Every year a great deal of discussion of the best mode of spending
the summer, and the course of the people who go to Europe, instead
of submitting to the discomfort and extortion of American hotels, is
for the most part greatly commended. The story told about the hotels
and lodging-houses is the same every year. The food is bad, the
rooms uncomfortable, and the charges high. The fashion, except
perhaps at Newport and Beverly, near Boston, Bar Harbor, and one or
two other highly favored localities, grows stronger and stronger, to
live in the city in the winter and spend the three hot months in
France or England or Switzerland. Moreover, the accounts which come
from Europe of the increase in the number of American colonists now
to be found in every attractive town of the Continent are not
exactly alarming, but they are sufficient to set people thinking.
The number of those who pass long years in Europe, educate their
children there, and retain little connection with America beyond
drawing their dividends, grows steadily, and as a general rule they
are persons whose minds or manners or influence makes their
prolonged absence a sensible loss to our civilization. Moreover,
when they come back, they find it difficult to stay, and staying is
not made easy for them. People here are a little suspicious of them,
and are apt to fancy that they have got out of sympathy with
American institutions, and have grown too critical for the rough
processes by which the work of life in America has in a large degree
to be done. They themselves, on the other hand, besides being soured
by the coldness of their reception, are apt to be disgusted by the
want of finish of all their surroundings, by the difficulty with
which the commoner and coarser needs are met in this country, and by
the reluctance with which allowance is made by legislation and
opinion for the gratification of unusual or unpopular tastes.
The result is a breach, which is already wide, and tends to widen,
between the class which is hard at work making its fortune and the
class which has either made its fortune or has got all it desires,
which is the same thing as a fortune. There is a great deal of work
which this latter would like to do. There is a great deal of the
work of legislation and administration and education for which it is
eminently fitted, but in which, nevertheless, it has little or no
chance of sharing, owing to the loss of the art of winning the
confidence of others, and working with others, which is more easily
learned in America than elsewhere, and which is readily lost by
prolonged residence in any European country, and the absence of
which here makes all other gifts for practical purposes almost
worthless. So that it must be said that the amount of intellectual
and aesthetic culture which an American acquires in Europe is
somewhat dearly purchased. When he gets home, he is apt to find it a
useless possession, as far as the world without is concerned, unless
he is lucky enough, as sometimes but not often happens, to drop into
some absorbing occupation or to lose his fortune. Failing this, he
begins that melancholy process of vibration between the two
continents in which an increasingly large number of persons pass a
great part of their lives, their hearts and affections being wholly
in neither.
The remedy for the mania for _living_ abroad is an elaborate one,
and one needing more time for its creation. No country retains the
hearty affection of its educated class which does not feed its
imagination. The more we cultivate men, the higher their ideals grow
in all directions, political and social, and they like best the
places in which these ideals are most satisfied. The long and varied
history of older countries offers their citizens a series of
pictures which stimulate patriotism in the highest degree; and it
will generally be found that the patriotism and love of home of the
cultivated class is in the ratio of the supply of this kind of food.
They are languid among the Russians, and among the Germans prior to
the late war, as compared to the English and French. In default of a
long history, however, historic incidents are apt to lose their
power on the imagination through over-use. The jocose view of
Washington and of the Pilgrim Fathers, of Bunker Hill and of the
Fourth of July, already gains ground rapidly among us, through too
great familiarity. When Professor Tyndall, in one of his lectures
here, made an allusion which he meant to be solemn and impressive,
to Plymouth Rock, its triteness drew a titter from the audience
which for a moment confounded him.
Unluckily, history cannot be made to order. It is the product of
ages. The proper substitute for it, as well as for the spectacular
effects of monarchy, in new democratic societies, is perfection.
