America. If he is an unwise traveller, he will note, for admiring or
indignant quotation, many a thing which the wise traveller notes only
with a query and the intention of finding out, if he can, what it
means or why it is permitted. The first questions, in fact, for the
student of manners and laws are why a thing is permitted, encouraged,
or practised; how the thing in consideration affects the people who
practise it, and how they regard it. Thus, to go back to ancient
history, English people, forty years ago, could not understand how
slavery was allowed to continue in the States. We ourselves had
virtuously given freedom to all our slaves; why should not the
Americans? We had not grown up under the institution, you see; we had
little personal knowledge of the negro; we believed that, in spite of
the discouraging examples in Hayti and in our own Jamaica, there was a
splendid future for the black, if only he could be free and educated.
Again, none of our people realized, until the Civil War actually broke
out, the enormous magnitude of the interests involved; we had read
'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and our hearts glowed with virtuous indignation;
we could not understand the enormous difficulties of the question.
Finally, we succeeded in enraging the South against us before the war
began, because of our continual outcry against slavery; and in
enraging the North after the war began, by reason of our totally
unexpected Southern sympathies. It is a curious history of
wrongheadedness and ignorance.
This was a big thing. The things which the English traveller in the
States now notices are little things; as life is made up of little
things, he is noting differences all day long, because everything that
he sees is different. Speech is different: the manner of enunciating
the words is different; it is clearer, slower, more grammatical; among
the better sort it is more careful; it is even academical. We English
speak thickly, far back in the throat, the voice choked by beard and
moustache, and we speak much more carelessly. Then the way of living
at the hotels is different; the rooms are much--very much--better
furnished than would be found in towns of corresponding size in
England--_e.g._, at Providence, Rhode Island, which is not a large
city, there is a hotel which is most beautifully furnished; and at
Buffalo, which is a city half the size of Birmingham, the hotel is
perhaps better furnished than any hotel in London. An immense menu is
placed before the visitor for breakfast and dinner. There is an
embarrassment of choice. Perhaps it is insular prejudice which makes
one prefer the simple menu, the limited choice, and the plain food of
the English hotels. At least, rightly or wrongly, the English hotels
appear to the English traveller the more comfortable. I return to the
differences. In the preparation and the serving of food there are
differences--the mid-day meal, far more in America than in England, is
the national dinner. In most American hotels that received us we found
the evening meal called supper--and a very inferior spread it was,
compared to the one o'clock service. In the drinks there is a
difference--the iced water which forms so welcome a part of every meal
in the States is generally the only drink; it is not common, out of
the great cities, to see claret on the table. There are differences in
the conduct of the trains and in the form of the railway carriages;
differences in the despatch and securing of luggage; difference in the
railway whistle; difference in the management of the station, until
one knows the way about, travelling in America is a continual trial to
the temper. Until, for instance, an understanding of the manners and
customs in this respect has been attained, the conveyance of the
luggage to the hotel is a ruinous expense. And unless one understands
the rough usage of luggage on American lines, there will be further
trials of temper over the breakage of things. In France and Italy such
small differences do not exasperate, because they ate known to exist;
one expects them; they are benighted foreigners who know no better.
But in America, where they speak our own language, one seems to have a
right, somehow, to expect that all the usages will be exactly the
same--and they are not; and so the cad with the kodak gets his chance.
I can quite understand, even at this day, the making of a book which
should hold up to ridicule the whole of a nation on account of these
differences. 'The Americans a great nation? Why, sir, I could not
get--the whole time that I was them--such a simple thing as English
mustard. The Americans a great nation? Well, sir, all I can say is
that their breakfast in the Wagner car is a greasy pretence. The
Americans a great nation? They may be, sir; but all I can say is that
there isn't such a thing--that I could discover--as an honest
bar-parlour, where a man can have his pipe and his grog in comfort.'
And so on--the kind of thing may be multiplied indefinitely. What Mrs.
