Reforming the World
[Below is a transcript of MT's first performance on the "Round the World
Tour," taken down by a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which printed it 19 July
1895. It is clearly incomplete — the introduction to the blue jay story is here, for example, but the
story itself (usually referred to in accounts of the lectures as "He Bit Off More Than He Could
Chew") is omitted — but it provides a clear sense of lecture that MT's American audiences heard.
By designing it as a comic version of a sermon, MT could vary it at each performance, though the
"moral illustrations" he elaborates here were among his most frequently used. I don't think MT
himself ever gave it a title. The one below was supplied by Fred W. Lorch.]
