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Barnum (search for this): chapter 2
their programme: Latin, Greek, German, French, Surveying, Chemistry, Astrology, Natural History, Mental Philosophy, Constitution, Bookkeeping, Trigonometry, etc. Alas, to quote Vauvenargues again: On ne corrigera jamais les hommes d'apprendre des choses inutiles! But good secondary schools, not with the programme of our classical and commercial academies, but with a serious programme — a programme really suited to the wants and capacities of those who are to be trained — this, I repeat, is what American civilization in my belief most requires, as it is what our civilization, too, at present most requires. The special present defects of both American civilization and ours are the kind of defects for which this is a natural remedy. I commend it to the attention of my friendly Boston critic in America; and some months hence, perhaps, when Mr. Barnum begins to require less space for his chronicles of Jumbo, my critic will tell me what he thinks of it. A word more about America
Moliere (search for this): chapter 2
ary education, he says, America is still, from an intellectual point of view, a very rude and primitive soil, only to be cultivated by violent methods. These childish and half-savage minds are not moved except by very elementary narratives composed without art, in which burlesque and melodrama, vulgarity and eccentricity, are combined in strong doses. It may be said that Frenchmen, the present generation of Frenchmen at any rate, themselves take seriously, as of the family of Shakespeare, Moliere, and Goethe, an author half genius, half charlatan, like M. Victor Hugo. They do so; but still they may judge, soundly and correctly enough, another nation's false literature which does not appeal to their weaknesses. I am not blaming America for falling a victim to Quinion, or to Murdstone either. We fall a victim to Murdstone and Quinion ourselves, as I very well know, and the Americans are just the same people that we are. But I want to deliver England from Murdstone and Quinion, and
Conant (search for this): chapter 2
nglish souls is just the proceeding which would naturally commend itself to Murdstone and Quinion; and the way in which Mr. Conant justifies and applauds the proceeding, and continues to justify and applaud it, in disregard of all that one may say, ach Murdstone and Quinion, after regulating copyright in the American fashion, would wish and expect to be backed up. In Mr. Conant they have a treasure: illi robber et es triplex, indeed. And no doubt a few Americans, highly civilized individuals, hopping backwards and forwards over the Atlantic, much disapprove of these words and works of Mr. Conant and his constituents. But can there be constant groups of children of light, joined in an elegant order, everywhere throughout the Union? for, iir sense of delicacy, and even their sense of the ridiculous, be too strong, even in this very matter of copyright, for Mr. Conant and his constituents? But on the creation and propagation of such groups the civilized life of America depends for i
John Wesley (search for this): chapter 2
that universally religious country, the religious denomination which has by much the largest number of adherents is that, I believe, of Methodism originating in John Wesley, and which we know in this country as having for its standard of doctrine Mr. Wesley's fifty-three sermons and notes on the New Testament. I have a sincere admMr. Wesley's fifty-three sermons and notes on the New Testament. I have a sincere admiration for Wesley, and a sincere esteem for the Wesleyan Methodist body in this country; I have seen much of it, and for many of its members my esteem is not only sincere but also affectionate. I know how one's religious connections and religious attachments are determined by the circumstances of one's birth and bringing up; andportance as Wesleyans believe religion to be, to live with one's mind, as to a matter of this sort, fixed constantly upon a mind of the third order, such as was Mr. Wesley's, seems to me extremely trying and injurious for the minds of men in general. And people whose minds, in what is the chief concern of their lives, are thus co
Frederick Cavendish (search for this): chapter 2
dstone and Quinion, the bitter, serious Philistine and the rowdy Philistine, enter into American life and lower it? I will not pronounce on the matter myself; I have not the requisite knowledge. But all that we hear from America — hear from Americans themselves — points, so far as I can see, to a great presence and power of these middle-class misgrowths there as here. We have not succeeded in counteracting them here, and while our statesmen and leaders proceed as they do now, and Lord Frederick Cavendish congratulates the middle class on its energy and self-reliance in doing without public schools, and Lord Salisbury summons the middle class to a great and final stand on behalf of supernaturalism, we never shall succeed in counteracting them. We are told, however, of groups of children of light in every town of America, and an elegant social order prevailing there, which make one, at first, very envious. But soon one begins to think, I say, that surely there must be some mistake.
