CHAP. XXXil.l EQUALITY AND LEVELING. 169 



Mrs. MacClarty s grade in society, that they have retained her 

 maxims for the management of their children ; for the young 

 people in the families of the best class of society in the United 

 States, are often kept in as good order, and are as engaging in 

 their manners, as they are in any part of Europe. 



Many young Americans have been sent to school in Switzer 

 land, and I have heard their teachers, who found them less 

 manageable than English or Swiss boys, maintain that they 

 must all of them have some dash of wild Indian blood in their 

 veins. Englishmen, on the other hand, sometimes attribute the 

 same character to republican institutions ; but, in fact, they are 

 spoilt long before they are old enough to know that they are not 

 born under an absolute monarchy. 



Some officers of the army, who had been educated at West 

 Point, a lieutenant in the navy, and a judge, with his family, 

 from a southern state, were agreeable companions on this voyage, 

 and differed as much in manners from the majority of our mess 

 mates, as persons of the same rank in Europe would have done. 

 There seemed, to us, to be a great want, in such steamers, of a 

 second cabin, at a price intermediate between that of the first 

 cabin and the deck. A poor emigrant, who waB roughing it in 

 the latter place, remarked to me truly, that they were treated 

 there like dogs, and had nothing but a plank to sleep upon. He 

 was paying highly for his wife and family, who had places in 

 the first cabin. Among all who have paid for these, a recogni 

 tion of perfect equality is scrupulously exacted. Not only would 

 a man of rank and ancient family, but one of the most refined 

 manners, and superior knowledge and education, find himself 

 treated as entitled to no more deference or respect than the rud 

 est traveler. Plato s definition of a man, &quot; bipes implume,&quot; &quot;a 

 featherless biped,&quot; would be most appropriate to one who was 

 journeying in such company. To a certain extent, however, the 

 manners of the ruder members of this society are improved by 

 such intercourse, and there is some leveling up as well as level 

 ing down. The European traveler must also bear in mind, that 

 it would be no discredit to those who are settling in this wilder 

 ness especially when Europe pours into it, annually, her hun- 



VOL. I!. II 



