Use of Capitals • Frederick W. Hamilton

... to civilized man was expected, and very few ever seen, large roads are now laid out, cultivation has converted the woods into fertile fields, taverns have been erected, and much of what we Americans call comfort is to be met with! So fast does improvement proceed in our abundant and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... Constanze hoped continually for a favorable turn of affairs, a great improvement in their financial condition, which could hardly fail to follow Mozart's increasing fame. If the anxiety which always pressed upon him, more or less, could be lightened; if, instead of devoting half his strength and time to earning money he could live only for his art, and, moreover, could enjoy ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... of the death of Mrs. Villa (Crumb) Borden at her home in Norwich, N.Y. During her three years' service in the work of this Association at Athens, Ala., she was untiring in efforts for the improvement of her pupils. By her genial spirit, unselfish life and faithful labor in school, church, Sunday-School and the community, she greatly endeared herself to the people as well as to pupils and fellow teachers, who ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 6, June, 1889 • Various

... use patronage that Mr. Adams's rigid conscientiousness showed itself. He was equally obstinate in declining ever to stretch a point however slightly in order to (p. 201) win the favor of any body of the people whether large or small. He was warned that his extensive schemes for internal improvement would alienate especially the important State of Virginia. He could not of course be expected to change his policy out of respect to Virginian prejudices; but he was advised to mitigate his expression of that policy, and to some extent it was open to him to do so. But he would not; his utterances ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... countenance of my old acquaintance, HERBERT, in this bibliographical group of heads? Do not despise his toil[157] because it is not sprinkled with gay conceits, or learned digressions: he wrote to be useful, not to be entertaining; and so far as he went, his work was such an improvement upon his predecessor's plan as to place it quite at the head of NATIONAL TYPOGRAPHY. See yonder the sensible countenance of HARWOOD![158] the first writer in this country who taught us to consider the respective merits and demerits of the various editions of Greek ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... forward, the landlady's daughter manifested a decided improvement in her style of carrying herself before the boarders. She abolished the odious little flat, gummy side-curl. She left off various articles of "jewelry." She began to help her mother in some of her household duties. She became a regular attendant on the ministrations ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... you know it already, don't you, Miss Searight?" said the surgeon. "You took care of it a while last winter. Well, there was a little improvement in the spring, not so much pain, but that in itself is a bad sign. We have done what we could, Farnham and I. But it don't yield to treatment; you know how these things are—stubborn. We made a preliminary examination yesterday. Sinuses have occurred, and the probe leads down to nothing ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... to that as well as to any other amusement. For myself I wish that I could occasionally see Shakespeare interpreted by the best histrionic talent, with all adjuncts of scenery and costume. To me it would be a rich pleasure and a source of intellectual improvement. But as the theatre is now conducted and sustained, I am clearly of the opinion that no Christian ought to frequent it. He cannot do so without, I think, in the great majority of instances, committing himself to very much that is indecent and coarse. And just how this difficulty is to be surmounted, ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.