Trollope did sixty years ago might be done again.
But, if I had the time, I would write the companion volume--that of
the American in England--in which it should be proved, after the same
fashion, that this poor old country is in the last stage of decay,
because we have compartment carriages on the railway; no checks for
the luggage; no electric trolleys in the street; at the hotels no
elaborate menu, but only a simple dinner of fish and roast-beef; no
iced water, an established Church (the clergy all bursting with
fatness); a House of Lords (all profligates); and a Queen who chops
off heads when so disposed. It would also be noted, as proving the
contemptible decay of the country, that a large proportion of the
lower classes omit the aspirate; that rough holiday-makers laugh and
sing and play the accordion as they take their trips abroad; that the
factory girls wear hideous hats and feathers; that all classes drink
beer, and that men are often seen rolling drunk in the streets. Nor
would the American traveller in Great Britain fail to observe, with
the scorn of a moralist, the political corruption of the time; he
would hold up to the contempt of the world the statesman who with the
utmost vehemence condemns a movement one day which, on the following
day, in order to gain votes and recover power, he adopts, and with
equal vehemence advocates; he would ask what can be the moral
standards of a country where a great party turns right round, at the
bidding of their leader, and follows him like a flock of sheep,
applauding, voting, advocating as he bids them, to-day,
this--to-morrow, its opposite.
These things and more will be found in that book of the American in
England when it appears. You see how small and worthless and
prejudiced would be such a volume. Well, it is precisely such a volume
that the ordinary traveller is capable of writing. All the things that
I have mentioned are accidentals; they are differences which mean
nothing; they are not essentials; what I wish to show is that he who
would think rightly of a country must disregard the accidentals and
get at the essentials. What follows is my own attempt--which I am well
aware must be of the smallest account--to feel my way to two or three
essentials.
First and foremost, one essential is that the country is full of
youth. I have discovered this for myself, and I have learned what the
fact means and how it affects the country. I had heard this said over
and over again. It used to irritate me to hear a monotonous repetition
of the words, 'Sir, we are a young county.' Young? At least, it is
three hundred years old; nor was it till I had passed through New
England, and seen Buffalo and Chicago--those cities which stand
between the east and time west--and was able to think and compare,
that I began to understand the reality and the meaning of those words,
which have now become so real and mean so much. It is not that the
cities are new and the buildings put up yesterday; it is in the
atmosphere of buoyancy, elation, self-reliance, and energy, which one
drinks in everywhere, that this sense of youth is apprehended. It is
youth full of confidence. Is there such a thing anywhere in America as
poverty or the fear of poverty? I do not think so. Men may be hard up
or even stone-broke; there are slums; there are hard-worked women; but
there is no general fear of poverty. In the old countries the fear of
poverty lies on all hearts like lead. To be sure, such a fear is a
survival in England. In the last century the strokes of fate were
sudden and heavy, and a merchant sitting to-day in a place of great
honour and repute, an authority on 'Change, would find himself on the
morrow in the Marshalsea or the Fleet, a prisoner for life; once down
a man could not recover; he spent the rest of his life in captivity;
he and his descendants, to the third and fourth generations--for it
was as unlucky to be the son of a bankrupt as the son of a
convict--grovelled in the gutter. There is no longer a Marshalsea or a
Fleet prison; but the dread of failure survives. In the States that
dread seems practically absent.
Again, youth is extravagant; spends with both hands, cannot hear of
economy; burns the candle at both ends; eats the corn while it is
green; trades upon the future; gives bills at long dates without
hesitation, and while the golden flood rolls past takes what it wants
and sends out its sons to help themselves. Why should youth make
provisions for the sons of youth? The world is young; the riches of
the world are beyond counting; they belong to the young; let us work,
let us spend; let us enjoy, for youth is the time for work and for
enjoyment.
