The Americans

PART THREE INTELLECTUAL LIFE — CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Spirit of Self-Perfection — CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Schools and Popular Education — CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Universities — CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Science — CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Literature — CHAPTER NINETEEN Art — CHAPTER TWENTY Religion

There are three capital cities in the United States—Washington the political capital, New York the commercial, and Boston the intellectual capital. Everything in Washington is so completely subordinated to the political life that even the outward aspect of the city is markedly different from that of other American cities; buying and selling scarcely exist. In spite of its three hundred thousand inhabitants, one is reminded of Potsdam or Versailles; diplomats, legislators, and officials set the keynote. Washington is unique in the country, and no other large city tries to compete with it; unless, indeed, on a very small scale a few state capitals, like Albany, which are situated away from the commercial centres. Being unique, Washington remains isolated, and its influence is confined to the political sphere. As a result, there is a slight feeling of the unnatural, or even the unreal, about it; any movements emanating from Washington which are not political, hardly come to their full fruition. And although the city aspires to do, and does do, much for art, culture, and especially for science, its general initiative seems always to be lying under the weight of officialdom. It will never become the capital of intellect.

In a like way, New York is really informed by but a single impulse—the struggle for economic greatness. This is the meaning and the moral of its life. In this respect, New York is not, like Washington, unique. Chicago makes terrific strides in emulation of New York; and yet, so far as one now sees, the city of three million dwellers around the mouth of the Hudson will continue to be the economic centre of the New World. The wholesale merchants, the banker potentates, and the corporation attorneys set there the pace, as the senators and diplomats in 348Washington, and dominate all the activities of the metropolis. Through their influence New York has become the centre of luxury and fashion, and wealth the most powerful factor in its social life. All this cannot take place, and in such extreme wise, without affecting profoundly the other factors of culture. The commercial spirit can be detected in everything that comes from New York. On the surface it looks as if the metropolis of commerce and luxury might perhaps be usurping for itself a leading place in other matters. And it is true that the politics of New York are important, and that her newspapers have influence throughout the land. But yet a real political centre she will never become; new and great political impulses do not withstand her commercial atmosphere. New York is the chief clearinghouse for politics and industry; purely political ideas it transforms into commercial.

This is still more true of strictly intellectual movements. One must not be misled by the fact that there is no other city in the land where so many authors reside, where so many books and magazines are published, or so many works of art of all kinds are sold; or yet where so many apostles of reform lift up their voices. That the millions of inhabitants in New York constitute the greatest theatre for moral and social reforms, does not prove that the true springs of moral energy lie there. And the flourishing state of her literary and artistic activities proceeds, once more, from her economic greatness rather than from any real productive energy or intellectual fruitfulness. The commercial side of the intellectual life of America has very naturally centred itself in New York and there organized; but this outward connection between intellect and the metropolis of trade has very little to do with real intellectual initiative. Such association rather weakens than strengthens the true intellectual life; it subjects art to the influence of fashion, literature to the demands of commerce, and would make science bow to the exigencies of practical life; in short, it makes imminent all the dangers of superficiality. The intellectual life of New York may be outwardly resplendent, but it pays for this in depth; it brings into being no movements of profound significance, and therefore has no standing as a national centre in these respects. As the intellectual life of the political capital bears the stamp of 349officialdom, so is that of the commercial capital marked with the superficiality characteristic of trade and luxury. Intellectual life will originate new thoughts and spread them through the country only when it is earnest, pure, and deep; and informed, above all, with an ideal.

The capital of the intellectual life is Boston, and just as everything which comes out of Washington is tinged with politics, or out of New York with commerce, so are all the activities of Boston marked by an intellectual striving for ideal excellence. Even its commerce and politics are imbued with its ideals.

It is surprising how this peculiar feature of Boston strikes even the superficial observer. The European, who after the prescribed fashion lands at New York and travels to Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, and Niagara, and then winds up his journey through the United States in Boston, has in this last place generally the impression that he has already come back from the New World into the Old. The admirable traditions of culture, the thoroughly intellectual character of the society, the predominance of interests which are not commercial—in fact, even the quaint and picturesque look of the city—everything strikes him as being so entirely different from what his fancy had pictured, from its Old World point of view, as being specifically American. And no less is it different from what the rest of his experience of the New World has given him. Not until he knows the country more thoroughly does he begin to understand that really in this Yankee city the true spirit of the purely American life is embodied.

The American himself recognizes this leading position of Boston in the intellectual life of his country, although he often recognizes it with mixed feelings. He is fond, with the light irony of Holmes, to call Boston “the hub of the universe.” He likes to poke fun at the Boston woman by calling her a “blue-stocking,” and the comic papers habitually affirm that in Boston all cabbies speak Latin. But this does not obscure from him the knowledge that almost everything which is intellectually exalted and significant in this country has come from Boston, that Massachusetts, under the leadership of Boston, has become the foremost example in all matters of education and of real culture, and that there, on the ground of the oldest and largest academy of the country—Harvard University—the true home of New World ideals is 350to be found. And the intellectual pre-eminence of New England is no less recognizable in the representatives of its culture which Boston sends forth through the country; the artistic triumph of the Columbian Exposition may be ascribed to Chicago, but very many of the men who accomplished this work came from Massachusetts; the reform movement against Tammany belongs to the moral annals of New York, but those workers whose moral enthusiasm gained the victory are from New England. This latent impression, that all the best æsthetic and moral and intellectual impulses originate in New England, becomes especially deep the instant one turns one’s gaze into the past. The true picture is at the present day somewhat overlaid, because owing to the industrial development of the West the emigration from New England has taken on such large proportions that the essential traits of Massachusetts have been carried through the whole land. In past times, her peculiar pre-eminence was much more marked.

Whoever traces back the origins of American intellectual life must go to the fourth decade of the seventeenth century. Then the colonies in the Southern and Middle States were flourishing as well as the Northern colonies of New England; but only in these last was there any real initiative toward intellectual culture. In the year 1636, only eight years after the foundation of Boston, Harvard College was founded as the first, and for a long while the only, school of higher learning. And among the products of the printing-press which this country gave forth in the whole seventeenth century such an astonishing majority comes from New England that American literary history has no need to consider the other colonies of that time. The most considerable literary figure of the country at that time was Cotton Mather, a Bostonian. The eighteenth century perpetuated these traditions. The greatest thinker of the country, Jonathan Edwards, was developed at Harvard, and Benjamin Franklin was brought up in Boston. The literature of New England was the best which the country had so far produced, and when the time came for breaking away politically from England, then in the same way the moral energy and enthusiasm of Boston took front rank.

Not until these days of political independence did the true 351history of the free and independent intellectual life of America begin. Now one name followed close on another, and most of the great ones pertained to New England. Poets like Longfellow, Lowell, and Holmes were Bostonians; Whittier and Hawthorne also sprang from the soil of New England. Here, too, appeared the intellectually leading magazines; in the first half of the century the North American Review, in the second half the Atlantic Monthly. Here the religious movement of Unitarianism worked itself out, and here was formed that school of philosophers in whose midst stood the shining figure of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Here sounded the most potent words against slavery; here Parker, Garrison, Phillips, and Sumner poured forth their charges against the South into the midst of a public morally aroused. Here, also, first flourished the quiet work of scientific investigation. Since the day when Ticknor and Everett studied in Göttingen in the year 1815, there sprang up in Massachusetts, more than anywhere else, the custom which caused young American scholars to frequent German schools of higher learning. The historians Prescott, Sparks, Bancroft, Parkman, and Motley were among this number. Here in Boston was the classic ground for the cultivation of serious music, and here was founded the first large public library. And all these movements have continued down to this day. None of the traditions are dead; and any one who is not deceived by superficial impressions knows that the most essential traits of Boston and New England are the ones which, in respect to intellectual life, lead the nation. Quite as the marble Capitol at Washington is the symbol of the political power of America, and the sky-scrapers of lower Broadway are the symbol of America’s economic life, so we may say the elm-shaded college yard of Harvard is the symbol of American intellectual capacity and accomplishment.

It may seem astonishing at first that a single vicinity can attain such eminence, and especially that so small a part of the Union is able to impress its character on the whole wide land. The phenomenon, however, becomes almost a matter of course, if we put before ourselves how this world-power slowly grew from the very smallest beginnings, and how this growth did not take place by successive increments of large and compact masses of people who had their own culture and their own independent 352spirit, but took place by the continual immigration of wanderers who were detached and isolated, and who joined themselves to that which was already here, and so became assimilated. Then, as soon as a beginning had been made, and in a certain place a specific expression had been given to intellectual life, this way of thinking and this general attitude necessarily became the prevailing ones, and in this way spread abroad farther and farther. If in the seventeenth century, instead of the little New England states, the Southern colonies, say, had developed a characteristic and independent intellectual life, then by the same process of constant assimilation the character and thought of Virginia might have impressed itself on the whole nation as have the character and thought of Massachusetts. Yet it was by no means an accident that the spirit which was destined to be most vital did not proceed from the pleasure-loving Virginians, but rather came from the severely earnest settlers of the North.

The way of thinking of those Northern colonists can be admirably characterized by a single word—they were Puritans. The Puritan spirit influenced the inner life of Boston Bay in the seventeenth century, and consequently the inner life of the whole country down to our time, more deeply and more potently than any other factor. The Puritanical spirit signifies something incomparably precious—it is much more admirable than its detractors dream of; and yet at the same time, it carries with it its decided limitations. For nearly three hundred years the genius of America has nourished itself on these virtues and has suffered by these limitations. That which the Puritans strove for was just what their name signifies—purity; purity in the service of God, purity of character, and, in an evil time, purity of life. Filled with the religious doctrines of Calvinism, that little band of wanderers had crossed the ocean in spite of the severest trials, in order to find free scope for their Puritan ideals; had left that same England where, some time later under Cromwell, they were to achieve a victory, although a short and after all insignificant one. They much more cared for the spotlessness of their faith than for any outward victory, and every impulse of their devout and simple lives was informed by their convictions. Under these circumstances it was no accident that here the intellectual and moral ideals were not obscured by any economic or political 353preoccupations; but from the very outset were accounted in themselves of prime importance. Harvard College was founded as a school for the Puritan clergy, and almost the entire American literature, which is to say the literature of New England, of the seventeenth century is purely religious, or at any rate is thoroughly permeated with the Calvinistic way of thought.

Of course, externally this is all entirely changed, and it is almost a typical example of this transformation, that Harvard, once a seminary for ministers, to-day prepares not one-fiftieth part of its five thousand students for the clerical calling. Indeed, as early as the year 1700, Yale University was founded in Connecticut, largely in the aim of creating a fortress for the old faith, because Harvard had become too much a place of free thought; and the great scholar of Harvard, the preacher Jonathan Edwards, went away from Boston in anger because it seemed to him, even in the eighteenth century, that the old Calvinistic traditions had been lost. And then finally, in the nineteenth century, appeared Unitarianism—a creed which became the most energetic enemy of Calvinism. These changes and disruptions were, however, rather an internal matter. They were actually nothing but small differences within the Puritan community. From the meagre days of the Pilgrim Fathers down to the time when Emerson in rhapsodic flights preached the ethical idealism of Fichte, and Longfellow wrote his “Psalm of Life,” the old Puritan spirit remained predominant.

One fundamental note sounded through the whole. Life was not to be lived for the sake of pleasure, but for the sake of duty. Existence got its sense and value only in ethical endeavour; self-perfection was the great duty which took precedence over all others. Among the particularly dogmatic tenets of the Calvinistic theology this self-searching became, in the last resort, perhaps a somewhat dispiriting searching after inner signs by which God was expected to show somewhat arbitrarily his favour. More broadly taken, however, it signified rather a continual searching of the conscience—a conscious suppression of impure, of worldly, and of selfish impulses; and so in effect it was an untiring moral purification. And if in this theological atmosphere it appeared as if God had led a singularly large number of predestined spirits together into the New England colonies, the reason was 354obviously this—that in such a community of earnest, self-searching characters a moral purity developed such as was to be found nowhere in the wild turmoil of the Old World. When the entire life is so permeated by ethical ideals, there indeed the nobler part of man’s nature cannot be conquered by lower instincts or by the sordid demands of every-day life.

Such a place could not fail to be a favourable environment for any intellectual undertakings. There serious books were more welcome than the merely amusing ones which flourished in the rest of the colonies. In New England more was done for education, the development of law and the service of God, than for any outward show or material prosperity. In short, the life of the intellect throve there from the very outset. And yet of course this spirit of culture necessarily took a turn very different from what it had been in the mother land, different from what it was on the Continent, and different from what it would have been if the Southern colonies had been intellectually dominant.

For the Puritan, absolutely the whole of culture was viewed from the moral point of view. But the moral judgment leads always to the individual; neither in the physical nor in the psychical world can anything be found which has an ethical value except the good will of the individual. No work of culture has any value in itself; it becomes ethically significant only in its relation to the individual will, and all intellectual life has ethically a single aim—to serve the highest development of the individual. From this point of view, therefore, science, poetry, and art have no objective value: for the Puritan, they are nothing to accept and to make himself subordinate to; but they are themselves subordinate means merely toward that one end—the perfection of the man. Life was a moral problem, for which art and science became important only in so far as they nourished the inner growth of every aspirant. In the language of the newer time we might say that a community developed under Puritan influences cared considerably more for the culture of its individual members than for the creation of things intellectual, that the intellectual worker did not set out to perfect art and science, but aimed by means of art and science to perfect himself.

Of course there must be some reciprocal working between the general body of culture and the separate personalities, but the 355great tendency had to be very different from that which it would have been had the chief emphasis been laid on æsthetic or intellectual productions as such. In Europe during the decisive periods the starting-point has been and to-day is, the objective; and this has only secondarily come to be significant for the subjective individual life. But in Puritan America the soul’s welfare stood in the foreground, and only secondarily was the striving for self-perfection, self-searching, and self-culture made to contribute to the advance of objective culture. As a consequence individual characters have had to be markedly fine even at a time in which all creative achievements of enduring significance were very few. Just in the opposite way the history of the culture of non-puritanical Europe has shown the greatest creative achievements at the very times when personal morals were at their lowest ebb.

But the spirit of self-perfection can have still an entirely different source. In ethical idealism the perfection of personality is its own end; but this perfection of the individual may also be a means to an end, an instrument for bringing about the highest possible capacity for achievement in practical life. This is the logic of utilitarianism. For utilitarianism as well as for Puritan idealism the growth of science and art, and the development of moral institutions, are nothing in themselves, but are significant only as they work backward on the minds of the individuals. Idealism demands the intellectual life for the sake of the individual soul’s welfare, utilitarianism for the sake of the individual’s outward success. A greater antithesis could hardly be thought of; and nevertheless the desire for self-perfection is common to both, and for both the increase of the national products of culture are at the outset indifferent. It is clear that both of these tendencies in their sociological results will always reach out far beyond their initial aims. Puritanism and utilitarianism, although they begin with the individual, nevertheless must bear their fruits in the whole intellectual status of the nation. Ethical idealism aims not only to receive, but also to give. To be sure, it gives especially in order to inspire in others its own spirit of self-perfection, but in order so to inspire and so to work it must give expression to its inner ideals by the creation of objects of art and science. Utilitarianism, on the contrary, must early set 356such a premium on all achievements which make for prosperity that in the same way again the individual, from purely utilitarian motives, is incited to bring his thought to a creative issue. The intellectual life of the nation which is informed with Puritan and utilitarian impulses, will therefore, after a certain period, advance to a new and national stage of culture; but the highest achievements will be made partly in the service of moral ideals, partly in the service of technical culture. As the result of the first tendency, history, law, literature, philosophy, and religion will come to their flowering; in consequence of the second tendency, science and technique.

In modern Continental Europe, both these tendencies have been rather weakly developed. From the outset idealism has had an intellectual and æsthetic bias. Any great moral earnestness has been merely an episode in the thought of those nations; and in the same way, too, utilitarianism has played really a subordinate rôle in their intellectual life, because the desire for free initiative has never been a striking feature in the intellectual physiognomy. The love of truth, the enjoyment of beauty, and the social premiums for all who minister to this love and pleasure have been in Continental Europe more potent factors in the national intellectual life than either ethical idealism or practical utilitarianism. And it is only because of its steady assimilation of all European immigrants that the Puritan spirit of the New England colonies has become the fundamental trait of the country, and that moral earnestness has not been a mere episode also in the life of America.

There is no further proof necessary that, along with idealism, utilitarianism has in fact been an efficient factor in all intellectual activities of America. Indeed, we have very closely traced out how deeply the desire for self-initiative has worked on the population and been the actual spring of the economic life of all classes. But for the American it has been also a matter of course that the successful results of initiative presuppose, in addition to energy of character, technical training and the best possible liberal education. Here and there, to be sure, there appears a successful self-made man—a man who for his lack of making has only himself to thank—and he comes forward to warn young people to be wary of the higher culture, and to preach to them that the school of practical life is the sole high-road 357to success. But the exemplary organization of the great commercial corporations is itself a demonstration against any such fallacious paradoxes. Precisely there the person with the best training is always placed at the head, and the actual results of American technique would be still undreamt of if the American had preferred, before the solid intellectual mastery of his problems, really nothing but energy or “dash” or, say, mere audacity. The issues which really seriously interest the American are not between the adherents of culture and the adherents of mere push, undeterred by any culture; the material value of the highest possible intellectual culture has come to be a dogma. The real issues are mainly even to-day those between the Puritanical and utilitarian ideals of self-perfection. Of course those most in the heat of battle are not aware of this; and yet when in the thousandfold discussions the question comes up whether the higher schools and colleges should have fixed courses of instruction for the sake of imparting a uniform and general culture, or whether on the other hand specialization should be allowed to step in and so to advance the time for the technical training, then the Puritans of New England and the utilitarians of the Middle States are ranged against each other.

In fact, it is the Middle, and a little later on the Western, States, where along with the tremendous development of the instinct of individual initiative the pressure for the utilitarian exploitation of the higher intellectual powers has been most lively. Also this side of the American spirit has not sprung up to-day nor yesterday; and its influence is neither an immoral nor a morally indifferent force. Utilitarianism has decidedly its own ethics. It is the robust ethics of the Philistine, with its rather trivial references to the greatest good of the greatest number and citations of the general welfare. Benjamin Franklin, for instance, preached no mean morality, along with his labours for politics and science; but his words, “Honesty is the best policy,” put morality on a level with the lightning-rod which he invented. Both are means toward human prosperity. Although born and bred in Boston, Franklin did not feel himself at home there, where for the best people life was thought to be “a trembling walk with God.” For him Philadelphia was a more congenial field of activity. To-day there is no single place which is specially noted for its utilitarian 358turn of mind. It is rather a matter of general dissemination, for the influence of the entire Western population goes in this direction. But no one should for a moment imagine that this utilitarian movement has overcome or destroyed the Puritan spirit. The actual state of the national culture can be understood only as a working together of these two types of the spirit of self-perfection; and even to-day, the Puritan spirit is the stronger—the spirit of New England is in the lead.

All that we have so far spoken of relates to that which is distinctly of national origin; over and above this there is much which the American has adopted from other nations. The most diverse factors work to make this importation from foreign thought more easy. The wealth and the fondness for travel of the American, his craze for collections, and his desire to have in everything the best—this in addition to the uninterrupted stream of immigration and much else—have all brought it about that anything which is foreign is only too quickly adopted in the national culture. Not until very lately has a more or less conscious reaction against this sort of thing stepped in, partly through the increased strengthening of the national consciousness, but more specially through the surprisingly quick rise of native achievement. The time for imitation in architecture has gone by and the prestige of the English romance is at an end. And yet to-day English literature, French art, and German music still exercise here their due and potent influence.

Now, in addition to these influences which spring from the culture of foreign nations, come finally those impulses which are not peculiar to any one nation, but spring up in every country out of the lower instincts and pleasures. Everywhere in the world mere love of diversion tries to step in and to usurp the place of æsthetic pleasure. Everywhere curiosity and sensational abandon are apt to undermine purely logical interests, and everywhere a mere excitability tries to assume the rôle of moral ardour. Everywhere the weak and trivial moral, æsthetic, and intellectual appeals of the variety stage may come to be preferred over the serious appeals of the drama. It is said that this tendency, which was always deeply rooted in man’s nature, is felt more noticeably in our nervous and excitable times than it was in the old days. In a similar way one may say that it shows out still stronger in America 359than it does in other countries. The reason for this is clear. Political democracy is responsible for part of it; for in the name of that equality which it postulates, it instinctively lends more countenance to the æsthetic tastes, the judgment, and the moral inspiration of the butcher, the baker and candlestick-maker than is really desirable if one has at heart the development of absolute culture. Perhaps an even more important factor is the purely economic circumstance that in America the masses possess a greater purchasing power than in any other country, and for this reason are able to exert a more immediate influence on the intellectual life of the land. The great public is not more trivial in the United States than elsewhere; it is rather, as in every democracy, more mature and self-contained; but in America this great public is more than elsewhere in the material position to buy great newspapers, and to support theatres; and is thus able to exert a degrading influence on the intellectual level of both newspaper and theatre.

In this way, then, the tendency of the lower classes toward those things which are trivial may sometimes conceal the fine traits in the picture of the national intellectual life; just as the readiness for imitation may, for a time, bring in many a foreign trait. But nevertheless, there is in fact a clearly recognizable, a free and independent intellectual life, which everywhere reveals the opposition or the balance between Puritanism and utilitarianism, and which is everywhere dominated by that single wish which is common both to Puritans and to utilitarians—the desire for the best possible development of the individual, the desire for self-perfection.

Since, however, it remains a somewhat artificial abstraction to pick out a single trait—even if that is the most typical—from the intellectual make-up of the nation, so of course it is understood from the outset that all the other peculiarities of the American work together with this one to colour and shape his real intellectual life. Everywhere, for instance, one notes the easily kindled enthusiasm of the American and his inexhaustible versatility, his religious temperament and his strongly marked feeling of decorum, his lively sense of justice and his energy, and perhaps most of all his whimsical humour. Each one of these admirable traits involves some corresponding failing. It is natural that impetuous enthusiasm 360should not make for that dogged persistence which so often has brought victory to various German intellectual movements; so, too, a nice feeling for form grows easily impatient when it is a question of intellectual work requiring a broad and somewhat careless handling. Devotion to the supersensuous is inclined to lead to superstition and mysticism, while a too sensitive feeling for fair play may develop into hysterical sympathy for that which is merely puny; versatility, as is well known, is only too apt to come out in fickle dilettante activities, and the humour that bobs up at every moment destroys easily enough the dignity of the most serious occasion. And yet all this, whether good or bad, is a secondary matter. The spirit of self-perfection remains the central point, and it must be always from this point that we survey the whole field.

A social community which believes its chief duty to be the highest perfection of the individual will direct its main attentions to the church and the school. The church life in America is, for political reasons, almost entirely separated from the influence of the state; but the force with which every person is drawn into some church circle has not for this reason lost, but rather gained, strength. The whole social machine is devised in the interests of religion, and the impatience of the sects and churches against one another is slight indeed as compared with the intolerance of the churches as a whole against irreligion. The boundaries are drawn as widely as possible, so that ethical culture or even Christian Science may be included under the head of religion; but countless purely social influences make strongly toward bringing the spirit of worship in some wise into every man’s life, so that an hour of consecration precedes the week of work, and every one in the midst of his earthly turmoil heeds the thought of eternity, in whatever way he will. And these social means are even stronger than any political ones could be.

There is very much which contributes to deepen the religious feeling of the people and to increase the efficiency of the churches. The very numerousness of the different sects is not the least factor in this direction, for it allows every individual conscience to find somewhere its peculiar religious satisfaction. An additional impulse is the high position which woman occupies, for she is more religiously endowed than man. And yet another factor is the 361many social functions which the churches have taken on themselves. In this last there is much that may seem to the stranger too secular: the church which is at the same time a club, a circulating library, and a place to lounge in, seems at first sight to lose something of its dignity; but just because it has woven itself in by such countless threads to the web of daily life, it has come to pass that no part of the social fabric is quite independent of it. Of course the external appearance of a large city does not strongly indicate this state of things; but the town and country on the other hand give evidence of the strong religious tendency of the population, even to the superficial observer; and he will not understand the Americans if he leaves out of account their religious inwardness. The influence of religion is the only one which is stronger than that of politics itself, and the accomplished professional politicians are sharp to guide their party away from any dangerous competition with that factor.

The church owes its power more or less to the unconscious sentiments in the soul of the people, whereas the high position and support of the public school is the one end toward which the conscious volition of the entire nation is bent with firmest determination. One must picture to one’s self the huge extent of the thinly populated country, the incomparable diversity of the population which has come in, bringing many differences of race and language, and finally the outlay of strength which has been necessary to open up the soil to cultivation, in order to have an idea of what huge labours it has taken to plant the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific with a thick sowing of schools. The desire for the best possible school system is for the American actually more than a social duty—it has become a passion; and although here and there it may have gone astray, it has never been afraid of any difficulty.

The European who is accustomed to see the question of education left to the government can hardly realize with what intensity this entire population participates in the solution of theoretical problems and in the overcoming of practical difficulties. No weekly paper or magazine and no lecture programme of any association of thinking men could be found in which questions of nurture and education are not treated. Pedagogical publications are innumerable, and the number of those who are technically informed is nearly identical with the number of those who have 362brought up children. The discussions in Germany over, we may say, high schools and technical schools, over modern and ancient languages, or the higher education of women, interest a relatively small circle as compared with similar discussions in America. The mere fact that this effort toward the best school instruction has so deeply taken hold of all classes of society, and that it leads all parties and sects and all parts of the country to a united and self-conscious struggle forward is in itself of the highest value for the education of the whole people.

In the broad basis of the public school is built a great system of higher instruction, and the European does not easily find the right point of view from which to take this. The hundreds of colleges, universities, professional schools, and polytechnics seem to the casual observer very often like a merely heterogeneous and disordered collection of separate institutions, because there seems to be no common standard, no general level, no common point of view, and no common end; in short, there seems to be no system. And nevertheless, there is at the bottom of it all an excellent system. It is here that one finds the most elaborate and astonishing achievement of the American spirit, held together in one system by the principle of imperceptible gradations; and no other organization, specially no mere imitation of foreign examples, could so completely bring to expression the American desire for self-perfection.

The topics of school and university would not make up one-half of the history of American popular education. In no other country of the world is the nation so much and so systematically instructed outside of the school as in America, and the thousand forms in which popular education is provided for those who have grown beyond the schools, are once more a lively testimony to the tireless instinct for personal perfection. Evening schools, summer schools, university extension courses, lecture institutes, society classes, and debating clubs, all work together to that end; and to omit these would be to give no true history of American culture. The background of all this, however, is the great national stock of public library books, from which even the poorest person can find the best books and study them amid the most delightful surroundings.

The popular educational libraries, together with the amazingly 363profuse newspaper and magazine literature, succeed in reaching the whole people; and, in turn, these institutions would not have become so large as they are if the people themselves had not possessed a strong desire for improvement. This thirst for reading is again nothing new; for Hopkinson, who was acquainted with both England and America in the middle of the eighteenth century, reported with surprise the difference in this respect between the two countries. And since that time the development has gone on and on until to-day the magazines are printed by the hundreds of thousands, and historical romances in editions of half a million copies; while public libraries exist not only in every small city, but even in the villages, and those in the large cities are housed in buildings which are truly monuments of architecture. As the influence of books has grown, the native literature has increased and the arts of modelling and sculpture have come forward at an equal pace, as means of popular culture. Museums have arisen, orchestras been established, the theatre developed, and an intellectual life has sprung up which is ready to measure itself against the best that European culture has produced. But the real foundation of this is even to-day not the creative genius, but the average citizen, in his striving after self-perfection and culture.

Once every year the American people go through a period of formal meditation and moral reflection. In the month of June all the schools close. Colleges and universities shut their doors for the long summer vacation; and then, at the end of the year of study, according to an old American custom, some serious message is delivered to those who are about to leave the institutions. To make such a farewell speech is accounted an honour, depending, of course, on the rank of the institution, and the best men in the country are glad to be asked. Thus it happens that, in the few weeks of June, hundreds of the leading men—scholars, statesmen, novelists, reformers, politicians, officials, and philanthropists—vie with one another in impressing on the youth the best, deepest, and most inspiring sentiments; and since these speeches are copied in the newspapers and magazines, they are virtually said to the whole people. The more important utterances generally arouse discussions in the columns of the newspapers, and so the month of June comes to be a time of reflection and meditation, and of a certain refreshment of inspiration and a revival of moral 364strength. Now, if one looks over these speeches, one sees that they generally are concerned with one of two great themes. Some of them appeal to the youth, saying; Learn and cultivate yourselves, for this is the only way in which you will arrive at becoming useful members of society: while the others urge; Cultivate yourselves, for there is in life nothing more precious than a full and harmonious development of the soul. The latter sentiment is that of the Puritan, while the former is that of the utilitarian. And yet the individualistic tendency is in both cases the same. In both cases youth is urged to find its goal in the perfection of the individual.

The Dutch population of New Amsterdam started a school system in the year 1621. The first public Latin school was founded in Boston in the year 1635. The other colonies soon followed. Clearly the English governor of Virginia, Berkeley, had not quite grasped the spirit of the New World, when at about that time he wrote home, that, thank God, no public schools and no printing-press existed here, and when he added his hope that they would not be introduced for a hundred years, since learning brings irreligion and disobedience into the world, and the printing-press disseminates them and fights against the best intentions of the government. For that matter it was precisely Virginia which was the first colony, even before Boston and New York, to consider the question of education. As early as 1619 the treasurer of the Virginia Company had proposed, in the English Parliament, that 15,000 acres of land should be set aside in the interests of a school for higher education. The English churches became interested in the plan, and an abundant supply of money was got together. Ground and buildings had been procured for lower and higher instruction and all was in working order, when in 1622 the fearful Indian war upset everything. The buildings were destroyed, and all thought of public education was for a long time given up. This is how that condition came about which so well pleased Governor Berkeley. But this mishap to the Virginia colony shows at once how the American system of education has not been able to progress in any systematic way, but has suffered frequent reverses through war or political disturbance. And it has developed in the different parts of the country at a very different pace, sometimes even in quite different directions. It was not until after the Civil War—that is, within the last thirty years—that 366these differences have to a large extent been wiped out. It is only to-day that one can speak of a general American system. The outsider will, therefore, come to a better understanding of the American educational system if he begins his study with conditions as they are to-day, for they are more unified and therefore easier to understand, than if he were to try to understand how the present has historically come from the complicated and rather uninteresting past.

So we shall not ask how the educational system has developed, but rather what it is to-day and what it aims to be. Even the present-day conditions may easily lead a German into some confusion, because he is naturally inclined to compare them with the conditions at home, and such a comparison is not always easy. Therefore, we must picture to ourselves first of all the fundamental points in the system, and describe its principal variations from the conditions in Germany. A few broad strokes will suffice for a first inspection.

The unit of the system in its completest form is a four years’ course of instruction. For the easier survey we may think of a boundary drawn at what in Germany would be between the Obersekunda and Prima of a Gymnasium or Realschule. Now, three such units of the system lie before and two after this line of demarcation. The son of a well-to-do family, who is to study medicine in Harvard University, will probably reach this line of demarcation in his eighteenth year. If he is advanced according to the normal scheme he will have entered a primary school at six years of age, the grammar school at ten, and the high school at fourteen. Thus he will complete a twelve years’ course in the public schools. Now he crosses our line of demarcation in his eighteenth year and enters college. And as soon as he has finished his four years’ course in college he begins his medical studies in the university, and he is twenty-six years old when he has finished. If we count in two years of early preparation in the kindergarten, we shall see that the whole scheme of education involves twenty-two years of study. Now, it is indeed possible that our young medical student will have progressed somewhat more rapidly; perhaps he will have reached the high school after six instead of eight years of study; perhaps he will finish his college course in three years, and it may be that he will never have gone to kindergarten. But we have at 367first to concern ourselves with the complete plan of education, not with the various changes and abbreviations of it, which are very properly allowed and even favoured.

The line which we call the great boundary is the time when the lad enters college. Now, what is the great significance of this moment? The German, who thinks in terms of Gymnasium and Universität, is almost sure to fall into a misapprehension; for college is neither the one nor the other. So far as the studies themselves go, it coincides rather well with the Prima of the Gymnasium and the first two or three semesters in the philosophical faculty of the German university. And yet even this by no means tells one what a college really is. Above all, it does not explain why the American makes the chief division at the time of entering college, while the German makes it when he enters the medical or law school. This needs to be explained most clearly, because very important factors are here involved, which bear on the future of American civilization. And so we must give especial attention to college and the professional schools. But that discussion is to be reserved for the chapter on the universities. For the present, we have only to deal with the system of instruction in those schools which prepare for college.

And so, leaving the kindergarten out of the question, we shall deal with those three institutions which we have called primary, grammar, and high schools. Usually, the first two of these are classed together as one eight years’ course of training. The European will be struck at once that in this system there is only one normal plan of public education. The future merchant, who goes to the high school and ends his studies in the eighteenth year, has to follow the same course of study in the primary and grammar schools as the peasant and labourer who studies only until his fourteenth year, and then leaves school to work in the field or the factory. And this young merchant, although he goes into business when he is eighteen years old, pursues exactly the same studies as the student who is later to go to college and the university. Now in fact, in just this connection the actual conditions are admirably adapted to the most diverse requirements; the public schools find an admirable complement in private schools; and, more than that, certain very complicated differentiations have been brought about within the single school, in order 368to overcome the most serious defects of this uniformity. Nevertheless, the principle remains; the system is uniform, and the American himself finds therein its chief merit.

The motive for this is clear. Every one, even the most humble, should find his way open; every one must be able to press on as far as his own intelligence permits; in other words—words which the American pedagogue is very fond of uttering—the public school is to make the spirit of caste impossible. It is to wipe out the boundaries between the different classes of society, and it is to see to it, that if the farmer’s lad of some remote village feels within himself some higher aspiration, and wants to go beyond the grammar school to the high school and even to college, he shall find no obstacle in his way. His advance must not be impeded by his suddenly finding that his entrance into the high school would need some different sort of previous training.

This general intermingling of the classes of society is thought to be the panacea of democracy. The younger generations are to be removed from all those influences which keep their parents apart, and out of all the classes of society the sturdiest youth are to be free of all prejudice and free to rise to the highest positions. Only in this wise can new sound blood flow through the social organism; only so can the great evils incident to the formation of castes which have hindered old Europe in its mighty progress be from the very outset avoided. The classic myth relates of the hero who gained his strength because he kissed the earth. In this way the American people believe that they will become strong only by returning with every fresh generation to the soil, and if the German Gymnasia were a hundred times better than they are, and if they were able to prepare a boy from early childhood for the highest intellectual accomplishment, America would still find them unsuited to her needs, because from the outset they are designed for only a small portion of the people, and for this reason they make it almost impossible for the great mass of boys to proceed to the universities from the ordinary public schools.

All of this is the traditional confession of belief of the pedagogue of the New World. But now since America, in the most recent times, has nevertheless begun to grow in its social structure considerably more like antiquated Europe, and sees itself less and less able to overcome the tendencies to a spirit of caste, so a sort 369of mild compromise has been made between the democratic creed and aristocratic tendencies, especially in the large cities of the East. Nevertheless, any one who keeps his eyes open will admit that, so far as the public school goes, intellectual self-perfection is in every way favoured, so that every single child of the people may rise as high as he will. Grammar school leads to the high school, and the high school leads to college.

There is another factor which is closely related to the foregoing. Education is free and obligatory. In olden times there was more the tendency for the parents of the children, rather than for the general taxpayer, to pay for the maintenance of the schools. Indeed, there were times in which the remission of the special school tax was considered almost an act of charity, which only the poorest of the parents would accept. But now it is quite different. The school system knows no difference between rich and poor, and it is a fundamental principle that the support of the schools is a matter for the whole community. The only question is in regard to the high school, since after all only a small percentage of school children comes as far as the high school; and it is unjust, some say, to burden the general taxpayer with the expenses of such school.

Nevertheless, on this point the opinions of those have won who conceive that it is the duty of the community to nurture any effort toward self-culture, even in the poorest child. The chief motive in olden times, wherefore the expenses of the schools were paid by all, was that the school was leading toward religion; to-day the official motive for the application of taxes to the maintenance of schools is the conviction that only an educated and cultivated people can rule itself. The right to vote, it is said, presupposes the right to an education by means of which every citizen becomes able to read the papers of the day and to form his own independent opinion on public matters. But since every public school is open also to the daughters of the citizens who possibly want the right to vote, but do not so far have it, it becomes clear that the above-mentioned political motive is not the whole of the matter. It is enough for technical discussions of taxation, but what the community is really working for is the greatest possible number of the most highly educated individuals. Free instruction is further supplemented in various states—as, for instance, in Massachusetts—by supplying text-books gratis. Some 370other states go so far as to supply the needy children with clothing. The obligatory character of education goes with the fact that it is free. In this respect, too, the laws of different states are widely divergent. Some require seven, others eight, still others even nine years, of school training. And the school year itself is fixed differently in different states.

These differences between the states point at once to a further fact which has been characteristic of the American school system from the very beginning. Responsibility for the schools rests at the periphery; and in extremely happy fashion the authority is so divided that all variations, wherever they occur, are adaptations to local conditions; and nevertheless unity is preserved. A labile equilibrium of the various administrative factors is brought about by harmonious distribution of the authority, and this is, in all departments of public life, the peculiar faculty of the Americans.

The federal government, as such, has no direct influence on education. The tirelessly active Bureau of Education at Washington, which is under the direction of the admirable pedagogue, Mr. Harris, is essentially a bureau for advice and information and for the taking of statistics. The legal ordinances pertaining to school systems is a matter for the individual state, and the state again leaves it to the individual community, within certain limits of course and under state supervision, to build schools and to organize them, to choose their teachers, their plans of education, and their school-books. And at every point here, exactly as in the striking example of the federal Constitution, the responsibility is divided between the legislative and the executive bodies. The state inspector of schools is co-ordinate with the state legislature, and the school inspector of a city or a country district, who is elected now by the mayor, now by the council, now perhaps directly by the community, is a sort of technical specialist with considerable discretionary power; he is co-ordinated to the school committee, which is elected by the community, and which directs the expenditures and confirms all appointments.

The responsibility for the moral and intellectual standards, for the practical conditions, and for the financial liabilities incurred by every school, rests therefore immediately with the community, which has to pay for their support, and whose children are to derive advantage. And nevertheless, the general oversight of the 371state sees to it that neither whimsicality nor carelessness abuses this right, nor departs too widely from approved traditions. These authorities are further supplemented in that the state legislature is more or less able to make up for differences between rich and poor districts and between the city and the country, besides directly carrying on certain normal schools in which the teachers for the elementary and grammar schools are trained.

Very great and very diverse advantages are the immediate outcome of this administrative system. Firstly, an interest in the well-being of the schools is developed in every state, city, and town, and the spirit of self-perfection is united with the spirit of self-determination. Secondly, there is a good deal of free play for local differences—differences between states and differences within the state. Nothing would have been more unsuitable than in this whole tremendous territory to institute a rigidly fixed school system, as say by some federal laws or some interstate agreements. If there were the same educational provisions for the negro states of the South and for the Yankee states of New England, for the thickly settled regions of the East and the prairies of the West, these provisions would be either empty words or else they would tend to drag down the more highly educated parts of the country to the level of the lowest districts. The German who objects to this on the ground of uniformity, does so because he is too apt to think of the great similarity which exists between the different sections of Germany. The only proper basis for a comparison, however, would be his taking Europe as a whole into consideration.

If now the outward unity of this system which we have described is nevertheless to be maintained, it is absolutely necessary that this form shall be filled with very different contents. And this introduction of diversity is intrusted to the state legislatures and local authorities, who are familiar with the special conditions. In this way the so-called school year in the school ordinances of a rich state may be about twice as long as in another state whose poorer population is perhaps not able entirely to do without the economies of child labour. But the differences between the schools take particularly such a form that the attainments of the different schools, corresponding to the culture and prosperity of the state in which they are, and of the community, are consciously designed 372to be quite different. The remoter rural schools which, on account of the poverty of their patronage perhaps, have to get on with one badly trained teacher and have to carry on four grades of instruction in one school-room, and other schools which employ only university graduates, which bring their scholars together in sumptuous buildings, afford them laboratories and libraries, and have all the wealth of a great city to back them—these schools cannot seriously enter into competition with each other. Two years of study in one place will mean more than four in another; and there is no special danger in this, since this very inequality has brought it about that the completion of one grade in a school by no means carries with it the right to enter the next higher grade of any other school. It is not the case that a scholar who has passed through any grammar school whatsoever will be welcome in every high school. This is regulated by an entrance examination for the higher school, which will not accept merely the certificate of graduation from a lower.

There are still other forms of this differentiation. In the first place, the schools have shown a growing tendency to establish various parallel courses, between which the scholars are allowed to choose. In the simplest case there is, perhaps, on the one hand a very practical plan of education, and a second course which is rather more liberal; or, again, there may be a course for those who are not meaning to study further, and another course for those who are preparing for the entrance examinations to some higher school. The fiction of uniformity is preserved in this way. The child does not, as in Germany, choose between different schools; but he chooses between plans of education in the same school, and every day the tendency deepens to make this elective system more and more labile.

But the most modern pedagogues are not content even with this, and insist, especially in the grade of the high school, that the make-up of the course of study must be more and more, as they say, adapted to the individuality of the scholars; or, as others think, to the whimsies of the parents and the scholars. Since, in accordance with this, the entrance examinations for the colleges leave considerable free play for the choice of specialties, this movement will probably go on developing for some time. It appeals very cleverly to the instincts of both the Puritans and the utilitarians. 373The Puritan demands the development of all individual gifts, and the utilitarian wants the preparation for an individual career. Nevertheless, there are some indications of an opposite tendency. Even the utilitarian begins to understand that he is best fitted for the fight who bases his profession on the broadest foundation—who begins, therefore, with his specialization as late as possible. And the Puritan, too, cannot wholly forget that nothing is more important for his personal development than the training of the will in the performance of duty, in the overcoming of personal inhibitions, and that therefore for the scholar those studies may well be the most valuable which at the first he seems least inclined to pursue. Further differentiation results from the almost universal opportunity to pass through the schools in a somewhat shorter time. It is also possible for a student to progress more rapidly in one branch of study, and so in different branches to advance at different rates.

We have over and above all these things, and more particularly in the large cities, a factor of differentiation which has so far been quite left out of account. This is the private school. The goal for the student who wants to advance is not the diploma of graduation, but preparation for the entrance examinations which are next higher. This preparation can perhaps be obtained more thoroughly, more quickly, and under more fortunate social conditions, in a private school, which charges a high tuition, but in this way is able to engage the very best teachers, and able perhaps to have smaller classes than the public schools. And such a private school will be able to extend its influence over all education. Large and admirably conducted institutions have grown up, often in some rural vicinity, where several hundred young persons lead a harmonious life together and are educated from their earliest youth, coming home only during vacation. In such ways the private school has taken on the most various forms, corresponding to obvious needs. They find justly the encouragement of the state.

This diversity which we have sketched of public and private educational institutions brings us at once to another principle, which has been and always will be of great significance in American material and intellectual history—the principle that everywhere sharp demarcations between the institutions of different grades 374are avoided, and that instead, sliding gradations and easy transitions are brought about, by means of which any institution can advance without any hindrance. This is in every case the secret of American success—free play for the creations of private initiative. The slightest aspiration must be allowed to work itself out, and the most modest effort must be helped along. Where anything which is capable of life has sprung up, it should be allowed to grow. Sharp demarcation with official uniformity would make that impossible; for only where such unnoticeably small steps form the transitions, is any continuous inner growth to be expected. We have emphasized the local differences. The grammar school in New York is probably more efficient than the high school in Oklahoma, and the high school in Boston will carry its students probably as far as some little college in Utah.

The thousands of institutions which exist afford a continuous transition between such extremes, and every single institution can set its own goal as high as it wishes to. A school does not, by any act of law, pass into a higher class; but it perfects itself by the fact that the community introduces improvements, makes new changes, appoints better and better teachers, augments the curriculum, and adds to its physical equipment. In such ways, the school year by year imperceptibly raises its standard. And the same is true of the private school. Everything is a matter of growth, and in spite of the outward uniformity of the system every school has its individual standard. If one were to require that only such institutions should exist as had distinctly limited and similar aims, then the American would look on this as he would on an attempt to force all cities to be either of ten thousand, a hundred thousand, or a million inhabitants. Of course, all this would have to be changed, if as in Germany, certain school grades carried with them certain privileges. In America no school diploma carries officially any privilege at all. It is the entrance examination, and not the tests for graduation, which is decisive; and if there is any question of filling a position, the particular schools which the candidates have gone through are the things which are chiefly taken into account.

We must mention one more trait which differentiates the American from the German school system. The American public school is co-educational. Co-education means theoretically that boys 375and girls are entitled to common education, but practically it means that boys are also tolerated. The idea that the school should not recognize differences of sex is most firmly rooted in the Middle-Western States, where the population is somewhat coldly matter of fact; but it has spread through the entire country. It is said that family life lends the authority for such an intermingling of boys and girls; that, through a constant and mutual influence, the boys are refined and the girls are made hardy; and that, during the years of development, sexual tension is diminished. It is one of the chief attractions that the private school offers to smaller circles that it gives up this hardening of the girls and refining of the boys, and is always either a boys’ or a girls’ school.

Even more striking than the presence of girls in the boys’ schools is, perhaps, the great number of women who figure as teachers. The employment of women teachers began in the Northern States after the Civil War, because as a direct result of the decimation of the population there were not men teachers enough. Since that time this practice has increased throughout the country; and although high schools generally try to get men teachers, the more elementary schools are really wholly in the hands of women. Men do not compete for the lower schools, since the competition of the women has brought down the wages, and more remunerative, not to say more attractive, situations are to be found in plenty. Women, on the other hand, flock in in great numbers, since their whole education has made them look forward to some professional activity, and no other calling seems so peculiarly adapted to the feminine nature. The merits and drawbacks of co-education and of the predominance of women teachers cannot be separated from the general question of woman’s rights; and so the due treatment of these conditions must be put off until we come to consider the American woman from all sides.

It is not difficult to criticise rather sharply the school system, and any one living in the midst of American life will feel it a duty to deliver his criticism without parsimony. A system which expects the best it is to have, from the initiative of the periphery, must also expect the ceaseless critical co-operation of the whole nation.

In this way, then, crying and undeniable evils are often pointed out. We hear of political interference in the government of the 376schools, and of the deficient technical knowledge of local authorities, of the insufficient preparation of the women teachers, the poorness of the methods of instruction, of waste of time, of arbitrary pedagogical experiments, and of much else. In every reproach there is a kernel of truth. The connection of the schools with politics is in a certain sense unavoidable, since all city government is a party government. And the attempts to separate elections for the school committee entirely from politics will probably, for a long time yet, meet with only slight success. Since, however, every party is able to put its hand on discrete and competent men, the only great danger is lest the majority of those concerned misuse their influence for party ends, and perhaps deal out school positions and advancements as a reward for political services.

Such things certainly happen; but they never escape the notice of the opposite party, and are faithfully exploited in the next year’s election. In this way any great abuses are quickly checked. The secret doings, which have nothing to do with politics, are a great deal more dangerous. It is certain that the enormous school budgets of the large cities offer the possibility for a deplorable plundering of the public treasury, when it is a question of buying new land for school-houses, of closing building contracts, or of introducing certain text-books. A committee-man who in these ways is willing to abuse his influence is able to derive a considerable profit; and so it may well happen that men come to be on the school boards through political influence or through a professed interest in school matters, who have really no other aim than to get something out of it. It is very hard in such matters to arrive at a really fair judgment, since the rival claimants who are unsuccessful are very apt to frame the opinion that they have been so because the successful man had “connections.”

This sharply suspicious tendency and spirit of over-watchfulness on the part of the public are certainly very useful in preserving the complete integrity of the schools, but they occasion such a considerable tumult of rumour that it easily misleads one’s judgment as to the real condition of the institutions. In general, the school committees appointed in the local elections perform their work in all conscientiousness. It is, of course, the fact that they are rather frequently ignorant of things which they need to know; but the tendency to leave all technical questions in the hands of 377pedagogical specialists, and to undertake any innovations only at the advice of the school superintendent and directors, is so general that on the whole things do not go quite so badly as one might expect.

The preparation of the teachers leaves very much to be wished. Those teachers who have been educated in higher seminaries are by no means numerous enough to fill all the public school positions; and even less does the number of college graduates suffice for the needs of the high schools. The fact that the teaching profession is remarkably versed in pedagogics only apparently relieves this defect; for even the very best methods of teaching are of course no substitute for a firm grasp of the subject which is being taught. In the elementary schools the lack of theoretical training in a teacher is, of course, less felt. The instinct of the teacher, her interest in the child, her tact and sympathy, in short the personal element, are what is here most important. And since all this, even in the superficially educated woman, springs purely from her feminity, and since the energetic women are extraordinarily eager and self-sacrificing, so it happens that almost everywhere the elementary schools are better conducted by their women teachers than are the high schools.

So far as method goes, a great deal too much stress is laid on the text-book; too much is taught mechanically out of the book, and too little is directly imparted by the teacher. The teacher submits passively to the text-book; and the American himself is inclined to defend this, since his democratic belief in the power of black and white is unlimited. Before all, he regards it as the chief aim of the public school to prepare the citizen for the independent reading of newspapers and books. Therefore, the scholars are expected to become as much acquainted as possible with the use of books. There is no doubt that the American school children read more newspapers in later life than do the European, and it must also be borne in mind that for the most part the text-books are notably good. Perhaps, in regard to attractiveness, they even go rather too far. In this way not only the books of natural history, but also of history and literature, are crowded with illustrations. The geographies are generally lavishly gotten-up volumes with all sorts of entertaining pictures. The appeals to the eye, both by means of the text-books and even more by the aid of 378demonstrations and experiments, are carried really to excess. Even the blackboards, which run along all four walls of the school rooms, encourage the teacher to appeal rather more to the eye than to the ear.

Also the much-discussed experimentation with new pedagogical ideas is an unfortunate fact which cannot be denied. A central authority, which was held fully responsible for a large district, would of course be conservative; but where the details of teaching are left entirely to every local school inspector, then of course many shallow reforms and many unnecessary experiments with doubtful methods will be undertaken. The school inspector will feel himself moved to display his modern spirit and to show his pedagogical efficiency in just these ways. And many a private school, in order to make itself attractive to the public, is obliged to introduce the latest pedagogical foibles and to make all sorts of concessions, perhaps against its will. To-day the method of writing will be oblique, to-morrow vertical, and the day after to-morrow “reformed vertical.” The pupils to-day are taught to spell, to-morrow to pronounce syllables, the next day to take the whole word as the least unit in language; and a day later they may be taught the meaning of the words by means of appropriate movements.

It is not quite easy for a professional psychologist, who lectures every year to hundreds of students in that subject, to say openly that this irregular and often dilettante craze for reform is encouraged by nothing more than by the interest in psychology which rages throughout the country. The public has been dissatisfied with teachers, and conceived the idea that everything would be better if the pedagogues concerned themselves more with the psychical life of their pupils. And since for this purpose every mother and every teacher has the materials at hand, there has sprung up a pseudo-psychological study of unexampled dimensions. It is only a small step from such a study to very radical reforms. Yet everything here comes back in the end to the independent interests and initiative of the teacher; and although many of these reforms are amateurish and immature, they are nevertheless better than the opposite extreme would be—that is, than a body of indifferent and thoughtless teachers without any initiative at all.

379It is also not to be denied that the American school wastes a good deal of time, and accomplishes the same intellectual result with a much greater outlay of time than the German school. There are plenty of reasons for this. Firstly, it is conspicuous throughout the country that Saturday is a day of vacation. This is incidental to the Puritan Sunday. The school day begins at nine o’clock in the morning, and the long summer vacations are everywhere regarded as times for idleness, and are almost never broken in on by any sort of work. Again, the home duties required of the school children are fewer than are required of the German child, and all the instruction is less exacting. The American girls would hardly be able to stand so great a burden if the schools demanded the same as the German boys’ schools. Herewith, however, one must not forget that this time which is taken from work is dedicated very specially to the development of the body, to sport and other active exercises, and in this way the perfection of the whole man is by no means neglected. Moreover, America has been able, at least so far, to afford the luxury of this loss of time; the national wealth permits its young men to take up the earning of their daily bread later than European conditions would allow.

When the worst has been said and duly weighed, it remains that the system as a whole is one of which the American may well be proud—a system so thoroughly elastic as to be suited to all parts of the country and to all classes of society. It is a system which indubitably, with its broad foundation in the popular school, embodies all the requirements for the sound development of youth, and one, finally, which is adapted to a nation accustomed to individualism, and which meets the national requirement of perfection of the individual.

And now finally we may give a few figures by way of orientation. In the year 1902 out of the population of over 75,000,000, 17,460,000 pupils attended institutions of learning. This number would be increased by more than half a million if private kindergartens, manual training schools, evening schools, schools for Indians, and so forth were taken into account. The primary and intermediate schools have 16,479,177 scholars, and private schools about 1,240,000. This ratio is changed in favour of the private institutions when we come to the next step above, for the public high schools have 560,000 and the private ones 150,000 students. The remainder 380is in higher institutions of learning. To consider for the moment only the public schools; instruction is imparted by 127,529 male and 293,759 female teachers. The average salary of a male teacher is more than $46 a month, and of the female teacher $39. The expenditures were something over $213,000,000; and of this about 69 per cent. came from the local taxes, 16 per cent. from the state taxes, and the remainder from fixed endowments. Again, if we consider only the cities of more than 8,000 inhabitants, we find the following figures: in 1902 America had 580 such cities, with 25,000,000 inhabitants, 4,174,812 scholars and 90,744 teachers in the municipal public schools, and 877,210 students in private schools. These municipal systems have 5,025 superintendents, inspectors, etc. The whole outlay for school purposes amounted to about $110,000,000.

