E. A. silsbee's remarks. 13 



colleges and an antique civilization. "We are sowing the 

 continent with common schools, which is better than all 

 the efflorescence of civilization impossible in a new land. 

 Our education is one of life, civil, religious, industrial; 

 that of Germany one of books alone. 



We have got to find other sources of inspiration than 

 the world has hitherto had. America is a horde of people 

 as like as cotton cloth and about as interesting, and as 

 long as the governing impulse and dominant atmosphere 

 are trade it will be so. We worship mediocrity, live in a 

 heaven of commonplace. Faculty we believe will move 

 mountains, not faith. Smartness is our inspiration. 



We have great natural feeling in this country, an un- 

 spoilt, spontaneous and youthful nature, trustful ; our 

 manners are founded on trust, the English on mistrust, 

 convention. We have every quality of youth, its plastic 

 nature, its buoyancy, its looking forward, its confidence, 

 generosity and vigor. The English on the contrary are 

 mature in every respect of analogy, egotistical where we 

 are vain, a thinner fault; the Chinese of Europe, un- 

 changing, insular. We are superficial, half-trained, 

 achieve everything by an heroic audacity. We have no rev- 

 erence, bear no intimidation, suffer from no infatuation, 

 are cramped by no superstition in religion, nature or man. 

 The English guard their rank as the Asiatics worship the 

 Mogul. We have outgrown the superstition of rank, 

 that sacred symbol, that social fetter and chain. We 

 have the superstition of rich men instead. Dukes and 

 kings are what Warwick Castle and the Tower of London 

 are to us, picturesque antiquities. Our people crowd to 

 see them, but they take care not to stay in England for 

 the sake of basking in their smile. You cannot mix oil 

 and water, democracy and aristocracy will not fuse in 

 a common mixture or mould. We go to the continent 

 to air our wealth. 