... position was one of danger, but being young, athletic, and rollicking, they had not cared hitherto to remove their humble dwelling. It was time enough to do that, they said, when "lovely woman" should come on the scene and render improvement in domicile necessary. Bob Skyd had more than once attempted to induce a "lovely woman" to invade the land and enlighten the cave, but ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... No decided improvement resulting from the draught of Montefiascone, he went to the Teatro Argentino, and sat gloomily to see an Italian comedy, which ought to have cheered him somewhat, being full of glancing merriment, and effective over everybody's disabilities except his own. The sculptor came ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... four specific departments of improvement in agricultural industry which the Alderman has introduced. Every one of them has been ridiculed as an impracticable and useless innovation in its turn. Three of them have already been adopted, and virtually incorporated ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... to the theory of your government, 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, or with but a trifling ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... James was able to bring Genevieve encouraging reports of a vast improvement in Blake's spirits. But still the engineer-inventor failed to make the headway he had expected toward the solution of the complex and intricate problem of the dam. In consequence, he re-doubled his efforts and worked overtime, permitting himself less than four ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... serving-women. For their expenses and that of their chaplains ten thousand eight hundred pesos are set aside annually. Many of the inhabitants and people of the community send their daughters to that seminary, so that they may learn good morals, because of the great improvement that is recognized in those who have been reared there. The said congregation is governed by special rules, whose observance does not impose the obligation of mortal sin. [74] It enjoys many privileges, indulgences, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... Military training and life at Camp Devens had wrought the miracle in his case which it works in so many. Jed found it hard to recognize the stoop-shouldered son of the hardware dealer in the spruce young soldier before him. When he complimented Leander upon the improvement ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... more of his purpose then, so I was not alarmed; and he seemed much struck with the growth and improvement of Gaspard. I had much to hear of the three who were left to me of my own family. M. de Solivet had never seen them before, and could hardly remember his mother, so he could not compare them with what they ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was devoted 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 ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... Cennino Cennini, who always begins from the beginning, recommends drawing with the pen—his pen, for that also he tells you how to make, had no slit. O days of Perryian innovation! It was very well, a vast improvement, almost equal to that of adding the shirt to the ruffles, to invent one slit—we have them now with two ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... Company. We have here the hopeful commencement of a rational organisation for the promotion of excellence among handicraftsmen. Quite recently, other of the livery companies have determined upon giving their powerful, and, indeed, almost boundless, aid to the improvement of the teaching of handicrafts. They have already gone so far as to appoint a committee to act for them; and I betray no confidence in adding that, some time since, the committee sought the advice and assistance of several persons, myself ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... initial success of their March offensive. Tanks played practically no part in the fighting withdrawal of the British Armies in March and April, 1918. But all this time Tank development was going on; and the believers in Tanks were working away at the improvement of the types, convinced now, as ever, that their day would come. It dawned with the Australian attack at Villers-Bretonneux on April 24th, when the fortunes of battle were already changing; it rose higher on July 4th, ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the new looms have been tampered with continually, just enough to keep everything out of gear. Nearly every improvement, you know, has to fight its way through opposition in the beginning. The men declare themselves innocent, and puzzled over it, but it certainly has been done. There are five ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... until domestic or local habits spoil them. Hence the great importance of careful training in early childhood, for if parents and instructors would direct their attention to this matter a manifest improvement would quickly follow; yet, to acquire a good articulation is not so difficult a task "as to defy ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... dotted white Swiss curtains at the large windows, both an anomaly and an improvement on the architectural origin, was furnished largely in dull rubbed mahogany, the beds had high slender fluted posts, snowy ruffled canopies and counterpanes stitched in a primitive design. He possessed an inlaid chest of drawers across from the graceful low-boy used by ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... degree, when the Projectile was hardly 100 miles distant from the Moon, the aspect of things underwent no improvement. On the contrary, the nearer the travellers approached the lunar surface, the drearier, the more inhospitable, and the more unearthly, everything seem to look. Still when five o'clock in the morning brought our travellers to within 50 miles of Mount Gioja—which ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... said he, "to look into the future of this grand section of country. To the day when the spirit of internal improvement shall have levelled the roads and converted the hidden wealth of the soil into a glorious medium of happiness and prosperity. Then the mental stores of our hardy settlers will rapidly develop, and civilization will prune down the rugged points of character, ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... Little Amy's improvement at Albano was something remarkable. Mrs. Swift watched over her like a lynx. Her vigilance never relaxed. Amy was made to eat and sleep and walk and rest with the regularity of a machine; and this exact system, combined with the good air, worked like a charm. The little one gained ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... It also has the same basis in the analysis of the character of our knowledge of nature. It follows from this admission that it is possible to define point-tracks [i.e. the points of timeless spaces] as abstractive elements. This is a great improvement as restoring the balance between moments and points. I still hold however to the statement in subarticle 35.4 of the Principles that the intersection of a pair of non-parallel durations does not present itself to us as one event. This ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead

