* I. 
 
 THE AMERICAN BOOKS 
 
 A LIBRARY OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP 
 
 "The American Books" are designed as a 
 series of authoritative manuals, discussing 
 problems of interest in America to-day. 
 
THE AMERICAN BOOKS 
 
 THE AMERICAN COLLEGE BY ISAAC SHARPLESS 
 
 THE INDIAN TO-DAY BY CHARLES A. EASTMAN 
 
 COST OF LIVING BY FABIAN FRANKLIN 
 
 THE AMERICAN NAVY BY REAR-ADMIRAL FRENCH E. 
 
 CHADWICK, U. S. N. 
 
 MUNICIPAL FREEDOM BY OSWALD RYAN 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE BY LEON KELLNER 
 
 (TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY JULIA FRANKLIN) 
 
 SOCIALISM IN AMERICA BY JOHN MACY 
 
 AMERICAN IDEALS BY CLAYTON SEDGWICK COOPER 
 
 THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BY WALTER S. HINCHMAN 
 
 THE FEDERAL RESERVE BY HENRY PARKER WILLIS 
 
 (For more extended notice of the series, see the last pages 
 of this book.) 
 
The American Books 
 
 AMERICAN 
 IDEALS 
 
 BY 
 
 CLAYTON SEDGWICK COOPER 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 1915 
 
Copyright, jp/5, by 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavian 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 CLAYTON SEDGWICK COOPER was born at Hen 
 derson, Jefferson County, New York, in 1869. 
 He was educated at Adams Collegiate Institute, 
 Brown University ( 94), Union and Rochester 
 Theological Seminaries, and has done graduate 
 work at Harvard and Columbia (A. M. Colum 
 bia, 1907). 
 
 He served as General Secretary of theTwenty- 
 Third Street Young Men s Christian Association, 
 New York City, 1895-98; pastor of the Wash 
 ington Street Baptist Church, Lynn, Mass., 
 1 898-1 902 ; and College Secretary for Bible Study 
 of the International Young Men s Christian As 
 sociation, 1902-1912. In his work Mr. Cooper 
 has been brought in touch with colleges and 
 college men throughout the United States 
 and Canada; this led to his travelling abroad 
 to study education and religious movements in 
 other lands. He has made two extended trips 
 around the world investigating educational 
 institutions, particularly in England, North 
 Africa, Egypt, India, Malay States, the Philip- 
 
 331257 
 
Biographical Note 
 
 pines, China, Korea, and Japan. He has lectured 
 extensively (for the Pond Lyceum Bureau and 
 independently) on Educational, Oriental, and 
 Religious Topics. He is now co-editor of Edu 
 cational Foundations, New York, and a frequent 
 contributor to magazines and periodicals. 
 
 Mr. Cooper is also the author of: 
 
 COLLEGE MEN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE 
 
 WORLD WIDE BIBLE STUDY 
 
 Why Go TO COLLEGE? 
 
 THE MAN OF EGYPT 
 
 BIBLE STUDY IN THE WORK OF LIFE 
 
 THE MODERNIZING OF THE ORIENT 
 
I am one of those who believe that the real will never find an 
 irremovable basis till it rests on the ideal. 
 
 James Russell Lowell. 
 
 I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. 
 The greater part of all the mischief in the world arises from the 
 fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. 
 They have undertaken to build a tower and spend no more labor 
 on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ELIHU ROOT, speaking not long since before the 
 Union League Club of Philadelphia, said : "The 
 tendencies of a nation are all that count." 
 
 Tendencies in a nation as in an individual are 
 but the shadows of ideals, consciously or un 
 consciously held in the mind and giving direc- 
 .tion and dynamic to the forces of the will. 
 The difference between men and nations de 
 pends upon their answer to the question, "What 
 makes life worth living?" Find out a country s 
 ideals, and with some certainty you can predict 
 her destiny. Is her ideal the song of the sword ? 
 Weltmacht oder Niedergang ? Then her rewards 
 will be in the terms of the sword, or in brute 
 force. Is her chief and all-absorbing ideal 
 money? Then she must give up hope of reach 
 ing the highest culture of mind and spirit. The 
 things we imagine and admire in the germ cells 
 of our brain inevitably mould us; they become 
 our masters. Ideals are things to be chosen 
 with some care, for whether we know it or not 
 they are the gods before whom we pour out our 
 
x PREFACE 
 
 costliest libations, the idols the light of whose 
 faces colors by reflection or refraction all our 
 worship. 
 
 It is not altogether the attainment or the 
 non-attainment of our ideals that indicates our 
 progress or our power. Dreams are like ocean 
 horizons they recede at our approach. But if 
 we, like true sailors, keep our ships ever trained 
 toward those high retreating skies regardless of 
 wind and bad weather, we, like they, are pretty 
 sure to sail "beyond the sunset." 
 
 It has been with the effort to catch some of 
 the inner colors from which the efficient artist 
 hand of the American is painting his national 
 and individual portrait, that I have written the 
 following pages. By looking into the energetic 
 faces of our streaming crowds, as well as by 
 drawing some distinguishing contrasts between 
 ourselves and other nations, I have tried to 
 point out some of the strongest currents in our 
 present idealism, and I have also ventured to 
 indicate here and there an embankment that 
 must be strengthened to restrain the flooding 
 tides threatening our dearest hopes. 
 
 If I have succeeded in any measure in fixing 
 upon the moving ideal forces that rise so fleet- 
 ingly to the surface in our varied and vast life 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 and enterprises, it has been largely due to a 
 wide circle of men and women who have afforded 
 me the inestimable opportunity to view our 
 contemporary modern activities through their 
 eyes. 
 
 The testimony of certain of these people, 
 chosen with some care and representing twenty 
 different states in the Union, I have given in the 
 chapter entitled "An American Symposium." 
 
 c. s. c. 
 
 The Red House by the Lake, 
 Westcolang, Pa., 
 August, 191$. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAOF 
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 I. WHAT is AN AMERICAN? 3 
 
 1 Personification of Activity 
 
 2 A Time-saver 
 
 3 An Apostle of Bigness 
 
 4 He Wants Money 
 
 5 Desire for Success _ 
 
 II. UTILITARIAN IDEALISTS 33 
 
 1 The Strain of Sentiment 
 
 2 The Democracy of Idealism 
 
 3 Idealism in the New Literature 
 .v 4 Sense of Humor and Reality 
 
 III. THE SQUARE DEAL BOTH WAYS. . 71 
 
 1 Constitutional Rights 
 
 2 Square Deal in Business 
 
 3 What is Equality? 
 
 4 From Business to Brotherhood 
 
 IV. AMERICAN VERSUS ENGLISH IDEALS . 99 
 
 1 The Distinction of Merit 
 
 2 Contrast of Feeling and Expression 
 
 3 Adaptability 
 
 4 Attitude Toward Wealth 
 
 V, AMERICAN VERSUS ORIENTAL IDEALISM 127 
 
 1 Our Eastern Rootage 
 
 2 Spiritual Resemblances 
 
 xiii 
 
xiv Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 3 Missionary Aims 
 
 4 Ideas versus Action 
 
 5 Romance and Mysticism 
 
 VI. EDUCATION THE AMERICAN PASSION . 159 
 
 1 Inheritances 
 
 2 New England Foundations 
 
 3 Utilitarian Drifts 
 
 4 Weaknesses 
 
 5 The Teacher, the Turning-point 
 
 VII. IDEALS IN RELIGION 193 
 
 1 Is the Church Adequate? 
 
 2 American Religious Nature 
 
 3 Tolerance 
 
 4 Socialized Religion 
 
 5 Germany as an Example 
 
 6 The Faith of the Individual 
 
 VIII. ATTITUDE TOWARD THE IMMIGRANT . 229 
 
 1 The Avalanche 
 
 2 America as an Assimilator 
 
 3 Forces at Work 
 
 4 Discovery of Talent in the Immi 
 
 grant 
 
 IX. THE SHADOW OF SUCCESS .... 253 
 
 1 Disregard for Law 
 
 2 Business Inefficiency Due to Haste 
 
 3 Peace at any Price 
 
 4 Love of Display and Extravagance 
 
 X. AN AMERICAN SYMPOSIUM .... 287 
 A, i American Ideals as Seen by Amer 
 icans 
 
 2 Analysis of One Hundred Answers 
 Concerning American Ideals 
 
Contents xv 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 3 American Weakness as Seen by Con 
 
 temporary Americans 
 
 4 Replies Analyzed 
 
 5 The Triumph of Our Ideals 
 
 XI. AMERICA COMING OF AGE .... 333 
 
 1 The Providential Republic 
 
 2 At the Beginning of the Enterprise 
 
 3 Peace and Humanity the Final Ideals 
 
 INDEX 355 
 
CHAPTER I 
 WHAT IS AN AMERICAN? 
 
 The bigger the work, the greater the joy in doing 
 it. The whole-hearted striving and wrestling with 
 difficulties, the laying hold with firm grip and level 
 head in calm resolution of the monster and tugging 
 and toiling and wrestling at it, to-day, to-morrow, 
 and the next day, until it is done it is the soldier s 
 creed of forward, ever forward; it is the man s creed 
 that for this task he has been born. 
 
 HENRY M. STANLEY. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 WHAT IS AN AMERICAN? 
 
 AMERICA, like Africa, is a land of surprises. To 
 a foreigner, Uncle Sam s citizens have been 
 difficult to analyze, not because they are so 
 many and various, but by reason of their 
 rapidly changing moods. Like the Oriental, 
 who, just as you think you have at last dis 
 cerned his true nature, does something to upset 
 entirely all your calculations, the American has 
 the habit of disarranging the customary char 
 acterizations of the foreigner by unlooked-for 
 manifestat^is of traits as puzzling as they are 
 complex. 
 
 The perplexity and paradox of the American 
 character has been summarized by two French 
 collaborators, who wrote some years since under 
 the title: "L Oncle Sam Chez Lui"- 
 
 Formed out of an aggregation of different races, 
 the American people forms a race by itself individ 
 ual, and from many points of view very superior. 
 
 3 
 
: 4 } American Ideals 
 
 It is as ridiculous to say that it is solely Anglo-Saxon 
 as that it is Latin. The American has neither the 
 egotism of the Englishman nor the arrogance of the 
 German, but he possesses their practical sense; he 
 has not the light-heartedness of the Frenchman, but 
 his suppleness; he has not the obsequious politeness 
 of the Italian or the Spaniard, but a profound respect 
 for established institutions. He is a man of surprises. 
 One appreciates and esteems him, one does not 
 judge him. 
 
 In a sense the problem of disentangling from 
 the intricately woven web of a new and rapidly 
 evolving civilization the inner threads of motive 
 and ideal, is not mitigated by the fact that the 
 attempt is made by an American and not a 
 stranger. The tendency to overlook the obvious, 
 and the ever-present impediment of narrow 
 perspective and lack of detachment, are the 
 almost inevitable accompaniments of an inter 
 pretation, ever so desirously fair, made by one 
 who writes of his own and not an alien land. 
 It may be a solacing compensation to the native 
 expounder to believe that what he loses in 
 landscape he makes up in light, in that 
 illuminating and intuitive understanding rising 
 out of common participation and traditions, 
 almost a prerequisite in the endeavor to pierce 
 
What is an American 5 
 
 below the external signs of national changes 
 to the elemental nature and vital aims of a race. 
 ^What is an American? The question is saved 
 from ineptitude by our present need to know 
 well its answer. With the guns of Europe 
 reverberating almost in our very ears, with 
 America omnipresent in the hopes and hearts of 
 wellnigh every nation beneath the circling 
 stars, with our forty-eight closely united com 
 monwealths opulent beyond even their fairest 
 dreams, with our great cities struggling in the 
 gestation of millions of as yet unformed alien 
 populations, with scientific and industrial 
 achievements staggering the imagination, with 
 possibilities exceeded by nothing save our prob 
 lems, it is a fit time to know ourselves and our 
 ideals. 
 
 In the light of our responsibilities, it is en 
 couraging to be able to say that the American 
 is first of all a man of action. He is the person 
 ification of the life dynamic. Activity is the 
 basic law of his being. He is the lover of huge 
 and hard tasks, for these furnish resistance to 
 his energetic will. Obstacles to him, as to 
 Napoleon, are just things to be overcome. Dr. 
 Bowring once wrote to a tyrannous French 
 minister: "Sir, I am calm but energetic." The 
 
6 American Ideals 
 
 American is seldom calm, but he is invariably 
 energetic. Every active adjective is the epit 
 ome of him enthusiastic inquisitive eager 
 earnest affectionate vivacious loquacious 
 sprightly adaptable acquisitive extrava 
 gant busy hurried zestful. He is the highly 
 vitalized embodiment of the moving life prin 
 ciple, always livingly creative, never static. 
 
 The citizen of the United States is by nature 
 and by training a business man, and business 
 to him spells busyness. His first and foremost 
 ideal is to work; "immersed in business" is the 
 colloquial phrase. A sickroom to him is a 
 prison, and there is nothing more forlorn be 
 neath the sun than an American business man 
 on an extended holiday. Mr. S. S. McClure in 
 his autobiography has drawn a composite picture 
 of a business man in these Western lands: "At 
 college," he writes, "everything went well 
 with me until Friday night, and then a blank 
 stretched before me. It always seemed a hard 
 pull until Monday. I was never able to lay 
 aside the interests and occupations of my life 
 with any pleasure, and I have always experi 
 enced a sense of dreariness on going into houses 
 where one was supposed to leave them outside. 
 I have never been able to have one set of inter- 
 
 J 
 
What is an American 7 
 
 ests to work with and another to play with. 
 This is my misfortune but it is true." 
 
 Work to the American is more welcome than 
 the flowers in May. Many a man will tell 
 you that he has never stopped working long 
 enough to consider or to formulate his ideals. 
 The American exemplifies Oscar Wilde s epi 
 gram that it s easier to do things than to talk 
 about them. The late president of Chicago 
 University, Dr. William R. Harper, when dying 
 said that he looked forward to the next world as 
 a place where he would have more work to 
 do. The American plans many times the 
 amount of work he can perform and as a conse 
 quence he frequently resembles the old jockey s 
 horse "all action and no go" but he is seldom 
 an idler. Even the rich get nervous prostration 
 and the sanitarium habit in their ceaseless 
 efforts to spend their money for social better 
 ment and in "uplift" activities. The days are 
 not long enough for the American to accomplish; 
 he therefore steams ahead under forced draft, 
 and usually at the top notch of his physical 
 reserve. His play even takes the form of 
 fighting contests, and he has coined the phrase, 
 "speeding up," to express the tightening of the 
 bands on his machines and the ever-increasing 
 
8 American Ideals 
 
 pressure upon his workmen to keep pace with 
 his engines. The significance of life to him is 
 doing something and doing it strong. He is 
 explosive often, staccato and shrill of speech, 
 since his pace is too fast to cultivate the low 
 notes. His tones are consistent with the crash 
 ing noise of industrial and commercial and city- 
 filled battle that is music in his ears. To live 
 " Diogenically" would be a sheep s paradise, 
 and idle leisure is flat degeneration. In America 
 the non-producer and the idler are brotherly 
 terms, and both are far more damning epithets 
 than the sobriquet, "beachcomber," to the 
 colonizing Britisher. Action with enthusiasm 
 is a biological necessity in this land, and the 
 typical denizen of these United States (as Euro 
 peans say we like to call our country) possesses 
 rather generally what Wordsworth called : "The 
 self-applauding sincerity of a heated mind.* 
 
 It is because of this active, intense, and closely 
 concentrated note to which the American 
 pitches his song, that he becomes vulnerable to 
 the charge of provincialism and a bored specta 
 tor of the historic and the far-away. The man 
 whose slogan is to "act, act in the living pres 
 ent," cannot be expected to linger long over 
 such headlines as the "Ruins of Timgad," or 
 
What is an American 9 
 
 the "Memoirs of Potiphar"; these belong to the 
 Past, and he is distinctly a disciple of the Pres 
 ent. Was it not Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes 
 who said that "an American finds it as hard to 
 call back anything over two or three centuries 
 old as a sucking pump to draw up water from 
 the depth of over 33 feet and a fraction!" 
 
 The point not to be overlooked is that the 
 man who will look blank at the suggestion of 
 neo-Platonism, and wake up when you begin 
 to talk about building a fifty-story skyscraper 
 in nine months, has a marvellous capacity 
 and a striking avidity for present-day motivity. 
 One would not think of characterizing the 
 American as Carlyle pictured Novalis "he 
 sits" but rather in that more moving phrase 
 in which the Scotch apostle of action once 
 wrote to his friend, Henry Inglis: "Diligence, 
 unwearied, steadfast Endeavor: like the stars 
 unhasting, unresting! This is the sceptre with 
 which man rules his Destiny; and though 
 fragile as a reed, removes mountains, spiritual 
 as well as physical." Into every exertion and 
 essay, into every discussion and every dream, 
 the American presses this inherent active im 
 pulse; without it he would be a simulacrum 
 merely of his national or his racial type. It is at 
 
io American Ideals 
 
 times his weakness; it is more often a magic 
 key unlocking for him every storehouse of 
 power and opening doors of deliverance from 
 every dilemma. 
 
 Closely mixed with the active currents of his 
 blood is the American s penchant for saving 
 time. It is almost a mania in this country 
 where specialists for organizing and eliminating 
 and systematizing have created in these latter 
 days a full-grown profession Efficiency Engi 
 neering, a new vocation of timesaving, a brand- 
 new germ working as methodically and fatally 
 as natural law against the national octopus of 
 waste and extravagance. The idea is popular 
 since it fits the nature of a people who are 
 always striving to get ahead, even ahead of 
 themselves. In a world eminent for its before- 
 handedness and anticipation, where the people 
 read the evening edition of their newspapers at 
 noon, where the Saturday Evening Post is issued 
 on the previous Wednesday, where the Sep 
 tember numbers of the monthly magazines ap 
 pear early in August, the lines of Seneca are 
 appropriate: 
 
 Who murders Time, 
 
 He crushes in the bud a power ethereal, 
 Only not adored. 
 
What Is an American n 
 
 The American free translation of these lines 
 reads somewhat more practically than the Ro 
 man original in Benjamin Franklin s working 
 room: "Lose no time; be always employed 
 in something useful; cut off all unnecessary 
 
 actions." 
 
 The " Yankee notions" of our father s days 
 were in the majority of cases time or material 
 saving notions. The inventions of the Yankee 
 sons have enlarged these ideals of time pres 
 ervation until now we sow and reap and gather 
 into barns at the tune of timesaving machinery; 
 we print, we sew, we wash our clothes, we write 
 our letters, we clean our cotton, we light our 
 homes, we talk to our distant friends, we anni 
 hilate space in our subways and on our limited 
 trains, all by timesavers made in America. We 
 have carried our individuality in these inven 
 tions around the world. Not long since I re 
 ceived a letter from a Bedouin chief from the 
 edge of the Lybian desert asking me to buy and 
 send to him five hundred tons of coal for use in 
 his American-made steam machinery now em 
 ployed on thousands of acreage in the Fayoum 
 district of the Nile country. With my own 
 eyes I have seen our country s steam plows and 
 threshers and familiar American harvesters 
 
12 American Ideals 
 
 not only in the valleys of the Upper Nile, but 
 in the millet fields of India and in the distant 
 islands of the Southern Seas. Any traveller, 
 indeed, can feel the touch of home in the Orient, 
 with the buzz of the Singer sewing machine 
 in his ears always a wonder of time-preserving 
 Yankee genius, as omnipresent in these antip 
 odal lands as is the typewriter, the telephone, 
 the cotton gin, and the Edison incandescent 
 lights. 
 
 This almost affectionate regard for time, while 
 it may be a secondary aim, is linked intimately 
 with his work and the things he most earnestly 
 desires. The business man wants more time to 
 do business, but he also wishes his saved time 
 to spend on the particular occupations at home 
 or abroad that are nearest his heart. The 
 American is by no means the blind and be 
 nighted hustler he is so frequently painted by 
 the transient stranger; he has as a rule a method 
 in the madness of his plunging, importunate life. 
 He works on the very sensible principle that if 
 a man is ever to get any time for himself, or his 
 family or friends in the swift competitive strug 
 gle of American modernity, he must move 
 quickly and withal save every false motion. 
 He is not made up fundamentally on a pattern 
 
What is an American 13 
 
 so different from that of the rest of the world of 
 men. The climatic conditions and the prod 
 igality of nature have something to do with his 
 ideas and his ideals. He happens to be born 
 in that section of the universe where clothes 
 are in vogue and where bananas and cocoanuts 
 upon which some people subsist grow sparingly. 
 He has learned, moreover, that the person who 
 is not careful about saving his time is like the 
 man who preserves the like attitude to his 
 money he never has any. In other words, he 
 is determined, however much he may enjoy his 
 work, to get it done and be moving on, and to 
 that worthy end he is eager to employ every 
 friction-removing and time-husbanding device 
 known to the contriving and talented Yankee 
 brain. It is intelligible to the keen observer 
 that quality of work and service are sacrificed at 
 times on this altar of expedition and dispatch 
 idols looming large in the American s eyes. 
 
 American ideals also gather about big things; 
 they flourish in the atmosphere of immensities. 
 The man in America has discovered that in this 
 Land of Promise it is easier to do the big thing 
 than the small thing. A business man came 
 to me not long ago with the lament that he 
 failed in his undertaking because he had at- 
 
14 American Ideals 
 
 tempted too small a proposition it only in 
 volved a million dollars "If I had only made 
 it a five-million-dollar scheme/ said he rue 
 fully, "I could have reached the attention of the 
 big financiers." 
 
 America is a quarter section, not a square 
 foot country. It is the land of the biggest lakes, 
 the longest rivers, the fastest trains, the tallest 
 buildings, the land of the huge corporation, and 
 the spacious farm, and the prodigious industrial 
 enterprise. The inhabitant of this country 
 of bigness feels the urge of these immeasur 
 able interests; therefore his fascination for 
 large figures and enormous scales of measure 
 ment. He feels that he must keep up to the 
 pace of business, or get out of the game, or be 
 run over. One advance step necessitates a 
 longer stride to follow. He must always have 
 his "next." A story is told of an American 
 humorist who stammered. He removed from 
 Baltimore to New York, where he was asked 
 by a friend if he made as many jokes as he used 
 to do in Baltimore. 
 
 "M-m-more!" he replied. "B-b-bigger town!" 
 It is not altogether edifying to the foreigner 
 to hear the American drifting easily into con 
 versation about his country that produces more 
 
What is an American 15 
 
 cotton and more corn than all the rest of the 
 earth combined, a wheat crop doubling that of 
 any other nation, or coal mining a million tons 
 yearly in advance of any land under the sun. 
 There are occasions when modesty should 
 restrain even the arithmetic-loving citizen from 
 telling the Englishman that his country trebles 
 the Britisher s production of steel and iron, or 
 confronting the made-in-Germany subject with 
 the particularly unpalatable fact that the United 
 States doubles the Teuton s output in the same 
 commodity; or, for example, when he regales his 
 guest from across the seas by telling him of the 
 factory that turns out 1,50x3 locomotives yearly, 
 or the Chicago Harvester plant that covers 
 nearly a hundred and fifty acres, and employs 
 upward of twenty-five thousand workers. Big 
 and swift business always fascinates the Amer 
 ican mind. The automobile company at the 
 Panama Exposition in San Francisco, assem 
 bling and putting together an automobile every 
 six minutes, never fails of an attentive audience. 
 It is small wonder that the bigness obsessed 
 Yankee gives the impression of having assimi 
 lated the contents of a world almanac, and one 
 understands why as a tourist in other climes 
 his questions naturally take the form of " How 
 
1 6 American Ideals 
 
 big is it ? How many ? How high ? How long ? 
 How many inhabitants?" or "What did she 
 cost?" 
 
 This spirit of bigness is contagious. It gets 
 into the blood of the foreigner as truly as it 
 intoxicates the native-born American in the 
 great machine shops and throbbing mills of the 
 Middle West and East, where the whirring of 
 the spindle glands, and the grinding of the 
 steam shovels, and the rattle of the drills upon 
 the skyscrapers, are more enthralling music 
 than the pipes of a great organ of a European 
 cathedral. There is a sense in the American 
 heart of realizing his ideals, and this sense 
 makes the dreamer and the worker one. There 
 is so little space between his visions and his 
 realities that he rarely gets time to become a 
 visionary. As he works in his factory and 
 welds iron to iron, there is something in the 
 air that tells him that the hammers of other 
 tens of thousands like him are ringing on the 
 new anvils of his own land, and though the 
 thought is inarticulate, it is never quite absent 
 from him that the clanging of his machinery is 
 heard around the world. The American has 
 been called provincial, he is noted for the fact 
 that he believes his country can produce and 
 
What is an American 17 
 
 can do whatever can be produced or accom 
 plished in any land upon the globe. Is he so 
 much deluded in his thinking? 
 
 Certainly the nation s wealth recently reported 
 by the Bureau of the Census is not intended 
 to discourage his quenchless optimism regard 
 ing materialities. These figures show that the 
 rate of increase from 1904 to 1912 reveals the 
 fact that in the former year the estimated 
 wealth of the country, exclusive of tax-exempted 
 real property, was $100,000,000,000, and in 1912 
 this wealth had mounted to $175,000,000,000, 
 or an advance of 75 per cent, for eight years, 
 an increase at the rate of 95 per cent, in a decade. 
 This is a progress of material increase surpassing 
 anything heretofore recorded in this country, 
 as it distances any like comparison in any nation 
 beneath the sun. 
 
 The manufacturer of machinery, as well as 
 the worker with tools and implements, finds a 
 decided stimulus to speeding up his brain and his 
 hand in the realization that the value of manu 
 facturing machinery, tools, and implements, 
 increased from two and one half billion dollars 
 in 1900 to three and one third billion dollars in 
 1904, and to six and one tenth billion dollars 
 in 1912, thus surpassing the rate of increase 
 
1 8 American Ideals 
 
 in real estate or in the value of general 
 wealth. The electrical engineer, moreover, and 
 every one of his myriad workers, who never 
 cease to revere the name of Edison, will tell 
 you, with a pride of being a real part of it, that 
 the value of telephone systems increased from 
 four hundred million dollars in 1900 to a figure far 
 above the billion dollar mark in 1912. The manu 
 facturer or the resident who shows you through 
 his electric-light plant will feel something 
 not upon the program as he tells you that 
 the privately owned central electric-light and 
 power stations grew in volume in America be 
 tween the years 1900 and 1912 from four hun 
 dred million dollars to more than two billion, 
 representing one of the most striking develop 
 ments in this scientific age. 
 