The high schools are especially characteristic. The increase of attendance in these schools has been much faster than that of the population. In 1890 there were only 59 pupils for every 10,000 inhabitants; in 1895 there were 79; and in 1900 there were 95. It is noticeable that this increase is entirely in the public schools. Of those 59 scholars in 1890, 36 were in public high schools and 23 in private. By 1900 there were 25 in private, but 70 in the public schools. Of the students in the public high schools 50 per cent. studied Latin, 9 per cent. French, 15 per cent. German. The principal courses of study are English grammar, English literature, history, geography, mathematics, and physics. In the private schools 23 per cent. took French, 18 per cent. German, 10 per cent. Greek. Only 11 per cent. of students in the public high schools go to college, but 32 per cent. of those in private schools. Out of the 1,978 private high schools in the year 1900, 945 were for students of special religious sects; 361 were Roman Catholic, 98 were Episcopalian, 96 Baptist, 93 Presbyterian, 65 Methodist, 55 Quaker, 32 Lutheran, etc. There were more than 1,000 private high schools not under the influence of any church. One real factor of their influence is found in the statistical fact that, in the public high schools, there are 26 scholars for every teacher, while in the private schools only 11.

The following figures will suffice to give an idea of the great differences which exist between the different states: The number of scholars in high schools in the state of Massachusetts is 15 to 381every 1,000 citizens; in the state of New York, 11; in Illinois, 9; in Texas, 7; in the Carolinas, 5; and in Oklahoma, 3. In the private high schools of the whole country the boys were slightly in the majority; 50.3 per cent. against 49.7 per cent. of girls. In order to give at least a glimpse of this abyss, we may say that in the public high school the boys were only 41.6 per cent., while the girls were 58.4 per cent.

So much for the schools proper. We shall later consider the higher institutions—colleges, universities, and so forth—while the actual expanse of the school system in America, as we have said before, is broader still. In the first place, the kindergarten, a contribution which Germany has made, deserves notice. Very few creations of German thought have won such complete acceptance in the New World as Froebel’s system of education; and seldom, indeed, is the German origin of an institution so frankly and freely recognized. Froebel is everywhere praised, and the German word “Kindergarten” has been universally adopted in the English language.

Miss Peabody, of Boston, took the part of pioneer, back in the fifties. Very soon the movement spread to St. Louis and to New York, so that in 1875 there were already about one hundred kindergartens with 3,000 children. To-day there must be about 5,000 kindergartens distributed over the country, with about a quarter of a million children. During this development various tendencies have been noticeable. At first considerable stress was laid on giving some rational sort of occupation to the children of the rich who were not quite old enough for school. Later, however, philanthropic interest in the children of the very poorest part of the population became the leading motive—the children, that is, who, without such careful nurture, would be exposed to dangerous influences. Both of these needs could be satisfied by private initiative. Slowly, however, these two extremes came to meet; not only the richest and poorest, but also the children of the great middle classes from the fourth to the sixth year, were gradually brought under this sort of school training. As soon as the system was recognized to be a need of the entire community, it was naturally adopted into the popular system of instruction. To-day two hundred and fifty cities have kindergartens as a part of their school systems.

382Meanwhile there has sprung up still another tendency, which took its origin in Chicago. Chicago probably has the best institution with a four years’ course for the preparation of teachers for the kindergarten. In this school not only the professional teachers, but the mothers, are welcomed. And through the means of this institution in Chicago, the endeavour is slowly spreading to educate mothers everywhere how to bring up their children who are still in the nursery so as to be bodily, intellectually, and morally sound. The actual goal of this very reasonable movement may well be the disappearance of the official kindergarten. The child will then find appropriate direction and inspiration in the natural surroundings of its home, and the kindergarten will, as at first, limit itself chiefly to those rich families who wish to purchase their freedom from parental cares, and to such poor families as have to work so hard that they have no time left to look after their children. A slow reaction, moreover, is going on among the public school teachers. The child who comes out of the Froebel school into the primary school is said to be somewhat desultory in his activities, and so perhaps this great popularity of the kindergarten will gradually decrease. Nevertheless, for the moment the kindergarten must be recognized as a passing fashion of very great importance, and, so far as it devotes itself philanthropically to children in the poor districts, its value can hardly be overestimated.

Now, all this instruction of the child before he goes to school is much less significant and less widely disseminated than those thousandfold modes of instruction which are carried on for the development of men and women after they have passed their school days. Any one who knows this country will at once call to mind the innumerable courses of lectures, clubs of study, Chautauqua institutions, university extension courses, women’s clubs, summer and correspondence schools, free scientific lectures, and many other such institutions which have developed here more plentifully than in any other country. After having dwelt on the kindergarten, one is somewhat tempted to think also of these as men and women gardens. There is really some resemblance to a sort of intellectual garden, where no painful effort or hard work is laid out for the young men and women who wander there carelessly to pluck the flowers. But it is, perhaps, rather too easy for the trained person to be unjust to such informal means 383of culture. It is really hard to view the latter in quite the right perspective. Whosoever has once freed himself from all prejudices, and looked carefully into the psychic life of the intellectual middle classes, will feel at once the incomparable value of these peculiar forms of intellectual stimulation, and their great significance for the self-perfection of the great masses.

While the kindergarten was imported from Germany, the university extension movement came from England. This movement, which was very popular about a decade ago, is decidedly now on the wane. Those forms of popular education which are distinctly American have shown themselves to possess the most vigour. There is one name which, above all others, is characteristic of these native institutions. It is Chautauqua. This is the old Indian name for a lake which lies very pleasantly situated in the State of New York, about two hours by train from Buffalo. The name of the lake has gone over to the village on its banks, the name of the village has been carried over to that system of instruction which was first begun there, and now every institution is called Chautauquan which is modelled after that system. Even to-day the school at Chautauqua is the fountain-head of the whole movement. Every summer, and particularly through July and August, when the school-teachers have their vacation, some ten thousand men and women gather together to participate in a few weeks of recreation and intellectual stimulation. The life there is quiet and simple; concerts and lectures are given in the open air in an amphitheatre which seats several thousand, and there are smaller classes of systematic instruction in all departments of learning. The teachers in special courses are mostly professors. The lecturers in the general gatherings are well-known politicians, officials, scholars, ministers, or otherwise distinguished personalities. For the sake of recreation, there are excursions, dramatic performances, and concerts. A few hours of systematic work every day serve as a stimulus for thought and culture, while the mutual influence of the men and women who are so brought together and the whole atmosphere of the place generate a real moral enthusiasm.

The special courses which range from Greek, the study of the Bible, and mathematics to political economy, philosophy, and pedagogics, are supplemented on the one hand by examinations from which the participators get a certificate in black and white 384which is highly prized among teachers; and on the other side, by suggestions for the further carrying on by private reading of the studies which they have elected. The enthusiastic banner-bearer of Chautauqua is still to-day one of its founders, Bishop Vincent. He has done more than any one else toward bringing harmony into the monotonous and intellectually hungry lives of hundreds of thousands throughout the country, and especially of public school teachers. And in this work the instruction, the religious strengthening, the instillation of personal contentment, patriotic enthusiasm, æsthetic joy in life, and moral inspiration, are not to be separated.

When Theodore Roosevelt, who was then governor of New York, spoke in the Chautauqua amphitheatre to more than ten thousand persons, he turned enthusiastically to Bishop Vincent and said, “I know of nothing in the whole country which is so filled with blessing for the nation.” And when he had finished, the whole audience gave him the Chautauqua salute; ten thousand handkerchiefs were waved in the air—an extraordinary sight, which in Chautauqua signifies the greatest appreciation. This custom began years ago, when a deaf scholar had given a lecture, and while the thundering applause was sounding which the speaker himself could not hear, Bishop Vincent brought out this visible token of gratification; and this form of applause not only became a tradition there, but also spread to all other Chautauqua institutions throughout the country. To-day there are more than three hundred of these, many of them in beautifully situated summer resorts, and some equipped with splendid libraries, banquet halls, casinos, and clubs. Some of these concentrate their energies in particular lines of learning, and of course they are very different in scope and merit. And nevertheless the fundamental trait of idealism shows through all these popular academies.

Among other varieties of popular instruction there are the attempts at university extension, which are very familiar. The chief aim is here to utilize the teaching forces and other means of instruction of the higher educational institutions for the benefit of the great masses. Often the thing has been treated as if it were a matter of course, in a political democracy, that colleges and universities ought not to confine themselves to the narrow circles of their actual students, but should go out and down to the artisans 385and labourers. But it was always asserted that this education should not consist merely in entertaining lectures, but should involve a form of teaching that presupposed a certain participation and serious application on the part of the attendants. And the chief emphasis has been laid on having every subject treated in a series of from six to twelve meetings, on distributing to the hearers a concise outline of the lectures with references to literature, on allowing the audience after the lecture to ask as many questions as it desired, and on holding a written examination at the end of the course. Any one who has passed a certain number of these examinations receives a certificate. In one year, for example, there were 43 places in which the University of Philadelphia gave such courses of lectures. The University of Chicago has arranged as many as 141 courses of six lectures each, in 92 different places. Other higher institutions have done likewise; and if indeed the leading universities of the East have entirely declined to take part, nevertheless the country, and particularly the West, is everywhere scattered with such lecture courses.

These lectures can be divided into two groups; those which are instructive and educate their hearers, and those which are inspiring and awaken enthusiasm. The first are generally illustrated with stereopticon pictures, the last are illustrated with poetical quotations. Here, as everywhere in the world, the educational lectures are often merely tiresome, and the inspiring ones merely bombastic. But the reason for the rapid decline in this whole movement is probably not the bad quality of the lectures, but the great inconvenience which the lecturers feel in going so far from their accustomed haunts. It is not to be doubted that very much good has come after all from this form of instruction. The summer schools have a similar relation to the higher institutions, but a much more thorough-going character; and while the university extension movement is waning, the summer school instruction is on the increase. First of all, even the leading universities take part in it, although it is mostly the second violins who render the music; that is to say, younger instructors rather than the venerable professors are the ones who teach. High school teachers and ministers often return in this way to their alma mater, and the necessity of devoting one’s self for six weeks to a single subject gives to the whole enterprise a very much more scholarly character. That 386interesting summer school which was held a few years ago in Cambridge is still remembered, when Harvard invited at its own expense 1,400 of the most earnest Cuban school teachers, and instilled in them through six long weeks something of American culture.

Again, and this quite independent of the higher institutions and of any formal courses, there are the institutions for free lectures. Indeed, there are so many that one might almost call them lecture factories. The receptive attitude of the American public of all classes toward lectures surpasses the comprehension of the European. In many circles, indeed, this is positively a passion; and the extraordinary plentifulness of opportunity, of course, disciplines and strengthens the demand, which took its origin in the same strong spirit of self-perfection.

A favourable fact is undoubtedly the high perfection to which the lecture has been cultivated in America. As compared with European countries, a larger proportion of lectures may fairly be called works of art as regards both their content and their form. The American is first of all an artist in any sort of enthusiastic and persuasive exposition. For this very reason his lectures are so much more effective than whatever he prints, and for this reason, too, the public flocks to hear him. This state of things has also been favoured by the general custom of going to political meetings and listening to political speeches. In Boston and its suburbs, for example, although it is not larger than Hamburg, no less than five public lectures per day on the average are delivered between September and June. In contrast to German views, it is considered entirely appropriate for lecturers on all public occasions to receive financial compensation; just as any German scholar would accept from a publisher some emolument for his literary productions. This is, of course, not true of lectures at congresses, clubs, or popular gatherings. In a state like Massachusetts, every little town has its woman’s club, with regular evenings for lectures by outside speakers; and the condition of the treasury practically decides whether one or two hundred dollars shall be paid for some drawing speaker who will give a distinguished look to the programme; or whether the club will be satisfied with some teacher from the next town who will deliver his last year’s lecture on Pericles, or the tubercle bacillus, for twenty dollars. And so it is 387through the entire country; the quantity decreases as one goes South, and the quality as one goes West.

All this is no new phenomenon in American life. In the year 1639 lectures on religious subjects were so much a matter of course in New England, and Bostonians were so confirmed in the habit of going to lectures, that a law was passed concerning the giving of such lectures. It said that the poor people were tempted by the lecturer to neglect their affairs and to harm their health, as the lectures lasted well into the night. Scientific lectures, however, came into popular appreciation not earlier than the nineteenth century. In the first decade of that century, the famous chemist, Silliman, of Yale University, attained a great success in popular scientific lectures. After the thirties “lyceums” flourished throughout the land, which were educational societies formed for the purpose of establishing public lecture courses.

To be sure, these were generally disconnected lectures, in which political and social topics predominated. Those were the classic days of oratory, when men like Webster, Channing, Everett, Emerson, Parker, Mann, Sumner, Phillips, Beecher, Curtis, and others enthused the nation with their splendid rhetoric, and presented to the masses with pathos that we no longer know those great arguments which led to the Civil War. The activities of later decades emphasized the intellectual side. Splendid institutions have now been organized for popular lectures and lecture courses in all the leading cities. Thus the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, the Pratt Institute in New York, the Armour Institute in Chicago, and the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia have come into existence. The catalogue of the lectures and courses which, for instance, the Pratt Institute announces every winter fills a whole volume; and nevertheless, every one who pays his annual fee of five dollars is entitled to take part in all of them. Every day from morning to night he may listen to lectures by men who are more or less well known throughout the country, and who come specially to New York in order to give their short courses of some six lectures.

The highest undertaking of this sort is the Lowell Institute in Boston. In 1838, after a tour through Egypt, John A. Lowell added a codicil to his will, whereby he gave half of his large income for the free, popular, scientific instruction of his native 388town. The plan that has been followed for sixty years is of inviting every winter eight or ten of the most distinguished thinkers and investigators in America and England to give cycles of six or twelve connected lectures. The plentiful means of this foundation have made it possible to bring in the really most important men; and on the other hand, for just this reason an invitation to deliver the Lowell Lectures has come to be esteemed a high honour in the English-speaking world. Men like Lyell and Tyndall and many others have come across the ocean; even Agassiz, the well-known geologist, came to the New World first as a Lowell lecturer, and then later settled at Harvard University. Up to this time some five thousand lectures have been held before large audiences by this institute. The great advantage which this has been to the population of Boston can in no wise be estimated, nor can it ever be known how much this influence has done for the spirit of self-perfection in New England.

In a certain sense, however, we have already overstepped the field of popular education. The high standard of the Lowell Institute and the position of its speakers have brought it about that almost every course has been an original exposition of new scientific lines of thought. While the other popular courses have got their material second-hand, or have been at least for the speaker a repetition of his habitual discourses to students, in the Lowell Institute the results of new investigations have been the main thing. And so we have come already to the domain of productive science, of which we shall have later to treat.

One who looks somewhat more deeply will realize that, outside the Lowell Institute, there is no thought in by far the larger part of these lectures and readings, of original scientific endeavour. And the question inevitably comes up, whether the intellectual life of the country does not lose too much of its strength because the members of the community who should be especially devoted to intellectual production are enticed in so many different ways into the paths of mere reproduction. To be sure, it is never a professional duty with these men, but the temptation is so great as to overcome the latent resistance of even the best of them. There are a few, it is true, who see their highest goal in these popular and artistic expositions of their department of science; and a few who feel that their highest call, their most serious life-work, 389is to bear science philanthropically out to the masses. But it is different with most of them. Many like the rewards; it is such an easy way for the ready speaker, perhaps, of doubling his salary from the university: and especially the younger men whose income is small, find it hard to resist the temptation, although just they are the ones who ought to give all their free energy to becoming proficient in special lines of investigation. Yet even this is not the chief motive. In countless cases where any financial return to the speaker is out of the question, the love of rhetoric exerts a similar temptation. The chief motive, doubtless, is that the American popular opinion is so extraordinarily influenced by the spoken word, and at the same time popular eloquence is spread abroad so widely by the press, that not only a mere passing reputation, but also a strong and lasting influence on the thought of the people, can most readily be gotten in this way.

And so everything works together to bring a large amount of intellectual energy into the service of the people. The individual is hardly able to resist the temptation; and certainly very many thus harm seriously their best energies. Their popularization of knowledge diminishes their own scholarship. They grow adapted to half-educated audiences; their pleasure and capacity for the highest sort of scientific work are weakened by the seductive applause which follows on every pretty turn of thought, and by the deep effect of superficial arguments which avoid and conceal all the real difficulties. This is most especially true of that merely mechanical repetition which is encouraged by the possession of a lecture manuscript. If it is true that Wendell Phillips repeated his speech on the Lost Arts two thousand times, it was doubtless a unique case, and is hardly possible to-day. Nevertheless, to-day we find most regrettably frequent repetitions; and a few competent intellects have entirely abandoned their activities on regular academic lines to travel through the country on lecture tours. For instance, a brilliant historian like John Fiske, would undoubtedly have accomplished much more of permanent importance if he had not written every one of his books, in the first instance, as a set of lectures which he delivered before some dozen mixed audiences.

On the other hand, we must not suppose that these lectures before educational institutions are all hastily and mechanically 390produced. If the lectures were so trivial their preparation would demand little energy, and their delivery would much less satisfy the ambition of those who write them; and so, on both accounts, they would be much less dangerous for the highest productiveness of their authors. The level is really extremely high. Even the audience of the smallest town is rather pampered; it demands the most finished personal address and a certain tinge of individuality in the exposition. And so even this form of production redounds somewhat to the intellectual life of the nation. The often repeated attempt to depict some phase of reality, uniquely and completely in a one-hour lecture, or to elucidate a problem in such a short time, leads necessarily to a mastery in the art of the essay. Success in this line is made easier by the marked feeling for form which the American possesses. In a surprisingly large number of American books, the chapters read like well-rounded and complete addresses. The book is really a succession of essays, and if one looks more carefully, one will often discover that each one was obviously first thought out as a lecture. Thus the entire system of popular education by means of lectures has worked, beyond doubt, harmfully on creative production, but favourably on the development of artistic form in scientific exposition, on the art of essay, and on the popular dissemination of natural and social sciences and of history and economics most of all.

If one wished to push the inquiry further, and to ask whether these advantages outweigh the disadvantages, the American would decline to discuss the problem within these limits; since the prime factor, which is the effect on the masses who are seeking cultivation, would be left out of account. The work of the scholar is not to be estimated solely with reference to science or to its practical effects, but always with reference to the people’s need for self-perfection. And even if pure science in its higher soarings were to suffer thereby, the American would say that in science, as everywhere else, it is not a question of brilliant achievements, but of moral values. For the totality of the nation, he would say, it is morally better to bring serious intellectual awakenings into every quiet corner of the land, than to inscribe a few great achievements on the tablets of fame. Such is the sacrifice which democracy demands. And yet to-day the pendulum begins very slowly to swing back. A certain division of labour is creeping in 391whereby productive and reproductive activities are more clearly distinguished, and the best intellectual energies are reserved for the highest sort of work, and saved from being wasted on merely trivial tasks.

But even the effect on the masses has not been wholly favourable. We have seen how superficiality has been greatly encouraged. It is, indeed, an artificial feeding-ground for that immodesty which we see to spring up so readily in a political democracy, and which gives out its opinion on all questions without being really informed. To be sure, there is no lack of admiration for what is great; on the contrary, such admiration becomes often hysterical. But since it is not based on any sufficient knowledge, it remains after all undiscriminating; the man who admires without understanding, forms a judgment where he should decline to take any attitude at all. It may be, indeed, that the village population under the influence of the last lecture course is talking about Cromwell and Elizabeth instead of about the last village scandal; but if the way in which it talks has not been modified, one cannot say that a change of topic signifies any elevation of standard. And if, indeed, the village is still to gossip, it will seem to many more modest and more amiable if it gossips about some indifferent neighbour, and not about Cromwell.

On the other hand, we must not fail to recognize that, especially in the large institutions, as the Chautauquas, and in the university extension courses and the summer schools, everything possible is done to escape this constant danger. In the first place, the single lectures are very much discouraged, and a course of six to twenty lectures rather is given on a single topic; then the written examinations, with their certificates, and finally, the constant guidance in private reading have their due effect. Indeed, the smallest women’s club is particular to put before its members the very best books which relate to the subjects of their lectures; and smaller groups are generally formed to study carefully through together some rather large treatise.

The total amount of actual instruction and intellectual inspiration coming to the people outside of the schools, is, in these ways, immeasurable. And the disadvantages of superficiality are somewhat outweighed by a great increase and enrichment of personality. Of course, one could ask whether this traditional 392way is really the shortest to its goal. Some may think that the same expenditure of time and energy would give a better result if it were made on a book rather than on a course of lectures. Yet the one does not exclude the other. Hearing the lecture incites to the reading of the book; and nowhere is more reading done than in the United States. There is one other different and quite important factor in the situation. The man who reads is isolated, and any personal influence is suppressed. At a lecture, on the other hand, the peculiarly personal element is brought to the front, both in the speaker and in the hearer—the spoken word touches so much more immediately and vitally than the printed word, and gives to thought an individual colouring. Most of all, the listener is much more personally appealed to than the reader; his very presence in the hall is a public announcement of his participation. He feels himself called, with the other hearers, to a common task. And in this way a moral motive is added to the intellectual. They both work together to fill the life of every man with the desire for culture. Perchance the impersonal book may better satisfy the personal desire for self-perfection, and yet the lecture will be more apt to keep it alive and strengthen it as a force in character and in life.

It is indifferent whether this system of popular education, these lectures before the public, has really brought with it the greatest possible culture and enlightenment. It is at least clear that they have spread everywhere the most profound desire for culture and enlightenment, and for this reason they have been the necessary system for a people so informed with the spirit of individual self-perfection.

When American industry began, a short time ago, to disturb European circles, people very much exaggerated the danger, because the event was so entirely unexpected. The “American peril” was at the door before any one knew about it, or even supposed that America really possessed an industry which amounted to anything. It will not be long before Europe will experience a like surprise in the intellectual sphere. A great work will certainly appear, as if accomplished in a moment, before any one supposes that America so much as dreams of science and investigation. At the time, people tardily said to themselves that such industry could only have been built on firm rock, and never would have been able to spring up if American economic life had really been founded, as was then supposed, on avarice and corruption. And similarly, in the intellectual sphere, people will have to trace things back, and say in retrospect that such achievements could not be brought forth suddenly, and that serious and competent scientific work throughout the country must really have gone before. It is not here, in this world of intellectual labour, as in the economic world; there is no question of threatening rivalry, there is no scientific competition; there is nothing but co-operation. And yet even here no people can, without danger to its own achievements, afford to ignore what another nation has done. The sooner that Europe, and in particular Germany, acquaints itself with the intellectual life of America, so much more organically and profitably the future labour in common will develop. For any one who knows the real situation can already realize, without the gift of prophecy, that in science more than in other spheres the future will belong to these two countries.

394On the part of Germany to-day there prevails an almost discouraging ignorance of everything which pertains to American universities; and we may say, at once, that if we speak of science we shall refer to nothing but the universities. As in Germany, so it is in the United States, in sharp and notable contrast to France and England, that the academic teacher is the real priest of science. In England and France, it is not customary for the great investigator to be at the same time the daily teacher of youth. In America and Germany he is exactly this. America has, to be sure, historians and national economists like Rhodes, Lodge, Roosevelt, Schouler, and others who are outside of academic circles; and very many lawyers, doctors and preachers, who are scientifically productive; and her most conspicuous physicists, so far as reputation goes, like Edison, Bell, Tesla, and so many others, are advancing science indirectly through their discoveries and inventions. Strictly speaking, the officials of the scientific institutions at Washington are likewise outside of the universities, and the greatest intellectual efficiency has always been found among these men. Nevertheless, it remains true that on the whole, the scientific life of the nation goes on in the universities, and that the academic instruction conveyed there is the most powerful source of strength to the entire American people.

The German still has no confidence in American science, is fond of dwelling on the amusing newspaper reports of Western “universities” which are often equivalent to a German Sekunda, or on those extraordinary conditions which prevailed “a short time ago” in the study of medicine. This “short time ago” means, however, in the intellectual life of Germany an entirely different length of time from that which it means in the New World. One is almost tempted to compare the intellectual development of Germany and America by epochs in order to get a proper means of comparing intervals of time in these respective countries. The primitive times of the Germans, from the days of Tacitus down to their conversion to Christianity under Charlemagne in about the year 800, would correspond, then, to the one hundred and fifty years from the discovery of America up to the beginning of the Puritan era in 1630. The next period would embrace in Germany seven hundred years more—up to the time when Germany freed itself from Rome. In America this would be 395again a century and a half, up to 1776, when the nation freed itself from England. Then follow after the Reformation during a period of three hundred years, the Thirty Years’ War, the Renaissance of the eighteenth century, the downfall of the Napoleonic influence, and, finally, the war for freedom. And once again the corresponding intervals on this side of the ocean have been of very much shorter duration; firstly years of war, then the æsthetic rise in the middle of the century, then the sufferings of the Civil War, the period of reconstruction, and, finally, peace. After 1813 a new period commences, which ends in 1870 with the German amalgamation into a nation. Historically incomparable with Germany’s great war against the French, America had in 1898 an insignificant war with Spain; but for the national consciousness of the Americans it played, perhaps, no less important a rôle. In fact, there began at that time probably a certain culmination in American intellectual development which in its six years is comparable in effect with what the Germans went through during several decades after the Franco-Prussian War. Indeed, all that happened in America a hundred years ago is felt to lie as far back as the events which took place in Germany three hundred years ago; and, in matters of higher education and scientific research, conditions have probably changed more in the last ten years than they have changed during fifty years in Germany.

The many false ideas, however, depend for credence, so far as they have any foundation, not alone on the reports of the previous condition of things, but also on misleading accounts of the conditions to-day. For even the best-intentioned narrator is very apt to be misled, because he finds it so hard to free himself from ordinary German conceptions. The position of the German schools of higher education is so easily grasped, while that in America is so complicated, that the German is always tempted to bring clearness and order into what he sees as confusion, by forcing it into the simple scheme to which he is accustomed, and thus to misunderstand it.

The German traveller is certain to start from the distinction so familiar to him between the Gymnasium and the university with four faculties, and he always contents himself with making but one inquiry: “Is this institution a university with four faculties?” And when he is told that it is not, he is convinced to his entire 396satisfaction that it is therefore only a Gymnasium. Indeed, very many of the educated Germans who have lived in America for some decades would still know no better; and, nevertheless, the conditions are really not complicated until one tries to make them fit into this abstract German scheme. The principle of gradations which is manifest in all American institutions is in itself fully as simple as the German principle of sharp demarcations. Most foreigners do not even go so far as to ask whether a given institution is a university. They are quite content to find out whether the word university is a part of its name. If they then ascertain from the catalogue that the studies are about the same as those which are drilled into the pupils of a Sekunda, they can attest the shameful fact: “There are no universities in America to be in any wise compared with the German universities.”

In the first place, it should be said that the word “university” is not used in America in the same sense as in Germany, but is almost completely interchangeable with the word “college,” as a rather colorless addition to the proper name of any institution whatsoever, so long only as its curriculum goes beyond that of the high school, and so long also as it is not exclusively designed to train ministers of the gospel, doctors, or lawyers. A higher school for medical instruction is called a “medical school,” and there are similarly “law schools” and “divinity schools,” whereas, in the college or university, as the term is generally used, these three subjects are not taught. College is the older word, and since the institutions in the East are in general the older ones, the name college has been and still is in that region the more common. But in the West, where in general the institutions are on a considerably lower level, the newer name of university is the more usual. No confusion necessarily arises from this, since the institutions which are styled now college and now university represent countless gradations, and the general term is without special significance. No one would think of saying that when he was young he went to a university, any more than he would say that on a journey he visited a city. In order to make the statement entirely clear, he would add the explicit name of the institution. Every specialist knows that a man who has spent four years in Taylor University in Indiana or at Blackburn 397University in Illinois, or at Leland University in Louisiana, or at other similar “universities,” will not be nearly so well educated as a man who has been to Yale College or Princeton College or Columbia College. The proper name is the only significant designation, and the addition of “college” or “university” tells nothing.

Out of this circumstance there has independently developed, in recent years in pedagogical circles, a second sense for the word “university.” By “university” there is coming to be understood an institution which is not only a college or a university in the old sense, but which furthermore has various professional schools. Even in this sense of the word, it is not exactly the same as the German conception, since such an institution includes the college, whereas there is nothing in Germany which would correspond to this collegiate department. Moreover, here belongs also a part of what the Germans have only in the technological institute. Finally, there is one more usage which arises in a way from a confusion of the two that we have mentioned. Some persons are inclined to mean by “university” a first-class college, and by “college” an institution of an inferior standard; and so, finally, the proper name of the institution is the only thing to go by, and the entire higher system of education in the country can be understood only in this way.

Therefore, we shall abstract from the designations of these institutions, and consider only what they really are. We have before us the fact that hundreds of higher institutions of learning exist without any sharp demarcation between them; that is, they form a closely graded scale, commencing with secondary schools and leading up to universities, of which some are in many respects comparable with the best institutions of Germany. In the second place, the groupings of the studies in these institutions are entirely different from those which prevail in Germany, especially owing to the fact that emphasis is laid on the college, which Germany does not have. It could not be different; and this condition is, in fact, the patent of American success. If we try to understand the conditions of to-day from those of yesterday, the real unity of this system comes out sharply. What was, then, we have to ask, the national need for higher instruction at the time when these states organized themselves into one nation?

398In the first place, the people had to have preachers, while it was clear, nevertheless, that the state, and therefore the entire political community, was independent of any church, and must never show any favour to one sect over another. And so it became the duty of each separate sect to prepare its own preachers for their religious careers as well or as badly as it was able. The people, again, had to have lawyers and judges. Now the judges, in accordance with the democratic spirit, were elected from the people, and every man had the right to plead his own case in court:—so that if any man proposed to educate and prepare himself to plead other men’s cases for them, it was his own business to give himself the proper education and not the business of the community. He had to become an apprentice under experienced attorneys, and the community had not to concern itself in the matter, nor even to see to it that such technical preparation was grounded on real learning. School-teachers were necessary, but in order to satisfy the demands of the times it was hardly necessary for the teacher to go in his own studies very much beyond the members of his classes. A few more years of training than could be had in the public schools was desirable, but there was no thought of scholarship or science. On the lowest level of all, a hundred years ago, stood the science of medicine. It was a purely practical occupation, of which anybody might learn the technique without any special training. He might be an apprentice with some older physician, or he might pick it up in a number of other ways.

As soon as we have understood the early conditions in this way, we can see at once how they would have further to develop. It is obvious that in their own interests the sects would have to found schools for preachers. The administrators of justice would of course consult together and found schools of law, in which every man who paid his tuition might be prepared for the legal career. Doctors would have to come together and found medical schools which, once more, every one with a public school training would be free to attend. Finally, the larger communities would feel the necessity of having schools for training their teachers. In all this the principle of social selection would have to enter in at once. Since there were no formal provisions which might prescribe and fix standards of excellence, so everything 399would be regulated by the laws of supply and demand. The schools which could furnish successful lawyers, doctors, teachers, and clergymen would become prosperous, while the others would lead a modest existence or perhaps disappear. It would not be, however, merely a question of the good or bad schools, but of schools having entirely different standards, and these adapted to purely local conditions. The older states would, of course, demand better things than the new pioneer states; thickly settled localities would fix higher requirements than rural districts; rich districts higher than poor. In this way some schools would have a longer course of study than others, and some schools demand more previous training as a condition of entrance than others. So it would soon come to mean nothing to say simply that one had taken the legal, or medical, or theological course, as the one school might offer a four years’ course and the other a course of two years, and the one, moreover, might demand college training as preparation, and the other merely a grammar-school education. Every school has its own name, and this name is the only thing which characterizes its standard of excellence. In this way there is no harm at all if there are three or four medical schools in one city, and if their several diplomas of graduation are of entirely different value.

What is the result of this? It is a threefold one. In the first place, popular initiative is stimulated to the utmost, and every person and every institution is encouraged to do its best. There are no formal regulations to hamper enterprising impulses, to keep back certain more advanced regions, or to approve mediocrity with an artificial seal of authority. In the second place, technical education is able to adapt itself thoroughly to all the untold local factors, and to give to every region such schools of higher training as it needs, without pulling down any more advanced sections of the country to an artificially mediocre level more adapted to the whole country. In the third place, the free competition between the different institutions insures their ceaseless progress. There are no hard and fixed boundary lines, and whatsoever does not advance surely recedes; that which leads to-day is surpassed to-morrow if it does not adapt itself to the latest requirements. This is true both as regards the quality of the teachers and their means of instruction, as regards the 400length of the course, and more especially the conditions of entrance. These last have steadily grown throughout the country. Fifty years ago the very best institutions in the most advanced portions of the country demanded no more for entrance than the professional schools of third class situated in more rural regions demand to-day. And this tendency goes steadily onward day by day. If there were any great departures made, the institutions would be disintegrated; the schools which prepare pupils would not be able suddenly to come up to new requirements, and therefore few scholars would be able to prepare for greatly modified entrance examinations. In this way, between the conservative holding to historic traditions and the striving to progress and to exceed other institutions by the highest possible efficiency, a compromise is brought about which results in a gradual but not over-hasty improvement.

We have so far entirely left out of account the state. We can speak here only of the individual state. The country as a whole has as little to do with higher education as with lower. But the single state has, in fact, a significant task—indeed, a double one. Since it aims at no monopoly, but rather gives the freest play to individual initiative, we have recognized the fundamental principle that restrictions are placed nowhere. On the other hand, it becomes the duty of the state to lend a helping hand wherever private activities have been found insufficient. This can happen in two ways: either the state may help to support private institutions which already exist, or it may establish new ones of its own, which in that case offer free tuition to the sons and daughters of all taxpayers. These so-called state universities are, in a way, the crowning feature of the free public school system. Wherever they exist, the sons of farmers have the advantage of free instruction from the kindergarten to the degree of doctor of philosophy.

Now private initiative is weakest where the population is poor or stands on a low level of culture, so that few can be found to contribute sufficient funds to support good institutions, and at the same time the rich citizens of these less advanced states prefer to send their children to the universities of the most advanced states. The result is, and this is what is hardest for the foreigner to understand, that the higher institutions of learning which are 401subsidized by the state stand for a grade of culture inferior to that of the private institutions, and that not only the leading universities, like Harvard, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Chicago, Cornell, and Stanford, carry on their work without the help of the state, but also that the leading Eastern States pay out much less for higher instruction than do the Western. The State of Massachusetts, which stands at the head in matters of education, does not give a cent to its universities, while Ohio entirely supports the Ohio State University and gives aid to six other institutions.

The second task of the states in educational matters is shared alike by all of them; the state supervises all instruction, and, more than that, the state legislature confers on the individual institution the right to award grades, diplomas, and degrees to its students. No institution may change its organization without a civil permit. As culture has advanced the state has found it necessary to make the requirements in the various professional schools rather high. In practice, once more, a continual compromise has been necessary between the need to advance and the desire to stay, by traditions which have been proved and tried and found practical. Here, once again, any universal scheme of organization would have destroyed everything. If a high standard had been fixed it would have hindered private initiative, and given a set-back to Southern and Western states and robbed them of the impulses to development. A lower universal standard, on the other hand, would have impeded the advance of the more progressive portions of the country. Therefore the various state governments have taken a happy middle position in these matters, and their responsibility for the separate institutions has been made even less complete in that the degrees of these institutions carry in themselves no actual rights. Every state has its own laws for the admission of a lawyer to its bar, or to the public practice of medicine, and it is only to a small degree that the diplomas of professional schools are recognized as equivalent to a state examination.

The history of the professional schools for lawyers, ministers, teachers, and physicians in America is by no means the history of the universities. We have so far left out of account the college, which is the nucleus of American education. Let us now go back to it. We saw in the beginning of the development of these 402states a social community in which preparation for the professions of teaching, preaching, law or medicine implied a technical and specialized training, which every one could obtain for himself without any considerable preparation. There was no thought of a broad, liberal education. Now, to be sure, the level of scholarship required for entrance into the professional schools has steadily risen, the duration and character of the instruction has been steadily improved; but even to-day the impression has not faded from the public consciousness, and is indeed favoured by the great differences in merit between the special schools, that such a practical introduction to the treatment of disease, to court procedure, the mastery of technical problems, or to the art of teaching, does not in itself develop educated men. All this is specialized professional training, which no more broadens the mind than would the professional preparation for the calling of the merchant or manufacturer or captain. Whether a man who is prepared for his special career is also an educated man, depends on the sort of general culture that he has become familiar with. It is thought important for a man to have had a liberal education before entering the commercial house or the medical school, but it is felt to be indifferent whether he has learned his profession at the stock exchange or at the clinic.

The European will find it hard to follow this trend of thought. In Europe the highest institutions of learning are so closely allied to the learned professions, and these themselves have historically developed so completely from the learned studies, that professional erudition and general culture are well-nigh identical. And the general system of distinctions and merits favours in every way the learned professions. How much of this, however, springs out of special conditions may be seen, for instance, from the fact that in Germany an equal social position is given to the officer of the army and to the scholar. Even the American is, in his way, not quite consistent, in so far as he has at all times honoured the profession of the ministry with a degree of esteem that is independent of the previous preparation which the minister had before entering his theological school. This fact has come from the leading position which the clergymen held in the American colonial days, and the close relation which exists between the study of theology and general philosophy.

403The fact that by chance one had taken the profession of law, or teaching, or medicine, did not exalt one in the eyes of one’s contemporaries above the great mass of average citizens who went about their honest business. The separation of those who were called to social leadership was seen to require, therefore, some principle which should be different from any professional training. At this point we come on yet another historical factor. The nation grew step for step with its commercial activities and undertakings. So long as it was a question of gaining and developing new territory, the highest talent, the best strength and proudest personalities entered the service of this nationally significant work. It was a matter of course that no secondary position in society should be ascribed to these captains of commerce and of industry. The highest degree of culture which they were able to attain necessarily fixed the standard of culture for the whole community; and, therefore, the traditional concept of the gentleman as the man of liberal culture and refinement came to have that great social significance which was reserved in Germany for the learned professions.

In its outer form, the education of such a gentleman was borrowed from England. It was a four years’ course coming after the high school, and laying special stress on the classical languages, philosophy, and mathematics—a course which, up to the early twenties, kept a young man in contact with the fine arts and the sciences, with no thought for the practical earning of a livelihood; which, therefore, kept him four years longer from the tumult of the world, and in an ideal community of men who were doing as he was doing; which developed him in work, in sport, in morals and social address. Such was the tradition; the institution was called a college after the English precedent. Any man who went to college belonged to the educated class, and it was indifferent what profession he took up; no studies of the professional school were able to replace a college education. Now, it necessarily happened that the endeavour to have students enter the professional schools with as thorough preparation as possible led eventually to demand of every one who undertook a professional course the complete college education. In fact, this last state of development is already reached in the best institutions of America. For instance, in Harvard and in Johns Hopkins, 404the diploma of a four years’ college course is demanded for entrance into the legal, medical, or theological faculty. But in popular opinion the dividing line between common and superior education is still the line between school and college, and not, as in Germany, between liberal and technical institutions of learning. One who has successfully passed through college becomes a graduate, a gentleman of distinction; he has the degree of bachelor of arts, and those who have this degree are understood to have had a higher education.

This whole complex of relations is reflected within the college itself. It is supposed to be a four years’ course which comes after the high school, and we have seen that the high school itself has no fixed standard of instruction. The small prairie college may be no better than the Tertia or Sekunda of a German Realschule, while the large and influential colleges are certainly not at all to be compared simply with German schools, but rather with the German Prima of a Gymnasium, together with the first two or three semesters in the philosophical faculty of a university. Between these extremes there is a long, sliding scale, represented by over six hundred colleges. We must now bear in mind that the college was meant to be the higher school for the general cultivation of gentlemen. Of course, from the outset this idealistic demand was not free from utilitarian considerations; the same instruction could well be utilized as the most appropriate practical training of the school-teacher, and if so, the college becomes secondarily a sort of technical school for pedagogues. But, then, in the same way as the entrance into legal and medical faculties was gradually made more difficult, until now the best of these schools demand collegiate preparation, so also did the training school for teachers necessarily become of more and more professional character, until it gradually quite outgrew the college. The culmination is a philosophical faculty which, from its side, presupposes the college, and which, therefore, takes the student about where a German student enters his fourth semester—a technical school for specialized critical science laying main stress on seminaries, laboratories, and lectures for advanced students. Such a continuation of the college study beyond the time of college—that is, for those who have been graduated from college—is called a graduate school, and its goal is the degree of 405doctor of philosophy. The graduate school is in this way parallel with the law, medical, or divinity school, which likewise presuppose that their students have been graduated from college.

The utilitarian element inevitably affects the college from another side. A college of the higher type will not be a school with a rigid curriculum, but will adapt itself more or less to the individuality of its students. If it is really to give the most it can, it must, at least during the last years of the college course, be somewhat like a philosophical faculty, and allow some selection among the various studies:—so that every man can best perfect his peculiar talent and can satisfy his inclinations for one or other sort of learning. So soon, now, as such academic freedom has been instituted, it is very liable to be used for utilitarian purposes. The future doctor and the future lawyer in their election of college studies will have the professional school already in mind, and will be preparing themselves for their professional studies. The lawyer will probably study more history, the doctor will study biology, the theologian languages, the future manufacturer may study physics, the banker political economy, and the politician will take up government. And so the ideal training school for gentlemen will not be merely a place for liberal education, but at the same time will provide its own sort of untechnical professional training.

Inasmuch as everything really technical is still excluded, and the majority of college students even to-day come for nothing more than a liberal education, it remains true that the college is first of all a place for the development and refinement of personal character; a place in which the young American spends the richest and happiest years of his life, where he forms his friendships and intellectual preferences which are to last throughout his life, and where the narrow confines of school life are outgrown and the confines of professional education not yet begun; where, in short, everything is broad and free and sunny. For the American the attraction of academic life is wholly centred in the college; the college student is the only one who lives the true student life. Those who study in the four professional faculties are comparable rather to the German medical students of the last clinical semesters—sedate, semi-professional men. The college 406is the soul of the university. The college is to-day, more than ever, the soul of the whole nation.

We have to mention one more factor, and we shall have brought together all which are of prime importance. We have seen that the professional and the collegiate schools had at the outset different points of view, and were, in fact, entirely independent. It was inevitable that as they developed they should come into closer and closer relations. The name of the college remained during this development the general designation. Special faculties have grouped themselves about the college, while a common administration keeps them together. There are certain local difficulties in this. According to the original idea, a college ought to be in a small, rural, and attractively situated spot. The young man should be removed from ordinary conditions; and as he goes to Jena, Marburg, and Göttingen, so he should go to Princeton or New Haven, or Palo Alto, in order to be away from large cities in a little academic world which is inspired only by the glory of famous teachers and by the youthful happiness of many student generations. A medical or law school, on the other hand, belongs, according to American tradition, in some large city, where there is a plenty of clinical material at hand, and where great attorneys are in contact with the courts. It so happened that the college, as it grew up into a complete university, was especially favoured if it happened to be in the vicinity of a large city, like Harvard College in Cambridge, which had all the attractions of rural quiet and nevertheless was separated from the large city of Boston only by the Charles River bridge. In later times, to be sure, since the idyllic side of college life is everywhere on the wane, and the outward equipment, especially of laboratories, libraries, etc., has everywhere to grow, it is a noticeable advantage for even collegiate prosperity to have the resources of a large city at hand. And, therefore, the institutions in these cities, like New York, Baltimore, Chicago, and San Francisco, develop more rapidly than many colleges which were once famous but which lie in more isolated places.

At the head of the administration there is always a president, a man whose functions are something between those of a Rektor and a Kultus-Minister, most nearly, perhaps, comparable with a Kurator, and yet much more independent, much more dictatorial. 407The direction of the university is actually concentrated in his person, and the rise or fall of the institution is in large measure dependent on his official leadership. In olden times the president was almost always a theologian, and at the same time was apt to be professor in moral philosophy. This is true to-day of none but small country colleges, and even there the Puritan tradition disappears as financial and administrative problems come to be important. The large universities have lately come almost always to place a professor of the philosophical faculty at their head. Almost invariably these are men of liberal endowments. Mostly they are men of wide outlook, and only such men are fit for these positions, which belong to the most influential and important in the country. The opinions of men like Eliot of Harvard, Hadley of Yale, Butler of Columbia, Shurman of Cornell, Remsen of Johns Hopkins, Wheeler of California, Harper of Chicago, Jordan of Leland Stanford, Wilson of Princeton, and of many others, are respected and sought on all questions of public life, even in matters extending far beyond education.

The university president is elected for a life term by the administrative council—a deliberative body of men who, without emoluments, serve the destinies of the university, and in a certain sense are the congress of the university as compared with the president. They confirm appointments, regulate expenditures, and theoretically conduct all external business for the university, although practically they follow in large part the recommendations of the faculties. The teaching body is composed everywhere of professors, assistant professors, and instructors. All these receive a fixed stipend. There are no such things as private tuition fees, and unsalaried teachers, like the German Privatdocenten, are virtually unknown. The instruction consists, in general, of courses lasting through a year and not a semester. The academic year begins, in most cases, at the end of September and closes at the end of June.

During his four years’ college course the student prefers to remain true to some one college. If this is a small institution, he is very apt, on being graduated, to attend some higher institution. Even the students in professional schools generally come back year after year to the same school till they finish their studies. It is only in the graduate school—that is, the German philosophical faculty—that migration after the German manner has come in 408fashion; here, in fact, the student frequently studies one year here and one year there, in order to hear the best specialists in his science. Except in the state institutions of the West, the student pays a round sum for the year; in the larger institutions from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars. In the smaller colleges the four years’ course of study is almost wholly prescribed, and only in the final year is there a certain freedom of choice. The higher the college stands in the matter of scholarship, so much the more its lecture programme approaches that of a university; and in the foremost colleges the student is from the very beginning almost entirely free in his selection of studies.

A freedom in electing between study and laziness is less known. The student may elect his own lectures; he must, however, attend at least a certain number of these, and must generally show in a semi-annual examination that he has spent his time to some purpose. The examinations at the end of the special courses are in the college substituted for a final examination. Any man receives a degree who has passed the written examinations in a certain number of courses. The examinations concern not only what has actually been said in the lectures, but at the same time try to bring out how much the student has learned outside in the way of reading text-books and searching into literature. Originally the students roomed in college buildings, but with the growth of these institutions this factor of college life has declined. In the larger universities the student is, in matters of his daily life, as free as the German; but dwelling in college dormitories still remains the most popular mode of living, since it lends a social attraction to academic life.

To go over from this general plan to a more concrete presentation, we may perhaps sketch briefly a picture of Harvard College, the oldest and largest academy in the country. The colony of Massachusetts established in 1636 a little college in the vicinity of the newly founded city of Boston. The place was called Cambridge in commemoration of the English college in which some of the colonists had received their education. When in 1638 a young English minister, John Harvard, left this little academy half his fortune, it was decided to name the college for its first benefactor. The state had given £400, John Harvard about £800. The school building was one little structure, the number of students 409was very small, and there were a few clergymen for teachers. On the same spot to-day stands Harvard University, like a little city within a city, with fifty ample buildings, with 550 members of the teaching staff, over five thousand students, with a regular annual budget of a million and a half dollars, and in the enjoyment of bequests which add year by year millions to its regular endowments.

This growth has been constant, outwardly and inwardly; and it has grown in power and in freedom in a way that well befits the spirit of American institutions. Since the colonial régime of the seventeenth century gave to the new institution a deliberative body of seven men—the so-called Corporation—this body has perpetuated itself without interruption down to the present time by its own vote, and without changing any principle of its constitution has developed the home of Puritanism into the theatre of the freest investigation, and the school into a great university of the world.

Now, as then, there stands at the head this body of seven members, each of whom is elected for life. To belong to this is esteemed a high honour. Beside these, there is the board of overseers of thirty members, elected by the graduates from among their own number. Five men are elected every June to hold office for six years in this advisory council. Every Harvard man, five years after he has received his degree of bachelor, has the right to vote. Every appointment and all policies of the university must be confirmed by this board of overseers. Only the best sons of the alma mater are elected to this body. Thus the university administration has an upper and lower house, and it is clear that with such closely knit internal organization the destiny of the university is better guarded than it would be if appointments and expenditures were dependent on the caprice and political intrigues of the party politicians in the state legislature. Just on this account Harvard has declined, for almost a hundred years, all aid from the state; although this was once customary. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to suppose that, say in contrast with Germany, this self-government of the university implies any greater administrative rights for the professors. The German professors have much more administrative influence than their colleagues in America. If, indeed, the advice of the 410professors in matters of new appointments or promotions is important, nevertheless the administrative bodies are in no wise officially bound to follow the recommendations of the faculty.

The president of the university is Charles W. Eliot, the most distinguished and influential personality in the whole intellectual life of America. Eliot comes from an old Puritan family of New England. He was a professor of chemistry in his thirty-fifth year; and his essays on methods of instruction, together with his talents for organization, had awakened considerable attention, when the overseers, in spite of lively protestations from various sides, were prompted by keen insight in the year 1869 to call him to this high office. It would be an exaggeration to say that the tremendous growth of Harvard in the last three decades is wholly the work of Eliot; for this development is, first of all, the result of that remarkable progress which the intellectual life of the whole land has undergone. But the fact that Harvard during all this time has kept in the very front rank among all academic institutions is certainly due to the efforts of President Eliot; and once again, if the progress at Harvard has resulted in part from the scientific awakening of the whole country, this national movement was itself in no small measure the work of the same man. His influence has extended out beyond the boundaries of New England and far beyond all university circles, and has made itself felt in the whole educational life of the country. He was never a man after the taste of the masses; his quiet and distinguished reserve are too cool and deliberate. And if to-day, on great occasions, he is generally the most important speaker, this is really a triumph for clear and solid thought over the mere tricks of blatancy and rhetoric. Throughout the country he is known as the incomparable master of short and pregnant English.

His life work has contained nothing of the spasmodic; nor have his reforms been in any case sudden ones. To whatever has been necessary he has consecrated his patient energy, going fearlessly toward the goal which he recognized as right, and moving slowly and surely forward. Year by year he has exerted an influence on the immediate circles of his community, and so indirectly on the whole land, to bring up the conditions for entrance into college and professional schools until at the present time all the special faculties of Harvard demand as an entrance requirement a complete 411college course. He has made Harvard College over into a modern academy, in which every student is entirely free to select the course of studies which he desires, and has introduced through the entire university and for all time, the spirit of impartial investigation. Even the theological faculty has grown under his influence from a sectarian institution of the Unitarian Church into a non-sectarian Christian institution in which future preachers of every sect are able to obtain their preliminary training. And this indefatigable innovator is to-day, as he now has completed his seventieth year, pressing forward with youthful energies to new goals. Just as he has introduced into the college the opportunity of perfectly free specialization, so now he clearly sees that if a college education is necessary for every future student in the special departments of the university, that the college course must be shortened from four to three years, or in other words, must be compressed. There is much opposition to this idea. All traditions and very many apparently weighty arguments seem to speak against it. Nevertheless, any student of average intelligence and energy can now get the Harvard A. B. in three years; before long this will be the rule, and in a short time the entire country will have followed in the steps of this reform.

It is true that Eliot’s distinguished position has contributed very much to his outward success—that position which he has filled for thirty-five years, and which in itself guarantees a peculiar influence on academic life. But the decisive thing has been his personality. He is enthusiastic and yet conservative, bold and yet patient, always glad to consider the objections of the youngest teacher; he is religious, and nevertheless a confident exponent of modern science. First of all, he is through and through an aristocrat: his interest is in the single, gifted, and solid personality rather than in the masses; and his conception of the inequality of man is the prime motive of his whole endeavour. But at the same time he is the best of democrats, for he lays the greatest stress on making it possible for the earnest spirit to press on and emerge from the lowest classes of the people. Harvard has set its roots as never before through the whole country, and thereby has drawn on the intellectual and moral energies of the entire nation.

Under the president come the faculties, of which each one is 412presided over by a dean. The largest faculty is the faculty of arts and sciences, whose members lecture both for the college and for the Graduate School. There is really no sharp distinction, and the announcement of lectures says merely that certain elementary courses are designed for younger students in the college, and that certain others are only for advanced students. Moreover, the seminaries and laboratory courses for scientific research are open only to students of the Graduate School. The rest is common ground.

As always happens, the faculty includes very unlike material, a number of the most distinguished investigators, along with others who are first of all teachers. In general, the older generation of men belongs to that time in which the ability to teach was thought more important than pure scholarship. On the other hand, the middle generation is much devoted to productive investigations. The youngest generation of instructors is somewhat divided. A part holds the ideal of creative research, another part is in a sort of reactionary mood against the modern high estimation of specialized work; and has rather a tendency once more to emphasize the idealistic side of academic activity—the beauty of form and the cultivating value of belles-lettres as opposed to the dry details of scholarship. This last is generally accounted the peculiar work of German influence, and in opposition to this there is a demand for Gallic polish and that scientific connoisseurship of the English gentleman. Since, however, these men are thinking not of the main fact, but rather of certain insignificant excrescences of German work, and since after all nothing but the real work of investigation can lead to new achievements which justify in a real university any advancement to higher academic positions, there is no ground for fearing that this reactionary mood will exert any particularly harmful influence on more serious circles of workers. Such a movement may be even welcomed as a warning against a possible ossification of science. Particularly the college would be untrue to its ideals, if it were to forget the humanities in favour of scientific matters of fact.

The lectures naturally follow the principle of thorough-going specialization, and one who reads the Annual Report will probably be surprised to discover how many students take up Assyrian or Icelandic, Old Bulgarian, or Middle Irish. The same specialization 413is carried into the seminaries for the advanced students; thus, for instance, in the department of philosophy, there are special seminaries for ethics, psychology, metaphysics, logic, sociology, pedagogy, Greek, and modern philosophy. The theological faculty is the smallest. In spite of an admirable teaching staff there remains something still to do before the spirit of science is brought into perfect harmony with the strongly sectarian character of the American churches. On the other hand, the faculty of law is recognized as the most distinguished in the English-speaking world. The difference between the Anglo-American law and the Romano-German has brought it about that the entire arrangement and method of study here are thoroughly different from the German. From the very beginning law is taught by the study of actual decisions; the introduction of this “case system,” in opposition to the usual text-book system, was the most decisive advance of all and fixed the reputation of the law faculty. And this system has been gradually introduced into other leading schools of law. The legal course lasts three years, and each year has its prescribed courses of lectures. In the first year, for instance, students take up contracts, the penal code, property rights, and civil processes. Perhaps the departure from the German method of teaching law is most characteristically shown by the fact that the law students are from the very first day the most industrious students of all. These young men have passed through their rather easy college days, and when now they leave those early years of study in the elm-shaded college yard and withdraw to Austin Hall, the law building of the university, they feel that at last they are beginning their serious life-work. In the upper story of Austin Hall there is a large reading-room for the students, with a legal reference library of over sixty thousand volumes. This hall is filled with students, even late at night, who are quite as busy as if they were young barristers industriously working away on their beginning practice.

