ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 79 



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 be- 

 comes. 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 civiliza- 

 tion 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 con- 

 tributed to the common stock 1 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 respected as an at- 

 tained result or an accomplished solution. Perhaps, as 

 I have hinted, their patronizing 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 1 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 1 

 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 civilization 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 exactness of super- 

 stitious communities like England 1 Is it certain that 