 Why does this invigorate the American or 
 the newly naturalized citizen? It is not simply 
 that he may be able to gloat over his less for 
 tunate brothers in other lands, though at times 
 he reveals an unchastened eagerness to play 
 up his country s material progress. It is be 
 cause he feels that he is an integral part of this 
 opportunity, that he can have a share in this 
 ever more abundant increase. He realizes, in 
 fact, that his share only waits upon his renewed 
 
What is an American 19 
 
 efforts, his enlarging aim, and his more persist 
 ent patience. He reads the figures of the per 
 capita wealth of his country, which amounted in 
 1850 to $308 for each inhabitant, and he com 
 pares this with the fact that in 1912 this 
 per capita wealth rose to $1,836 for each 
 inhabitant, or an increase in the eight years 
 from 1904 to 1912 of nearly 50 per cent., or at 
 the rate of about 63 per cent, in a single decade. 
 The whole effect upon him is one of stimulation, 
 and a sense of being in a country that has 
 not stopped, but rather is just crossing the 
 threshold into its real maturity; it impresses 
 him with the sense of youth and limitless 
 resource. It makes him believe not only that 
 what man has done he can do, but as he judges 
 from the achievements before his eyes, he comes 
 to the conclusion that he can do what no man 
 has ever done before by reason of the enlarged 
 opportunities stretching before him. If he has 
 been called a "smiling braggart," it is because 
 of his confident belief in seeming impossibilities. 
 His visions are of deeds that only the bold can 
 conceive. 
 
 He not only sees the future painted in the 
 terms of a prosperity whose boundaries have 
 not yet been limited, but also in the terms of 
 
2O American Ideals 
 
 personalities as rich and as miraculous as his 
 country s progress. His contemporary life all 
 about him "shines in the sudden making of 
 splendid names." His association is with men, 
 to use Lowell s phrase, with empires in their 
 brains, crownless empires of social and indus 
 trial progress. He dares with an abandon that 
 includes, not simply the past, but also the co 
 operation of his children and his children s 
 children. He is far less the creature of the 
 moment than is the Britisher who has sighted 
 the limitation of opportunity. He feels the 
 mariner s instinct that 
 
 " Leagues beyond these leagues there is more sea." 
 
 There must come a time, perforce, when this 
 irresistible, youthful confidence in great ma 
 terial achievement will be tempered by closer 
 confines. At present, however, the tide is run 
 ning strong out to the sea of unbordered big 
 ness. 
 
 Because of his devotion to big activities and 
 innumerable timesaving devices, which may 
 be explained by the consideration of his envir 
 oning geography and his success in the scientific 
 subjugation of the universe, the American has 
 
What is an American 21 
 
 been called of all men everywhere the most 
 thoroughly devoted apostle to the almighty 
 dollar. This has been called the "post-card 
 view" of Americans. It is true and it is not 
 true. Taken alone it is like all such statements, 
 lacking both background, perspective, and at 
 mosphere. 
 
 To be sure the American likes money, for it 
 is the means toward the accomplishment of his 
 huge desires. If he is peculiar in this respect 
 of wanting money to the Englishman, to the 
 Frenchman, to Germans, Egyptians, Japanese, 
 and Chinese, it is only because he has outstripped 
 certain of these people in the success and 
 rapidity with which he has acquired it; and 
 also because, possibly, of his habit of not being so 
 carefully guarded in the revelation of his ideals 
 in this direction. As a matter of fact, the eco 
 nomic ideal in some form or other, and for some 
 purpose or other, is the underlying aim in every 
 nation, unless we have failed to judge rightly 
 national tendencies as they exist to-day. The 
 "full dinner pail" may not be a cultural phrase, 
 but it is exceedingly elemental in the life of 
 nations; as the old Ettrick shepherd, James 
 Hogg, once remarked, "I defy the utmost power 
 of language to disgust me wi a gude denner." 
 
22 American Ideals 
 
 That one nation wants money for military 
 and manufacturing purposes, another for com 
 merce, another for artistic or pleasurable 
 satisfactions, or still others for making of their 
 people a world power, or for the chance to 
 worship their ancestors more elaborately, is a 
 matter irrelevant to the common initial aim to 
 get wealth. Outside of a few ignorant fellaheen 
 in the Nile valley and certain East Indian 
 ryots who secrete or bury or melt up English 
 gold for their wives ornaments, by reason of the 
 long memories of Turkish tax oppression, or the 
 natural suspicion of the British Raj whom their 
 isolation and their superstition have prevented 
 them from understanding, I fail to find many 
 hoarders of money for money s sake. To call 
 any people on earth a dollar-worshipping nation, 
 save as dollars signify opportunity to follow 
 their particular ideals, is to bandy words mean- 
 inglessly. 
 
 Of no people on earth is the reputation of 
 worshipping gold per se further from the fact 
 than the Americans. The enormous material 
 expansion of the country and the consequent 
 amassing of wealth and the free spending of the 
 same has thrown out of balance at times the 
 proper ratio between wealth and the purposes 
 
 
What is an American 23 
 
 for which it has been consciously acquired. 
 People at home and abroad have not been slow 
 to raise the danger signals, and a sensitive peo 
 ple have occasionally exhibited signs, outward 
 chiefly, of disparaging the means by which the 
 nation s ideals have been advanced. Mr. Car 
 negie, for example, has talked and written con 
 siderably about the disgrace of dying rich, and 
 Mr. Rockefeller has shown his diary of system 
 atic giving for the edification of young men 
 both withal after the event of great riches. As 
 a proof of the inconsequence of money, it is 
 about as influential in changing private, public, 
 or world opinion on these matters as the wide- 
 eyed wonder of Great Britain that Germany 
 should see the value or necessity of colonies. 
 
 The average American goes on believing 
 that money is power, power to get more money, 
 yes, and also power to secure the comforts 
 and the necessities of homes and happy fami 
 lies, travel, and enough of leisure to take the 
 grind out of work. In America, as throughout 
 the world, the economic urge is powerful and 
 omnipresent. The citizen sees that the vast 
 majority of family troubles trace their begin 
 nings, if the records of the divorce courts are 
 dependable, to financial struggles and misunder- 
 
24 American Ideals 
 
 standings regarding money. He finds himself 
 in the relentless grip of the high cost of living 
 in the great cities; he feels the necessity, 
 never before so obligatory, of sending his 
 children to personally supervised private schools 
 which will mitigate in some measure the ever- 
 decreasing attention he has been able to give 
 their moral and social training at home. The 
 rapidly expanding interest in art, music, books, 
 and country life, is a sword of Damocles over 
 his head, whose edge is sharpened by the words, 
 "Get money or I fall!" The well-nigh pro 
 hibitory price of eating and feeing in the first- 
 class city restaurants in order that dancers 
 and fiddlers may live; the price of being sick, 
 the fashion of getting well, the support of the 
 changing season in clothes, the sovereignty 
 of the automobile, and the calamitous fear of 
 being written down to American oblivion under 
 the title of not "looking prosperous" these 
 with many another reason, as strong and as 
 specious, make niggardliness a sin more dif 
 ficult to find in America than cocoanuts in 
 Iceland. It is partially, not wholly, for causes 
 such as these that the rank and file of Ameri 
 cans, unlike the middle-class Englishman or 
 Continentals in their satisfied resignation to 
 
What is an American 25 
 
 caste or autocratic fixities, feel in their demo 
 cratic training that they have a right to have, 
 and indeed must have, everything or nearly 
 everything that any one else possesses, thus 
 atoning in part for early disadvantages of birth 
 and education. In other words, money is the 
 hand of America s achievement. It is the 
 grade up to her higher mountain. It is not her 
 head nor her heart, but it is one of the mighty 
 means toward her individual and her national 
 strength. Americans are idealists engaged in a 
 practical task, and wealth is one of the rungs in X 
 the ladder by which they mount. At times, look 
 ing at things superficially, it would seem that 
 Americans, like Emerson s sea shells washed 
 clear of the sea, 
 
 Had left their beauty on the shore 
 
 With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. 
 
 It may seem a sordid estimation of a nation s 
 advance or idealism, and it may bring a patron 
 izing smile to the lips of the cultured Euro 
 pean even to speak of it; that the money ideal 
 gives a fresh brace to the American spirit and 
 an additional spur to his feet for the road ahead, 
 filled for him with ever new and widening vistas 
 
26 American Ideals 
 
 of accomplishment, personal and national, is 
 simply another way of saying that the spirit of 
 man has always sought means by which he may 
 subdue by his activity and wealth all intractable 
 things. 
 
 This is to suggest that beyond the sway of the 
 dollar, and only associated with it indirectly, 
 as the painter s brush is connected with the 
 ideal of the picture in the mind of the artist, 
 lies the American s desire for success. This suc 
 cess desire is not measurable in his own mind, 
 if it is in the minds of others who know him only 
 transiently, with a mere sordid accumulation of 
 wealth. Some of the most revered Americans 
 were poor men, and among them have been 
 the nation s most beloved heroes, presidents, 
 generals, educators, physicians, and men of the 
 bar. Shortly before his death I met Jacob 
 Riis in the Middle West, engaged in a laborious 
 lecture tour when his physicians had ordered 
 him to his bed. He was working because his 
 lifelong efforts of building up a sentiment for 
 social betterment of his country s "other half," 
 the less privileged half in this world s goods, 
 had left him little chance or thought for making 
 or saving money. John Muir, who has left a 
 rich legacy to his countrymen, like so many 
 
What is an American 27 
 
 thousands of writers and American idealists, 
 was poor. He was a close friend of Mr. E. H. 
 Harriman, the multi-millionaire railroad king. 
 One day Mr. Muir surprised his wealthy friend 
 by saying, "Harriman, you know I am a richer 
 man than you are?" 
 
 44 Yes?" said Harriman, with a question in his 
 tone. "Because," continued Muir, "I have all 
 the money I want, and you haven t." 
 
 This was the same Harriman, however, who, \ 
 when he was under fire for certain business \ 
 methods which ceased to be regarded exactly 
 legitimate some years since in the United States, 
 was asked to give explanation to his detractors. 
 He turned in his office chair and swept with his 
 hand the railroad maps that covered the walls, 
 the maps of the Harriman system, piercing the 
 Rockies and opening the East on a straight 
 track to the Golden Gate. "These," said he, 
 "are my explanation!" 
 
 We are all familiar with the spirit of honor 
 which made Mr. Samuel Clemens (the man 
 whom the nation admires as one of its great 
 literary pioneers, and with whom no one con 
 nects money ideals) buckle down to his arduous 
 lectures and writing at an age when he might 
 have retired gracefully. It was not because 
 
28 American Ideals 
 
 he wanted money for himself; it was because 
 he had assumed the financial liabilities of a 
 partner, and without money he could not secure 
 that which was dearer to him than gold: the 
 reward of his conscience and the respect of 
 his countrymen. If we could look behind the 
 hard working days of the majority of American 
 men, who spare themselves not at all, beating 
 their way through many a drudging day and 
 working night, we would find at the bottom of 
 the cup of sacrificing toil the lees of successful 
 ambition in their particular vocation. Money! 
 Yes, enough to get on with toward their goal of 
 "making good," but the goal is to do something 
 worth while doing, worth while looking at and 
 talking about. Success is their king of in 
 centive. 
 
 Why do our European brothers come to 
 America s shores one million strong each year? 
 It is not simply for the better wage and the 
 higher standard of living. 
 
 Why does the German American rush to the 
 registrar s ofHce to become a naturalized Amer 
 ican citizen? It is not because he is afraid 
 of bullet or shrapnel, but because he does not 
 wish to be forced to return to a country that 
 crushes his individuality, that makes him a 
 
What is an American 29 
 
 mere cog in the great machinery of a mon 
 archical government, a government that says: 
 "Here are our ideals for you," not "What are 
 your ideals for yourself?" 
 
 He wants to live in this great country of 
 opportunity that places no check upon effort 
 or achievement, that allows a man to dream 
 dreams and see visions which, if worthy of 
 realization, may take shape before his very 
 eyes. He wants to see his children in a land 
 that fosters growth and amidst a people whose 
 ideals are unhampered by the customs and tra 
 ditions of dead years. 
 
 The casual observer would say, perhaps 
 thoughtlessly, that America s ideals are activ 
 ity, money, and success. But the person who 
 looks beneath the surface, who takes time to 
 study the American and to search out his inner 
 most motive, will find that money and success 
 even, those words so satirically hurled at the 
 American as being the summum bonum of his 
 existence, are but the strong wings upon which 
 he mounts to greater heights. The Republic 
 itself, with its serried ranges of enlarging pos 
 sibilities for effort and merit, with its ideals of 
 equality and equal opportunity for man, woman, 
 and child, is the concrete expression of that 
 
30 American Ideals 
 
 dream of freedom to work that slumbers in every 
 man s soul. In this land of democracy the 
 American uses his activity, his money, his suc 
 cess, and his power as means to make his dream 
 come true. He loves his land because he feels 
 that he is a part of it, that he is helping to make 
 it. It has given him not only the things for 
 which he has striven, the things that eye can 
 see and hand can touch, the creature comforts, 
 but it has given him also a voice. Other coun 
 tries reward effort with material success, but 
 leave the worker dumb, an unexpressed atom in 
 the nation s life; but in America the individual 
 may speak. He is a vital force in the making 
 and the moulding of his country s destiny. He 
 is building a house in which his children and 
 his children s children may live in the enjoyment 
 of his enterprise and in the opulence of his 
 liberty. 
 
 In a sense the American is an arch material 
 ist, but his materialism is like a cloud in a dark 
 day behind which the sun of idealism is always 
 shining. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 UTILITARIAN IDEALISTS 
 
 To me men are what they are, 
 They wear no masks with me. 
 
 RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 UTILITARIAN IDEALISTS 
 
 "I AM a democrat and a dreamer," were the 
 words with which I recently heard one of our 
 prominent Americans characterize himself. He 
 was the head of a large and influential institu 
 tion closely related to contemporary life, an 
 institution in which he had accomplished a 
 work of far-reaching value to a great city. His 
 whole career had been surrounded and well-nigh 
 submerged by a myriad of details worlds re 
 moved from the land of dreams. A casual 
 spectator would have called his service tre 
 mendously useful, but far from the realm of the 
 ideal. Yet I have reason to believe that this 
 man is an idealist a utilitarian idealist. 
 
 In a land where the word utility is ubiquitous, 
 and in an atmosphere where a dreamer is sup 
 posed to be a visionary, the union of the two 
 in one individual would seem at first to be an 
 irreconcilable anachronism. I believe, notwith 
 standing, that the idealism of the twentieth- 
 
 33 
 
34 American Ideals 
 
 century American is a very real thing, and that 
 it has never been more accurately designated 
 than in a phrase written by Prof. John R. 
 Commons in an article contributed to the Inter 
 collegiate Magazine in 1909: "Utilitarianism is 
 the democracy of idealism." 
 
 It is this inexplicable idealism in the midst of 
 the practical, the marriage of the imagination 
 with modern applied science, the secularizing 
 of the mind and the human spirit, and the bring 
 ing out of dreams into the light of a democratic 
 day, that distinguishes present-day America. 
 No other country by location or tradition has 
 been so conducive to the drawing out of a use 
 ful idealism, or to making the mystic and the 
 scholar practical and serviceable to the com 
 munity. The vast distribution of wealth, the 
 marvels of scientific exploration and industry, 
 surpassing the wonders of the Egyptians, the 
 strain of the Puritan, all set in an atmosphere of 
 democratic obligation and cooperation, have 
 furnished an alluring and an enchanting field 
 for the development of a quality of idealism 
 heretofore uncommon among men. 
 
 This tendency uniting ideals with practice 
 and bridging the gulf between dreams and ac 
 tion is seen in a hundred ways, and it is far more 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 35 
 
 general than is usually appreciated. The word 
 spiritual, for example, is rapidly losing its former 
 pious significance, and is becoming naturalized 
 in the society of other words connected with the 
 higher nature of man in his everyday life. 
 American religion must not simply be good, it 
 must be good for something. We are not so 
 much inclined to say "The Beautiful and the 
 Good," but with Goethe, "The Beautiful is the 
 Good." The scientist for a time seemed to 
 be getting the best of the humanist and the 
 scholar, but there are abundant evidences at 
 present of the secularizing of all education and 
 attaching the specialist in the theories of eco 
 nomics, politics, and social and applied science 
 especially, to the chariot wheels of modern 
 government, modern business, and modern phi 
 lanthropy. 
 
 Indeed the shuttle runs back and forth with 
 remarkable swiftness and ease between the reaP 
 and the ideal worlds. Ideals in the loftiest 
 reaches of democracy, the purification of polit 
 ical life, both in the nation and the municipality, A \ 
 are becoming regnant without the reformers 
 and the reformed recognizing them as ideals. 
 They often masquerade under the guise of 
 "good government." Ideals of regulation in 
 
36 American Ideals 
 
 business and trade and the inter-relation of vast 
 corporate concerns, which were like the political 
 party platforms before election, of twenty-five 
 years ago (counsels of perfection to be edited but 
 not executed), have in these days come so near 
 actualization that even the sins of the fathers 
 are being visited upon the children of "big 
 business." When the laws for correction and 
 reform of abuses in trade and organized occu 
 pations do not come fast enough, we form com 
 missions to investigate, and from the inexo 
 rable searchlights of these latter idealizing 
 bodies nothing and no one is exempt, from the 
 biggest insurance company to the biggest re 
 vivalist, and what the investigators miss in 
 details of depravity the newspapers supply. 
 
 These utilitarian ideals are in fact about the 
 most common and prominent things amongst us 
 at present. As they sweep the ranks of society 
 we do not always call them ideals. As a na 
 tion we abhor the trail of Pharisaism and the 
 semblance of piety. We idealize our character 
 under the head of "standards of conduct," 01 
 "respectability," but it is fairly safe to say that 
 there is no place on God s footstool where 
 moral ideals of conduct are more universally 
 respected or where the absence of them is more 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 37 
 
 fatally blighting to reputation or success than 
 in the United States. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, it is in the person 
 of the American business man, practical, level 
 headed, all business, that this current of the 
 ideal is clearly, often most clearly, seen. His big- 
 heartedness is often in proportion to his blunt 
 directness. Get a bit below the surface and 
 you will find frequently a nature steeped in 
 sentiment. "We do two things exceedingly 
 well," says George Barr McCutcheon, "we 
 dream and we perform." At the call of distress, 
 either at home or abroad, his purse-strings are 
 loosened with a prodigality that marks the 
 fanatic. In his business office he may be as 
 austere as the statue of Memnon, but in his 
 home or in company of his friends he is as full 
 of idealistic feeling and often of romanticism as 
 the East Indian schoolboy. 
 
 The average American man of affairs, as soon 
 as he gets past the persiflage of group conversa 
 tion to his heart-to-heart talk with you in quiet, 
 will lead you to the little holy of holies of his own 
 personal ideals, to some fine worth-while issue, 
 without which, notwithstanding his dollars, his 
 buildings, and his automobiles, he would be poor 
 indeed. 
 
38 American Ideals 
 
 We know of two workers in the commercial 
 world who would seem to the chance observer to 
 be wrapt up in business, but who spend their 
 evenings in a private bookbindery where they 
 have gathered some of the fine old manuscripts 
 of the literary world, many of them collected 
 through repeated trips abroad. In the midst 
 of these they spend their evenings, actually 
 making with their own hands beautifully em 
 bossed de luxe bindings for their most loved 
 authors. Do you think that they will talk to 
 you of stocks and bonds, or the price of wheat 
 and steel, when they are free to let themselves 
 go on their heart s main interest? Not for a 
 moment. They only wait to get to the thing 
 that has captured their spiritual satisfactions. 
 I have seen one of them take with reverent 
 hands a volume of Shelley with limp green 
 covers which has cost him many months of 
 evening toil in the bindery near his home. I 
 have seen a light in his eyes that revealed an 
 other man than the one I had known in the 
 business office. It was the real man, the man 
 of an ideal world, who has been able to erect 
 himself above himself and to pour into this thing 
 of beauty and imagination the very soul of him, 
 longing for expression, and only waiting for the 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 39 
 
 time when his bread-winning hands could bring 
 into existence that in which his spirit delighted. 
 
 Foreign visitors to America never cease to 
 admire the vast advertising projects of American 
 enterprise, than which nothing more bold and 
 inventive is to be found in the country to-day. 
 It seems at first a sordid thing for a human 
 being to spend his life trying to invent ingenious 
 methods for drawing public attention to the N Sj 
 latest brand of tobacco or to the superior quali- / 
 ties of a new washing powder. Man seems to / 
 have been born for greater things, we say. We 
 pity his humdrum life, but we have seen only 
 one side of it, the utilitarian side. The man is 
 only half revealed to us in his business. Follow 
 with me one of the successful advertising men 
 in New York City to his country home, toward 
 which his heart as well as his steps turn at every 
 possibility of release from business. 
 
 You enter through gates which are a Japanese 
 torii, like those rising phantomlike from the 
 waters of the inland sea of Japan, facing the 
 sacred island of Miyajima. You follow a wind 
 ing pathway over a graceful bridge, which is a 
 faithful copy of the Red Bridge at Nikko. You 
 pass ponds filled with the purple blooms of the 
 Japanese lotus, from beneath whose spreading 
 
40 American Ideals 
 
 leaves glimpses are caught of glancing gold fish. 
 At your feet spray dashes from the gray rocks in 
 the brook as the water goes laughing down to 
 the waterfall below, and on the cool night wind 
 there is brought to you the faint tinkle of bells, 
 swaying in the breeze from the pointed roofs of 
 the pagoda seen dimly in the distance, where 
 also a miniature Fujiyama looms darkly as a 
 background. 
 
 There are gardens filled with azaleas and 
 cherry trees, and great branches of lavender 
 wisteria hang from latticed arbors. Pine trees 
 are sharply silhouetted against the horizon, and 
 Japanese maples show the delicate color of their 
 leaves in the fading glow of sunset. Here a 
 large stone lantern and there a calm bronze 
 Buddha speaks of peace. We enter the house 
 with its quiet courtyards, its curving roofs, 
 its rounded archways, its softly shaded windows, 
 and the smell of tea on the cozy brazier greets 
 the guest as graciously as does the soft-footed, 
 smiling Japanese servant who meets us at the 
 door. From the veranda of this house upon 
 the hillside one can look over the tiny bridges 
 that cross the hurrying streams; he can see 
 the faint outline of the great torii, and as he 
 watches the man who comes to the stone lantern 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 41 
 
 to place a light therein, the magic land of Nippon 
 seems a vivid dream before his enchanted eyes. 
 
 All that is lacking to make the dream a reality 
 are the graceful little women in gray silken 
 kimonos with obis of mauve and gold, leading 
 tiny children who rival the birds in the colors 
 of their plumage, their faces alight with laughter 
 as they skip along in their lacquered clogs. 
 
 In the busy advertising offices in New York 
 there is little or no suggestion of the imagina 
 tion out of which this shining bit of the Sunrise 
 Kingdom has been reproduced; but to those who 
 know America and Americans, it is but one of 
 those significant hints of future promise and 
 capacity which seem to say, "We Americans 
 may appear to the casual observer only busi 
 ness men, with the dollar mark on all our activ 
 ities, but that is because you do not know us. 
 You have not looked into the soul of America, 
 where lies concealed, below the abrupt and 
 sometimes crude exterior, the love for beauty 
 which only waits to reveal itself! " 
 
 Nor is American idealism always disassociated 
 from the setting of utility. Henry Ford, for 
 example, has led the automobile makers of his 
 country, and in his leadership has made an 
 enormous fortune. What does he do? He 
 
42 American Ideals 
 
 immediately begins to think of ways by which 
 he can utilize that fortune in the realm of a 
 generous cooperation with his employees. He 
 raises the wages of his men to a figure almost 
 unheard of, even in a land renowned for the high 
 prices paid to skilled labor. He dreams that 
 he sees every workman in his employ with a 
 home of his own, his own bit of garden, his 
 flowers, his children in school instead of in the 
 workshop. He makes the worker who was 
 only a part of his vast machine shop, a mere cog 
 in the wheel, a man. The whole economic 
 American world scoffed at first at the dreams of 
 this arch utilitarian idealist, but this same 
 world is rather proud of Henry Ford s idealism. 
 Its pride exists in the fact that he reveals the 
 dream of human betterment hidden in the heart 
 of every man. 
 
 Another striking example of the American 
 utilitarian idealist is afforded in the career of the 
 late John Pierpont Morgan, a king of finance 
 and the collector par excellence of the world s 
 treasures of art. The two strains of the prac 
 tical and the ideal were woven together so 
 closely that even the man who was courted 
 alike by the chancelleries of financial Europe 
 and the masters of the world s galleries of art 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 43 
 
 would have found it difficult to disentangle 
 them. What crisis of the American common 
 wealths was not alleviated, what panic of 
 wealth or of labor was not calmed in the past 
 fifty years of our nation s growth, by the strong 
 and usually unerring business judgment and 
 insight of this man? In many an out-of-the- 
 way curio shop in the Orient, and even in the 
 quaint little Japanese house on the mountain 
 side where an artist of the old Samurai school 
 still carves and paints serenely, I have seen the 
 lover of artistry, as a final sign of his discrimina 
 tion, bring reverently out of a safe hiding-place 
 some bit of choice engraving or metal work with 
 the remark: "I am keeping this for Mr. 
 Morgan!" 
 
 There are perhaps few men of the present 
 generation who better illustrate the peculiar 
 quality of the idealism of America which even 
 in business sweeps the field with an accuracy of 
 vision that embodies more than intellect, more 
 than scientific knowledge, more than reliance 
 on tradition, than did this remarkable financier. 
 It is a different thing from the German exact 
 ness in the realm of facts; it is also something 
 other than the British "muddling through." 
 It is nearer what Bergson would call intuition, 
 
44 American Ideals 
 
 which he claims is the method of the creative 
 artist, a greater force than the logic of the mind 
 or the blind leadership of instinct. This in- 
 tuitiveness of the American is the centre and 
 secret of his constructive imagination, it is the 
 genius of pressing straight to the crucial issue, 
 regardless of the custom of yesterday or the 
 abstract thinking of to-day. It is, in the words 
 f Stanton Coit, "the method of the poets." 
 It sees with the eyes of the soul as well as with 
 the eyes of the mind and the teaching of the 
 hand. It is the ardent apostle of present utility, 
 all the utility possible, but behind the useful 
 there is a fixed star that star is idealism. It is 
 the ideal that makes the real possible, that 
 makes it desirable, that gives it reasonableness. 
 It is the ideal that keeps the man working, it 
 is his star of hope. 
 
 This vision seen in and through his work is 
 the only thing that makes the American s 
 inveterate toil something else than drudgery. 
 Save to the aged clerk with his silver hair, and 
 those destined followers in the race of life whose 
 duties are the bars of habit, work in America is 
 not a "squirrel s wheel. " The English Wesley 
 once said, "I can plod." The American says, 
 "I can plod if I can see something ahead to plod 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 45 
 
 for." In this country of vast dreams and huge 
 fulfilments idleness is a rusty sword in the \f 
 soul, but work that has no point to it turns the / 
 iron round, and is even more excruciating. 
 The resiliency of the American spirit is pro 
 verbial. It is born of hilltop visions of work 
 that is profitable to do, endeavor that gets 
 one on. Everything must be charged with a 
 more or less useful idealism. A business man 
 said to a clergyman, who urged him to join his 
 church, "If there is anything I can do that will 
 really count, I will come in, but I don t want to 
 join the church just to sit around and sing." 
 The United States is probably the most dis 
 tasteful atmosphere imaginable for the man 
 without a "job"; it is also almost a prison house 
 to the man who feels that his job is not worth 
 while. It is this intuitive sense that he has 
 taken hold of a great work that explains much 
 of the American s enthusiasm and unquench 
 able buoyancy. Dr. Eliot is reported to have i 
 said at one time concerning Mr. Roosevelt, that 1 
 he had never "grown up." Is it not, however, in I 
 his ever-renewed idealism, in the pushing power-^ 
 of undisillusioned youth, as mighty as it is at 
 times mistaken, in that resistless energy born 
 of new and unfulfilled dreams of human prog- 
 
46 American Ideals 
 
 ress, that our ex-President typifies the Ameri 
 can spirit? Utilitarian idealism is the reign of 
 a high ideal in the midst of useful labor. It is 
 doing a practical thing with a spiritual motive. 
 
