“Myself when young did eagerly frequent” lecture-halls and the abodes
of the high-minded and the high-intentioned who were zealous in the
cause of culture. This was in those years when Matthew Arnold’s
criticisms of America and democracy in general were still much
discussed. Thirty years ago it really seemed that culture was not
only desirable but readily attainable for America. We cherished happy
illusions as to the vast possibilities of education: there should
be no Main Street without its reverence for the best thought and
noblest action of all time. But those of us who are able to ponder
“the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world” in
the spirit of that period must reflect, a little ruefully, that the
new schemes and devices of education to which we pointed with pride
have not turned the trick. The machinery of enlightenment has, of
course, greatly multiplied. The flag waves on innumerable schoolhouses;
literature, art, music are nowhere friendless. The women of America
make war ceaselessly upon philistinism, and no one attentive to their
labors can question their sincerity or their intelligence. But these
are all matters as to which many hear the call but comparatively few
prostrate themselves at the mercy-seat. Culture, in the sense in which
we used the word, was not so easily to be conferred or imposed upon
great bodies of humanity; the percentage of the mass who are seriously
interested in the finest and noblest action of mankind has not
perceptibly increased.
Odd as these statements look, now that I have set them down, I hasten
to add that they stir in me no deep and poignant sorrow. My feeling
about the business is akin to that of a traveller who has missed a
train but consoles himself with the reflection that by changing his
route a trifle he will in due course reach his destination without
serious delay, and at the same time enjoy a view of unfamiliar scenery.
Between what Main Street wants and cries for and what Main Street
really needs there is a considerable margin for speculation. I shall
say at once that I am far less concerned than I used to be as to the
diffusion of culture in the Main Streets of all creation. Culture is a
term much soiled by ignoble use and all but relegated to the vocabulary
of cant. We cannot “wish” Plato upon resisting and hostile Main
Streets; we are even finding that Isaiah and St. Paul are not so potent
to conjure with as formerly. The church is not so generally the social
centre of small communities as it was a little while ago. Far too many
of us are less fearful of future torment than of a boost in the price
of gasolene. The motor may be making pantheists of us: I don’t know.
Hedonism in some form may be the next phase; here, again, I have no
opinion.
V
Mr. St. John Ervine complains that we of the provinces lack
individuality; that we have been so smoothed out and conform so
strictly to the prevailing styles of apparel that the people in one
town look exactly like those in the next. This observation may be due
in some measure to the alien’s preconceived ideas of what the hapless
wights who live west of the Hudson ought to look like, but there is
much truth in the remark of this amiable friend from overseas. Even
the Indians I have lately seen look quite comfortable in white man’s
garb. To a great extent the ready-to-wear industry has standardized
our raiment, so that to the unsophisticated masculine eye at least the
women of Main Street are indistinguishable from their sisters in the
large cities. There is less slouch among the men than there used to be.
Mr. Howells said many years ago that in travelling Westward the polish
gradually dimmed on the shoes of the native; but the shine-parlors of
the sons of Romulus and Achilles have changed all that.
I lean to the idea that it is not well for us all to be tuned to one
key. I like to think that the farm folk and country-town people of
Georgia and Kansas, Oklahoma and Maine are thinking independently of
each other about weighty matters, and that the solidarity of the nation
is only the more strikingly demonstrated when, finding themselves
stirred (sometimes tardily) by the national consciousness, they act
sensibly and with unity and concord. But the interurban trolley and
the low-priced motor have dealt a blow to the old smug complacency and
indifference. There is less tobacco-juice on the chins of our rural
fellow citizens; the native flavor, the raciness and the tang so highly
prized by students of local color have in many sections ceased to be.
We may yet be confronted by the necessity of preserving specimens of
the provincial native in social and ethnological museums.
I should like to believe that the present with its bewildering changes
is only a corridor leading, politically and spiritually, toward
something more splendid than we have known. We can only hope that this
is true, and meanwhile adjust ourselves to the idea that a good many
things once prized are gone forever. I am not sure but that a town is
better advertised by enlightened sanitary ordinances duly enforced than
by the number of its citizens who are acquainted with the writings
of Walter Pater. A little while ago I should have looked upon such a
thought as blasphemy.
The other evening, in a small college town, I passed under the windows
of a hall where a fraternity dance was in progress. I dare say the
young gentlemen of the society knew no more of the Greek alphabet than
the three letters inscribed over the door of their clubhouse. But this
does not trouble me as in “the olden golden glory of the days gone
by.” We do not know but that in some far day a prowling New Zealander,
turning up a banjo and a trap-drum amid the ruins of some American
college, will account them nobler instruments than the lyre and lute.
Evolution brought us down chattering from the trees, and we have no
right to assume that we are reverting to the arboreal state. This is
no time to lose confidence in democracy; it is too soon to chant the
recessional of the race. Much too insistently we have sought to reform,
to improve, to plant the seeds of culture, to create moral perfection
by act of Congress. If Main Street knows what America is all about, and
bathes itself and is kind and considerate of its neighbors, why not
leave the rest on the knees of the gods?
What really matters as to Main Street is that it shall be happy. We
can’t, merely by taking thought, lift its people to higher levels of
aspiration. Main Street is neither blind nor deaf; it knows well enough
what is going on in the world; it is not to be jostled or pushed by
condescending outsiders eager to bestow sweetness and light upon it.
It is not unaware of the desirability of such things; and in its own
fashion and at the proper time it will go after them. Meanwhile if it
is cheerful and hopeful and continues to vote with reasonable sanity
the rest of the world needn’t despair of it. After all, it’s only the
remnant of Israel that can be saved. Let Main Street alone!