In youth, again, one is careless about little things; they will right
themselves: persons of the baser sort pervert the freedom of the
country to their own uses; they make 'corners' and 'rings' and steal
the money of the municipality; never mind; some day, when we have
time, we will straighten things out. In youth, also, one is tempted to
gallant apparel, bravery of show, a defiant bearing, gold and lace and
colour. In cities this tendency of youth is shown by great buildings
and big institutions. In youth, there is a natural exaggeration in
talk: hence the spread-eagle of which we hear so much. Then everything
which belongs to youth must be better--beyond comparison better--than
everything that belongs to age. In the last century, if you like,
youth followed and imitated age; it is the note of this, our country,
that youth is always advancing and stepping ahead of age. Even in the
daily press the youth of the country shows itself. Let age sit down
and meditate; let such a paper as the London _Times_--that old, old
paper--give every day three laboured and thoughtful essays written by
scholars and philosophers on the topics of the day. It is not for
youth to ponder over the meaning and the tendencies of things; it is
for youth to act, to make history, to push things along; therefore let
the papers record everything that passes; perhaps when the country is
old, when the time comes for meditation, the London _Times_ may be
imitated, and even a weekly collection of essays, such as the
_Saturday Review_ or the _Spectator_, may be successfully started in
the United States. Again, youth is apt to be jealous over its own
pretensions. Perhaps this quality also might be illustrated; but, for
obvious reasons, we will not press this point. Lastly, youth knows
nothing of the time which came immediately before itself. It is not
till comparatively late in life that a man connects his own
generation--his own history--with that which preceded him. When does
the history of the United States begin--not for the man of letters or
the professor of history--but for the average man? It begins when the
Union begins: not before. There is a very beautiful and very noble
history before the Union. But it is shared with Great Britain. There
is a period of gallant and victorious war--but beside the colonials
marched King George's red-coats. There was a brave struggle for
supremacy, and the French were victoriously driven out--but it was by
English fleets and with the help of English soldiers. Therefore, the
average American mind refuses to dwell on this period. His country
must spring at once, full armed, into the world. His country must be
all his own. He wants no history, if you please, in which any other
country has also a share.
In a word, America seems to present all the possible characteristics
of youth. It is buoyant, confident, extravagant, ardent, elated, and
proud. It lives in the present. The young men of twenty-one cannot
believe in coming age; people do get to fifty, he believes; but, for
himself, age is so far off that he need not consider it. I observed
the youthfulness of America even in New England, but the country as
one got farther west seemed to become more youthful. At Chicago, I
suppose, no one owns to more than five-and-twenty--youth is
infectious. I felt myself while in the city much under that age.
Let us pass to another point--also an essential--the flaunting of the
flag, I had the honour of assisting at the 'Sollemnia Academica,' the
commencement of Harvard on the 28th of June last. I believe that
Harvard is the richest, as it is also the oldest, of American
universities; it is also the largest in point of numbers. The function
was celebrated in the college theatre; it was attended by the governor
of the State with the lieutenant-governor and his aide-de-camp; there
was a notable gathering on the stage or platform, consisting of the
president, professors and governors of the university, together with
those men of distinction whom the university proposed to honour with a
degree. The floor, or pit, of the house was filled with the commencing
bachelors; the gallery was crowded with spectators, chiefly ladies.