... this, in our eyes, is much inferior, I know not whether the higher price is ascribable to the name, or to an intrinsic superiority in quality. It is certain that this cultivation is susceptible of much improvement, and might be advanced to ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... Frederick Sargood in importing the Imperial officers to Victoria was resulting in a very considerable improvement in the military forces of that colony. They were following on the same lines as South Australia as regarded their constitution; a very much higher standard of instruction, a better supervision of detail, and competent inspection contributed to this ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... his look with one of indignant scorn, "far be it from me to insinuate any such thing. I broadly, and in all the latitudinarianism of honest indignation, assert that it is a d—d lie, begging your pardon, and drinking to your moral improvement a second time; and ere you respond to what I've said, it would be as well, in order to have the matter copiously discussed, if you ordhered in a fresh supply of liquor, and help yourself, for, if the proverb be true—in vino veritas—there it is again, but truth will be out, you see—who knows ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... information should have special reference to it. And all people should be induced to look back to the days of their forefathers, to be warned by their errors, instructed by their wisdom, and stimulated in the career of improvement by the example of ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... could extinguish the joy in their souls. They walked like gods, immortals, these brothers to the spent and the maimed. For they had found spiritual values in it that made any material profit of small importance. Alice got a vision of the great truth that is back of all true reforms, all improvement, all progress. ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... been all over Europe and this country. Every surgeon who comes here says the same thing. You can't even imagine anything that might be better. There isn't much in the world where you can't imagine a something better, an improvement. There's almost always a better to be had if you could get it. But here, no! ... Porowitz, the great Vienna orthopaedic surgeon, was here last winter, and he told me there wasn't a hospital in the whole world where the chances for recovery, taking ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... increased age, began to qualify me as a companion for him. By confiding to my discretion matters not often entrusted to those so young as I was, he taught me prudence; and, by his excellent precepts and example, he contributed much to the improvement of ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... John nurses hurt feelings whenever Mary punctures his vanity by suggesting that he presents to the world a less than perfect front, Mary may soon lose courage and relinquish her wifely job of husband improvement. Or the combination may ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various

... elsewhere, I will here present those of several known authors, made under various circumstances, at different periods, and down to a comparative late date. A few very brief extracts will enable the reader to mark for himself what progressive improvement, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... known him to smile nor speak a needless word. His simple wants were supplied by the sale or barter of skins of wild animals in the river town, for not a thing did he grow upon the land which, if needful, he might have claimed by right of undisturbed possession. There were evidences of "improvement"—a few acres of ground immediately about the house had once been cleared of its trees, the decayed stumps of which were half concealed by the new growth that had been suffered to repair the ravage wrought by the ax. Apparently the man's zeal for agriculture ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... the most vivid memories that remain to me from my brief sojourn at the Royal College of Rodez. So they called it then; to-day they call it a grammar-school; what improvement ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... taken place in the king, who spoke more strongly and seemed in better health than of old. His face looked less cadaverous under the paint, his form a trifle less emaciated. That which struck me more than anything, however, was the improvement in his spirits. His eyes sparkled from time to time, and he laughed continually, so that I could scarcely believe that he was the same man whom I had seen overwhelmed with despair ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... he rode on Selamlik Pasha's gorgeous black donkey from Assiout, with its crimson trappings, knew what proportion of improvement this "hankypanky," as Dicky called it, bore to the condition of things at the last inspection. He had spoken little all day, and Dicky had noticed that his eye was constantly turning here and there, as though looking for an ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker



Words linked to "Improvement" :   amelioration, cleanup, ventilation, revitalisation, shift, self-improvement, mend, optimization, change of state, cleaning, revival, upturn, repair, optimisation, transformation, elaboration, betterment, enhancement, improve, clearing, resurgence, modernisation, accommodation, decline, preservation, fixing, stabilization, conservation, rectification, adjustment, correction, refinement, tenderization, reformation, reform, fixture, redevelopment, restoration, sweetening, revitalization, renovation, stabilisation, humanization, self-reformation, refurbishment, perfection, fix, mending, upgrade, reparation, fitting, recovery



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