Mark Twain (search for this): chapter 2
us higher instruction, and will long have to expiate this fault by their intellectual mediocrity, their vulgarity of manners, their superficial spirit, their lack of general intelligence. Another acute French critic speaks of a hard unintelligence as characteristic of the people of the United States--la dure inintelligence des Americains du Nord. Smart they are, as all the world knows; but then smartness is unhappily quite compatible with a hard unintelligence. The Quinionian humour of Mr. Mark Twain, so attractive to the Philistine of the more gay and light type both here and in America, another French critic fixes upon as literature exactly expressing a people of this type, and of no higher. In spite of all its primary education, he says, America is still, from an intellectual point of view, a very rude and primitive soil, only to be cultivated by violent methods. These childish and half-savage minds are not moved except by very elementary narratives composed without art, in whic
Lowell (search for this): chapter 2
II: a word about America. Mr. Lowell, in an interesting but rather tart essay, On a certain Cord to the object of their ill-will, are apt, Mr. Lowell declares, to make him impatient. Let them gr of the social systems of other countries. Mr. Lowell complains that we English make our narrow An want; and if American democracy gives this, Mr. Lowell may rely upon it that no narrow Anglicism sh arts have no chance in poor countries, says Mr. Lowell. From sturdy father to sturdy son, we have bs it not the highest act of a republic, asks Mr. Lowell, to make men of flesh and blood, and not thethe collective, not the individual humanity, Mr. Lowell goes on, that is to have a chance of nobler pped over, as he wittily says, to Europe. Mr. Lowell himself describes his own nation as the mostnt in the United States than they are here. Mr. Lowell himself writes, in that very same essay in wl himself in such style as the following: This Lowell is a fraud, and a disgrace to the American nat[6 more...]
Dale (search for this): chapter 2
igion of our middle class. An American of reputation as a man of science tells me that he lives in a town of a hundred and fifty thousand people, of whom there are not fifty who do not imagine the first chapters of Genesis to be exact history. Mr. Dale, of Birmingham, found, he says, that orthodox Christian people in America were less troubled by attacks on the orthodox creed than the like people in England. They seemed to feel sure of their ground and they showed no alarm. Public opinion requires public men to attend regularly some place of worship. The favorite denominations are those with which we are here familiar as the denominations of Protestant dissent; when Mr. Dale tells us of the Baptists, not including the Free Will Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, Six Principle Baptists, and some other minor sects, one might fancy oneself reading the list of the sects in Whitaker's Almanack. But in America this type of religion is not, as it is here, a subordinate type, it is the predo
Whitaker (search for this): chapter 2
e like people in England. They seemed to feel sure of their ground and they showed no alarm. Public opinion requires public men to attend regularly some place of worship. The favorite denominations are those with which we are here familiar as the denominations of Protestant dissent; when Mr. Dale tells us of the Baptists, not including the Free Will Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, Six Principle Baptists, and some other minor sects, one might fancy oneself reading the list of the sects in Whitaker's Almanack. But in America this type of religion is not, as it is here, a subordinate type, it is the predominant and accepted one. Our Dissenting ministers think themselves in paradise when they visit America. In that universally religious country, the religious denomination which has by much the largest number of adherents is that, I believe, of Methodism originating in John Wesley, and which we know in this country as having for its standard of doctrine Mr. Wesley's fifty-three sermons
Howells (search for this): chapter 2
vulgarity of American manners are undeniable, and that redemption is only to be expected by the work of a few enthusiastic individuals, conscious of cultivated tastes and generous desires ; or, as these enthusiasts are presently called by the writer, rather highly civilized individuals, a few in each of our great cities and their environs. The Boston newspaper observes, with a good deal of point, that it is from these exceptional enthusiasts that the heroes of the tales of Mr. James and Mr. Howells seem to be recruited. It shrewdly describes them as people who spend more than half their life in Europe, and return only to scold their agents for the smallness of their remittances ; and protests that such people will have, and can have, no perceptible influence for good on the real civilization of America. Then our Boston friend turns to me again, says that it is vulgar people from the large cities who have given Mr. Arnold his dislike of American manners, and adds, that if it should
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