There is no way in which we can here kindle the imaginations of the
large body of men and women to whom we are every year giving an
increasingly high education so well as by finish in the things we
undertake to do. Nothing does so much to produce despondency about
the republic, or alienation from republican institutions, among the
young of the present day, as the condition of the civil service, the
poor working of the post-office and the treasury or the courts, or
the helplessness of legislators in dealing with the ordinary every-
day problems. The largeness of the country, and the rapidity of its
growth, and the comparatively low condition of foreign nations in
respect to freedom, which roused people in Fourth-of-July orations
forty years ago, have, like the historical reminiscences, lost their
magic, and the material prosperity is now associated in people's
minds with so much moral corruption that the mention of it produces
in some of the best of us a feeling not far removed from nausea.
Nothing will do so much now to rouse the old enthusiasm as the
spectacle of the pure working of our administrative machinery,
of able and independent judges, a learned and upright bar, a
respectable and purified custom-house, an enlightened and efficient
treasury, and a painstaking post-office. The colleges of the country
and the railroads, and indeed everything that depends on private
enterprise, are rapidly becoming objects of pride; but a good deal
needs to be done by the government to prevent its being a source of
shame.
Mrs. Stevenson, a Philadelphia lady; the president of the Civic Club
in that city, delivered an address to the club some weeks ago on its
work of reform, in which we find the following passage:
"There seems to exist a mysterious, unwritten law governing the
social organism which causes a natural and wholesome reaction to
take place whenever tendencies, perhaps inherent in certain classes,
threaten to become general, and thereby dangerous to the community.
A few years ago, for instance, with the increasing facilities for
foreign travel, and the corresponding increase of international
intercourse, Anglomania had become so much in vogue as to form an
incipient danger to the true democratic American spirit that
constitutes the real strength of our nation. It was fast becoming a
national habit to extol everything European--from monarchy and its
aristocratic institutions down to the humblest article of dress or
of household use--to the detriment of everything American; and from
the upper 'four hundred' this habit was fast extending to the upper
forty thousand. But just as our wealthy classes were beginning to
make themselves positively ridiculous abroad, and almost intolerable
at home, a reaction set in, and upon all sides there sprang up
patriotic associations of a social order--'Sons and Daughters of the
Revolution,' 'Colonial Dames,' etc.--which revived proper American
self-respect among our people by teaching us to rest our pride, if
pride we _must_ have, where it legitimately should rest--upon good
service rendered to our own country."
This seems to be a shaft aimed at the practice of "going to Europe,"
for the decline of "the true American spirit" and the growth of
Anglomania are ascribed to the "increasing facilities for foreign
travel" and "the corresponding increase of international
intercourse." If the charge be true, it is one of the most
afflicting over made, because it shows that "the true democratic
American spirit" suffers from what the world has hitherto considered
one of the greatest triumphs of modern science, and one of the
greatest blessings conferred on the race--the enormous improvement
in oceanic steam navigation; that, in fact, American patriotism is
very much like the Catholic faith in the Middle Ages--something
naturally hostile to progress in the arts.
If, too, the practice of going to Europe be dangerous to American
faith and morals, the number of those who go makes it of immense
importance. There is probably no American who has risen above very
narrow circumstances who does not go to Europe at least once in his
life. There is hardly a village in the country in which the man who
has succeeded in trade or commerce does not announce his success to
his neighbors by a trip to Europe for himself and his family. There
is hardly a professor, or teacher, or clergyman, or artist, or
author who does not save out of a salary, however small, in order to
make the voyage. Tired professional or business men make it
constantly, under the pretence that it is the only way they can get
"a real holiday." Journalists make it as the only way of getting out
of their heads such disgusting topics as Croker and Gilroy, and Hill
and Murphy. Rich people make it every year, or oftener, through mere
restlessness. We are now leaving out of account, of course,
immigrants born in the Old World, who go back to see their friends.
We are talking of native Americans. Of course, all native Americans
cannot go, because, even when they can afford it, they cannot always
get the time. But we venture on the proposition that there is hardly
any American "in this broad land," as members of Congress say, who,
having both time and money, has not gone to Europe, or does not mean
to go some day or other. So that, if Mrs. Stevenson's account of the
moral effects of the voyage were true, it would show that the very
best portion of our population, the most moral, the most religious,
and the most educated were constantly exposing themselves by tens of
thousands to most debasing influences.