 It is not simply in the realm of public life 
 and business that this new type of idealism 
 reveals itself; it is clearly seen in modern Ameri 
 can literature. There is a sense in which our 
 contemporary writing appears as it did to 
 Carlyle in London "madder than Bedlam. " 
 In spots it is vapid enough, and if the compari 
 son is with the formal models of certain other 
 centuries, judged by those models at least, it 
 will be weighed in the balances of style and 
 cultural perfection only to be found wanting. 
 
 It is in its departure from the regular English 
 types and in its refusal to be standardized ac 
 cording to any traditional copy whatsoever, that 
 its distinctive character exists. While no ob- 
 . serving and thoughtful person would presume 
 to take the ring for a considerable mass of our 
 present-day writing, in fiction especially, a 
 literature as devoid of any high ideals as it is 
 raw and specious and unwholesome, a kind of 
 sophisticated small talk that arouses on the 
 printed page the same unspeakable weariness 
 that it does on the street or in the club; yet it is 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 47 
 
 manifestly unjust to fob off a nation s litera 
 ture with a pedantic wave of the hand because 
 it has its stupid moments. This particular 
 type of quackery in letters has received its 
 meed of attention at the hands of Mr. Owen 
 Wister and many another, and usually with 
 quite sufficient vitriol mixed with the treatment. 
 I do not recall any literary criticism of the kind 
 of books that are cheap at whatever price or in 
 whatever best-selling quantities that has so 
 completely met the situation without waste of 
 words as the "recommendation" for a superficial 
 book given to an agent by Abraham Lincoln. 
 After Lincoln had politely refused to buy the 
 book, being pressed for a testimonial, he wrote 
 the following: "Any one who likes this kind of 
 a book, this is the kind of book he would like." 
 
 The consideration of our literature, as it grows 
 naturally out of our civilization in the United 
 States, is equally certain to be disappointing if 
 we begin with its ostensibly false alarm lit 
 erature, as it is if we look to find in it six 
 teenth-century figures and stilted utterances of 
 Venetian ladies dressed in silks and panniers and 
 moving in graceful minuets. 
 
 On the other hand, we can look at our books 
 and writing as belonging peculiarly to new, to 
 
48 American Ideals 
 
 growing and unfinished institutions of a nation 
 of utilitarian idealists, a nation where canonical 
 writing is no passport to success simply because 
 it is in regulated symmetry to another century. 
 We can see the present literature, like many an 
 other thing American, sailing more or less in a 
 chartless sea, where the only landmark is the 
 real contemporary life all about us; with such 
 point of view, certain things become clear as 
 daylight. 
 
 From such vantage point we see American 
 writing struggling consciously, or often with an 
 intuitive unawareness, to embody vitally the 
 truth and the insistent sense of reality of our 
 twentieth-century life. It reveals, even in its 
 lower levels, the new sense of social responsibil 
 ity and also the growing psychical sensibility 
 of the people. Even Winston Churchill, one of 
 our modern standard fictionists, has abandoned 
 in his last two novels much of his art, or what 
 we have usually considered to be the grooves 
 of the uniform traditional plot, to go reforming 
 in religion and public morals. The books of 
 Mark Twain, which, as he said when he was 
 alive, sold right along with the Bible, are 
 continuing to do so in ever-renewed editions. 
 If there was ever an American writer who 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 49 
 
 dressed his ideas in human dress, slashing right 
 and left at every phantom of unreality, laughing 
 with himself and at himself on one page and 
 pointing his moral on the next, if we ever had 
 an author who lighted his torch of idealism 
 at the glowing vital flame of moving vibrant 
 democracy as we know it and feel it all about 
 us, it was the beloved Clemens. With the 
 semblance of Carlyle, but with the lighter 
 smiling American touch and with a "genial 
 precipitation," his cry was: "Down with hollow 
 conventions! Down with historic feudalism 
 which no longer concerns us! Down with medi 
 eval, aristocratic airs! Up with the ideals that 
 lie real and naked at the heart of life! Up with 
 the human! Up with the natural! Up with the 
 idealism of Reality!" Samuel Clemens was 
 our first great utilitarian idealist in literature. 
 Many have since followed in his train, none of 
 them, in the field of story writing, more closely 
 his disciple probably than was O. Henry, who, 
 like Charles Dickens, wandered about the city 
 streets to find his characters, painting them in 
 their working clothes. He appealed at once to 
 the humor and the good-natured disapprobation 
 of his countrymen for the "society" folk, be 
 cause their activities were so funny in their 
 
50 American Ideals 
 
 uselessness. When at one time, O. Henry, 
 describing the society aspirants as occupying 
 the front seats in the theatre, said, "They were 
 bathed in tears and they were dressed for it," 
 he showed his shining lance of humor, but the 
 hand on the blade was subtle as it was silken 
 
 \v in its thrust at the masquerade. 
 
 v In the poetry as in the prose of our contem 
 porary writers this urgent democratic realism 
 can be traced. Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, son 
 of a country doctor in Springfield, Illinois, in a 
 fine democratic voice cries that poetry is not to 
 live cloistered and on the hilltops, but to come 
 down and rejoice the hearts of common men. 
 With the hard-handed simplicity of the Middle 
 West, Mr. Lindsay joins a delicacy and an 
 elfin, whimsical humor that takes us by sur 
 prise. His "Adventures While Preaching the 
 Gospel of Beauty" rediscovers the capacity of 
 the American villager for enjoying beauty and 
 his willingness to accept its sway. Beauty 
 resides by every man s door-sill and hearth 
 stone, says Lindsay. Springfield, Illinois, is as 
 lovely to him as Oxford or Athens. The cynic 
 may ask whether this homely beauty lover has 
 
 -A been to Oxford or Athens; but whether or not, 
 his message is none the less valuable and in- 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 51 
 
 tended to stir the heart of the American. As 
 Stevenson says, "the true materialism is to be 
 ashamed of what we are. * He has what Joyce 
 Kilmer, another type of modern and effective 
 everyday poet, calls "literary colloquialism," 
 and these men belong to the soil. They bring 
 home the muse to our business and to our 
 bosoms. The fervor of their democratic vision 
 is all to the good. 
 
 When Lindsay pictures heaven with the court 
 house square of his favorite Illinois towns, he 
 speaks with the voice of the true poet, as does 
 Kilmer when he carries us on the midnight train 
 to the suburbs of New Jersey. 
 
 Another Illinois man, Edgar Lee Masters, 
 writes the "Spoon River Anthology," in which 
 a village cemetery becomes vocal. The joys 
 (a few) and the sins and degradations (a great 
 many) of Spoon River are detailed with re 
 lentless truth by these voices from undersod a 
 kind of post-mortem on a whole community. 
 The appeal to the burlesque sense is vivid; and 
 yet some of the little sketches (e. g., that of 
 Anne Rutledge, Lincoln s dead sweetheart) 
 are full of beautiful reality. 
 
 Then there are the writers of "free verse" 
 the vers librists and the imagists who contend 
 
52 American Ideals 
 
 that their work obeys subtler laws of rhythm 
 and measure, and is in no wise "free." In all 
 these productions the stuff of poetry is present 
 the picture, the emotion, the atmosphere vivid 
 and startling. But it is freakish and often un 
 digested, lacking the musical and metrical 
 polish which still constitutes the externals of 
 poetry to the vast majority of us. These 
 ingenuous and colorful eccentricities are a part 
 of our new tendency though they have not 
 captured the approbation of our sober critics. 
 
 The truer spoor of our present-day literature 
 lies more closely along the trail of such men as 
 Edwin Markham and Robert Frost in poetry; 
 or Booth Tarkington and Walter Prichard 
 Eaton in fiction and essay. Many names could 
 be enumerated to show that our literary earnest 
 ness is growing more and more tinged with 
 sparkle and play of imagination. Our litera 
 ture to-day reveals, if not all the substance of 
 things hoped for, at any rate the evidence of 
 many things not seen. The excellence of our 
 oldest and most dignified magazines and the 
 fine work they have accomplished in moulding 
 and fixing our democratic literary ambitions 
 and ideals, can hardly be praised highly enough. 
 
 Henry Mills Alden, whose lifetime of service 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 53 
 
 as editor of Harper s Magazine lifts him above 
 the possibility of the charge of ultra-radical 
 opinion, has characterized our modern litera 
 ture as "vital altruism," and expressive of the 
 sense of the universal kinship with life, as the 
 ground of the deepest creative charm. "The 
 general tendency of the fiction of our day," 
 writes Mr. Alden, "on whatever level it may 
 reach the popular mind, is toward reality. The 
 general intelligence is ever more and more 
 responsive to the catholic and sympathetic 
 note of that advanced criticism which, while it 
 accepts all of humanity in its real significance 
 the past as well as the present yet resolutely 
 repudiates all formal judgments and set canons 
 or the regulation of life and art, and all prej 
 udices and fixed notions which rest upon tradi 
 tion or upon our own loose thinking," 
 
 In other worjjs r ^we-^aye--x-rrew literature in 
 America because we__ have -a new humanity. 
 This literature accepts life on its own terms and 
 is not perturbed with the erudite interests of 
 philosophy, history, or treatments upon abstruse 
 phenomena. j^js^jJie^jgoj^^fLthe- plain, andL 
 comrnon life A full of homeliness, whichhas 
 mastered our modern type of writing and given 
 it 
 
54 American Ideals 
 
 This attempt at the disclosure of life as it is 
 in its naked contemporaneousness, is not un 
 worthy of literary workmanship. It is superior 
 to mere imitation of models that fitted another 
 age, and it is quite as likely to be filled with 
 the warmth and the color of that humanity for 
 which it paints. Even Stevenson, with his 
 unwearied attempts at a style that was more or 
 less an imitation of a period that was dying, 
 is explained by a discerning critic as having 
 his vogue not so much by the form of his writ 
 ing as through the matchless charm of his 
 personality and especially his letters, which 
 reveal without the screen of literary artisanship 
 the heart and soul of the man. 
 
 When we examine the books that succeed 
 as "best sellers" (which it is said the women of 
 America, who only have sufficient time to read 
 novels, peruse and talk about to their husbands), 
 the popular trend is revealed even in the midst 
 of much that is scarcely worthy of the name of 
 literature. These books, without pretence and 
 frequently without the ability to express in 
 clear phrase or in what Matthew Arnold called 
 "the whole tissue" of their work the ideas that 
 are tumbling over themselves in the minds of the 
 alert and-inv-eHtive- WTirers", do not aim 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 55 
 
 aboye_theworld,but to get down to the world, 
 into the very thick of life. Thei_r_frequien 
 simple love tales or narrations of melodramatic 
 adventures reflect thernost ordinary details and 
 happenings of daily Jife_ as it is known to the 
 masses. They are almost invariably filled 
 ?nd happy endings, knowing 
 
 that the American will not endure being tor- 
 tured jtQ__no purpose. There is hardly a touch 
 of the historic as it abounded in Scott, who at 
 one time swept so strongly the popular mind, 
 especially in the South. The length of Fielding 
 and Jane Austin is tabooed as surely as are their 
 intricate and complicated plots and character 
 analysis. To be sure we have had an attempt 
 in recent years to foist upon the public the 
 sordid discussion of the sex question in many of 
 its varied phases. Sometimes there has been 
 the avowed attempt to teach high morality 
 through the nauseating depiction of immorality; 
 sometimes there has been a malignant turn, 
 with scathing and often unsupportable allega 
 tion concerning modern abuses and corporate 
 enterprises. These have marked only a transi 
 tional phase in the swing away from the con 
 ventional writing of the last generation to the 
 more direct and moving contemporary style of 
 
56 American Ideals 
 
 the present. It has already become unpopular 
 as the issues which the reforming writers bom 
 barded have received attention at the hands of 
 public opinion and the nation s laws. 
 
 Although this new type of literature is only 
 in its springtime in America, the modern es 
 sayists have caught its spirit and the power 
 of its utilitarian and realistic ideal. This es 
 sayist type is as different from the Emersonian 
 or classic as one can well imagine. It is less 
 Jormal > _rnore jntjjnate, nejghl>gj:jy L jmd it_ talks 
 as folks talk. It does not disregard col 
 loquial ^xprelslons that convey sometimes fuller 
 and quicker meaning than pages of round 
 about argument. The writers of these essays, 
 as well as the authors of the descriptive and 
 factual articles in the magazines, do not make 
 one feel that they are looking at the procession 
 as it goes by and writing about it, but that they 
 are parts of the throng itself, caught in all its 
 multifold implications, and inviting one to join 
 them in the ranks. The very titles of some of 
 these essay books reveal the modern drift 
 "Crowds," "What Men Live By," "The Joyful 
 Road," "Personal Efficiency 5 " all reflecting 
 the fact that through the many channels of 
 literary culture the Ameiian__peopla^are_j3_ar- 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 57 
 
 interested in the 
 
 which they may reach a clearer idea of the 
 Qf_the_mdividual in the world of 
 
 It is by no means a discouraging fact 
 in this connection to read in a recent report of the 
 New York Public Library that 9,516,482 books 
 were taken out for reading in the past twelve 
 months, and 1,267,879 readers were served in 
 the adult reading-rooms. 
 
 The alert and rapid life of the country is a 
 reason behind these new demands upon its 
 modern literature. It is the age of the "mo 
 vies," the era of the "punch/ 
 
 These rapid days call for the complete novel 
 in one serial issue of the monthly magazine. 
 One magazine publisher is quoted as saying: 
 "Any story that is worth printing can be told 
 in three thousand words." A weekly which 
 claims a circulation of 1,750,0x30 copies holds 
 before itself as a chief aim the reflection of all 
 things human, in the most concrete, definite 
 tales, never allowing the writer to lose the 
 objective thing in his individual subjective 
 consciousness; it tries to place its weekly speech 
 before the public in language that the average 
 person uses himself and can readily understand 
 without undue meditation. The dusty com- 
 
58 American Ideals 
 
 placency of the classics and what is known as 
 the "high-brow" type of literature seems to be 
 lacking in the terse and moving qualities de 
 manded in these swift, accomplishing, utilitarian 
 days. 
 
 The Americanos-passion for sensational news 
 is a j^j^jrfjlnsjre^ 
 He Hke^^_r^ad[^if^rjieople accomplishing great 
 
 con^mporary^^hievementSy of Goethals 
 ing the Panama Canal, of Orville Wright with 
 his aeroplanes, and McAdoo with his subways. 
 Pictures and biographical sketches of men and 
 women who are doing things fill the pages of 
 magazines and Sunday supplements. Like the 
 Oriental, the American 
 
 in a _figure_or_in_an anecdote more readily than 
 in a principle. 
 
 when a college professor, jsaicjj ri at the Knyg pf 
 Princeton remembered his stones and forgot his 
 lectures. Indeed, from one point of vision, 
 the hew literature seems like a kind of sub 
 limated journalism, with a vitality of motive 
 and sympathy and spontaneous communication 
 all its own. If it lacks great scope, historical 
 reserve, and universality of knowledge, it does 
 not lack those dynamic forces that are every 
 where in the air of contemporary endeavor. 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 59 
 
 To the average reader at least this kind of litera 
 ture seems more desirable than anaemic memoirs 
 and false chivalries that neither "sting men into 
 action nor goad them to the heights of noble 
 passion. * 
 
 The^literature of the present must be con- 
 ducive of qnirjc apd real and drnrrmtic effect, 
 of humor that is spontaneous and unstudied. 
 The American wants his books like his religion, 
 unobstructed by the mock heroic or the mock 
 sublime. He finds his "garden of humanity" 
 in^the^careers^ and relationships of the_ plain_ 
 people, with problejTT^similar- to his o^n, whose 
 lives frequently are as human, frail, and full of 
 longing as they are genuine and transparent. 
 
 It is this reflection of human beings, human 
 action, and human feeling that forms the true 
 background for spiritual freedom, for the i 
 ism of realism, and useful objective, which 
 pervades the literature of the American s present 
 day. If his poetry has taken the form of im 
 aginative prose, it is because this form is more 
 readily adjustable to the ever-changing moods 
 and tempers of his everyday life. He who 
 would be great in our contemporary letters 
 must be near enough to life t n f pp l *** nntnr.nl 
 pulse beat and the breath of its moving spirit 
 
60 American Ideals 
 
 lie must notjive in a worldly? art. He must be. 
 anjciealist, but always an idealist in a_jgal 
 world. 
 
 ^"Another characteristic of this idealism, re 
 vealed not only in literature but through every 
 vein of the nation s life, is the American s un 
 failing sense of humor the kind of humor that 
 
 \ Mr. Alden calls "the most distinctive quality 
 \of life the index of its flexibility, of its tender 
 ness, mercy, and forgiveness." 
 
 | I The Americans are reputed to be the most 
 X /humorous people in the world. Their humor 
 
 (/rises out of the very intensity of the native 
 mind, and is made wide and free and cosmopoli 
 tan by the constant accessions to the popula 
 tion from many diverse lands. It sprays bits 
 of sunshine across the darkest channels in the 
 life of the nation and the individual. Humor in 
 the United States is another term for that easy 
 going good-nature and geniality which covers, 
 surrounds, and pervades the entire world of work 
 and play, and takes the lines out of the serious 
 ness and rigidness of its incessant activity. The 
 type of humor is big like the western moun 
 tains, and as liberty loving and free as the 
 western plains. 
 
 The very size of the country seems to make 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 6l 
 
 expansive the native intellect and lead it into 
 that comical exaggeration which is one of 
 the essential features of our broad and not too 
 subtle humor. The universality of this laugh 
 ing sense is always remarked by foreigners. 
 It is found everywhere, in the cabin as in the 
 palace, and the man who has a sense of humor 
 is always an acceptable companion. Many 
 a man has become famous and beloved in 
 America from no other reason than that he 
 made people laugh. The names of Artemus 
 Ward, Bret Harte, Bill Nye, Nast, Mark Twain, 
 and "Josh Billings," are household words, while 
 the present generation is as familiar with Peter 
 Dunne and his Mr. Dooley as with David 
 Harum, and with Bunny of the movies, and 
 a host of comic cartoon heroes of the newspapers. 
 It is the kindliness of the nation s humor that 
 is perhaps most striking. It is not what Alfonse 
 Karr defined as "reason armed," the kind that 
 raises a laugh but leaves a sting behind it; it is 
 more usually the variety that does not wound, 
 but rather sees the incongruous in one s self 
 and in others, and is as genial and good-tempered 
 as the native heart. Indeed, it is not altogether 
 separated from the tearful emotion, and often 
 reminds us of Byron s definition of humor, "a \L 
 
62 American Ideals 
 
 pendulum betwixt a smile and a tear/ It is 
 used alike by the serious and the frivolous. 
 Those who used to sit under the evangelism of 
 D. L. Moody recall the way in which they were 
 convulsed with laughter in one moment, and 
 the next would feel on their cheek something 
 suspiciously like a tear. Carlyle once said that 
 f the essence of humor was sensibility, warm, 
 
 . /^tender, fellow feeling with all forms of existence. 
 
 *" This fits the American variety. 
 
 One does not look for a humor that could be 
 defined exactly as wit, unless it happens to be 
 exhibited through the Irish-American stock with 
 which we are graciously blessed. It may not 
 reach the highest grades of humor, "wisdom at 
 play," which is often labored and creaking in the 
 wheels. The variety found in Hosea Bigelow, 
 the Knickerbocker History of New York, the 
 stories, the essays, and trenchant criticisms of 
 Messrs. Clemens, Lowell, and Holmes, flows 
 spontaneously from a good sound heart as free 
 and unrestrained as nature herself. 
 
 The entire literature of the United States is 
 pervaded with this humorous atmosphere, not 
 in epigrams simply, or in terse, easily quoted 
 paragraphs; it is in the whole tissue, and seen 
 no more generally in the older essay writers than 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 63 
 
 in the newer schools represented by Howells, 
 Crothers, Van Dyke, Agnes Repplier, and Simeon 
 Strunsky. The attempt to exhibit it to stran 
 gers would be difficult and not unlike the effort 
 of the old philosopher who carried about with 
 him a brick as a specimen of the house he wished 
 to sell. American humor has saved many an 
 insipid novel from death at birth. It has made 
 much ordinary writing palatable by its accept 
 able condiment, while the labored and frequently 
 incongruous humor of more sedate writers, the 
 kind that "smells of the lamp," is for that very 
 reason too cumbrous and forced, and fails to 
 carry the crowd with it. 
 
 This penchant for humor has been largely 
 responsible for the after-dinner speech in which 
 the Yankee is renowned the world over. There 
 are usually a full score of men in the country, 
 types suggested by Messrs. Choate and Depew, 
 whose presence always assures a successful 
 public dinner. To the American, as Charles 
 Lamb once said, "jokes come in with the can 
 dle," and you can easily get attendance at a 
 dinner when a good list of humorous after-din 
 ner speeches is announced. In spite of the fact, 
 as Wendell Phillips once declared, that there 
 were never more than twenty-five original good 
 
64 American Ideals 
 
 stones, the American shows marvellous ingenu 
 ity in the elaboration of this original supply, 
 and when these give out, he tells stories on 
 himself, and on the toast master, and on his 
 mother-in-law, which subjects are always sure 
 to make a hit in risibilities. 
 
 Much of the humor clusters about the big 
 ness of the land and the native satisfaction in it, 
 and in essence it turns upon the idea of reality 
 and utility quite as much as does the modern 
 literature. 
 
 I was riding some years since from Long 
 Beach to Los Angeles, when about midway I 
 discovered a new schoolhouse, which was be 
 ing built, quite by itself, in a big unoccupied 
 field, at least a mile from any dwelling. I asked 
 the native driver why they built that school- 
 house so far away from town, at which the man 
 replied, "Well, you see, the last time we built a 
 schoolhouse, we put it on the edge of the settle 
 ment, and before we got it done the town had 
 grown up to it and passed it. This time we 
 wanted to be sure to keep ahead of the town for a 
 year at least." 
 
 The story of the old Maine farmer, told by 
 his fellow townsmen, is indicative of the humor 
 aroused in an active people by the unique and 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 65 
 
 useless specimen of humanity who does not 
 work. The old countryman who spent his 
 time around the stove in the grocery store was 
 asked his occupation, he replied: "I jest set and 
 think and sometimes I jest set." 
 
 The humor of ancestral glory is brought out 
 and laughed over in such stories as that of the 
 old American family, one of whose progenitors 
 is represented in a picture portrayed as going 
 into Noah s ark with the archives of his famous 
 house under his arm. The pride of family is a 
 never-failing source of amusement to the Amer 
 ican whose dreams are always in front of him 
 rather than behind him, and who fastens his 
 aspirations to the achievements he himself ex 
 pects to accomplish in the future, rather than 
 to the things his ancestors may have done in the 
 past. 
 
 Exaggeration in extremis is also generally 
 popular in American humor. It is another 
 indication of the excessive ambition of the peo 
 ple toward magnitude. Baron Munchausen 
 would have been most acceptable in America. 
 A man whose imagination can carry him far 
 enough in humorous unveracity of the type 
 displayed by Mark Twain in many of his west 
 ern stories, is always a captivating entertainer. 
 
66 American Ideals 
 
 / In spite of the fact that the American pos 
 sesses serious ideals and has the moral strain 
 only a bit below the surface, he is the last man 
 to take himself seriously or to allow his fellows 
 to become over-serious or dogmatic. It is one 
 of the saving traits in this country that the 
 entire nation laughs easily and must of neces 
 sity see the small and funny things in the most 
 unforeseen places, mixing gayety with almost 
 every phase of its complex life. 
 
 The nation s humor at times goes much 
 farther than its creator intended, and becomes 
 a means of caricaturing in a somewhat dispro 
 portionate way the object of its fun; examples 
 in point being the nation-wide quips at Mr. 
 Bryan and Josephus Daniels for their grape- 
 juice theories, and the nation s laugh, so difficult 
 to be forgotten, connected with a comparatively 
 trivial incident of a few over-exuberant women 
 showering their kisses upon a national hero. 
 Mr. Bryan s peace efforts are pictured humor 
 ously by a cartoonist, who draws the ex- 
 Secretary of State with a number of dove s eggs 
 resting in the curls of his hair while the dove 
 disports herself in the background. 
 \ American humor is closely associated with 
 \ Arppriran idealism through its intuition, its spon- 
 
 i 
 
Utilitarian Idealists 67 
 
 taneity, and its indispensable service. It brings 
 back the nervous intense native temperament 
 into correct focus. As his activity in gigantic 
 machinations reveals his intellect, as his material 
 successes reveal his power of organization, and 
 his books reveal his desire for reality, the 
 American s humor uncovers his heart, making 
 the nation one in a common humanity, knitting 
 it together in a kinship of good feeling, and keep 
 ing alive the sense of good will. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE SQUARE DEAL BOTH WAYS 
 
 They at least believed in the words which made 
 the Declaration immortal: "All men are created 
 equal." I am glad to remember, too, that Lincoln, 
 not many days before he went to join the august 
 assembly of just men made perfect, said to me, "A 
 man who denies to other men equality of rights is 
 hardly worthy of freedom; but I would give even 
 to him all the rights which I claim for myself." 
 
 JOHN HAY. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE SQUARE DEAL BOTH WAYS 
 
 "THE leading business ideal ?" The manu 
 facturer slowly repeated my question after me. 
 He had just returned from a month of travel 
 among the branches of the firm in the Middle 
 West, and it seemed an opportune time to get 
 from him a comprehensive answer. He placed 
 his cigar on the corner of his desk and his eye 
 followed down the lofty corridor of skyscrapers 
 that darkened William Street. "In a word, I 
 should say, the square deal both ways." 
 
 This man who answered my question was 
 not an apostle of "big business," he was not a 
 socialist, he was not a dreamer. He was a 
 typical business man of moderate means and 
 perhaps somewhat more than the average 
 thoughtfulness. He was of native stock, with 
 out hyphen in his name or his nature, a self- 
 respecting citizen and householder. He was the 
 kind of man who helps to form the great national 
 vertebrae of the United States. 
 
72 American Ideals 
 
 Was this popular statement of democracy 
 something the man had inherited? Was it a 
 part of that more or less loosely arranged senti 
 ment of equality that floats all too frequently 
 in the atmosphere of the country? What was 
 behind the statement? What did he mean by 
 "the square deal?" 
 
