Matthew Arnold, Civilization in the United States: First and Last Impressions of America.

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IV: civilization in the United States.

Two or three years ago I spoke in this Review¹ on the subject of America; and after considering the institutions and the social condition of the people of the United States, I said that what, in the jargon of the present day, is called “the political and social problem,” does seem to be solved there with remarkable success. I pointed out the contrast which in this respect the United States offer to our own country,--a contrast, in several ways, much to their advantage. But I added that the solution of the political and social problem, as it is called, ought not so to absorb us as to make us forget the human problem; and that it remained to ask how the human problem is solved in the United States. It happened that Sir Lepel Griffin, a very acute and distinguished Indian official, had just then been travelling in the United States, and had published his opinion,