ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 6 1 



fabricate the higher qualities of opinion on all possible topics 

 of human interest. 



So long as we continue to be the most common-schooled 

 and the least cultivated people in the world, I suppose we 

 must consent to endure this condescending manner of 

 foreigners toward us. The more friendly they mean to be 

 the more ludicrously prominent it becomes. They can never 

 appreciate the immense amount of silent work that has been 

 done here, making this continent slowly fit for the abode of 

 man, and which will demonstrate itself, let us hope, in the 

 character of the people. Outsiders can only be expected to 

 judge a nation by the amount it has contributed to the civil 

 isation of the world ; the amount, that is, that can be seen 

 and handled. A great place in history can only be achieved 

 by competitive examinations, nay, by a long course of them. 

 How much new thought have we contributed to the common 

 stock ? Till that question can be triumphantly answered, or 

 needs no answer, we must continue to be simply interesting 

 as an experiment, to be studied as a problem, and not re 

 spected as an attained result or an accomplished solution. 

 Perhaps, as I have hinted, their patronising manner toward 

 us is the fair result of their failing to see here anything more 

 than a poor imitation, a plaster-cast of Europe. And are 

 they not partly right? If the tone of the uncultivated 

 American has too often the arrogance of the barbarian is 

 not that of the cultivated as often vulgarly apologetic ? In 

 the America they meet with is there the simplicity, the 

 manliness, the absence of sham, the sincere human nature, 

 the sensitiveness to duty and implied obligation, that in any 

 way distinguishes us from what our orators call * the effete 

 civilisation of the Old World ? Is there a politician among 

 us daring enough (except a Dana here and there) to risk his 

 future on the chance of our keeping our word with the exact 

 ness of superstitious communities like England ? Is it certain 

 that we shall be ashamed of a bankruptcy of honour, if we 

 can only keep the letter of our bond ? I hope we shall be 

 able to answer all these questions with a frank yes. At any 

 rate, we would advise our visitors that we are not merely 

 curious creatures, but belong to the family of man, and that, 

 as individuals, we are not to be always subjected to the com 

 petitive examination above-mentioned, even if we acknow 

 ledged their competence as an examining board. Above all, 