 The gentlemen of eminence who in the eigh 
 teenth century placed their signatures to that 
 formidable American document which declares 
 that God has created all men equal, and has 
 also endowed them with certain inalienable 
 rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
 happiness, were not thereby writing history, 
 but rather trying to designate the ideals that 
 were and would be of the new Republic. Some 
 of these men were slave owners, some were 
 men of high birth and gentlemanly breeding, 
 whose financial status was in no sense on a par 
 with the estate of those whom their weighty 
 legislations were to rule. They were not think 
 ing just then of making over their chattels into 
 free men, neither were they consciously intend 
 ing to divide their capital with the less indus 
 trious or less favored early colonists. They 
 were not meditating, we believe, merely the 
 erection of a wall of defence against the prac- 
 
The Square Deal Both Ways 73 
 
 tical doctrines of traditional English superiority 
 and the Divine right of kings, current in their 
 English motherland. This latter object un 
 doubtedly had considerable weight in both the 
 spirit and the letter of that document created 
 by the members of this first National Congress, 
 our hereditary political doctrinaires; but there 
 was something else deeper and more essentially 
 vital in the minds of these forefathers. 
 
 The Constitution which was then born was 
 the herald of a new ideal, freshly, daringly, 
 racily seized and embodied; and this ideal was 
 rooted and had already grown in the soil of 
 religious conviction, which is by far the most 
 desperately tenacious rootage from which the 
 ideas of men may spring. It was the sentiment 
 of the square deal intuitively grasped by men 
 who had never dreamed of an industrial civili 
 zation that invented the popular term. It was 
 the fair play and equality sentiment which is 
 American through and through. 
 
 There are those among our eminent jurists 
 of the present day whose first-hand experiences 
 with the inequalities of the law have seemed at 
 times to disillusion them as to the consistency 
 of these sentiments with the conditions and 
 practices of our twentieth-century life. One of 
 
74 American Ideals 
 
 our distinguished lawyers has characterized 
 the Constitution as a collection of "literary 
 generalities," while not a few have heard with 
 out unfavorable comment the stock remark 
 that England is more democratic than America, 
 attributing to this statement the meaning that 
 whatever may have been the case one hundred 
 years ago, we are now deluding ourselves with 
 aims and dreams and paper sanctions that have 
 no corresponding realities in modern affairs. 
 In other words, we have lost the trail leading 
 back to these early ideals of real equality and 
 freedom for all men, and the sooner we dispense 
 with the simulacrum of our alleged freedom 
 as exemplified in this eighteenth-century polit 
 ical instrument, the better for our good sense 
 and sincerity. 
 
 Racial ideals, however, are like the impressions 
 of childhood, indelible, and inclined to become 
 more vivid as we get farther along the road, and 
 feel and see them from the hilltop of life s 
 maturer trials and experiences. The modern 
 Grecian women of true Hellenic extraction still 
 break their urns before their doors at a Greek 
 funeral, even as in those distant days when 
 Athens sat serene and queenly upon the throne 
 of the world. The young westernized Chinese, 
 
The Square Deal Both Ways 75 
 
 in their Occidental bowlers and frock coats, 
 still return in April to their parental roof tree 
 to do honor to their ancestors, as their fathers 
 did six thousand years before them; while the 
 native Hindu, modern member of the Viceroy s 
 Council in India, passes from his Europeanizecl 
 law chamber at Delhi with traditional ease to 
 the banks of the sacred Mother Ganges, in 
 whose healing flood through years and count 
 less eras his Hindu sires have sought to lave 
 away their earthly pollution. 
 
 Likewise in America, while we have changed 
 marvellously in many ways, and have grown to 
 maturity since the give-me-liberty-or-give-me- 
 death cry of our forefathers rang through the 
 thirteen sparsely settled states, there is a kind 
 of "old home week" feeling that shivers up and 
 down the Yankee s spine when these pristine 
 "glittering generalities" of "freedom and equal 
 rights" are reexpressed in various modern 
 synonyms like "the square deal," or the "new 
 freedom," or " the rights of the foreigner." Even 
 "women s rights" and "votes for women" do not 
 stagger the American imagination as they seem 
 to paralyze the British soul. "Rights" at 
 tached to anything or anybody is not a word 
 to frighten the inhabitants of the United States. 
 
76 American Ideals 
 
 There is, moreover, a firm belief that will not 
 down that these early catchwords of our eman 
 cipated North American Commonwealth, writ 
 ten literally in letters of blood on the morning 
 sky of our early revolutionary day, are still 
 shining, and indeed have always been shining 
 through these one hundred and thirty-nine 
 years; and if at times obscured by clouds as 
 thick as they were frightful, there are those who 
 contend that it has needed only the bursting of 
 the storm or a blaze of sun to bring back these 
 letters into fresh and clear vision. The very 
 persistency of the term democracy induces one 
 to believe that despite its many faults and 
 weaknesses it is still a factor to be conjured 
 with in the United States. 
 
 Dr. H. L. Hastings, in his lectures against 
 Robert Ingersoll, used to begin somewhat as 
 follows: "Mr. Ingersoll has talked and written 
 considerably about The Mistakes of Moses/ 
 He has said so much about these mistakes that 
 we have come to believe that a man whose 
 mistakes men are thinking and talking about at 
 least four thousand years after his death, must 
 have been considerable of a man." With 
 democracy, likewise, the word that has endured 
 so much reproach and condemnation at the 
 
The Square Deal Both Ways 77 
 
 hands of varied constituencies, the pack-horse 
 for almost everything that people have found 
 disagreeable and unsuccessful in politics, morals, 
 and manners, so much so, indeed, that it has 
 become quite accustomed to any kind of an 
 onslaught; democracy that has been associated 
 with the provincial self-confidence of back 
 woodsmen and Indians, and with ideas and 
 customs long obsolete; democracy that has 
 been called merely a "conceit of singularity" 
 and a descent to the commonplace, according 
 to all historical accounts has seen a good number 
 of years, even before we began to talk about 
 it and dream we had it here in America. We 
 may conclude that it, like Moses, must be in 
 herently a considerable force. 
 
 Mr. James Russell Lowell, many years ago, 
 near the close of his life, said: 
 
 I have grown to manhood and am now growing 
 old with the growth of this system of government 
 in my native land, have watched its advances, or 
 what some would call its encroachments, gradual 
 and irresistible as those of a glacier, have been an 
 ear witness to the forebodings of wise and good and 
 timid men, and have lived to see these forebodings 
 belied by the course of events, which is apt to show 
 itself humorously careless of the reputation of 
 prophets. 
 
78 American Ideals 
 
 When the vials of wrath are all emptied, the 
 citizen of these commonwealths is still a demo 
 crat, and it is still his suspicion, even when he has 
 not thought about it very deeply, that it is a 
 kind of blood heritage, something that it is not 
 much use to fight, since it is so deeply and in 
 tuitively imbedded in the very nature of his 
 life and environment. In fact, if you want to 
 see this Dame Democracy at her best, you only 
 need to stir her up a bit; then she is quite likely 
 to make the easy-going American show his fire, 
 and under these circumstances, it may be re 
 marked, he is probably more certain to think 
 and to hit straight than under any other provoca 
 tion. It is this democratic idealism, both in 
 politics and in general affairs, that seems to the 
 American to be good and sufficient in itself, 
 "with all reason in it but no reason for it." It 
 has been coming out recently in the matter of 
 the drink problem. The question is not de 
 bated as to whether drink is a menace either to 
 the individual or to the nation. This might 
 be quite generally admitted by both drinkers 
 and non-drinkers. The question of earnest 
 debate, here as in England, which will always 
 arise when this matter is broached, concerns 
 the right of the state or the nation to prohibit 
 
The Square Deal Both Ways 79 
 
 an individual from taking a drink if he wishes 
 to do so. It is the individual s ideal of personal 
 liberty which is menaced, and this is one of the 
 most inviolate sanctities in the American char 
 acter. 
 
 Russia by a stroke of the pen may prohibit 
 the use of vodka, but President Wilson could no 
 more accomplish such a sweeping change than 
 he could declare war against England if the 
 people did not universally want it or demand it. 
 The Russian peasant has been trained by gener 
 ations of obedience to authority, autocratic 
 and monarchical, never to speak his mind, to 
 take his orders superimposed; consequently he 
 has lost much of his ability as well as perhaps 
 something of his desire for individual expression. 
 He does not know what freedom of speech means, 
 and centuries of oppressive silence have bred 
 not only intellectual inanition, but have also 
 taught him that even if he did speak, his words 
 would be powerless; he is therefore dumb. 
 
 Not so the American. From the beginning he 
 has been a moving, living unit in his national 
 life and progress. Indeed his life and progress 
 has been made by himself and his neighbor and 
 by none other. The humblest farmer around 
 the stove in the country store feels his sense of 
 
8o American Ideals 
 
 opportunity and privilege, and voices boldly 
 and dogmatically his sentiments regarding the 
 nation s life, discussing at length all phases of na 
 tional welfare, from the doings of the President 
 in the White House down to the acts of the local 
 constable and roadmaker. He knows, further 
 more, that he counts, that his vote counts on 
 election day, and it would be a foolhardy poli 
 tician who would dare to insinuate that his 
 views were better kept to himself. 
 
 It happens, therefore, that when you start to 
 tell the average citizen in the United States that 
 his fancied "rights" are but the echo of his 
 father s sentiment, a hollow hereditary thing, or 
 at best they are only what a particular set of 
 men who rule him tell him they can be, he is 
 quite likely to stop his ranting about "privilege" 
 and "prohibition" depriving him of anything 
 inalienable, and remark about his constitutional 
 liberty principles as a certain Englishman once 
 spoke of the British Constitution, "The most 
 wonderful thing about it is that it works" 
 
 We are inclined to surmise that it works for 
 some of the same reasons, for it must be recalled 
 that our democracy was almost as much English 
 as American at the time of the signing of that 
 important paper in Philadelphia, that "the 
 
The Square Deal Both Ways 8l 
 
 acorn from which it sprang was ripened on the 
 British oak." It has been observed that while 
 England was a monarchy with democratic tend 
 encies, the United States is a democracy with 
 conservative instincts. 
 
 The American is a democrat for much the 
 same reason that we find unrest in India to-day, 
 for the same reason that we saw the rather im 
 mature Filipino politician, only a brief timesince, 
 watching with bated breath the discussion over 
 the Jones bill. It is because all over the world 
 men have been first of all desirous to have a 
 hand in governing themselves, because "dele 
 gated" powers have always been distasteful to I 
 men of spirit and dreams, and because in a de- \ 
 mocracy there is the inevitable feeling amongst 
 men that they can, if they wish to bestir them 
 selves, change conditions by their votes as well 
 as by that other regnant means in their power, 
 public opinion, so that the modes of life and 
 work environing them will be more to their 
 liking 
 
 That there will be always and everywhere 
 unrest in democracies and that there will be 
 growing pains in connection with all young 
 independent activities as in every healthy 
 youth, goes without saying. An editor of one 
 
82 American Ideals 
 
 of our large city dailies, writing of unrest in 
 Canada, has expressed the matter well: 
 
 Democracy in Canada, as in all the sister colonies 
 and in Great Britain even as in the United States 
 has at times lost its job, become seedy, gone without 
 its regular meals, felt the gnawing of want, the sting 
 of poverty, but through it all it has been its own 
 master. If it has been improvident, wasteful, ex 
 travagant, inefficient, it has at least been free to be 
 all of these, and at liberty to recover from them in 
 its own way. It has not been a tagged, checked, 
 numbered thing; even when hungry and down at the 
 heel and out at the elbow, it has had the satisfaction 
 of knowing that it was itself to blame. 
 
 It is one of the firmly grounded principles 
 here in the United States that the right of the 
 people to work out their own salvation by means 
 of a somewhat rigid constitution made by the 
 people themselves, and amended to suit the 
 changes in the national growth, rather than by 
 the use of a more flexible form of government 
 manipulated by an autocratic hand above them, 
 forms one of the peculiar advantages of Ameri 
 can citizenship. It has been a privilege so truly 
 ingrained with years of checkered experiences 
 that one would start upon an almost insuperable 
 task, who would try to substitute the "allow- 
 
The Square Deal Both Ways 83 
 
 ance" for the "wage" in this country, and no 
 conceded values of immediacy in a monarchy 
 in the meeting of unexpected exigencies would 
 for a moment compensate the democratic mind 
 for the loss of his individual sense of participa 
 tion. The very grave difficulties attending the 
 construction of a firm representative state, the 
 wrestling with the knotty problems, and the need 
 of new decisions of fresh issues by an equally 
 responsible electorate, furnish the dust upon 
 which the nation may bite, the exercise by which 
 its faculties are aroused, and make strong appeal 
 to the intense love of the native mind for diffi 
 culty and contest with the unsubdued. 
 
 It is in the aspiring faith and in the ideal of 
 the betterment of the things that are, which 
 are his by nature, and in the power of bringing 
 the impossible into reality which are the Amer 
 ican s by material experience, that lead him to 
 believe that no form of government other than 
 a democracy can afford his spirit adequate 
 scope. That he has not reached the height of 
 his democratic ideal of equality, either in laws 
 or in the life of business, does not invalidate the 
 ideal in his own mind, and as long as an individ 
 ual or a nation refuses to relinquish its ideal and 
 is ready to fight for it withal, there is in partial 
 
84 American Ideals 
 
 fulfilment or even in failure something for 
 which to hope. The belief of the average citizen 
 that his national dreams of a Republic with a 
 "government of the people, by the people, for 
 the people," will come true, if not to-day then 
 to-morrow, woven into perfectness on "the 
 roaring loom of Time," is the first and the 
 indispensable requirement, without which any 
 and all means employed would be but the break 
 ing of idle waves upon the shore. 
 
 It is not only the presence but also the con 
 temporary encouraging results of this demo 
 cratic square-deal principle, as we see it slowly 
 taking shape both in the laws and in the arena of 
 daily affairs, that bring real light and hope to 
 all the troubled story of remedial legislation and 
 labor and business fears. Despite the fact that 
 Utopian democracy is still painted on far-reced 
 ing horizons, despite the selfishness of capital 
 and the equal selfishness of labor, no one, we 
 believe, save the man whose vision is bent by a 
 fatal censoriousness and a settled pessimism, 
 can fail to note the advance in a wide area of our 
 modern activities of the elements of cooperation 
 and integrity belonging to a high and ordered 
 progress. 
 
 There has been a gain in the last twenty years 
 
The Square Deal Both Ways 85 
 
 in sympathetic appreciation of the other man s 
 point of view, which is the prime necessity of 
 successful republics. It is more common to-day 
 than it was at one time to hear men saying and 
 acting on the principle laid down by Theodore 
 Parker, who said, "Democracy means not I m 
 as good as you are/ but you re as good as I 
 am." There is a gain in straightforwardness 
 and frankness in business, a gain that has 
 pressed upstream against the ever-swifter cur 
 rent of industrial competition. People individ 
 ually and collectively are becoming increasingly 
 convinced that as the Governor of Pennsylvania 
 said not long ago, "It never pays to be smart, 
 to put one over on the other fellow." 
 
 The deal that involves injustice to the worker, 
 whether the worker be a child in a mill or a 
 skilled artisan in a machine shop, a clerk or a 
 toiler in a ditch or on a farm, is becoming more 
 and more unpopular and impossible in the fierce 
 light that plays upon it from the press and poli 
 tics as well as from protective labor organiza 
 tion. The uncovering of questionable practices 
 in insurance, industry, railroads, and statecraft 
 have, in the memory even of our youth, aroused 
 a scrutiny of conduct in the wide world of our 
 coeval action that would have rejoiced and 
 
86 American Ideals 
 
 gladdened the heart of a statesman no farther 
 removed from us than that ardent worker for 
 the age of the Golden Rule in business and na 
 tional affairs John Hay. More honest officials 
 in charge of our money and our ports have 
 been demanded since his day. There are new 
 schemes for the relief of the poor, for the better 
 ment of the aged by pensions, for the economy 
 of the worker s time while at work and the more 
 profitable use of his leisure in his hours of recrea 
 tion, for arbitration in business in lieu of de 
 structive attacks, and in diplomacy, a subject 
 so dear to the heart of Mr. Hay and to which his 
 wise counsels and foundations paved the way. 
 
 Even a short-memoried man will recall our 
 democratic advances in the nation-wide move 
 ment to give industrial education to our youth 
 in the public schools, in the recent enormous 
 enlargement of free libraries, in the aroused 
 attention given to better rural conditions, in 
 endless philanthropies aimed at the prevention 
 or cure of disease, and in the eugenic and hygi 
 enic laws of national health. 
 
 What are these if not eloquent expressions of 
 the fact that the cause of the equal chance at 
 life and happiness, the protection of the weak 
 and the training of the strong, the sentiment of 
 
The Square Deal Both Ways 87 
 
 the square deal in intelligent practice, is still the 
 light to our path and the inspirer of our progress. 
 They are the most potent professions of the 
 belief that the universe was not made for one 
 man or one set of men alone, and that we as a 
 people have not lost sight of those more spacious 
 frontiers of human brotherhood which our great 
 est men have always kept in vision. 
 
 Square-dealism is coming to mean a very real 
 thing in the United States, something far more 
 useful and practicable than a lawyer s glitter 
 ing generality. To the college boy it means 
 that clean athletics and clean scholarship and 
 clean living are far more likely to bring him 
 recognition and honor among his fellows than 
 their opposites, and that trickery and dissipation 
 that were passed off as cleverness and marks of 
 manliness twenty-five years ago now stamp him 
 as an undesirable in college and load him with 
 an oppressing heritage for a start in life. To 
 the congressman sustained by a rising public 
 opinion in morals of states, the square deal has 
 meant the repeal of the Panama Canal bill, in 
 the interests of a square deal, not for ourselves 
 simply, but also for our national neighbors. To 
 the modern self-respecting business man it has 
 meant an increasing ambition to be well thought 
 
88 American Ideals 
 
 of by one s business associates, to gain and to 
 hold professional standing, and to maintain one s 
 self-respect in the world of affairs. To the 
 tradesman it signifies the reputation for just 
 dealing, to give for a dollar a dollar s worth, 
 and the growing belief that to make a customer 
 is better than to make a sale. 
 
 A real estate man put the matter thus: "Most 
 men desire to live so that other men say, his 
 word is as good as his bond. Most of the men 
 I know prefer to have other men think of them 
 as good rather than clever. They may desire 
 to merit both of these qualifications attributed 
 to them, but would prefer the former." 
 
 The friends of the late Charles Frohman have 
 stated, with justifiable pride in their associate, 
 that a contract was never necessary between 
 him and his workers, that Frohman s word was 
 sufficient. Dr. David Starr Jordan has well 
 summarized the extensive sweep of these present- 
 day ideals, individual and national, when he 
 says that the leading men of the country are 
 looking to see our public life as clean, wholesome, 
 just, and true as the best private life can be. 
 
 As the wheels of progress are continually 
 turning out new situations in a swiftly moving 
 civilization, we must needs be careful frequently 
 
The Square Deal Both Ways 89 
 
 to define and redefine what we mean by this 
 attractive and benevolent sounding term 
 equality. Certain of the gravest dangers of 
 the present period in our social and industrial 
 world hang upon the right understanding of 
 what a square deal really signifies for men as for 
 nations. 
 
 Views on the subject vary widely and stretch 
 all the way from the President s theory of the 
 "new freedom" to the hearsay ideas of a 
 certain recently landed immigrant who was 
 found wiping his shoes on a towel in an East 
 Side hotel, and who, being reprimanded for this 
 rather generous use of the hotel linen, said in a 
 tone of real surprise, "I thought the government 
 furnished these for everybody." 
 
 A Harvard professor is quoted as interpreting 
 this "born free and equal" clause in the Con 
 stitution as meaning that men are created equal, 
 not that they must remain so which would 
 seem about as far from the real meaning of the 
 original instrument declaring our liberties, as 
 the immigrant s impression that equality and 
 freedom signified that any man could take and 
 use anything he found handy. Dr. Van Dyke 
 expressed the spirit of our national equality 
 more clearly when he said, " It implies that what 
 
90 American Ideals 
 
 equality exists by creation ought to remain by 
 protection." 
 
 In other words, the square deal in America 
 gives every man an equal right with any or all 
 competitors to enter the lists for the great prizes 
 of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And 
 it carefully watches the race from the judges 
 stand to see that every contestant gets a fair 
 chance in accordance with the rules of the game. 
 For breaking rules the penalties are supposed 
 to be the same for all; for winners the prizes 
 are sure, regardless of the particular endowment, 
 race or social standard. No doors are barred 
 in any direction as far as opportunity is con 
 cerned, the only condition being that the con 
 testant observe the laws of the contest that he 
 himself helps to make, and prove worthy of his 
 steel. One of our chief justices has avowed that 
 the right to follow any of the common occu 
 pations of life is an inalienable right. 
 
 The mistake of reformers in various coteries 
 to be found in America at present, equipped with 
 all sorts of eccentric Utopian vagaries and 
 whims, lies frequently in the attempt to make 
 inequalities of capacity and service equalities 
 by the swift stroke of a law: a vain attempt at 
 standardizing possessions without standardizing 
 
The Square Deal Both Ways 91 
 
 individuals. It is juggling with effects and not 
 taking account of causes. You can equalize 
 rights to work for rewards, but you cannot i 
 equalize the rewards without depriving individ 
 ualism of its spring and virility. A square deal 
 means a square chance to play with the other 
 players, and any forced attempt by laws or 
 society to make the prize winner divide his 
 profits with men on the grand stand has usually 
 been considered in the United States in the 
 nature, not of fair play, but of hold-up. Hold 
 ups in dark streets as well as on Wall Street do 
 occur in America, but they are not favored by 
 the square-deal sentiment, and there is further 
 more a growing tendency to make life disagree 
 able for both kinds of footpads. In brief, the 
 strain of the square-deal sentiment, so far as the 
 law is concerned, is to the effect that the Govern 
 ment will invariably protect a man in his right 
 of an equal chance with his fellows to live and 
 let live. 
 
 It is the mixing up of political equality with 
 social and industrial equality that causes much 
 of our misunderstanding and dangerous differ 
 ences. Politically the square deal means the 
 chance to vote. In a sense equality has purely 
 a political significance. That men are equal in 
 
92 American Ideals 
 
 other respects is plainly false. There is a unity 
 of brotherhood that must not be mixed up with 
 an equality of political rights. Equal rights 
 before the law, the rights of protection of life 
 and property, are involved in political democ 
 racy. The equal right to work and succeed, 
 t if one can, is also inherent in industrial democ 
 racy, but this does not carry with it the right 
 1 either to envy or to snatch away another s suc- 
 cess. The artist who painted the picture and 
 experiences of Cain and Abel reveals the start 
 of Cain to his lower destiny at the moment when 
 he became an enemy to his brother s success 
 with his sacrifices, his flocks, and his ability 
 to please his God. It was not only the sin 
 of covetousness and envy: it was the darker 
 thought that made the lasting mark on Cain, the 
 thought "these things shall not be my brother s." 
 There is a distinct personal as well as polit 
 ical side to equality and the square deal. Suc 
 cess depends not simply upon having a chance 
 to assist in making laws, it also inheres in in 
 dividualism . Business bent, sagacity, common- 
 sense, the absence of too much artistic tempera 
 ment, and the ability to work hard, to keep sober 
 and save, determine eminence in the business 
 or industrial world. A man can be a rich demo- 
 
The Square Deal Both Ways 93 
 
 crat or a poor democrat, and both may be good 
 democrats. Neither riches nor poverty are dis 
 graces providing you have the ability to think 
 clearly and to discriminate and to get people s 
 points of view. All the square deal in the 
 world, however, cannot make lazy and worthless 
 men equal with active, industrious, and good 
 men. These inequalities are neither social nor 
 political, but personal and abiding. 
 
 The necessity of distinguishing carefully 
 between the personal right of the individual and 
 the national right of the Government has been 
 brought forcibly to our attention in the condi 
 tions in which we find ourselves at present 
 relative to business. The very ardor with 
 which we have gone reforming and renovating 
 our corporate concerns in America has been 
 inclined to revert upon the people in a shape 
 very much resembling a boomerang. Big busi 
 ness has been investigated so much for and 
 against recently that we find ourselves involved 
 in a nation-wide fear. There is fear on the part 
 of business as to what the Government is going 
 to do, and a corresponding fear on the part of 
 lawmakers as to what business in its large and 
 complicated capacity is going to do. The rail 
 roads are afraid, and with no unjust fear, of the 
 
94 American Ideals 
 
 Interstate Commerce Commission; the banks 
 are afraid of the Federal Reserve Board and 
 the Comptroller of Currency; the express com 
 panies are afraid of the Postmaster General; 
 and the purveyors of food products show signs 
 of fear of the Department of Agriculture. Now 
 there has sprung up the new Trade Commission, 
 with its inspectors and investigators going far 
 and wide into the details of industry, and it is 
 not strange that our industrial establishments 
 show fear of such agencies. 
 
 As a consequence of these fears both capital 
 and labor suffer. Business is timid and in 
 vestors sit upon their money bags. Just at 
 present labor seems to be having its innings, and 
 capital is suffering for its former abuses. The 
 president of one of our large life insurance 
 companies has thus succinctly summarized the 
 situation: 
 
 Our great business development went far beyond 
 the comprehension of the average man. This gave 
 the demagogue his opportunity, and business is now 
 being punished, not alone for its excesses which 
 were many but for its successes, which were great. 
 
 The remedy for this weakness of our democ 
 racy is identical with that which may be ap- 
 
The Square Deal Both Ways 95 
 
 plied with general benefit to almost any phase 
 of our national troubled life. It is, in the words 
 of the business man, the square deal both ways. 
 It is the return to the simple but vital means of 
 a better mutual understanding. Ex-President 
 Taft has said that in America unless all are 
 prosperous no one is prosperous. The remark 
 is a significant one and holds much of truth, 
 but the secret of prosperity is at times quite as 
 much a matter of sympathy and appreciation, 
 born of knowledge of the other party s situation, 
 as it is of active energy and indomitable per 
 severance. Professor Palmer of Harvard once 
 said that the characteristic of a true teacher 
 was "an aptitude for vicariousness," the ability 
 not only to realize another man s burden, but 
 also the willingness, if need be, to help him 
 carry it. This may be going beyond the square 
 deal, even the square deal both ways. It goes 
 beyond justice to fellowship, beyond business 
 to brotherhood, but is it not in the light of such 
 high-minded idealism as this that our Declara 
 tion of Independence saw the light? Have not 
 the greatest blessings of democracy been pur 
 chased by sacrifice, even the sacrifice of one s 
 own rights at times, in order to truly retain them 
 in larger and richer possession? 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 AMERICAN VERSUS ENGLISH IDEALS 
 
 A foreign country is a point of comparison where- 
 from to judge our own. 
 