But is it true? We think not. Americans who go to Europe with some
knowledge of history, of the fine arts, and of literature, all
recognize the fact that they could not have completed their
education without going. To such people travel in Europe is one of
the purest and most elevating of pleasures, for Europe contains the
experience of mankind in nearly every field of human endeavor.
They often, it is true, come back discontented with America, but
out of this discontent have grown some of our most valuable
improvements--libraries, museums, art-galleries, colleges. What they
have seen in Europe has opened their eyes to the possibilities and
shortcomings of their own country.
To take a familiar example, it is travel in Europe which has done
most to stimulate the movement for municipal reform. It is seeing
London and Paris, and Berlin and Birmingham, which has done most to
wake people up to the horrors of the Croker-Gilroy rule, and inflame
the determination to end it as a national disgrace. The class of
Americans who do not come back discontented are usually those who
had no education to start with.
"Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll!"
So, even when standing on the Acropolis at Athens or in the Tribuna
at Florence, they feel themselves sadly "out of it." They think
longingly of Billy or Jimmy, and the coffee and cakes of their far
Missouri or Arkansas home, and come back cursing Europe and its
contents. No damage is ever done by foreign travel to the "true
democratic American spirit" of this class.
And now as to "Anglomania," a subject to be handled with as much
delicacy as an anarchist bomb. Anglomania in one form or other is to
be met with in all countries, especially France and Germany, and has
shown itself here and there all over the Continent ever since the
peace of 1815. The things in which it most imitates the English are
riding, driving, men's clothes, sports in general, and domestic
comfort. The reason is that the English have for two centuries given
more attention to these things than any other people. No other has
so cultivated the horse for pleasure purposes. No other has devoted
so much thought and money to suitability in dress and to field sports.
No other has brought to such perfection the art of living in country
houses. In all these things people who can afford it try to imitate
them. We say, with a full consciousness of the responsibility which
the avowal entails on us, that they do right. It is well in any art
to watch and imitate the man who has best succeeded in it. The
sluggard has been exhorted even to imitate the ant, and anyone who
wishes to ride or drive well, or dress appropriately, or entertain
in a country house, ought to study the way the English do these
things, and follow their example, for anything worth doing ought to
be done well. It is mostly in these things that Anglomania consists.
Mrs. Stevenson, we fear, exaggerates greatly the number of
Anglomaniacs. A few dozen are as many as are to be found in any
country, and any government or polity which their presence puts in
peril ought to be overthrown, for assuredly it is rotten to the
core. There is nothing, in fact, better calculated to make Americans
hang their heads for shame than the list of small things which one
hears from "good Americans," put our institutions in danger. We
remember a good old publisher, in the days before international
copyright, who thought we could not much longer stand the
circulation of British novels. Their ideas, he said, were dangerous
to a republic. An Anglomaniac can hardly turn up his trousers on
Fifth Avenue without eliciting shrieks of alarm from the American
patriot. And yet a more harmless creature really does not exist.
These matters are worth notice because we are the only great nation
in the world whom people try to preach into patriotism. The natives
of other countries love their country simply, naturally, and for the
most part silently, as they love their mothers and their wives. But
to get an American to do so he has, one would think, to be followed
about by a preacher with a big stick exhorting him to be a "good
American," or he will catch it. But nobody was ever preached into
love of country. He may be preached into sacrifices in its behalf,
but the springs of love cannot be got at by any system of
persuasion. No man will love his country unless he feels it to be
lovable; and it is to making it lovable that the exertions of those
who have American patriotism in charge should be devoted.
Every Good American may take comfort in the fact that very few
people indeed of any social or political value who have once lived
in America ever want again to live in Europe, unless they go for
purposes of study or education. For there is no question that there
is no country in the world in which the atmosphere is so friendly,
and in which one is so sure of sympathy in misfortune, of acceptance
on his own merits independently of birth or money, and has so many
opportunities of escape from the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune, as America. These are the things which, after all, in the
vast majority of cases, win and hold the human heart; and a country
which has them can well afford to let its citizens travel, and even
let some of them "be early English if they can."