The German method is much more followed in the four-year medical course of studies, and still there are here striking differences. The medical faculty of Harvard, which is located in Boston on account of the larger hospitals to be found in the city, is at this moment in the midst of moving. Already work has been commenced on a new medical quadrangle with the most modern 414and sumptuous edifices. In somewhat the same way, the course of studies is rather under process of reformation. It is in the stage of experimentation, and of course it is true throughout the world that the astonishing advance of medicine has created new problems for the universities. It seems impossible now for a student to master the whole province, since his study time is of course limited. The latest attempt at reform is along the line of the greatest possible concentration. The student is expected for several months morning and night to study only anatomy, to hear anatomical lectures, to dissect and to use the microscope; and then again for several months he devotes himself entirely to physiology, and so on. Much is hoped, secondly, from the intuitive method of instruction. While in Germany the teaching of physiology is chiefly by means of lectures and demonstrations, every Harvard student has in addition during the period of physiological study to work one hundred and eighty hours on prescribed experiments, so that two hours of experimentation follow every one-hour lecture. In certain lines of practical instruction, especially in pathological anatomy, the American is at a disadvantage compared with the German, since the supply of material for autopsy is limited. Popular democratic sentiment is very strong against the idea that a man who dies in a public poor-house must fall a prey to the dissecting knife. The clinical demonstrations are not given in special university clinics, but rather in the large municipal hospitals, where all the chief physicians are pledged to give practical instruction in the form of demonstrations. In the third place, there is an increasing tendency to give to the study of medicine a certain mobility; in other words, to allow a rather early specialization. As to the substance itself which is taught, Harvard’s medical school is very much like a German university, and becomes daily more similar. In the American as in the German university, the microscope and the retort have taken precedence over the medicine chest.

Harvard has about five thousand students. Any boy who wishes to enter must pass, at the beginning of the summer, a six-day written examination; and these examinations are conducted in about forty different places of the country under the supervision of officers of the university. Any one coming from other universities is carefully graded according to the standard of 415scholarship of his particular institution. The amount of study required is not easily determined. Unlike the German plan, every course of lectures is concluded at the end of the year with a three-hour examination, and only the man who passes the examination has the course in question put to his credit. Whoever during the four, or perhaps three, college years has taken eighteen three-hour lecture courses extending through the year receives the bachelor’s degree. In practice, indeed, the matter becomes enormously complicated, yet extensive administrative machinery regulates every case with due justice. In the legal and medical faculties, everything is dependent on the final examinations of the year. In the philosophical two, or more often three, years of study after the bachelor’s degree lead to the doctorate of philosophy.

The graduate student always works industriously through the year, but the college student may be one of various types. Part of these men work no less industriously than the advanced students; while another part, and by no means the worst, would not for anything be guilty of such misbehaviour. These men are not in Harvard to learn facts, but they have come to college for a certain atmosphere—in order to assimilate by reflection, as they say. Of course, the lectures of enthusiastic professors and a good book or two belong to this atmosphere; and yet, who can say that the hours spent at the club, on the foot-ball field, at the theatre, in the Boston hotel, on the river or on horseback do not contribute quite as much—not to mention the informal discussions about God and the world, especially the literary and athletic worlds, as they sit together at their window seats on the crimson cushions and smoke their cigarettes? Harvard has the reputation through the country of being the rich man’s university, and it is true that many live here in a degree of luxury of which few German students would ever think. And yet there are as many who go through college on the most modest means, who perhaps earn their own livelihood or receive financial aid from the college. A systematic evasion of lectures or excessive drinking or card-playing plays no role at all. The distinctly youthful exuberance of the students is discharged most especially in the field of sport, which gets an incomparable influence on the students’ minds by means of the friendly rivalry between different colleges. The foot-ball game 416between Harvard and Yale in November, or the base-ball game in June, or the New London races, are national events, for which special trains transport thousands of visitors. Next to the historical traditions it is indeed sport, which holds the body of Harvard students most firmly together, and those who belong to the same class most firmly of all—that is, those who are to receive their A. B. in the same year. Year after year the Harvard graduates come back to Boston in order to see their old class-mates again. They know that to be a Harvard man means for their whole life to be the body-guard of the nation. They will stand for Harvard, their sons will go to Harvard, and to Harvard they will contribute with generous hands out of their material prosperity.

Harvard reflects all the interests of the nation, and all its social contrasts. It has its political, religious, literary and musical clubs, its scientific and social organizations, its daily paper for the discussion of Harvard’s interests, edited by students, and three monthly magazines; it has its public and serious parliamentary debates, and most popular of all, operatic performances in the burlesque vein given by students. Thousands of most diverse personalities work out their life problems in this little city of lecture halls, laboratories, museums, libraries, banquet halls, and club buildings, which are scattered about the ancient elm-shaded yard. Each student has come, in the ardour and ambition of youth, to these halls where so many intellectual leaders have taught and so many great men of the outside world have spent their student years; and each one goes away once more into the world a better and stronger man.

One thing that a European visitor particularly expects to find in the lecture room of an American university is not found in Harvard. There are no women students in the school. Women graduates who are well advanced are admitted to the seminaries and to scientific research in the laboratories, but they are excluded from the college; and the same is true of Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and Johns Hopkins. Of course, Harvard has no prejudice against the higher education of women; but Harvard is itself an institution for men. In an indirect way, the teaching staff of Harvard University is utilized for the benefit of women, since only a stone’s throw from the Harvard College gate is Radcliffe 417College, which is for women, and in which only Harvard instructors give lectures.

This picture of the largest university will stand as typical for the others, although of course each one of the great academies has its own peculiarities. While Harvard seeks to unite humanitarian and specialized work, Johns Hopkins aims to give only the latter, while Yale and Princeton aim more particularly at the former. Johns Hopkins in Baltimore is a workshop of productive investigation, and in the province of natural sciences and medicine Johns Hopkins has been a brilliant example to the whole country. Yale University, in New Haven, stands first of all for culture and personal development, although many a shining name in scholarship is graven on the tablets of Yale. Columbia University, in New York, gets its peculiar character from that great city which is its background; and this to a much greater extent than the University of Chicago, which has created its own environment and atmosphere on the farthest outskirts of that great city. Chicago, and Cornell University at Ithaca, the University of Pennsylvania, Ann Arbor in Michigan, Berkeley and Stanford in California are the principal institutions which admit women, and therein are outwardly distinguished from the large institutions of the East.

The male students from the West have somewhat less polish, but are certainly not less industrious. The Western students come generally out of more modest conditions, and are therefore less indifferent with regard to their own future. The student from Ann Arbor, Minnesota, or Nebraska would compare with the student at Yale or Princeton about as a student at Königsberg or Breslau would compare with one at Heidelberg or Bonn. Along with that he comes from a lower level of public school education. The Western institutions are forced to content themselves with less exacting conditions for entrance, and the South has at the present time no academies at all which are to be compared seriously with the great universities of the country.

Next to Harvard the oldest university is Yale, which a short time ago celebrated its two-hundredth anniversary. After Yale comes Princeton, whose foundation took place in the middle of the eighteenth century. Yale was founded as a protest against the liberal tendencies of Harvard. Puritan orthodoxy had been 418rather overridden at Harvard, and so created for itself a more secure fortress in the colony of Connecticut. In this the mass of the population was strictly in sympathy with the church; the free spirit of Harvard was too advanced for the people, and remained so in a certain way for nearly two centuries. Therein has lain the strength of Yale. Until a short time ago Yale had the more popular place in the nation; it was the democratic rallying-ground in contrast with Harvard, which was too haughtily aristocratic. Yale was the religious and the conservative stronghold as contrasted with the free thought and progress of Harvard. For some time it seemed as if the opposition of Yale against the modern spirit would really prejudice its higher interests, and it slowly fell somewhat from its great historic position. But recently, under its young, widely known president, Hadley, the political economist, it has been making energetic and very successful endeavours to recover its lost position.

The history of Columbia University, in New York, began as early as 1754. At that time it was King’s College, which after the War for Independence was rechristened Columbia College. But the real greatness of Columbia began only in the last few decades, with a development which is unparalleled. Under its president, Seth Low, the famous medical, legal, and political economical faculties were brought into closer relations with the college, the Graduate School was organized, Teachers’ College was developed, the general entrance conditions were brought up, and on Morningside Heights a magnificent new university quadrangle was erected. When Seth Low left the university, after ten years of irreproachable and masterly administration, in order to become Mayor of New York in the service of the Reform party, he was succeeded in the presidency by Butler, a young man who since his earliest years had shown extraordinary talents for administration, and who for many years as editor of the best pedagogical magazine had become thoroughly familiar with the needs of academic instruction. Columbia is favoured by every circumstance. If signs are not deceptive, Columbia will soon stand nearest to Harvard at the head of American universities. While Harvard and Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, and Columbia are the most successful creations of the Colonial days, Johns Hopkins and Chicago, Cornell and Leland Stanford are the chief representatives of those 419institutions which have recently been founded by private munificence. The state universities of Wisconsin, Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, and California may be mentioned, finally, as the most notable state universities.

Johns Hopkins was an able railroad president, who died after a long life, in 1873, and bequeathed seven million dollars for a university and academy to be founded in his native city of Baltimore. The administrative council elected Gilman as its president, and it is Gilman’s memorable service to have accomplished that of which America was most in need in that moment of transition—an academy which should concentrate its entire strength on the furtherance of serious scientific investigation quite without concessions to the English college idea, without any attempt to reach a great circle of students, or without any effort to annex a legal or theological faculty. Its sole aim was to attract really eminent specialists as teachers in its philosophical faculties, to equip laboratories and seminaries in the most approved manner, to fill these with advanced students, and to inspire these students with a zeal for scientific productiveness. This experiment has succeeded remarkably. It is clear to-day that the further development of the American university will not consist in developing the special professional school, but will rather combine the ideals of the college with the ideals of original research. But at that time when the new spirit which had been imported from Germany began to ferment, it was of the first importance that some such institution should avowedly, without being hampered by any traditions, take up the cause of that method which seeks to initiate the future school-teacher into the secrets of the laboratory. Since Gilman retired, a short time ago, the famous chemist, Ira Remsen, has taken his place. A brilliant professor of Johns Hopkins, Stanley Hall, has undertaken a similar experiment on a much more modest scale, in the city of Worcester, with the millions which were given by the philanthropist Clark. His Clark University has remained something of a torso, but has likewise succeeded in advancing the impulse for productive science in many directions, especially in psychology and education.

In the year 1868, Cornell University was founded in the town of Ithaca, from the gifts of Ezra Cornell; and this university had almost exactly opposite aims. It has aimed to create a 420university for the people, where every man could find what he needed for his own education; it has become a stronghold for the utilitarian spirit. The truly American spirit of restless initiative has perhaps nowhere in the academic world found more characteristic expression than in this energetic dwelling-place of science. The first president was the eminent historian, Andrew D. White, who was appointed later to his happy mission as Ambassador to Berlin. At the present day the philosopher Shurman stands at the helm, whose efforts in colonial politics are widely known. Senator Stanford, of California, aimed to accomplish for the extreme West the same thing that Cornell had done for the East, when in memory of his deceased son he applied his entire property to the foundation of an academy in the vicinity of San Francisco. Leland Stanford is, so far as its financial endowment goes, probably the richest university in the country. As far as its internal efficiency has gone, the thirty million dollars have not meant so much, since the West has to depend on its own students and it has to take them as it finds them. In spite of this, the university accomplishes an excellent work in many directions under the leadership of the zoölogist Jordan, its possibly too energetic president. While its rival, the State University of California, near the Golden Gate of San Francisco, is perhaps the most superbly situated university in the world, Leland Stanford can lay claim to being the more picturesque. It is a dream in stone conjured up under the Californian palms. Finally, quite different, more strenuous than all others, some say more Chicagoan, is the University of Chicago, to which the petroleum prince, Rockefeller, has deflected some twelve million dollars. The University of Chicago has everything and offers everything. It pays the highest salaries, it is open the whole year through, it has accommodations for women, and welcomes summer guests who come to stay only a couple of months. It has the richest programme of collateral lectures, of university publications and of its own periodicals, has an organic alliance with no end of smaller colleges in the country, has observatories on the hill-tops and laboratories by the sea; and, whatever it lacks to-day, it is bound to have to-morrow. It is almost uncanny how busily and energetically this university has developed itself in a few years under the distinguished and brilliant presidential policy of Harper. 421One must admire the great work. It is possible that this place is still not equal to the older Eastern universities as the home of quiet maturity and reflection; but for hard, scholarly work it has few rivals in the world.

Johns Hopkins and Cornell, Stanford and Chicago, have been carefully designed and built according to one consistent plan, while the state universities have developed slowly out of small colleges more like the old institutions of Colonial days. Their history is for the most part uneventful; it is a steady and toilsome working to the top, which has been limited not so much by the finances of the states, but rather by the conditions of the schools in the regions about them. The largest state university is that of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, not far from Detroit. In number of students it is next to Harvard. One of its specialties is a homœopathic medical faculty in addition to the allopathic.

It would be a great mistake to suppose that, with the blossoming out of the large and middle-sized universities, all of which have colleges as one of their departments, the small colleges have ceased to play their part. Quite on the contrary; in a certain sense the small college situated in rural seclusion has found a new task to work out in contrast to the great universities. It is only in the small college that the young student is able to come into personal contact with the professor, and only there can his special individuality be taken into account by his alma mater. One scheme does not fit all the students, and not only in those regions where the homely college represents the highest attainable instruction of its kind, but also in many districts of the maturest culture, the college is for many youths the most favourable place for development. Thus the New England States would feel a great loss to the cause of culture if such old colleges as Williams, Brown, Amherst, and Dartmouth should simply deliver over its students to Harvard.

These smaller colleges fulfil a special mission, therefore, and they do their best when they do not try to seem more than they really are. There was the danger that the colleges would think themselves improved by introducing some fragments of research work into their curriculum, and so spoiling a good humanitarian college by offering a bad imitation of a university. Of course, there can be no talk of a sharp separation between college and 422university, for the reasons which we have emphasized many times before. It is necessary, as we have seen, that there should be a long continuous scale from the smallest college up to the largest university. It is true that many of the small institutions are entirely superfluous, and not capable of any great development, and so from year to year some are bound to disappear or to be absorbed by others. Many are really business enterprises, and many more are sectarian institutions. But in general there exists among these institutions a healthy struggle for existence which prospers the strongest of them and makes them do their best. The right of existence of many of the small and isolated professional schools is much more questionable. Almost all the best medical, legal, and theological schools of this order have already been assimilated to this or that college, and the growing together of the academies which started separately and from small beginnings into organic universities is in conformity with the centralizing tendency everywhere in progress in our time.

Many of the smaller colleges are, like all the state institutions, open to both sexes. Besides these, however, there thrive certain colleges which are exclusively for women. The best known of these are Bryn Mawr, Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Radcliffe, and Barnard. Barnard College, in New York, stands in the same relation to Columbia University as Radcliffe College does to Harvard. Every one of these leading women’s colleges has its own physiognomy, and appeals rather to its special type of young woman. Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, and Bryn Mawr lie in quiet, retired little towns or villages: and the four years of college life spent together by something like a thousand blooming, happy young women between the years of eighteen and twenty-two, in college halls which are surrounded by attractive parks, are four years of extraordinary charm. Only Bryn Mawr and Radcliffe lay any special stress on the advanced critical work of the graduates. In Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley it is mostly a matter of assimilation, and the standard of scholarship is not much higher than that of the German Arbiturientenexamen, together with possibly one or two semesters of the philosophical faculty. In Wellesley, women are almost the only teachers; while in Bryn Mawr almost all are men, and in Smith the teachers are both men and women.

In statistical language, the following conditions are found to 423hold. If for the moment we put college and graduate schools together as the “philosophical faculty,” there studied in the year 1900 in the philosophical faculties, 1,308 students for every million inhabitants; in the legal faculties 166, in the medical 333, and in the theological faculties 106. Ten years previously the corresponding figures were 877, 72, 266, 112, respectively, and twenty-five years ago they were 744, 61, 196, and 120, respectively. Thus the increase in the last ten years has been a remarkable one; theology alone shows some diminution in its numbers. If we consider now the philosophical faculties more closely, we discover the surprising fact that in the last decade the male students have increased 61 per cent., while the female have increased 149 per cent. The degrees conferred in the year 1900 were as follows: college degrees of bachelor of arts—to men 5,129, to women 2,140. The degree of bachelor of science, which is somewhat lower in its standard, and requires no classical preparation, was given to 2,473 men and 591 women. The degree of doctor of philosophy to 322 men and 20 women. The private endowment of all colleges together amounts to 360 million dollars, of which 160 million consist in income-bearing securities. The annual income amounted to 28 millions, not counting donations of that year, of which 11 millions came from the fees of students, about 7 millions were the interest on endowments, and 7.5 millions were contributed by the government. Thus the student pays about 39 per cent. of what his tuition costs. The larger donations for the year amounted to about 12 millions more. The number of colleges for men or for both sexes was 480, for women alone 141. This figure says very little; since, in the case of many women’s institutions, the name college is more monstrously abused than in any other, and in the West and South is assumed by every upstart girls’ school. There are only 13 women’s colleges which come up to a high standard, and it may at once be added that the number of polytechnic and agricultural schools whose conditions for entrance correspond on the average to those of the colleges amounts to 43. Also these stand on many different levels, and at the head of them all is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Boston, which is now under the brilliant leadership of President Pritchett. Almost all the technical schools are state institutions.

There were, in the year 1900, 151 medical faculties having 42425,213 students: all except three provide a four years’ course of study. Besides these, there were 7,928 dental students studying in 54 dental schools, and 4,042 students of pharmacy in 53 separate institutions. There were 12,516 law students, and 8,009 theological students. Out of the law students 151, and of the theological 181, were women.

One who surveys, without prejudice, the academic life of the country in reference to scientific work will receive a deep impression of the energy and carefulness with which this enormous national machinery of education furthers the higher intellectual life. And the continuous gradation of institutions by which the higher academy is able to adapt itself to every local need, so that no least remnant of free initiative can be lost and unlimited development is made possible at every point, must be recognized by every one as the best conceivable system for the country.

It is not to be denied that it brings with it certain difficulties and disadvantages. The administrative difficulties which proceed from the apparent incomparability of the institutions are really not serious, although the foreigner who is accustomed to uniformity in his universities, Gymnasia, certificates and doctorial diplomas, is inclined to overemphasize these difficulties in America. The real disadvantages of the system of continuous gradations is found, not in the outer administration, but in its inner methods. The German undergraduate takes the attitude of one who learns; his teacher must be thoroughly well informed, but no one expects a school-teacher himself to advance science. The graduate student, on the other hand, is supposed to take a critical attitude, and therefore his teacher has to be a teacher of methods—that is, he must be a productive investigator. Wherever, as in Germany, there lies a sharp distinction between these two provinces, it is easy to keep the spirit of investigation pure; but where, as in America, one merges into the other, the principles at stake are far too likely to be confused. Men who fundamentally are nothing but able school-teachers are then 426able to work up and stand beside the best investigators in the university faculties, because the principle of promotion on the ground of scientific production solely cannot be so clearly separated from the methods of selection which are adapted to the lower grades of instruction. To be sure, this has its advantages in other directions; because, in so far as there is no sharp demarcation, the spirit of investigation can also grow from above down, and therefore in many a smaller college there will be more productive scientists teaching than would be found, perhaps, in a German school; but yet the influences of the lower on the higher departments of instruction are the predominant ones. Investigation thrives best when the young scholar knows that his advancement depends ultimately on strictly scientific achievements, and not on work of a popular sort, nor on success in the teaching of second-hand knowledge. This fact has often been brought home to the public mind in recent years, and the leading universities have already more and more recognized the principle of considering scientific achievements to be the main ground for preferment.

But productive scholarship is interfered with in still other ways. Professors are often too much busied with administrative concerns; and although this sort of administrative influence may be attractive for many professors, its exercise requires much sacrifice of time. More particularly, the professors of most institutions, although there are many exceptions among the leading universities, are overloaded with lectures, and herein the graded transition from low to high works unfavourably. Especially in Western institutions, the administrative bodies do not see why the university professor should not lecture as many hours in the week as a school teacher; and most dangerous of all, as we have already mentioned in speaking of popular education, is the fact that the scholar is tempted, by high social and financial rewards, to give scientifically unproductive popular lectures and to write popular essays.

And the list of factors which have worked against scientific productiveness can be still further increased. To be sure, it would be false here to repeat the old tale that the American professor is threatened in his freedom by the whimsical demands of rich patrons, who have founded or handsomely endowed many of the 427universities. That is merely newspaper gossip; and the three or four cases which have busied public opinion in the last ten years and have been ridiculously overestimated, are found, on closer inspection, to have been cases which could have come up as well in any non-partisan institution in the world. There may have been mistakes on both sides; perhaps the university councils have acted with unnecessary rigour or lack of tact, but it has yet to be proved that there has been actual injustice anywhere. Even in small colleges purely scientific activity never interferes with the welfare of a professor. A blatant disrespect for religion would hurt his further prospects there, to be sure, just as in the Western state institutions the committees appointed by the legislature would dislike a hostile political attitude. Yet not even in the smallest college has any professor ever suffered the least prejudice by reason of his scientific labours. Science in America is not hampered by any lack of academic freedom.

On the other hand, the American university lacks one of the most important forces of German universities—the Privatdocent, who lives only for science, and without compensation places his teaching abilities in the service of his own scientific development. The young American scholar is welcome only where a paid position is vacant; but if he finds no empty instructorship in a large university, he is obliged to be content with a position in a small college, where the entire intellectual atmosphere, as regards the studies, apparatus, and amount of work exacted, all work against his desire to be scientifically productive, and finally perhaps kill it entirely. The large universities are just beginning to institute the system of voluntary docents—which, to be sure, encounters administrative difficulties. There is also a dangerous tendency toward academic in-breeding. The former students of an institution are always noticeably preferred for any vacant position, and the claims of capable scholars are often disregarded for the sake of quite insignificant men. Scientific productiveness meets further with the material obstacle of the high cost of printing in America, which makes it often more difficult for the young student here than in Germany to find a publisher for his works.

Against all this there are some external advantages: first, the lavishness of the accessories of investigation. The equipment of laboratories, libraries, museums, observatories, special institutes, 428and the fitting out of expeditions yield their due benefits. Then there are various sorts of free assistance—fellowships, travelling scholarships, and other foundations—which make every year many young scholars free for scientific work. There is also the admirable “sabbatical year.” The large universities give every professor leave of absence every seventh year, with the express purpose of allowing him time for his own scholarly labours. Another favourable circumstance is the excellent habit of work which every American acquires during his student years; and here it is not to be doubted that the American is on the average, and in consequence of his system has to be, more industrious than the German average student. From the beginning of his course, he is credited with only such lecture courses as he has passed examinations on, and these are so arranged as to necessitate not only presence at the lectures, but also the study of prescribed treatises; the student is obliged to apply himself with considerable diligence. A student who should give himself entirely to idling, as may happen in Germany, would not finish his first college year. If the local foot-ball gossip is no more sensible than the talk at duelling clubs, at least the practice of drinking beer in the morning and playing skat have no evil counterpart of comparable importance in America. The American student recreates himself on the athletic field rather than in the ale-house. Germany is exceedingly sparing of time and strength during school years, but lets both be wasted in the universities to the great advantage of a strong personality here and there, but to the injury of the average man. America wastes a good deal of time during school years, but is more sparing during the college and university courses, and there accustoms each student to good, hard work.

And most of all, the intellectual make-up of the American is especially adapted to scientific achievements. This temperament, owing to the historical development of the nation, has so far addressed itself to political, industrial, and judicial problems, but a return to theoretical science has set in; and there, most of all, the happy combination of inventiveness, enthusiasm, and persistence in pursuit of a goal, of intellectual freedom and elasticity, of feeling for form and of idealistic instinct for self-perfection will yield, perhaps soon, remarkable triumphs.

429We have hitherto spoken only of the furtherance of science by the higher institutions of learning, but we must look at least hastily on what is being done outside of academic circles. We see, then, first of all, the magnificent government institutions at Washington which, without doing any teaching, are in the sole service of science. The cultivation of the sciences by twenty-eight special institutions and an army of 6,000 persons, conducted at an annual expense of more than $8,000,000, is certainly a unique feature of American government. There is no other government in the world which is organized for such a many-sided scientific work; and nevertheless, everything which is done there is closely related to the true interests of government—that is, not to the interests of the dominant political party, but to those of the great self-governing nation. All the institutes, as different as they are in their special work, have this in common—that they work on problems which relate to the country, population, products, and the general conditions of America, so that they meet first of all the national needs of an economical, social, intellectual, political, and hygienic sort, and only in a secondary way contribute to abstract science.

The work of these government institutes is peculiar, moreover, in that the results are published in many handsomely gotten-up volumes, and sent free of cost to hundreds of thousands of applicants. The institutions are devoted partly to science and partly to political economy. Among the scientific institutes are the admirable Bureau of Geological Survey, which has six hundred officials, and undertakes not only geological but also palæontological and hydrographic investigations, and carries on mineralogical and lithological laboratories; then the Geodetic Survey, which studies the coasts, rivers, lakes, and mountains of the country; the Marine Observatory, for taking astronomical observations; the Weather Bureau, which conducts more than one hundred and fifty meteorological stations; the Bureau of Biology, which makes a special study of the geographical distribution of plants and animals; the Bureau of Botany, which studies especially all problems connected with seeds; the Bureau of Forestry, which scientifically works on questions of the national timber supply; the important Bureau of Entomology, which has studied with great success the relations of insects to agriculture; the Bureau of Agriculture, which 430statistically works out experiments on planting, and which directs government experiment stations situated throughout the country; the Department of Fisheries, which conducts stations for marine biology; and many others. Among the political economic institutes in the broad sense of the word are the Bureau of Labour, which undertakes purely sociological investigations into labour conditions; the Corporation Bureau, which studies the conditions of organized business; the Bureau of General Statistics; the Census Bureau, which every ten years takes a census more complete than that of any other country. The Census of 1890 consisted of 39 large folio volumes, and the collecting of information alone cost $10,000,000. The Census of 1900 is still in course of publication. The Bureau of Education also belongs here, which studies purely theoretically the statistics of education. Then there are the Bureau of Immigration and several others. All these bureaus are really designed to impart instruction and advice; they have no authority to enforce any measures. But the extraordinary publicity which is given to their printed reports gives them a very considerable influence; and the thoroughness with which the investigations are carried on, thanks to the liberal appropriations of Congress, makes of these bureaus scientific and economic institutions of the highest order.

We have still to speak of the most famous of the government bureaus, the Smithsonian Institution. In 1836 the government came into the possession, by bequest, of the whole property of the Englishman Smithson, as a principal with which an institution should be founded bearing his name, and serving the advance and dissemination of science. It was never known just why this Oxonian and mineralogist left his large property to the city of Washington, which then numbered only 5,000 inhabitants. Although he had never visited America, he wrote to a friend: “The best blood of England flows in my veins; my father’s family is from Northumberland, my mother’s is related to kings. But I desire to have my name remembered when the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percys shall have been forgotten.” His instinct guided him aright, and the Smithsonian Institution is to-day an intellectual centre in Washington—that city which is the political centre of the New World. It should be mentioned, 431in passing, that Congress accepted the bequest only after lively opposition; it was objected that to receive the gift of a foreigner was beneath the dignity of the government. As a fact, however, the success of the institution is not due so much to this foreign endowment as to the able labours of its three presidents: the physicist Henry, who served from 1846 to 1878, the zoölogist Baird from 1878 to 1887, and the physicist Langley, who has been at the head since 1887. All three have been successful in finding ways by which the institute could serve the growth and dissemination of science.

It was agreed from the outset not to found a university which would compete with others already existing, but an institute to complement all existing institutions, and to be a sort of centre among them. The great institution was divided into the following divisions: first, the National Museum, in which the visible results of all the national expeditions and excavations are gathered and arranged. The American idea is that a scientific museum should not be a series of articles with their labels, but rather a series of instructive labels, illustrated by typical specimens. Only in this way, it is thought, does a museum really help to educate the masses. The collection, which is visited every year by more than 300,000 persons, includes 750,000 ethnological and anthropological objects; almost 2,000,000 zoölogical, 400,000 botanical, and almost 300,000 palæontological specimens. Then there is the National Zoölogical Park, which contains animal species that are dying out; the Astrophysical Observatory, in which Langley carries on his famous experiments on the invisible portion of the solar spectrum; the Ethnological Bureau, which specially studies the Indian; and much else. The department of exchanges of this institute is a unique affair; it negotiates exchanges between scientists, libraries, and other American institutions, and also between these and European institutions. As external as this service may seem, it has become indispensable to the work of American science. Moreover, the library of the institution is among the most important in the country; and its zoölogical, ethnological, physical, and geological publications, which are distributed free to 4,000 libraries, already fill hundreds of volumes.

Any one examining the many-sided and happily circumstanced 432scientific work of these twenty-eight institutes at Washington will come to feel that the equipment could be used to better advantage if actual teaching were to be undertaken, and that the organization of the institutes into a national university attracting students from all parts of the country would tend to stimulate their achievements. In fact, the thought of a national university as the crowning point of the educational system of the country has always been entertained in Washington; and those who favour this idea are able to point to George Washington as the one who first conceived such a plan. In spite of vigorous agitation, this plan is still not realized, chiefly because the traditions of the country make education the concern of the separate states, and reserve it for such institutions as are independent of politics.

It is a different question, whether the time will not come when the nation will desire an institution of a higher sort—one which will not rival the other large universities of the country, but will stand above them all and assume new duties. A purely scientific institution might exist, admitting students only after they have passed their doctorial examination, and of which the professors should be elected by the vote of their colleagues through the country. There is much need of such a university; but the time may not be ripe for it now, and it may be a matter of the far future. And yet at the present rate at which science is developing in the country, the far future means only ten or fifteen years hence. When the time is ripe, the needed hundreds of millions of dollars will be forthcoming.

For the present, a sort of half-way station to a national university at Washington has been reached. This is the Carnegie Institute, whose efficiency can so far not be wholly estimated. With a provisional capital of $10,000,000 given by Andrew Carnegie, it is proposed to aid scientific investigations throughout the country, and on the recommendation of competent men to advance to young scientists the necessary means for productive investigations. There is, unfortunately, a danger here that in this way the other universities and foundations of the country may feel relieved of their responsibility, and so relax their efforts. It may be that people will look to the centre for that which formerly came from the periphery, and that in this way the general industry will become less intense. Most of all, the Carnegie Institute 433has, up to this point, lacked broad fruitful ideas and a real programme of what it proposes to do. If the institute cannot do better than it has so far done, it is to be feared that its arbitrary and unsystematic aid will do, in the long run, more harm than good to the scientific life of the country.

The same general conditions, on a smaller scale and with many variations, are found outside of Washington in a hundred different scientific museums and collections—biological, hygienic, medical, historical, economic, and experimental institutions; zoölogical and botanical gardens; astronomical observatories; biological stations, which are found sometimes under state or city administration, sometimes under private or corporate management. Thus the Marine Laboratory at Woods Hole is a meeting-place every summer for the best biologists. Sometimes important collections can be found in the most unlikely places—as, for instance, in the historic museum of the city of Salem, which, although it has gone to sleep to-day, is still proud of its history. The large cities, however, like New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and Baltimore, have established admirable institutions, on which scientific work everywhere depends. Then there are the political capitals, such as Albany, with their institutions. That German who is most thoroughly acquainted with conditions of scientific collections, Professor Meyer, the director of the scientific museums at Dresden, has given his opinion in his admirable work on the museums of the Eastern United States as follows: “I have received a profound impression of American capabilities in this direction, and can even say that the museums of natural history of that country are generally on a higher plane than those of Europe. We have, so far as buildings and administrative machinery go, very few good and many moderate or downright poor museums, while the Americans have many more good and many fewer bad ones; and those which are poor are improving at the rapid American pace, while with us improvement is hopelessly slow.”

There is still another important factor in the scientific societies, whose membership, to be sure, is chiefly composed of the personnel of the higher educational institutions, but which nevertheless exert an independent influence on scientific life. The National Academy of Science is officially at the head. It was 434founded in 1863, having a hundred members and electing five new members each year. While its annual meetings in Washington observe only the ordinary scientific programme, the society has as a special function the advising of Congress and the government on scientific matters. Thus, this academy drew up the plans for organizing the Geological Survey and for replanting the national forests. The political atmosphere of Washington, however, has not been too favourable to the success of the Academy, and it has never attained the national significance of the Paris and London academies.

The American Historical Association has a similar character; and its transactions are published at the expense of the government. The popular associations, of course, reach much larger circles; thus, for instance, the American Society for the Advancement of Science, which has existed for fifty years, has about the same functions as the German Naturforscherversammlung. It brings together at its annual meetings, which are always held in different places, a thousand or so scientists, and holds in different sections a great many lectures. Still more popular are the meetings of the similarly organized National Educational Association, which brings together more than ten thousand members at its summer meetings, which are often held in pleasant and retired spots. In these and similar sessions, scientific work is popularized, while in the specialized societies it is stimulated toward greater profundity. In fact, there is no medical, natural-historical, legal, theological, historical, economic, philological, or philosophical specialty which has not its special national societies with annual congresses. It is increasingly the custom to hold these popular sessions during the summer holidays, but the strictly scientific congresses during the first week in January. The physicians, by exception, meet at Easter. In order that the business-like separation of subjects may not exclude a certain contact of scientific neighbours, it is increasingly the plan to organize groups of congresses; thus, the seven societies of anatomy, physiology, morphology, plant physiology, psychology, anthropology, and folk-lore always meet at the same time in the same city.

Besides these wandering meetings, finally, there are the local societies. Of these, the veteran is the Academy in Philadelphia. It was founded by Franklin in 1743, and so far as its membership 435goes, may claim to have a national character. In a similar way the American Academy, founded in 1780, has its home in Boston. Then there are the New York Academy, the Washington Academy, which has recently enlarged so as to include members from the whole country, and which ultimately will probably merge into the National Academy; the academies of Baltimore, Chicago, New Haven, and a hundred smaller associations, which for the most part are not merely interested in spreading scientific information, but in helping on the results of science.

We cannot hope to call the complete roll here of scientific production. Our purpose was merely to relate some of the favourable and unfavourable influences under which the American has to make his contribution to the science of the day. Merely for a first orientation, we may give some more detailed accounts in a few departments. At first sight, one might be tempted to give a sketch of present-day production by directly depicting the production with reference to the special higher institutions. Much more than in Germany, the results of scientific research are brought before the public eye with the official seal of some university. Every large educational institution publishes its own contributions to many different sciences; thus, the University of Chicago, which perhaps goes furthest in this respect, publishes journals of sociology, pedagogy, biblical studies, geology, astronomy, botany, etc.; and, besides these, regular series of studies in science, government, classical philology, Germanic and Romance languages, English philology, anthropology, and physiology. Johns Hopkins University publishes mathematical, chemical, and biological magazines; a journal for experimental medicine, one for psychiatry, for modern philology, for history, and Assyriology. Among the periodical publications of Harvard University, the astronomical, zoölogical, cryptogamic, ethnological, Oriental, classical philological, modern philological, historical, and economic journals are the best known. Columbia, Pennsylvania, and several other universities publish equally many journals. There are also a great many books published under the auspices of institutions of learning, which relate to expeditions or other special matters. Thus, for instance, Yale University, on the occasion of its two-hundredth anniversary in 1901, published commemorative scientific papers by its professors in twenty-five large 436volumes; the papers themselves ranging from such subjects as the Hindu epic and Greek metre to thermo-dynamics and physiological chemistry.

The various universities have always been known to have their scientific specialties. That of Johns Hopkins is natural science; of Columbia, the science of government; of Harvard, literature and philosophy. But the universities are, of course, not confined to their specialties; for instance, Johns Hopkins has done very much in philology, Columbia in biology, and while Harvard has been famous for its literary men, like Longfellow, Holmes, Norton and Child, it has also had such distinguished men on its faculty as the zoölogist Agassiz, the botanist Gray, and the astronomer Pickering.

It may be more natural to classify scientific production according to the separate sciences. The list is too long to be given entire. The venerable subject of philosophy is generally placed first in the university catalogues of lectures. This subject shows at once how much and how little is being done. A German, to be sure, is apt to have false standards in this matter; for if he thinks of German philosophy, he recalls the names of Kant, Schopenhauer, Fichte, and Hegel; and he asks what America has produced to compare with these. But we have seen that the work of productive science was commenced in the New World only a few decades ago, and for this reason we must compare the present day in America with the present day in Germany; and to be just, we should compare the American scholar only with the younger and middle-aged Germans who have developed under the scientific conditions of the last thirty years—that is, with men not over sixty years old. Young geniuses are not plentiful, even in Germany to-day; and not only are men like Kant and Hegel lacking in philosophy, but also in other departments of science; men like Ranke and Helmholtz seem not to belong to our day of specialization. A new wave of idealistic and broadly generalizing thought is advancing. The time of great thinkers will come again; but a young country is not to be blamed for the spirit of the times, nor ought its present accomplishment to be measured after the standards of happier days. If we make a perfectly fair comparison, we shall find that American philosophy is at present up to that of any other country.

437Externally, in the first place, America makes a massive showing, even if we leave out of account philosophical literature of the more popular sort. While, for example, England has only two really important philosophical magazines, America has at least five which are as good as the English; and if philosophy is taken in the customary wider sense, sociological and pedagogical journals must be included, which are nowhere surpassed. The emphasis is laid differently in America and Germany; and this difference, which may be seen in almost all sciences, generally, though not always, has deeper grounds than merely personal ones, and is in every case apt to distort the judgment of a foreigner. America, for instance, is astonishingly unproductive in the history of philosophy. Every need seems to be satisfied by translations from the German or by very perfunctory text-book compilations. On the other hand, the theory of knowledge, ethics, and above all psychology, are very prosperous. Disputes in epistemology have always been carried on in America, and the Calvinistic theology, more especially, arrived at important conclusions. At the beginning of the eighteenth century lived Jonathan Edwards, who was perhaps the greatest metaphysical mind in the history of America. The transcendental way of thought, which is profoundly planted in the American soul, was nurtured by German idealism, and found expression through the genius of Emerson. Then, in more systematic and academic ways, there have been philosophers like Porter and McCosh, who stood under Scotch influence and fought against positivism; others, like Harris and Everett, who have represented German tendencies; while Draper, Fiske, Cope, Leconte, and others have preached the philosophy of science. In the front ranks to-day of philosophers are Ladd, Dewey, Fullerton, Bowne, Ormond, Howison, Santayana, Palmer, Strong, Hibben, Creighton, Lloyd, and most influential of all, Royce, whose latest work, “The World and the Individual,” is perhaps the most significant epistemological system of our day.

Psychology is the most favoured of all the philosophical disciplines in America at the present time. This is shown outwardly in the growth of laboratories for experimental psychology, which in size and equipment far exceed those of Europe. America has more than forty laboratories. Foremost in this psychological 438movement is William James, who is, next to Wundt, the most distinguished psychologist living, and whose remarkable analysis of conscious phenomena has been set down with a freshness and liveliness, an energy and discrimination, which are highly characteristic of American intellect. Then there are other well-known investigators like Stanley Hall, Cattell, Baldwin, Ladd, Sanford, Titchener, Angell, Miss Calkins, Scripture, and many others. In pedagogy, which is now disporting itself in a great display of paper and ink, the names of Harris, Eliot, Butler, Hall, Da Garmo, and Hanus are the most respected.

Just as theological and metaphysical speculations, ever since the early Colonial days, have preceded present-day scientific philosophy, so in the science of history systematic investigators were preceded in early days by the Colonial historians, beginning with Bradford and Winthrop. A people which are so restless to make history, so proud of their doings, so grateful to their heroes, and which more than any other people base their law and public policy avowedly on precedent, will necessarily have enjoyed the recounting of their own past. America has had a systematic history, however, only since the thirties, and two periods of work are generally distinguished; an earlier one, in which historians undertook to cover the whole subject of American history, or at least very large portions of it, and a later period embracing the last decade, in which historical interest has been devoted to minuter studies. Bancroft and Parkman stand for the first movement. George Bancroft began to write his history in 1830, and worked patiently thereon for half a century. By 1883 the development of the country, from its discovery up to the adoption of the American Constitution, had been completed in a thorough-going fashion. Parkman was the greater genius, and one who opened an entirely new perspective in American history by his investigations and fascinating descriptions of the wars between the English and the French colonists. The great works of Hildreth and Tucker should also be mentioned here.

The period of specialized work, of course, covers less ground. The large monographs of Henry Adams, John Fiske, Rhodes, Schouler, McMaster, Eggleston, Roosevelt, and of Von Holst, if an adoptive son of America may be included, are accounted the best pieces of work. They have described American history 439partly by geographical regions and partly by periods; and they show great diversity of style, as may be seen by comparing the martial tone of Holst and the majestic calmness of Rhodes. To these must be added the biographies, of which the best known form the series of “American Statesmen.” Americans are particularly fond of studying a portion of national history from the life of some especially active personality. Then too, for twenty years, there has been a considerable and indispensable fabrication of historical research. Large general works and reference books, like those of Winsor, Hart, and others; the biographies, archive studies, correspondences, local histories, often published by learned societies; series of monographs, journals, the chief of which is the American Historical Review—in short, everything necessary to the modern cultivation of historical science are to be found abundantly. The Revolution, the beginnings of the Federation, the Civil War, and Congress are specially favoured topics. It is almost a matter of course that the independent investigation into European history is very little attempted; although very good things have been done, such as Prescott’s work on Spanish history, Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic; and in recent times, for instance, Taylor has made important studies in English history, Perkins in French, Henderson in German, Thayer in Italian, Lea and Emerton in ecclesiastical history, Mahan in the history of naval warfare, and similarly others.

This lively interest in philosophy and history is itself enough to disprove the old fable that American science is directed only toward material ends. Perhaps, to be sure, some one might say that philosophy is practiced to better mankind and history to teach politicians some practical lessons, while both statements are in point of fact false. No such charge, however, can be made against classical philology; and yet no one can read the transactions, which constitute many volumes, of the five hundred members of the Philological Association, or read the numbers of the American journal of Philology, or the classical studies published by Harvard, Cornell, and Chicago, without feeling distinctly that here is scientific work of the strictest sort, and that the methods of investigations are steadily improving. The movement is younger in this department than in the others. To be sure, the classical authors have been well known in America for two centuries; 440but in no province has the dilettanteism of the English gentleman so thoroughly prevailed. It was not until the young philologians commenced to visit German universities, and especially Göttingen, that a thorough-going philology was introduced. And such a work as the forty-four students of the great classicist, Gildersleeve, published on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, would have been impossible twenty years ago. The greatest interest is devoted to syntactical investigation, in which the best-known works are those of Goodwin, Gildersleeve, and Hale; while there are some works on lexicography and comparative languages, and fewer still on textual criticism. Every classical philologian knows the names of Hadley, Beck, Allen, Lane, Warren, Smyth, White, Wheeler, Shorey, Dressier, and many others.

There is an unusual interest in Oriental philology, which is slightly influenced indeed by practical motives. For instance, the great religious interest taken in the Bible—not by scientists, but by the general public—has sent out special expeditions and done much to advance the study of cuneiform inscriptions. The Assyrian collections of the University of Pennsylvania are accounted, in many respects, the most complete in existence. Its curator, Hilprecht, is well known, and Lyon, Haupt, and others almost as well. Whitney, of Yale, was undoubtedly the leader in Sanskrit. Lanman, of Harvard, is his most famous successor, and besides him are Jackson, Buck, Bloomfield, and others. Toy is the great authority on Semitic languages.

It would lead us too far away if we were to follow philological science into modern languages. As a matter of course, the English language and literature are the most studied; in fact, English philology has had its real home in the New World since the days of Child. Francis James Child, one of the most winning personalities in the history of American scholarship, has contributed much on Chaucer and ancient English dramas; and as his great work, has gathered together English and Scottish ballads into a collection of ten volumes. This work has often been esteemed as America’s greatest contribution to philology. Kittredge, who has succeeded Child at Harvard, works on much the same lines. Lounsbury is known especially for his brilliant works on Chaucer; Manley has also studied Chaucer and the pre-Shakesperian drama; Gummere the early ballads, while Wendell and Furness 441are the great Shakesperian scholars. The Arthurian legends have been especially studied by Schofield, Mead, Bruce, and others; the Anglo-Saxon language by Bright, Cook, Brown, and Callaway. Lowell was the first great critic of literature, and he has been followed by Gates and many others. The belles-lettres themselves have given rise to a large historical and critical literature, such as the admirable general works of Steadman, Richardson, and Tyler, and the monographs by Woodberry, Cabot, Norton, Warner, and Higginson. The very best work, however, on American literature, in spite of all aspersions cast on the extreme aristocrat, is Barrett Wendell’s “Literary History of America.” We might mention a long list of works on Romance and Germanic languages and literature. At least emphasis must be laid on one, Kuno Francke’s extraordinary book on “Social Influences in German Literature,” the work of the most gifted herald of German culture in America. We may also mention the works of Thomas and Hempl in Germanic, and Todd, Elliot, and Cohn in romance languages.

Political economy is the favourite study of the American, since the history of this country has been determined by economic factors more directly than that of any other nation, and since all the different economic periods have been lived through in the still surveyable past. In a sense, the country looks like a tremendous experimental laboratory of political economy. The country is so unevenly developed that the most diverse economic stages are to be found in regions which are geographically near each other, and everything goes on, as it were, under the scientific magnifying glass of the statistical student. Remarkably enough, the actual history of economics has been rather neglected in American studies, in spite of many beginnings made in Germany on the history of American economics. The chief attention of the nation has been given rather to the systematic analysis and deductive investigation of special conditions. In political economy there are, of course, first the well-known agitators like Henry Carey, the great protectionist of the first half of the century; Henry George, the single-tax theorist, whose book, “Progress and Poverty,” found in 1879 extraordinary circulation; and Bellamy, whose “Utopia” was in much the same style: and the political tracts on economic subjects are far too numerous to think of mentioning. The really scientific 442works form another group. At first we find the pioneer efforts of the seventies and eighties—Wells’s work on tariff and commerce, Charles Francis Adams’s work on railways, Sumner’s on the history of American finance, Atkinson’s on production and distribution, Wright’s on wages, Knox’s on banking, and the general treatises of Walker, who conducted the censuses of 1870 and 1880. In recent times the chief works are those of Hadley on railroads, of Clark on capital, of James on political finance and municipal administration, of Ely on taxation, of Taussig on tariff, silver and wages, of Jenks on trusts, of Brooks on labour movements, of Seligman on the politics of taxation, of H. C. Adams on scientific finance, of Gross on the history of English economics, of Patten on economic theory, and of Lowell on the science of government. Moreover, the political economists and students of government have an unusually large number of journals at their disposal. In sociology there are Giddings, Small, and Ward, known everywhere, and after them Willcox, Ripley, and others.

We have spent too much time over the historical disciplines. Let us look at the opposite pole of the scientific globe from the mental sciences to the natural sciences, and at first to mathematics. Mathematicians were especially late in waking up to really scientific achievements; and this was scarcely ten years ago, so that all the productive mathematicians are the younger professors. Of the older period, there are but three mathematicians of great importance—Benjamin Peirce, perhaps the most brilliant of American mathematicians, and his pupils, Hill and Newcomb. Their chief interest has been mathematical astronomy. Of their generation are also Willard Gibbs in mathematical physics, McClintock in algebra, and Charles Peirce in mathematical logic. In the last ten years, it is no longer a question of a few great names. The younger generation has taken its inspiration from Germany and France, and is busily at work in pure mathematics; there are Moore and Dixon, of Chicago; Storey and Taber, of Clark; Böcher and Osgood, of Harvard; White at Evanston; Van Vleck at Wesleyan, and many others.

We find again, in the natural sciences, that the American by no means favours only practical studies. There is no less practical a science than astronomy, and yet we find a series of great successes. 443This is externally noticeable in a general interest in astronomy; no other country in the world has so many well-equipped observatories as the United States, and no other country manufactures such perfect astronomical lenses. America has perfected the technique of astronomy. Roland, for instance, has improved the astronomical spectroscope, and Pickering has made brilliant contributions to photometry. The catalogue of stars by Gould and Langley is an indispensable work, and America has contributed its full share to the observation of asteroids and comets. Newcomb, however, who is the leader since forty years, has done the most brilliant work, in his thorough computations of stellar paths and masses. We should also not forget Chandler’s determination of magnitudes, Young’s work on the sun, Newton’s on meteorites, and Barnard’s on comets.

Surprisingly enough, the development of scientific physics has been less brilliant so far. Only in optics has really anything of high importance been done; but in this field there have been such accomplishments as Michelson’s measurements of lightwaves, Rowland’s studies of concave gratings, Newcomb’s measurements on the speed of light, and Langley’s studies of the ultra-red rays. In all other fields the work is somewhat disconnected; although, to be sure, in the branches of electricity, acoustics, and heat, important discoveries have been made by Trowbridge, Woodward, Barus, Wood, Cross, Nichols, Hall, B. O. Pierce, Sabine, and many others. In purely technical subjects, especially those related to electricity, much has been done of serious scientific importance; and these triumphs in technical branches are, of course, famous throughout the world. From the hand tool of the workman to locomotives and bridges, American mechanics have been victorious. Applied physics has yielded the modern bicycle, the sewing-machine, the printing-press, tool-making machinery, and a thousand other substitutes for muscular labour; has also perfected the telegraph, the incandescent lamp, the telephone and the phonograph, and every day brings some new laurel to the American inventor. But it is not to be supposed that Edison, Tesla, and Bell are the sole representatives of American physics. Quiet scientific work of the highest order is carried on in a dozen laboratories. Meteorology ought to be mentioned as a branch of physics; it has been favoured by the large field of observation 444which America offers and has developed brilliantly under Ferrel, Hazen, Greely, Harrington, Mendenhall, Rotch, and others.

It is still more true of chemistry than of physics that advance has been independent of the industrial application of science. The leading chemists have all worked in the interests of pure science; and this work started at the beginning of the last century, when Benjamin Silliman, of Yale, the editor of the first magazine for natural science, laid the foundations for his scientific school. He was followed in succeeding generations by Hare, Smith, Hunt, and most notably Cooke, whose studies on the periodic law and the atomic weight of oxygen are specially valuable. Of later men there are Willard Gibbs, the Nestor of chemical thermo-dynamics, who became famous by his theory of the phase rule, and Wolcott Gibbs through his studies on complex acids. Crafts is known for his researches into organic compounds, and Mallet by classical investigations into the atomic weight of aluminum. Other valuable contributions have been Hillebrand’s analysis of minerals, Stieglitz’s organic syntheses, Noyes’s studies on ions, the work of Clark and Richards on atomic weights, Gooch’s technical discoveries, Hill’s synthetic production of benzol compounds, Warren’s work with mineral oils, Baskerville’s study of thorium, not to mention the highly prized text-books of Ira Remsen, the discoverer of saccharin. Among the physiological and agricultural chemists, the best known are Chittenden, Pfaff, Atwater, and Hilgard. The pioneer of physical chemistry is Richards, of Harvard, probably the only American professor so far who has been called to the position of a full professor at a German university. He remained in America, although invited to Göttingen. Bancroft and Noyes are at work on the same branch of chemistry.

The work in chemistry is allied in many ways to mineralogy, petrography, and geology. Oddly enough, mineralogy has centred distinctly at one place—Yale University. The elder Dana used to work there, whose “System of Mineralogy” first appeared in 1837, and while frequently revised has remained for half a century the standard book in any language; Dana’s chemical classification of minerals has also found general acceptance. His son, the crystallographer, worked here, as also Brush and Penfield, who has investigated more kinds of stone than any other living man. Beside these well-known leaders, there are such men as 445Lawrence Smith, Cooke, Gerth, Shepard, and Wolff. The advances in geology have been still more brilliant, since nature made America an incomparable field of study. Hall had already made an early beginning here, and Dana and Whitney, Hayden and King, Powell and Gilbert, Davis, Shaler, and Branner have continued the work. Remains of the Glacial Epoch and mountain formation have been the favourite topics. And the investigation which has frequently been connected with practical mining interests is among the most important, and in Europe the most highly regarded of American scientific achievements.

Closely related to the geological are the geographical studies. The Government Bureau of Survey figures prominently here, by reason of its magnificent equipment. Most famous are the coast surveys of Pache and Mendenhall, and the land surveys of Rogers, Whitney, and Gannet. The hydrographic investigations of Maury have perhaps had more influence on geography, and his physical geography of the ocean has opened up new lines of inquiry; Guyot has done most to spread the interests of geography. Americans have always been greatly interested in expeditions to dangerous lands, wherefore many Americans have been pioneers, missionaries, and scientific travellers. In this spirit Lewis and Clark explored the Northwest, Wilkes crossed the Pacific Ocean, Perry went to Japan, and Stanley to Africa; others have travelled to South America, and many expeditions have been started for the North Pole since the first expedition of Kane in 1853. Palæontology has been well represented in America, and has contributed a good deal to the advance in geology. Hall commenced the work with studies on invertebrate fossils; then came Hyatt, who studied fossil cephalopods, Scudder fossil insects, Beecher brachiopods; and then Leidy, Cope, Osborne, and above all, the great scientist, Marsh—all of whom have studied fossil vertebrates.