After the ceremony we were invited to assist at the dinner given by
the students to the president, and a company among whom it was a
distinction for a stranger to sit. The ceremony of conferring degrees
was interesting to an Englishman and a member of the older Cambridge,
because it contained certain points of detail which had certainly been
brought over by Harvard himself, the founder, from the old to the new
Cambridge. The dinner, or luncheon, was interesting for the speeches,
for which it was the occasion and the excuse. The president, for his
part, reported the addition of $750,000 to the wealth of the college,
and called attention to the very remarkable feature of modern American
liberality in the lavish gifts and endowments going on all over the
States to colleges and places of learning. He said that it was
unprecedented in history. With submissions to the learned president,
not quite without precedent. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
witnessed a similar spirit in the foundation and endowment of colleges
and schools in England and Scotland. About half the colleges of Oxford
and Cambridge, and three out of the four Scottish universities, belong
to the period. Still, it is very remarkable to find this new largeness
of mind. Since one has received great fortune, let this wealth be
passed on, not to make a son into an idle man, but to endow, with the
best gifts of learning and science, generation after generation of men
born for work. We, who are ourselves so richly endowed, and have been
so richly endowed for four hundred years, have no need to envy Harvard
all her wealth, We may applaud the spirit which seeks not to enrich a
family but to advance the nation; all the more because we have many
instances of a similar spirit in our own country. It is not the
further endowment of Oxford and Cambridge that is continued by one
rich man, but the foundation of new colleges, art galleries, and
schools of art. Angerstein, Vernon, Alexander, Tate, are some of our
benefactors in art.
The endowments of Owens College, the Mason College, the Firth College,
University College, London, are gifts of private persons. Since we do
not produce rich men so freely as America, our endowments are neither
so many nor so great; but the spirit of endowment is with us as well.
Presently one observed at this dinner a note of difference, which
afterwards gave food for reflection. It was this: All the speakers,
one after the other, without exception, referred to the free
institutions of the nation, to the duty of citizens, and especially to
the responsibilities of those who were destined by the training and
education of this venerable college to become the leaders of the
country. Nothing whatever was said, by any of the speakers, on the
achievements in scholarship, literature, or science made by former
scholars of the college; nothing was said of the promise in learning
or science of the young men now beginning the world. Now, a year or so
ago, the master and fellows of a certain college of the older
Cambridge bade to a feast as many of the old members of that college
as would fill the hall. It was, of course, a very much smaller hall
than that of Harvard; but it was still a venerable college, the
mother, so to speak, of Emmanuel, and therefore the grandmother of
Harvard. The master, in his speech after dinner, spoke about nothing
but the glories of the college in its long list of worthies and the
very remarkable number of men, either living or recently passed away,
whose work in the world had brought distinction to themselves and
honour to the college. In short, the college only existed in his mind,
and in the minds of those present, for the advancement of learning,
nor was there any other consideration possible for him in connection
with the college. Is there, then, another view of Harvard College?
There must be. The speakers suggested this new and American view. The
college, if my supposed discovery is true, is regarded as a place
which is to furnish the State, not with scholars, for whom there will
always be a very limited demand, but with a large and perennial supply
of men of liberal education and sound principles, whose chief duty
shall be the maintenance of the freedom to which they are born, and a
steady opposition to the corruption into which all free institutions
readily fall without unceasing watchfulness. This thing I advance with
some hesitation. But it explains the inflated patriotism of the
carefully-prepared speech of the governor and the political (not
partisan) spirit of all the other speakers. Oxford and Cambridge have
long furnished the country with a learned clergy, a learned Bar, and
(but this is past) a learned House of Commons. The tradition of
learning lingers still; nay, they are centres of learning beyond
comparison with any other universities in the world. Harvard also, I
suppose, provides a learned clergy; but its principal function, as its
rulers seemed to think, is to send out into the world every year a
great body of young men fully equipped to be leaders in the country.
This is its chief glory; to do this effectively, I take it, is the
chief desire of the president and the society.
It cannot be denied that this is a very important duty, much more
important, for a special reason, in the States than it is in Great
Britain. I used to marvel, before making these observations, at the
constant flying of the stars and stripes everywhere; at the continual
reminding as to freedom. 'Are there,' one asks, 'no other countries in
the world which are free? In what single point is the freedom of the
American greater than the freedom of the Briton, the Canadian, of the
Australian?' In none, certainly. Yet we are not forever waving the
Union Jack everywhere and calling each other brothers in our glorious
liberty. Well: but let us think. In so vast a population, spread over
so many States, each State being a different country, there will
always be ignorant men, men ready to give up everything for a selfish
advantage: there must always be a danger, unless it be continually met
and beaten down, that the United may become the dis-United States.