 EMERSON. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 AMERICAN VERSUS ENGLISH IDEALS 
 
 IT WAS nearly thirty years ago that Matthew 
 Arnold, after his visit to America, wrote in the 
 "Nineteenth Century," saying that, as he 
 viewed them, our dangers as a nation are "self- 
 glorification and self-deception." These traits 
 he attributes to "the predominance of the com 
 mon and ignoble, born of the predominance of 
 the average man." The search of the English 
 critic for the "sense of elevation was unsatis 
 factory, and reveals among other things the 
 difficulty of the foreigner to get at the real 
 America. 
 
 Lord Haldane gave utterance some time ago 
 to the thought that the great danger threaten 
 ing a rupture in the relations between Germany 
 and the United Kingdom lay in the fact that 
 owing somewhat to a common origin each 
 nation imagined that it understood the other. 
 The present lamentable blunders shown before 
 the eyes of the world in the mistaking of mo- 
 
 99 
 
loo American Ideals 
 
 tives and ideals of peoples closely united by the 
 ties of blood and marriage, and even with ad 
 joining territories, lead to the conviction that 
 there is something inalienably and racially in 
 herent in the warp and woof of every people, 
 which in a sense is not translatable, especially 
 to a foreigner: something which even the native 
 who feels it intuitively finds it most difficult to 
 express. 
 
 In spite of the cementing ties between the 
 English and the American, and not withstand 
 ing the usual talk of "motherland," these two 
 countries are, in the realm of national char 
 acteristics and ideals, worlds apart. While one 
 senses certain truth in the criticism of a great 
 English critic like Arnold, even though that criti 
 cism is more than a quarter of a century old, 
 there is yet a feeling that the real atmosphere of 
 America has escaped him. Americans have been 
 well supplied with books written by our cousins 
 across the seas, and have seen themselves as the 
 Britisher sees them in almost every type of inter 
 pretation, ranging all the way from Thackeray 
 and Dickens to H. G. Wells and Arnold Bennett. 
 Yet there is always, even in the most tolerant 
 advice-loving Yankee mind, the suspicion that 
 Americans are Americans by reason of the 
 
American versus English Ideals IGI 
 
 innate might of a few distinctive principles ger 
 mane to the nature of things in the United 
 States, and rooted, as one might say, in the 
 subsoil of this Western land principles which 
 are loath to give their color to a transient 
 stranger. 
 
 Still it is with England that our interests 
 and ideals are more nearly identical than with 
 any other nation, and it is to England that 
 our admiration and respect have gone forth in 
 a multitude of ways, even when we have been 
 unconscious of it, or perhaps rather too proud 
 to admit it. Since, furthermore, we were all Eng 
 lishmen in the beginning, we may be justified 
 in turning to a brief contrasting study of the 
 two people as a means of bringing out more 
 clearly certain of the distinctive traits and 
 ideals of the inhabitants of "the states." 
 
 It is first needful to remember that the dis 
 tinctions here are traditionally not of aristocra 
 cies, but of merit; not of age and the "sense of 
 elevation" derived from the contemplation of 
 either majesties or monuments (since we have 
 none of these), but primarily the distinctions 
 centring in men and their work. There is, more 
 over, comparatively small respect in America for 
 men of good birth but of bad character or unem- 
 
IO2 American Ideals 
 
 ployed talents. Even the adornments of the 
 artistic connoisseur, and of the idle or "gentle 
 man" class, find here in this land of plain reality 
 little more than curiosity and that kind of re 
 spectful attention given to unusual "specimens." 
 The crowds may line the sidewalks in front of a 
 Fifth Avenue church to watch the wedding 
 procession of a scion of one of the few old 
 families of wealth still left to us; but even a 
 casual study of the faces and a slight analysis 
 of the remarks of the spectators will reveal the 
 abysmal difference between the thoughts called 
 forth by this spectacle on Fifth Avenue and 
 those seemingly uppermost in the minds of the 
 London watchers of nobility on Pall Mall, 
 or at the marriage of the son of a duke or 
 an eminent representative of an old English 
 house. 
 
 A chief engineer, on the other hand, return 
 ing from his notable labors in connection with 
 the building of the Panama Canal, calls forth 
 a crowd as diverse in character as it is serious 
 and respectful in attention, and the man of deeds 
 is placed upon a pedestal of honor and national 
 regard to which the mere inheritor of wealth 
 or an old family name can never hope to 
 aspire. 
 
American versus English Ideals 103 
 
 Through reasons more or less evident American 
 ideals gather instinctively about people like 
 Edison, of whom the public never tires of 
 hearing. They like to read how he spends long, 
 sleepless nights working out his latest electrical 
 arrangement, which they are certain will open 
 new windows into a more usable world. The 
 crowd never tires of reading or hearing of Lin 
 coln, whom certain European writers have truth 
 fully said was without "distinction" and who 
 was undoubtedly at times ordinary, even per 
 haps vulgar, both in the speech and manners 
 of his day. But Lincoln visualized that which 
 Americans prize higher than coronets and Nor 
 man blood heart quality and the nation s 
 ideals and reverence cling closely about his 
 memory. His homely wit and kindliness ap 
 pealed to their love of real things, and they keep 
 green his grave with a sentiment as deep as it is 
 disregardful of the lowliness of his early social 
 station and possessions. 
 
 This is not far from the innate respect felt in 
 the souls of all men everywhere for great hu 
 manity, and in this type of elevated regard the 
 dwellers on the North American continent are 
 second to no people beneath the sun. 
 
 We would not minimize the need, in this 
 
IO4 American Ideals 
 
 country of magic endeavor and enormous raw 
 material of both heart and hand (material which 
 has not yet had time to be worked into artistic 
 expression), of the erection upon these strong 
 basic traits of a superstructure of gentlemanly 
 manners and a worship of beauty in all its forms. 
 One of our New England writers has pointed out 
 with sagacity that it is a good thing to have self- 
 made men, but for constant association almost 
 any one would prefer men whom civilization of 
 the highest order has had a part in forming. 
 In such matters the American may look, as in 
 deed in many another thing, to the land which 
 gave England and these United States a com 
 mon stock. 
 
 To come to a more detailed and concrete com 
 parison, one is at once struck at the amazing 
 contrast between the Englishman and American 
 in the realm of feeling and expression. The 
 American is first of all volubly expressive, while 
 \ the Englishman is studiedly reserved. The 
 Britisher is a kind of negationist; he is almost 
 stoically repressive, and frequently inarticulate. 
 John Galsworthy has said that there is no more 
 deceptive person than the Englishman on the 
 face of the globe, his deception being due to his 
 inability as well as his unwillingness to make 
 
American versus English Ideals 105 
 
 himself understood. The American, on the 
 other hand, is enthusiastic, fluent, and is quite 
 ready usually to examine and to expatiate upon 
 his own inner feelings as well as to make a guess 
 at those of other people. To hide his feelings is 
 second nature to the Englishman. Should his 
 emotions by some unwary chance get the best 
 of him, he is usually ashamed of himself and 
 expects to be laughed at. He deprecates any 
 lapse from his suppressed idealism. The Amer 
 ican feels that some of this is parade, what 
 Robert Louis Stevenson called, "A winking, 
 curled and oiled, ultra-cultural-Oxford-don sort 
 of affectation/ and discounts it accordingly. 
 
 I was talking with a young man over the 
 omnipresent tea urns at Oxford regarding these 
 matters of English and American traits, when 
 I ventured to suggest that his father (a promi 
 nent Englishman) was a fitting example of the 
 Britisher who had accomplished much work and 
 had not talked much about it. When I began 
 to speak of a book which had pictured this public 
 man with his accomplishments in South Africa, 
 the son waived the matter aside with a deprecat 
 ing gesture,saying,"Oh,thegovernor s all right/ 
 and suddenly turned the conversation to the last 
 cricket match with Cambridge. 
 
106 American Ideals 
 
 At the Oxford Union, that miniature English 
 world, where, in a manner strange to America, 
 the chief members of Parliament return to pre 
 side at the sessions, helping to keep inviolate 
 the English traits and the attitude of the English 
 mind toward public service, I have heard 
 students called down severely for giving a sug 
 gestion of emotionalism in their speeches. In 
 fact, one student, who in our American judgment 
 had made by far the best presentation of the eve 
 ning, was riddled as to his argument and his side 
 utterly routed, because his opponents had cred 
 ited to him an attempt to play on the feelings 
 of his hearers through an illustration suggestive 
 of "spread eagleism." To the American, 
 accustomed to the public mode of expression 
 in his own land, this show of feeling would 
 have hardly been noticeable, certainly not ob 
 jectionable. Another student demolished his 
 opponent who had been lured into sentiment 
 by saying: "Sir, Mr. - has tried to wring 
 our hearts I submit, Sir, that our hearts refuse 
 to be wrung!" 
 
 The state papers, as well as the public ad 
 dresses of Englishmen, while on a high level of 
 intellectual reasoning, and exhibiting frequently 
 examples of choice diction, often make dry 
 
American versus English Ideals 107 
 
 reading for the man who has become familiar 
 with the American type of political presentation. 
 An American politician has observed that the 
 only parallel to the human interest found in the 
 Congressional records filed away upon the dusty 
 shelves in Washington are the "popular" 
 speeches of the members of the House of Com 
 mons, reported in full in the dreary columns of 
 the London Times. 
 
 A conservative master of one of the old col 
 leges at Cambridge remarked to me that the 
 principle objection he found to Lloyd George 
 (who was at the time delivering speeches in 
 Wales on the land question) was that he re 
 minded him of his namesake Henry George, 
 whose spellbinding characteristics were as unin 
 telligible as they were distasteful to the educated 
 Englishman. The attitude is reflected in the 
 statement of Francis Gribble concerning Jowett, 
 the old Master of Balliol, a man "full of milk 
 of human kindness, but profoundly conscious 
 that milk makes a mess when it boils over, and 
 firmly resolved to prevent that catastrophe by 
 keeping it in a refrigerator." 
 
 The American is also easily moved and often 
 he is easily convinced. It may be added that 
 he is quite as readily cooled and as readily un- 
 
io8 American Ideals 
 
 convinced. His across-the-seas relative is hard 
 to be convinced, but when his conviction is 
 formed he is a veritable bulldog. One of his 
 countrymen has said in relation to his attitude 
 regarding the present war that when the Eng 
 lishman finally sees and seizes a thing, he takes 
 it with the whole of his weight, and wastes no 
 breath in telling you he has taken hold. 
 
 The American is friendly and long-suffering. 
 He does not grumble over trifles, and frequently 
 is justly accused of being indifferent to his 
 rights, while the Englishman is the most inveter 
 ate grumbler, especially over little things, to 
 be found extant, and withal the most determined 
 advocate for his common rights, be these rights 
 located in Liverpool, Cairo, Calcutta, or Hong 
 kong. 
 
 As a chance traveller the Englishman is about 
 as companionable as a stone image and equally 
 communicative. His impermeability is a won 
 der of perfectness. A Danish gentleman who 
 had lived most of his life in an English colony 
 told me of his experience in crossing Russia on 
 the Siberian railroad from Vladivostock to St. 
 Petersburg, a journey of thirteen days, in the 
 same compartment with an Englishman. Their 
 conversation during the entire trip consisted in 
 
American versus English Ideals 109 
 
 saying "Good morning" when they arose and 
 handing each other the daily papers, for which 
 each one politely thanked the other with a bow. 
 Had these two men been Americans, at the end 
 of the first day there doubtless would have been 
 no subject in all the range between politics, 
 piety, and personalities, that would not have 
 been discussed with fervor and thoroughness. 
 The second day would have doubtless been 
 more difficult in the matter of conversation, since 
 they would have told everything readily acces 
 sible the first day, but for the American, at least, 
 the first day s conversation would have paid for 
 the trip, and not to have expressed himself 
 would have made the journey exquisite boredom. 
 As a tourist, the American is the very epit 
 ome of good nature, geniality, curiosity, and 
 agreeableness. He is a first-class mixer, talks 
 easily, laughs easily, and his bump of inquisi- 
 tiveness, together with his temerity in unearth 
 ing the unearthable, has made him the arch in- 
 vestigator of the world. He goes in where angels 
 fear to tread, and to want to know about any 
 thing is synonymous with finding out. When 
 he is well mannered (and it must be remembered 
 that not all Americans in these days travel 
 on the Cleveland or in Cook parties) we ven- 
 
no American Ideals 
 
 ture to say, even at the risk of being called prej 
 udiced, no world traveller of any nation makes a 
 more charming and obliging comrade. 
 
 In this relative appraisement of the globe 
 trotting class one must remember the sources 
 from which the different types of English and 
 Americans come. America with its quick results 
 and quick money has foisted into the world of 
 travel thousands of people whose forebears and 
 antecedent opportunities for culture have been 
 far removed from those familiar to the majority 
 of the English sightseers. A manufacturer of 
 machinery, for example, in the Middle West 
 makes an unexpected five thousand dollars, and 
 he immediately thinks of how he can expend it 
 for his family. An early thought is to send his 
 kindly, good-natured, domestically inclined wife, 
 with her little troupe of pretty daughters, who are 
 striving for something that their home town does 
 not afford, to Europe, or possibly on a trip around 
 the world. They take with them their freshness, 
 their vivacity, their overbounding health and 
 optimism and joy in every new sight, and their 
 training which has been of the sort that teaches 
 them to give full vent to their expressions of 
 wonder or disdain. The English tourists, mean 
 while, shrug their aristocratic shoulders and 
 
American versus English Ideals in 
 
 exclaim: "Those horrid Americans!" It is 
 sometimes forgotten that it is only of late 
 years that the people of the same strata in 
 England have been either capable or desirous 
 of extending their knowledge or of gratifying 
 their curiosity with the scenes of foreign lands. 
 The average middle-class Englishman is con 
 tent with his home and fireside, and with good 
 safe 5 per cent, investments on his money. 
 These are more tangible and satisfactory assets 
 in his eyes than the investment in culture for 
 his wife and family. 
 
 Kindliness and humaneness, the common 
 American traits, are responsible also for the 
 way in which the sorrows and calamities of the 
 world cut our countrymen to the quick. His 
 extremist temperament makes the American 
 prodigal and sometimes foolish with his wealth, 
 he is often as impulsive as he is excessive 
 in his philanthropy. Full of nervous sensi 
 bility, he wears out much mental and physical 
 energy by his neighborliness. The Britisher 
 in contrast is seldom excessive and goes to ex 
 tremes far less frequently. This makes for a 
 certain toughness of nervous fibre that calls in 
 turn for fewer sanitariums in England than in 
 America; this insensibility to the nerve-wrack- 
 
H2 American Ideals 
 
 ing stress and strain of modern competitive 
 existence has caused the Englishman to be 
 pointed out as a good example of the conserva 
 tion of energy; it fits him peculiarly for a war 
 of exhaustion in which the proverbial ability 
 to "muddle through" and take things as they 
 come are rare talents. This trait of repression 
 and staying at home in his own feelings, this 
 inaptitude for sacrificial interest in others, 
 saves energy for the Englishman; it also loses 
 many opportunities for being human, or so it 
 appears in the American s eyes. 
 
 In the matter of ready adjustment and 
 adaptability, the American easily outstrips his 
 brother of English race. Given the same ideals, 
 the Yankee finds many more means with which 
 to achieve them, since he has fewer binding 
 restrictions upon his working. His lack of 
 idee fixe and freedom-confining traditions 
 leaves him free to move more easily on his bear 
 ings, and makes it possible to get things done 
 with promptness and often while the English 
 man is thinking it over. The American likes 
 taking risks and is a ready apostle of all pro 
 gressive measures. His conservatism, however, 
 is increasingly noticeable along some lines. I 
 was talking recently with the editor of one of 
 
American versus English Ideals 113 
 
 the large magazines who said it was their policy 
 to publish virtually nothing having to do with 
 current interests in any part of the world. This 
 is quite largely an acquired trait, and conserv 
 atism is naturally of slower rootage and growth 
 in a country where newness, change, and ad 
 vance are attendants of all activities. That a 
 thing is fresh and untried, and heretofore un 
 heard of, is usually an attractive recommenda 
 tion, when to the more cautious Britisher a 
 new thing is intended to arouse hesitation, if not 
 suspicion. 
 
 A prominent English writer related to me 
 recently an experience which befell him in con 
 nection with an old and very reliable publish 
 ing house in London. A seemingly attractive 
 book proposition, involving a number of volumes 
 relating to a widely popular subject, was pre 
 sented, and one that was afterward accepted 
 with avidity and much success by an American 
 firm. The Londoner called in a member of his 
 company to consider with him the scheme. The 
 method of consideration consisted of looking 
 over a dusty pile of records to discover whether 
 the house had ever engaged in a similar publish 
 ing venture; finding that it had not, the head 
 of the establishment immediately and without 
 
114 American Ideals 
 
 further deliberation as to the particular merits 
 or demerits of the plan before him rejected 
 the proposal, saying with a thoroughly satisfied 
 and conclusive air: "No, we cannot accept it; 
 we have never undertaken anything like that." 
 Tradition ruled, and contemporary interest 
 lost. 
 
 A New York publisher was next approached, 
 and his first question, according to the narrator, 
 was, "Is there any similar set of books in exist 
 ence?" When he had made sure that the idea 
 was a new one and after he had consulted with 
 his "men on the road" to find out whether they 
 thought it would appeal to the latest tendency in 
 current demands, he said: "This looks good to 
 us. We will take it. We believe it will make a 
 hit from the start, since it is a new angle of ap 
 proach." And it did, though in England it 
 might have been a dismal failure, and have 
 justified fully the hesitation of the London 
 publisher. It reveals the ever-ready willingness 
 of the American to take a chance on a new 
 thing. This same unreadiness to change from 
 the English manner of doing business has been 
 the reason for more than one British failure in 
 the Far East, as the converse trait of fitting the 
 product to the customer and the latest require- 
 
American versus English Ideals 115 
 
 ment of the public has spelled success for the 
 American and the German in that region. 
 
 It is probably au fond the ideal of getting 
 on, the aim of success through adaptation, that 
 is felt in this drift away from any final or ac 
 cepted way of doing things. The middle-class 
 Englishman, constitutionally solid and stolid, 
 is satisfied and quite resigned to his fate of 
 middle-class existence, taking it as a matter of 
 course, and therefore devoting himself to the 
 immediate duties before him. No large dreams 
 or future ambitions blur his eyes. The Amer 
 ican, on the contrary, is never content and is 
 always seeing himself rising out of present 
 mediocrity to leadership and power in the 
 class of business men or stratum of society 
 immediately above him. The Englishman, 
 moreover, is inclined to take his business as a 
 necessary evil, especially the Englishman of the 
 upper classes: a thing to be gotten over as 
 quickly as possible, so that he may get on to 
 something else: golf, shooting, or politics, for 
 which he cares infinitely more than his real 
 work. The American regards his business as 
 his main activity in life; it forms often his di 
 version as well as his daily task; "he is all 
 business" is an expression frequently heard. 
 
n6 American Ideals 
 
 It is the one thing for which he delays his 
 pleasures and recreations and amusements and 
 travel, it is the altar upon which he too often y* 
 immolates matters of intellectual and cultural 
 interests; it is a veritable religion to many, and 
 no man of any other nation, not even the shop- 
 keeping Chinese, worships more loyally or un- 
 intermittingly the captivating gods of trade. 
 
 It is because of his devotion to business that 
 the European newspaper artists never weary 
 of picturing Uncle Sam as a pork packer mil 
 lionaire and the shrewd Yankee trader with the 
 head of a hog and the octopus body of a trust 
 magnate. We have yet to find a company 
 of foreigners either abroad or at home who fail, 
 after a few moves of the conversation, to bring 
 up the money wraith against the American. 
 Without doubt we have here a subject of strik 
 ing interest close to the nation s idealism and 
 fruitful of marked comparison with English 
 aims. That the American thinks in terms of 
 money, and that wealth bulks large in his esti 
 mate of success, no one closely acquainted with 
 him will deny, but when it comes to a compari 
 son in the matter of the reason for acquiring 
 dollars, we doubt whether he will be found more 
 culpable than the Englishman. 
 
American versus English Ideals 117 
 
 Certain it is that in conversation the English 
 man has been reared to talk of other things than 
 his income. He has been trained to connect the 
 commercial transaction with a lower order of 
 society and accomplishments than those repre 
 sented by the persons and activities connected 
 with public life, the realm of letters, and especially 
 the careers of his military and colonizing country 
 men on the seas or in distant climes. 
 
 This contrast between the inhabitants of 
 Great Britain and the United States was brought 
 out humorously by an experience occurring in 
 one of my trips across the Yellow Sea with a 
 Scotchman and his son as travelling companions. 
 The subject of the ever-present thought in the 
 minds of Americans was suggested as usual by 
 my Scottish friend, and with some ardor of con 
 viction I was endeavoring to show him that 
 these were largely incidental accompaniments in 
 the beginnings of the construction of a civiliza 
 tion, and that already there were many indica 
 tions of exchanging this subject of wealth for 
 others in a wide circle of cultural endeavor in 
 which the Americans were beginning to indulge 
 themselves. Things were going along fairly 
 well, when, during a lull in the conversation, an 
 unmistakably Yankee voice cut the atmosphere 
 
n8 American Ideals 
 
 of the comparatively small dining-saloon with 
 the remark, "By the way, what do you have to 
 pay for a porterhouse steak at the Holland 
 House?" The Scotchman looked at me from 
 quizzical eyes, and it is sufficient to say that this 
 ended my argument for the time being. 
 
 When one turns to the mental consciousness of 
 the two peoples, and this consciousness is closely 
 akin to the spring of their idealism, one finds 
 sharply outlined a few distinguishing features. 
 In the United States it is easier to find persons 
 who are self-conscious and imaginative, and who 
 include the past and the future as well as the 
 present in their introspective sense of themselves. 
 , Many an American is a dreamer, and as much of 
 \ a failure in a practical way as is the speculative 
 Easterner. There is a marked sensitiveness 
 when it comes to the fear of public opinion in 
 regard to his fellows, while the prevalence and 
 the flourishing success of almost every kind of 
 metaphysical or religious sect known on the face 
 of the earth is a mark of his unqualified mental 
 receptiveness. 
 
 The Englishman, on the contrary, however 
 
 ^ "Ynucri he may scout the idea of materiality in his 
 
 } patronizing attitude at times toward his New 
 
 World cousin, dwells in the realm of facts, and 
 
American versus English Ideals 119 
 
 often in the atmosphere of a blind practicality, 
 even more than does the American. As a busi 
 ness man, the Englishman is "awfully level 
 headed" and gives the impression to many 
 foreigners of a distressing matter-of-factness. 
 His religion he accepts as he accepts his national 
 consciousness, as a matter of course, and one 
 finds abstract discussions of religion and philos 
 ophy as infrequent and usually distasteful inter 
 lopers in the ordinary English conversation. 
 New religions and anything that approximates 
 to fads and fancies are not readily received in 
 that land of conservatism. 
 
 To the adaptable and ideal-loving American 
 the popular sentiment welcomes change so rap 
 idly that in some respects it is open to the 
 Frenchman s retort regarding his own people: 
 "I put no faith in any of the laws of literary 
 history, except in that which consists in saying 
 that a fashion succeeding another fails if it is 
 not the absolute converse of that which preceded 
 it." The solidity and imperturbability of the 
 Englishman in contrast is often as unintelligible 
 as it is foreign to the American temperament. 
 
 It must be remembered, especially as far as 
 the leadership of English thought and action is 
 concerned, that the twenty or more large Eng- 
 
I2O American Ideals 
 
 lish public schools, which have no counterpart 
 on earth, and which train at least one hundred 
 thousand of English youth of each generation, 
 are responsible largely for this uniformity of 
 mentality and this mysteriously cool, critical, 
 and reserved manner. When one appreciates 
 that seven eighths of the important positions, 
 public, professional, administrative, as well as 
 an increasingly large number of notable posts in 
 England s present-day industrial enterprises, 
 are held by the graduates of schools of which 
 Eton, Harrow, and Rugby have been for genera 
 tions the exacting models, there is found at least 
 one reason for the English mind. Here young 
 England learns impartial justice, and acquires 
 the knowledge of how to govern others as well 
 as himself. Here the orderliness and obedience 
 to law, so much needed in the United States 
 just now, becomes second nature to the young 
 Britisher. These schools cultivate the negation 
 of self-consciousness, and are more or less in 
 imical to that type of individualism which the 
 multitudinous vocational schools of America, 
 with their emphasis upon individual aptitude, 
 magnify and develop. 
 
 The negative philosophy of these schools of 
 England, whose spirit enters so largely into the 
 
American versus English Ideals 121 
 
 English ideal, has been humorously satirized 
 in a code of ten commandments of the English 
 schoolboy, by a French writer in the "Revue 
 Politique et Parliamentaire": 
 
 1. There is only one God, and the Captain of 
 football is his Prophet. 
 
 2. My school is the best school in the world. 
 
 3. Without big muscles, strong will, and proper 
 collars, there is no salvation. 
 
 4. I must wash much, and in accordance with 
 tradition. 
 
 5. I must speak the truth even to a master, if he 
 believes everything I tell him. 
 
 6. I must play games with all my heart, with all 
 my soul, and with all my strength. 
 
 7. To work outside class hours is indecent. 
 
 8. Enthusiasm, except for games, is in bad taste. 
 
 9. I must look up to the older fellows, and pour 
 contempt on newcomers. 
 
 10. I must show no emotion, and not kiss my 
 mother in public. 
 
 In these training places of English schoolboys 
 there is as little attention given to bothering 
 about one s inner state of consciousness as one 
 can imagine. One teacher told me that he did 
 not want his boys to bother about their souls, 
 but to take care of their bodies and their souls 
 
122 American Ideals 
 
 would take care of themselves. As a conse 
 quence you will rarely see a high degree of moral 
 or mental sensitiveness on the part of these 
 graduates. They do not brood, neither do they 
 take undue trouble about their future state. 
 Neither do they sit up nights to do original 
 thinking relative to their philosophy of life. 
 They simply accept the traditional forms and go 
 steadily along in the paths their fathers trod. 
 Voluntary religion in the schools and colleges is 
 almost unknown. In a visit to a wide circle of 
 varying types of English institutions recently I 
 found virtually no student-initiated classes for 
 Bible study. In American colleges and uni 
 versities there are in striking contrast each year 
 no less than 40,000 students studying the Bible, 
 for the most part in student-organized and stu 
 dent-led classes. 
 
 But in spite of the fact that the methods of 
 training are so strikingly different, the English 
 method fits the English mind, and these schools 
 have furnished a marvellous dynamo for forging 
 and moulding Englishmen. 
 
 As far as mentality is concerned, and idealism 
 in the realm of intellectual imagination, where 
 idealism is particularly regnant, the American 
 holds his own with the Englishman. Prof. 
 
American versus English Ideals 123 
 
 Gilbert Murray of Oxford, after teaching Ameri 
 can college boys at Amherst for a year, in answer 
 to my question regarding the difference he no 
 ticed among the students of American and Eng 
 lish schools, replied: "The American boy is 
 more alert, usually I think more intellectual; he 
 adapts his knowledge much more readily to the 
 contemporary conditions with which he is closely 
 allied. He lacks, however, the background of 
 knowledge, and especially the knowledge of the 
 classics common among the students of England. 
 He also lacks in a certain reserve, which is one 
 of the notable products of the English public 
 schools." 
 