Almost every one of these men was at the same time a systematic zoölogist. Especially in former days, many young men devoted themselves to systematic zoölogy under the leadership of Audubon, whose pioneer work on “The Birds of America” appeared in 1827; then later of Say, the first investigator of butterflies and mussels; and still later of Louis Agassiz, the great student of jelly-fish, hydroids and polyps, whose son, Alexander Agassiz, has 446carried on the famous studies of coral islands. Besides these men have laboured LeConte, Gill, Packard, and Verrill in the province of invertebrates; Baird, Ridgeway, Huntington, Allen, Meriam, and Jordan in the field of vertebrates. At the present time interest in America as well as in Europe is turning toward histology and embryology. Here, too, the two Agassizes have taken the lead, the senior Agassiz with his studies on turtles, the younger Agassiz in studies on starfishes. Next to theirs come the admirable works of Wyman, Whitman, Brooks, Minot, Mark, and Wilson, and the investigations of Davenport on the subject of variation. The phenomenon of life has been studied now by zoölogists and again by biologists and physiologists. Here belong the researches into the conscious life of lower animals carried on by Lee and Parker, and the excellent investigations of the German-American Jacques Loeb, of California, who has placed the tropisms of animals and the processes of fertilization in a wholly new light. Of his colleagues in physiology, the best known are Bowditch, Howell, Porter, and Meltzer.

The highest organism which the natural scientist can study is man, taken not historically, but anthropologically. The American has been forced to turn to anthropology and to ethnology, since circumstances have put at his hand some hundred types of Indians, with the most diverse languages and customs, and since, moreover, peoples have streamed from every part of the world to this country; millions of African negroes are here, the ground is covered with the remains of former Indian life, and the strange civilizations of Central America have left their remains near by. The Ethnological Bureau at Washington and the Peabody Museum at Harvard have instituted many expeditions and investigations. In recent times the works of Morgan, Hale, Brinton, Powell, Dall, Putnam, McGee, and Boas have opened new perspectives, especially on the subject of the American Indian.

The American flora has contributed no less new material to science than the American fauna. European botanists had commenced the work with tours of observation, when in the middle of the last century Asa Gray began his admirable life-work. He was in the closest sympathy with European botanists, and published in all more than four hundred papers on the classification 447and systematic study of the profuse material. Gray died in 1888, undoubtedly the greatest botanist that America has produced. His labours have been supplemented by his teacher, Torrey; by Chapman, who worked up the southeastern part of the country; by scientific travellers, such as Wright and Watson; by Engelmann, who studied cacti; Bebb, who studied the fields; by Coulter, the expert on the plants of the Rocky Mountains; by Bailey and many others. This great work is more or less pervaded by the ideas of Gray; but in the last twenty years it has branched off in several directions under a number of leaders. Farlow has reached out into cryptogamic botany, Goodale into plant physiology, and Sargent into dendrology. There has been, moreover, considerable specialization and subdivision of labour in the botanical gardens of New York, Boston, and St. Louis, and the herbaria and botanical institutes of various universities and of the agricultural experiment stations. These institutions put forth publications under the editorship of such able botanists as Robinson, Trelease, Fernald, Smith, and True; and these works are not excelled by those of any other country.

We have had, perhaps, too much of mere names; and yet these have been only examples, calculated to show the strength and the weakness of the scientific development of America. We have sought specially to keep within the limits of the “philosophical faculties.” It would be interesting to go into the subjects of theology, law and medicine, and of technology in a similar way; but it would lead too far. Yet whether the unprejudiced observer considers such disciplines as we have described, or whether he looks out into neighbouring academic fields, he will find the same flourishing condition of things—a bold, healthy, and intelligent progress, with a complete understanding of the true aim of science, with tireless industry, able organization, and optimistic energy.

Of course, the actual achievements are very uneven; they are, in some directions, superior to those of England and France—in a few directions even to those of Germany, but in others far inferior to German attainments. We have seen that the conditions a short time ago were unfortunate for science, and that only recently have they given way to more favourable factors. Most people see such favourable factors first of all in the financial support offered to the investigator; but the chief aid for such work does not lie in 448the providing of appliances. Endowments can do no more than supply books, apparatus, laboratories, and collections for those who wish to study, but all that never makes a great scientist; the average level of study may be improved by material support, but it will never be brought above a certain level of mediocrity. For, after all, science depends chiefly on the personal factor; and good men can do everything, even on narrow means.

The more important factor in the opulence which science now enjoys is an indirect one; it improves the social status of scientific workers, so that better human material is now attracted to the scientific career. As long as scientific life meant poverty and dependence, the only people attracted to it were men of the schoolteaching stamp; the better men have craved something fuller and greater, and have wished to expend their strength in the more thoroughly living province of industrial and commercial life, where alone the great social premiums were to be found. But now the case is different. Science has been recognized by the nation; scientific and university life has become rich in significance, the professor is no longer a school-teacher, and the right kind of young scholar is stepping into the arena. Another factor is working in the same direction. Substantial families are coming to the third generation, when they go over from trade to art and science. The sons of the best people with great vitality and great personality prefer now to work in the laboratory rather than in the bank. Each one brings Yankee intelligence and Yankee energy with him. This social reappraisement of science, and its effect on the quality of men who become productive scholars, are the best indication of the coming greatness of American science.

What does the American read? In “Jörn Uhl,” the apprentice in the Hamburg bookshop says to his friend: “If I am to tell you how to be wise and cunning, then go where there are no books. Do you know, if I had not had my father, I should have gone to America—for a fact! And it would have gone hard with anybody who poked a book at me.” In that way many a man in Europe, who is long past his apprenticeship, still pictures to himself America: Over in America nobody bothers about books. And he would not credit the statement that nowhere else are so many books read as in America. The American’s fondness for reading finds clearest expression in the growth of libraries, and in few matters of civilization is America so well fitted to teach the Old World a lesson. Europe has many large and ancient collections of books, and Germany more than all the rest; but they serve only one single purpose—that of scientific investigation; they are the laboratories of research. They are chiefly lodged with the great universities, and even the large municipal libraries are mostly used by those who need material for productive labours, or wish to become conversant with special topics.

Exactly the same type of large library has grown up in America; and here, too, it is chiefly the universities whose stock of books is at the service of the scientific world. Besides these, there are special libraries belonging to learned societies, state law libraries, special libraries of government bureaus and of museums, and largest of all the Library of Congress. The collection of such scientific books began at the earliest colonial period, and at first under theological auspices. The Calvinist Church, more than any other, inclined to the study of books. As early as 1790 the catalogue of Harvard 450College contained 350 pages, of which 150 were taken up by theological works. Harvard has to-day almost a million books, mostly in the department of literature, philology, history, philosophy, and jurisprudence. There are, moreover, in Boston the state library of law, with over a hundred thousand volumes; the Athenæum, with more than two hundred thousand books; the large scientific library of the Institute of Technology, and many others. Similarly, in other large cities, the university libraries are the nucleus for scientific labours, and are surrounded by admirable special libraries, particularly in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Then, too, the small academic towns, like Princeton, Ithaca, New Haven, and others, have valuable collections of books, which in special subjects are often unique. For many years the American university libraries have been the chief purchasers of the special collections left by deceased European professors. And it often happens, especially through the gift of grateful alumni, that collections of the greatest scientific value, which could not be duplicated, come into the possession even of lesser institutions.

In many departments of investigation, Washington takes the lead with the large collection of the various scientific, economic, and technical bureaus of the government. The best known of these is the unique medical library of the War Department. Then there is the Library of Congress, with many more than a million volumes, which to-day has an official right to one copy of every book published in the United States, and so may claim to be a national library. It is still not comparable to the many-sided and complete collection of the British Museum; the national library is one-sided, or at least shows striking gaps. Having started as the Library of Congress, it has, aside from its one copy of every American book and the books on natural science belonging to the Smithsonian Institution, few books except those on politics, history, political economy, and law. The lack of space for books, which existed until a few years ago, made it seem inexpedient to spend money for purposes other than the convenience of Congressmen. But the American people, in its love for books, has now erected such a building as the world had never before seen devoted to the storing of books. The new Congressional Library was opened in 1897, and since the stacks have 451still room for several million volumes, the library will soon grow to an all-round completeness like that at London. This library has a specially valuable collection of manuscripts and correspondences.

All the collections of books which we have so far mentioned are virtually like those of Germany. But since they mostly date from the nineteenth century, the American libraries are more modern, and contain less dead weight in the way of unused folios. Much more important is their greatly superior accessibility. Their reading-rooms are more comfortable and better lighted, their catalogues more convenient, library hours longer, and, above all, books are much more easily and quickly delivered. Brooks Adams said recently, about the library at Washington as a place for work, that this building is well-nigh perfect; it is large, light, convenient, and well provided with attendants. In Paris and London, one works in dusty, forbidding, and overcrowded rooms, while here the reading-rooms are numerous, attractive, and comfortable. In the National Library at Paris, one has to wait an hour for a book; in the British Museum, half an hour; and in Washington, five minutes. This rapid service, which makes such a great difference to the student, is found everywhere in America; and everywhere the books are housed in buildings which are palatial, although perhaps not so beautiful as the Washington Library.

Still, all these differences are unessential; in principle the academic libraries are alike in the New and Old Worlds. The great difference between Europe and America begins with the libraries which are not learned, but which are designed to serve popular education. The American public library which is not for science, but for education, is to the European counterpart as the Pullman express train to the village post-chaise.

The scientific libraries of Boston, including that of Harvard University, contain nearly two million printed works; but the largest library of all is distinct from these. It is housed on Copley Square, in a renaissance palace by the side of the Art Museum, and opposite the most beautiful church in America. The staircase of yellow marble, the wonderful wall-paintings, the fascinating arcade on the inner court, and the sunlit halls are indeed beautiful. And in and out, from early morning till late evening, weekday 452and Sunday, move the people of Boston. The stream of men divides in the lower vestibule. Some go to the newspaper room, where several hundred daily newspapers, a dozen of them German, hang on racks. Others wander to the magazine rooms, where the weekly and monthly papers of the world are waiting to be read. Others ascend to the upper stories, where Sargent’s famous pictures of the Prophets allure the lover of art, in order to look over more valuable special editions and the art magazines, geographical charts, and musical works. The largest stream of all goes to the second floor, partly into the huge quiet reading-room, partly into the rotunda, which contains the catalogue, partly into the hall containing the famous frescoes of the Holy Grail, where the books are given out. Here a million and a half books are delivered every year to be taken home and read. And no one has to wait; an apparatus carries the applicant’s card with wonderful speed to the stacks, and the desired book is sent back in automatic cars. Little children meanwhile wander into the juvenile room, where they find the best books for children. And everything invites even the least patient reader to sit down quietly with some sort of a volume—everything is so tempting, so convenient and comfortable, and so surpassingly beautiful. And all this is free to the humblest working-man.

And still, if the citizen of Massachusetts were to be asked of what feature of the public libraries he is most proud, he would probably not mention this magnificent palace in Boston, the capital of the state, but rather the 350 free public libraries scattered through the smaller cities and towns of this state, which is after all only one-third as large as Bavaria. It is these many libraries which do the broadest work for the people. Each little collection, wherever it is, is the centre of intellectual and moral enlightenment, and plants and nourishes the desire for self-perfection. Of course, Massachusetts has done more in this respect than any other part of the country—especially more than the South, which is backward in this respect. But there is no longer any city of moderate size which has not a large public library, and there is no state which does not encourage in every possible way the establishment of public libraries in every small community, giving financial aid if it is necessary.

Public libraries have become the favourite Christmas present 453of philanthropists, and while the hospitals, universities, and museums have still no reason for complaint, the churches now find that superfluous millions are less apt to go to gay church windows than to well-chosen book collections. In the year 1900 there existed more than 5,383 public libraries having over a thousand volumes; of these 144 had more than fifty thousand, and 54 had more than a hundred thousand volumes. All together contained, according to the statistics of 1900, more than forty-four million volumes and more than seven million pamphlets; and the average growth was over 8 per cent. There are probably to-day, therefore, fifteen million volumes more on the shelves. The many thousand libraries which have fewer than 999 books are over and above all this.

The make-up of such public libraries may be seen from the sample catalogue gotten out by the Library Association a few years since, as a typical collection of five thousand books. This catalogue which, with the exception of the most important foreign classics, contains only books in English, including, however, many translations, contains 227 general reference books, 756 books on history, 635 on biography, 413 on travel, 355 on natural science, 694 in belles-lettres, 809 novels, 225 on art, 220 on religion, 424 on social science, 268 on technical subjects, etc. The cost of this sample collection is $12,000. The proportions between the several divisions are about the same in larger collections. In smaller collections, belles-lettres have a somewhat greater share. The general interest taken by the nation in this matter is shown by the fact that the first edition of twenty thousand copies of this sample catalogue, of six hundred pages, was soon exhausted.

The many-sidedness of this catalogue points also to the manifold functions of the public library. It is meant to raise the educational level of the people, and this can be done in three ways: first, interest may be stimulated along new lines; second, those who wish to perfect themselves in their own subjects or in whatsoever special topics, may be provided with technical literature; and third, the general desire for literary entertainment may be satisfied by books of the best or at least not of the worst sort. The directors of libraries see their duties to lie in all three directions. The libraries guide the tastes and interests of the general public, and try to replace the ordinary servant-girl’s novel 454with the best romances of the day and shallow literature with works which are truly instructive. And no community is quite content until its public library has become a sort of general meeting-place and substitute for the saloon and the club. America is the working-man’s paradise, and attractive enough to the rich man; but the ordinary man of the middle classes, who in Germany finds his chief comfort in the Bierhalle, would find little comfort in America if it were not for the public library, which offers him a home. Thus the public library has come to be a recognized instrument of culture along with the public school; and in all American outposts the school teacher and librarian are among the pioneers.

The learned library cannot do this. To be sure, the university library can help to spread information, and conversely the public library makes room for thousands of volumes on all sorts of scientific topics. But the emphasis is laid very differently in the two cases, and if it were not so neither library would best fulfil its purpose. The extreme quiet of the reference library and the bustle and stir of the public library do not go together. In the one direction America has followed the dignified traditions of Europe; in the other, it has opened new paths and travelled on at a rapid pace. Every year discovers new ideas and plans, new schemes for equipment and the selection of books, for cataloguing, and for otherwise gaining in utility. When, for instance, the library in Providence commenced to post a complete list of books and writings pertaining to the subject of every lecture which was given in the city, it was the initiation of a great movement. The juvenile departments are the product of recent years, and are constantly increasing in popularity. There are even, in some cases, departments for blind readers. The state commissions are new, and so also the travelling libraries, which are carried from one village to another.

The great schools for librarians are also new. The German librarian is mostly a scholar; but the American believes that he has improved on the European library systems, not so much by his ample financial resources as by having broken with the academic custom, and having secured librarians with a special library training. And since there are such officials in many thousand libraries, and the great institutions create a constant demand for such 455persons, the library schools, which offer generally a three years’ course, have been found very successful.

Admittedly, all this technical apparatus is expensive; the Boston library expends every year a quarter of a million dollars for administrative expenses. But the American taxpayer supports this more gladly than any other burden, knowing that the public library is the best weapon against alcoholism and crime, against corruption and discontent, and that the democratic country can flourish only when the instinct of self-perfection as it exists in every American is thoroughly satisfied.

The reading of the American nation is not to be estimated wholly by the books in public libraries, since it also includes a tremendous quantity of printed material that goes to the home of every citizen. Three hundred and forty American publishers place their wares every year on the market, and the part bought by the public libraries is a very small proportion. A successful novel generally reaches its third hundred thousand; of course, such gigantic editions are limited to novels and school-books. The number of annual book publications is much smaller than in Germany; but it must be considered that, first, the American electrotype process does not lend itself to new and revised editions; and that small brochures are replaced in America by the magazine articles. On the other hand, the number of copies published is perhaps larger than in Germany. And then, too, among the upper classes, a great many German, French, and Italian books are purchased from Europe.

The great feature for all classes of the population is the tremendous production of periodical literature. Statistics show that in the United States in the year 1903, there were published 2,300 daily papers, more than 15,000 weeklies, 2,800 monthlies, and 200 quarterlies—in all, 21,000 periodicals. These are more periodicals than are published in all Europe; in Germany alone there are 7,500. The tremendous significance of these figures, particularly as compared with the European, becomes clear only when one considers the number of copies which these periodicals circulate. Not merely the newspapers of the three cities having over a million inhabitants, but also those of the larger provincial towns, reach a circulation of hundreds of thousands; and more surprising still is the unparalleled circulation of the weekly and 456monthly papers. Huge piles of magazines, containing the most serious sort of essays, are sold from every news-stand in a few hours. And anybody who knows New England is not surprised at the statement which T. W. Higginson makes in his recollections, that he came once to a small Massachusetts village of only twenty-four homes, nineteen of which subscribed to the Atlantic Monthly, a publication which is most nearly comparable to the Deutsche Rundschau.

The surprisingly large sales of expensive books among rich families is quite as gratifying as the huge consumption of magazines among the middle classes. Editions de luxe are often sold entire at fabulous prices before the edition is out, and illustrated scientific works costing hundreds of dollars always find a ready sale. These are merely the symptoms of the fact that every American home has its bookcases proportionate to its resources, and large private libraries are found not merely in the homes of scholars and specialists. In the palaces of merchant princes, the library is often the handsomest room, although it is sometimes so papered with books that it looks as if the architect had supplied them along with the rugs and chandeliers. One more commonly finds that the library is the real living-room of the house. If one looks about in such treasure apartments, one soon loses the sense of wonder completely; rare editions and valuable curiosities are there brought together with the greatest care and intelligence into an appropriate home. There are probably very few German private houses with collections of books and paintings comparable, for instance, to that of J. Montgomery Sears in Boston. The whole interior is so wonderfully harmonious that even the autograph poems and letters of Goethe and Schiller seem a matter of course. But from the book-shelves of the millionaire to the carefully selected little shelf of the poor school-ma’am, from the monumental home of the national library to the modest little library building of every small village, from the nervous and rapid perusal of the scholar to the slow making-out of the working-man who pores over his newspaper on the street corner, or of the shop-girl with the latest novel in the elevated train, there is everywhere life and activity centring around the world of print, and this popularity of books is growing day by day.

By far the most of what the American reads is written by Americans. 457This does not mean that any important book which appears in other parts of the world escapes him; on the contrary just as the American everywhere wants only the best, uses the latest machines and listens to the most famous musicians, so in the matter of literature he is observant of every new tendency in poetry, whether from Norway or Italy, and the great works of the world’s literature have their thoughtful readers. There are probably more persons who read Dante in Boston than in Berlin. Of German intellectual productions, the scientific books are most read, and if strictly scientific they are read in the original by the best educated Americans; the popular books are mostly read in translation. Of the belles-lettres, Schiller and Lessing are generally put aside with the school-books, while Goethe and Heine remain welcome; and beside them are translations of modern story-writers from Freytag and Spielhagen down to Sudermann. French literature is more apt to be read in the original than German, but with increasing distaste. The moral feeling of the American is separated by such a chasm from the atmosphere of the Parisian romance that modern French literature has never become so popular in America as it has in Germany.

As a matter of course, English literature of every sort has by far the greatest influence; English magazines are little read or appreciated, while English poetry, novels, dramas, and works of general interest are as much read in America as in England. Books so unlike as the novels of Mrs. Ward, of Du Maurier, and of Kipling have about the same very large circulation; and all the standard literature of England, from Chaucer to Browning, forms the educational background of every American, especially of every American woman. In spite of all this, it remains true that the most of that which is read in the United States is written by Americans.

How and what does the American write?

Europe has a ready answer, and pieces together a mental picture of “echt amerikanische” literature out of its unfriendly prejudices, mostly reminiscent of Buffalo Bill and Barnum’s circus. It is still not forgotten how England suddenly celebrated Joaquin Miller’s freakish and inartistic poems of the Western prairie as the great American achievement, and called this tasteless versifier, who was wholly unrecognized in his own country, the American 458Byron. He was not only unimportant, but he was not typically American. And of American humour the European observer has about as just an opinion. Nothing but ridiculous caricatures are considered. Mark Twain’s first writings, whose sole secret was their wild exaggeration, were more popular in Germany than in America; while the truly American humour of Lowell or Holmes has lain unnoticed. The American is supposed to be quite destitute of any sense for form or measure, and to be in every way inartistic; and if any true poet were to be granted to the New World, he would be expected to be noisy like Niagara. In this sense the real literature of America has hitherto remained un-American, perhaps too un-American. For the main thing which it has lacked has been force. There have been men like Uhland, Geibel, and Heyse, but there has so far been no one like Hebbel.

There is no absolutely new note in American literature, and especially no one trait which is common to all American writings and which is not found in any European. If there is anything unique in American literature, it is perhaps the peculiar combination of elements long familiar. An enthusiastic American has said that to be American means to be both fresh and mature, and this is in fact a combination which is new, and which well characterizes the literary temperament of the country. To be fresh and young generally means to be immature, and to be mature and seasoned means to have lost the enthusiasm and freshness of youth. Of course, this is not a contradiction realized. It would be impossible, for instance, to be both naïve and mature; but the American is not and never has been naïve. Just as this nation has never had a childhood, has never originated ballads, epics, and popular songs, like other peoples during their naïve beginnings, because this nation brought with it from Europe a finished culture; so the vigorous youthfulness in the national literary temperament has in it nothing of naïve simplicity. It is the enthusiasm of youth, but not the innocence of boyhood. It would also be impossible to be both fresh and decadent; the American is mature but not over-ripe, not weakened by the sceptical ennui of senility.

To be fresh means to be confident, optimistic and eager, lively, unspoiled, and courageous; it means to strive toward one’s best ideals with the ardour of youth; while to be mature means to understand 459things in their historic connection, in their true proportions, and with a due feeling for form; to be mature means to be simple, and reposeful, and not breathlessly anxious over the outcome of things. To be sure, this optimistic feeling of strength, this enthusiastic self-confidence, is hardly able to seize the things which are finest and most subtle. It looks only into the full sunlight, never into the shadows with their less obvious beauties. There are no half-tones, no sentimental and uncertain moods; wonder and meditation come into the soul only with pessimism. And most of all, the enthusiasm of youth not only looks on but wants to work, to change and to make over; and so the American is less an artist than an insistent herald. Behind the observer stands always the reformer, enthusiastic to improve the world. On the other hand, the disillusionment of maturity should have cooled the passions, soothed hot inspiration, and put the breathless tragic muse to sleep. It avoids dramatic excitement, holds aloof, and looks on with quiet friendliness and sober understanding of mankind. So it happens that finished art is incompatible with such an enthusiastic eagerness to press onward, and sensuous emotion is incompatible with such an idealism. And so we find in the American temperament a finished feeling for form, but a more ethical than artistic content, and we find humour without its favourite attendant of sentiment. Of course, the exceptions crowd quickly to mind to contradict the formula: had not Poe the demoniac inspiration; was not Hawthorne a thorough artist; did not Whitman violate all rules of form; and does not Henry James see the half-tones? And still such variations from the usual are due to exceptional circumstances, and every formula can apply only in a general way.

Still, in these general traits, one can see the workings of great forces. This enthusiastic self-confidence and youthful optimism in literature are only another expression of American initiative, which has developed so powerfully in the fight with nature during the colonial and pioneer days, and which has made the industrial power of America. And, as Barrett Wendell has shown, not a little of this enthusiastic and spontaneous character is inherited from the old English stock of three hundred years ago. In England itself, the industrial development changed the people; the subjects of Queen Victoria were very little like those of 460Queen Elizabeth; the spontaneity of Shakespeare’s time no longer suits the smug and insular John Bull. But that same English stock found in America conditions that were well calculated to arouse its spontaneity and enthusiasm.

Then, on the other hand, the clear, composed, and formal maturity which distinguish the literary work of the new nation is traceable principally to the excellent influence of English literature. The ancient culture of England spared this nation a period of immaturity. Then, too, there has been the intellectual domination of the New England States, whose Puritan spirit has given to literature its ethical quality, and at the same time contributed a certain quiet superiority to the common turmoil. Throughout the century, and even to-day, almost all of the best literature originates with those who are consciously reacting against the vulgar taste. Just because the number of sellers and readers of books is so much greater than in Europe, the unliterary circles of readers who, as everywhere, enjoy the broadly vulgar, must by their numbers excite the disgust of the real friend of literature; and this conscious duty of opposition, which becomes a sort of mission, sharpens the artistic consciousness, fortifies the feeling of form, and struggles against all that is immature.

Undoubtedly these external conditions are as responsible for many of the failings of American literature as for its excellences; most of all for the lack of shading and twilight tones, of all that is dreamy, pessimistic, sentimental, and “decadent.” This is a lack in the American life which in other important connections is doubtless a great advantage. There are no old castles, no crumbling ruins, no picturesque customs, no church mysticism, nor wonderful symbols; there are no striking contrasts between social groups, no romantic vagabondage, and none of the fascinating pomp of monarchy. Everywhere is solid and healthy contentment, thrifty and well clothed, on broad streets, and under a bright sun. It is no accident that true poets have not described their own surroundings, but have taken their material so far as it has been American, as did Hawthorne, from the colonial times which were already a part of the romantic past, or out of the Indian legends, or later from the remote adventurous life of the West, or from the negro life in far Southern plantations; the daily life surrounding the poet was not yet suitable for poetry. And by being so cruelly 461clear and without atmosphere as not to invite poetic treatment, it has left the whole literature somewhat glaringly sharp, sane, and homely.

Fiction stands in the centre of the characteristic literary productions; but also literature in the broader sense, including everything which interprets human destinies, as history and philosophy, or even more broadly including all the written products of the nation, everything reflects the essential traits of the literary temperament. In fact, the practical literature, especially the newspaper, reveals the American physiognomy most clearly. In better circles in America, it is proper to deplore the newspaper as a literary product, and to look on it as a necessary evil; and doubtless most newspapers serve up a great deal that is trivial and vulgar, and treat it in a trivial and vulgar way. But no one is forced, except by his own love for the sensational, to choose his daily reading out of this majority. Everybody knows that there is a minority of earnest and admirable papers at his disposal. Apart from newspaper politics and apart from the admirable industrial organization of the newspaper—both of which we have previously spoken of—the newspapers of the country are a literary product whose high merit is too often underestimated. The American newspapers, and of these not merely the largest, are an intellectual product of well-maintained uniformity of standard.

To be sure, the style is often light, the logic unsound, the information superficial; but, taken as a whole, the newspaper has unity and character. Thousands of loose-jointed intellects crowd into journalism every year—more than in any other country; but American journalism, like the nation as a whole, has an amazing power of assimilation. Just as thousands of Russians and Italians land every year in the rags of their wretchedness, and in a few years become earnest American citizens, so many land on the shores of American journalism who were not intended to be the teachers or entertainers of humanity, and who nevertheless in a few years are quite assimilated. The American newspapers, from Boston to San Francisco, are alike in style and thought; and it must be said, in spite of all prejudices, that the American newspaper is certainly literature. The American knows no difference between unpolitical chatter written with a literary ambition and unliterary comment written with a political ambition. In one sense the 462whole newspaper is political, while at the same time it is nothing but feuilleton, from the editorials, of which every large newspaper has three or four each day, to the small paragraphs, notes, and announcements with which the editorial page generally closes. From the Washington letter to the sporting gossip, everything tries in a way to have artistic merit, and everything bears the stamp of American literature. Nothing is pedantic. There is often a great lack of information and of perspective—perhaps, even, of conscientiousness in the examination of complaints—but everything is fresh, optimistic, clear and forcible, and always humorous between the lines.

In the weekly papers, America achieves still more. The light, fresh, and direct American style there finds its most congenial field. The same is true of the monthly papers in a somewhat more ambitious and permanent way. The leading social and political monthlies, like the venerable North American Review, which errs merely in laying too much emphasis on the names of its well-known contributors, and others are quite up to the best English reviews. The more purely literary Atlantic Monthly, which was founded in 1857 by a small circle of Boston friends, Lowell, Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, Whittier, and Motley, and which has always attracted the best talent of the country, is most nearly comparable to the Revue des Deux Mondes. Every monthly paper specially cultivates that literary form for which America has shown the most pronounced talent—the essay. The magazine essay entirely takes the place of the German brochure, a form which is almost unknown in America. The brochure, depending as it does wholly on its own merits to attract the attention of the public, must be in some way sensational to make up for its diminutive size; while an essay which is brought before the reader on the responsibility of a magazine needs no such motive power. It is one among many, and takes its due place, being only one of the items of interest that make up the magazine.

While in German literary circles the problems of the day are mostly argued in brochures, and the essay is a miniature book really written for the easy instruction of a public which would not read long books, the American essay is half-way between. It is living and satirical like the German brochure, but conservative and instructive like the German “Abhandlung.” Only when a number 463of essays on related topics come from the same pen are they put together and published as a separate book. We have already mentioned that America is oversupplied with such volumes of essays, which have almost all the same history—they were first lectures, then magazine articles, and now they are revised and published in book form. Their value is, of course, very diverse; but in general, they are interesting and important, often epoch-making, and the form is admirable. A distinguished treatment, pointed humour, a rich and clear diction, uncommonly happy metaphors, and a careful polish are united so as to make one forget the undeniable haste with which the material is gathered and the superficiality of the conclusions arrived at. So it happens that the essayists who appear in book form are much more appreciated by the reading public than their German colleagues, and that every year sees several hundred such volumes put on the market. The motto, “fresh and mature,” is nowhere more appropriate.

But the American remains an American, even in the apparently international realm of science. It is a matter of course for an historian to write in the personal style. Parkman, Motley, Prescott, and Fiske are very different types of historians; and nevertheless, they have in common the same way of approaching the subject and of giving to it form and life. But even in so purely a scientific work as William James’s two-volume “Principles of Psychology,” one finds such forcible and convincing turns of thought, so personal a form given to abstract facts, and such freshness together with such ripe mastery, as could come only from an American.

Oratory may be accounted an off-shoot of actual literature. A nation of politicians must reserve an honourable place for the orator, and for many years thousands of factors in public life have contributed to develop oratory, to encourage the slightest talent for speaking, and to reward able speakers well. Every great movement in American history has been initiated by eloquent speakers. Before the Revolution, Adams and Otis, Quincy and Henry, precipitated the Revolution by their burning words. And no one can discuss the great movement leading up to the Civil War without considering the oratory of Choate, Clay, Calhoun, Hayne, Garrison, and Sumner; of Wendell Phillips, the great 464popular leader, and Edward Everett, the great academician, and of Daniel Webster, the greatest statesman of them all.

In the present times of peace, the orator is less important than the essayist, and most of the party speeches to-day have not even a modest place in literature. But if one follows a Presidential campaign, listens to the leading lawyers of the courts, or follows the parliamentary debates of university students, one knows that the rhetorical talent of the American has not died since those days of quickening, and would spring up again strong and vigorous if any great subject, greater than were silver coinage or the Philippine policy, should excite again the nation. Keenness of understanding, admirable sense of form in the single sentence as in the structure of the whole, startling comparisons, telling ridicule, careful management of the climax, and the tone of conviction seem to be everybody’s gift. Here and there the phrase is hollow and thought is sacrificed to sound, but the general tendency goes toward brevity and simplicity. A most delightful variation of oratory is found in table eloquence; the true American after-dinner speech is a finished work of art. Often, of course, there are ordinary speeches which simply go from one story to another, quite content merely to relate them well. In the best speeches the pointed anecdote is not lacking either, but it merely decorates the introduction; the speaker then approaches his real subject half playfully and half in earnest, very sympathetically, and seeming always to let his thoughts choose words for themselves. The speeches at the Capitol are sometimes better than those in the Reichstag; but those at American banquets are not only better than the speeches at Festessen and Kommersen, but they are also qualitatively different—true literary works of art, for which the American is especially fitted by the freshness, humour, enthusiasm, and sense of symmetry which are naturally his.

Whoever looks about among journalists, essayists, historians, and orators will return more than once to the subject of belles-lettres; and this is truer in America than elsewhere. As we have already seen, pure literature is strongly biased toward the practical; it is glad to serve great ideas, whether moral or social. Poetry itself is sometimes an essay or sermon. We need not think here of romances which merely sermonize, and are therefore artistically 465second-rate, such as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” or of such literary rubbish as Bellamy’s “Utopia”; even true poets like Whittier must, in the history of emancipation, be classed with the political writers. And although the problem novel in the three-volume English form is not favoured in America because of its poor literary form, the short satirical and clean-cut society novel, which may break away at any moment into the essay or journalistic manner, has become all the more popular. Further, this being the time of America’s industrial struggle, society has not become so intellectually aristocratic that being a poet is a life profession. The leading novelists have had to be active in almost all fields of literature; they have frequently begun as journalists, and have generally been essayists, editors, or professors at the same time.

The eighteenth century was unfruitful for the New World, in lyric as in epic literature. The literary history discovers many names, but they are of men who created nothing original, and who cannot be compared with the great English geniuses. America was internally as well as externally dependent on England; and if one compares the utter intellectual unfruitfulness of Canada to-day with the feverish activity of her southern neighbour, one will inevitably ask whether political colonies can ever create literature. When freedom was first obtained by the colonies, a condition of new equilibrium was reached after a couple of decades of uncertainty and unrest, and then American literature woke up. Even then it was not free, and did not care to be free, from English precedents; and yet there were original personalities which came to the front. Washington Irving was, as Thackeray said, the first ambassador which the New World of literature sent to the Old. English influences are unmistakable in the tales of Irving, although he was a strong and original writer. His “Sketch-Book,” published in 1819, has remained the most popular of his books, and the poetic muse has never been hunted away from the shores of the Hudson where Rip Van Winkle passed his long slumbers.

The American novel had still not appeared. The romances of Brown, laid in Pennsylvania, were highly inartistic in spite of their forcible presentation. Then James Fenimore Cooper discovered the untouched treasures of the infinite wilderness. His “Spy” appeared in 1821, and he was at once hailed as the American Scott. In the next year appeared “The Pioneers,” the first 466of his Leather-stocking Tales of wild Indian life. And after Cooper’s thirty-two romances there followed many tales by lesser writers. Miss Sedgwick was the first woman to attain literary popularity, and her romances were the first which depicted the life of New England. At the same time a New England youth began to write verses which, by their serene beauty, were incomparably above all earlier lyric attempts of his native land. Bryant’s first volume of poems appeared in 1821, and therewith America had a literature, and England’s sarcastic question, “Who ever reads an American book?” was not asked again.

The movement quickly grew to its first culmination. A brilliant period commenced in the thirties, when Hawthorne, Holmes, Emerson, Longfellow, Thoreau, Curtis, and Margaret Fuller, all of New England, became the luminaries of the literary New World. And like the prelude to a great epoch rings the song of the one incomparable Edgar Allan Poe, who did not fight for ideas like a moral New Englander, but sang simply in the love of song. Poe’s melancholy, demoniacal, and melodious poetry was a marvellous fountain in the country of hard and sober work. And Poe was the first whose fantasy transformed the short story into a thing of the highest poetical form. In New England no one was so profoundly a poet as Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of “The Scarlet Letter.” His “Marble Faun,” of which the scene is laid in Italy, may show him in his fullest maturity, but his greatest strength lay in the romances of Massachusetts, which in their emotional impressiveness and artistic finish are as beautiful as an autumn day in New England. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the rhapsodical philosopher, wrote poems teeming over with thought, and yet true poems, while Whittier was the inspired bard of freedom; and besides these there was the trio of friends, Longfellow, Lowell, and Holmes. Harvard professors they were, and men of distinguished ability, whose literary culture made them the proper educators of the nation. Thomas Wentworth Higginson is the only one of this circle now living, remaining over, as it were, from that golden age. He fought at first to free the slaves, and then he became the stout defender of the emancipation of women, and is to-day, as then, the master of the reflective essay. His life is full of “cheerful yesterdays”; his fame is sure of “confident tomorrows.”

467Longfellow is, to the German, mainly the sensitive transposer of German poetry; his sketch-book, “Hyperion,” opened up the German world of myth, and brought the German romance across the ocean. His ballads and his delightful idyll of “Evangeline” clothed New England life, as it were, in German sentiment; and even his Indian edda, “Hiawatha,” sounds as if from a German troubadour wandering through the Indian country. Longfellow became the favourite poet of the American home, and American youth still makes its pilgrimage to the house in Cambridge where he once lived. Lowell was perhaps more gifted than Longfellow, and certainly he was the more many-sided. His art ranged from the profoundest pathos by which American patriotism was aroused in those days of danger, to the broadest and most whimsical humour freely expressed in dialect verses; and he also wrote the most finished idyllic poetry and keenly satirical and critical essays. It is common to exalt his humorous verses, “The Biglow Papers,” to the highest place of typical literary productions of America; nevertheless, his essential quality was fine and academic. Real American humour undoubtedly finds its truer expression in Holmes. Holmes was also a lyric poet, but his greatest work was the set of books by the “Autocrat.” His “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table” has that serious smile which makes world literature. It was the first of a long series, and at the writing he was a professor of anatomy, sixty-four years old.

Then there were many lesser lights around these great ones. At the middle of the century Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” of which ten thousand copies were sold every day for many months. And romance literature in general began to increase. At the same time appeared the beautiful songs of Bayard Taylor, whose later translation of Faust has never been surpassed, and the scarcely less admirable lyrics of Stedman and Stoddard. So it happened that at the time when the Civil War broke out, America, although deficient in every sort of productive science except history, had a brilliant literature. Science needed, first of all, solid academic institutions, which could only be built patiently, stone on stone—a work which has been witnessed by the last three decades of the century. Poetry, however, needed only the inner voice which speaks to the susceptible heart, and the encouragement of the people. For science there has 468been a steady, quiet growth, parallel with the growth of the institutions; for letters there have been changing fortunes, times of prosperity and times of stagnation. When the powder and smoke of the Civil War had blown away the happy days of literature were over; it began to languish, and only at the present day is it commencing to thrive once more.

This does not mean that there has been no talent for three decades, or that the general interest in literature has flagged. Ambitious writers of romance like Howells, James, Crawford, and Cable; novelists like Aldrich, Bret Harte, and Hale, Mary Wilkins, and Sarah Orne Jewett; poets like Lanier and Whitman, and humourists like Stockton and Mark Twain, have done much excellent work, and work that is partly great, and have shown the way to large provinces of literary endeavour. Nevertheless, compared with the great achievements which had gone before, theirs is rather a time of intermission. And yet many persons are quite prepared to say that Howells is the greatest of all American authors, and his realistic analyses among the very best modern romances. And Howells himself pays the same tribute to Mark Twain’s later and maturer writings.

But there is one poet about whom only the future can really decide; this is Walt Whitman. His “Leaves of Grass,” with their apparently formless verse, were greatly praised by some; by others felt to be barbarous and tasteless. There has been a dispute similar to that over Zarathustra of Nietzsche. And even as regards content, Whitman may be compared with Nietzsche, the radical democrat with the extreme aristocrat, for the exaggerated democratic exaltation of the ego leads finally to a point in which every single man is an absolute dictator in his own world, and therefore comes to feel himself unique, and proudly demands the right of the Uebermensch. “When they fight, I keep silent, go bathing, or sit marvelling at myself,” says this prophet of democracy. “In order to learn, I sat at the feet of great masters. Oh, that these great masters might return once more to learn of me.” The similarity between American and German intellects could readily be traced further, and was, perhaps, not wholly unfitted to reveal a certain broad literary perspective. As we have compared Whitman and Nietzsche, so we might compare Bryant with Platen, Poe with Heine, Hawthorne with Freytag, Lowell with Uhland, 469Whittier with Rückert, Holmes with Keller, Howells with Fontane, Crawford with Heyse, and so on, and we should compare thus contemporaries of rather equal rank. But such a parallelism, of course, could not be drawn too far, since it would be easy to show in any such pair important traits to belie the comparison.

In the positively bewildering literature of to-day, the novel and the short story strongly predominate. The Americans have always shown a special aptitude and fondness for the short story. Poe was the true master of that form, and the grace with which Aldrich has told the story of Marjorie Daw, and Davis of Van Bibber, the energy with which Hale has cogently depicted the Man Without a Country, or Bret Harte the American pioneer, and the intimacy with which Miss Wilkins and Miss Jewett have perpetuated the quieter aspects of human existence, show a true instinct for art. A profound appreciation, fresh vigour, and fine feeling for form, graceful humour and all the good qualities of American literature, combine to make the short story a perfect thing. It is not the German Novelle, but is, rather, comparable to the French conte. The short stories are not all of the single type; some are masculine and others feminine in manner. The finely cut story, which is short because the charm of the incidents would vanish if narrated in greater detail, is of the feminine type. And, of the masculine, is the story told in cold, sharp relief, which is short because it is energetic and impatient of any protracted waits. In both cases, everything unessential is left out. Perhaps the American is nowhere more himself than here; and short stories are produced in great numbers and are specially fostered by the monthly magazines.

Of humourists there are fewer to-day than formerly. Neither the refined humour of Irving, Lowell, and Holmes, nor the broader humour of Bret Harte and Mark Twain, finds many representatives of real literary importance. There are several, it is true, who are delighted with Dooley’s contemporary comment in the Irish dialect, but there is a much truer wit in the delicately satirical society novels of Henry James, and to a less degree in those of Grant, Herrick, Bates, and a hundred others, or in the romances of common life, such as Westcott’s “David Harum.”

The historical romance has flourished greatly. At first the fantasy went to far regions, and the traditional old figures of 470romance were tricked out in the gayest foreign costumes. The most popular of all has been Wallace’s “Ben Hur.” The Americans have long since followed the road which German writers have taken from Ebers to Dahn and Wildenbruch, and have revived their own national past. To be sure, the tremendous editions of these books are due rather to the desire for information than the love of poetry. The public likes to learn its national history while being entertained, since the national consciousness has developed so noticeably in the last decade and the social life of America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has doubtless become thus living and real for millions of Americans. Æsthetic motives predominate, nevertheless, and although books like Churchill’s “The Crisis,” Bacheller’s “D’ri and I,” Miss Johnston’s “Audrey,” Ford’s “Janice Meredith,” and others similar are merely books of the day, and will be replaced by others on the next Christmas-trees, nevertheless they are works of considerable artistic merit. They are forcibly constructed, dramatic, full of invention and delightful diction. It is undeniable that the general level of the American romance is to-day not inferior to that of Germany.

Historical romance aims, first of all, to awaken the national consciousness. So, for instance, the romances of the versatile physician, Weir Mitchell, are first of all histories of the Revolutionary period of the whole nation, and, secondarily, histories of early Pennsylvania. But the story which depends on local colour flourishes too. Here shows itself strongly that trait which is distinguishable in American writing through the whole century, from Irving, Cooper, and Bryant to the present day—the love of nature. Almost every part of the country has found some writer to celebrate its landscape and customs, not merely the curious inhabitants of the prairie and gold-fields, but the outwardly unromantic characters of the New England village and the Tennessee mountains, of the Southern plantations and the Western States. And new stories of this sort appear every day. Especially the new West figures prominently in literature; and the tireless ambition on which the city of Chicago is founded is often depicted with much talent. The novels of Fuller, Norris, and others are all extraordinarily forceful descriptions of Western life and civilization. The South of to-day, which shows symptoms of awaking 471to new life, is described more from the Northern than from the Southern point of view. It is surprising that the mental life of the American negro has attracted so little attention, since the short stories of Chestnut point to unexplored treasures.

The longer efforts are always in prose, and since the time of Evangeline epic verse has found almost no representative. Verse is almost wholly lyrical. The history of American lyric is contained in the large and admirable collections of Stedman, Onderdonk, and others; and it is the history of, perhaps, the most complete achievement of American literature. One who knows the American only in the usual caricature, and does not know what an idealist the Yankee is, would be surprised to learn that the lyric poem has become his favourite field. The romantic novel, which appeals to the masses, may have, perhaps, a commercial motive, while the book of verse is an entirely disinterested production. The lyric, in its fresh, intense, and finished way, reveals the inner being of American literature, and surprisingly much lyric verse is being written to-day. Even political newspapers, like the Boston Transcript, publish every day some lyric poem; and although here as everywhere many volumes of indifferent verse see the light of day, still the feeling for form is so general that one finds very seldom anything wholly bad and very often bits of deep significance and beauty. Here, too, the best-known things are not the most admirable. We hear too much of Markham’s “The Man With the Hoe,” and too little of Santayana’s sonnets or of Josephine Preston Peabody. Here, too, local colour is happily in evidence—as, for instance, in the well-known verses of Riley. The Western poet goes a different road from the Eastern. The South has never again sent a messenger so full of melodies as Sidney Lanier.

There is a strong lyric tendency also in the dramatic compositions of the day. The true drama has always been more neglected than any other branch of art, and if it is true that the Americans have preserved the temperament and point of view of Elizabethan England, it is high time for some American Shakespeare to step forth. Until now, extremely few plays of real literary worth have been written between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Dramatists there have been always, and the stage is now more than ever supplied by native talent; but literature is too little 472considered here. The rural dramas having the local colour of Virginia and New England are generally better than the society pieces: and the very popular dramatizations of novels are stirring, but utterly cheap. On the other hand, the American has often applied the lyric gift in dramatic verse, and in dramas of philosophic significance such as Santayana’s admirable “Lucifer” or Moody’s “Masque of Judgment.” The stunted growth of American dramatic writing is closely connected with the history of the American stage, a subject which may lead us from literature to the sister arts.

The history of the theatre leads us once more back to Puritan New England. Every one knows that the Puritan regarded the theatre as the very temple of vice, and the former association of the theatre and the bar-room—a tradition that came from England—naturally failed to make public opinion more favourable. In the year 1750 theatrical productions were entirely forbidden in Boston. One theatre was built in 1794, and a few others later, but the public feeling against demoralizing influences of the stage so grew that one theatre after another was turned from its profane uses and made over into a lecture hall or something of the sort. In 1839 it was publicly declared that Boston should never again have a theatre. Nevertheless by 1870, it had five theatres, and to-day it has fifteen. Other cities have always been more liberal toward the theatre, and in the city of New York, since 1733, ninety-five theatres have been built, of which more than thirty are still standing to-day and in active operation. Thus the Puritan spirit seems long since to have disappeared, and the backwardness of the drama seems not to be connected with the religious past of the country. But this is not the case.

Let us survey the situation. There is certainly no lack of theatres, for almost every town has its “opera house,” and the large cities have really too many. Nor is there any lack of histrionic talent; for, although the great Shakespearian actor, Edwin Booth, has no worthy successor, we have still actors who are greatly applauded and loved—Mansfield, Sothern, Jefferson, Drew, and Gillette; Maude Adams, Mrs. Fiske, Blanche Bates, Henrietta Crosman, Julia Arthur, Julia Marlowe, Ada Rehan, Nance O’Neill, and many others who are certainly sincere artists; and the 474most brilliant actors of Europe, Irving and Tree, Dusé, Bernhardt, Sorma, and Campbell come almost every year to play in this country. The American’s natural versatility gives him a great advantage for the theatrical career; and so it is no accident that amateur theatricals are nowhere else so popular, especially among student men and women. The equipments of the stage, moreover, leave very little to be desired, and the settings sometimes surpass anything which can be seen in Europe; one often sees marvellous effects and most convincing illusions. And these, with the American good humour, verve, and self-assurance, and the beauty of American women, bring many a graceful comedy and light opera to a really artistic performance. The great public, too, is quite content, and fills the theatres to overflowing. It seems almost unjust to criticise unfavourably the country’s theatres.

But the general public is not the only nor even the most important factor; the discriminating public is not satisfied. Artistic productions of the more serious sort are drowned out by a great tide of worthless entertainments; and however amusing or diverting the comedies, farces, rural pieces, operettas, melodramas, and dramatized novels may be, they are thoroughly unworthy of a people that is so ceaselessly striving for cultivation and self-perfection. Such pieces should not have the assurance to invade the territory of true art. And, although the lack of good plays is less noticeable, if one looks at the announcements of what is to be given in New York on any single evening, it is tremendously borne home on one by the bad practice of repeating the plays night after night for many weeks, so that a person who wants to see real art has soon seen every production which is worth while. In this respect New York is distinctly behind Paris, Berlin, or Vienna, although about on a level with London; and in the other large cities of America the situation is rather worse. Everywhere the stage caters to the vulgar taste, and for one Hamlet there are ten Geishas.

It cannot be otherwise, since the theatre is entirely a business matter with the managers. Sometimes there is an artist like the late Daly, who is ready to conduct a theatre from the truly artistic point of view, and who offers admirable performances; but this is an expensive luxury, and there are few who will afford it. It is a question of making money, and therefore of offering humorous 475or sentimental pieces which fill the theatre. There is another fact of which the European hardly knows; it is cheaper to engage a company to play a single piece for a whole year with mechanical regularity than to hire actors to give the study necessary to a diversified repertoire. After many repetitions, even mediocre actors can attain a certain skill, while in repertoire only good actors are found at all satisfactory, and the average will not be tolerated by the pampered public. Then, too, the accessories are much cheaper for a single piece.

Now, in a town of moderate size, one piece cannot be repeated many nights, so that the companies have to travel about. The best companies stay not less than a week, and if the town is large enough, they stay from four to six weeks. These companies are known by the name of the piece which they are presenting, or by the name of the leading actor, the “star.” The theatre in itself is a mere tenantless shell. In early fall the whole list of companies which are to people its stage through the next thirty weeks is arranged. In this way, it is true that the small city is able to see the best actors and the newest pieces. Yet one sees how sterile this principle is by considering some of the extreme cases. Jefferson has played his Rip Van Winkle and almost nothing else for thirty years; and the young people of Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston would be very unhappy if he were not to come in this rôle for a couple of weeks every winter. And he has thus become several times a millionaire.

But the business spirit has not stopped with this. The hundreds of companies compete with one another, so that very naturally a theatrical trust has been formed. The syndicate of Klaw, Erlanger & Frohman was organized in 1896 with thirty-seven leading theatres in large cities, all pledged to present none but companies belonging to the syndicate, while, in return, the syndicate agreed to keep the theatres busy every week in the season. The favourite actors and the favourite companies were secured, and the independent actors who resisted the tyranny found that in most of the large cities only second-rate theatres were open to them. One after another had to give in, and now the great trust under the command of Frohman has virtually the whole theatrical business of the country in its hands. The trust operates shrewdly and squarely; it knows its public, offers variety, follows 476the fashions, gives the great mimes their favourite rôles, pays them and the theatre owners well, relieves the actors from the struggle for promotion, and vastly amuses the public. It is impossible to resist this situation, which is so adverse to art.

All are agreed that there is only one way to better matters. Permanent companies must be organized, in the large cities at first, to play in repertoire. And these must be subsidized, so as not to be dependent for their support on the taste of the general public. Then and then only will the dramatic art be able to thrive, or the theatre become an educational institution, and so slowly cultivate a better demand, which in the end will come to make even the most eclectic theatre self-supporting. So it has always been on the European Continent; princes and municipalities have rivalled with one another to raise the level of dramatic art above what it would have to be if financially dependent solely on the box-office. In the United States there is certainly no lack of means or good will to encourage such an educational institution. Untold millions go to libraries, museums, and universities, and we may well ask why the slightest attempt has not been made to provide, by gift or from the public treasury, for a temple to the drama.

It is just here that the old Puritan prejudice is still felt to-day. The theatre is no longer under the ban of the law, but no step can be taken toward a subvention of the theatre. Most taxpayers in America would look with disfavour on any project to support a theatre from public funds. Why a theatre more than a hotel or restaurant? The theatre remains a place of frivolous amusement, and for that reason no millionaires have so far endowed a theatre. Men like Carnegie know too well that the general mass of people would blame them if they were to give their millions to the theatre, as long as a single town was still wishing for its library or its college.

The history of music in America has shown what can be attained by endowment—how the public demand can be educated so that even the very best art will finally be self-supporting. The development of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which is still the best musical organization in the country, is thoroughly typical. It was realized that symphony concerts, like the best given in Germany, would not be self-supporting, in view of the 477deficient musical education of the country. In 1880 Boston had two symphony orchestras, but both were of little account. They were composed of over-busied musicians, who could not spare the time needed for study and rehearsals. Then one of the most liberal and appreciative men of the country, Henry Lee Higginson, came forward and engaged the best musicians whom he could find, to give all their time and energy to an orchestra; and he himself guaranteed the expenses. During the first few years he paid out a fortune annually, but year by year the sum grew less, and to-day Boston so thoroughly enjoys its twenty-four symphony concerts, which are not surpassed by those of any European orchestra, that the large music-hall is too small to hold those who wish to attend. This example has been imitated, and now New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other cities have excellent and permanent orchestras.

Likewise various cities, but especially New York, enjoy a few weeks of German, French, and Italian opera which is equal to the best opera in Europe, by a company that brings together the best singers of Europe and America. In the case of opera the love of music has prevailed over the prejudice against the theatre. Extraordinarily high subscriptions for the boxes, and a reduced rental of the Metropolitan Opera House, which was erected by patrons of art, have given brilliant support to the undertaking. Without going into questions of principle, an impartial friend of music must admit that even the performances of Parsifal were artistically not inferior to those of Bayreuth, and the audience was quite as much in sympathy with the great masterpiece as are the assemblages of tourists at Bayreuth. The artistic education proceeding from these larger centres is felt through the entire country, and there is a growing desire for less ambitious but permanent opera companies.

The symphony and the opera are not the only evidences of the serious love of music in America. Every large city has its conservatory and its surplus of trained music teachers, and almost every city has societies which give oratorios, and innumerable singing clubs, chamber concerts, and regular musical festivals. Even the concerts by other soloists than that fashionable favourite of American ladies, Paderewski, are well attended. And these are not new movements; opera was given in New York as early 478as 1750, and the English opera of the eighteenth century was followed in 1825 by Italian opera. Also Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New Orleans early developed a love for music.

Boston has been the great centre for oratorio. The Händel and Haydn Society dates from 1810, and in 1820 a great many concerts were given all through the East, even in small towns. And the influence of the musical Germans was strongly felt by the middle of the century. The Germania Orchestra of Boston was founded in 1848, and now all the Western cities where German influences are strong, such as Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis, are centres of music, with many male choruses and much private cultivation of music in the home.

The churches, moreover, are a considerable support to music. The Puritan spirit disliked secular music no less than the theatre; but the popular hymns were always associated with the service of God, and so the love for music grew and its cultivation spread. Progress was made from the simplest melodies to fugue arrangements; organs and stringed instruments were introduced; the youth was educated in music, and finally in the last century church worship was made more attractive by having the best music obtainable. And thus, through the whole country, chorus and solo singing and instrumental skill have been everywhere favoured by the popular religious instinct.

