CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 395 



science, even industry is compromised by what is in part its own work. 

 In short, Idealism is succumbing in the struggle with Realism, and the 

 kingdom of material interests is coming. 



It is no surprise that this aspect of modern civilization should be 

 most noticeable in a country where the creation of material resources 

 and the removal of natural obstacles were for a long time of prime 

 necessity ; where an immigrant population had, in a measure, to begin 

 a new life, and most of them had as it were burned their ships behind 

 them ; where no historic memories and literary traditions were availa- 

 ble for stopping the tendency of the popular life, too exclusively directed 

 toward the useful arts and the acquisition of wealth. It is no wonder 

 that America has become the principal home of utilitarianism. While 

 at times the very first conditions of human society are there in dispute, 

 it is in America especially that those existences come into being whose 

 wealth, luxury, and external polish, contrasting as they do with their 

 ignorance, narrowness, and innate coarseness, give one the idea of a 

 neo-barbarism. In view of this aspect of American life, which has 

 been again and again portrayed by writers, from Sealsfield down to 

 Bret Harte, it has come to be the custom to characterize as an Ameri- 

 canization the dreaded overgrowth and permeation by realism of Euro- 

 pean civilization, and the rapidly-growing preponderance of manufact- 

 uring industry. Later the starry flag has waved in a war for an idea, 

 a glory which the tricolor has been wont to claim for its own and then 

 has, like your true mercenary, demanded its pay for service done. Still 

 another starry flag may the land of the future confidently oppose to 

 such reproaches as are implied in the term " Americanization " the 

 flag of its young literary honors, each star being some name illustrious 

 in science, in song, or in story. However, the term " Americanization " 

 is now naturalized, nor will non-Americanized Americans object to the 

 employment of it, as most of them are quite ready to admit the weak 

 point in the young giant's education which this term is used to designate. 



But, in thus animadverting on American civilization, is it not a fact 

 that we see the mote in our brother's eye, but perceive not the beam 

 that is in our own eye? What of the resistance that ought to be made 

 to these redoubtable tendencies by our German civilization, ancient and 

 firmly rooted as it is, when compared with the American? Unless we 

 give way to one of our latest-cherished self-delusions, w T e must confess 

 that we have already made such progress in " Americanization " as 

 should give us pause. Germany is become united and powerful, and 

 the longing of our youth to see the German name again respected by 

 land and sea has been fulfilled. Who would find fault with such an 

 achievement ? But go back in thought to the divided, powerless, pro- 

 vincial Germany of our youthful days passing as it were from the cold 

 splendor of the imperial city into the narrow streets of some old town 

 in Middle Germany, with their overhanging gables, and the house- 

 fronts hung with grape-vine and ivy is there not something lacking 