 In a peculiar sense this college and schoolboy 
 life of the two nations reflects the countries of 
 which they are a part. The Englishman, re 
 pressive, matter of fact, slow to action but tena 
 cious to the end, drawing his inspirations from 
 staid and sacred traditions of a great Past, takes 
 his whole life more practically and with a self- 
 confidence that often refuses to admit that 
 idealism has part or lot in his thinking. The 
 American, on the other hand, who draws his 
 sentiment and ideals from the shining glory of 
 the present, is not ashamed either of his dreams 
 or his optimism. He has already seen so many 
 
124 American Ideals 
 
 evidences of his constructive imagination that 
 he is willing to believe the strangest miracles 
 of his mind. By the very expression of his 
 enthusiasm he grows more and more convinced 
 of the possibilities both of his head and of his 
 heart. As the years roll, he will become in 
 creasingly conservative, and the mannerisms of 
 a new world state will be tempered by the gentler 
 arts to which his hand is already becoming 
 accustomed. That he will ever become English 
 either in the spirit or the revelation of his ideals, 
 is not to be expected, for the breath which he 
 draws is filled with a different ozone, for him 
 surely a more ratified and exhilarating air. As 
 the ground beneath his feet stretches away to a 
 continent whose borders only have been touched 
 into life by the magic of his hand, likewise his 
 idealism will grow, and his visions will expand 
 until they are wide enough to match his bound 
 less prairies and deep enough to satisfy his rest 
 less soul. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 AMERICAN VERSUS ORIENTAL 
 IDEALISM 
 
 But often, in the world s most crowded streets, 
 But often, in the din of strife, 
 There rises an unspeakable desire 
 After the knowledge of our buried life; 
 A thirst to spend our fire and restless force 
 In tracking out our true original course; 
 A longing to inquire 
 
 Into the mystery of this heart that beats 
 So wild, so deep, in us; to know 
 Whence our thoughts come, and where whey go. 
 
 MAX MULLER. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 AMERICAN VERSUS ORIENTAL 
 IDEALISM 
 
 THE French expression, "s orienter"- -"to find 
 one s East " is meaningful in these days of quest 
 and change. This going to the East, not simply 
 on a Pacific Mail steamer, but in one s thought 
 journeys, is more really than we at times appre 
 ciate going back home, for it is from the East we 
 came, bringing with us many of the things we 
 value most highly. 
 
 The discovery of the Orient has been the be 
 ginning of a loftier idealism for many of the sons 
 of America and Europe. We have learned in 
 our journeys and in our studies that the East 
 has always been a golden wonderland where the 
 Occidental has loved to wander and to read the 
 realities of the ideal world. Max Miiller is only 
 one of many whose spirits have been aroused to 
 higher flights by the contemplation of the glories 
 associated with the Indus and the Ganges, whose 
 shores are opulent with an erudition and imagi- 
 127 
 
128 American Ideals 
 
 nation comparing favorably in her golden age 
 with the Augustan period in the West. 
 
 All the world is debtor to the Aryan thought 
 power, insight, and speculation which trail back 
 through the social and spiritual history of pris 
 tine centuries. Here in the East we find the 
 home of the Sanscrit literature; it is the birth 
 place of religion; it is the "flower field of the 
 soul." In the East we find the greatest ethno 
 logical museum on the planet, the present-day 
 America to the contrary. It is here and here 
 alone that the Occidental finds treasured some 
 of the most precious prizes of humanity, whether 
 we speak of language, of philosophy and my 
 thology, or of those primitive arts and ideals that 
 have cast their light far along the ways trodden 
 by our modern feet. 
 
 To the East we look for the fatherhood and 
 the motherhood of the most natural of natural 
 religions. Here are the workers in the realm of 
 the most fascinating and transparent romance 
 and love myths, making a jewel casket for 
 humanity more choice and inestimable than the 
 fabled riches of Eastern kings. From the Orient 
 come the thinkers in the region of the highly 
 subtle and serene metaphysics, the framers of 
 some of the most enduring social and moral 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 129 
 
 laws; from thence come the seers, the dreamers, 
 and the men who know how to wait. 
 
 Napoleon once called Egypt the most impor 
 tant land in the world. It was to find the East 
 that Columbus sailed in that vast spiritual ad 
 venture that discovered the Western hemi 
 sphere. Marco Polo and Commodore Perry 
 stirred the Far Eastern pool for the healing of 
 the nations, and the East India Company opened 
 doors through which there have come to us 
 influences that the soul prizes beyond money, 
 riches as incomparable as the undying verse of 
 Sir Edwin Arnold. 
 
 It is in our present marvellous development of > 
 the features of the outward world, of modern 
 science and industry, of free institutions and 
 international relations, that the East comes 
 to us pleading more strongly than ever for the 
 primal emphasis upon the inward and true / 
 world of historical and spiritual ideas, for the ^ 
 awakening of the slumbering life of religion, 
 and the 
 
 "things invisible 
 And cast beyond the moon." 
 
 The East furnishes to present-day America 
 the required analogy and counterpart, if not 
 
130 American Ideals 
 
 the essential ground work upon which mankind 
 in the practical West must build its super 
 structure of durable idealism, and thereby carry 
 its organic life to higher and higher stages. 
 5 The Church of England hit upon the spiritual 
 / truth when it built all its churches facing the 
 i East. It is from the East that the wind of the 
 \ spirit blows. When the needle of the religious 
 compass comes ta rest, it points toward the 
 j East. Here lies the magnetic pole. 
 
 Of all the most pitiable of men is he who has 
 not been willing to learn by sincere respect and 
 careful study the lessons of the great past, 
 lessons that come to us out of the night of 
 time. A nation, especially, standing in the 
 "foremost files of Western time" can only at 
 her peril of soul disregard Asia, with her vast 
 contribution both to the old and to the new of 
 the entire world. To disregard those and that 
 preceding us is usually to disregard or to care 
 little for those or that which are to come. To 
 such an one life is a chain of sand while it ought 
 to be an electric chain, making our hearts 
 tremble and vibrate to the most ancient thought 
 of the past, as well as with the most distant 
 hopes of the future. 
 
 We are quite generally convinced here in 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 131 
 
 America, as Europe has been for generations, 
 of the lofty intellectual education and spiritual 
 elevation derived from Greek thought. Upon it 
 has been based the main education of English 
 youth since the thirteenth century, and its 
 classic and cultural value, even in these hard 
 utilitarian days in America, is never quite lost 
 to view in our schools and literature. Yet we 
 care less about the fact that the springs of the 
 earliest Greek Hebrew and Phoenician writings 
 rose in the wisdom of the ancients, and, in a 
 very literal sense, flowed westward through the 
 "Wise Men of the East."<^Was it not at the 
 Zoroastrian altar that the Ionian sages lighted 
 their torches of philosophy?-* Was it not the 
 conquest of Asia Minor by the Persians that 
 introduced Thales and Anaximenes and Her- 
 aclitus to the Uranian myths and dogmas which 
 were destined to color potently the entire mass 
 of Grecian thought ? And was not the vaunted 
 science of Moorish fame but the tapping of 
 Oriental culture for the modern world? 
 
 Ill for our learning and ill for our good sense 
 of values if we travel in the Orient and read 
 Eastern literature simply to behold a phantas 
 magoria of tourists and donkey trips along 
 the Nile, revolting superstitions on the Ganges, 
 
132 American Ideals 
 
 or even a wonderland of sentimental golden 
 color, outlandish customs and legends, of the 
 meanings of which we are often as ignorant as 
 of the real nature of the primeval people whose 
 present external and half westernized civiliza 
 tion appears only to delude and lead us astray. 
 
 It is only as we begin to sympathize and to 
 study with our imagination and idealism at 
 work, quite as much as our Baedekers and pro 
 vincialism, that we appreciate that much of the 
 difference between our thought and institutions 
 and those of the East consists in name and not/ 
 in substance of belief, and that the land on 
 thought and beauty is linked to our land ofy 
 action and progress by indivisible ties that 
 have no latitude or longitude. We then dis 
 cover that what we have given to the Oriental 
 in machinery and modem innovations has 
 already been repaid us a hundredfold in the 
 coinage of mental, mystical, and spiritual ideas. 
 
 We have dwelt far too long and too expati- 
 atingly upon the darker and more sensual side 
 of the East in our travel books and reports. 
 We have need to remember that the true spirit 
 of the Orient is seldom if ever revealed through 
 statistical and formal reports of agents polit 
 ical, ecclesiastical, or educational, whose find- 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 133 
 
 ings are written all too frequently with the 
 object of influencing a "constituency," or for 
 securing gifts to particular propaganda. We 
 plead for a point of view, and that for our own 
 sake, which will regard the Oriental otherwise 
 than as a heathen smoking cheroots and kiss 
 ing the feet of wooden idols; we plead for a 
 regard and a study of the sages and prophets, 
 especially those of East India, who were men of 
 deep intellectual insight and marvellous vision 
 of the unseen but not unreal world, far in ad 
 vance of many of the mystic saints of the mid 
 dle European ages. These men were taught 
 through generations "to look inward upon them 
 selves, upward to something not themselves, and 
 to see whether they could not understand a little 
 of the true import of that mystery which we 
 call life upon earth. " 
 
 First, then, in order to learn the message of 
 Eastern idealism to America there is required a 
 sympathetic imagination, a fraternal attitude, 
 a receptive, broad, and as far as possible an 
 unprejudiced religious point of view. Some 
 one has said that clouds are dark to those who 
 are beneath them; but that on the upper side, 
 where the sun shines, they glow with golden 
 splendor. 
 
134 American Ideals 
 
 We need first of all to localize the Orient. 
 It is not one as the West is one, either in geog 
 raphy or in civilization of the outer and inner 
 man. In this comparison for this particular 
 purpose we would do well to eliminate the 
 Mohammedan sections of North Africa, where 
 advanced thought has largely stagnated, as 
 well as certain parts of the modernized China 
 and Japan, where a different set of impressions 
 as well as a different set of characteristics of 
 mankind appear from those which are found in 
 East India, the very heart of Asia, the Mecca 
 and the mother of idealism. 
 
 It is in the contrast of these ideals, especially 
 the ideals of the spirit and the religion of India 
 and America, that the sharpest antitheses are 
 induced and the most suggestive thought is 
 aroused. 
 
 Indian ideals furnish instantly a decided con 
 trast to those current in the United States in 
 their social import. As perhaps no country in 
 the world has the ideal of democracy so deeply 
 ingrained as America, there is no land intrin 
 sically more undemocratic than India in its 
 traditional ideals, and no hierarchy of religion 
 more absolute and rigid than the Brahmin caste. 
 While missionary endeavor has done much to 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 135 
 
 prepare the way, the modern and economic and 
 educational advance from the West has been 
 perhaps even a more rapid force in recent years 
 to lessen the social chasm existing between East 
 ern and Western standards of society. Far 
 more than in any European monarchy is it true 
 in India that a man born in a certain grade or 
 partition of society is inevitably imprisoned 
 there regardless of his acts or any possible de- \ 
 velopment. It is one of the first things that 
 the American notices in India, and he cannot 
 understand it, so utterly incompatible is it to his 
 Western ideas of social association. 
 
 In India in the past, moreover, as in America 
 in the present, idealism has found its foundation 
 in the inherent and eternal forces of nature. 
 The Hindu has gone beyond the face of nature 
 to inquire into its universal and spiritual laws 
 and the genesis of its universal mind; while the 
 American has been busying himself in the sub 
 duing and directing of nature s material and * 
 more easily observed phenomena. The West 
 ern country has concerned herself with the 
 external subjugation of the universe, with the*, 
 "how" of natural law rather than with the 
 "why" of the internal working of this universe. 
 It has been accurately pointed out that the 
 
136 American Ideals 
 
 religion of India resembles more closely Western 
 science in its methods of procedure, and in that 
 very particular is more unlike Western faith, 
 which until recently has looked askance at the 
 scientist as a contributor to revealed religion. 
 Where American belief says Man, Indian faith 
 says the Universal, or the Absolute, into which 
 man melts for his emancipation. Where the 
 Westerner says Humanity, the Easterner says 
 Vision, and the ultimate aim of its most thought 
 ful leaders, as saints and ascetics, have been 
 with consistent energy to endeavor to see God 
 face to face. 
 
 The methods also by which the East and 
 West have worked toward their idealism are 
 alike dissimilar. (The East lays small stress on 
 matter. Essentially and eventually it is to him 
 passing and illusory. Buddhism asserts that 
 the chief hindrance in the path of progress to 
 ideals is the obstructing barrier of Desire; the 
 Hindu holds before his eyes the subduing of 
 it, not by chaining it, as would the American, 
 but through the influence of meditation and 
 the continued discipline of reflection and retire 
 ment from the world, to gain over it a spiritual 
 ascendancy. 
 
 The only lasting peace of the spirit, says the 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 137 
 
 Hindu, resides in a gradual but certain drawing 
 apart from all the troublous scenes and ephem 
 eral temporalities of the garish day, until the 
 spirit shall be actually unfettered and the eye 
 clarified to behold perfect knowledge and un 
 sullied purity. While the Bible, in the con 
 ception of the American, leads by service to his 
 ideals, the Vedanta conducts the Indian soul by 
 knowledge, by love, or by emancipated motive, 
 as the case may be. The aim of one is brother 
 hood, the aim of the other is the personal knowl 
 edge of the Universe of God. Each needs the 
 other for completeness. Each is but the half 
 truth of complete and perfected idealism. The 
 New Testament may gain from the Vedas, while 
 without the idealism practical and philanthropic 
 of the Gospel of Jesus, Indian metaphysics is a 
 chartless ship upon a vague and mystic sea. 
 
 The absence of dependence upon scientific or 
 historical phenomena furnishes a striking char 
 acteristic difference to Western ideas and prog 
 ress. The Indian bases all or chiefly all of his 
 advance upon the unassisted personal thought 
 and experience, unfettered by the impedimenta 
 of past, present, or future materiality. He 
 must escape from the world with its time and 
 sense limitations, and the pathway of his de- 
 
138 American Ideals 
 
 liverance is by the road of thought. The 
 American contrastingly is working at the domi 
 nation of nature, the force which his Indian 
 brother is deeply engaged in meditating ways to 
 elude. 
 
 { The Easterner is primarily interested in ideas, 
 :he American in action; the Easterner s forte is 
 sentiment and imagination, the American s 
 eason and science. In the East life is the ideal, 
 while in the West the ideal is more often the 
 living. J The Bengali Hindu is said to be the 
 most unpractical creature on earth; "a dreamer 
 and a great failure" is the description by Sarojini 
 Naidu, the Indian poetess, of her father, who 
 typifies the men of his class; the American 
 business man is known the world over for his 
 practicality and directness, his shrewdness in 
 the bargaining of things material, and he is 
 less frequently a failure, at least from the stand 
 point of the accumulation of wealth. 
 
 The American depends upon the world of time 
 and practical material foundations. These are 
 the chief stimuli for the awakening and the 
 enlistment of his ideal powers. The Oriental be 
 lieves that in the calm and discipline of medita 
 tion, self-analysis, and synthesis, Truth, the all 
 important thing to be striven for in life, can be 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 139 
 
 attained. To the American the most revered 
 term in India, "Saint," is comparatively mean 
 ingless, while the Western idol of industrialism 
 leaves the traditional Hindu mind quite un 
 stirred. 
 
 The great deeps of India s millions are still 
 Indian, intensely so in their idealism, true to 
 the national ideas and ideals of their forefathers. 
 That which Puritanism gave in morals and faith 
 in America, the Dharma, the National Right 
 eousness of the old Hindu ascetics, accomplished 
 for India. It has given her a bent toward 
 national consciousness well-nigh unintelligible, 
 without study, to Europe or to the United States. 
 
 To be sure these terms and this spirit are being 
 modified on the surface just now by the invading 
 economic West, which is pressing its way into all 
 the departments of the Eastern world. The 
 outward progress of this modification would 
 lead the superficial observer to believe that the 
 East was becoming West with a bound. I 
 found the Gaekwar of Baroda establishing a 
 system of compulsory education and installing 
 cinematographs throughout Baroda State. I 
 found Brahmins of Bombay organizing an ag 
 ricultural college to which they were planning 
 to send their own sons: almost an unheard-of 
 
140 American Ideals 
 
 thing in Indian history, to see the thinking class 
 harboring for a moment the idea of soiling their 
 hands with the labor that has always belonged 
 to the lower orders of society. The students 
 also in the five great government universities 
 were found exhibiting almost a mania for learn 
 ing to read and speak English, simply because 
 English is the quickest road to success in 
 government, official, and even in industrial 
 preferment. One of the most prominent heads 
 of a great business enterprise in Calcutta is a 
 Hindu of high caste, but he is wise enough to 
 commit the offices of chief trust and responsi 
 bility in his firm to foreigners, recognizing the 
 limitation of his countrymen, through years of 
 training along philosophical and spiritual lines, 
 to cope with the keen competitive minds and 
 equipment of the Englishman. 
 
 Nor is this tendency of the Indian to keep 
 away from practical affairs a dead letter, even 
 in the midst of these secularizing tendencies. 
 In the same city in which the things are occurring 
 of which we have been writing I found dozens 
 of the Hindus, who were the best trained intel 
 lectually of the natives whom I met, deliberately 
 planning to give up participation in the active 
 life of affairs in order to go off into an isolated 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 141 
 
 place to become Sanyassis, and to devote the 
 entire remainder of their life, in accordance 
 with Indian custom, to meditation and the dis 
 covery of those principles which they believe to 
 be most potent in solving for them the riddle of 
 the spiritual universe. 
 
 One can hardly conceive of more antipodal 
 contrasts in ideals than those existing for the 
 normal life work in India and in America re 
 spectively. To the Indians for generations life 
 is a matter to be divided into four divisions: 
 first, the life as a child and a student; second, 
 as a householder and the father of a family; 
 third, a partial recluse, leaving the business 
 world, but not necessarily his family ties; and 
 fourth, the ascetic or Sanyassi period when he 
 leaves everything, business, family, all, and re 
 tires to the jungle or the desert with his staff and 
 begging bowl to follow in the footsteps of his 
 most revered national heroes. 
 
 The American, in sharp contrast, regards his 
 early education simply as a preparation for his 
 business or his professional career, and at the 
 full meridian of his manhood, when the Indian 
 is thinking about leaving the strife of the world, 
 his Western antithesis is enlarging his activities, 
 and beginning to see the fruit of his experience 
 
142 American Ideals 
 
 and his toil. Later on, should the American 
 leave his much loved activity, which he is in 
 creasingly loath to do, it certainly* is not for 
 purposes of asceticism, but notably for an oppo 
 site reason, in order that he may enjoy the com 
 forts and emoluments of his successful years. 
 
 The loss to India by this retirement through 
 out the centuries, especially in the economic, 
 commercial, and industrial worlds, of the best 
 brains of the empire, has been untold. That 
 the Indian is this intellectual, and highly gifted, 
 and as one has described him, "a radiant 
 Asiatic personage," with powers of philosophical 
 and mystical thought far in advance of the 
 Westerner, can be easily verified by any one who 
 takes the pains to become acquainted with the 
 upper classes of these remarkable men and 
 women. They constantly impress one with the 
 thought of what would have been possible in 
 India if these talented people had given their 
 attention to industrial enterprises as in America, 
 or to militarism as in Germany. As it is, they 
 afford to our Western eyes, intent upon activity 
 and many-sided business, the example of charac 
 ter and ideals that alone can eventuate from 
 reflection upon the world and man s relation to 
 it, gathering its power and conviction, not from 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 143 
 
 test tubes and workshops, machinery and mer 
 chandise, but from meditation and personal 
 experience in first-hand contact with considera 
 tions of the perfect and the true. The question 
 in India is: "What is true for me?" not "What 
 have others found out, or what have scientists 
 observed?" The Hindu s religion and ideals are 
 peculiarly individual, and can never be made 
 second hand or received whole from his an 
 cestors. 
 
 America, the land of widespread missionary 
 idealism, the country from which millions of 
 dollars go yearly to support American workers 
 in Asia, is not always conscious of the striking 
 contrasts in aims and motives that actuate life 
 in the Eastern and the Western world. It has 
 been doubtless because of these abysmal differ 
 ences in ideals that the success of Western mis 
 sionaries in reaching especially the intellectual 
 element in Eastern civilization has been so 
 surprisingly slow. In India, especially, while 
 hundreds of thousands of the lower classes have 
 been won t> Christianity (and not always for 
 reasons otherwise than economic and the gaining 
 of a higher social standing), the failure of West 
 ern religious idealism among the gifted and 
 leading classes has been as marked almost as 
 
144 American Ideals 
 
 the despairful efforts to win over the Moslem 
 to the Christian faith. While recent moderniza 
 tion has loosened the faith of the Oriental in 
 certain of his traditional philosophical and relig 
 ious tenets, his wide knowledge and conception 
 of what he considers to be the failure of Chris 
 tianity in Western nations has not induced him 
 to exchange his own faith for that of the for 
 eigner. 
 
 The bringing of thoughtful, sensible, and more 
 truly unprejudiced missionaries of the tolerant 
 sort into touch with the Oriental in recent years 
 has tended to bring about, it must be noted, 
 both in India and in all Eastern nations, a de 
 cided change in the methods of working, and 
 also a more thorough realization on the part of 
 Americans that the Easterner has grasped his 
 set of religious truths with a devoted intelligence 
 as surprising as it is impregnable to the Western 
 propagandist. 
 
 Those who have read the autobiography of 
 Dr. John E. Clough, whose successes were as 
 great as his tolerance, will get a glimpse into 
 this growing mental sympathy of our best mis 
 sionary ideals as they have come into contact 
 with Eastern thought. Going out to India as 
 a Baptist missionary to the Telegus from one of 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 145 
 
 the new Western colleges, a true American, 
 devoted to his particular and not over-liberal 
 brand of faith, he carried with him the American 
 adaptable energy and the self-confidence, not un 
 touched by American provincialism. He tells 
 how his forty years among the low-caste Matigas 
 and Telegu communities virtually revolution 
 ized his ideas and made over his faith in almost 
 all his original doctrines, save those naked 
 fundamentals relating to the uniqueness of the 
 Christian gospel of brotherly love. 
 
 "It distressed many thoughtful men and women 
 in Christian lands at that time," he writes, "to think 
 that unless the heathen heard the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ and accepted it, they would be eternally lost. 
 This was my opinion when I went to India. It 
 formed my missionary motive. I looked upon the 
 Hindus as simply heathen; I wanted to see them 
 converted. As the years passed I grew tolerant, and 
 often told the caste people that if they could not or 
 would not receive Jesus Christ as their Saviour, to 
 serve their own gods faithfully. During my visits 
 to America I sometimes told American audiences 
 that the Hindus were in some respects better than 
 they." 
 
 With such growing tolerant respect for East 
 erners, Dr. Clough s work experienced a striking 
 
146 American Ideals 
 
 success, and when he left India for the last 
 time, in 1903, the Telegu mission over which he 
 presided had one hundred missionaries, 50,000 
 members, and 200,000 adherents. 
 
 Dr. dough s American power of adjustment, 
 associated with an ever-growing, broader, and 
 deeper love for humanity in the large, which the 
 New Testament teaches all in vain for many 
 propagandists, taught him sympathetic im 
 agination; he caught the true nature of the 
 Indian situation. He learned that by unity 
 and not antipathy a man learns the heart of 
 another race of men; he lost his theology and the 
 usual "heathen" illusions current at home; he 
 became "all things to all men/ and exemplified 
 in an illuminating instance the effective type of 
 missionary idealism of America. 
 
 It reveals its trend of progress slowly but 
 certainly toward the discovery that when the 
 spirit of man truly aspires Godward, be it under 
 the cold gray skies of the West or beneath the 
 warmer glory of the Southern Cross, there is or 
 should be no East, no West, no dividing sym 
 bolism, no obstructing superior or inferior creed 
 only a vast world soul with restless and insa 
 tiable aspirations reaching up to its Creator and 
 filled with infinite longing for its Eternal Home. 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 147 
 
 What Eastern ideals then coincide with 
 American, and in what particular way can we 
 "find our East?" It goes without saying 
 that the first essential is a large ability of re- 
 ceptiveness. We must be ready to see our 
 limitations and be willing, as the Japanese have 
 been, to borrow the best things from other 
 nations. Emerson once said that great genial 
 power comes, not by being original at all, but 
 rather in being altogether receptive. 
 
 It is in the realm of ideas, rather than things, 
 that we have always been borrowers from the 
 Orient, and ideas are stronger than armies. 
 Even baseless ideas like those on which much of 
 Buddhism rests, with its ceaseless revolving 
 gyrations of reincarnated worlds, moving like 
 dancing dervishes, even these ideas have had 
 already an enormous effect upon Europe and 
 are not absent from our present-day thought. 
 
 The reflex action of Indian ideas is seen in our 
 acceptance of Oriental art and Asiatic decora 
 tion, while Eastern coloring is now a common 
 place in our country. The attempt of certain 
 religious sects to prove and to exhibit concretely 
 the fact that, through the domination of self 
 by the grasp upon spiritual principles and truth, 
 there can be brought about the rulership of the 
 
148 American Ideals 
 
 body, sin, and disease, seems to be one of the 
 growing and successful ideas in America. The 
 insistence upon the illusiveness of matter by 
 many religious people is peculiarly suggestive 
 of " Maya," or the "all is illusion" idea of the old 
 Vedanta. 
 
 Furthermore, if we are to take the interpreta 
 tion of Walt Whitman at the hands of Mr. J. A. 
 Symonds, we are led to the conclusion that this 
 presence of the all-pervading Universal Spirit 
 emphasized in the East is the very core of the 
 Whitman philosophy. 
 
 These Eastern ideas find also sympathetic 
 reception in the Western world in the realm of 
 our daily life and standards of living. This 
 is not seen so much in their abstract meta 
 physics, for we in America are too much inter 
 ested and impressed by our material successes 
 to be deeply moved by the thought of depend 
 ence upon the universal laws or the spirit 
 behind the Universe. We are rather receptive 
 to the Asiatic quietness and freedom from social 
 restraint, the need of which is already troubling 
 us as a nation. There are repeated indications 
 revealing the fact that Americans are concerned 
 over the loss of thought periods, and the proper 
 adjustment of their leisure time to things that 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 149 
 
 are worth while and capable of bringing deep 
 est satisfactions. 
 
 In our large cities especially, the constant 
 being "on the wheel" of duties and engagements, 
 and the never-ending social obligations, are 
 getting on the nerves of even the restless, action- 
 loving people. They are looking about more 
 eagerly than ever before for a mode of life and 
 ideals of conduct that will liberate them from 
 the slavery of a thousand things they must do 
 and which often they care little about, things 
 with which, in fact, they would not fill their 
 lives were it not conventionally correct and 
 necessitous to contemporary civilization in the 
 United States. 
 