So much for the performance of music. Musical composition has not reached nearly such a high point. It is sufficient to look over the programmes of recent years. Wagner leads among operatic composers, then follow Verdi, Gounod, and Mozart; Beethoven is the sovereign of the concert-hall, and The Messiah and The Creation are the most popular oratorios. Sometimes a suspicion has been expressed that American composers must have been systematically suppressed by the leading German conductors like Damrosch, Seidl, Gericke, Thomas, and Paur. But this is not remotely true. The American public is much more to be blamed; for, although so patriotic in every other matter, it looks on every native musical composition with distrust, and will hardly accept even the American singer or player until he has first won his laurels in Europe.

Still, there has been some composition in America. There were religious composers in the eighteenth century, and when everything 479English was put away at the time of the Revolution, the colonists replaced the psalm-tunes which they had brought over with original airs. Billings and his school were especially popular, although there was an early reaction against what he was pleased to call fugues. The nineteenth century brought forth little more than band-master music, with no sign of inspiration in real orchestral or operatic music. Only lately there have stepped into the field such eminent composers as MacDowell, Paine, Chadwick, Strong, Beech, Buck, Parker, and Foot. Paine’s opera of “Azara,” Chadwick’s overtures, and MacDowell’s interesting compositions show how American music will develop.

More popular was a modest branch of musical composition, the song in the style of folk-songs. America has no actual folk-songs. The average European imagines “Yankee Doodle” to be the real American song, anonymous and dreadful as it is, and in diplomatic circles the antiquated and bombastic “Hail Columbia” is conceived to be the official hymn of America. The Americans themselves recognize neither of these airs. The “Star Spangled Banner” is the only song which can be called national; it was written in 1814 to an old and probably English melody. The Civil War left certain other songs which stir the breast of every patriotic American.

On the other hand, folk-songs have developed in only one part of the country—on the Southern plantations—and with a very local colouring. The negro slaves sang these songs first, although it is unlikely that they are really African songs. They seem to be Irish and Scotch ballads, which the negroes heard on the Mississippi steamboats. Baptist and Methodist psalm-tunes and French melodies were also caught up by the musical negroes and modified to their peculiar melody and rhythm. A remarkable sadness pervades all these Southern airs.

Many song composers have imitated this most unique musical product of the country. In the middle of the century Stephen Foster rose to rapid popularity with his “Old Folks at Home,” which became the popular song, rivalled only by “Home Sweet Home,” which was taken from the text of an American opera, but of which the melody is said to have originated in Sicily. There are to-day all sorts of composers, some in the sentimental style and others in the light opera vein, whose street tunes are instantly 480sung, whistled and played on hurdy-gurdies from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and, worst of all, stridently rendered by the graphophones, with megaphone attachments, on verandahs in summer. There are composers of church hymns, of marches à la Sousa, and writers of piano pieces by the wholesale. All serious musicians agree that the American, unlike the Englishman, is decidedly musically inclined, but he is the incontestable master of only a very modest musical art—he can whistle as nobody else.

Unlike American music, American paintings are no longer strange to Europe. In the art division of the last Paris Exposition Americans took their share of the honours, and they are highly appreciated at most of the Berlin and Munich picture shows. Sargent and Whistler are the best known. Sargent, as the painter of elegant ladies, prosperous men, and interesting children, has undoubtedly the surest and most refined gift with his brush of any son of the New World. When, a few years ago, a large exhibition of his works was brought together in Boston, one felt on standing before that gathering of ultra-polite and almost living humanity, that in him the elegant world has found its most brilliant, though perhaps not its most flattering, transcriber. Whistler is doubtless the greater, the real sovereign. This most nervous of all artists has reproduced his human victims with positively uncanny perspicacity. Like Henry James, the novelist, he fathoms each human riddle, and expresses it intangibly, mysteriously. Everything is mood and suggestion, the dull and heavy is volatilized, the whole is a sceptical rendering in rich twilight tones.

America is proud of both artists, and still one may doubt whether the art of the New World would be justly represented if it sent across the ocean only these two pampered and somewhat whimsical artists. Firstly, in spite of much brilliant other work, they are both best known as portraitists, while it becomes plainer every day that landscape painting is the most typical American means of expression. The profound feeling for nature, which pervades American poetry and reflects the national life and struggle therewith, brings the American to study landscape. Many persons think even that if American artists were to send ever so many easel pictures across the ocean, the artistic public of Europe would still have no adequate judgment 481of American painting, because the best talent is busied with the larger pieces intended for wall decoration. The great number of monumental buildings, with their large wall surfaces and the desire for ambitious creations, attract the American to-day to wall-painting. And they try to strengthen the national character of this tendency by a democratic argument. The easel picture, it is said, is a luxury designed for the house of the wealthy and is, therefore, decadent, while the art of a nation which is working out a democracy must pertain to the people; and therefore just as early art adorned the temples and churches, this art must adorn the walls of public buildings, libraries, judicial chambers, legislatures, theatres, railway stations and city halls. And the more this comes to be the case, the less correct it is to judge the pinctile efforts of the time by the framed pictures that come into the exhibitions. Moreover, many of the more successful painters do not take the trouble to send any of their works across the ocean.

Sargent and Whistler also—and this is more important—speak a language which is not American, while the country has now developed its own grammar of painting, and the most representative artists are seldom seen in Europe. In painting, as in so many other branches, the United States has developed from the provincial to the cosmopolitan and from the cosmopolitan to the national, and is just now taking this last step. It is very characteristic that the untutored provincial has grown into the national only by passing through a cosmopolitan stage. The faltering powers of the beginner do not achieve a self-conscious expression of national individuality until they have first industriously and systematically imitated foreign methods, and so attained a complete mastery of the medium of expression.

At first the country, whose poor population was not able to pay much attention to pictures, turned entirely to England. West and Copley are the only pre-Revolutionary Americans whose pictures possess any value. The portraits of their predecessors—as, for instance, those in Memorial Hall at Harvard—are stiff, hard, and expressionless. Then came Gilbert Stuart at the end of the eighteenth century, whose portraits of George and Martha Washington are famous, and who showed himself an artistic genius and quite the equal of the great English portraitists. John 482Trumbull, an officer in the Revolutionary Army, who lived at the same time, was still more important for the national history by his war pictures, the best of which were considerably above contemporary productions. The historical wall-paintings which he made in 1817, for the Capitol at Washington, are in his later and inferior manner. They seem to-day, like everything which was done in the early part of the century to decorate the Capitol, hackneyed and tiresome. And if one goes from the Capitol to the Congressional Library, which shows the condition of art at the end of the nineteenth century, one feels how far the public taste of Trumbull’s time was from appreciating true art. Portraiture was the only art which attained tolerable excellence, where, besides Stuart, there were Peale, Wright, and Savage. Then came the day of the “American Titian,” Allston, whose Biblical pictures were greatly praised for their brilliant colouring.

Hitherto artists had gone to England to study or, indeed, sometimes to Italy. In the second third of the century they went to Düsseldorf; they painted American landscapes, American popular life, and historical pictures of American heroes, all in German fashion. They delighted in genre studies in the Düsseldorf manner, and painted the Hudson River all bathed in German moonlight. While the popular school was still painting the world in blackish brown, the artistic secession began at about the time of the Civil War. Then artists began to go to Paris and Munich, and American painting developed more freely. It was a time of earnest, profound, and independent study such as had so far never been. The artist learned to draw, learned to see values, and, in the end, to be natural. The number of artists now began to increase, and to-day Americans produce thousands of pictures each year, and one who sees the European exhibitions in summer and the American in winter does not feel that the latter are on a much lower level.

Since Allston’s time the leaders in landscape have been Cole, Bierstadt, Kensett, and Gifford; in genre, Leslie, Woodville, and particularly Mount; in historical painting, Lentze and White; and in portraiture, Inman and Elliott. The first who preached the new doctrine of individuality and colour was Hunt, and in the early seventies the new school just graduated from Paris and Munich was bravely at work. There are many well-known 483names in the last thirty years, and it is a matter rather of individual choice what pictures one prefers of all the large number. Yet no one would omit George Inness from the list, since he has seen American landscapes more individually than any one else. Besides his pictures every one knows the marines of Winslow Homer, the street scenes of Childe Hassam, the heads of Eaton, the autumn forests of Enneking, the apple trees in spring-time of Appleton Brown, the delicate landscapes of Weir and Tryon, the wall pictures of Abbey, Cox, and Low, Gaugengigl’s little figure paintings, Vedder’s ambitious symbolism, the brilliant portraits of Cecilia Beaux and Chase, the women’s heads of Tarbell, the ideal figures of Abbot Thayer, and the works of a hundred other American artists, not to mention those who are really more familiar in London, Paris, and Munich than in America itself.

Besides the oil pictures, there are excellent water-colours, pastelles, and etchings; and, perhaps most characteristic of all, there is the stained glass of La Farge, Lathrop, the late Mrs. Whitman, Goodhue, and others. The workers in pen-and-ink are highly accomplished, of whom the best known is Gibson, whose American women are not only artistic, but have been socially influential on American ideals and manners. His sketches for Life have been themselves models for real life. Nor should we forget Pennell, the master of atmosphere in pen-and-ink.

Sculpture has developed more slowly. It presupposes a higher understanding of art than does painting; and, besides that, the prudishness of the Puritan has affected it adversely. When John Brazee, the first American amateur sculptor, in the early part of the nineteenth century, asked advice of the president of the New York Academy of Arts, he was told that he would better wait a hundred years before practicing sculpture in America. The speech admirably showed the general lack of interest in plastic art. But the impetuous pressure toward self-perfection existing in the nation shortened the century into decades; people began to journey through Italy. The pioneers of sculpture were Greenough, Powers, Crawford, and Palmer, and their statues are still valued for their historical interest. The theatrical genre groups of John Rogers became very popular; and Randolph Rogers, who created the Columbus bronze doors of the Capitol, 484was really an artist. Then came Storey, Ball, Rinehart, Hosmer, Mead, and many others with works of greater maturity. Squares and public buildings were filled with monuments and busts which, to be sure, were generally more interesting politically than artistically, and which to-day wait patiently for a charitable earthquake. And yet they show how the taste for plastic art has slowly worked upward.

More recent movements, which are connected with the names of Ward, Warner, Partridge, French, MacMonnies, and St. Gaudens, have already left many beautiful examples of sculpture. Cities are jealously watchful now that only real works of art shall be erected, and that monuments which are to be seen by millions of people shall be really characteristic examples of good art. More than anything else, sculpture has at length come into a closer sympathy with architecture than perhaps it has in any other country. The admirable sculptural decorations of the Chicago World’s Fair, the effective Dewey Triumphal Arch and the permanent plastic decorations of the Congressional Library, the more restrained and distinguished decorations of the Court of Appeals in New York City, and of many similar buildings show clearly that American sculpture has ended its period of immaturity. Such a work as St. Gaudens’s Shaw Memorial in Boston is among the most beautiful examples of modern sculpture; and it is thoroughly American, not only because the negro regiment marches behind the mounted colonel, but because the American subject is handled in the American spirit. These men are depicted with striking vigour, and the young hero riding to his death is conceived with Puritan sobriety. Vigorous and mature is the American, in plastic art as well as in poetry.

The development of architecture has been a very different one. A people must be housed, and cannot stay out of doors until it has learned what is beautiful in architecture. People could wait for poetry, music, and painting while they were busy in keeping off the Indians and felling the forests; but they had to have houses at once. And since at that time they had no independent interests in art, they imitated forms with which they had been familiar, and everywhere perpetuated the architectural ideas of their mother country. But the builder is at a disadvantage beside the painter, the singer, and the poet, in that when he imitates 485he cannot even do that as he will, but is bound down by climate, by social requirements, and especially by his building material. And when he is placed in new surroundings, he is forced to strike out for himself.

Although the American colonist remained under the influence of English architecture, his environment forced him in the first place to build his house of wood instead of stone as in England, and in wood he could not so easily copy the pattern. It had to be a new variation of the older art. And so architecture, although it more slavishly followed the mother country than any other art, was the earliest to strike out in some respects on an independent course. It borrowed its forms, but originated their applications; and while it slowly adopted new ideas of style and became gradually free of European styles, it became free even earlier in their technical application, owing to the new American conditions. More than any other feature of her civilization, American architecture reveals the entire history of the people from the days when the Puritans lived in little wooden villages to the present era of the sky-scraper of the large cities; and in this growth more than in that of any other art the whole country participates, and specially the West, with its tremendous energy, which is awkward with the violin-bow and the crayon but is well versed in piling stone on stone.

In colonial days, English renaissance architecture was imitated in wood, a material which necessitated slender columns and called for finer detail and more graceful lines than were possible in stone. One sees to-day, especially in the New England States, many such buildings quite unaltered; and the better of these in Salem, Cambridge, and Newport are, in spite of their lightness, substantial and distinguished as no European would think possible in so ordinary a material as wood. Large, beautiful halls, with broad, open staircases and broad balusters, greet the visitor; large fireplaces, with handsomely carved chimney-pieces, high wainscotings on the walls and beautiful beams across the ceilings. The more modest houses show the same thing on a smaller scale. There was this one style through the whole town, and its rules were regarded as canonical. In certain parts of the country there were inconspicuous traces of Spanish, French, and Dutch influence, which survive to-day in many places, especially in 486the South, and contribute to the picturesqueness of the architectural whole.

After the Revolutionary period, people wished to break with English traditions, and the immigration from many different countries brought a great variety of architectural stimulation. A time of general imitation had arrived, for in architecture also the country was to grow from the provincial to the national through a cosmopolitan stage. At the end of the eighteenth century, architecture was chiefly influenced by the classic Greek. Farmhouses masqueraded as big temples, and the thoughtless application of this form became so monotonous that it was not continued very long in private houses. Then the Capitol at Washington was begun by Latrobe and finished by the more competent Bulfinch, and it became the model for almost all state capitols of the Union. Bulfinch himself designed the famous State House of Massachusetts, but it was the Puritan spirit of Boston which selected the austere Greek temple to typify the public spirit. The entire century, in spite of many variations, stood under this influence, and until recently nobody has ventured to put up a civil structure in a freer, more picturesque style.

Many of these single state capitols built during the century, such as the old one at Albany, are admirable; while the post-offices, custom-houses, and other buildings dedicated to federal uses have been put up until recently cheaply and without thought. Lately, however, the architect has been given freer play. Meanwhile taste had wandered from the classic era to the Middle Ages, and the English Gothic had come to be popular. The romantic took the place of the classic, and the buildings were made picturesque. The effect of this was most happy on church edifices, and about the middle of the century Richard Upjohn, “the father of American architecture,” built a number of famous churches in the Gothic style.

But in secular edifices this spirit went wholly to architectural lawlessness. People were too little trained to preserve a discipline of style along with the freedom of the picturesque. And even more unfortunate than the lack of training of the architect, who committed improprieties because uncertain in his judgment, there was the tastelessness of the parvenu patron, and this particularly in the West. Then came the time of unrest and vulgar 487splurge, when in a single residential street palaces from all parts of the world were cheaply copied, and just as in Europe forgotten styles were superficially reproduced. The Queen Anne style became fashionable; and then native colonial and Dutch motives were revived.

This period is now long past. The last twenty-five years in the East and the last ten years in the West have seen this tasteless, hap-hazard, and ignorant experimenting with different styles give place to building which is thoughtful, independent, and generally beautiful; though, of course, much that is ugly has continued to be built. Architecture itself has developed a careful school, and the public has been trained by the architects. Of course, many regrettable buildings survive from former periods, so that the general impression to-day is often very confused; but the newer streets in the residential, as well as the business, portions of cities and towns display the fitting homes and office buildings of a wealthy, independent, and art-loving people. In comparison with Europe, a negative feature may be remarked; namely, the notable absence of rococo tendencies. It is sometimes found in interior decorations, but never on exteriors.

The positive features which especially strike the European are the prevalence of Romanesque and of the sky-scrapers. The round arch of the Romans comes more immediately from southern France; but since its introduction to America, notably by the architectural genius Richardson, the round arch has become far more popular than in Europe, and has given rise to a characteristic American style, which is represented to-day in hundreds of substantial buildings all over the country. There is something heavy, rigid, and at the same time energetic, in these great arches resting on short massive columns, in the great, pointed, round towers, in the heavy balconies and the low arcades. The primitive force of America has found its artistic expression here, and the ease with which the new style has adapted itself to castle-like residences, banks, museums, and business houses, and the quickness with which it has been adopted, in the old streets of Boston as in the newer ones of Chicago and Minneapolis, all show clearly that it is a really living style, and not merely an architectural whim.

The Romanesque style grew from an artistic idea, while the 488sky-scraper has developed through economic exigencies. New York is an island, wherefore the stage of her great business life cannot be extended, and every inch has had to be most advantageously employed. It was necessary to build higher than commercial structures have ever been carried in Europe. At first these buildings were twenty stories high, but now they are even thirty. To rest such colossal structures on stone walls would have necessitated making the walls of the lower stories so thick as to take up all the most desirable room, and stone was therefore replaced by steel. The entire structure is simply a steel framework, lightly cased in stone. Herewith arose quite new architectural problems. The subdivision of the twenty-story façade was a much simpler problem than the disposal of the interior space, where perhaps twenty elevators have to be speeding up and down, and ten thousand men going in and out each day. The problem has been admirably solved. The absolute adaptation of the building to its requirements, and its execution in the most appropriate material—namely, steel and marble—the shaping of the rooms to the required ends, and the carrying out of every detail in a thoroughly artistic spirit make a visit to the best office buildings of New York an æsthetic delight. And since very many of these are now built side of one another, they give the sky-line of the city a strength and significance which strike every one who is mature enough to find beauty in that to which he is not accustomed. When the problem had once been solved, it was natural for other industrial cities to imitate New York, and the sky-scraper is now planted all over the West.

American architecture of to-day is happily situated, because the population is rapidly growing, is extraordinarily wealthy, and seriously fond of art. An architect who has to be economical, must make beauty secondary to utility. In the western part of the country, considerable economy is often exercised and mostly in the very worst way. The pretentious appearance of the building is preserved, but the construction is made cheap; the exterior is made of stucco instead of stone, and the interior finish is not carved, but pressed. This may not, after all, be so much for the sake of economy, as by reason of a deficient æsthetic sense. People who would not think of preferring a chromo-lithograph to an oil-painting do not as yet feel a similar distinction between 489architectural materials. For the most part, however, the buildings now erected are rich and substantial. The large public and semi-public buildings, court-houses and universities, state capitols and city halls, libraries and museums are generally brilliant examples of architecture. The same is true of the buildings for industrial corporation, offices, banks, hotels, life-insurance companies, stock-exchanges, counting-houses, railway stations, theatres and clubs, all of which, by their restrained beauty, inspire confidence and attract the eye. These are companies with such large capital that they never think of exercising economy on their buildings. The architect can do quite as he likes. New York has a dozen large hotels, each one of which is, perhaps, more splendid in marble and other stones than any hotel in Europe; and while Chicago, Boston, and other cities have fewer such hotels, they have equally handsome ones.

The fabulously rapid and still relatively late growth of handsome public buildings in the last decade is interesting from still another point of view. It reveals a trait in the American public mind which we have repeatedly contrasted with the thought of Europe. American ambitions have grown out of the desire for self-perfection. The American’s own person must be scrupulously, neatly, and carefully dressed, his own house must be beautiful; and only when the whole nation, as it were, has satisfied the needs of the individual can æsthetic feeling go out to the community as a whole—from the individual persons to the city, from the private house to the public building. It has been exactly the opposite on the European Continent. The ideal individual was later than the ideal community. Splendid public buildings were first put up in Europe, while people resided in ugly and uninviting houses.

There was a period in which the American did not mind stepping from his daily bath, and going from his sumptuous home immaculately attired to a railway station or court-house which was screamingly hideous and reeking with dirt. And similarly there was a time in which the Germans and the French moved in and out of the wonderful architectural monuments of their past in dirty clothing, and perhaps without having bathed for many days. In Germany the public building has influenced the individual, and eventually worked toward beautifying his house. In America the individual and the private house have only very 490slowly spread their æsthetic ideals through the public buildings. The final results in both countries must be the same. There is exactly the same contrast in the ethical field; whereas in Germany and France public morals have spread into private life, in America individual morals have spread into public life. As soon as the transition has commenced it proceeds rapidly.

In Germany few private houses are now built without a bathroom, and in America few public buildings without consideration for what is beautiful. The great change in railway stations indicates the rapidity of the movement. Even ten years ago there were huge car-sheds in the cities, and little huts in country districts, which so completely lacked any pretensions to beauty that æsthetic criticism was simply out of place. Now, on the contrary, most of the large cities have palatial stations, of which some are among the most beautiful in the world, and many railway companies have built attractive little stations all along their lines. As soon as such a state of things has come about, a reciprocal influence takes place between the individual and the communal desire for perfection, and the æsthetic level of the nation rises daily. So, too, the different arts stimulate one another. The architect plans his work from year to year more with the painter and sculptor in mind, so that the erection of new buildings and the growth and wealth of the people benefit not merely architecture, but the other arts as well.

Still other factors are doing their part to elevate the artistic life of the United States. And here particularly works the improved organization of the artistic professions. In former times, the true artist had to prefer Europe to his native home, because in his home he found no congenial spirits; this is now wholly changed. There is still the complaint that the American cities are even now no Kunststädte; and, compared with Munich or with Paris, this is still true. But New York is no more and no less a Kunststädte than is Berlin. In all the large cities of America the connoisseurs and patrons of art have organized themselves in clubs, and the national organizations of architects, painters, and sculptors, have become influential factors in public life; and the large art schools with well-known teachers and the studios of private masters have become great centres for artistic endeavour. A general historical study of architecture has even been introduced in universities, and 491already the erection of a national academy of art is so actively discussed that it will probably be very soon realized. Certainly every American artist will continue to visit Europe, as every German artist visits Italy; but all the conditions are now ripe in America for developing native talent on native soil.

The artistic education of the public is not less important nor far behind the professional education of the artist. We have discussed the general appreciation of architecture, and the same public education is quietly going on in the art museums. Of course, the public art galleries of America are necessarily far behind those of Europe, since the art treasures of the world were for the most part distributed when America began to collect. And yet it is surprising what treasures have been secured, and in some branches of modern painting and industrial art the American collections are not to be surpassed. Thus the Japanese collection of pottery in Boston has nowhere its equal, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York leads the world in several respects. Modern German art is unfortunately ill represented, but modern French admirably. Here is a large field open for a proper German ambition; German art needs to be recognized much more throughout the country. It must show that American distrust is absolutely unjustified, that it has made greater artistic advances than any other nation, and that German pictures are quite worthy of a large place in the collections.

There are many extraordinary private collections which were gathered during the cosmopolitan period that the nation has gone through. Just as foreign architecture was imitated, so the treasures of foreign countries in art and decoration were secured at any price; and owing to the great wealth, the most valuable things were bought, often without intelligent appreciation, but never without a stimulating effect. One is often surprised to find famous European paintings in private houses, often in remote Western cities; and the fact that for many years Americans have been the best patrons of art in the markets of the world, could not have been without its results. At the height of this collecting period American art itself probably suffered: a moderately good French picture was preferred to a better American picture; but all these treasures have indirectly benefited native art, and still do benefit it, so much that the better artists of the country are much opposed to the 492absurd protective tariff that is laid on foreign works of art. The Italian palace of Mrs. Gardner in Boston contains the most superb private collection; but just here one sees that the cosmopolitan period of collection and imitation is, after all, merely an episode in the history of American art. An Italian palace has no organic place in New England, although the artistic merits of the Gardner collection are perhaps nowhere surpassed.

The temporary exhibitions which are just now much in fashion have, perhaps, more influence than the permanent museums. Every large city has its annual exhibitions, and in the artistic centres, one special collection comes after another. And the strongest general stimulation has emanated from the great expositions. When the nation visited Philadelphia in 1876, the American artistic sense was just waking up, and the impetus there started was of decisive significance. It is said that the taste for colour in household decoration and fittings, for handsome carpets and draperies, came into the country at that time. When Chicago built its Court of Honour in 1893, which was more beautiful than what Paris could do seven years later, the country became for the first time aware that American art could stand on its own feet, and this æsthetic self-consciousness has stimulated endeavour through the entire nation. In Chicago, for the first time, the connection between architecture and sculpture came properly to be appreciated; and, more than all else, the art of the whole world was then brought into the American West, and that which previously had been familiar only to the artistic section between Boston and Washington was offered to the masses in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri. Chicago has remained since that time one of the centres of American architecture, and the æsthetic level of the entire West was raised, although it is still below that of the Eastern States. And once more, after a very short pause, St. Louis is ambitious enough to try the bold experiment which New York and Boston, like Berlin and Munich, have always avoided. The World’s Fair at St. Louis will surely give new impetus to American art, and especially to the artistic endeavour of the Western States.

If a feeling for art is really to pervade the people, the influence must not begin when persons are old enough to visit a world’s fair, but rather in childhood. The instruction in drawing, or rather in art, since drawing is only one of the branches, must undertake 493the æsthetic education of the youth in school. It cannot be denied that America has more need of such æsthetic training of children than Germany. The Anglo-Saxon love of sport leads the youth almost solely to the bodily games which stimulate the fancy much less than the German games of children, and other influences are also lacking to direct the children’s emotional life in the road of æsthetic pleasure. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the problem has been well solved in America. The American art training in school, say on the Prang system, which more than 20,000 teachers are using in class instruction, is a true development of the natural sense of beauty. The child learns to observe, learns technique, learns the value of lines and colours, and learns, more than all, to create beauty. In place of merely copying he divides and fills a given space harmoniously, and so little by little goes on to make small works of art. Generations which have enjoyed such influences must look on their environment with new eyes, and even in the poorest surroundings instinctively transform what they have, in the interests of beauty.

Corresponding to these popular stimulations of the sense of beauty is the wish to decorate the surroundings of daily life, most of all the interior; even in more modest circles to make them bright, pleasing, and livable, whereas they have too long been bare and meaningless. The arts and crafts have taken great steps forward, have gotten the services of true artists, and accomplished wonderful results. The glittering glasses of Tiffany and many other things from his world-famous studios are unsurpassed. There are also the wonderfully attractive silver objects of Gorham, the clay vases of the Rockwood Pottery, objects in cut-glass and pearl, furniture in Old English and Colonial designs, and much else of a similar nature. And for the artistic sense it is more significant and important that at last even the cheap fabrics manufactured for the large masses reveal more and more an appreciation of beauty. Even the cheap furniture and ornaments have to-day considerable character; and no less characteristic is the general demand, which is much greater than that of Europe, for Oriental rugs. The extravagant display of flowers in the large cities, the splendid parks and park-ways such as surround Boston, the beautification of landscapes which Charles Eliot has so admirably effected, and in social life the increasing fondness for coloured 494and æsthetic symbols, such as the gay academic costumes, the beautiful typography and book-bindings, and a thousand other things of the same sort, indicate a fresh, vigorous, and intense appreciation of beauty.

While such a sense for visible beauty has been developed by the wealth and the artistic instruction of the country, one special condition more has affected not only the fine arts but also poetry and literature. This is the development of the national feeling, which more than anything else has stimulated literary and artistic life. The American feels that he has entered the exclusive circle of world powers, and must like the best of them realize and express his own nature. He is conscious of a mission, and the national feeling is unified much less by a common past than by a common ideal for the future. His national feeling is not sentimental, but aggressive; the American knows that his goal is to become typically American. All this gives him the courage to be individual, to have his own points of view, and since he has now studied history and mastered technique, this means no longer to be odd and freakish, but to be truly original and creative. He is now for the first time thoroughly aware what a wealth of artistic problems is offered by his own continent, by his history, by his surroundings, and by his social conditions. And just as American science has been most successful in developing the history, geography, geology, zoölogy, and anthropology of the American Continent, so now his new art and literature are looking about for American material.

His hopes are high; he sees indications of a new art approaching which will excite the admiration of the world. He feels that the great writer is not far off who will express the New World in the great American novel. Who shall say that these hopes may not be realized to-morrow? For it is certain that he enjoys an unusual combination of favourable conditions for developing a world force. Here are a people thoroughly educated in the appreciation of literature and art—a people in the hey-day of success, with their national feeling growing, and having, by reason of their economic prosperity, the amplest means for encouraging art; a people who find in their own country untold treasures of artistic and literary problems, and who in the structure of their government and customs favour talent wherever it is found; a people who have learned much in cosmopolitan studies and to-day have mastered 495every technique, who have absorbed the temperament and ambitions of the most diverse races and yet developed their own consistent, national consciousness, in which indomitable will, fertile invention, Puritan morals, and irrepressible humour form a combination that has never before been known. The times seem ripe for something great.

The individualistic conception of life and the religious conceptions of the world favour each other. The more that an individual’s religious temperament sees this earthly life merely as a preparation for the heavenly, the more he puts all his efforts into the development of his individual personality. General concepts, civilizations, and political powers cannot, as such, enter the gates of heaven; and the perfection of the individual soul is the only thing which makes for eternal salvation. On the other hand, the more deeply individualism and the desire for self-perfection have taken hold on a person, so much the deeper is his conviction that the short shrift before death is not the whole meaning of human existence, and that his craving for personal development hints at an existence beyond this world. Through such individualism, it is true, religion is in a sense narrowed; the idea of immortality is unduly emphasized. Yet the whole life of an individualistic nation is necessarily religious. The entire American people are in fact profoundly religious, and have been from the day when the Pilgrim Fathers landed, down to the present moment.

On the other hand, individualism cannot decide whether we ought to look on God with fear or with joy, to conceive Him as revengeful or benevolent, to think human nature sinful or good. The two most independent American thinkers of the eighteenth century, Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin, represent here the two extremes. The men who have made American history and culture took in early times the point of view of Edwards, but take to-day rather that of Franklin.

Can it be said that America is really religious to-day? From first impressions, a European may judge the opposite; first and 497most of all, he observes that the government does not concern itself with the church. Article VI of the Constitution expressly forbids the filling of any office or any political position of honour in the United States being made dependent on religion, and the first amendment adds that Congress may never pass a law aiming to establish any official religion or to hinder religious freedom. This provision of the Constitution is closely followed in the Constitutions of the several states. The government has nothing to do with the church; that is, the church lacks the powerful support of the state which it receives in all monarchical countries; and in fact the state interprets this neutrality prescribed by the Constitution so rigorously that, for example, statistics of religious adherence for the last great census were obtained from the church organizations, because the state has not the right to inquire into the religious faith of citizens. Ecclesiastics pass no state examinations to show their fitness to preach; millions of people belong to no church organization; the lower masses are not reached by any church, and the public schools have no religious instruction. It might thus appear as if the whole country were as indifferent to religion as European humourists have declared it to be, in saying that the Almighty Dollar is the American’s only god.

On looking more closely, one finds very soon that the opposite is the case. Although it is true that the state is not concerned with religion, yet this provision of the Constitution in no wise signifies any wish to encourage religious indifference. The states which united to form the Federation were profoundly religious; both Protestants and Catholics had come to the New World to find religious freedom, had made great renunciations to live in their faith untroubled by the persecutions of the Old World, and every sect of Europe had adherents on this side of the ocean. Not a few of the states were, in their general temperament, actually theocratic. Not only in Puritan New England had the church all the power in her hands, but in the colony of Virginia, the seat of the English High-Churchmen, it was originally the law that one who remained twice away from church was flogged, and on the third time punished with death. When America broke away from England, almost every state had its special and pronounced religious complexion. The majority of the population in the separate colonies had generally forced their religion on the 498whole community, and religious interests were everywhere in the foreground.

Although, finally, Jefferson’s proposition constitutionally to separate church and state was accepted, this move is not to be interpreted as indifference, but rather as a wish to avoid religious conflicts. In view of such pronounced differences as those between Puritans, Quakers, High-Churchmen, Catholics, etc., the establishment of any church as a state institution would have required a subordination of the other sects which would have been felt as suppression. The separation of the church from the state simply meant freedom for every sect. Then, too, not all the separate states followed the federal precedent; the New England States especially favoured, by their taxation laws, the Calvinistic faith until the beginning of the nineteenth century; and Massachusetts was the last to introduce complete religious neutrality, as lately as 1833. In the Southern States, the relations between church and state were more easily severed; and in the Middle States, even during colonial times, there was general religious freedom.

Whether or not the separation was rapid or slow, or whether it took place under the passive submission, or through the active efforts of the clergy, the churches everywhere soon became the warmest supporter of this new condition of things. All the clergy found that in this way the interests of religion were best preserved. The state does nothing to-day for the churches except by way of laws in single states against blasphemy and the disturbance of religious worship, and by the recognition, but not the requirement, of church marriage. There are also remnants of the connection in the recognized duty of the President to appoint the annual day of Thanksgiving, and in cases of signal danger to appoint days of fasting and prayer, and one more remnant in the fact that the legislatures are opened by daily prayer. Otherwise, the state and church move in separate dimensions of space, as it were, and there is no attempt to change this condition.

It was, therefore, no case of an orthodox minority being forced to content itself with an unchurchly state; but neither party nor sect nor state had the slightest wish to see church and state united. The appreciation of this mutual independence is so great that public opinion turns at once against any church which tries to exert a political influence, whether by supporting a certain political body 499in local elections or by trying to obtain public moneys for its educational institutions and hospitals. When, for instance, the principal anti-Catholic organization, the so-called American Protective Association, became regrettably wide-spread, it got its strength, not from any Protestant ecclesiastical opposition, but only from the political antipathy against that church which seemed the most inclined to introduce such un-American side influences in party politics. Every one felt that a great American principle was there at stake.

Thus the legal status of the churches is that of a large private corporation, and nobody is required to connect himself with any church. Special ecclesiastical legislation is, therefore, superfluous; every church may organize, appoint officers, and regulate its property matters and disciplinary questions as it likes, and any disputed points are settled by civil law, as in the case of all corporations. Just as with business companies, a certain sort of collective responsibility is required; but the competition between churches, as between industrial corporations, is unhampered, and the relation of the individual to his church is that of ordinary contract. One hundred and forty-eight different sects appeal to-day for public favour. To the European this sounds at first like secularization, like a lowering of the church to the level of a stock company—like profanation. And still no Catholic bishop nor Orthodox minister would wish it different. Now how does this come about?

In the first place individualism has even here victoriously carried through its desire for self-determination. Nobody is bound to belong to any congregation, and one who belongs is therefore willing to submit himself to its organization, to subscribe to its by-laws, and to support its expenditures. Nobody pays public taxes for any church, nor is under ecclesiastical authority which he does not freely recognize. The church is, therefore, essentially relieved of any suspicion of interfering with individual freedom. The individual himself is for the same reason not only free to adopt or to reject religion, but also to express his personal views in any form or creed whatsoever. Only where the church exercises no authority on thought or conscience can it be supported by the spirit of self-determination. Thus, the Mennonite Church has already developed twelve sects, the Baptist thirteen, the 500Methodist seventeen, and all of these are equally countenanced. At the same time the reproach can never be made that the church owes its success to the assistance of the state: what it does is by its own might; and so its success is thoroughly intrinsic and genuine, its zeal is quickened, and its whole activities kept apart from the world of political strife and directed toward ideals.

The church which is not supported by any written laws of the state is not, for that reason, dependent alone on the religious ideals of its adherents, but also on the unwritten law of the social community. The less the authority of the state, the more the society as a whole realizes its duties; and while society remains indifferent as long as religion is enforced by external means, it becomes energetic as soon as it feels itself responsible for the general religious situation. The church has had no greater fortune than in having religion made independent of the state and made the affair of society at large. Here an obligation could be developed, which is perhaps more firm and energetic than that of the state, but which is nevertheless not felt as an interference, firstly, because the political individual is untouched, and secondly, because the allegiance to a certain social class is not predetermined, but becomes the goal and the honourable achievement of the individual. Of course, even the social obligation would not have developed had there not been a deep religious consciousness living in the people; but such individual piety has been able to take much deeper root in a soil socially so favourable. A religiously inclined population, which has made churchliness a social and not a political obligation, affords the American church the most favourable condition for its success that could be imagined.

One may see even from the grouping of sects, how much the church is supported by society. If anywhere democracy seems natural, it should be in the eyes of God; and yet, if Americans show anywhere social demarcations, it is in the province of religion. This is true, not only of different churches where the expense of membership is so unequal that in large cities rich and poor are farther apart on Sundays than on week-days, but it is true of the sects themselves. Methodists and Episcopalians or Baptists and Unitarians form in general utterly different social groups, and one of these sects is socially predominant in one section of the country, another in another. But just because 501religious differences are so closely related to the differences existing in the social world, the relations between the sects are thoroughly friendly. Each has its natural sphere.

It is certain that the large number of sects are helpful in this direction, since they make the distinction between related faiths extremely small, sometimes even unintelligible to all except the theological epicure; and, indeed, they often rest on purely local or ancestral distinctions. Thus the German Reformed and the Dutch Reformed churches are called two sects, and even the African Methodist Episcopalians and the Coloured Methodist Episcopalians wish to be distinguished from each other as from the other negro sects. Where large parties oppose each other, a war for principles can break out; but where the religions merge into one another through many small gradations, the consciousness of difference is less likely to be joined to any feeling of opposition. The real opponent of churches is the common enemy, the atheist, although the more straitlaced congregations are not quite sure that the Unitarians, who are most nearly comparable to members of the German Protestantenverein, are not best classed with the atheists. And, lastly, envy and jealousy do not belong to the American optimistic temperament, which does not grudge another his success. Thus everything works together to make the churches get on peacefully with one another. The religion of the country stretches from one end to the other, like a brilliant and many-hued rainbow.

The commingling of church and society is shown everywhere. The church is popular, religious worship is observed in the home, the minister is esteemed, divine worship is well attended, the work of the church is generously supported, and the cause of religion is favoured by the social community. These outlines may now be filled in by a few details. The American grows up with a knowledge of the Bible. The church, Sabbath-school, and the home influences work together; a true piety rules in every farm-house, and whosoever supposes this to be in anywise hypocrisy has no notion of the actual conditions. In many city homes of artisans the occupants do not know the Bible and do not wish to know it; but they are in nowise hypocritical, and in the country at large religion is so firmly rooted that people are much more likely to make sham pretences of general enlightenment than of religious belief. Thus, it is mostly a matter of course that festivals, banquets, and 502other meetings which in Germany would not call for any religious demonstration whatsoever, are opened and closed by prayer. Religious discussions are carried on with animation in every class of society, and one who travels about through the country finds that business and religion are the two great topics of conversation, while after them come politics. It is only among individuals who are so religiously disposed, that such vagaries of the supernatural consciousness, as spiritualism, healing by prayer, etc., could excite so much interest. But also normal religious questions interest an incomparably large circle of people; nine hundred ecclesiastical newspapers and magazines are regularly published and circulated by the millions.

We have said, furthermore, that divine service is well attended, and that clergymen are highly esteemed. In the non-political life, especially in the East, the great preachers are among the most influential people of the day. The most brilliant ecclesiastic of recent decades was, by common consent, Phillips Brooks, by whose speech and personality every one was attracted and ennobled; and it has often been said that at his death, a few years ago, the country mourned as never before since the death of Lincoln. No one equal to him has appeared since, but there are many ministers whose ethical influence must be accounted among the great factors of public life; and this is true, not only of the Protestant ministers, but also of several Catholic ecclesiastics.

The same is true in the more modest communities. The influence of the preacher is more profound in small communities of America than it is in Germany. But it is weakened at once if the representative of the church descends to politics. He is welcomed as an appropriate fellow-worker only in questions that border both on politics and on morals—as, for instance, the temperance question. The high position of the clergy is interestingly shown from the fact that the profession is very often recruited from the best classes of society. Owing to the American effort to obliterate social differentiation as much as possible, it is difficult to make sure of the facts of the situation; but it seems pretty certain that the men who study for the ministry, especially in the Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Congregational, and Unitarian churches, are better born than the men who become school teachers and physicians.

The preacher steps into the pulpit and faces his hearers in a 503way which is typically American. Of course, it is impossible to reduce the ministerial bearing in the 194,000 churches of the country to a single formula; but one thing may always be noted, by the European, in contrast to what he has seen at home—the obvious reference of the sermon to the worldly interests of the congregation. Its outer form already shows this; the similes and metaphors are borrowed from ordinary and even vulgar life, the applications are often trivial, but forcible and striking, and even anecdotes are introduced and given in colloquial form. More than that, the topic itself is chosen so as to concern personally nearly every one sitting in the pews; the latest vexation or disappointment, the cherished hope, or the duty lying nearest to the individual forms the starting-point of the sermon, and the words of the Bible are brought home to the needs of the hearers like an expected guest. The preacher does not try to lure the soul away from daily life, but he tries to bring something higher into that life and there to make it living; and if he is the right sort of a preacher, this never works as a cheapening of what is divine, but as an exaltation of what is human.

Doubtless it is just on this account that the church is so popular and the services so well attended. To be sure, frequently the minister is a sensational pulpit elocutionist, who exploits the latest scandal or the newest question of the day in order to interest the public and attract the curious to church. Often the worldly quality of the sermon tends to another form of depreciation. The sermon becomes a lecture in general culture, a scientific dissertation, or an educational exercise. Of course, the abandonment of the strictly religious form of sermon brings many temptations to all except the best preachers; yet, in general, the American sermon is unusually powerful.

The popularity of the church does not depend only on the applicability of the sermon, but in part on social factors which are not nearly so strong in any part of Europe. If the congregation desires to bring the general public to church, it will gain its end most surely by offering attractions of a religiously indifferent nature. These attractions may indirectly assist the moral work of the church, although their immediate motive is to stimulate church-going. The man who goes to church merely in order to hear the excellent music has necessarily to listen to the sermon; and one 504who joins the church for the sake of its secular advantages is at least in that way detained from the frivolous enjoyments of irreligious circles. Thus, the church has gradually become a social centre with functions which are as unknown in Germany as the “parlours” which belong to every church in America. The means of social attraction must naturally be adapted to the character of the congregation; the picnics which are popular in the small towns, with their raffles and social games, their lemonade and cake, would not be appropriate to the wealthy churches on Fifth Avenue. In the large cities, æsthetic attractions must be substituted—splendid windows, soft carpets, fine music, elegant costumes, and fashionable bazars for charity’s sake.

But the social enjoyment consists not solely in what goes on within the walls of the church, but specially in the small cities and rural districts the church is the mediator of almost all social intercourse. A person who moves to a new part of the town or to an entirely new village, allies himself to some congregation if he is of the middle classes, in order to form social connections; and this is the more natural since, in the religious as in the social life of America, the women are the most active part of the family. Even the Young Men’s Christian Associations and similar social organizations under church auspices play an important rôle utterly unlike anything in Europe. In Germany such organizations are popularly accounted flabby, and their very name has a stale flavour. In America they are the centres of social activity, even in large cities, and have an extraordinary influence on the hundreds of thousands of members who meet together in the splendid club buildings, and who are as much interested in sport and education as in religion.

How fully the church dominates social life may be seen in the prevalent custom of church weddings. The state does not make a civil wedding obligatory. As soon as the local civil board has officially licensed the married couple, the wedding may legally be performed either by a civil officer or by a minister; yet it is a matter of course with the great majority of the population that the rings shall be exchanged before the altar. An avowed atheist is not received in any social circles above that of the ordinary saloon, and while a politician need not fear that his particular religion will prevent his being supported by the members of other 505churches, he has no prospects for election to any office if he should be found an actual materialist. When Ingersoll, who was the great confessed atheist of the country, travelled from city to city for many years preaching somewhat grotesquely and with the looseness of a political agitator, the arguments of David Friedrich Strauss, in return for an admission price, he found everywhere large audiences for his striking oratory, but very few believers among all the curious listeners.

The man who is convinced that this mechanical interaction of material forces is the whole reality of the world, and who therefore in his soul recognizes no connection between his will and a moral or spiritual power—in short, the man who does not believe something, no matter whether he has learned it from the church or from philosophy—is regarded by the typical American as a curious sort of person and of an inferior type; the American does not quite understand what such a man means by his life. By picturing to one’s self the history of America as the history of a people descended from those who have been religiously persecuted, and who have made a home for such as are persecuted, ever since the days when the “Mayflower” landed with the Puritans down to these days when the Jews are flocking over the ocean from Russia and the Armenians from Turkey, and by picturing how this people have had to open up and master the country by hard fighting and hard work, and how they were therefore constrained to a rigid sense of duty, a serious conception of life, and an existence almost devoid of pleasure, and how now all historical and social traditions and all educational influences strengthen the belief in God and the striving for the soul’s salvation—one sees that it cannot be otherwise, and that the moral certainty of the nation cannot be shaken by so-called arguments.

It is true, of course, that one hears on all sides complaints against the increasing ungodliness; and it is not to be denied that the proletariat of the large cities is for the most part outside of the church. The population which owns no church allegiance is estimated at five millions, but among these there is a relatively large fraction of indifferent persons, who are too lazy to go to church; a free-thinking animosity to religion is uncommon. The American who feels that his church no longer corresponds to his own belief has an ample opportunity to choose among all the many sects one 506which is just adapted to himself. He will leave his own church in order to join some other straightway; but even if he leaves church attendance in future to his wife and daughters, or if he with his whole family leaves the congregation, this generally means that he can serve God without a minister. Real irreligion does not fit his character; and any doubt which science may perhaps occasion in him ends, not by shaking his religion, but by making it more liberal. This process of increasing freedom from dogma and of intellectualization of the church goes on steadily in the upper classes of society. The development of the Unitarian Church out of Orthodox Calvinism has been most influential on the intellectual life of the nation, but its fundamental religious tone has not been lessened thereby.

To be churchly means not only to comply with the ordinances of the church, but to contribute to the funds of the church and to give one’s labour. And since the state does not impose any taxes in the interests of the church, material support is wholly dependent on the good will of the community. In fact, lay activity is everywhere helpful. Of this the Sunday-schools are typical, which are visited by eight million children, and supported everywhere by the willing labour of unpaid teachers. The known property belonging to churches is estimated at seven hundred million dollars, and the rental of seats brings them handsome incomes. More than this, all church property is exempt from taxation.

Nevertheless, so many ecclesiastical needs remain unsatisfied that a great deal of money has to be raised by mite-boxes, official subscriptions, and bequests, in order for the churches to meet their expenses; and they seldom beg in vain. Members of the congregations carry on their shoulders the missions among the irreligious population in large cities and the heathen of foreign lands, the expense of church buildings, and of schools and hospitals belonging to the sect, and the salaries of ministers. The theological faculties are likewise church institutions, whether they are formally connected with universities or not. There are to-day 154 such seminaries, and this number has for some time remained almost unchanged. In 1870 there were only 80, but there were 142 in 1880, and 145 in 1890. It appears from the statistics that, of the present 154, only 21 have more than a hundred students, while twelve have less than ten students. The total number of students was 5078,009, and of teachers 994. The property of these theological seminaries amounts to thirty-four million dollars, and more than a million was given them during the last year.

The pedagogical function of the church is not limited to the Sunday-school for children and the seminaries for ministers; but in these two branches it has a monopoly, while in all other fields, from the elementary school to the university, it competes with secular institutions, or more exactly, it complements their work. We have already shown how important a rôle private initiative plays in the educational life of the United States, and it is only natural that such private institutions should be welcomed by a part of the public when they bear the sanction of one or another religious faith. There are grammar schools, high schools, colleges, and universities of the most diverse sects to meet this need; and their relation to religion itself is equally diverse, and ranges from a very close to a very loose one. Boston College, for instance, is an excellent Catholic institution consisting of a high school and college under the instruction of Jesuits, in which the education is at every moment strongly sectarian. The university of Chicago, on the other hand, is nominally a Baptist institution: yet nobody asks whether a professor who is to be appointed is a Baptist; no student is conscious of its Baptist character, and no lectures give any indication thereof. Its Baptist quality is limited to the statute that the president of the university and two-thirds of the board of overseers must be Baptists, as was the founder of the institution.

While among the larger universities, Harvard, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Cornell, and all state universities, are officially independent of any sect, Yale is, for instance, said to be Congregational, although neither teachers nor students trouble themselves with the question. The smaller colleges have a much more truly sectarian character; and there is no doubt that this is approved by large circles, especially in the Middle and Western States. The sectarian colleges outnumber the non-sectarian; and, to take a random example, we may note that in the state of Michigan the State University at Ann Arbor is independent of sect, while Adrian College is Methodist, Albion College Episcopalian, Alma College Presbyterian, Detroit College Catholic, Hilledale College Baptist, Hope College Reformed, and 508Olivet College is Congregational. This inclination, especially noticeable in country districts, to a religious education however so slightly coloured, shows how deeply religion pervades the whole people.

To follow the separate religions and their diverse religious offshoots cannot be our purpose; we must be content with a few superficial outlines. There is no really new religious thought to record; an American religion has, so far, not appeared. The history of the church in the New World has only to report how European religions have grown under new conditions. The apparently new associations are only unimportant variations. Some enthusiasts have appeared from time to time to preach a new religion with original distortions of the moral or social sense, but they have expressed no moral yearning of the time, and have remained without any deep influence. This rests in good part on the conservative nature of Americans. They snatch enthusiastically at the newest improvements and the most modern reform, but it must be a reform and not a revolution. The historical continuity must be preserved. The Mormons, the Spiritualists, and the adherents of Christian Science might, with some propriety, be called pure American sects; but although all three of these excite much public curiosity, they have no importance among those religions which are making the civilization of the present moment.

The religions of the United States which have the most communicants are the Methodist, Baptist, and Roman Catholic. The religions, however, which have had the most important influence on culture are the Congregational, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Unitarian. Besides these, there are the Lutheran, the Reformed, and the Jewish churches; all the other denominations are small and uninfluential. The churches which we have named can be more or less distinguished by their locality, although they are represented in almost every state. The Congregationalists and Unitarians are specially numerous in the New England States, the Episcopalians and Presbyterians in New York and Pennsylvania, while the Methodists are specially strong in the South, the Baptists in the Middle West, and the Catholics all through the East. Such special demarcation rests firstly on the relation of the churches to different races which have settled in different places; the Episcopalians and Congregationalists are mainly English, the Presbyterians 509are Scotch, the Catholics are Irish and South German, the Lutherans are North German and Scandinavian, the Reformed Church is German and Dutch, and Methodism has spread widely among the negroes.

In close connection herewith are the social distinctions. The Methodist, Baptist, and Catholic religions are specially religions of the masses; the others are more exclusive. It is especially those religions of the lower classes which yield to every tendency toward breaking up into sects; only Catholicism maintains a firm unity in the New as in the Old World.

The old Calvinistic faith which was brought over by the Puritans to the New England colonies still lives in the Congregational Church. This church has played a greater political part than any other from the colonial days, when no one could vote who was not a communicant, down to the time when it took an active stand against slavery. Its expansion was limited by an agreement with the Presbyterian Church; only since this was given up, has it entered all the states of the Union. And yet to-day there are in Massachusetts almost 700 Congregational church buildings, and 400 in the small State of Connecticut; but only 300 in the State of New York, 100 in Pennsylvania, a few in the West, and still fewer in the South.

As in the case of all churches, the proportion of the population belonging to this church can only be approximately given. Since the official census may ask no questions concerning religion, we have to rely on the figures of the church itself, which regularly refer to the actual members in the congregations. Now in these Evangelical, Catholic, and Jewish congregations, the conditions for membership are so unlike that the figures are not directly comparable; and even among the Evangelical churches, it is clearly false to find the total number of souls allied to that church, as this is usually found, by multiplying the number of communicants by some average figure, like 3.5. In view of the social and ethnical differences between these churches, the percentage of children, for instance, is very different. It may be said then, although with caution, that the Congregational population embraces about two million souls; but their importance in the shaping of American civilization has greatly exceeded their numerical representation. The spirit of this church has lent ethical seriousness and a vigorous 510sense of duty to the whole nation. It has founded the first schools, and is responsible for the independence of the country.

It is even more necessary to weigh the votes and not to count them, when we speak of the optimistic daughter church of austere Calvinism, the Unitarian. Probably not more than one quarter of a million persons belong to the Unitarian Church; but the influence of these people on literature and life, science and philosophy, has been incomparable. The church has existed officially since 1815, although the new faith began to spread much earlier within the Calvinistic Church itself. There is nothing theologically new here, since the main teachings, that the Trinity is only a dogma, that God is One, and that Christ was an exemplary man but not God, go back, of course, to the fourth century. These are the Arian ideas, which have also been held in Europe in times past. The significance of the American Trinitarian controversy does not lie in the province of theology. In a sense, the Unitarian Church has no binding belief, but aims only to be an influence of ever-increasing faith in God, which welcomes investigation, advance, and difference of individual thought, within the unity of a moral and ideal view of the universe.

Thus it has been an entirely natural development, for example, for the theological faculty of Harvard University to go over from the Congregational to the Unitarian faith as early as the second decade of the last century, and in recent times to become non-sectarian and broadly Christian, filling its professional chairs with theologians of the most diverse denominations. The significance for civilization does not lie in the Unitarian view of God, but in its anti-Calvinistic conception of man. This church says that man is not naturally sinful, but, being the image of God, is naturally good, and that the salvation of his soul is not determined by a predestination of divine grace, but by his own right-willing. Channing was the Unitarian leader, and the thinkers and writers in the middle of the century followed in his footsteps. Their work was a source of moral optimism. This confession has necessarily remained small by reason of its radical theology, which too little satisfies the imagination of the profoundly pious; but the Unitarian ideas have come everywhere into the worship of aristocratic churches.

The Episcopalian faith, which is English Protestantism, came to the shores of the New World even earlier than the faith of Calvin. 511The English faith was organized in Virginia as early as 1607, and for a long time no other faith was even tolerated; and in the middle colonies the English High Church spread rapidly under the influence of many missionaries from England. The secession of the colonies from the mother country was destined to bring a check, but soon after the war the Episcopalian Church of America organized itself independently, and grew steadily through the East. It has to-day seventy-five bishops. It is governed by a council which meets every three years in two divisions—an upper, which consists of bishops, and a lower, composed of delegates sent from the various dioceses. The diocese elects its own bishop. Their creed is, to all intents and purposes, identical with that of the Church of England, and some two million souls are affiliated with this church.

Also the Presbyterian Church of the New World goes back to the seventeenth century; it was first definitely organized in the beginning of the eighteenth, under Scotch and Irish influences. It stands on a Calvinistic foundation, but the church government is the distinguishing feature; at its head are the elders, the Presbyters. Twelve different sects have grown out of this church—as, for instance, the Cumberland Presbyterians, who broke away in a popular religious movement in 1810; other sects had started already on European soil—as, for instance, the Presbyterian Church of Wales, which is perpetuated in America. The Presbyterian population amounts to about four million souls.