Why, European statesmen used to look forward confidently to the
disruption of the States from the Declaration of Independence down to
the Civil War. It was a commonplace that the country must inevitably
fall to pieces. The very possibility of a disruption is now not even
thought of: the thing is never mentioned. Why is this? Surely, because
the idea of federation is not only taught and ground in at the
elementary schools, but because the flag of federation is always
displayed as the chief glory of the nation at every place where two or
three Americans are gathered together. The symbol you see is
unmistakable: it means Union, once for all; the word, the idea, the
symbol, it must be always kept before the eyes of the people; it is in
the wisdom of the rulers that the stars and stripes are forever
flaunted before the eyes of the people.
And it is not only the ignorant and the selfish among Americans
themselves; it is the vast number of immigrants, increasing by half a
million every year, who have to be taught what citizenship means. The
outward symbol is the readiest teacher; let them never forget that
they live under the stars and stripes; let them learn--German,
Norwegian, Italian, Irish--what it means to belong to the Great
Republic. Is this all that a two months' visitor can bring away from
America? It is the most important part of my plunder. What else has
been gathered up is hardly worth talking about, in comparison with
these two discoveries which are, after all, perhaps only useful to
myself: the discovery of the real youthfulness of the country and the
discovery of the real meaning and the necessity of the spread-eagle
speeches and the flaunting of the flag in season and out of season. It
may seem a small thing to learn, but the lesson has wholly changed my
point of view. The fact is perhaps hardly worth recording; it matters
little what a single Englishman thinks; but if he can induce others to
think with him, or to modify their views in the same direction, it may
matter a great deal.
And, of course, an Englishman must think of his own future--that of
his own country. Before many years the United Kingdom must inevitably
undergo great changes: the vastness of the Empire will vanish; Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa will fall away and will become
independent republics; what these little islands will become then, I
know not. What will become of the English-speaking races, thus firmly
planted over the whole globe, is a more important question. If a man
had the voice of the silver-mouthed Father, if a man had the
inspiration of a prophet, it would be a small thing for that man to
consecrate and expend all his life, all his strength, all his soul, in
the creation of a great federation of English-speaking peoples. There
should be no war of tariffs between them; there should be no
possibility of dispute between them; there should be as many nations
separate and distinct as might please to call themselves nations; it
should make no difference whether Canada was the separate dominion of
Canada, or a part of the United States; it should make no difference
whether Great Britain and Ireland were a monarchy or a republic. The
one thing of importance would be an indestructible alliance for
offence and defence among the people who have inherited the best part
of the whole world. This alliance can best be forwarded by a promotion
of friendship between private persons; by a constant advocacy in the
press of all the countries concerned; and by the feeling, to be
cultivated everywhere, that such a confederation would present to the
world the greatest, strongest, wealthiest, most highly cultivated
confederacy of nations that ever existed. It would be permanent,
because here would be no war of aggression in tariffs, or of personal
quarrel; no territorial ambitions; no conflict of kings.
Naturally, I was not called upon to speak at the Harvard dinner. Had I
spoken, I should like to have said: 'Men of Harvard, grandsons of that
benignant mother--still young--who sits crowned with laurels, ever
fresh, on the sedgy bank of Granta, think of the country from which
your fathers have sprung. Go out into the world--your world of
youthful endeavour and success; do your best to bring the hearts of
the people whom you will have to lead back to their kin across the
seas to east and west--over the Atlantic and over the Pacific. Do your
best to bring about the Indestructible fraternity of the whole
English-speaking races. Do this in the sacred name of that freedom of
which you have this day heard so much, and of that Christianity to
which by the very stamp and seal of your college you are the avowed
and sworn servants. Rah!'
[1893.]
ART AND THE PEOPLE. [Paper read at the Birmingham Meeting of the
Social Science Congress.]