 The art of being quiet, the habit of contem 
 plation, the will power necessary to fence off 
 one s life for a time to be alone, these are almost 
 lost arts and vanishing ideals in the midst of 
 the present-day exacting city life. It is partly 
 because of the adherence to these endless 
 "duties" of business and social existence that 
 the Oriental of high breeding and culture finds 
 our civilization irksome and in contrast prefers 
 his own. Outside of the requirements of relig 
 ion, and the necessary obedience to the govern 
 ing authorities, the Oriental feels less restraint 
 
150 American Ideals 
 
 than does the Occidental, and some of our 
 customs would be unsupportable to him, leaving 
 him little time for his favorite occupation of 
 meditation and discussion, requiring intellectual 
 and religious thought. 
 
 An English writer has quoted from a Turkish 
 gentleman whose dilemma in changing his life 
 from the Near East to Paris reveals somewhat 
 humorously the Oriental s point of view in 
 these matters. It is also a thought-provoking 
 paragraph for our restless, rushing days: 
 
 What I complain of is the mode of life. I am 
 impressed, not by the official duties, they are easy, 
 Turkey has few affairs but by the social ones. I 
 have had to write fifteen notes this morning all 
 about trifles. In Turkey life is sans gene; if a man 
 calls on you he does not leave a card; if he sends you 
 a nosegay, he does not expect a letter of thanks; if he 
 invites you, he does not require an answer. There 
 are no engagements to be remembered and fulfilled 
 a fortnight afterward. When you wish to see a 
 friend, you know that he dines at sunset; you get 
 into your caique, and row down to him, through the 
 finest scenery in the world. You find him in his 
 garden, smoke his chibouque, talk or remain silent 
 as you like, dine, and return. If you wish to see a 
 Minister, you go to his office; you are not interfered 
 with or even announced; you lift the curtain of his 
 audience room, sit by him on his divan, smoke your 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 151 
 
 pipe, tell your story, get his answer, and have finished 
 your business in the time it would take here to make 
 an appointment in half the time that you waste 
 here in an ante-chamber. 
 
 There is no dressing for dinners nor for evening 
 parties; evening parties, indeed, do not exist. There 
 are no letters to receive or to answer. There is no 
 post hour to be remembered and waited for. Life 
 glides away without trouble. 
 
 Here everything is troublesome. All enjoyment 
 is destroyed by the forms and ceremonies, which are 
 intended, I suppose, to increase it or to protect it. 
 My Liberal friends here complain of the want of 
 political liberty. What I complain of is the want of 
 social liberty; it is far more important. Few people 
 suffer from a despotism of the government, and those 
 suffer only occasionally. But this social despotism, 
 this despotism of salons, this code of arbitrary little 
 reglements, observances, prohibitions, and exigencies, 
 affects everybody and every day and every hour. 
 
 We believe it will be possible to find Americans 
 who would not only smile but also supplicate 
 for a taste of Oriental customs that would leave 
 them free from social and oftentimes distressing 
 and time-consuming obligations. The deliver 
 ance from the oppression of being driven al 
 ways by details would bring to the American not 
 passivity or the afternoon temper of the East 
 (who could imagine an American yogi?), but it 
 
152 American Ideals 
 
 would bring about that precious jewel far too 
 uncommon in America peace of mood. It 
 would deliver many a man from worry by giving 
 him a new perspective and the steadier grasp 
 upon his preemptory task. With the inculca 
 tion of such ideals and customs, all too strange 
 in the United States, there would come a sense 
 of triumph over our work and the ensnaring 
 affiliations that war against the gaining of new 
 forces of will and the attaining to a higher su 
 premacy of spirit of which Americans are truly 
 capable. It would also add to that "inward 
 rest" of which Charles Kingsley has spoken: > 
 
 I know that what we all want is inward rest, rest 
 of heart and brain. The calm, strong, self-contained, 
 self-denying character which needs no stimulus, for 
 it has no fits of depression; which needs no narcotics, 
 for it has no fits of excitement; it needs no ascetic 
 restraint, for it is strong enough to use God s gift 
 without abusing it. A character, in a word, which 
 is truly temperate, not in drink and food merely, but 
 in all desires, thoughts, and actions. 
 
 After all, are not ideals of any sort dependent 
 largely upon having time "to think into it," as 
 Sir Isaac Newton once explained the secret of his 
 discoveries. The example of President Wilson, 
 cutting himself free from a round of distracting 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 153 
 
 official and social functions, refusing to see office 
 seekers, slipping away alone from the White 
 House, leaving diplomats and politicians, to 
 gether with endless consultations, behind him 
 in order to secure solitude in which to think 
 through high matters of state this example of 
 our chief magistrate has made a deep and whole 
 some impression upon the country: it has raised 
 national respect for the ideals of restraint and 
 thought power, the gifts in which the Oriental 
 excels. 
 
 There is still one other bond of helpful union 
 existing between Oriental and Occidental ideal 
 ism; it exists in the realm of the imagination and 
 in that bond of mystic feeling which belong alike 
 to both of these antipodal worlds. Idealism, it 
 may be remarked, has small respect for latitudes 
 or points of the compass. While the American 
 would not be denned primarily as a romanticist, 
 neither would he be accused usually of mysticism, 
 yet in both of these elements his nature is rich 
 and inevitably seeking for expression. He lives 
 in a terrestrial and practical world, but poetry 
 and sentiment lurk within him, and only await 
 the awakening touch of strong incident or soul- 
 arousing circumstance. Far more readily than 
 the matter-of-fact Englishman would the Amer- 
 
154 American Ideals 
 
 lean understand and sympathize with the East 
 Indian. 
 
 "We worship the Ganges with the water of 
 the Ganges," says the Hindu, "but we must 
 worship." 
 
 It seems at first glance a far cry from the 
 man who worships the Ganges to the hard- 
 headed business American. With all his urgent 
 aggressiveness, however, and his practicality, so 
 unlike the Easterner, there is an inevitable vein 
 of worship in America, not in terms of the gold 
 standard, but in the language of those elements 
 that have to do with a higher pantheism. It is 
 not difficult to find Americans with a tendency 
 to dream dreams, to feel deeply the passion for 
 beauty in all her myriad forms, and in those 
 highest expressions of mystic and romantic 
 charm which his money is inadequate to pur 
 chase for him. George William Curtis, who 
 dreamed of his castles in Spain in a narrow New 
 York tenement house, is not a solitary type. 
 
 This idealism of feeling, sentiment, and at 
 times of mysticism is revealed in a hundred ways 
 in America. It takes on well-nigh every form, 
 from the characteristics of the man of my ac 
 quaintance who spends his vacations and every 
 Saturday in the woods, planting seeds whose 
 
American versus Oriental Idealism 155 
 
 flowering other eyes than his own will see, to the 
 baker whom we know, who plays the harp be 
 cause the artistic side of his nature must have 
 an outlet. 
 
 To be sure, the average American is a bit 
 chary of talking much about these elements of 
 his nature in a land where everything is so 
 strictly business. But if you get him alone on 
 some long vague walk at night by the sea be 
 neath the stars, you will find the great deeps of 
 his life s loyalties breaking up, and there below 
 all his furious and often premeditated attempts 
 at concealment you will discover the real man 
 of dreams and visions. Here he displays all the 
 subtle charm of youth that is lost in the sense 
 of its own significance. Here he moves about 
 in a mysterious paradise, natural to him, for it 
 is all his own. Here he reveals the man of emo 
 tion, and undefined longings, and a deep sense of 
 the romantic possibilities of life. 
 
 There is probably no person extant whose vein 
 of mysticism and worship of the things of the 
 spirit lies deeper, or whose interest in things of 
 soulful import can be more easily aroused than 
 is the case with the East Indian; it is our belief 
 that the American in his inherent nature comes 
 next in possession of these subtle characteristics 
 
156 American Ideals 
 
 of emotion and poetic feeling, which need only 
 time and surcease from his exacting round of pro 
 saic practicalities to be brought to the surface. 
 Many an American aspiration, freed from its 
 restricting bonds, would take up the strain of the 
 Chinese poet as indicative of its most genuine 
 idealism: 
 
 The Lady Moon is my lover, 
 My friends are the oceans four, 
 The Heavens have roofed me over, 
 And the dawn is my golden door. 
 I would liefer follow the condor 
 Or the seagull soaring from ken, 
 Than bury my Godhead yonder 
 In the dust of the whirl of men. 
 
 The American one day in the fullness of time 
 will "find his East," and when that hour arrives 
 there will be a betrothal before the eyes of the 
 world between Orient and Occident such as 
 never before was known. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 EDUCATION THE AMERICAN PASSION 
 
 The theory of education we are attempting to set 
 forth is one that assumes that the activities of life 
 should be evaluated according to a spiritual standard 
 which finds the highest good of man in the perfection 
 of his spiritual nature in nobility of heart and mind, 
 in reverence and awe, in contemplation of the accept 
 ance of duty in strenuous endeavor, in earnest long 
 ing for truth, in appreciation of beauty, in an esti 
 mate of the things of life consistent with the view 
 that what a man is far outweighs what he has, 
 whether of material or intellectual possessions. 
 
 J. WELTON, D. LITT. 
 University of Leeds. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 EDUCATION THE AMERICAN PASSION 
 
 DR. CHARLES W. ELIOT, the emeritus American 
 educator and father of schoolmasters, has set 
 before his countrymen this ideal of the educated 
 man: 
 
 A man of quick perception, broad sympathies, and 
 wide affinities, responsive but independent; self- 
 reliant but deferential, loving truth and candor, but 
 also moderation and proportion; courageous but 
 gentle; not finished, but perfecting. 
 
 Something of an order to be sure, and also a 
 reminder of the cultural American of Emerson s 
 period rather than of these modern days of 
 scientific educational absorption; but that this 
 or something akin to it has ceased to be the 
 inherent ideal of the nation, consciously or un 
 consciously held, not even those who are most 
 intimately familiar with the manifold and com 
 plex attempts to adjust the new processes of 
 natural science to the ever-changing conditions 
 of daily living, will be swift to deny. 
 
160 American Ideals 
 
 The educational ideal in America, like many 
 another one, is an inheritance, a strain of blood, 
 and it has woven itself inextricably into the 
 pattern and the product of the Republic. It 
 has become more and more a passion with us, 
 this idea of the right and riches of training; it is 
 a thing we as a nation care for more than we 
 care for money or for power if the sign of such 
 allegiance can be measured by the sacrificial 
 wealth and energy we pour out for its possession. 
 
 That the "school must save the state" as well 
 as the individual is no empty sentiment in this 
 land. It is history. It is the most profound 
 conviction of experience. It is the chief con 
 cern of American democracy. The schoolhouse 
 that our Pilgrim forefathers placed so promptly 
 beside the church when this new world of the 
 West was born has been repaired; it has been 
 enlarged; but it has never been torn down. Our 
 fathers and our mothers taught in it a mere 
 handful of country school children when their 
 own torch of learning was a tallow dip by night 
 and a few battered textbooks; and to-day 
 700,000 teachers in the United States follow in 
 their train, and with every equipment known to 
 modernity these are opening the book of knowl 
 edge to 28,000,000 American youth. 
 
Education the American Passion 161 
 
 For this educational ideal the people of the 
 United States spend yearly $700,000,000 two 
 thirds of this amount upon schools and colleges 
 supported by public funds more wealth than 
 the total for army, navy, pensions, and interest 
 on the public debt taken together. The people of 
 the country have replaced the small New England 
 schoolhouses with school property for which 
 they have expended $1,200,000,000. The public 
 schools with their 20,000,000 of young people 
 have been called "the vital knot * of the social or 
 ganism, and school problems have become almost 
 synonymous with national problems. Truly if 
 America is another word for opportunity, educa 
 tion is the key that the people use with which to 
 translate the term into avenues of utilization. 
 
 American education draws many of its ideals 
 as well as its vital impulse from its Pilgrim an 
 cestry, and the early settlers of the land decided 
 at the start much of the destiny and the educa 
 tional passion of the nation. They helped to 
 make education in America a firm and almost 
 intuitive conviction that no child or person who 
 wants it, or has for it a desire and capacity, 
 should be denied the chance of schooling. 
 
 "If a boy in any country village," writes James 
 Russell Lowell, "showed uncommon parts, the clergy- 
 
162 American Ideals 
 
 man was sure to hear of it. He and the squire and 
 the doctor, if there was one, talked it over, and the 
 boy was sure to be helped onward to college; for next 
 to the five points of Calvinism our ancestors believed 
 in a college education; that is, in the best education 
 that was to be secured. The system, if system it 
 could be called, was a good one, a practical applica 
 tion of the Doctrine of Natural Selection. Ah! 
 how the parents nay, the whole family moiled 
 and pinched that their boy might have the chance 
 denied to them!" 
 
 The ideal of education, a corner stone of the 
 New England commonwealths, has thus stood 
 historically in the United States for intellectual 
 independence as truly as the Constitution has 
 signified our political freedom. Americans have 
 always believed in the democracy of the mental 
 powers. In these early educational efforts in 
 Massachusetts and Virginia, our forefathers 
 lifted the states out of mere geographical pio 
 neering into the realm of the ideal, the intellec 
 tual, and the abiding. These first educators, with 
 their penchant for individualism, which has 
 grown with the nation s growth, and has made 
 the United States probably the most truly dis 
 tinctive nation on earth as regards the attention 
 given to individual training, started a school sys 
 tem if it could be thus dignified that never 
 
Education the American Passion 163 
 
 could have eventuated in a fast national caste. 
 In the words of Emerson, these early educational 
 pioneers believed in the " infinitude of the pri 
 vate man." Individualism was the axis upon 
 which American education began to turn and 
 it is distinctively prominent in the latest type 
 of institution. In his first address to the mem 
 bers of the new pioneer class of Stanford, the 
 founder said: "You are the most important 
 factor in this university. It is for your benefit 
 that Stanford has been established." We would 
 no more expect to see in America a prescribed or 
 set nation-wide policy for training the youth than 
 we would look to find here a State church. The 
 United States Bureau of Education at Washing 
 ton, where the Commissioner of Education, a 
 non-political officer of the Government, collects 
 and analyzes educational data and statistics, is 
 only the advisory agent of the nation engaged 
 in the large task of gathering and attempting 
 to standardize and bring unity from a vast 
 output of modern methods, textbooks, and sub 
 jects found in the various types of school admin 
 istration of the states. His work is not by 
 authority, but by influence, and he advises 
 when asked. In America you cannot say, as it 
 is said in Germany, that if you can find out 
 
164 American Ideals 
 
 what subject the pupils are studying in any 
 given school, you may know what every student 
 of the Empire is studying at that particular 
 hour. The American has been as truly a non 
 conformist in his educational ideals as in his 
 religion, and every state is jealous of its rights in 
 this regard. 
 
 The educational leaders have stood for an 
 equality of opportunity everywhere, in the great 
 state universities with their free tuition to all 
 the youth of the state as well as in the little 
 free school of the country, where every boy and 
 girl of whatever station or nationality learns the 
 three R s in a single bare room filled with wooden 
 benches. The American has suffered no heredi 
 tary or contemporary executive authority over 
 his instructional life, and his nation-wide faith 
 in the power of education is one of his distinctive 
 traits. His school has always borne the words 
 "free"; it has always been the school for the 
 individual. 
 
 It was in such a spirit that our first public 
 schools were planted on Dutch, English, and 
 Swiss models in 1621; it was with such freedom 
 that Harvard College, springing from Emmanuel 
 College at Cambridge, England, came into being 
 in 1636. The sign of the persistency of that 
 
Education the American Passion 165 
 
 liberty-loving ideal, rooted so early in the soil 
 of New England, comes out to-day in many a 
 university conflict for freedom of teaching, as 
 though it were but yesterday that it was enun 
 ciated by our Pilgrim sires. 
 
 America owes a debt to her ancestor school 
 teachers because of the fact that she stands to 
 day offering the promise and right to every child 
 in the land to become educated, not as a nation 
 wills, but as his own inclination and aptitude 
 determine. 
 
 The ideal of education in the United States 
 has thus evolved a pronounced practicality, and 
 its slogan, even from the beginning, has been 
 "fitting for life work." Its aim is to learn to 
 apply, to do as well as to know. The modern 
 sweep of this ideal has carried virtually all 
 before it. It has made America the marked 
 country of utilitarian education. 
 
 When a member of a British Commission 
 came here some years ago to study our educa 
 tion, he made special mention in his report of 
 the University of Wisconsin, because, he said, "it 
 knits together the professions and labors; it 
 makes the fine arts and the anvil one." 
 
 There are institutions in the United States, 
 small colleges in NewEngland as also in the Mid- 
 
166 American Ideals 
 
 die West, high schools and private academies, 
 moreover, whose liberally educated instructors 
 are like the present Master of Winchester in 
 England, who said recently that he was "holding 
 on to the classics for dear life." There are to be 
 found here and there both teachers and whole 
 schools refusing to fall into line with the utility 
 ideal of training which is running strong through 
 out the country. Nevertheless, even a casual 
 foreign observer realizes that the education as a 
 whole lies in the realm of the contemporary 
 affairs of the nation, in making "fine arts and 
 the anvil one." 
 
 Thus the America of the present has added to 
 the curriculum of the English forefathers, who 
 took the torch of learning passing down from 
 Milton, the English Puritans, and the line of 
 "lantern bearers," from Shakespeare, Beaumont, 
 and Fletcher and "rare Ben Jonson." This 
 Western land has supplied the growing wealth of 
 the vast near-to-life scientific world. The man 
 of high ideals in education to-day, must be an 
 investigator, he must know how to think for 
 himself in the realm of scientific research. 
 
 The ideal of the multifold types of education is 
 as comprehensive as are the enterprises of the 
 Commonwealth, and in the words of the old 
 
Education the American Passion 167 
 
 Bishop Comenius, it is to train generally all who 
 are born men for all which is human (he might 
 have added women also). At one of our oldest 
 universities where, in the thought of one of the 
 early educators, the object was "to make his 
 soul," where every boy was supposed to take the 
 same studies in order to claim at the end of his 
 course his A. B. degree, there was said to be 
 offered in a recent year but one subject, English 
 composition, required for all students; if a youth 
 should try to take all the courses offered by this 
 institution, it has been estimated that he would 
 need to live in college for two hundred years. 
 
 The educational ideal has been tremendously 
 popularized and its former academic character 
 has changed through the knowledge and applica 
 tion of the natural sciences to a practical end. 
 Actual life is the end and aim, and the life to-day 
 rather than life in the Middle Ages. There is a 
 general belief among the people that the idea of 
 Professor Agassiz, that a speciality is the back 
 bone of an education, was a sane one. It is the 
 feeling that a man becomes competently edu 
 cated by knowing how to do well some one 
 thing. 
 
 An educational policy that would be popular 
 in an English institution like Eton or Oxford, 
 
i68 American Ideals 
 
 would find itself sailing very slowly against a 
 full stream of industrial modernity in America, 
 and quite against the tide of public opinion 
 which says: "You must teach my boys and 
 girls something practical, something they can 
 use in their future vocations; I want bread and 
 butter studies first, then if there is time they 
 can indulge in a bit of philosophy or language." 
 To the American there must be no cut-off be 
 tween the counting-house and the classroom, 
 no drop curtain between the family of the home 
 and the family of the college. Education co 
 alesces in life. 
 
 A prominent weekly printed not long ago an 
 article on the subject "Culture and Agricul 
 ture," and the plea is made for culture, not in the 
 terms of the classics or historic consciousness, 
 but in behalf of the ordinary everyday life: 
 
 "But my plea," says the writer, "is for culture in 
 colleges, and especially in agriculture colleges. Any 
 college has the clue to the way to it. Interest is the 
 beginning any interest. It has been noticed often 
 that graduate students who loafed through their 
 undergraduate years, woke up in the law school or 
 the medical department and worked with interest 
 and ability. Why is that? The answer is obvious. 
 They saw the relation of law or medicine to their 
 life/ 
 
Education the American Passion 169 
 
 The American university is no respecter of 
 persons. Ezra Cornell sought to found in 
 Ithaca an institution where "any person could j 
 find instruction in any study." The motto ^ 
 seems to be more and more "no favoritism for 
 any study; but to fit the needs of the student 
 applying!" It is safe to say that the mind of 
 man has not yet conceived subjects related to 
 life that are not to-day taught somewhere in 
 the schools of the United States. Compre 
 hension rather than limitation has been the 
 ideal. The three R s have verily become a 
 legion, and twenty-five different subjects are 
 now being taught in the public schools of New 
 York City. Like the accomodating librarian, 
 if he has not got it in stock, the educator will 
 hospitably order it by first post. The story is 
 told of a very much up-to-date college president 
 of "unappeasable energy," who received a call 
 at his office from a young man who wished to 
 study Choctaw, which vanishing language was 
 not in the curriculum. The president is described 
 as saying with some regret, "I am sorry that 
 we have no department for the teaching of 
 Choctaw this morning, but if you will call around 
 this afternoon, we will have one organized for 
 you." 
 
170 American Ideals 
 
 At one of the prominent state universities 
 in the Middle West, twenty-five students were 
 registered during the last college year in the 
 subject of horse-shoeing. In a large university 
 of multitudinous departments, where the col 
 lege catalogue is almost as bulky as an un 
 abridged dictionary, I was shown about the 
 Dairy Department where a variety of work was 
 being carried on. A young man leading a 
 small calf into the stock-judging lecture room 
 attracted my attention; said unwilling calf was 
 undergoing various kinds of measurements 
 and minute investigation by the student. Upon 
 making bold to ask the university meaning of 
 this procedure, I was solemnly told by the pro 
 fessor in a perfect matter-of-fact tone that the 
 student was " doing original work on the calf." 
 This undergraduate, in fact, was writing his 
 graduating thesis on the subject of "Calf 
 Evolution," and the youth, who was going to be 
 an expert dairyman, having weighed, measured, 
 and otherwise researched this calf twice daily 
 since the animal was born, probably knew more 
 (as I was told) about real calf nature than any 
 man who had ever studied in this department. 
 
 Our common schools nre becoming Garyized, 
 our high schools vocationalized, and our colleges 
 
Education the American Passion 171 
 
 humanized after a fashion that neither the old 
 nor new humanists would have quite under 
 stood. The trades of yesterday have become 
 the learned professions and callings of to-day. 
 Applied science like applied Christianity has 
 changed the nation s needs, and with its changed 
 requirements there has come a new set of ideals. 
 The professor is no longer the dreamy, spectacled 
 don, lost in his quiet and delightful speculative 
 studies of theories and literary excellence; he is 
 to-day forming the new twentieth-century ideal 
 ism as an expert scientific or industrial engi 
 neer, or a government-assisting forester, a land 
 expert, a practical mining specialist, or an engi 
 neer of efficiency. 
 
 Schools and departments for business admin 
 istration, for journalism, architecture, household 
 and domestic economy, agriculture, scien 
 tific education, and a score of specialties of 
 which our forefathers scarcely dreamed in that 
 small Mayflower company of forty-one in the 
 year 1620, have arisen in the ever-enlarging 
 field of modern knowledge. These have helped 
 to alter, not only the method of training, but 
 also the spirit of American educational ideals. 
 
 Even the older and the traditional subjects 
 like law, theology, medicine, and the philoso- 
 
172 American Ideals 
 
 phies, have come under the new scientific 
 generalizing processes, and if they have lost 
 in the realm of the theoretic, the mystical, and 
 the literary, they have gained immensely in the 
 field of the useful, the accurate, and the im 
 mediately serviceable. 
 
 There are some who hold that in this transfer 
 from the deductive to the inductive methods of 
 education, we have become more and not less 
 ideal, that research and scientific investigations 
 of the laboratory, the field and the counting- 
 house, are often "with no ulterior practical 
 purpose/* We are told that the vast number 
 of expert teachers of the new learning, who are 
 spending laborious days and nights in devoted 
 experimentation, with thought of nought save 
 their interest in new discovery, are helping to 
 leaven and idealize the whole lump of modern 
 scientific learning. We hear that there is as 
 much real idealism in the effort to make a 
 perfect cow as in creating a winged Mercury. 
 This new scientific idealism, is in any case one 
 of the most significant and far-reaching in 
 fluences to be noted on the educational horizon 
 in any part of the world at the present time. 
 Its influence has long since left America to 
 sweep, by the power of its example, around 
 
Education the American Passion 173 
 
 the entire earth. The Egyptian government 
 students surveying the banks of the Nile, the 
 young East Indian agriculturists carrying out 
 the principles of knowledge and method learned 
 in our state universities, as well as the Far East 
 ern youth, in China especially, who are carrying 
 back the models of our scientific training for 
 their new systems of education, have all felt 
 the wave of this practical pulsation. 
 
 But with all our successes in the education 
 that fits the hand to the work of the moment, 
 there have come insidious dangers in the realm 
 of the student s ideas of mental and spiritual 
 progress. He has gained much over his fore 
 fathers in the machinery of effective educational 
 action; he has lost something in the region of his 
 soul. 
 
 Educational ideals, like all other things in the 
 higher realm of men s thinking, cling about 
 personalities quite as truly as they associate 
 themselves with principles, and in the school 
 realm it is the personality of the teacher that 
 marks the turning-point in all education. In 
 one of the Hindu sacred books it is asked, "Who 
 are the keepers of the city ? " The answer comes 
 "The teachers!" The crossroads of school 
 existence are at a point where education that 
 
174 American Ideals 
 
 trains the youth for making a living joins with 
 the path that trains the student for making a 
 life. There is a difference between greatness 
 in engineering and greatness that is of the 
 mind, the character, and the spirit. True edu 
 cation comes from within out not vice versa. 
 Education should have an ideal and a system 
 for the development of trained and skilful arti 
 sans; it should not forget its ideals and its 
 system for the development of the individual 
 as a man. 
 
 The educators of America are already realiz 
 ing that their task is only half done when they 
 have vocationalized their system; it now must 
 be spiritualized. The school must be the 
 temple of the spirit, or its books, its useful 
 curricula, and highly developed play, jangle 
 hopelessly in a confused utilitarian universe. 
 Every child cometh from afar. He brings with 
 him the infinitude of possibilities in the realm of 
 fellowship, reverence, imitation, purity, and the 
 romance of youth. Pitiful is the teacher who 
 forgets spiritual culture and who leaves that 
 ministry to the clergyman. He has lost his 
 main chance at changing life who fails to re 
 member the individual in the crowd. It is the 
 faculty that makes or mars the university, and 
 
Education the American Passion 175 
 
 Dr. Gilman of Johns Hopkins was right when he 
 sought for his institution "men, not buildings!" 
 The teacher who has not become internally 
 conscious of the deeper needs of the student as 
 a human being fails even when he seems to suc 
 ceed, and his pupils will bear the mark of his 
 incompetency. 
 
 I attended recently a meeting of schoolmas 
 ters where one of the teachers spoke on the topic, 
 "The Damage We Do as Teachers." He quoted 
 .the dialogue between Socrates and Protagoras 
 in which Socrates says in substance that it is a 
 serious thing when one goes to get instruction. 
 You can go to the market and buy a fish, he 
 contends, and take it home with you. If you 
 find it is bad, you can throw it away; but if you 
 go to get instruction and find after you get it 
 that it is bad, you can t get rid of it. You 
 must keep it, since it has become a real part of 
 you. 
 