The Methodist and Baptist congregations are much larger. Methodism comes from that great movement, at the University of Oxford in 1729, of John and Charles Wesley, whose Sacred Club, with its Biblical bigotry, was, on account of its methodical precision, ridiculed as the Methodist Club; and the nickname was accepted and held to. It was a question of bringing the English church closer to the heart, of profoundly moving every individual and instilling a deeper piety in the people. In order to preach the word of God, it needed neither professional theologians nor church buildings; laymen were to be the preachers, and the canopy of heaven their church. The movement began to spread in America in 1766, and while in England it remained for a longer time nominally within the established church, American Methodism took very early a different course from Episcopalianism.

The peculiar organization of the congregation is a prominent 512feature. Candidates for membership are accepted after a six months’ probation, popular prayer-meetings are held at any chosen spot, the lay preachers are permitted to deliver religious talks without giving up their secular occupations, and no pastor may remain longer than five years over any congregation. These and other provisions are rather in the nature of concessions to the religious needs of ordinary people; the special items of faith differ slightly from those of the mother church, and are of comparatively little significance. The number of communicants has grown rapidly, especially among the negroes of the South, owing to the large camp-meetings, where many persons sing and pray together, and work themselves up to a more or less hysterical point of excitement under the open sky. As is usual among less cultivated classes, the tendency to form sects has been very great; small groups are continually breaking away, because they cannot believe in this or that feature of the main church. Seventeen principal groups may be distinguished, and some of these only by the colour of the communicants. The Methodist Episcopalians are by far the most numerous, and all the Methodist churches together must embrace more than sixteen million people.

The twelve or thirteen sects of Baptists are in some cases widely different in the matter of faith, although the main body of regular Baptists are Calvinistic, and the church is organized like the Calvinistic Congregational Church. Each congregation governs itself, and the one point which all have in common is that they renounce infant baptism; he only may be baptized who is formally able to acknowledge Christ, and he must be baptized not by sprinkling, but by immersion. This cult originated in Switzerland at the time of the Reformation, and gradually gained adherents all through Europe, but it first became widely spread in America, where it embraces about twelve million people. Just as Methodism is a sort of popular form of the Episcopalian Church, the Baptist faith is a popularization of the Congregational Church. The main division of the regular Baptists is made between the Northern and Southern churches, a division which originated in the middle of the century, owing to the diversity of opinion about slavery; and the third main group of Baptists is made up of negroes.

The first Lutherans to come to the New World were Dutchmen, who landed on Manhattan Island in 1623. But the Dutch authorities 513there suppressed all churches except the Reformed Church, and it was not until New York came into the hands of the English that the Lutheran Church got its freedom. Lutherans from the Palatinate settled in Pennsylvania in 1710, and in the middle of the eighteenth century began their definite organization into synods under the influence of their pastor, Mühlenberg. The church grew in consequence of German, and later of Scandinavian, immigration. Most of its communicants still speak German, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Icelandic, and those who speak English are mostly of German descent. All together they make a population of four million persons, of whom one-fifth live in Pennsylvania. The Lutherans have formed sixteen sects.

There is another small Protestant sect, which likewise originated in Germany; this is the sect of Mennonites. As is well known, they combine the Baptist refusal of infant baptism with the principle of non-resistance. They came from Germany to Pennsylvania at the end of the seventeenth century in order to escape persecution, and were there known as the German Friends. Their little band has the honour of having registered, in 1688, the first protest against American slavery. Their numbers have since been augmented from Holland, Switzerland, Germany, and Russia, and to-day the largest part of the Mennonites is said to be in America—in spite of which they number hardly more than 150,000 persons.

In many respects the Quakers may be compared with the Mennonites. The Quaker Church was founded in the middle of the seventeenth century by an Englishman, John Fox, and spread to America as early as 1656, where it now numbers, perhaps, 400,000 persons, living chiefly in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The Quakers lay great emphasis on silence, and even in their meetings they observe long pauses, in which each member communes with the Holy Spirit. The sins for which a Quaker may be excommunicated from his church are the denial of the divinity of Christ or of the divine origin of the Bible, enlistment in the army, encouragement of war, trading in alcohol, drunkenness, blasphemy, making wagers, participation in lotteries, giving an oath in court, and requiring an oath. They dress in black or grey, and are known for their mild, gentle, and yielding characters.

The Roman Catholic Church in America is little different from the Church in Europe. It has grown rapidly in the nineteenth 514century, owing to the tremendous numbers of Irish, South German, Polish, Hungarian, Italian, and Spanish immigrants. Catholic missionaries, it is true, were the first Christian ministers in the New World. They accompanied the Spanish expeditions, and their first bishop landed in 1528. Maryland was the chief English colony of Catholics, while most of the other colonies were very intolerant of the Romish Church. In 1700 New York, which has to-day a half million Catholics, is said to have had only seven Catholic families; and even in 1800 the Catholic population of the whole United States was estimated at less than 150,000. In 1840 they had increased tenfold, and number to-day probably ten millions, with sixteen archbishops and a cardinal. The Catholic centres, in the order of the size of congregations, are, New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Paul, New Orleans, Baltimore, Cleveland, Buffalo, Newark, Providence, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee.

The Jews, who are said to have first come from Brazil in 1654, have likewise increased rapidly in recent years, owing to the extraordinary immigration from the East of Europe. They must number to-day about a million people, and if the latest estimates are correct, nearly one-half of these have not gone farther than New York City, which would therefore have a larger Jewish population than any other city in the world. The larger part of these people are Russian Jews, who live together in great poverty and are very little Americanized. The division made by the census into Orthodox and Reformed Jews does not represent two sects, but merely a manner of grouping, since the congregations present a very gradual transition from rigid Asiatic orthodoxy to a reform so complete as to be hardly Jewish at all, and in which the rabbis are merely lecturers on “ethical culture.”

Many other churches might be mentioned, such as the widely spread sect of Disciples of Christ, which originated in America, or the Moravians, Dunkards, and others which have come from Europe. But it will be enough here to speak of only a few specially typical sects that have been manufactured in America. The profane expression is in place, since they are all artificially devised organizations, whose founders have often been thought dishonest; such are the Adventists, the Mormons, the Spiritualists, and the Christian Scientists. The Adventists were gathered in by William 515Miller, of Massachusetts, who in the year 1831 calculated from figures which he found in the Bible that Christ would appear again on earth in the year 1843. This prophecy caused a great many small congregations to spring up, and when the momentous year came and brought disillusionment, and even after a second similar disappointment at a later year, these congregations did not break up, but contented themselves with the less risky prediction that Christ would make His appearance soon. There are Adventists in all the states, and especially in Michigan. They have broken up into smaller sects, of which a few are always making new computations for the coming of Christ. In all, they amount to about two hundred thousand people.

More famous, or perhaps more notorious, are the Mormons. Their first prophet, Joseph Smith, began in 1823, when he was eighteen years of age, to have dreams in which he was intrusted with a religious mission. Four years later, with the help of certain persons of his dreams, he “discovered” the Book of Mormon—a set of metal tablets on which the history of America was written in “reformed Egyptian” characters. The first American colony had been organized, according to the Book of Mormon, by a race of people which had helped to build the Tower of Babel, and which in 600 B.C. had settled in South America. The American Indians, the book says, descend from this race; and Christ also, it says, was for a time in America. Finally, an angel came who appointed Smith and a friend of his as priests, and they then began the regular formation of a church. Miracles were rumoured; missionaries were sent out and congregations formed in several states, even before polygamy was ordained. In 1843 Smith received the inspired message which proclaimed the new ordinance of “heavenly marriage.” In the following year Smith was murdered, and his successor, Brigham Young, when hostile demonstrations became frequent, led the group of believers on a bold expedition into what was at that time the almost impassable West—to Utah, on the Great Salt Lake.

The settlement grew, and under its rigorously theocratic government made remarkable economic progress. A large garden was planted in the wilderness, and Salt Lake City is to-day a large, modern town on the railroad line to California, and the Mormons compose only half its population. But they alone and under terrific 516difficulties carried civilization across the prairies, and as a token of their industry the largest church in America stands there, the Mormon Temple, which they built by forty years of labour, exactly according to the plans which Young saw in a vision. While people are readily admitted to the curious hall of prayer, no strangers are allowed to enter the Temple. Polygamy was introduced, undoubtedly, from no immoral motives, but from the religious belief that an unmarried woman will not go to heaven. Economic motives may have helped the matter along, since the priests permitted new marriages only when the contracting parties had sufficient means to support several families, and so used the satisfaction of polygamous instincts as a reward for unusual economic industry.

The stern morality of the American people has always looked on the Mormon tribe as a thorn in the flesh, and yet it was difficult for a long time for the federal government to suppress the abuse. Serious opposition began in the early eighties with the passing of special laws; thousands of Mormons were put in prison, and millions of dollars were paid in fines. The Mormons fought with every legal means, but were repudiated by the Supreme Court, and finally gave in. In the year 1890 their president, Woodruff, published an ordinance forbidding new polygamous marriages. This has not prevented the Mormons from holding polygamy sacred, and they have abandoned it only on compulsion. The marriages which were solemnized before 1890 are still in force. Such polygamous families do not impress a stranger unfavourably, since, in spite of its complexity, their family life appears to be a happy one. From Utah the sect has spread to Idaho and other Western States, and embraces now perhaps half a million people.

There have been some other curious religious congregations with unusual marriage ordinances. For instance, the Oneida Community has had an apparently most immoral form of cohabitation. It is here a question not so much of religion as of a communistic and economic experiment. Such experiments are, for the most part, short-lived and flourish secretly. Celibacy is practised by fifteen communities of Shakers, who live in a communistic way. They broke away from the Quakers at the end of the eighteenth century, and have unique religious ideas. God, and, therefore, every human soul, is thought to be a double principle, both male 517and female. The male principle was revealed in Christ, the female in an English woman, Anne Lee, a Quakeress whose visions during imprisonment occasioned the formation of this sect.

The Shakers were so called because they are “shaken” by religious fervour; and the lower classes of the American populace are uncommonly predisposed to this ecstatic and hysterical religious excitement. General revivals, great camp-meetings, and hysterical and tumultuous meetings of prayer, with theatrical conversions and divine illuminations, have always played a prominent role in America. Thus at the end of the fifties, after a time of declining piety, a wave of religious conversion swept over the country, having all the appearance of a nervous epidemic. The doings of the rapidly growing Salvation Army also often have a somewhat neurotic character.

It is difficult to say why this is so. As in every form of hysteria, suggestion is, of course, an important factor; but the manifestations are so marked that there must be some special disposition thereto. It almost seems as if a lack of other stimulants produced a pathological demand for religious excitement. Certainly in those portions of the country which are most affected, the life of the great masses, at least until recently, has been colourless and dull. There has been no stimulation of the fancy, such as is afforded by the Catholic Church, or in former days was provided by the romantic events of monarchical history. People have lacked the stimulation of amusements, festivals, the theatre and music; daily life has been hard, morality rigorous, and alcohol was thought sinful. Where religion has been the single intellectual stimulus, it has become an intoxicant for the pining soul: and persons drank until they obtained a sort of hysterical relief from deadly reality.

The seeds of mysticism easily take root on such a soil, and it is no accident that the chief mystical movements of our times have gone on in America, the country which so many suppose to be the theatre of purely material interests. Here we find, first of all, the Spiritualistic movement which began in 1848, when mysterious knockings were heard by the Fox family in a village of New York State. The sounds were interpreted as messages from dead friends, and as soon as these spirits commenced their material manifestations it was only a short step for them to appear in person. 518The leading card of Spiritualism is its supposed proof of life after death, and all its other features are secondary.

On the other hand, it is natural for a teaching which depends on such mysterious phenomena to turn its interest to other supposably unexplained phenomena, and therewith to become a general rallying-ground for mysticism. Although the Spiritualistic Church has about fifty thousand members, these are by no means all of the actual Spiritualists in America. Indeed, if Spiritualism were to be taken in a broader sense, including a belief in telepathic influences, mysterious communications, etc., the number of believers would mount into the millions, with some adherents in the most highly educated circles. Even in enlightened Boston a Spiritualistic church stands in the best section of the town. Its services have been grievously exposed from time to time, but the deceptions have been quickly forgotten, and this successful “religious” enterprise is once more given credence. A short time ago, in Philadelphia, the spirit of Darwin was constrained to write a pious final contribution to his works for the benefit of a well-paying audience, on a typewriter which stood in the middle of the room, and which, of course, could be easily operated electrically from some other room.

To be sure, it would be unfair to say that all spiritualism is based on deception, although the lively wish to see dead relatives, or receive communications from them, puts a high premium on the pious fraud. Indeed, it would be over-hasty to say that all the spiritualistic conceptions go against the laws of nature; for, since the philosophy of Spiritualism has conceived of an ether organism which pervades the molecular body and survives death, it has fairly cleverly met the demands of casual explanation. And it may well be thought probable that in the world of mental influences there is much remaining to be found out, just as a hundred years ago there were hypnotism and Röntgen rays; so that the zeal of very many people to assist in the solving of these mysteries is, perhaps, easily understood.

But just where these most serious motives prevail and all idea of conscious deception is excluded, one sees the profound affiliation of intellectual interests with the mystical tendency. Even the Society for Psychical Research, which aims to investigate mysterious phenomena in a thoroughly scientific way, has, after all, 519mostly held the interest of men who are more inclined to mysticism than to science. Mrs. Piper, of Arlington, may be called the most important spiritualistic medium, and Hodgson her most interesting prophet. The whole movement is, after all, religious. Spiritualism has a near neighbour in Theosophy, which is specially strong in California. The great literary charm of Hindu philosophy makes this form of mysticism more attractive to minds that are repelled by its vulgar forms. Hindu mysticism has, undoubtedly, a future in America.

There is a still larger circle of people who believe in Christian Science, the discovery of Mary Baker G. Eddy. When Mrs. Eddy suffered a severe illness at Lynn in 1867, she was seized by the idea that all illness might be only an illusion or hallucination of the soul, since God alone is real, and in Him there can be naught but good. It was therefore necessary only to realize this deceptive unreality, in order to relieve the soul of its error and so to regain health. She herself became well and proceeded to read her principle of mental healing into the Bible, and so to develop a metaphysical system. She commenced her work of healing without medicine, and in 1875 published her book, “Science and Health, With a Key to the Holy Scriptures.” The book is a medium-sized work, has a system not unskilfully constructed, although unskilfully expressed, and one who is familiar with the history of philosophy will find in it not one original thought. In spite of this, the book must be called one of the most successful of modern times. It is a rather expensive book, but has been bought by the hundreds of thousands. Congregations have formed all over the country, and built some magnificent churches; and, finally, the infectious bacillus of this social malady has been wafted across the ocean. The great feature of this new sect is its practice of healing; there are to-day some thirty institutions giving instruction in the art of metaphysical healing, and the public supports thousands of spiritual healers.

The movement is benefited by the general mistrust of academic medicine which pervades the lower classes of America, as may be seen from the ridiculous popularity of patent medicines. The cult is also undoubtedly helped by actual and often surprising cures. The healing power of faith is no new discovery; the effects of auto-suggestion are always important in nervous disorders, 520and there are indeed few pathological conditions in which nervous disorders do not play a part. Mrs. Eddy’s disciples, in their consultation offices, do with the help of the inner consistency of their metaphysical system, which the logic of the average patient cannot break down, what Catholicism does at Lourdes by stimulating the imagination. The main support of Christian Science is, after all, the general mystical and religious disposition. Where religion plays such a mighty rôle in the popular mind, religious vagaries and perversions must be the order of the day; but even the perversions show how thoroughly the whole American people is pervaded by the religious spirit.

Not only would it be unfair to estimate the religion of America by its perversions, but even if the religious life of the country were amply described in the many forms of its conservative congregations and confessions, the most important thing would be still unmentioned: the spirit of moral self-perfection common to all the religions of the country. To be sure, it is not to be supposed that all the morality in this nation is of religious origin. One sees clearly that this is not the case if one looks at American social ethics, which are independent of religious ethics, and if one notices how often motives from the two spheres unite in bringing about certain actions. The Americans would have developed a marked morality if they had not been brought up in church; but the church has co-operated, specially when the nation was young and when far-reaching impulses were being developed. And while the forms of faith have changed, the moral ideas have remained much the same.

Benjamin Wadsworth was president of Harvard College in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and no greater religious contrast could be found than that between him and his present successor in office; between the orthodox Calvinist who said that it is by God’s unmerited grace that we are not all burning in the flames of hell, as our sins so richly deserve, and the liberal Unitarian of to-day. And yet President Eliot could rightly say that, even after these two hundred years, he gladly subscribes to all the moral tenets of his early predecessor. Wadsworth exhorted parents to teach their sons to live soberly, virtuously, and in the fear of God; to keep them from idleness, pride, envy, and malice; to teach them simple, kindly, and courteous behaviour; to see that they learn to 521be useful in the world, and so marry and carry on their daily business as to avoid temptation and to grow in grace and in the fear of God.

Benjamin Franklin’s catalogue of virtues which he desired to realize in himself, was: temperance, silence, order, simplicity, industry, honesty, justice, self-restraint, purity, peacefulness, continence, and modesty. In this he was not thinking of the church, but his worldly morals came to much the same thing as the Puritan’s ethics. The goal is everywhere moral self-perfection—to learn, first of all, to govern one’s natural desires, not for the sake of the effect on others, but for the effect on one’s self. To put it extremely, the religious admonition might have read: Give, not that your neighbour may have more, but that you may have less; not in order to give your neighbour pleasure, but to discipline yourself in overcoming greed. The social morality developed the opposite motives; and even to-day the joining of both tendencies may be followed everywhere, and especially in many philanthropic deeds. The two extremes go together: social enthusiasm for being helpful, and the fundamentally religious instinct to give alms.

Within the circle of ecclesiastical influences, moral concern for the self is everywhere in great evidence—the desire to be sober, temperate, industrious, modest, and God-fearing. It has been said that these centuries of self-mastery are the cause of America’s final triumph. Too many other factors are there left out of account, but undoubtedly the theocratic discipline which held back all immoderation and indulgence, and often intolerantly extinguished the lower instincts, has profoundly influenced national life. And to this all churches have contributed alike. It seems as if the Calvinistic God of severity had been complemented by a God of love; but practically all churches have worked as if it was necessary, first of all, to improve radically evil men, to convert evildoers, and to uproot natural instincts. The American church is to-day what it has always been, whether in or outside of Calvinism, a church militant, strong in its battle against unrighteous desires. To be churchly means to be in the battle-camp of a party; in the camp itself they make merry, but every one is armed against the enemy.

The final result in the great masses of people is an uncommonly high degree of personal purity as compared with the masses of 522Europe. Here one is not to think of the slums of large cities nor of the masses of still un-Americanized immigrants from Southern Europe, nor of those people who are under the influence of temporary abnormal conditions, such as the adventurers who flock together wherever gold and silver are discovered. One must look at the people in the fields and the work-shops, in the country and the small city, or at the average citizen of the large city, and one will get from these bustling millions an impression of moral earnestness, simplicity, and purity. These people are poor in imagination and vulgar; and yet one feels that, in the humble home where the average man has probably grown up, the family Bible lay on the table. It is not accidental that the zealous Puritans of Colonial times believed not only that man is preserved from hellfire by the special grace of God, but also that the colonists were a chosen people and favoured by God with a remarkably large proportion who enjoyed His grace. They saw a moral rigour everywhere around them, and could not suppose that such Puritan living was the path to everlasting torment. Since then life has become endlessly complicated, the pressure of circumstances has increased, temptations are a thousandfold more numerous, and consequently the general level of morality has shifted. Much is to-day called harmless which was then called sinful; but to-day, as then, the number of those who live above the general level of moral requirements is astonishingly large.

As everywhere in the world, so in America; temptation and distress fill the prisons with unfortunate and mistaken human beings. But this fact belongs in a wholly different social connection. We are thinking here of the life of those who are not amenable to law; for intemperance, envy, incontinence, coarseness, servility, brutality, lack of character and kindness, and vulgarity are, in themselves, not punishable. If we speak of those who are thus within the law, we find that life in America is purer, simpler, and more moral than in Europe. And the average American who lives for some time on the Continent of Europe comes home dismayed at the exaggerated and specious politeness of Europe and rejoiced at the greater humanity of the Americans. The incontinence of France, the intemperance of Germany, the business dishonesty of Southern Europe, are favourite examples in America of European lack of virtue; and aside from all local differences, the Americans believe 523that they find everywhere in Europe the symptoms of moral decadence and laxity, and on finding the same things in large American cities, they put the blame on Europe.

At first sight it looks as if one who lives in a glass house were throwing stones. The foreigner, on hearing of American Sabbath observance, piety, temperance, continence, benevolence, and honesty, is at once inclined to call up the other side of the situation: he has seen cases of hypocrisy, he knows how many divorces and bank robberies there are; he has heard about benevolence from purely selfish motives, and about corruption.

All this is true, and, nevertheless, false. On examining the situation more closely, the foreigner will see that however many sins there are, the life of the people is intrinsically pure and moral and devout. It is true that there are many divorces, and that these are made extremely easy in some states; but infidelity is seldom the motive. The cause lies in the democratic spirit of self-determination, which wants to loosen bonds that individuals no longer freely recognize. It might be said that this is a higher individual morality which ends marriage when it has lost its inner sanctity. The American divorce does not indicate any lack of marriage fidelity; married life is, throughout the nation, distinctly purer than it is in Europe, and this is still more true of the life of young men. To be sure, it is easy to get material for piquant booklets, as “From Darkest America,” and there is very much vice in Chicago, New Orleans, and San Francisco. The American is no saint, and a large city is a large city the world over. But undoubtedly the sexual tension is incomparably less in American life than in European, as may be seen by comparing the life of American students with that of German students of the same age. This is not due to deficient romantic feeling, for there is nowhere more flirting going on than in America; but a genuine respect of womanhood, without regard to social class, lends purity to the life of the men.

It is true that American temperance does not prevent some men from drinking too much, and the regular prohibition laws of many of the states have not succeeded in suppressing a desire for physiological stimulation; and it may be even affirmed that the legal interdiction of the sale of alcohol in states or communities, unless an overwhelming majority of the population believes in abstinence, has done more harm than good. But it is clear that the fight 524against alcohol which has been carried on for a hundred years, and notably by the church, has done an infinite amount of good. The whole nation is strongly set against tippling, and only the dregs of society gather in the saloons. And much more has been done by moral than by legislative influence to suppress the unhappy licentious and criminal consequences of drink among the lower classes; and among higher classes the deadening intellectual influence of sitting in beer-houses and so wasting strength, time, and moral vigour, is almost unknown. In good society one does not drink in the presence of ladies except at dinner, and the total abstainer becomes thereby no more conspicuous than the man in Germany who will not smoke; and those who drink at table are content with very little. Evening table gatherings, such as the German Kommerse, are accounted incorrect, and drunkenness is dishonourable. These ideas are making their way among the lower classes; railway companies and other corporations have not the least difficulty in employing only temperance men. The temperance movement, in spite of its mistakes and exaggerations, and aside from its great benefit to the health of the social organism, represents a splendid advance in moral self-control. A nation which accounts as immoral all indulgence in alcohol that interferes with self-control has made thereby a tremendous ethical advance.

It would be still easier to expose the caricatures which are published relative to Sabbath observance. One may say it is hypocritical for the law to forbid theatrical performances on Sunday for which the scenes are changed and the curtain dropped, but to allow several New York theatres to perform the cheapest vaudeville without curtain and without a change of scenes. But the fact is merely that the heavy immigration from Europe has brought about conditions in the metropolis which do not accord with the ideas of the rural majority in the state. In Boston no one would think of evading such a law, because the theatres would remain empty; where the attempt has been made to keep large exhibitions open on Sunday, it has been unsuccessful.

The American people still cling to a quiet Sabbath observance, and the day of rest and meditation is a national institution. No law and no scruples forbid the railway companies to run more trains on Sunday than on other days, as they do in Germany; but instead of this there are fewer railway trains, and these are poorly 525patronized. People do not travel on Sunday, even if they no longer visit the grave-yard, which was the Puritan idea of a permissible Sunday stroll. Concessions are more and more made to Sunday amusements, it is true; golf is played on Sunday in many places, and in contrast to England the Sunday newspapers have become so voluminous that if one read their fifty or sixty pages through, one would not have time to go to church. But in the main the entire American-born population, without constraint and therefore without hypocrisy, observes Sunday as a day of self-abnegation; and even many men who are not abstainers during the week drink no wine on Sunday.

The masses of the people are to a high degree truthful and honourable. It has been well said that the American has no talent for lying, and mistrust of a man’s word strikes the Yankee as specifically European. From the street urchin to the minister of state, frankness is the predominant trait; and all institutions are arranged for a thorough-going and often exaggerated confidence. We have shown before that in the means of conveyance, such as street cars, the honesty of the public is not watched, that in the country the farm-house door is hardly locked, and that the most important mercantile agreements are concluded by a word of mouth or nod of the head. There are scoundrels who abuse all this, who swindle the street-car companies and circulate false checks; but the present customs could never have arisen if the general public had not justified this blind confidence. It is true that many a bank cashier robs the treasury; but it is much more characteristic to see a newspaper boy, when one gives him five cents by mistake, run after one in order to return the right amount. It is true that many an Irish politician has entered politics in order to steal from the public funds, but it is a more characteristic fact that everywhere letters too large to go in the letter-box are laid on top of it in the confidence that they will not be stolen. A school-boy who lies to the teacher often has, in Europe, the sympathy of the whole class, but not in America; children despise a lie, and in this sense the true American remains a child through life.

As the American education makes for honesty, so it does for self-sacrifice, which is the finest result of the Puritan idea of self-perfection. The ascetic sacrifice for the mere sake of sacrifice goes against the American love of activity, although if the many 526New England popular tales are really taken from life, even this way of pleasing God is not uncommon in the North-Eastern States. But all classes of the population are willing to make sacrifices for an end, however abstract and impersonal. The spirit of sacrifice is not genuine when it parades itself before the public; it works in secret. But anybody who watches what goes on quietly, who notes the life of the teacher, the minister, and the physician in all country districts, who sees how parents sometimes suffer in order to give their children a better education than they themselves had, will be surprised at the infinite and patient sacrifices which are daily made by hard-working people. The spirit of quiet forbearance, so little noticeable on the surface, is clear to every one who looks somewhat deeply into American life.

Thus the more dangerous forms of missionary activity have always attracted Americans; and nowhere else has the nurse’s profession, which requires so much patience, attracted so many women. All the world knows the sacrificing spirit which was shown during the war against slavery, and there is no less of that spirit in times of peace. Every day one observes the readiness of men to risk their own lives in order to save those of others; and one is surprised to see that the public understands this as a matter of course. The more modest and naturally more frequent form of self-sacrifice consists in giving of one’s own possessions, whether a small sum to the contribution-box of the Salvation Army, or a present of millions to benevolent institutions. It is true that private benefactions are open to interpretation; sometimes they are made for the sake of social recognition, more often they are merely superficial, inconsiderate, or ill-timed, and therefore they are often detrimental to the community. But after all allowances, the volume of contributions to all benevolent purposes is simply astonishing; and here, too, the historical development shows that of all motives the religious has been the strongest.

Yet in all these movements the religious motive, the soul’s salvation, has been only one among other influences that are rather social. American philanthropy is perhaps more often religiously coloured than it is in Germany; but the more benefaction comes to be in the hands of organizations with a trained administration, the more the social and economic factors appear. In the same way, Sunday observance and temperance have come to be social 527problems which are almost distinct from ecclesiastical considerations; and if the American is honest, upright, and pure, he himself scarcely knows to-day whether he is so as a Christian or as a gentleman. Questions of morality point everywhere from religious to social considerations.

PART FOUR SOCIAL LIFE — CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE The Spirit of Self-Assertion — CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Self-Assertion of Women — CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Aristocratic Tendencies

On landing in New York, the European expects new impressions and surprises—most of all, from the evidences of general equality in this New World. Some have heard, with misgivings, of the horrors of upstart equality; but more look with glad expectancy on the country where no traditions of caste impose distinctions between human beings, and where the Declaration of Independence has solemnly recognized as a fundamental truth that all men are born free and equal. Those who fear the equality are generally soon put at ease. They find that social classes, even in New York, are nicely distinguished; no work-stained overalls are found where a frock coat is in order. The other travellers are just as quickly disillusioned in their hopes of equality. It is a short distance from the luxury of Fifth Avenue to miserable tenement districts;—an abrupt social contrast, in all its Old World sharpness and hardness.

If the newcomer, then, in his surprise turns to those who know the country, his questions will be differently answered by different persons. The average citizen will try to save the reputation of equality. No doubt, he says, equality rules in America—equality before the law, and equality of political rights. And such average patriot would be surprised to hear that this sort of equality is found in Europe also. But perhaps our newcomer chances on a mind of less typical habit. This one may reply, with the incomparably sly wink of the thoughtful American, that there is no more equality in America than in Europe. We indulge in such glittering generalities in our Declaration of Independence, to give our good local politicians a congenial theme on public holidays, and so that badly paid shop clerks may solace themselves with such brave assertions as a compensation for their small pay. But 532we are not so foolish as to run amuck of nature, which after all has very wisely made men unlike one another.

But both replies are in a way false, or, at least, do not touch the root of the matter. It is undeniable that one can no longer speak of an equality of wealth or means of enjoyment, or even, in spite of occasional modest claims to the contrary, of an equal opportunity for education and development. In spite of this, it is a mistake to suppose that on this account the spirit of equality is found only in judicial and political spheres. There is another, a social equality, of which most Americans are not conscious, because they do not know and can hardly imagine what life would be without such equality; they do not meditate on social equality, because, unlike political or legal equality, it is not abstractly formulative. The American is first aware of it after living some time in Europe, and the European grasps the idea only after a serious study of American life.

The social sentiment of equality, although variously tinged yet virtually the same throughout the United States, in nowise militates against social distinctions which result from difference of education, wealth, occupation, and achievement. But it does demand that all these different distinctions shall be considered external to the real personality. Fundamentally, all Americans are equal. The statement must not be misunderstood. It by no means coincides with the religious distinction that men are equal in the eyes of God, and it is not to be associated with any ethical ideas of life. Equality before God, and the equal worth of a moral act, whether done by the greatest or the humblest of God’s children, are not social conceptions; they are significant only in religious, and not in social, life. And these two spheres can everywhere be separated. It can even be said that, as profoundly as religion pervades every-day life in America, the characteristic principle of equality in the social community is wholly independent of the ethics of the New Testament.

It is still less a metaphysical conception. The American popular mind does not at all sympathize with the philosophical idea that individuality is only an appearance, and that we are all fundamentally one being. The American thinks pluralistically, and brings to his metaphysics a firm belief in the absolute significance of the individual. And finally, the American principle of equality 533which we wish to grasp is not rationally humanitarian; whether all human beings are really equal is left out of account. It is a question actually of this one social community living together in the United States and having to regulate its social affairs.

Let us suppose that a group of similarly employed good friends were on an excursion, and that the young people for the sake of diversion were agreed to represent for a while various sorts of human occupation—one is to play millionaire, another beggar, still others judge, teacher, artisan, labourer, high official, and valet. Each one plays his part with the greatest abandon; one commands and the other obeys, one dictates and the other trembles. And yet behind it all there is a pleasant feeling that at bottom they are all just alike, and that the whole game is worth while merely because they know that one is in fact as good as another. If a real beggar or servant were to come into the circle, there would be no more fun, and the game would be wholly meaningless. Strange as it may sound, this feeling is at the bottom of social life in America. Every one says to himself: All of us who inhabit this incomparable country are at bottom comrades; one bakes bread and the other eats it, one sits on the coachman’s box and the other rides inside; but this is all because we have agreed so to assign the rôles. One commands and the other obeys, but with a mutual understanding that this merely happens to be the most appropriate distribution of functions under the circumstances in which we happen to be placed.

The real man, it is felt, is not affected by this differentiation, and it would not be worth while either to command or to obey if all men did not tacitly understand that each esteems the other as an equal. A division of labour is necessary, but as long as any one does the work apportioned to him he belongs of course to the fraternal circle, quite as well as the one who by reason of industrial conditions or natural talents comes to take a more distinguished or agreeable position. Whoever makes this claim honestly for himself assumes that every one else does likewise. On the other hand, whosoever thinks himself equal to those above him, but superior to those beneath him, conceives external differences to be intrinsic, and makes thus a presumptuous demand for himself. The man who truly sees social equality as a real part of the social contract, will feel toward those above as toward those below him. 534He will make his own claims good by the very act of recognizing the claims of others. The spirit of social self-assertion requires the intrinsic equality of all one’s neighbours who belong to the social community in question.

So long as one seeks equality by trying to imitate one’s more wealthy, more educated, or more powerful neighbours and trying to gloze over the differences, or by consciously lowering one’s self to the level of the poor, the uninfluential, and the uneducated, and either by spiritual or by material aid obliterating the distinction, one is not really believing in equality, but is considering the outer distinctions as something actual. Indeed, the zeal to wipe out distinctions is the most obvious admission that one feels actual differences to exist in the social fabric. Where the spirit of self-assertion, with the recognition of one’s neighbour as an equal social being, prevails, there will be no lack of striving for outward similarity, of trying to help one’s self along, and of helping others up to one’s own position; but this is looked on as a technical matter and not as referring intrinsically to the participants in the social game.

It is doubtful whether a European can fully appreciate this social point of view, because he is too apt to distort the idea into an ethical one. He is ready to abstract artificially from all social differences, and to put the ethical idea of moral equality in the stead of social differentiation. The social system is secondary then to the moral system, as in fact religion actually teaches. The American, however, goes in just the opposite direction. He presupposes, as a matter of course, that the citizens of the United States are socially equal, whether they live in the White House or work in the coal mine; and this point of view is not dependent on any ethical theory, but is itself the basis of such a theory. When we were speaking of the influence of religion on morality, we especially emphasized the fact that religious ethics are everywhere complemented by a purely social ethic, and now we meet this new form of ethics. Religion requires a morality of which the principle is clearly, though somewhat derogatorily, designated in philosophical discussions as the morality of submission, and which finds its counterpart in the ethical theories of moral lordship—the forcible and conscious suppression of the weak. Now the American constructs a morality of comradeship which is as far 535from the morality of submission as from that of lordship; which is unlike either the morality of the pietist based on the religious idea of immortality, or the morality of Nietzsche, based on biological exigencies. This morality of comradeship is based entirely on the idea of society.

This does not mean that it is a question of fulfilling moral requirements in order to escape social difficulties, or to gain social advantages, but of recognizing this morality simply as a social requirement. Such actions may be called moral because they are unselfish and arise from no other motive than that of the inner desire; and still they are not, in the ordinary sense, moral because they are not universally valid, and refer no further than the circle of the special social community. They may be compared to the requirements which arise in some communities out of a peculiar conception of honour; but the society here is a whole nation, without caste and without distinction. And, moreover, an idea of honour gets its force from the self-assertion of a personality, while the social morality of the American arises in a demand for the recognition of another. The fundamental feeling is that the whole social interplay would have no meaning, and social ambition and success would yield no pleasure, if it were not clearly understood that every other member of the social community is equal to one’s self, and that he has the absolute right to make such a claim.

The criminal and the man without honour have forfeited that right; they are excluded from the community and cut off from the social game. But distinctions of position, of education, of heredity, and of property, have nothing to do with this right. If we are to strive for social success, we must be perfectly sure at the outset that we are all comrades, participating in the various labours of the great gay world with mutual approval and mutual esteem; and we must show that we believe this, by our actions. And because here it is not a question of rigorous morality, but rather of the moral consequences of social ideals, the ethical goes by inappreciable steps into the ethically indifferent, into purely social customs and habits; and in many cases into evils and abuses that follow from the same social ideals. We may picture to ourselves the salient traits which are essential to this spirit of social self-assertion.

A stranger first notices, perhaps, the perfect confidence with 536which everybody goes about his business, without feeling oppressed by those above nor exalted by those beneath him. He feels himself an equal among equals. There is no condescension to those beneath nor servility to those above. The typical American feels himself in every social situation self-assured and equal; he is simply master of himself, polite but frank, reserved but always kind. He detests patronage and condescension as much as servility and obsequiousness. For condescension emphasizes the difference in the rank, and presumes to challenge a possible forgetting of this difference by suggesting that both the persons do recognize the distinction as intrinsic. A man who asserts his true equality and expects in every other honourable man the same self-assertion, scarcely understands how purely technical differences of social position can affect the inner relations of man to man.

One who grows up in such a social atmosphere does not lose his feeling of assurance on coming into quite a different society. Archibald Forbes, the Englishman, describes somewhere the American war correspondent, MacGahan, who was the son of an Ohio farmer, as he appeared in a Russian camp. “Never before,” writes Forbes, “have I seen a young man appear so confident among high officers and officials. There was no trace in his manner of impudence or presumption. It was as if he had conceived the matter on a single principle: I am a man—a man who, in an honourable way and for a specific purpose, which you know or which I will gladly tell you, needs something which you are best able to give me—information, a pass, or something of the sort; therefore I ask it of you. It is indifferent to the logic of the situation whether you are a small lieutenant or a general in command, a messenger boy, or an imperial chancellor.” And some one else has added, “MacGahan could do anything with Ignatieff; he calmly paid court to Mme. Ignatieff, patronized Prince Gortschakoff, and gave a friendly nod to the Grand Duke Nicholas.”

It is not surprising that Englishmen are the ones who feel this trait of the Americans most markedly. England, which is most similar to America politically, is, in this respect of real belief in social equality, most dissimilar; and in curious contrast to Russia, which is politically the very furthest removed from America, but which in its common life has developed most of all a feeling of social equality. And still the American feeling is very different 537from the Russian. In the Russian man, all the deeper sensibilities are coloured by a religious conception; he accounts himself at bottom, neither better nor worse than the most miserable: whereas the American feels, on the contrary, that he is at bottom not inferior to the very best. The Russian sense of equality pulls down and the American exalts.

As for the Englishman, Muirhead relates as follows in his book, “The Land of Contrasts”: “There is something wonderfully rare and delicate in the finest blossoms of American civilization—something that can hardly be paralleled in Europe. The mind that has been brought up in an atmosphere theoretically free from all false standards and conventional distinctions acquires a singularly unbiased, detached, absolute, purely human way of viewing life. In Matthew Arnold’s phrase, ‘it sees life steadily and sees it whole’; just this attitude seems unattainable in England; neither in my reading nor my personal experience have I encountered what I mean elsewhere than in America.... The true-born American is absolutely incapable of comprehending the sense of difference between a lord and a plebeian that is forced on the most philosophical among ourselves by the mere pressure of the social atmosphere. It is for him a fourth dimension of space; it may be talked about, but practically it has no existence.... The British radical philosopher may attain the height of saying, ‘With a great sum obtained I this freedom’; the American may honestly reply, ‘But I was free-born.’”

But what Muirhead thus says of the colour of the finest flowers is true, if we look more closely, of the entire flora; it may not be so delicate and exquisite as in these flowers; it is often mixed with cruder colours, but every plant on American soil, if it is not just an ordinary weed, has a little of that dye.

It is not correct to suppose that inequalities of wealth work directly against this feeling. In spite of all efforts and ambitions toward wealth and the tendencies to ostentation, the American lacks just that which makes the possession of property a distinction of personal worth—the offensive lack of consideration toward inferiors and the envy of superiors. As gladly as the American gets the best and dearest that his purse can buy, he feels no desire to impress the difference on those who are less prosperous. He does not care to outdo the poorer man; his luxury signifies his 538personal pleasure in expenditure as an indication of his success in the world. But so far as he thinks of those who are looking on, it is of those richer persons whom he would like to imitate, and not of those who can afford less than himself.

Envy was not planted in the American soul. Envy is not directed at the possession, but at the possessor; and therefore, it recognizes that the possessor is made better by what he owns. A person who asserts himself strains every nerve to improve his own condition, but never envies those who are more favoured. And envy would be to him as great a degradation as pure servility. Undoubtedly here is one of the most effective checks to socialism. Socialism may not spring directly from envy, but a people given to envy are very ready to listen to socialism; and in America socialism remains a foreign cult, which is preached to deaf ears. A man who feels himself inferior, and who envies his wealthier fellows, would be glad to bring about an artificial equality by equalizing ownership: whereas the man who accounts himself equal to every one else is ready to concede the external inequality which lends fresh impetus and courageous endeavour to his existence; and this the more as the accumulation of capital becomes an obviously technical matter, not immediately contributory to the enjoyment of life. The billionaire enjoys no more than the millionaire, but merely works with a more complicated and powerful apparatus. Even direct economic dependence does not depress the spirit of self-assertion. We shall have later to speak, indeed, of strong opposite tendencies, and to speak of social differentiation; but this trait remains everywhere. It is much more strongly in evidence in town and country than in the large city, and much more in the West than in the East.

The tokens of greeting are thoroughly characteristic. An American doffs his hat to ladies out of respect to the sex; but men meet one another without that formality, and the finer differences in the nod of the head, expression of the eyes, and movements of the hat indicate the degree of personal familiarity and liking, but not of social position. Position is something technical, professional, and external, which is not in question when two men meet on the street. They greet because they know each other, and in this mutual relation of personal acquaintance they are merely equal human beings, and not the representatives of professional 539grades. The careful German adjustment of the arc through which the hat is carried and of the angle to which the body bends, in deference to social position, strikes the American as nonsensical. The fundamental disregard of titles and orders is, of course, closely connected with such a feeling. This has two sides, and has particularly its exceptions, which we shall not fail to speak of; but, on the whole, titles and orders are under the ban. The American feels too clearly that every form of exaltation is at the same time a degradation, for it is only when all are equal that no one is inferior, and so soon as some one is distinguished, the principle of the inequality is admitted and he in turn subordinates himself to others.

It would be unfair to draw the conclusion from this that Americans hate every sort of subordination. On the contrary, one who watches American workmen at their labour, or studies the organization of great business houses, or the playing of games under the direction of a captain, knows that for a specific purpose American subordination can become absolute. The much-boasted American talent for organization could not have been so brilliantly confirmed if it had not found everywhere an absolute willingness for conscious subordination. But the foot-ball player does not feel himself inferior to the captain whose directions he follows. The profound objection to subordination comes out only where it is not a question of dividing up labour, but of the real classification and grading of men. It is naturally strongest, therefore, in regard to hereditary titles where the distinction clearly cannot be based on the personal merits of the inheritor.

One of the most interesting consequences of this feeling is very noticeable to a stranger. The American thinks that any kind of work which is honourable is in principle suitable for everybody. To be sure, this looks differently in theory and in practice; the banker does not care to be a commercial traveller, nor the commercial traveller a bar-tender, nor the bar-tender a street-cleaner; and this not merely because he regards his own work as pleasanter, but as more respectable. Nevertheless, it is at once conspicuous with what readiness every useful sort of labour is recognized as honourable; and while the European of the better classes is vexed by the query how one can work and nevertheless remain respectable, the American finds it much harder to understand how one 540can remain respectable without working. The way in which thousands of young students, both men and women, support themselves during their years of study is typical. The German student would feel that some sort of teaching or writing was the only work suitable to him; at the utmost he would undertake type-writing. But we have seen in connection with the universities that the American student in narrow circumstances is not afraid during the summer vacations to work as porter in a hotel, or as horse-car driver, in order to stay a year longer at the university. Or perhaps, during the student year, he will earn a part of his board by taking care of a furnace. And none of the sons of millionaires who sit beside him in the lecture rooms will look down on him on that account. The thoughtless fellow who heaps up debts is despised, but not the day-labourer’s son, who delivers milk in the early morning in order to devote his day to science.

This is everywhere the background of social conceptions. No honourable work is a discredit, because the real social personality is not touched by the casual role which may be assumed in the economic fabric. Therefore it is quite characteristic that the only labour which is really disliked is such as involves immediate personal dependence, such as that of servants. The chamber-maid has generally much easier work than the shop girl; yet all women flock to the shops and factories, and few care to go into household service. Almost all servants are immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, and Germany, except the negroes and the Chinese of the West. Even the first generation of children born in the country decline to become servants. With the single individual, it is of course a matter of imitating his comrades and following general prejudices; but these prejudices have grown logically out of the social ideals. The working-man professionally serves industry and civilization, while the servant appears to have no other end than complying with the will of another person. The working-man adjusts himself to an abstract task, quite as his employer; while the servant sells a part of his free-will and therefore his social equality, to another man.

Most notorious is the fixed idea that blacking shoes is the lowest of all menial services; and this is an hallucination which afflicts not only those born in the country, but even the immigrant from Northern Europe, as soon as he passes the Statue of Liberty in 541New York harbour. The problem of getting shoes blacked would be serious were it not for the several million negroes in the country and the heavy immigration from Southern Europe which does not get the instant prejudice against shoe-polish. But the theoretical problem of why servants will gladly work very hard, but strike when it comes to blacking shoes, is still not solved. There is possibly some vague idea that blacking shoes is a symbol of grovelling at some one’s feet, and therefore involves the utmost sacrifice of one’s self-respect.

Closely connected with this is the American aversion against giving or accepting fees. Any one giving a fee in a street-car would not be understood, and there are few things so unsympathetic to the American who travels in Europe as the way in which the lower classes look for an obolus in return for every trivial service or attention. A small boy who accompanies a stranger for some distance through a village street in order to point out the way, would feel insulted if he were offered a coin for his kindness. The waiters in the large hotels are less offended by tips, for they have adopted the custom brought over by European waiters; but this custom has not spread much beyond the large cities. It is, in general, still true that the real American will accept pay only in so far as he can justly demand it for his labour. Everything above that makes him dependent on the kindness of some one else, and is therefore not a professional, but a personal matter, and for the moment obliterates social equality.

Just as any sort of work which does not involve the sacrifice of the worker’s free-will is suitable for every one, so the individual is very much less identified with his occupation than he is in Europe. He very often changes his occupation. A clergyman who is tired of the pulpit goes into a mercantile employment, and a merchant who has acquired some new interests proceeds to study until he is proficient in that field; a lawyer enters the industrial field, a manufacturer enters politics, a book dealer undertakes a retail furniture business, and a letter-carrier becomes a restaurant keeper. The American does not feel that a man is made by the accidents of his industrial position, but that the real man puts his professional clothes on or lays them off without being internally affected. The belief in social equality minimizes to the utmost the significance of a change of occupation; and it may be 542that the well-known versatility and adaptability of the American are mainly due to this fact. For he is so much more conscious than any European that a change of environment in nowise alters his personality, and therefore requires no really new internal adjustment, which would be difficult always, but only an outward change—the mastery of a new technique.

A foreigner is most astonished at these changes of occupation when they come after a sudden reverse of fortune. The readiness and quietness with which an American takes such a thing would be absolutely impossible, if the spirit of self-assertion had not taught him through his whole life that outward circumstances do not make the man. If a millionaire loses his property to-day, his wife is ready to-morrow to open a boarding-house; circumstances have changed, and as it has been her lot in the past to conduct her salon in a palace, it is now her business to provide a good noon-day meal for young clerks. She enjoyed the first a great deal more, and yet it too brought its burdens. The change is one of occupation, and does not change her personality. The onlooker is again and again reminded of actors who play their part; they appear to live in every rôle for the moment that they are playing it, but it is really indifferent to them at bottom whether they are called on to play in a cloak of ermine or in blue-jeans. One is as good as the other, even when the parts require one to swagger about and the other to sweat.

If the members of the community feel themselves really equal, they will lay special importance, in their social intercourse, on all such factors as likewise do not accentuate external differences, but bind man to man without regard to position, wealth, or culture. This is the reason of the remarkable hold which sport has on American life. The American likes sport of every sort, especially such games as foot-ball and base-ball, rowing, wrestling, tennis and golf and polo, in all of which bodily exercise is used in competition. After these in favour come hunting, fishing, yachting, riding, swimming, and gymnastic exercises. The sport of mountain-climbing is less popular, and in general the American is not a great walker.

American sport is, indeed, combined with many unsportsmanlike elements. In the first place, betting has taken on such proportions that financial considerations are unduly influential, and the 543identification of opposing teams with special clubs, universities, or cities too often brings it about, that the sportsmanlike desire to see the best side win is often made secondary to the unsportsmanlike desire to see one’s own side win at any cost. And yet even the fervour with which the spectators on the grand-stand manifest their partisanship is only another expression of the fact that the average American is intensely moved by sport; and this interest is so great as to overcome all social distinctions and create, for the time being, an absolutely equal fellow-feeling.

Base-ball is the most popular game, and is played during the spring and summer. The autumn game of foot-ball is too complicated, and has become too much of a “science” to be a thoroughly popular game. In the huge crowds which flock to see a university foot-ball game, the larger part is not always aware of what is happening at every moment, and can appreciate only the more brilliant plays. Tennis and golf are too expensive to be popular; and in golf, moreover, the success of a player is too independent of the skill of his antagonist. Water sports are out of the question in many localities. But every lad in city or country plays base-ball. It can be played everywhere, can be easily followed by spectators, and combines the interest of team work with the more naïve interest in the brilliant single play. It is said that on every warm Saturday afternoon, base-ball matches are played in more than thirty thousand places, before audiences of some five million amateurs in sport. Around the grounds sit labouring men, clergymen, shop-boys, professors, muckers, and millionaires, all participating with a community of interest and feeling of equality as if they were worlds removed from the petty business where social differences are considered.

There is only one more sovereign power than the spirit of sport in breaking down all social distinctions; it is American humour. We could not speak of political or intellectual life without emphasizing this irrepressible humour; but we must not forget it for a moment in speaking of social life, for its influence pervades every social situation. The only question is whether it is the humour which overcomes every disturbance of the social equilibrium and so restores the consciousness of free and equal self-assertion, or whether it is this consciousness which fosters humour and seeks expression in a good-natured lack of respect. No immoderation, 544no improper presumption, and no pomposity can survive the first humorous comment, and the American does not wait long for this. The soap-bubble is pricked amid general laughter, and equality is restored. Whether it is in a small matter or whether in a question of national importance, a latent humour pervades all social life.

Not a single American newspaper appears in the morning without some political joke or whimsical comment, a humorous story, or a satirical article; and those who are familiar with American papers and then look into the European newspaper, find the greatest contrast to be in the absence of humour. And the same is true of daily life; the American is always ready for a joke and has one always on his lips, however dry the subject of discussion may be, and however diverse the social “position” of those present. A happy humorous turn will remind them all that they are equal fellow-citizens, and that they are not to take their different functions in life too solemnly, nor to suppose that their varied outward circumstances introduce any real inequality. As soon as Americans hear a good story, they come at once to an understanding, and it is well-known that many political personalities have succeeded because of their wit, even if its quantity was more than its quality.

American humour is most typically uttered with great seriousness; the most biting jest or the most extravagant nonsense is brought out so demurely as not at all to suggest the real intent. The American is a master at this, and often remarks the Englishman’s incapacity to follow him. The familiar American criticism of their English cousins is, in spite of Punch, certainly exaggerated—as if there were no humour at all in the country which produced Dickens. But it cannot be denied that American humour to-day is fresher and more spontaneous. And this may be in large part due to the irrepressible feeling of equality which so carries humour into every social sphere. The assurance of this feeling also makes the American ready to caricature himself or his very best friend. But it is necessary especially to observe the masses, the participants in a festival, citizens on voting day, popular crowds on the streets or in halls, in order to feel how all-powerful their humour is. A good word thrown in makes all of them forget their political differences, and an amusing occurrence repays 545them for every disappointment. They say, Let’s forget the foolish quarrel about trivial differences; we would rather be good-natured, now that we are reminded, in spite of all differences, of our social equality.

Now, out of this feeling of equality there spring far-reaching duties. Especially there are those which concern one’s self, and these are the same as proceeded from the Puritan spirit of self-perfection. They are the same requirements, although they are expressed in different ethical language and somewhat differently accentuated. The fundamental impulse in this group of feelings is wholly un-Puritan and entirely social. I assert myself to be equal to all others who are worthy of esteem, and therefore I must recognize for myself all the duties which those who are richer, more educated, and more influential impose on themselves; in short, I must behave like a gentleman. The motto, which certainly has nothing to do with religion, is noblesse oblige; but the nobility consists in being a citizen of America, and as such subordinate to no man. The duties which accrue are, however, quite similar to religious obligations. The gentleman requires of himself firstly self-control and social discipline. Also in this connection we find a sexual purity which is not known on the Continent; one may sit in jovial men’s society after dinner with cigars around the fireplace a hundred times without ever hearing an unclean story: and if a young fellow tried to boast to his friends of his amorous adventures, in the European manner, he would be snubbed. Nowhere in the world is a young girl so safe in the protection of a young man.

The gentleman is marked, first of all, by his character; everything which is low, unworthy, malicious, or even petty is fundamentally disagreeable to him. The true American is not to be judged by certain scandal-mongering papers, nor by city politics. As known in private life, he is admirable in all his social attitudes. He has a real distaste, often in part æsthetic, for what is vulgar or impure; and this is true in wider as in more exclusive circles. In business he may look sharply to his own advantage; but even there he is not stingy or trivial, and he will seldom make use of a petty advantage, of doubtful actions, or dishonourable flattery and obsequiousness in order to gain his end, nor be brutal toward a weak competitor. That is opposed to the American national character. 546It is less opposed, however, to the assimilated immigrant population, especially the Irish.

The relation of one man to his neighbour is correspondingly upright. The spirit of self-assertion educates to politeness, helpfulness, good-nature, and magnanimity. European books on America are fond of saying that the fundamental principle of American life is, “Help yourself.” If that is understood to mean that the individual person is not expected to keep quiet and wait for some higher power to help him, and is expected, instead of waiting for the government, to go ahead and accomplish things for himself, it is true. We have already everywhere discovered the principle of individual and private initiative to be the great strength of the American state; the community is to act only when the strength of the individual is not sufficient. And the American believes in self-help in still another sense. He teaches his children to think early of economic independence; the sons even of the wealthy man are to begin with a small income and work up for themselves. Here the traditions of the pioneers are in a way perpetuated, for they had to conquer the soil by their own hard work. This training in self-help has contributed very much to make the American strong, and will doubtless continue to be regarded as the proper plan of education, however much the increasing prosperity may tend in the opposite direction.

