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

[85] type of religion, a narrow range of intellect and knowledge, a stunted sense of beauty, a low standard of manners. For the building up of human life, as men are now beginning to see, there are needed not only the powers or industry and conduct, but the power, also, of intellect and knowledge, the power of beauty, the power of social life and manners. And that type of life of which our middle class in England are in possession is one by which neither the claims of intellect and knowledge are satisfied, nor the claim of beauty, nor the claims of social life and manners.

That which in England we call the middle class is in America virtually the nation. It is in America in great measure relieved, as I have said, of what with us is our Populace, and it is relieved of the pressure and false ideal of our Barbarians. It is generally industrious and religious, as our middle class. Its religion is even less invaded, I believe, by the modern spirit than the religion 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 ”