On the other hand, the motto “Help yourself” is thoroughly misleading, if it is taken to mean that every one must help himself because his neighbour will not help him. A readiness to help in every way is one of the most marked traits of the American, from the superficial courtesy to the noblest self-sacrifice. The American’s unlimited hospitality is well known. Where it is a question of mutual social intercourse, hospitality is no special virtue, and the lavish extravagance of present-day hospitality is rather a mistake. But it is different when the guest is a stranger, who has brought, perhaps, merely a short note of introduction. The heartiness with which such an one is promptly taken into the house and provided with every sort of convenience, arises from a much deeper impulse than mere delight in well-to-do sociability. In the large cities, the American affords his guests such lodging and entertainment as a European is accustomed to bestow only in the country.

More or less remotely, all hospitality involves an idea of exchange; 547the entirely one-sided devotion begins first in philanthropy. When men feel themselves essentially equal, they may welcome external dissimilarities which incite them to redoubled efforts; but they will not like to see this unlikeness go beyond a certain point. Differences of power, education, and wealth are necessary to keep the social machinery moving; but there is a certain lower boundary where helplessness, illiteracy, and poverty do really threaten the true personality. And then the whole significance of social community is lost. One’s neighbour must not be debased nor deprived by outward circumstances of his inner self; he must have at once the means of working for culture and striving for power and possessions. Otherwise, an inner unlikeness would arise which would have to be recognized, and which would then contradict the presuppositions of democratic society. The feeling of justice is aroused at the sight of helplessness, the desire for reform at the sight of illiteracy; and poverty inspires eager assistance.

In its outward effects social helpfulness amounts to the same as religious benevolence, although they are at bottom far removed, and their difference may be recognized, however much they work into one another. In the world of self-perfection there is pity for the needy, and benevolence is offered as a religious sacrifice. In the world of self-assertion, the consciousness of right is uppermost, which will not suffer the debasing influence of poverty; and here benevolence is felt as a social duty by the performance of which social equality is preserved. It is a natural consequence of pity and sacrifice to encourage beggary and unsystematic alms-giving; and the fact that in America everything is directed against beggary and against letting anybody feel that he is receiving alms, speaks for the predominance of the social over the religious motive in America. The one who receives alms lowers himself, while the true social purpose is not in the charitable intent to help up the fallen, but to protect the social organism from the pathological symptom of such debasement; the belief in equality and the right of self-assertion must not be taken from any individual in America. The other extreme, state aid, legal enactments, or illness and accident insurance, or insurance against old age or lack of employment, would be politically impossible. They would be an attempt on the individual’s right of self-determination, which would be 548opposed for the sake of principle. The American social system demands, rather, development along a line somewhere between individual alms-giving and government insurance. It is a question of creating permanent social organizations to do away with poverty, illness, depravity, crime, and distress in a systematic, intelligent fashion.

The connection with the state would thus be preserved, since the state poor-laws supervise and regulate such organizations; on the other hand, the connection with individuals would be preserved, since they derive most of their means from private gifts and enlist a great deal of personal service, particularly that of women. Besides these private and semi-public organizations, there is the co-operation of certain state institutions on the one hand, and on the other of quiet individual benevolence, for which any amount of organization always leaves plenty of scope. Care of the poor and of children, social settlements and educational funds, whatever the forms of helpfulness, the same spirit of almost exaggerated benevolence inspires the gift of unlimited money, advice, time, and strength. Philanthropy could be improved in its outward technique in many states. Too often politics have a disturbing influence; inexperience and religious narrowness are in evidence; efforts are sometimes directed partly against one another; and many conditions of distress arising from the mixed population of the great thinly settled tracts of land, present problems which are still unsolved. But this has nothing to do with the recognition of the benevolent traits of American character.

The readiness of the American to give to good purposes is the more impressive the closer one looks. From a distance, one sees gifts of millions of dollars which less impress one; everybody knows that men like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt make no sacrifices in contributing sums even in seven figures. But the person who is nearer the scene observes that there is also the widow’s mite, and that the well-to-do middle class often gives away a proportion of its income that seems almost too large, according to European ideas. And this giving is never a thoughtless throwing away; the giver always investigates. Almost everybody has a special interest, where he fulfils his benevolent duties thoughtfully and intelligently, Vanity hardly figures at all; the largest gifts are often anonymous and unheard of by the newspapers. Those 549who are often in the position of appealing to American public spirit for good purposes, soon lose the feeling that they are reminding the public of a duty or asking for an offering. The American gives in a way which suggests that he is delighted to be called on for so worthy a cause; he often adds a word of thanks to a contribution which is larger than was expected, for having his attention called to the cause in hand.

And his benevolence is not all a matter of the check-book. Whether the wind has blown some one’s hat off in the street, or some greater mischance has brought unhappiness, the American feels that he lives in the midst of a kindly disposed community. A feeling of comradeship is always more or less in evidence. In any case of sudden accident or misfortune, the way in which the American unselfishly lends a hand, or the crowd instinctively organizes itself to give aid, always astonishes a newcomer.

This fundamental motive shows itself in many ways; magnanimity is one of the most characteristic variations. The American takes no advantage of the weakness or misfortune of another; he likes competition, but that presupposes that the competitors have equal advantages. An opponent’s disadvantage takes away the pleasure of victory. During the Spanish War, the ovations accorded to the Spanish “heroes” were often decidedly beyond the limits of good taste; and even during the Civil War, when the embitterment was extreme, people outdid themselves in their kind treatment of the prisoners. And leading men of the North have lately proposed, in spirited public addresses, to erect a national monument to General Lee, the great leader of the Southern States. As in war so it is in peace. The presidential candidates of the two parties arranged some years ago to speak in the same places during the same week; but one of them was detained by illness in his family, and the other cancelled his speeches in order not to profit by the misfortune of his opponent. In the case of a difference of opinion which is settled by vote, say in a small club or committee meeting, the cheerful submission of the minority is generally surpassed by the magnanimity of the majority.

This same magnanimity is shown in helping the weak; there are no better-natured, more considerate, and patient people than the American, so long as the social side of life is in question. Their temperamental coolness and humour stand them in good stead. At 550bottom it is the feeling that they are all equal, and that if one has made a miss-step to-day and needs help, one needed it one’s self yesterday, and may need it again to-morrow. The accident that one is doing one’s duty at the moment while another is careless, indiscreet, or foolish is not to be magnified nor taken to mean that one’s self is a better sort of a man. Such kindliness greatly makes for general informality.

Among the current complaints of Europeans is, that the American life lacks just this serene cordiality, the German Gemütlichkeit. It is true, indeed, that the rhythm of American life is quicker and more energetic; so that the stranger, until he has become accustomed to the more strenuous pace, remains at first oppressed by a disagreeable sense of haste; just as the American who visits Germany has at first a disagreeable feeling of hide-bound pedantry and careless indifference. Such a first impression is superficial. As soon as the American is adapted to the adagio of German life, he feels that the slowness is not carelessness; and the German, when he has learned the smarter marching time of American life, knows in the same way that the quick, strong accent by no means excludes serenity and comfort. It is true that in the two countries these feelings are differently distributed. The German Christmas-tide is certainly more fervent and serene than the American, but it is a question whether German popular life has any holiday more warmly solemnized than the Thanksgiving Day of New England. The American nature favours a purely social comfort which has less to do with sentiment and feeling than with the sense of affiliation.

German informality develops itself always among social equals, because in Germany social differences seem to extend to the deepest traits of personality; but social distinctions do not stand in the way of the sympathetic intercourse of Americans, because they hardly ever forget that such differences are external. In this sense the South German enjoys more Gemütlichkeit than the North German, and the American more than any European. The most indiscriminately chosen group can be brought to a unity of feeling by the merest comical or pathetic accident, so that all social distinctions fall away like dead leaves. In the most dignified assembly, as at the busiest office, a single word or jest creates unconsciously a sympathetic mood, in which the youngest messenger and the most important director come at once into 551equality. A feeling runs through the whole social life, as if one would like to say, with a jovial wink, that no one believes really in all the social distinctions, but is looking for what is good in the inner personality.

The most energetic expression of this inner striving for equality lies in the feeling of justice. There is no province in which American and German feelings are so different. This is especially true in the matter of penal law. A crime is naturally a crime here as there, and the differences in penalty are mainly due to different political, social, and industrial institutions. The American is perhaps astonished at the rigour of German law regarding the press or lèse majesté, and at the mild punishment for duelling, or certain social delinquencies; while the German is amazed at the severe American laws relating to temperance and at the mild punishment for slander of officials, etc. But all this does not show the least difference in the sense of justice, but only in the institution. The real difference is deeper. The German, we might say, lays the chief emphasis in seeing to it that on no account a criminal shall evade the law, while the American will on no account let an innocent man be punished. It is a matter of course that every social community includes delinquents, and that for the protection of society a penal code must do its best to suppress, to intimidate, or to improve the lawless will. But in view of such necessary machinery, the American feels that every effort should be made that his guiltless neighbour shall not be molested, since the neighbour is one like himself. It is better for a hundred guilty persons to escape the punishment they deserve than for a single innocent person to be in the least aggrieved.

The real distinctions, therefore, do not lie in the penal code, but in the way it is administered; to put it extremely, the German who is accused is guilty until he proves his innocence, while the American is innocent until he is proved guilty. A single example will make the matter clear. Any one in the United States who has been charged with murder or any other misdeed and on trial found not guilty, can never again during his whole life be tried for the same crime; not even if entirely new and convincing evidence comes up later, nor even if he should himself confess the crime. The American jurist says that the state has been given sufficient opportunity to prove the defendant’s guilt. If the counsel of the state as 552plaintiff has not been able to convince the jury, the accused man is legally innocent, and is protected as a matter of principle from the dread of any renewal of the accusation. In American legal opinion the German method of procedure involves a certain arbitrariness, which according to the opinion of many lawyers, is tolerated in Germany only because of the admirable quality of the judges. American jurists say that about half of the testimony admitted in the German court-room, and two-thirds admitted in the French, are entirely incompatible with the legal supposition that every man is innocent until proved guilty.

The different use of the oath is also characteristic of these two countries. The sworn testimony on the basis of “information and belief” is admitted without more ado, and so two contradictory pieces of evidence under oath are not only admissible, but are very common; and the German acceptance of the oath of one party and exclusion of that of the other seems a downright impossibility from the point of view of American law. In the same category is the requirement that the verdict of the jury shall be unanimous. The twelve jurymen may not leave the court except under surveillance until they have pronounced the verdict; and thus it happens that they often have to sleep and eat for days in the court house in order to be guarded from outside influences. If after all they can come to no agreement, the case is dropped and the situation remains exactly as it was before the trial; and the state attorney is free to bring a new accusation. Only an unanimous “guilty” or “not guilty” can be accepted. In this connection, too, is found the unusual significance of the judicial injunctions, and especially of the writ of habeas corpus, derived from Magna Charta, which says that no free man is to be deprived of life, liberty, or property, except according to the law of the land and by the verdict of his peers.

On looking over the judicial practice of the country as a whole, one will feel, quite as in Germany, that this great machinery succeeds in punishing crime and protecting society; but in America the instinctive fear of the law is accompanied by a profounder feeling that any innocent man is perfectly safe. Every trial shows, in a way, most clearly the negative side of the process, that the rights of the defendant are to be carefully protected. And if a newcomer in the country recalls certain exaggerated reports in German newspapers 553of corruption in American courts, he should bear in mind the words of Choate. Shortly before going as ambassador to England, he made a speech before a society of jurists, of which he was president, on the advantages and disadvantages of trial by jury. As to the theoretical possibility of bribery in such cases, he said that he could pass the matter over, since, during his experience of forty years in law, he had not seen a single case in which even one member of any jury had been accused of having been bribed. Unreliability in the administration of justice would do away at once with the fundamental principle of American social life. When men believe sincerely in their equality, they naturally develop a strong sense of justice, and regard the protection of the innocent man against every sort of prejudice, hostility, dislike, or disregard as the very highest function of the law.

We have depicted the brighter side of the American sense of equality, and may now, with a few strokes, put in the shadows. No one has denied that there are unfortunate features, although some assert that they must be accepted or else more important advantages sacrificed. A stranger is at once struck by the tendency to uniformity which arises from the belief in general equality. The spirit of comradeship is unfavourable to individual differentiation, no matter whether it is a question of a man’s hat and necktie or his religion and his theory of the universe. He is expected to demonstrate his uniformity by seeming no different from every one else. In outward matters this monotony is considerably favoured by industrial conditions, which produce staple articles in great quantities and distribute them from one end of the country to another. Exactly the same designs in fashion, arts and crafts, furniture and machinery are put on exhibition at the same time in the show-windows from New York to San Francisco. On the other hand, it is the economic custom of the American to replace everything which he uses very frequently. This is due to the cheapness of all manufactured articles and the high price of the manual labour which is necessary to make repairs. It is actually cheaper to buy new shoes and underclothing at frequent intervals than to have the old ones mended, and this also provides every man with the latest styles. If a new style of collar is brought out to-day, there will, say among the thousands of Harvard students, be hardly a hundred to-morrow wearing the old style. This tendency is, of course, aided by 554the general prosperity, which enables an unusually large proportion of persons to have considerably more than they need, and to indulge, perhaps imitatively, in the fashionable luxuries of the day.

As much as the general prosperity favours this rapid adoption of new fashions, it is still clear that wealth might, in itself, also help its possessors to distinguish themselves in outward ways; but this does not happen in the United States by reason of these prevalent social ideals. Now, the desire to do as others do affects even the inner life; one must play the same game and must read the same novel, not because one thinks it is better, but because others do it, and because one feels in inner accord with the social community only by loving and hating the same things as it. Those who do not like what others like, find themselves extremists at once; they are instinctively held off by society as bizarre or over-intense, and relegated to the social periphery. There are too few intermediate stages between the many who follow one another and the few who follow no one, and the finer shadings of personality are too much lost in this way. Americans ape one another as the officers of an army, and not merely in uniform, but in the adjustment of all their habits and desires, until comradeship becomes sterile uniformity.

In many ways the American inventive talent tends to relieve the general monotony. But this effort all the time to discover new solutions of this or that social problem, new surprises, new entertainments, is itself only a sort of game which is played at by all uniformly. The small city imitates the large one, the rural population imitates the metropolitan; no profession cares to keep its own social individuality; and the press and politics of the entire country tend to obliterate all professional and local differences in social life, and to make of the whole nation a huge assembly of gentlemen and ladies who, whether high or low, desire to be just gentlemen and ladies at large. It is still not difficult to-day to distinguish a gentleman of Omaha from a New Yorker; but this is in spite of the former, who, as a matter of principle, aims to present the same appearance. East and West, and recently in both North and South, one sees the same countenance, and it is seldom that one hears something of an intelligent effort to kindle local sentiment in contrast to national uniformity. There is an appeal to provincialism to free itself from the system of empty mutual 555imitation, and yet everybody must see that the profoundest instincts of this country are unfavourable to the development of individual peculiarities.

The dangers of this uniformity are chiefly æsthetic, although it is not to be forgotten that uniformity very easily grows into intellectual mediocrity, and under some circumstances may bring about a certain ethical listlessness. On the other hand, the unfavourable effects of that good-nature which dominates American life are all of them ethical. Their amiable good-nature is, in a certain sense, the great virtue of the Americans; in another sense, their great failing. It is actually at bottom his good-nature which permits him everywhere to overlook carelessness and crookedness, and so opposes with a latent resistance all efforts at reform. The individual, like the nation, has no gift for being cross; men avoid for their own, but more especially for others’ sake, the disagreeable excitement. Since the country is prosperous and the world wags pretty well, no one ought to grumble if he is now and then imposed on, or if some one gets an advantage over him, or makes misuse of power. Among comrades nobody ought to play the stern pontiff.

An earnest observer of the country said, not long since, that the hope of the country does not lie in those amiable people who never drop the smile from their lips, but in those who, on due provocation, get thoroughly excited. Dust is settling on the country, and there is no great excitement to shake it off. The cobwebs of economic interests are being spun from point to point, and will finally hide the nation’s ideals. Good-nature produces a great deal of self-content in the United States, and those are not the worst friends of the country who wish it might have “bad times” once more, so that this pleasant smile might disappear, and the general indifference give place to a real agitation of spirit. The affair with Spain brought nothing of the sort; there was only enough anger to produce a pleasant prickling sensation, and the easy victory strengthened in every way the national feeling of contentment. There have been a few large disasters, due to somebody’s neglect of duty, such as the burning of a Chicago theatre, which have done something to stimulate the public conscience and to impress on people how dangerous it is to let things go just as they will; but even the disastrous accidents which result from this carelessness are quickly forgotten.

556The shadows are darkest where the spirit of social equality attempts artificially to do away with those differences which properly exist in school and family life. It may be partly a reaction against the over-strict bringing up of former generations; but everywhere pedagogical maxims seem senselessly aiming to carry over the idea of equality from the great social world into the nursery. It has become a dogma to avoid all constraint and, if possible, all punishment of children, and to make every correction and rebuke by appealing to their insight and good-will. Thus the whole education and schooling goes along the line of least resistance; the child must follow all his own inclinations. And this idea is nothing at bottom but a final consequence of the recognition of social equality between all persons. To constrain another person, even if he is a mere child, means to infringe his personal liberty, to offer him an ethical affront, and so to accustom him to a sort of dependence that appears to be at variance with the American idea. Of course, the best people know that lack of discipline is not freedom, and that no strength is cultivated in the child that has always followed the line of least resistance and never experienced any friction. But the mass of people thoughtlessly overlooks this, and is content to see even in the family the respect of children for their parents and elders sacrificed to this favourite dogma.

Nature happily corrects many of these evils. It may be sport, most of all, which early in the child’s life introduces a severe discipline; and here the American principle is saved, since the outwardly rigid discipline which is enforced on every participant in the game is, nevertheless, at every moment felt to be his own will. The boy has himself sought out his comrades. If he had also chosen his parents there would be nothing against their giving him a good, sound punishment occasionally, instead of yielding indulgently to all his moods. If sport and the severe competition of public life were not here to save, it would be incomprehensible that such spoiled children should grow up into a population which keeps itself so strictly organized. Lack of discipline remains, however, in evidence wherever the constraint appears to be artificial and not self-chosen. Where, for instance, the discipline of the army sometimes leads to situations which apparently contradict “sound common sense,” the free American will never forget that the uniform is nothing but an external detail apart from his 557inner self. And even the commanding general will resort to the publicity of the press. In intellectual matters, all this is repeated in the lack of respect shown in forming judgment; every one thinks himself competent to decide all questions, and the most competent judgments of others are often discounted, because every one thinks himself quite as good and desires to assert himself, and feels in nowise called on to listen with respect to the profounder knowledge, reasoning, or experience of another.

We have so far said nothing of those whose self-assertion and claims to equality are the most characteristic expression of American life—the American women. We must not merely add a word about them at the end of the chapter; they are, at least, a chapter by themselves. And many who have studied American life would say that they are the entire story.

It is said that the United States is the only country in which parents are disappointed on the appearance of a boy baby, but will greet the arrival of a girl with undisguised pleasure. Who will blame them? What, after all, will a boy baby come to be? He will go to work early in life, while his sisters are left to go on and on with their education. He may work for a position in society, but it will be mainly in order to let his wife play a rôle; he may amass property, but most of all in order to provide bountifully for his daughter. He will have to stand all his life that she may sit; will have to work early and late, in order that she may shine. Is it really worth while to bring up a boy? But the little princess in the cradle has, indeed, a right to look out on the world with laughing eyes. She will enjoy all the privileges which nature specially ordained for woman, and will reach out confidently, moreover, for those things which nature designed peculiarly for man. No road is closed to her; she can follow every inclination of her soul, and go through life pampered and imperious. Will she marry? She may not care to, but nobody will think if she does not that it is because she is not able to realize any cherished desire. Will she be happy? Human destiny is, after all, destiny; but so far as nature and society, material blessings, and intellectual considerations can contribute toward a happy life, then surely the young American woman is more favoured by fortune than either man or woman in any other part of the world can hope to be. Is this advantage of hers also a gain to the family, to society, and the nation?

It is not perfectly correct to speak of the American woman as a type—the Southern girl is so different from the daughter of New England, the women of California so different from those of 559Chicago, and the different elements of population are so much more traceable in women than in men. And yet one does get a characteristic picture of the average woman. It may be too much influenced by the feminine figures which move in the better circles to be a faithful average likeness. Perhaps the young girl student has been too often the model, perhaps there is a reminiscence of the Gibson girl; and nevertheless, one discovers some general features of such youth in the fair women whose hair has turned grey, and there is something common to the daughters of distinguished families and the young women of the less favoured classes.

The American woman is a tall, trim figure, with erect and firm carriage; she is a bit like the English girl, and yet very different. This latter is a trifle stiff, while the American girl is decidedly graceful; the lines of her figure are well moulded, and her appearance is always aided by the perfect taste of her raiment. In the expression of her face there is resolution and self-control, and with the resolution a subtle mischievous expression which is both tactful and amiable. And with her evident self-control there is a certain winsome mobility and seemingly unreserved graciousness. The strength appears not to contradict the grace, the determination not to be at variance with the playfulness; her eyes and play of expression reveal the versatile spirit, fresh enthusiasm, and easy wit; yet her forehead shows how earnestly she may think and desire to be helpful in society, and how little contented simply to flirt and to please men.

And then her expression may change so suddenly that one asks in vain whether this energy was, perhaps, merely put on; was perhaps a whimsical caprice; perhaps her intellectual versatility was merely an elegant superficiality. Is she at bottom only in search of enjoyment? Is this show of independence real moral self-assertion, and this decision real courage, or does she emancipate herself merely out of ennui; is it a search for excitement? And is her eagerness to reach out for everything merely an effect of her environment which is ready to give everything? But could this slim figure really be so wonderfully seductive, if her eyes and features did not awaken doubt and unsolved questions; if everything were clear, simple, and obvious? Woman is everywhere full of contradictions; and if the American woman is different from all 560her sisters, it is because the contradictions in her face and mien seem more modern, more complex and unfathomable.

But it is vain to speak of the American woman without considering her relations to her environment—the background, as it were, of her existence, the customs and institutions under which she has grown up and continues to live. We must speak of the education and schooling, the studies and occupations of women, of their social and domestic position, their influence, and their organized efforts; and then we shall be better able critically to evaluate that in the American woman which is good, and that which is perhaps ominous.

The life of the American girl is different from that of her European sisters from the moment when she enters school. Public school instruction is co-educational, without exception in the lower grades, and usually in the upper. Of the six hundred and twenty-eight cities of the country, five hundred and eighty-seven have public schools for boys and girls together, from the primary to the most advanced classes; and of those cities that remain, only thirteen, and all of them are in the East, separate the boys and girls in every grade. In the country, boys and girls are always together at school. In private schools in cities, the instruction is more apt to be apart; but the public schools educate 91 per cent. of the youth—that is, about 7,700,000 boys and 7,600,000 girls.

Co-education has been adopted to a different extent in the different states, and even in the different grades of school has not developed equally. The instruction of boys and girls together has spread from the elementary classes, and while the idea took the West by storm, it was less immediately adopted by the conservative East. Practical exigencies, and especially the matter of economy, have greatly affected this development; and yet, on the whole, it has been favoured by principle. There is no doubt that, quite apart from the expense, a return to separate instruction for boys and girls would be regarded by the majority of the people to-day as an unallowable step backward: there has been considerable theoretical discussion of the matter; but the fact remains that the nation regards the great experiment as successful. This does not mean that the American thoughtlessly ignores sex differences in education; he is aware that the bodily, moral, and intellectual 561strength of the two sexes is different, and that their development proceeds along different lines. But firstly, the American school system, as we have seen, leaves in general great freedom in the selection of studies. The girls may take more French, while the boys in the same class more often study Latin; and many subjects are introduced in the curriculum expressly for one or the other sex—such as sewing, cooking, and type-writing for the girls, and carpentry for the boys.

It is said, moreover, that just as boys and girls eat the same food at the family table, although it goes to make very different sorts of bodies, so too the same intellectual nourishment will be digested in a different way, and not work against the normal intellectual differences. It is important only for the instruction like the nourishment to be of the best sort, and it is feared that the girls’ school would drop below the level of the boys’ school if the two were to be made distinct. Equal thoroughness is assured only by having one school. Opponents of the idea affirm that this one school is virtually nothing but a boys’ school after all, with girls merely in attendance, and that the school is not sufficiently adapted to the make-up of the young girls.

The main point, however, lies not in the similarity of instruction, but in the bringing together of boys and girls. It is true that the success of expensive private schools in large cities proves that there is considerable desire among parents to have their sons go to school with boys and their daughters only with girls; but the nation, as a whole, does not take this point of view, but believes that boys and girls, growing up as they do together in the home and destined to live together as adults, should become accustomed to one another during the formative period of school instruction. The girls, it is said, are made stronger by actually working with the boys; their seriousness is emphasized and their energy developed, while the boys are refined by contact with the gentler sex—induced to be courteous, and influenced toward æsthetic things. And if theorists were actually to fear the opposite result—that is, that the boys should be made weak and hysterical and the girls rough and coarse—they would need only to look to practical experience, which speaks unanimously to the contrary.

A still less well-grounded fear is that of those who wish to separate the sexes especially during the adolescent period. So far as 562this exceedingly complicated question admits of a brief summing up, the nation finds that the sexual tension is decreased by the contact in the school; the common intellectual labour, common ambitions, and the common anxieties awaken comradeship and diminish all ideas of difference. Boys and girls who daily and hourly hear one another recite their lessons, and who write together at the black-board, are for one another no objects of romantic longing or seductive mystery. Such a result may be deplored from another point of view—namely, that for reasons not connected with the school, such romanticism is desirable; but one must admit that the discouragement of unripe passion in the years of development means purer and healthier relations between the sexes, both physically and mentally. All regrettable one-sidedness is done away with. Just as in the stereoscope a normal perception of depth is brought out by the combination of two flat pictures, so here the constant combination of the masculine and feminine points of view results in a normal feeling of reality.

Then, too, the school in this wise prepares the way for later social intercourse. Boys and girls are brought together without special supervision, innocently and as a matter of course, from the nursery to early manhood and womanhood. It is only the artificial separation of the two sexes, the American says, which produces that unsound condition of the fancy that makes the relation of the sexes on the European Continent so frivolous and dubious. The moral atmosphere of the United States is undoubtedly much freer from unhealthful miasms. A cooler and less sensual temperament contributes much to this, but the comradely intercourse of boys and girls from the early school days to the time of marriage is undoubtedly an equally purifying force. The small boy very early feels himself the natural protector of his weaker playmate, and the girl can always, whether in the nursery or as a young lady in her mother’s parlour, receive her friends alone, even when her parents are not at home. A little coquetry keeps alive a certain sense of difference, always, but any least transgression is entirely precluded on both sides. The boy profoundly respects his girl friend as he does his own sister, and she could not be safer than in his protection. The gallantry of the European is at bottom egotistic. It is kind in order to win, and flatters in order to please; while the gallantry of the American is not aimed to seduce, but to serve; it does 563not play with the idea of male submission, but sincerely and truly gives the woman first place.

The only logical consequence, when boys and girls enjoy not only equivalent but absolutely equal school training, is that their further education shall go on parallel. We have seen the peculiar position of the American college; how it is almost incomparable with any German institution, being a sort of intermediate member between the high school and true university—the scene of a four-year intellectual activity, resembling in some respects the German school, and in others the German university. We have seen how the college removes the young man from the parental influences from his eighteenth to twenty-second years, and places him in a new, small, and academic world of special ideals which is centred around some beautiful college yard. We have seen how two things happen in these years; on the one hand, he is prepared for his future occupation, especially if he is to enter a professional faculty of the university, and on the other he receives a broad, humanitarian training. We have seen also that these hundreds of colleges form a scale of very small gradations, whose different steps are adapted to the different social needs of various sections of the country; that the better colleges are like a German Prima, with three or four semesters in the philosophical faculty of a university, and that the inferior colleges hardly reach the level of the Unterprima. In such an institution, we have found the source of the best that is in American intellectual life. Now this institution opens wide its doors to women.

Here, in truth, co-education is less prominent. The conservative tendency of Eastern colleges has worked against the admission of women into the better of them, and the advantages of colleges for none but women are so well attested that the East at least will hardly make a change, although the Middle and Western States look on it virtually as a sin against inborn human rights, to establish colleges for anything but the education of both sexes alike. It was easier to oppose mixed education in the college sphere than in the school, because the common elementary training was needed at the outset for both sexes, while the demand for college training for women came up much later, when the tradition of colleges for men was already well established. Harvard College was already two hundred years old when, for the first time, an American 564college as an experiment admitted women; this was Oberlin College in Ohio, which began the movement in 1833. The first women’s college was established, three years later, in Georgia—a pioneer institution in the South.

But progress was slow. It was not until 1862 that the government gave ten million acres of land for educational institutions; and then higher institutions became much more numerous, especially in the West, and from that time it was agreed that women should have equal privileges with men in these new colleges. Since then co-education in college and university has grown to be more and more the rule, except in the East. All state colleges and universities are open to women, and also the endowed universities—Brown, Chicago, Cornell, Leland Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania; some few others, as Yale, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins, allow women to attend the graduate schools or the professional faculties, but not the college. Statistics for all the colleges in the country show that, in the year 1880, only 51 per cent. were co-educational; in 1890 there were 65 per cent., and in 1900, 72 per cent. Practically, however, the most significant form of female college education is not the co-educational, but one which creates a special college paradise for young women, where there are no male beguilements and distractions.

There are six principal institutions which have taken the lead in making the college life of women the significant thing that it now is. Vassar College was the first, established on the Hudson River in 1861; then came Wellesley College, near Boston; Bryn Mawr, near Philadelphia; Smith College, in Northampton; Radcliffe College, in Cambridge; Barnard, in New York. There is a large number of similar institutions, as Holyoke, Baltimore, and others in ever-diminishing series down to institutions which are hardly distinguishable from girls’ high schools. The number of girls attending strictly women’s colleges in the whole country, in 1900, was 23,900; while in mixed colleges and in the collegiate departments of universities there were 19,200 women students—just a quarter of the total number of college students. It is notable here that the students in women’s colleges since 1890 have increased by 700, and in mixed colleges by 9,000. It may be mentioned, in passing, that there are 35,000 women students in normal schools.

565The instruction in women’s colleges is mostly by women, who number 1,744—that is, about 71 per cent. of the instructors—while in mixed colleges the 857 women are only 10 per cent. of the teaching staff. In the leading co-educational universities, like Chicago, Ann Arbor, Leland Stanford, Berkeley, and others, the women are almost wholly taught by men. The leading women’s colleges pursue different policies. Wellesley has almost exclusively women; Bryn Mawr, Vassar, and Smith have both; Radcliffe and Barnard are peculiar, in that by their by-laws Radcliffe is taught only by Harvard instructors, and Barnard only by instructors in Columbia University. This identification with the teaching staffs of Harvard and Columbia assures these two women’s colleges an especially high intellectual level. And the same thing is accomplished, of course, for women by their being admitted to full privileges in Chicago, Stanford, and in the large state universities, such as Ann Arbor. But one can realize the whole charm and poetry of women’s colleges only on a visit to the quiet groves of Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Vassar, or Smith.

In broad, handsomely kept parks there lie scattered about attractive villas, monumental halls of instruction, club-houses and laboratories; and here some thousand girls, seldom younger than eighteen nor older than twenty-five, spend four happy years at work and play, apart from all worldly cares. They row, play tennis and basket-ball, and go through gymnastic exercises; and, as a result, every girl leaves college fresher, healthier, and stronger than when she entered it. And the type of pale, over-worked neurasthenic is unknown. These girls have their own ambitions in this miniature world—their positions of honour, their meetings, their clubs and social sets; in which, however, only personality, talent, and temperament count, while wealth or parental influence does not come in question. The life is happy; there are dancing, theatrical performances, and innumerable other diversions from the opening celebration in the fall to the festivities in June, when the academic year closes. And the life is also earnest. There is no day without its hours of conscientious labour in the lecture hall, the library or study, whether this is in preparation for later teaching, for professional life or, as is more often the case, solely for the harmonious development of all the student’s faculties. One who looks on these fresh young girls in their light costumes, 566the venerable English mitre-caps on their heads, sitting in the alcoves of the library or playing in the open air, or in their formal debates, in the seminary or in the festive procession on class-day,—sees that here is a source of the purest and subtlest idealism going out into American life.

On such a foundation rests the professional training of the real university. Since the girl students in all the colleges of the country outdo the men in their studies, win the highest prizes, and attend the most difficult lectures, the old slander about deficient brain substance and mental incapacity can no longer serve as a pretext for closing the university to competing womanhood. In fact, the graduate schools, which correspond to the advanced portion of a German philosophical faculty, and the legal and medical faculties of all state universities and of a few private universities are open to women. But one is not to suppose that the number of women who are thus preparing for the learned professions, as that of medicine, law, or the ministry, is very large. There are to-day 44,000 women college students, but only 1,253 women graduate students; and in 1890 there were only 369. There are hardly more than a thousand in the purely professional faculties, and these form only 3 per cent. of the total number of students. The American women study mostly in colleges, therefore, and their aim is generally to get a well-grounded, liberal education, corresponding to a Gymnasium training, together with a few semesters in the philosophical faculty. But there are no limitations by principle; woman as such is denied no “rights,” and the verdict is unanimous that this national experiment is technically successful. There is no indication of moral deterioration, of a lowered level of instruction, or of a mutual hindrance between men and women in the matter of study. The university, in short, opens the way to the learned professions.

When a European hears of the independent careers of American women, he is apt to imagine something which is unknown to him—a woman in the judicial wig or the minister’s robe; a woman doctor or university professor. Thus he represents to himself the self-supporting women, and he easily forgets that their number is vanishingly small beside the masses of those who earn their living with very much less preparation. The professional life of the American woman, her instinct to support herself, and so to make 567herself equal to the man in the social and economic worlds, cannot be understood merely from figures; for statistics would show a much larger percentage of women in other countries who earn their living, where the instinct for independence is very much less. The motive is the main point. One might say that the European woman works because the land is too poor to support the family by the labour of the man alone. The American woman works because she wants her own career. In travelling through Europe, one notices women toiling painfully in the fields; this is not necessary in America, unless among the negroes. Passing through New England, one sees a hammock in front of every farm-house, and often catches the sound of a piano; the wives and daughters have never thought of working in the fields. But women crowd into all occupations in the cities, in order to have an independent existence and to make themselves useful. They would rather work in a factory or teach than to stay on the farm and spend their time at house-work or embroidery.

As a matter of course, very many families are actually in need, and innumerable motives may lead a woman to the earning of a living. But if one compares the changes in the statistics of different employments, and looks into the psychology of the different kinds of occupation, one sees clearly that the spirit of self-determination is the decisive factor, and that women compete most strongly in the professions which involve some rational interest, and that they know where it pays to crowd the men out. There is no male profession, outside of the soldiery and the fire department, into which women have not felt themselves called. Between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans there are 45 female locomotive engineers, 31 elevator attendants, 167 masons, 5 pilots, 196 blacksmiths, 625 coal miners, 3 auctioneers, and 1,320 professional huntresses.

Apart from such curiosities, and looking at only the large groups, we shall discover the following professional activity of women: In 1900, when the last census was made, there were 23,754,000 men and 5,319,000 women at paid employment—that is, only 18 per cent. of the bread-winners were women. Of these, only 971,000 were engaged in agriculture as against 9,404,000 men, while in the so-called professions, the intellectual occupations, there were 430,000 women against 828,000 men. In domestic positions, there were 5682,095,000 women against 3,485,000 men; in trade there were 503,000 against 4,263,000, and in manufactures 1,313,000 against 5.772.000. The total number of wage-earning women has steadily increased. In 1890 it amounted to only 17 per cent., and in 1880 to only 15 per cent. The proportions in different parts of the country are different, and not only according to the local forms of industry, but also to the different stages of civilization; the more advanced the civilization, the more the women go into intellectual employments. Among a hundred wage-earning women, for instance, in the North Atlantic States, there are only 1.9 per cent. engaged in agriculture, but 7.6 per cent. in intellectual occupations, 37.5 per cent. engaged in domestic service, 12.9 per cent. in trade, and 40.1 per cent. in manufactures. In the Southern Middle States, on the other hand, out of a hundred women only 7.2 per cent. are in manufactures, 2.6 per cent. in trade, and 4.4 per cent. in intellectual professions.

Of these occupations, the most interesting are the intellectual, domestic, and trading activities of women. The great majority in intellectual employments are teachers; the whole story of American culture is told by the fact that there are 327,000 women pedagogues—an increase of 80,000 in ten years—and only 111,000 male teachers. The number of physicians has increased from 4,557 in 1890 to 7,399 in 1900; but this is not ominous in comparison with their 124,000 male colleagues. There are 52,000 musicians and music teachers, 11,000 teachers in drawing, 5,984 authors—a figure which has doubled since 1890; and in the newspaper world the troup of women reporters and journalists has grown in ten years from 888 to 2,193. There are 8,000 women officials employed by the state, over I,000 architects produce feminine architecture, and 3,405 ministers preach the gospel.

Turning to domestic activity, we find of course the international corps of house-servants to include the greater part; they number 1.283.000, and the statistics do not say whether, perhaps, one or two of these who have a white skin were born in the country. This number was 1,216,000 in 1890, so that it has increased only 5.5 per cent.; while during the same time population has increased 20.7 per cent., and the increasing wealth has greatly raised the demand for service. Let us compare with this the increased number of trained nurses, whose occupation is an arduous but independent 569and in itself useful career. The number of trained nurses has increased from 41,000 to 108,000—that is, by 163 per cent. The figures for all such domestic employments as admit of social independence have also increased. The female restaurant keepers have increased from 86,000 to 147,000; the boarding-house proprietresses number 59,455, double the figure of ten years ago. The independent profession of washer-woman attracts 325,000, while there are only 124,000 independent domestic labourers as compared with 2,454,000 men in the same occupations. The increase in the figures for such free professions as are classed under trade and commerce is in part even more striking. The number of female insurance agents, which in 1890 was less than 5,000, is now more than 10,000; book-keepers have increased from 27,000 to 74,000; sales-women, from 58,000 to 149,000; typists and stenographers from 21,000 to 86,000—that is, fourfold—and there are now 22,000 telephone and telegraph operators. The number of shop-keepers at 34,000 has not increased much, and is relatively small beside the 756,000 men. There are only 261 women wholesale merchants against 42,000 men, 946 women commercial travellers against 91,000 men; the profession of lady banker has decreased shamefully from 510 to 293, although this is no ground for despairing of the future of American banking, since the number of bankers other than women has increased in the same time from 35,000 to 72,000.

Finally, let us look at industry and manufactures. The number of seamstresses has been the same for ten years with mathematical exactitude; that is, 146,000. Since the population has increased by one-fifth, it is clear that this form of work has been unpopular, doubtless because it involves personal abasement and exposure to the arbitrariness of customers, and is therefore unfavourable to self-assertion. At the same time the workers in woollen and cotton factories have increased from 92,000 to 120,000, in silk factories from 20,000 to 32,000, and in cigar factories from 27,000 to 43,000. There are 344,000 garment-workers, 86,000 milliners, 15,000 book-binders, 16,000 printers, 17,000 box-makers, and 39,000 in the shoe industry. The whole picture shows a body of women whose labour is hardly necessary to support the families of the nation, but who are firmly resolved to assert themselves in economic and intellectual competition, who 570press their way into all sorts of occupations, but avoid as far as possible anything which restricts their personal independence, and seek out any occupation which augments their personality and their consciousness of independence. If all women who were not born on American soil, or if so were born of coloured parentage, were omitted from these statistics, then the self-asserting quality of American women who earn their living would come out incomparably more clearly.

The bread-winning activity of women is, however, only a fraction of their activity outside of the home. If of the 39,000,000 men in the country, 23,754,000 have an occupation, and of the 37,000,000 women only 5,319,000 work for a living, it is clear that the great majority of grown-up women earn nothing. But nobody who knows American life would take these women who earn no wages from the list of those who exert a great influence outside of the family circle, and assert themselves in the social organization. Between the two broad oceans there is hardly any significant movement outside of trade and politics which is not aided by unpaid women, who work purely out of ideal motives. Vanity, ambition, self-importance, love of diversion, and social aspirations of all kinds, of course, play a part; but the actual labour which women perform in the interests of the church or school, of public welfare, social reform, music, art, popular education, care of the sick, beautification and sanitation of cities, every day and everywhere, represents incontestably a powerful inborn idealism.

Only one motive more, which is by no means unidealistic, dictates this purely practical devotion; it is the motive of helping on this very self-assertion of women. Work is done for the sake of work, but more or less in the consciousness that one is a woman and that whatever good one does, raises the position of the sex. Thus, in women’s clubs and organizations, through noisy agitation or quieter feminine influences, the American woman’s spirit of self-assertion impresses itself in a hundred thousand ways. Women are the majority in every public lecture and in every broadly benevolent undertaking; schools and churches, the care of the poor and the ill are enlivened by their zeal, and in this respect the East and the West feel quite alike. Certainly this influence beyond the home does not end with direct self-conscious labour; it goes on where there are no women presidents, secretaries, treasurers, and 571committee members, but wherever women go for enjoyment and relaxation. Women form a large majority in art exhibitions, concerts, theatres, and in church services; women decide the fate of every new novel; and everywhere women stand in the foreground, wide awake and self-assertive.

It is incredible to the European how very much the unselfish and high-minded women of America are able to accomplish, and how so many of them can combine a vast deal of practical work with living in the midst of bustling social affairs, and themselves entertaining perhaps in a brilliant way. Such a woman will go early in the morning to the committee meeting of her club, inspect a school or poor-house on the way, then help to draw up by-laws for a society, deliver an address, preside at some other meeting, and meet high officials in the interests of some public work. She expends her energy for every new movement, keeps in touch with every new tendency in art and literature, and is yet a pleasant and comfortable mother in her own home. This youthful freshness never succumbs to age. In Boston, the widow of the zoölogist Agassiz, although now eighty years of age, is still tirelessly active as honourary president of Radcliffe College; and Julia Ward Howe, the well-known poetess, in spite of her eighty-four years, presides at every meeting of the Boston Authors’ Club, still with her quiet but fresh and delightful humour.

The leadership of women which is a problem to be discussed, as far as public life is concerned, is an absolute dogma which it would be sacrilege to call in question, so far as social and domestic life go. Just as Lincoln said that the American government is a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” so certainly American society is a government of the women, by the women, and for the women. The part which the wife plays determines so unconditionally the social status of every home, that even a man who has his own social ambitions can accomplish his end in no better way than by doing everything to further the plans and even the whims of his wife. And the luxury in which she is maintained is so entirely a symbol of social position that the man comes instinctively to believe that he is himself enjoying society when he worries and over-works in order to provide jewelry and funds for the elaborate entertainments of his wife

Just as the wife of the millionaire has her place arranged to suit 572herself, so the modest townswoman does in her small home, and so also the wife of the day labourer, in her still narrower surroundings. The man pushes the baby carriage, builds the kitchen fire, and takes care of the furnace, so that his wife can attend to getting fashionable clothing; he denies himself cigars in order to send her into the country for the summer. And she takes this as a matter of course. She has seen this done from her childhood by all men, and she would be offended if her husband were to do anything less. The American woman’s spirit of self-assertion would be aroused directly if social equality were to be interpreted in such a ridiculous way as to make the man anything but the social inferior.

The outward noise would make one believe that the self-assertion of the feminine soul were most energetically concerned with political rights; woman’s suffrage is the great watchword. But the general noise is deceptive; the demands for equal school and college education for young women, for admission to industrial positions on the same footing with men, for an independent existence and life career for every woman who wants it, and for social domination—all these are impulses which really pervade the national consciousness. But the demand for equal suffrage is not nearly so universal. In the nature of things, it is often put forth by radical lecturers on woman’s rights; and it is natural that some large societies support the efforts, and that even masculine logic should offer no objections in many cases. The familiar arguments known to all the world have hardly been augmented by a single new reason on the woman’s side. But the old arguments appear on the surface to be such sound deductions from all the fundamental political, social, and economic principles of America that they come here to have new force. If in spite of this their practical success is still exceedingly small, and the most energetic opposition is not from the stronger sex but from the women themselves, it shows clearly that there is some strong opposing impulse in the American public mind. The social self-assertion of women, in which every American believes with all his heart, is just as little likely ever to lead to universal political suffrage for women as American industrial self-assertion will ever lead to socialism.

But the irony of world history has brought it about that women began with just those rights which to-day some of them are demanding. 573When English law was brought across the ocean by the colonists in the seventeenth century, the women had the constitutional right to vote, and in exceptional cases made use of it; not one of the constitutions of the thirteen states limited the suffrage to men. The State of New York was the first to improve or to injure its constitution by adding the qualification “male,” in the year 1778. One state followed after another, and New Jersey was the last, in 1844. But just as the last door was closed, the hue and cry was raised that they all ought to be opened. The first woman’s convention to make an urgent appeal for the restoring of these rights was held in New York in 1848. There was a violent opposition; but the movement extended to a great many states, and finally, in 1866, a national organization was formed which asked for a national law. This was just after the Civil War, when the amendment giving the suffrage to the negroes was the chief subject of political discussion. A petition with eighty thousand signatures was gotten up urging that the Constitution should be interpreted so as to give women the right to vote. Two women brought legal action, which went up through all the courts to the Supreme Court, but was there decided against the women, and therefore the sex has not the suffrage.

No national movements have, therefore, to-day any practical significance unless three-quarters of all state legislatures can be induced to vote for an amendment to the Constitution in favour of woman’s suffrage—that is, to vote that no state be allowed to exclude women from the ballot. This is hardly more likely to happen than a Constitutional amendment to introduce hereditary monarchy. Meanwhile, the agitation in the various states has by no means entirely stopped. Time after time attempts have been made to alter the constitution of a single state, but unsuccessfully. The only states to introduce complete woman’s suffrage have been Wyoming in 1869, Colorado in 1893, and Utah in 1895. Kansas allows women to vote in municipal elections. The agitation has been really successful in only one direction; it has succeeded in getting from a majority of the states the right to vote for the local school committees.

Such experience as the country has had with woman’s suffrage has not been specially favourable to the movement. A good deal goes to show that, even if full privileges were granted, they would 574remain a dead letter for the overwhelming majority of women. The average woman does not wish to go into politics. It has been affirmed that in the modern way of living, with servants to do all the house-work, factories to do the spinning and weaving and every sort of economic convenience, the married woman has too little to do, and needs the political field in which to give her energies free play. But so long as statistics show that four-fifths of the married women in the country do all their house-work, and so long as such a great variety of ethical, intellectual, æsthetic and social duties lie before every woman, it is no wonder that very few are eager to take on new responsibilities at the ballot-box. Those, however, who would make most use of the suffrage would be, as the women who oppose the movement say, the worst female element of the large cities, and they would bring in all the worst evils of a low class of voters led by demagogues. Political corruption at the ballot would receive a new and specially dangerous impetus; the political machines would win new and disgusting strength from the feebleness of these women to resist political pressure, and instead of women’s ennobling and refining political ethics, as their partisans hope, they would be more apt to drag politics down to the very depths. Those who oppose the movement see a decided prejudice to political soundness even in the mere numerical doubling of the voting class.

Most of all, the conservative element can assert, with an excellent array of facts, that the healthy progress of woman’s self-assertion best proceeds by keeping away from politics and turning directly toward the improvement of the conditions of living and of instruction, toward the opening up of professions, the framing of industrial laws, and-other reforms. The radical political demands of women in all other fields, and most especially in the socialistic direction, inclining as they naturally do to be extreme, have worked rather to hinder than to aid the social progress of women. Even where the social independence of women is properly contested, there works the deterring consideration that politics might bring about differences between husband and wife. Taken all in all, the self-assertion of women in political matters is hardly a practical question. One who looks into their tracts and propaganda feels for a long while that the last one he has read, on which ever side it is, is wrong; but when he has come to 575a point where he meets only the old arguments revamped, he feels that on the whole the radical side has still less justice than the other. And the nation has come to the same conclusion. We may thus leave politics quite out of account in turning finally to the main question which relates to women; this is, How has this remarkable self-assertion of woman affected the life of the nation, both on the whole and in special spheres?

Let us look first at the sphere of the family. The situation here is often decidedly misinterpreted; the frequent divorces in America are cited very often in order to put American family life in an unfavourable light. According to the census report of 1900, the ratio of divorced to married men was 0.6 per cent., and of women 0.8 per cent.; while in 1890 the respective figures were only 0.4 per cent. and 0.6 per cent. Nevertheless, the total number of divorced persons is only 0.3 per cent. of the whole population, as compared with 5.1 per cent. who are widows, 36.5 per cent. who are married, and 57.9 per cent. of bachelors—with a small remainder unaccounted for. It is true that divorced persons who have remarried are here included among the married persons; but even if the number of dissolved marriages is somewhat greater than it appears in the statistics, that fact shows nothing as to the moral status of marriage in America.

Anybody familiar with the country knows that, much more often than in Europe, the real grounds which lead to divorce—not the mere legal pretexts given—are highly ethical ones. We have hinted at this when we analyzed the religious life; the main reason is the ethical objection to continuing externally in a marriage which has ceased to be spiritually congenial. It is the women especially, and generally the very best women, who prefer to take the step, with all the hardships which it involves, to prolonging a marriage which is spiritually hypocritical and immoral. Infidelity of the woman is the ground of divorce in only a vanishingly small number of cases, and the sexual purity of marriage is on a high plane throughout the people. The pure atmosphere of this somewhat unemotional people, which makes it possible for any woman to wend her way without escort through the streets of a large city in the evening and to travel alone across the Continent, and which protects the girl on the street from being stared at or rudely accosted, protects even more the married woman. Although 576French society dramas are presented on the American stage, one feels from the general attitude of the public that it really fails to understand the psychology of what is being performed, because all the ethical presuppositions are so entirely different. What the Parisian finds piquant, the New Englander finds shameless; and the woman over whom the Frenchman smiles disgusts the American.

And in still another sense American marriage is purer than the European; it lacks the commercial element. As characteristic as this fact is in economic life, it is even more significant in social life. This does not mean that the man who pays court to the daughter of a millionaire is entirely unconscious of the economic advantages which such a marriage would bring. But the systematic searching around for a dowry, with some woman attached to it, is unknown in the New World, and is thoroughly un-American. This may be seen in American plays; the familiar German comedies, in which the search for a rich bride is a favourite motive, strike the American public as entirely vapid and humourless. Americans either do not understand or else look down with pity on the marital depravity of the Old World, and such stage scenes are as intrinsically foreign as those others, so familiar to Europe, in which the rich young nobleman who after all marries the poor governess, is held up as a remarkable example of magnanimity.

The purely human elements are the only ones which count in marriage. It is a congenial affiliation of two persons, without regard to social advantage or disadvantage, if only the persons care for each other. And this idea is common to the whole nation, and gives marriage a high moral status. Moreover, the surpassing education of the young American woman, her college life, works in one way to exalt marriage. If she has learned anything in her college atmosphere, it is moral seriousness. She has gone there to face duties squarely and energetically, to account small things small, and large things large; and so, when she approaches the new duty of making a home, she overcomes all obstacles there with profound moral determination.

In spite of this, one may ask, Is her development in the right direction for subsequent events? While so much has contributed to the exaltation and purity of her marriage, has she not learned a 577great deal else which tends rather indirectly and perhaps unnoticeably to disorganize marriage, the home, the family, and the people? Is the increasing social self-assertion of woman really in the interests of culture? Let us picture to ourselves the contrast, say with Germany. There too the interests in the social advance of women is lively on all sides; but the situation is wholly different. Four main tendencies may be easily picked out. One relates to a very small number of exceptional women who have shown great talent or perhaps real genius. Such women are to be emancipated and to have their own life career. But the few who are called to do great things in art or science or otherwise, are not very apt to wait for others to emancipate them, and the number of these women is so small that this movement has hardly any social or economic importance in comparison with the other three which concern large numbers of women.

Of these other three, the first concerns the women of the lower classes, who throughout Germany are so poor that they have to earn a livelihood, and are in danger of sacrificing their family life. The lever is applied to improve their social condition, to put legal limits to the labour of women, and to protect them, so that the poor man’s wife shall have more opportunities in the family. Another movement is to benefit the daughters of more well-to-do people, to give them when they marry, a more intellectual career, to elevate the wife through a broader education above the pettiness of purely domestic interests and the superficiality of ordinary social life, and so to make her the true comrade of her husband. And the last movement concerns those millions of women who cannot marry because women are not only the more numerous, but also because one-tenth of German men will not marry. They are urged to replace the advantages which they would have in marriage by a life occupation; and although women of the lower classes have had enough opportunity to work, those of the upper classes have until recently been excluded from any such blessing. A great deal has been done here to improve the situation and partly in direct imitation of the American example.

But the real background of all these movements in Germany has been the conviction that marriage is the natural destiny of woman. The aim has been to improve marriage in the lower classes by relieving the woman of degrading labour, in upper 578classes by giving the woman a superior education; and the other two movements are merely expedients to supply some sort of substitute for life’s profoundest blessing, which is found only in marriage. There is no such background in America; there is a desire to protect American marriage, but it is not presupposed that marriage is, in and of itself, the highest good for woman. The completion of woman’s destiny lies rather in giving to her as to the man an intrinsically high life content whether she is married or not married; it is a question of her individual existence, as of his. Marriage is thus not the centre, and an independent career is in no sense a compensation or a makeshift; even the betterment of marriage is only intended as a means of bettering the individual. Woman is on exactly the same footing as man. The fundamental German principle that woman’s destiny is found in marriage, while the man is married only incidentally, involves at once the inequality of the sexes; and this fundamental inequality is only slightly lessened by these four new German movements. It is a secondary consequence that the woman is growing to be more nearly like the man. But according to the American point of view, her fundamental equality is the foundation principle; both alike aim to expand their individual personalities, to have their own valuable life content, and by marriage to benefit each other. And only secondarily, after marriage is accomplished, does the consequence appear that necessarily the woman has her special duties and her corresponding special rights; and then the principle of equality between the two finds its limitations. Now when this takes place, the self-assertion of the American woman is found to be not wholly favourable to the institution of marriage; it gives the married woman a more interesting life content, but it inclines the unmarried woman much less toward marriage; it robs society of that great support of marriage—the feeling that it is woman’s destiny.

Here, again, the most diverse factors work together. The social freedom of communication between men and women, the secure propriety of associating with men, and the independent freedom to go about which is peculiar to the American girl’s education give to the unmarried girl all those rights and advantages which in Europe she does not have until she is married. The American girl has really nothing but duties to face, domestic cares 579and perhaps quite unaccustomed burdens, in case she marries a man in limited circumstances; externally she has nothing to gain, and internally she is little disturbed by any great passion. She flirts from her youth up, and is the incomparable mistress of this little social art; but the moving passion is apt to be neglected, and one may question whether all her mischievous roguery and graceful coquetry are anything more than a social accomplishment, like dancing or skating or playing golf—whether it in any way touches the heart. It is a diversion, and not a true life content.

Then, too, the girl has a feeling of intellectual superiority which for the most part is entirely justified. The European girl has been brought up to believe in the superiority of the man, accustomed to feel that her own gifts are incomplete, that they come to have real value only in conjunction with a man, and her inferior scientific training suggests to her unconsciously that she will be intellectually exalted when she allies herself to some man. That will fill out her intellectual personality. The American girl has hardly ever such an idea; she has learned in the school-room how foolish boys are, how lazy and careless, and then, too, she has continued her own education it may be years after the men of her acquaintance have gone into practical life. Many high schools have one-third of their pupils boys and two-thirds girls, and the ratio grows in favour of the girls. Moreover, everything tends to give the girl her own aspirations and plans independent of any man—aspirations which are not essentially furthered or completed by her marriage alliance. American women often laugh at the way in which German women introduce abstract questions at the Kaffeeklatsch: “Now my husband says—.” The intellectual personality of the American girl must develop so much the more independently of male influence as the distinction which commences in school years is even more actual in the years of maturity. The older the American man grows the more he concentrates himself on business or politics, while his wife in a certain way continues her schooling, devotes her entire time to every sort of intellectual stimulation; the wife reads books, while the husband reads newspapers. It is undeniable that in the average American home the woman makes the profounder intellectual impression on every visitor, and the number of women is continually growing who instinctively feel that there is no advantage in marrying a man who is intellectually 580an inferior; they would rather remain single than contract a marriage in which they have to be the intellectual head.

While, therefore, there are neither novel social advantages nor any emotional urgency, nor yet intellectual inducements, to persuade women to marry, there are other circumstances which urge her strongly not to do so. In the first place, marriage may interfere directly with the life career which she has planned for herself. A woman who has taken an occupation to save herself from misery looks on marriage with a man who earns enough to support a family as a sort of salvation; while the woman who has chosen some calling because her life means so much more if it is useful to the world, who is earnestly devoted to her work, truly ambitious and thoroughly competent, ponders a long time before she goes into a marriage which necessarily puts an end to all this. She may well prefer to sacrifice some sentimental inclination to the profound interest she feels in her work.

The American girl is, moreover, not fond of domestic cares. It would not be fair to say that she is a bad house-keeper, for the number of wives who have to get along without servants is much greater than in Germany. And even in spite of the various economic advantages which she enjoys, it is undeniable that the American woman takes her home duties seriously, looks after every detail, and keeps the whole matter well in hand. But nevertheless, she feels very differently toward her capacities along this line. The German woman feels that her household is a source of joy; the American woman, that it is a necessary evil. The American woman loves to adorn her home and tries to express in it her own personality, not less than her German sister; but everything beyond this—the mere technique of house-keeping, cleaning, purchasing, repairing, and hiring servants—she feels to be, after all, somewhat degrading. The young woman who has been to college attacks her household duties seriously and conscientiously, but with the feeling that she would rather sacrifice herself by nursing the suffering patients in a hospital. The perfect economic appliances for American house-keeping save a great deal of labour which the German wife has to perform, and perhaps just on that account the American woman feels that the rest of it is vexatious work which women have to do until some new machines can be devised to take their places. This disinclination to household 581drudgery pervades the whole nation, and it is only the older generations in country districts that take a pride in their immaculate house-keeping, while the younger generations even there have the tendency to shirk household work. The daughters of farmers would rather work in a factory, because it is so much more stimulating and lively, than ironing or washing dishes or tending baby brother and sister at home; for the same reason, they will not become domestic servants for any one else. And so, for the upper and the lower classes, the disinclination to house-work stands very much in the way of marriage.

This disinclination affects marriage in still another way. Families are tending more and more to give up separate houses and live in family hotels, or, if more modestly circumstanced, in boarding-houses. The expense of servants has something to do with this, but the more important factor is the saving of work for the wife. The necessary consequence is the dissolution of intimate family life. When a dozen families eat year in and year out in the same dining-room, the close relations which should prevail in the family take on a very different shading. And thus it is that the intellectual self-assertion of women works, in the most diverse ways, against the formation of marriages and against family life. There is one argument, however, which is always urged by the opponents of woman’s emancipation which is not valid—at least, not for America. It is the blue-stocking bugbear. This unattractive type of woman is not produced by higher education in America. Many a young American girl, who has arrived at years of personal independence during her college life, may have lost her interest in the average sort of marriage; but she has by no means lost the attraction she exerts on men.

The tendency of woman’s self-assertion against marriage appears to go even further; the exaggerated expression, “race suicide,” has sometimes been used. It is true that the increase of native population, especially in the more civilized parts of the country, is ominously small; this is probably the result of diverse factors. There are physicians, for instance, who claim that the intellectual training of women and the nervous excitement incident to their independent, self-reliant attitude are among the main causes; but more important, others say, are the voluntary precautions which are dictated by the desire of ease and comfort. This last is a serious 582factor, and there lies behind it again the spirit of self-assertion; the woman wants to live out her own life, and her individualistic instinct works against the large family. But there is nothing here which threatens the whole nation; since, even aside from the very large immigration which introduces healthy, prolific, and sturdy elements, the births of the whole country exceed those of almost any of the European nations. In Germany, between 1890 and 1900, for every thousand inhabitants the births numbered annually 36.2 and the deaths 22.5—so that there were 13.7 more births; in England the births were 30.1 and deaths 18.4, with a difference of 11.7; in the United States the births were 35.1 and deaths 17.4, with a difference of 17.7 more births.

Of course, these figures would make all anxiety seem ridiculous, if the proportions were equally distributed over the country, and through all the elements of the population. As a matter of fact, however, there are the greatest differences. In Massachusetts, for instance, we may distinguish three classes of population; those white persons whose parents were born in the country, and those whose parents were foreigners, and the blacks. This negro population of Massachusetts has the same birth and death rate as the negro elsewhere; for every thousand persons there are 17.4 more births than deaths. For the second class—that is, the families of foreign parentage—there are actually 45.6 more births than deaths; while in the white families of native parentage there are only 3.8. In some other North Atlantic States, the condition is still worse; in New Hampshire, for instance, the excess of births in families of foreign parentage is 58.5, while in those of native parentage the situation is actually reversed, and there are 10.4 more deaths than births. So it happens that for all the New England States, the native white population, in the narrower sense, has a death preponderance of 1.5 for every thousand inhabitants; so that, in the intellectually superior part of the country, the strictly native population is not maintaining itself.

Interesting statistics recently gathered at Harvard University show that its graduates are also not holding their own. Out of 881 students who were graduated more than twenty-five years ago, 634 are married, and they have 1,262 children. On the probable assumption that they will have no more children, and that these are half males, we find that 881 583student graduates in 1877 leave in 1902 only 631 sons. The climatic conditions cannot be blamed for this, since the surplus of births in families born of foreign parents is not only very great, but is far greater than in any of the European countries from which these immigrant parents came. Of European countries, Hungary has the greatest excess of births—namely, 40.5, as compared with 13.7 in Germany. That population of America which comes from German, Irish, Swedish, French, and Italian parentage has, even in New England, a birth surplus of 44.5. The general conditions of the country seem, therefore, favourable to fecundity, and this casts a greater suspicion on social conditions and ideals. And the circumstance must not be overlooked, that the increased pressure of women into wage-earning occupations lessens the opportunities of the men, and so contributes indirectly to prevent the man from starting his home early in life. In short, from whatever side we look at it, the self-assertion of woman exalts her at the expense of the family—perfects the individual, but injures society; makes the American woman perhaps the finest flower of civilization, but awakens at the same time serious fears for the propagation of the American race.

There are threatening clouds in other quarters of the horizon. The much-discussed retroactive effect of feminine emancipation on the family should not distract attention from its effect on culture as a whole. Here the dissimilarity to the German conditions is obvious. The German woman’s movement aims to give the woman a most significant rôle in general matters of culture, but still does not doubt, as a matter of course, that the general trend of culture will be determined by the men. Just as it is a dogmatic presupposition in Germany that marriage is the most desirable occupation for women, so it is tacitly presupposed that intellectual culture will take its actual stamp from the men. In America not only this view of marriage, but even this view of culture, has been opposed for a long time; and the people behave as if both were antiquated and superstitious notions, devised by the stronger sex for its own convenience, and as if their reversal would benefit the entire race.

Anybody who looks the matter squarely in the face is not left to doubt that everything in America is tending not only to sacrifice the superiority of man and to give the woman an equal position, but to 584reverse the old situation and make her very much the superior. In business, law, and politics, the American man is still sovereign, and in spite of the many women who press into the mercantile professions he is still in a position where he serves rather than directs. And it is very characteristic of the moral purity of the people that, in spite of the incomparable social power of women, they have not a trace of personal influence on important political events. On the other hand, they dictate in matters of education, religion, literature and art, social problems, and public morals. Painting, music, and the theatre cater to woman, and for her the city is beautified and purified; although she does not do it herself, it is her taste and feeling which decide everything; she determines public opinion, and distributes all the rewards at her good pleasure. If the family problem is shown in a lurid light by the decrease of births in the native New England population, the problem of culture comes out into broad daylight only in those figures which we have seen before; the 327,614 women teachers and the 111,710 men.

Thus three-quarters of American education is administered by women; and even in the high school where the boys go till they are eighteen or nineteen years old, 57.7 per cent. of the teachers are women; and in those normal schools where both men and women go to fit themselves for teaching, 71.3 per cent. of the instructors are women. It appears, then, that the young men of the country, even in the years when boyhood ripens to youth, receive the larger part of their intellectual impetus from women teachers, and that all of those who are going to be school teachers and shape the young souls of the nation are in their turn predominantly under the influence of women. In colleges and universities this is still not the case, but soon will be if things are not changed; the great number of young women who pass their doctorial examinations and become specialists in science will have more and more to seek university professorships, or else they will have studied in vain. And here, as in the school, the economic conditions strongly favour the woman; since she has no family to support, she can accept a position on a salary so much smaller that the man is more and more crowded from the field. And it may be clearly foreseen that, if other social factors do not change, women will enter as competitors in every field where the labour does not require specifically masculine 585strength. So it has been in the factories; so it is in the schools; and so, in a few decades, it may be in the universities and in the churches.

Even although the professorial chairs still belong for the most part to men, the presence of numerous women in the auditorium cannot be wholly without influence on the routine of work. The lecturer is forced to notice, as is the speaker in any public gathering, that at least two-thirds of his hearers present the cheerful aspect of gay millinery and lace collar, so that intellectual culture and public opinion on non-political questions come more and more to be dominated by women—as many persons are beginning to see. Most of them greet this unique turn in human history as the peculiar advantage of this nation; the man looks after the industry and politics, and the woman after moral, religious, artistic, and intellectual matters. If there is any doubt that she is competent to do this, most Americans are satisfied to observe the earnestness and conscientiousness with which the American woman attends to her duties, at the zeal and success with which she applies herself to her studies, and at her victory over men wherever she competes.

Here and there, however, and their number is increasing every day, men are feeling that earnestness is not necessarily power, zeal is not mastery, and that success means little if the judgment is pronounced by those who are partial to the winners. The triumph in industrial competition is no honour if it consists in bidding under the market price. In fact, it is not merely a question of the division of labour, but a fundamental change in the character of the labour. An impartial observer of the achievements of American women as teachers or as university students, in professional life or social reform or any other public capacity, is forced to admire the performance, and even to recognize certain unique merits; but he has to admit that it is a special sort of work, and different from the achievements of men. The emancipation of the American woman and her higher education, although carried almost to the last extreme, give not the slightest indication even yet that woman is able to accomplish in the intellectual field the same that man accomplishes. What she does is not inferior, but it is entirely different; and the work which, in all other civilized countries, is done by men cannot in the United States be slipped into the hands of women without being profoundly altered in character.

586The feminine mind has the tendency to unify all ideas, while a man rather separates independent classes. Each of these positions has advantages and drawbacks. The immediate products of the feminine temperament are tactfulness and æsthetic insight, sure instincts, enthusiasm, and purity; and, on the other hand, a lack of logical consecutiveness, a tendency to over-hasty generalization, underestimation of the abstract and the deep, and an inclination to be governed by feeling and emotion. Even these weaknesses may be beautiful in domestic life and attractive in the social sphere; they soften the hard and bitter life of men. But women have not the force to perform those public duties of civilization which need the harder logic of man. If the entire culture of the nation is womanized, it will be in the end weak and without decisive influence on the progress of the world.

The intellectual high life in colleges and universities, which seems to speak more clearly for the intellectual equality of women, brings out exactly this difference. That which is accomplished by the best women’s colleges is exemplary and admirable; but it is in a world which is, after all, a small artificial world, with all rough places smoothed over and illumined with a soft light instead of the hard daylight. Although in the mixed universities women often do better than men, it is not to be forgotten that the American lecture system, with its many examinations, puts a higher value on industry, attention, and good-will than on critical acumen or logical creativeness. It cannot be denied that, even a short time since, the American university cultivated in every department the spirit of learning rather than of investigation—was reproductive rather than productive—and that the more recent development which has laid the emphasis on productive investigation has gone on for the most part in the leading Eastern universities, such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Yale, and Princeton, where women are still not admitted, while the Western universities, and most of all the state universities, which are found only in the West, where women are in a majority, belong in many respects to the old type. To be sure, there are several American women whose scientific work is admirable, and to be classed with the best professional achievements of the country; but they are still rare exceptions. The tendency to learn rather than to produce pervades all the great masses of women; they study with extraordinary 587zeal up to the point where critical production should begin, and there they are all too apt to stop. And unless one persistently looks at the very few exceptions, one would hardly assert that the true spirit of science could unfold and grow if American women were to be its only guardians.

This distinction is much plainer in the lower walks of life. The half-educated American man refrains from judging what is beyond his scope; but an American woman who has scarcely a shred of education looks in vain for any subject on which she has not firm convictions already at hand, and her influence upon public opinion—politics always apart—spins a web of triviality and misconception over the whole culture. Cobwebs are not ropes, and a good broom can sweep them down; but the arrogance of this feminine lack of knowledge is the symptom of a profound trait in the feminine soul, and points to dangers springing from the domination of women in intellectual life. In no other civilized land is scientific medicine so systematically hindered by quack doctors, patent medicines, and mental healing; the armies of uneducated women protect them. And in no other civilized land are ethical conceptions so worm-eaten by superstitions and spiritualistic hocus-pocus; hysterical women carry the day. In no other country is the steady and sound advance of social and pedagogical reform so checked by whimsies and short-lived innovations, and good sound work held back by the partisans of confused ideas; here the women work havoc with their social and pedagogical alarms.

This does not mean, however, that a good deal of the work of American women is not better done by them than it would be by the men. In the first place, there is no doubt that the assistance of women in teaching has had very happy results on American culture. When it was necessary to tame the wild West of its pioneer roughness and to introduce good manners, the milder influence of women in the school-room was far more useful than that of men could have been; and so far as it is a question of making over the immigrant children of the large cities into young Americans, the patient woman teacher is invaluable. And the drama of the school-room is played in other more public places; in a thousand ways the participation of women in public life has refined and toned down American culture and enriched and beautified 588it, but not made it profounder or stronger. Woman’s inborn dilettanteism works too often for superficiality rather than profundity.

And it is indubitable that this undertaking of the burdens of intellectual culture by woman has been necessary to the nation’s progress—a kind of division of labour imperatively indicated by the tremendous economic and political duties which have preoccupied the men. No European country has ever had to accomplish economically, technically, and politically, in so short a time, that which the United States has accomplished in the last fifty years in perfecting its civilization. The strength of the men has been so thoroughly enlisted that intellectual culture could not have been developed or even maintained if the zeal and earnestness of women had not for a time taken up the work. But is this to be only for a time? Will the man bethink himself that his political and economic one-sidedness will in the end hurt the nation? This is one of the greatest questions for the future of this country. It is not a question of woman’s retrograding or losing any of her splendid acquirements; no one could wish that this fine intellectuality, this womanly seriousness, this desire for a meaning in her life should be thoughtlessly sacrificed, nor that the sisters and the mothers of the nation should ever become mere dolls or domestic machines. Nothing of this should be lost or needs to be lost. But a compensatory movement must be undertaken by the men of the country in order to make up for amateurish superficiality and an inconsequential logic of the emotions.

In itself, the intellectual domination of the women will have the tendency to strengthen itself, the more the higher life bears the feminine stamp. For by so much, men are less attracted to it. Thus the number of male school teachers becomes smaller all the time, because the majority of women teachers makes the school more and more a place where a man does not feel at home. But other factors in public opinion work strongly in the opposite direction; industrial life has made its great strides, the land is opened up, the devastations of the Civil War are repaired, internal disturbances have yielded to internal unity, recognition among the world powers has been won, and within a short time the wealth of the country has increased many fold. It will be a natural reaction if the energies of men are somewhat withdrawn from 589industry and agriculture, from politics and war, and once more bestowed on things intellectual. The strength of this reaction will decide whether the self-assertion of the American women will, in the end, have been an unalloyed blessing to the country or an affliction. Woman will never contribute momentously to the culture of the world by remaining intellectually celibate.

In the caricatures of the American which are so gladly drawn by the European, and so innocently believed in, there is generally, beside the shirt-sleeved clown who bawls “equality” and the barbarian who chases the dollar, the rich heiress bent on swapping her millions for a coronet. The longing for bankrupt suitors of undoubted pedigree is supposed to be the one symptom of any social aspiration, which the Yankee exhibits. The American begs leave to differ. He is not surprised that the young American woman of good family, with her fine intellectual freshness and her faculty of adaptation, should be sought out by men of all nations; nor is he filled with awe if there are some suitors of historic lineage among the rest. But the day is long gone in which such marriages are looked on as an enviable piece of good fortune for the daughter of any American citizen. Even the newspapers lightly smile at such marriages to a title, and they are becoming less and less frequent in the really best circles of American society. Besides, no such cheap and superficial aspirations are really indicative of aristocratic tendencies. The American is, by principle, very far from making his way into the international aristocracy of Europe, and he neither does nor will he ever attempt any artificial imitation of aristocratic institutions.

It is a capital mistake to suppose that the American, put face to face with European princedom, forgets or tries to hide his democracy. Aristocratic institutions, particularly those of England, interest him as a bit out of history; he seeks such social contact just as he wanders through quaint castles, without wishing thereby to transfer his own country house on the Hudson into a decaying group of walls and turrets. He takes an æsthetic pleasure in the brilliancy of courts, the pomp of military life, the wealth and colour 591of symbols; and, quite independently of that, he feels indeed a lively interest in certain fascinating figures of European politics—most of all, perhaps, in the German Kaiser. But whether his interest is historical, æsthetic, or personal, it is never accompanied by any feeling of inferiority to the persons who represent these aristocratic institutions. When Prince Henry, on his visit to the New World, quickly won the hearts of Americans as a man, there was nothing in the tone or accent of the greetings addressed to him which was out of accord with the fundamental key of democracy. The dinner speakers commenced their speeches in the democratic fashion, which is always first to address the presiding host: “Mr. Mayor, your Royal Highness.”

At the same time the peculiarly democratic contempt for things monarchical is disappearing, too; the cultivated American feels increasingly that every form of state has arisen from historic conditions, and that one is not in and for itself better than another. He feels that he is not untrue to his republican fatherland in attesting his respect for crowned heads. He shows most of all his respect, because it is just the friendly, neighbourly intercourse which makes possible a relation of mutual recognition. Democracy is itself the gainer by giving up the absurd pose of looking down on aristocracy. Thus it happens that, of recent years, even native-born Americans have sometimes received European orders. They know well enough that it will not do to wear the button-hole decoration on American soil, but they feel it to be ungracious to decline what is offered in a friendly spirit; unless, indeed, it is a politician who wishes to accentuate and propagate a certain principle. Democracy feels sure enough of itself to be able to accept a courtesy which is offered, with equal courtesy; but nobody supposes, for a moment, that European monarchical decorations have any magic to exalt a man above his democratic equality. Indeed, the feeling of entire equality, and the belief in a mutual recognition of such equality, are almost the presupposition of modern times, and only in Irish mass-meetings do we still hear protests against European tyranny. This much is sure: America shows not the slightest tendency to become aristocratic by imitating the historic aristocracies of Europe.

There are many who seem to believe that, therefore, the only aristocracy of America consists in the clique of multi-millionaires 592which holds its court in Newport and Fifth Avenue. The whole country observes their follies and eccentricities; their family gatherings are described at length by the press, quite as any court ceremonies are described in European papers; and to be taken into this sacred circle is supposed to be the life ambition of industrious millionaires. Many Americans who are under the influence of the sensational press would probably agree with this; and, judging by outward symptoms, one might in fact suppose that these Crœsuses along the Cliff-walk at Newport were really the responsible social leaders of America. This must seem very contemptible to all who look on from a distance, for everything which the papers tell to the four winds of heaven about these people is an insult to real and sound American feeling. The fountains of perfumery, the dinners on horseback, the cotillons where the favours are sun-bursts of real gems—in short, the senseless throwing away of wealth in the mere interests of rivalry and without even any æsthetic compensations, cannot profoundly impress a nation of pioneers.

On looking more closely, one sees that the facts are not so bad, and that the penny-a-liners rather than the multi-millionaires are responsible for such sensational versions. In fact, in spite of many extravagances, there is a great deal of taste and refinement in those very circles; much good sense, an appreciation of true art, honest pleasure in sport, especially if it is on a grand scale; polished address, accomplished elegance in costume, and at table a hospitality which proudly represents a rich country. In the matter of style and address, these people are in fact leaders, and deserve to be. Their society, it is true, is less interesting than that of many very much more modest circles; but the same is true throughout the world of those people who make pleasure their sole duty in life. Their ostentatious enjoyments display much less individuality, and are more along prescribed lines, than those of European circles which live in a comparable luxury—a fact which is due largely to the universal uniformity of fashion that prevails in every class of Americans, and that is too little tolerant of individual picturesqueness. In spite of all this, neither diplomatic Washington, nor intellectual Boston, nor hospitable Baltimore, nor conservative Philadelphia, nor indomitable Chicago, nor cosmopolitan San Francisco, can point to any collection 593of persons which, in that world where one is to be amused expensively at any cost, is better qualified to take the lead than just the Four Hundred of New York and Newport.

And yet there is a fundamental error in the whole calculation. It is simply not true that these circles exercise any sort of leadership for the nation, or have become the starting-point of a New World aristocracy. The average American, if he is still the true Puritan, is outraged on reading of a wedding ceremony where more money is spent on decorating the church than the combined yearly salaries of thirty school teachers, or of the sons of great industrial leaders wasting their days in drinking cocktails and racing their automobiles. If, on the other hand, he is a true city-bred man, he takes a considerable pleasure in reading in the newspaper about the design and equipment of the latest yacht, the decorations in the ball-room of the recently built palace, or about the latest divorce doings in those elect circles. The two sorts of readers—that is, the vexed and the amused—agree only in one thing;—neither of them takes all this seriously from the national point of view. The one is outraged that in his large, healthy, and hard-working country, such folderol and licentiousness are gaped at or tolerated. And the other is pleased that his country has become so rich and strong as to be able to afford such luxuriousness and extravagance; he looks on quizzically as at a vaudeville theatre, but even he does not take the actors in this social vaudeville the least bit seriously. The one accounts this clique a sort of moral slum, and the other a quickly passing and interesting froth; and both parties overestimate the eccentric whimsies and underestimate the actual constant influence of these circles in improving the taste for art and in really refining manners. But this clique is accounted a real aristocracy merely by itself and by the tradesmen who purvey to it.

In spite of this, American society is beginning to show important differentiations. It is not a mere sentimental and fanciful aristocracy, trying to imitate European monarchianism, and it is not the pseudo-aristocracy dancing around the golden dinner-set; it is an aristocracy of leading groups of people, which has risen slowly in the social life of the nation, and now affords the starting-point of a steadily increasing individuation of social layers. The influence of wealth is not absent here, but it is not mere wealth 594as such which exalts these people to the nobility; nor is the historical principle of family inheritance left out of account, although it is not merely the number of one’s identifiable ancestors that counts. It is, most of all, the profounder marks of education and of personal talent. And out of the combination of all these factors and their interpenetration proceed a New World group of leaders, which has in fact a national significance.

If one were to name a single person who should typically represent this new aristocracy, it would be Theodore Roosevelt. In the year 1649, Claes Roosevelt settled in New Netherlands, which is now New York, and from generation to generation his sturdy descendants have worked for the public good. James Roosevelt, the great-grandfather of the President, gave his services without remuneration to the Continental Army in the war for independence; the grandfather left the largest part of his fortune to charitable purposes; and the father was tirelessly active in furthering patriotic undertakings during the Civil War. And as this family inherited its public spirit, so also it inherited substance and a taste for sport and social life.

Now this product of old family traditions has been greatly influenced by the best intellectual culture of New England. Theodore Roosevelt is distinctly a Harvard graduate; all the elements of his nature got new strength from the classic world of Harvard. The history of his nation has been his favourite study, and he has written historical treatises of great breadth of view. Therewith he possesses a strong talent for administration, and has advanced rapidly by reason of his actual achievements. And thus education, public service, wealth, and family traditions have combined to make a character which exalts this man socially much higher than the Presidential office alone could do. McKinley was in some ways greater, perhaps—but in McKinley’s world there was no third dimension of aristocratic differentiation; it was a flat picture, where one might not ask nor expect any diversification in the other dimension. Roosevelt is the first aristocrat since many years, to come into the White House.

Aristocratic shadings can occur in a country that is so firmly grounded in democracy only when the movement goes in both directions, upward and downward, and when it evolves on both sides. If it were a question on the one side of demanding rights 595and forcing credence in pretentious display, and on the other side of demanding any sort of submission from less favoured persons or assigning them an inferior position, the whole effort would be hopeless. The claim to prerogative which is supported by an ostentation calculated to hypnotize the vulgar and a corresponding obsequiousness of the weak, can do nothing more than perhaps to preserve aristocracy after it has taken deep historic root. But such a degenerate form cannot be the first stage of aristocracy in a new country. When a new aristocracy is formed, it must boast not of prerogatives, but of duties, and the feeling of those not included cannot be one of inferiority, but of confidence. And this is the mood which is growing in America.

Such duties are most clearly recognized by wealth, and wealth has perhaps contributed most to begin the aristocratic differentiation in American society; but it has not been the wealth which goes into extravagant display or other arrogant demonstration, but the wealth which works toward the civilized advance of the nation. However much it may contradict the prejudices of the Old World, wealth alone does not confer a social status in America. Of course, property everywhere makes independence; but so long as it remains merely the power to hire things done, it creates no social differentiation. The American does not regard a man with awe because he stands well with trades-people and stock-brokers, but discriminates sharply between the possessions and the possessor. In his business life he is so accustomed to dealing with impersonal corporations, that the power to dispense large sums of money gives a man no personal dignity in his eyes. Just in the Western cities, where society centres about questions of money much more than in the East, the notion of property differentiation between men is developed least of all so far as it concerns social station. The mere circumstance that one man has speculated fortunately and the other unfortunately, that the real estate of one has appreciated and of the other deteriorated in value, occasions no belief in the inner difference of the two men; the changes are purely economic, and suggest nothing of a social difference.

At most there is a certain curiosity, since property opens up a world of possibilities to a man; and he is considerably scrutinized by his neighbours to see what he will do. In this sense especially in the small and middle-sized cities, the local magnates are the 596centre of public interest, just as the billionaires are in large cities. But to be the object of such newspaper curiosity does not mean to be elevated in the general respect. The millionaire is in this respect very much like the operatic tenor; or, to put it less graciously, the hero of the last poisoning case. It is the more a question of a mere stimulation to the public fancy, since in reality the differences are surprisingly small.

If one looks away from the extravagant eccentricities of small circles, the difference in general mode of life is on the whole very little in evidence. The many citizens in the large American city who have a property of five to ten million dollars seem to live hardly differently from the unfortunate many who have to get on with only a simple million. On the other hand, the average man with a modest income exerts all his strength to appear in clothing and social habits as rich as possible. He does not take care to store up a dowry for his children, and he lays by little because he does not care to become a bond-holder; he would rather work to his dying day, and teach his children while they are young to stand on their own feet. So it happens that the differences which actually exist are very little in evidence; the banker has his palace and his coach, and his wife wears sealskin; but his shoe-maker has also his own house, his horse and buggy, and his wife wears a very good imitation of seal—which one has to rub against in order to recognize.

But the situation becomes very different when it is a question of wealth, not as a means of actual enjoyment, but as a measure of the personal capacities that have earned it. Then the whole importance of the possession is indeed transferred to the possessor. We must again emphasize the fact that this is the real impulse underlying American economic life—wealth is the criterion of individual achievements, of self-initiative; and since the whole nation stretches every nerve in a restless demonstration of this self-initiative, the person who is more successful than his neighbours gains necessarily their instinctive admiration. The wealth won by lucky gambles in stocks, or inherited, or derived from a merely accidental appreciation of values or by a chance monopoly, is not respected; but the wealth amassed by caution and brilliant foresight, by indomitable energy and tireless initiative, or by fascinating originality and courage, meets with full recognition. The 597American sees in such a creator of material wealth the model of his pioneer virtues, the born leader of economic progress, and he looks up to him in sincere admiration, and respects him far higher than his neighbour in the next palace who has accidentally fallen heir to a tenfold larger sum. It is not the power which wealth confers, but the power which has conferred wealth, that is respected.

And then there is a more important factor—the respect for that force of mind which puts wealth, even if it is only a modest amount, in the service of higher ends. Men have different tastes; one who builds hospitals may not understand the importance of patronizing the fine arts; one who supports universities may do very little for the church; or another who collects sculptures may have no interest in the education of the negro. But the fundamental dogma of American society is that wealth confers distinction only on a man who works for ideal ends; and perhaps the deepest impulse toward the accumulation of wealth, after the economic power which it confers, is the desire for just this sort of dignity. And this desire is deeper undoubtedly than the wish for pleasure, which anyhow is somewhat limited by the outward uniformity of American life. How far social recognition is gotten by public-spirited activities and how far social recognition incites men to such activity, is in any particular case hard to decide. But as a matter of fact, a social condition has come about in which the noblesse oblige of property is recognized on all sides, and in which public opinion is more discriminating as to the social respect which should be meted out to this or that public deed, than it could be if it were a question of conferring with the greatest nicety orders and titles of different values.

The right of the individual to specialize in various directions, to focus his benefactions on Catholic deaf-mutes or on students of insects, on church windows, or clay cylinders with cuneiform inscriptions, is recognized fully. Confident of the good-will of men of property, so many diverse claims have arisen, that it would be quite impossible for a single man out of mere general sympathy with civilization to lend a helping hand in all directions. The Americans esteem just that carefulness with which the rich man sees to it that his property is applied according to his personal ideas and knowledge. It is only thereby that his gifts have a profound 598personal significance, and are fundamentally distinguished from sentimental sacrifice or from ostentatious patronage. Giving is a serious matter, to which wealthy men daily and hourly devote conscientious labour. A man like Carnegie, whose useful bequests already amount to more than a hundred million dollars, could dispose at once of his entire property if he were in a single week to respond favourably to all the calls which are made on him. He receives every day hundreds of such letters of request, and gives almost his entire strength to carrying out his benevolent plans.

And the same is true on a smaller scale of all classes. Every true American feels that his wealth puts him in a position of public confidence, and the intensity with which he manifests this conviction decides the social esteem in which his property is held. The real aristocrats of wealth in this part of the world are those men whom public opinion respects both for the gaining and the using of their property; both factors, in a way, have to be united. The admirable personal talents which accumulate large properties, and the lofty ideals which put them to the best uses, may appear to be quite independent matters, and indeed they sometimes do exclude each other, but the aristocratic ideal demands the two together. And the Americans notice when either one is absent; they notice when wealth is amassed in imposing quantities, but then employed trivially or selfishly; or, on the other hand, when it is employed for the very highest ends, but in the opinion of competent men has been accumulated improperly. The public feels more and more inclined to look into the business methods of men who make large gifts. The American does not recognize the non olet, and there have often been lively discussions when ill-gotten wealth has been offered in public benefaction.

Wealth gotten by distinguished enterprise and integrity, and employed conscientiously and thoughtfully, confers in fact high social distinction. But it is only one factor among others. A second factor is family tradition, the dignity of a name long respected for civil high-mindedness and refinement. A European has only the barest impression of the great social significance of American genealogies, and would be surprised to see in the large libraries whole walls of book-shelves that contain nothing but works on the lineage of American families. The family tree of the single family of Whitney, of Connecticut, takes up three thick 599volumes amounting to 2,700 pages; and there even exists a thick and handsome volume with the genealogies of American families of royal extraction. There are not only special papers devoted to the scientific study of genealogies, but even some of the large daily papers have a section devoted to this subject. Much of this is mere curiosity and sport—a fashionable whim, which collects ancestors much like coins or postage stamps. Although the preserving of family traditions and an expansive pride in historic lineage do not contradict democratic principles, yet the interest in pedigree, if it takes real hold on the public mind, very soon leads to a genuine social differentiation.

Such differentiation will be superficial at first. If none but descendants of Puritans who came over in the “Mayflower” are invited to a set of dances, a spirit of exclusiveness is shown which is indeed undemocratic; but this sort of thing is in fact only a playful matter in American society. The large organizations that choose their membership on the ground of peculiar ancestry make no pretence to special privileges, and many of them are nothing but philanthropic societies. On the other hand, if the aristocracy of family were to assume special rights, it would be no innovation on American soil, because in the earliest colonial days many of the social differences of English society were brought over, and the English class spirit did not disappear until after the Revolution, when the younger sons of English gentlemen no longer came over to this country. In the South, a considerable spirit of aristocracy persisted until after the Civil War.

Such superficial differentiation has virtually disappeared to-day. The mere tinsel of family aristocracy has been torn off, but for this reason the real importance and achievements of certain families come out all the more clearly. The representatives of venerable family names are looked on with peculiar public confidence; and the more the American nation becomes acquainted with the history of these families, which have been active on American soil for eight or ten generations, the more it respects their descendants of the present day.

It is true that conditions are still provincial, and that almost no family has a national significance. The names of the first families of Virginia, which are universally revered in the South, are almost unknown in the North; the descendants of Knickerbocker families, 600whose very name must not be mentioned in New York without a certain air of solemnity, are very much less considered in Baltimore or Philadelphia; and the western part of the country is naturally still too young to have established such traditions at all until recently. But the following is a typical example for the East:

Harvard University is governed by seven men who are chosen to fill this responsible position, solely because the academic community has profound confidence both in their integrity and in their breadth of view. And yet it is no accident that among these seven men, there is not one whose family has not been of service to the State of Massachusetts for seven generations. So that, even in such a model democratic community as Puritan New England, the names of families that have played an important public part in the middle of the seventeenth century are as much respected as the old “märkische Adel” in Prussia. And although they are without the privileges of nobility, the whole dignity of the past is felt by every educated person to be preserved in such family names.

But the most important factor in the aristocratic differentiation of America is higher education and culture, and this becomes more important every day. In speaking of universities, we have carefully explained why higher culture is less closely connected with the learned professions in America than in the European countries. We have seen that the learned professions are fed by professional and very practical schools, which turn out a doctor, lawyer, or preacher without requiring a broad and liberal previous training; and how, on the other hand, the college has been the independent institution for higher culture, and how these two institutions have slowly grown together in the course of time, so that the college course has come at length to be the regular preparation for those who attend professional schools. Now, in considering the social importance of higher individual culture, we have not to consider the learned professions, but rather the general college training; and in this respect we find undoubtedly that common opinion has slowly shifted toward an aristocratic point of view. The social importance ascribed to a college graduate is all the time growing.

It was kept back for a long time by unfortunate prejudices. Because other than intellectual forces had made the nation strong, 601and everywhere in the foreground of public activity there were vigorous and influential men who had not continued their education beyond the public grammar school, so the masses instinctively believed that insight, real energy, and enterprise were better developed in the school of life than in the world of books. The college student was thought of as a weakling, in a way, who might have many fine theories about things, but who would never take hold to help solve the great national problems—a sort of academic “mugwump,” but not a leader. The banking-house, factory, farm, the mine, the law office, and the political position were all thought better places for the young American man than the college lecture halls. And perhaps the unpractical character of college studies was no more feared than the artificial social atmosphere. It was felt that an ideal atmosphere was created in the college to which the mind in its best period of development too readily adapted itself, so that it came out virtually unprepared for the crude reality of practical life. This has been a dogma in political life ever since the Presidency of Andrew Jackson, and almost equally so in economic life.

This has profoundly changed now, and changes more with every year. It is not a question of identifying the higher culture with the learned professions, as in Germany—there is no reason for this; and such a point of view has developed in Germany only by an accident of history. In America it is still thought that a graduate of one of these colleges—that is, a man who has gone about as far as the German student of philosophy in the third or fourth semester—is equal to anybody in culture, no matter whether he afterward becomes a manufacturer, or banker, or lawyer, or a philologian. The change has taken place in regard to what is expected of the college student; distrust has vanished, and people realize that the intellectual discipline which he has had until his twenty-second year in the artificial and ideal world is after all the best training for the great duties of public life, and that academic training, less by its subject-matter than by its methods, is the best possible preparation for practical activity.

The man of academic training is the only one who sees things in their right perspective, and gives them the right values. Even the large merchant knows to-day that the young man who left college at twenty-two will be, when he is twenty-seven years of 602age, generally ahead of his contemporaries who left school at seventeen and “went to work.” The great self-made men do indeed say a good deal to comfort those who have had only a school training, but it may be noted that they send their own sons to college. As a matter of fact, the leading positions in the disposal of the nation are almost entirely in the hands of men of academic training, and the mistrust of the theorizing college spirit has given place to a situation in which university presidents and professors have much to say on all practical questions of public life, and the college graduates are the real supporters of every movement toward reform and civilization.

All in all, it can no longer be denied that a class of national leaders has risen above the social life of the masses, and not wholly, as democracy would really require, by reason of their personal talents. A wealthy man has a certain advantage by his wealth, the man of family by his lineage, the man of academic training by the fact that his parents were able to send him to the university. This is neither plutocracy nor hereditary aristocracy, nor intellectual snobbery. We have seen that wealth wins consideration only when well expended, that ancestry brings no privileges or prerogatives with it, and that an academic education is not equivalent to merely technical erudition. The personal factor is not lacking, since we have seen that the rich man must plan his benefactions, the man of family must play his public part, and that academic training is in the reach of every young man who will try for it. The fundamental principles of democracy are therefore not destroyed, but they are modified. The spirit of self-assertion which calls for absolute equality is everywhere brought face to face with men who are superior, whose claims cannot be discounted, and who are tacitly admitted to belong rightfully to an upper class.

Differentiation, once more, works not merely upward, but also downward; the public leader pushes himself ahead, and at the same time the great masses are looking for some one whom they may follow. It is not a matter of subjection, but of confidence—confidence in men who are recognizedly better than many others. There can be no doubt that a reaction is going on throughout America to-day, not against democracy, but against those opinions which have prevailed in the democracy ever since the days of the pioneers. A great many people feel instinctively that the time 603is ripe to oppose the one-sidedness of domination by the masses; people are forcibly impressed by the fact that in politics, government, literature and art, the great achievements are thwarted by vulgar influences, that the original individual is impressed into the ordinary mould, and that dilettanteism and mediocrity rule triumphant and keep out the best talents from public life. People see the tyranny of greed, the reproach of municipal corruption, the unwholesome influence of a sensational press and of unscrupulous capital. They see how public life becomes blatant, irresponsible, and vulgar; how all authority and respect must disappear if democracy is not to be curbed at any point.

The time has come, a great many feel, in which the moral influence of authority is needed, and the educational influence of those more cultivated persons who will not yield to the æsthetic tastes of the vulgar must be infused into the democracy. The trained man must speak where the masses would otherwise act from mere caprice; the disciplined mind must lead where incompetence is heading for blind alleys; the best minds must have some say and people must be forced to listen, so that other voices and opinions shall have weight than those that make the babel of the streets. The eclectic must prevail over the vulgar taste, and the profound over the superficial, since it is clear that only in that way will America advance beyond her present stage of development. America has created a new political world, and must now turn to æsthetics and culture. Such a reaction has not happened to-day or yesterday, but has been going on steadily in the last few decades, and to-day it is so strong as to overcome all resistance. The desire for the beauty and dignity of culture, for authority and thoroughness, is creeping into every corner of American life.

The time is already passing which would do away with all discipline and submission in school and family life; public life brings the trained expert everywhere into prominence. The disgust at the vulgarity of daily life, as in the visible appearance of city streets, increases rapidly. The sense of beauty is everywhere at work; and men of taste, education, and traditions, rather than the city fathers who are elected by the rabble, are finally being called to positions of leadership. The democratic spirit is not crumbling, and certainly the rights of the masses are not to be 604displaced by the rights of the better educated and more æsthetic; but democracy is in a way to be perfected, to be brought as high as it can be brought by giving a representation to really all the forces that are in the social organism, and by not permitting the more refined ones to be suppressed by the weight of the masses. The nation has come to that maturity where the public is ready to let itself be led by the best men.

It is true that the public taste still prevails too widely in many branches of social life; there is too much triviality; too many institutions are built on the false principles that everybody knows best what is good for him, and too many undertakings flatter the taste which they should educate. But opposite tendencies are present everywhere. The more the economic development of the country is rounded off, the greater is its demand for social differentiation, for the recognition of certain influences as superior, for subordination, and for finer organization. Just as economic life has long since given up free competition, and the great corporations show admirably that subordination is necessary to great purposes, and the world of labour has become an army with strictest discipline and blind allegiance, so in the non-economic world a tendency toward subordination, individuation, and aristocracy becomes every moment more evident.

To this tendency there is added the new conception of the state. Democracy is, from the outset, individualistic. We have seen everywhere that the fundamental force in this community is the belief of every man in his own personality and that of others. The state has been the sum total of individuals, and the state as something more than the individual has appeared as a bare abstraction. The individual alone has asserted itself, perfected and guided itself, and taken all the initiative. And this belief in the person is no less firm to-day; but another belief has come up. This is a belief in the ethical reality of the state. Public opinion is still afraid that if this belief increases, the old confidence in the value of the individual, and therewith of all the fundamental virtues of American democracy, may be shaken. But the belief spreads from day to day, and produces its change in public opinion. Politics are trending as are so many other branches of life; the emphasis is passing from the individual to the totality. As we have seen that the Americans adorned their houses before their public buildings, 605quite the opposite of what Europeans have done, so they have given political value to the millions of individuals long before they laid weight on the one collective will of the state. The men who would have sacrificed everything rather than cheat their neighbours have had no conscientious scruples in plundering the state.

It is different to-day. The feeling grows that honour toward the state, sacrifice for it, and confidence in it are even more important than the respect for the totality of individuals. These opinions cannot be spread abroad without having their far-reaching consequences; the state is visible only in symbols, and its representatives get their significance by symbolizing not the population, but the abstract state. The individual representative of government is thus exalted personally above the democratic level. To fill an office means not merely to do work, but to experience a broadening of personality, much as that which the priest feels in his office; it is an enlargement which demands on the other side respect and subordination. This tendency is still in its beginnings, and will never be so strong as in Europe, because the self-assertion of the individual is too lively. Nevertheless, these new notes in the harmony are much louder and more persistent than they were ten years ago.

Thus there are many forces which work to check the spirit of self-assertion; in spite of the liveliest feeling of equality, a social differentiation is practically working itself out in all American life. Differences of occupation are, perhaps, the least significant; a profession which has such a great claim to superiority as, for instance, that of the army officer in Germany, does not exist in the United States. Perhaps the legal profession would be looked on as the most important, and certainly it absorbs a very large proportion of the best strength of the nation. The high position given the jurist is probably in good part because, unlike his Continental colleague, as we have explained at length, he actually takes part in shaping the law. In a different way the preacher is very greatly respected, but his profession decreases slowly in attractiveness for the best talents of the country. The academic professions, on the other hand, have drawn such talent more and more, and will continue to do so as the distinction grows sharper between the college teacher and the real university professor. The pre-eminently reproductive activities are naturally less enticing 606than those which are creative, and wherever talent is attracted it quickly accomplishes great things, and these work to improve the social status of the profession. The political profession, as such, is far down in the scale; only governors, senators, and the highest ministerial officials play an important social part. Of course, one cannot speak of the especial recognition of mercantile or industrial professions, because these offer too great a variety of attainment; but certainly their most influential representatives are socially inferior to none in the community.

Social differentiation does not rest on a sharp discrimination of profession, and yet it is realized from the highest to the lowest circles of society, and to a degree which fifty years ago would have greatly antagonized at least the entire northern part of the country. In Washington, the exclusive hostess invites only the wives of senators, but not those of representatives, to her table; and in the Bowery, according to the accounts, the children of the peanut vendor do not deign to play with the children of the hurdy-gurdy man, who are vastly more humble. The Four Hundred in the large city quietly but resolutely decline to invite newly made millionaires to dinner; and the seamstress, who comes to the house to sew or mend, refuses to sit down at table with the servants. Already, in the large cities, the children of better families are not sent to public, but to private schools. The railroads have only one class of passenger coach; but the best society declines that, and rides in the Pullman cars. The same distinctions hold everywhere, and not merely as a matter of greater luxury for the rich, but as a real social distinction. At the theatre, the person who socially belongs in the parquet prefers to sit in one of the worst seats there to going into the balcony, where he does not belong, even though he might hear and see better.

The increasing sympathy with badges, costumes, and uniforms—in short, with the symbols of differentiation—is very typical. There was a time in which a free American would have refused to wear a special livery; but to-day nobody objects, from the elevator boy to the judge, to wear the marks of office. The holiday processions of working-men and veterans become gayer and gayer. Those who have seen the recent inaugurations of the presidents of Yale and Columbia have witnessed parades of hundreds of gay and, it seemed, partly fantastic costumes, such as are now worn at every 607university celebration in America—symbolic emblems which would have seemed impossible in this monotonous democracy twenty years ago.

The inner life of universities gives also lively indication of social cleavage. In Harvard and Yale, there are exclusive clubs of the social leaders among the students. It is true that hundreds of students go through the university without paying any attention to such things; but there are almost as many more whose chief ambition is to be elected into an exclusive circle, and who would feel compensated by no sort of scientific success if they were disappointed in their aspirations for club life. In the same way many families which have become wealthy in the West move to New York or Boston, in the vain hope of breaking into society. The social difference between near-lying residential sections is, indeed, much greater than in Europe; and real estate on a street which comes to be occupied by socially inferior elements rapidly depreciates, because the inhabitants of any residential section must stand on the same plane.

The transformations which the place of the President in public consciousness has gone through are very characteristic. A newly elected President is to-day inaugurated with almost monarchical pomp, and he reviews the Navy, as he never would have thought of doing some years ago. He sits down first at the table and is served first. An invitation to the White House is felt as a command which takes precedence over any other engagement. All this has happened recently. It was not long ago that persons refused an invitation to the White House, because of previous engagements. In social life all men were merely “gentlemen,” regardless of the capacities which they had during business hours, and in matters of invitation one visited the host who was first to invite one. All this is different now.

There is even some indication of the use of titles. Twenty years ago students addressed their professors with a mister, but to-day more often with the title of professor; and the abuse of military titles which goes on in the West amuses the whole country. In the army itself aristocratic tendencies are strongly manifest, but only here and there come to general notice. Contrary to the spirit of official appointments, men are not advanced so rapidly who work up from a socially inferior level, but the social élite is favoured. 608Etiquette in social life is becoming more complicated; there is more formality, more symbolism in social intercourse. A nation which pays every year more than six million dollars for cut roses and four millions for carnations has certainly learned to decorate social life. There is even more etiquette in professional life. The professional behaviour of lawyers, physicians, and scholars is in some respects, at least in the East, more narrowly prescribed than it is even in Europe.

Looking at the situation as a whole, one sees the power of this new spirit, not so much in these petty symptoms as in the great movements of which we have spoken at length in other connections. There is the spirit of imperialism in foreign politics, and it cannot expand in its pride without working against the old democratic tendencies. There is the spirit of militarism, triumphantly proud of the victorious army and navy, demanding strict discipline and blind obedience to the commander. There is the spirit of racial pride, which persecutes the negro and the Chinese, and hinders the immigration of Eastern and Southern Europeans. There is the spirit of centralization, exalting the power of the state above the conflicting desires of the individual, and in economic matters hoping more from the intelligent initiative of the state as a whole than from the free competition of individuals, and assigning to the Federation tremendous undertakings, such as the irrigation of the West and the cutting of the Panama Canal. There is the spirit of aristocracy, tempting more and more the academically cultured and the wealthy into the political arena. There is the spirit of social differentiation coming into art and science, and bringing to the life of the nation ideals of beauty and of knowledge which are far above the vulgar comprehension. Eclectic taste is winning a victory over popular taste. The judgment of the most learned, the refinement of the most educated, and the wisdom of the most mature are being made prominent before the public mind. We have already seen how this new spirit grows and unfolds, and how the one-sidedness and eccentricities of political, economic, intellectual, and artistic democracy are being outgrown day by day, and how the America of Roosevelt’s time is shaping itself in accordance with the civilizations of Western Europe.

There are some who behold this development with profound concern. That which has made America’s greatness, which 609seemed to be her mission in the world, was the belief in the ethical worth of the individual. The doctrines of self-determination, self-initiative, and self-assertion, and the civilization which rested on such a foundation, have nothing to hope and much to fear from social differentiation and imperialism. Aristocratic tendencies appear to undermine this ethical democracy, and the imperialistic symbols of our day mock the traditions of the past. There will certainly be many reactions against these aristocratic tendencies; perhaps they will be only small movements working through the press and at the ballot-box against the encroachments on the spirit of the past and against the expansion of office, and hindering those aristocratic tendencies which depart too far from the traditions of the masses. Perhaps, some day, there will be a great reaction. Perhaps the tremendous power possessed by the labouring classes in the country will lead to battles for ethical principles, in which the modern æsthetic development will be reversed; it would not be the first time on American soil that ethical reform has produced social deterioration, for “reform” means always the victory of naked, equalizing logic over the conservative forces which represent historic differentiation. So the Revolution abolished the patrician society of New England, whose aristocratic members survive in the portraits of Copley; and the day may come when trades-unions will be victorious over that aristocracy which Sargent is now painting. Even the reform which emancipated the slaves destroyed a true and chivalrous aristocracy in the South.

But it is more likely that the steady development will go on, and that there will be a harmonious co-operation between the fundamental democratic forces and the lesser aristocratic ones. It cannot be doubted that that democracy of which we have aimed to describe the real intent, will remain the fundamental force under the American Constitution; and however strict military discipline may become, however aristocratic the social differentiations, however imperialistic the politics, however esoteric art and science, undoubtedly the greatest question put by every American to his brother will be: “What do you, purely as an individual, amount to?” The ethical rights and the ethical duties of the individual will be the ultimate standard, and aristocratic pomp will always be suppressed in America whenever it commences to restrain the passion for justice and for self-determination.

610The most serious Americans are in the position of Tantalus; they see, in a thousand ways and at a thousand places, that a certain advance could be made if somehow the vulgar masses could be got out of the way; they see how civic and national ends could be attained almost without trouble by the ample means of the country, if as in Europe, the most intelligent minds could be put in control. They want all this most seriously; and yet they cannot have it, because in the bottom of their hearts they really do not wish it. They feel too profoundly that the gain would be only apparent, that the moral force of the nation would be sacrificed if a single citizen should lose the confidence that he himself is responsible for the nation which he helps to guide and to make. The easy attainment of success is only a secondary matter; the purity of the individual will is the main consideration. With this stands or falls American culture. Development is first of all an ethical problem; just because the world is incomplete, is hard, and unbeautiful, and everywhere needs to be transformed by human labour, just on that account human life is inexhaustibly valuable. This is the fundamental thought, and will remain so as long as the New World remains true to its ideals. The finer notes are only an overtone in the great chord; it is only faintly discerned that the world is valuable when it is beautiful—after it has been mastered and completed.

In this opposition between the ethical and the æsthetic, between the democratic and the aristocratic, America will never sacrifice her fundamental conviction, will never follow aristocratic tendencies further than where they are needed to correct the dangerous one-sidedness and the excrescences of democratic individualism; at least, never so far that any danger will threaten the democracy. The pride of the true American is, once and for all, not the American country, nor yet American achievements, but the American personality.

One who seeks the profoundest reality that history has to offer, not in the temporal unfolding of events, but in the interplay of human wills, will agree with the American’s judgment of himself. Looking at the people of the New World even from afar, one will find the fascination, novelty, and greatness of the American world mission, not in what the American has accomplished, but in what he desires and will desire.

611Nevertheless, this will not seem strange or foreign to any German. In the depths of his soul, he has himself a similar play of desires. In the course of history, reverence and faithfulness developed in the German soul more strongly than the individualistic craving for self-determination and self-assertion; aristocratic love of beauty and truth developed before the democratic spirit of self-initiative. But to-day, in modern Germany, these very instincts are being aroused, just as in modern America those forces are growing which have long dominated the German soul.

The American still puts the higher value on the personal, the German on the over-personal; the American on the intrinsic value of the creating will, the German on the intrinsic value of the absolute ideal. But every day sees the difference reduced, and brings the two nations nearer to a similar attitude of mind. Moreover, both of these fundamental tendencies are equally idealistic, and both of these nations are therefore destined to understand and to esteem each other, mutually to extend their friendship, to emulate each other, and to work together, so that in the confused play of temporal forces the intrinsically valuable shall be victorious over the temporary and fleeting, the ideal over the accidental. For both nations feel together, in the depths of their being, that in order to give meaning to life man must believe in timeless ideals.

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