 There is a growing consensus of opinion that 
 much of the failure of our schools and colleges 
 is due to the failure of the teacher, a failure often 
 to grasp with vividness and with earnestness 
 his distinctive task. 
 
 The ideals of the teacher are twofold. First 
 of all it is the teacher s vocation to see that the 
 
176 American Ideals 
 
 student works in the realm of ideas as well as 
 within the region of his vocational tools. The 
 average American boy comes up to the prepara 
 tory school, flabby in power of will, procrastinat 
 ing, inaccurate, frequently with slovenly habits, 
 and a past master in the fine art of wasting time. 
 The school and the college are handicapped at 
 the start in their material. They are weakened 
 by the weakness of moral and spiritual discipline 
 in the American home. "I expect nothing of 
 the next generation of students," said one of our 
 well-known but somewhat despairful public 
 men, " for they have no patience and no persever 
 
 ance." 
 
 The modern youth in America is inclined to 
 be easy going; he has not learned to obey. It 
 is no small favor to such an youth to make him 
 work under discipline for four or eight years a 
 discipline that inures him to courage and promp 
 titude in attacking a hard job. 
 
 English schools accomplish much in this line 
 and English schoolmasters should be studied 
 by American teachers. In the preparatory and 
 public schools especially, there is no babying, 
 no soft measures the boy is supposed to learn 
 endurance, fortitude, and the power to overcome 
 obstacles. It is this ability of the masters of 
 
Education the American Passion 177 
 
 these English schools like Winchester and 
 Rugby to inculcate a spirit of disregard for 
 circumstances and untoward environment, that 
 has connected British colonization with the 
 playing-grounds and the "forms" of public-school 
 boys in the British Empire. It is this spirit 
 that Henry Newbolt has caught so perfectly in 
 his poem "Vitae Lampada" when he says: 
 
 And it s not for the sake of a ribboned coat 
 Or the selfish hope of a season s fame, 
 
 But his Captain s hand on his shoulder smote 
 " Play up! Play up! and play the game! " 
 
 One hears at Eton the story of Doctor Keate, 
 the famous head master, who one day met a 
 new boy in the schoolyard, and finding the lad 
 crying, asked him what was the matter. "I am 
 cold," said the boy; at which the master an 
 swered, "You must put up with cold, sir! 
 This is no girl s school." Fifteen years later 
 this boy was with the Third Dragoons in India 
 charging at the Sikhs, the best fighting men of 
 the Khalsa. The Sikhs were entrenched in a 
 well-nigh impregnable position, and as the order 
 came to charge, the old Eton boy turned to his 
 superior officer, who was also a graduate of the 
 school on the Thames, and said, "As old Keate 
 would say, this is no girl s school!" with which 
 
178 American Ideals 
 
 remark he rode to his death in that memorable 
 charge of the battle of Sobraon that gave Lahore 
 to England. 
 
 There is certain truth in the saying of an 
 American educator that the direct product of 
 English schools is a little indifferent Latin verse, 
 but the by-products are the men who run the 
 Indian Empire. As a Frenchman put it, 
 "culture is what remains after we have forgotten 
 what we have learned." In England this spirit 
 that never says die is not as thoroughly asso 
 ciated with intellectual endeavor in the schools 
 as it might be, but as a force for a fortification 
 of the will and as a guide for a teaching ministry, 
 it commands tremendous respect. After all, 
 what is education ? Is it not the training of the 
 will, to help it choose right voluntarily and 
 without exterior compulsion, making the will 
 proficient in work? Of what good is scientific 
 training or any other kind of training for the 
 mind that does not somehow impart with its 
 precepts the faculty that gets these precepts 
 accomplished? Education is merely a pretty 
 idealism or a passing commercialism without the 
 "will push." Thomas Huxley gave an immortal 
 definition of education when he called it the 
 ability to make a man do the thing he ought to 
 
Education the American Passion 179 
 
 do when it ought to be done, whether he felt 
 like doing it or not. 
 
 It is a grave question as to whether our ideals 
 for teaching and training students are intellec 
 tually high enough. Are we preparing in the 
 midst of all of our utilitarian study for the far- 
 sighted and vast hungry intellectual wants that 
 are already beginning to show themselves in the 
 wake of our prodigious industrial prosperity? 
 We are already seeing the turning of the tide 
 in the attitude of our self-made men of yesterday, 
 who are eager to send their sons and daughters 
 to college to be the educated people of to-morrow. 
 Are we considering our obligations to raise them 
 up to citizenship, filled with lofty idealism for the 
 new civilization of the New Freedom which, 
 although now it seems to be a distant spectre 
 with the din of European battle in our ears, 
 is surely coming in the new bright day of larger 
 knowledge and more perfect intellectual and 
 spiritual vision! 
 
 Our elective systems and great free trade 
 routes of education, our early specializing upon 
 things that happen to be the most locally in 
 teresting to students, our extending areas of 
 play and social amusement, with the multitude 
 of novelties and fads, ranging through the whole 
 
180 American Ideals 
 
 gamut from hygiene and Montessori to eugenics 
 and schools for automobiling all these combine 
 to make school life in the words of a certain 
 educator "just one big game"- a contemporary 
 dust storm of innumerable activities if we forget 
 the larger emphasis upon the training of the 
 mind and the will. We give the impression of 
 school days and college a trivial and jovial note. 
 The very repetition of the phrase "college boy" 
 is to smile. We make it a four years sentimental 
 journey before the real work of life begins. But 
 college life is not preparation merely; it is life. 
 The careers of our boys begin and get their per 
 manent bent during these days. The youth 
 obtains his mental and moral habits in prepara 
 tory school and in the university. His student 
 enthusiasms, his love of traditions, and that 
 which he calls his college spirit, may be lost later 
 through his geographical or vocational business 
 of life, but his habits persist. Was it not the 
 Duke of Wellington who said, "Habit is ten 
 times nature"? Habits of persistent work 
 should be encouraged and insisted upon in the 
 daily routine, not left to spasmodic dashes just 
 previous to examination, because these habits 
 persist in the man and are carried over into 
 every phase of his succeeding life. 
 
Education the American Passion 181 
 
 In the United States we have only two insti 
 tutions that really give disciplinarian training 
 for hard work equal to that which the youth is 
 to experience in the competitive struggles in the 
 world. These two institutions are the Military 
 and Naval Academies at West Point and Annap 
 olis. 
 
 Some years ago I was the guest of the late 
 Col. Charles Lamed, Dean of the West Point 
 faculty, a man who could teach his specialty 
 and also could perceive the significance of that 
 specialty as a means for training the will to 
 work. We were speaking of this matter of in 
 tellectual work as we sat looking at that match 
 less discipline revealed in the West Point dress 
 parade on Sunday afternoon, when Colonel 
 Larned said, "We are tightening up the curricu 
 lum. The boys have too much spare time. Our 
 root principle of education here is to keep the 
 men every minute at something." I had just 
 been talking with a cadet who told me that 
 even before this "tightening" in the curriculum 
 he had less than an hour a day to himself. 
 
 Such discipline, to be sure, weeds out the weak 
 and the undesirable. It makes education the 
 survival of the fittest in the realm of the self- 
 reliant will. Not every boy can endure physi- 
 
1 82 American Ideals 
 
 cally or mentally the strain of such discipline, 
 but where one boy is lost to education by over 
 work, a score fall out by reason of easy-going 
 habits, by undue indulgence, or by doing noth 
 ing. Bismarck said that one third of Germany s 
 students dropped out of the race because of 
 dissipation, one third by reason of overwork, 
 while the other third ruled Germany. In the 
 United States we find to-day no such percentage 
 of students failing because of overwork. Even 
 the college jibes against "grinds" and "book 
 sharks" are passing into desuetude because of 
 the absence of examples. As I recall my own 
 experience in college, the severe obligation of 
 hard study did not impress me, in spite of the 
 fact that I was one of the many American youths 
 who are obliged to "work their way through 
 college," which necessarily subtracts considera 
 ble time from the hours which should be given 
 to study. I do not remember any memorable 
 struggle to pass examinations, but I do recall 
 one or two courses that really left their mark 
 upon me because the teacher went upon the 
 principle that effort is in itself the vital part in 
 education. An educational authority who made 
 a considerable study or this matter of required 
 work, makes the astounding statement that "the 
 
Education the American Passion 183 
 
 average amount of work done by an undergradu 
 ate in a course is less than three and a half 
 hours a week outside the lecture room; more 
 than half the answers from which these results 
 are derived came from men who obtained the 
 grade of A and B (highest grades). " The vir 
 tually unanimous opinion, based upon observa 
 tion and judgment of men who have closely 
 studied this subject in America, is to the effect 
 that the college graduate, whatever else he 
 may gain from his student days, is turned 
 out lacking in concentration, seriousness, and 
 thoroughness, and only "settling down" as a 
 trained and earnest worker when he gets into 
 the professional school. 
 
 To instil into the student consciousness the 
 sense of hard intellectual effort, the effort with 
 out which there is small joy of achievement, the 
 effort that Professor James called "oxygen to the 
 lungs of youth" this is the teacher s task. 
 
 The other all-inclusive and even greater task 
 of the teacher is the arousal and development in 
 his students of the life of the spirit. 
 
 Prof. Henri Bergson in outlining his philos 
 ophy maintains that philosophy will not be 
 come a serious matter until it has done away 
 completely with the method of dogmatic philo- 
 
184 American Ideals 
 
 sophical systems and has devoted itself to ob 
 servation and experience, "not merely the 
 observation and experience of the outer world, 
 but of the inner world as well." Professor Berg- 
 son also speaks of this inner experience as 
 religious feeling, "the sense of not being alone in 
 this world, the sense of a relationship between 
 the individual and the spiritual source of life." 
 
 It is difficult to use this word "spiritual" 
 as applied to the teacher and his teaching be 
 cause of the connotation the word has received 
 through our early association with exercises 
 and customs of formal religious training. The 
 teacher in America, moreover, has been as 
 sisted in a measure to omit his responsibility 
 to the spiritual side of student life by the laws 
 of the land. These laws are nowhere more 
 strictly upheld than in their prohibition of any 
 religious teaching in connection with the public- 
 school program. Not even is it permitted to 
 study the book generally conceded to be the 
 most universally accepted model of English, 
 the book which, more than any other literature, 
 has shaped the life and character of the great 
 men of the world. As a consequence the Bible 
 is an undiscovered literature for the average 
 modern student. As one college president 
 
Education the American Passion 185 
 
 put it, the teacher must leave his religion in the 
 coatroom with his overcoat and rubbers, while 
 the students are left to drink of the water of 
 life outside of the classroom from sanitary 
 drinking cups. 
 
 This is especially unfortunate, not only be 
 cause it relieves the teacher, already weighed 
 down with many tasks of lesser importance, 
 from the feeling of responsibility for the deeper 
 life of the student; but it also prevents the 
 teacher from becoming a vital interpreter for 
 our youth between science and religion. Al 
 though science has now gained the educational 
 field, it is questionable whether in its rigid 
 experimentation, its cold logic and bigotry oft- 
 times, it is more to be desired as a means of 
 interpreting the inner life than was its oppo 
 nent, dogmatic theology, or its medieval fore 
 runner, philosophical speculation. The teacher s 
 opportunity and in some respects his most 
 divine task lies in the presentation, through his 
 own personality and teaching, of the essential 
 truths of the spiritual world. 
 
 A teacher of Columbia University has said 
 that this task signifies "the falling in love with 
 imaginary things and living in dreams." Ba 
 con s phrase as applied to the teacher is: "one 
 
1 86 American Ideals 
 
 whose mind moves in charity, and turns upon 
 the poles of truth." William James, when 
 speaking at one time to teachers, quoted Touch 
 stone s question, "Hast any philosophy in thee, 
 Shepherd?" Continuing, Professor James said 
 that a man with no philosophy in him is the 
 most inauspicious and unprofitable of all social 
 mates. It was Dr. Francis Peabody who main 
 tained that the most difficult thing an American 
 student could do would be to go through college 
 and keep his soul alive, while a graduate of one 
 of our New England universities has made 
 confession as follows: "We shall be bound 
 together only by digging deeper into our own 
 spiritual selves and discovering that true kin 
 ship with the deeper selves of others." 
 
 It is this rich inner spiritual life of the teacher, 
 this utter devotion to Truth, that most capti 
 vates students and carries them past the teacher 
 to the thing taught. Pity the instructor whose 
 students stop with him! Pity the investigator 
 who cannot impart to his learners the ideal of 
 his power! I knew of a teacher in a West 
 ern university whose lecture-room was always 
 crowded with eager young men. Quite often 
 these youths would brecik into spontaneous and 
 sincere applause at the end of his lecture. A 
 
Education the American Passion 187 
 
 few years ago I met this professor as he was 
 coming out from his classroom. He was like 
 one of other days who came down from the 
 mountain with the skin of his face shining: his 
 countenance was fairly radiant by the passage 
 of the spirit that had gone out of him. The 
 spiritual side of youth, its rich feeling, its nat 
 ural seriousness, its depth of religious possibil 
 ity, its ever-present idealism, had reflected and 
 taken possession of this teacher. He taught by 
 what he felt and what he was, as well as by 
 what he knew. One student described him 
 thus, "I don t remember anything he said, but 
 I remember him." From one hundred college 
 graduates who were asked the chief benefit re 
 ceived from their college or university course, 
 eighty-nine placed first in their reply the in 
 fluence of one or more teachers. 
 
 There is a true sense in which the teachers in 
 our schools are the best idealizing element in the 
 United States to-day. As a rule they are char 
 acterized by extraordinary self-forgetfulness, 
 and there is no small scorning of delights and 
 living laborious days. No one of them who has 
 really the right to this term teacher has been 
 without the sensation of imparting this spiritual 
 quality to his students, and this has kept him 
 
1 88 American Ideals 
 
 alive. It has buoyed him up and given him the 
 assurance, as one professor has said, that time 
 is on his side. Although the nation has been 
 slow to recognize the inherent greatness of 
 schoolmastering in this country, as compared 
 with the attitude of the people in Europe and 
 in Japan, there are signs of awakening to the 
 realization that the scholar and the investigator, 
 who rank with the nobles of the earth, should 
 be given opportunity of the highest and widest 
 scope to fulfil their ideal mission. That the 
 profession of the teacher has received a new 
 standing in the United States in the person of 
 Woodrow Wilson, our "Schoolmaster Presi 
 dent," is past denial. 
 
 The word "veritas" may be written across 
 the shields of our colleges, or it may be carved 
 in the marble and granite of great laboratories; 
 it may be worked upon the fraternal emblems 
 of our student societies; it may be studied for 
 its metaphysical and ethical qualities in the de 
 partments of philosophy, or it may be preached 
 about in college chapels; but if it is not incor 
 porated and vitally embodied in the deep, ear 
 nest spiritual life of the teacher who goes daily 
 in and out before his pupils, it usually fails to 
 take permanent hold of the student s inner life. 
 
Education the American Passion 189 
 
 Truth indeed is the hand by which men take 
 hold of God, but the hand is invisible until it is 
 revealed by one who has already clasped it. The 
 question of education is at heart a spiritual 
 question, the question first of all of the quality 
 of the teacher, who himself is spiritual, who has 
 seen the gleam of ideal Truth. Like one who 
 was called "Great Teacher," he succeeds, not 
 by carrying a shining light, but by being one. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 IDEALS IN RELIGION 
 
 To love God and make one s self loved by Him, to 
 love one s neighbors and to make one s self loved by 
 them this is morality and religion; in both the one 
 and the other, love is everything end, beginning, 
 and middle. 
 
 JOUBERT. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 IDEALS IN RELIGION 
 
 IN THE course of a recent conversation with an 
 editorial writer of wide experience and perspec 
 tive, relative to ideals and the forces with which 
 to accomplish them, I asked, "What do you 
 think of the church as a present-day agency in 
 behalf of religious ideals?" "The church?" 
 said he with unfeigned surprise, "it is futile 
 its power is virtually gone. It cannot rein 
 state itself in its present form. The only great 
 moulding forces to-day in America are the news 
 papers and the banks, and these are either too 
 self-centred or too thoroughly controlled from 
 outside to be able to meet the deeper considera 
 tions and emergencies of the nation." 
 
 From this opinion many will differ. It will 
 be called, and justly so, we believe, the view of 
 an extremist who was not thoroughly aware of 
 the tremendously vital work the church is 
 doing in the United States against many odds, 
 and in a period of decided transition from the old 
 
 193 
 
194 American Ideals 
 
 forms to those more nearly consonant with the 
 life of a changed republic. But while this opin 
 ion is not usually so broadly and nakedly stated, 
 it is more generally accepted, unconsciously if 
 not consciously, among a large circle of American 
 men of affairs, than we sometimes appreciate. 
 The inadequacy of the church is especially felt 
 when the question is raised whether the Chris 
 tian faith is indispensable as a saving force or 
 as an adequate requirement for personal guid 
 ance. Hardly a month passes that some of the 
 magazines fail to publish articles by writers who 
 take substantially the position that the church 
 has collapsed as a means for imparting dynamics 
 to the thoughtful and influential classes in the 
 United States. 
 
 One finds, indeed, though not so commonly 
 save in special coteries in the large cities, a 
 class of ultra-liberals with more or less extreme 
 socialistic tendencies, who speak of the inade 
 quacy of religion in general much as one would 
 refer to the exploded subject of sea gold or witch 
 burning something too utterly old-fashioned 
 and out-of-date to merit even thoughtful con 
 sideration. Even the younger clergy in certain 
 sections reveal not orJy a disbelief in the old 
 forms of theology and the "chains of creeds" as 
 
Ideals in Religion 195 
 
 Whittier called them, but if one may judge by 
 the things that engage their enthusiastic atten 
 tion, they have lost considerable of their depend 
 ence upon the religion of our forefathers as a 
 means for spiritual and supernatural regeneration 
 of the individual. A Southern bishop not long 
 ago characterized a certain young clergyman in 
 his diocese as preaching somewhat as follows: 
 "Dearly beloved! You must repent as it 
 were, and be converted in a measure; or be 
 damned to a certain extent." 
 
 Outside of the circle of persons immediately 
 engaged in strictly "church work," or listed 
 among the professional and official religionists, 
 the tendency is to regard formalized religious 
 faith as exemplified in the Protestant, Catholic, 
 or Jewish orders in church, cathedral, or syna 
 gogue, as good enough for those people who 
 want it, but not vitally necessary for the average 
 enterprising American on his busy way to suc 
 cess, and each year less prone to demonstrate his 
 religious ideals by either ecclesiastical or emo 
 tional exercises, far less in the form of dogma. 
 The tendency is to pour out idealism rather in 
 the various forms of public service and the 
 activities associated with family existence 
 devotion to friends, charity, and standards of 
 
196 American Ideals 
 
 moral rectitude, without associating these with 
 any particularly religious meaning. The second 
 commandment of neighborliness has become 
 more popular as an ideal than the first great 
 commandment of godliness. In a sense the 
 American has exchanged the doctrine of his 
 fathers for a principle of practical conduct which 
 he finds to-day the best policy, which is decid 
 edly ethical but not consciously religious. 
 
 The average citizen will tell you that religion 
 is by no means non-existent in America, and his 
 explanation resembles the statement of a certain 
 college president, who said on behalf of his 
 university, which had been criticised for some 
 irreligious or liberal tendencies, that there 
 never was a time when the men of his institution 
 were more deeply religious than at the present 
 moment, even if they talked less about it than 
 did the men of a former generation. 
 
 One also hears frequently that it is not a 
 question of the universality of the existence 
 of religious ideals in America at present which 
 is of chief concern, but rather the mode of 
 their expression. A new set of accessories are 
 needed more truly in keeping with the modern 
 mood. There is less need of rules of prohibition 
 as to what a man must or must not do to 
 
Ideals in Religion 197 
 
 be a Christian, and more need of a man exhibit 
 ing throughout the whole texture of his life 
 the spirit of Jesus. We demand a different 
 stage scenery to fit our twentieth-century relig 
 ious drama to that which was the accom 
 paniment of our fathers faith. Where the 
 men of the last generation said "doctrine," we 
 say "service." Where they talked about the 
 future and this life as a preparatory period sim 
 ply for another w r orld awaiting the soul with 
 variegated rewards and punishments, we talk 
 about the present, and are chiefly interested in 
 making the world of the moment the best possi 
 ble for every one, getting out of it all that we 
 can with comparatively little concern or thought 
 for another life, regarding which it is quite gen 
 erally conceded we have little or no authoritative 
 evidence or experience to guide us to safe con 
 clusions. In other words, the religion of the 
 present is quite disengaged from the divine 
 path of theological doctrine which was the fore 
 most consideration fifty years ago in America. 
 The country no longer languishes under the 
 restraint of old fears or is it frightened at being 
 shaken over hell, according to the mode of 
 Jonathan Edwards. There is a sense of being to 
 a large degree the architect of one s own fortune. 
 
198 American Ideals 
 
 Prejudice, especially religious prejudice, is one 
 of the surest marks of failure or weakness. 
 Missionary or professional accounts of religion 
 are taken with a grain of salt, allowance 
 being made for a bias which somewhat negates 
 the conclusions. "In spite of the fact that the 
 writer is a missionary," begins a recent review 
 of a really great book, "he shows a creditable 
 breadth of treatment and a real sympathy with 
 other religions/ The one hundred and sixty- 
 nine different religious denominations, by their 
 very multiplicity, have thrown suspicion upon 
 the unifying and standardizing force of authori 
 tative and official religion. 
 
 There is, moreover, a decided growth in relig 
 ious tolerance in the United States. It would 
 be expected by any one who knew the early 
 history of America that in the matter of religion 
 especially the freedom principle would be opera 
 tive, the New England anachronisms of witch 
 burning and more recent heresy trials notwith 
 standing. The Constitution of the country, in 
 Article VI, forbids any religious test as a qualifi 
 cation for office, while the first amendment pro 
 hibits Congress from making any law respecting 
 an establishment of reiigion or prohibitory to 
 the free exercise thereof. At least three fourths 
 
/ b ^^ 
 
 Ideals in Religion 199 
 
 of the constitutions of the various states prohibit 
 the use of taxpayer s funds given for the support 
 of public schools to be used to promote denom 
 inational institutions, or for sectarian instruction 
 in the schools of the land. One finds that few 
 tenets are more universally and unconsciously 
 maintained than that the state as well as the 
 individual must keep "hands off" when it comes 
 to the matter of a man s religious convictions. 
 
 As long as the individual s religion does not 
 interfere with the manifest and common rights 
 of others, or run counter to the laws of the Re 
 public, he is absolutely free to believe or not to 
 believe, to worship or not to worship. 
 
 A German in Berlin remarked to me a few 
 years ago in speaking of the alliance of students 
 to religion in that Empire: "You know, we have 
 no heathen in Germany. Every student is a 
 member of the State church from early confirma 
 tion in childhood." 
 
 A State church in America, however, that 
 would for a moment give the suggestion of in- 
 voluntariness in the matters of religion, is an 
 idea as impossible to conceive at the present 
 time as enforced military service, or the prohi 
 bition of liquor drinking or tobacco smoking by 
 a simple fiat of the Federal Government. In- 
 
200 American Ideals 
 
 deed, one of the most common objections pastors 
 of churches find presented by parents to the 
 baptism of their children in early youth is that 
 they, as parents, do not think it is fair to the 
 child, or that they have no right to allow the 
 child to take such a step in so important a 
 matter until he is old enough to choose for him 
 self. In religion, as in so many things that in 
 volve individual rights, the person and not the 
 state is the norm. In many cases it may even 
 tuate that the child, grown to manhood, loses 
 his early inclination to choose a place in the ranks 
 of professed religionists but the theory exists 
 quite widely that an unforced selection of reli 
 gion by a youth makes accession to the church 
 many times more valuable than a child member 
 swept into faith at the required wish of the par 
 ents, and who frequently, when grown, is in 
 clined to lay his religious indifference to an unfair 
 advantage taken of him in his boyhood. 
 
 The necessary loosening of the ecclesiastical 
 authority of the Catholic church in America, as 
 contrasted with its firmer grip upon its mem 
 bership in Spain and Italy particularly, is an 
 evidence not only of the wisdom of the Roman 
 leadership, but also of tne inevitable democracy 
 in the spirit and ideal of American religion. The 
 
Ideals in Religion 201 
 
 famous edict of William of Orange that "con 
 science is God s province," is still a truism in the 
 United States, and the only people who have 
 ever dared to oppose it in this land were the 
 Puritans of Massachusetts and the Anglicans 
 of Virginia, much to the detriment of their mem 
 ory in later generations. 
 
 The promiscuous discussions upon things 
 religious exist to-day throughout the country 
 as they never existed before. There is not 
 the wholesale ridicule either of the Bible or of 
 religion that there was in the time of Thomas 
 Paine, who said that he had gone through the 
 Bible as a woodman would go through a forest 
 felling the trees. "The priests may replant 
 them," he said, "but they cannot make them 
 grow." I was struck recently in walking through 
 Times Square to see the popular curb debaters 
 thrusting a youth forcibly into the street, the 
 leader of the company, who was evidently of 
 Jewish extraction, saying in explanation, "This 
 man is a disgrace to his race: he has just said 
 that he didn t believe in God." In a visit a 
 few years ago to one of our large universities 
 I found seven students enrolled in a Bible class, 
 nearly every one of whom professed a different 
 stripe of belief. One said he was a free thinker, 
 
2O2 American Ideals 
 
 two leaned toward pantheism, there was one 
 Jew, one Catholic, and one Christian. The 
 last man could not be easily classified, and for 
 convenience sake he was called a vegetarian 
 an aggregation of religious tolerance that should 
 cause certain of our forefathers to turn over in 
 their graves. 
 
 America is frequently spoken of as a country 
 of "isms," and one needs only to pick up the 
 Saturday newspapers, which show the list of 
 services for Sunday worship, to realize the cos 
 mopolitan character of American religion. The 
 advance in the matter of conceded liberty to 
 every form of faith, recognizing not only a man s 
 personal liberty to think for himself, but also 
 conceding generously the same privilege to 
 another, has been specially evident and rapid 
 during the past ten years, since the higher 
 criticism and the great social-service movements 
 have drawn to themselves so many devoted ad 
 herents, both within and without the churches. 
 
 In spite of the tremendous losses, especially 
 in the realm of ethics, which necessarily accrue 
 from the omission of any teaching of the coun 
 try s book of religion, and in spite of a multitude 
 of attempts to introduce the Bible into the 
 public-school system, this ingrained feeling of 
 
Ideals in Religion 203 
 
 the right of the individual to be taught only 
 along such lines as accord with the parent s 
 faith, at least until he is old enough to choose 
 for himself, has been too strong to admit of the 
 introduction of any considerable moral or relig 
 ious teaching in the school curricula. 
 
 Even in social settlements, which are sup 
 ported often largely by church adherents, when 
 one asks, "Why do you not give your young 
 people some religious instruction?" the answer 
 will be forthcoming, "We cannot do it because 
 of the diversities of the religions represented; 
 it would be unfair to teach one faith alone, and 
 the conditions of the work make it impossible 
 to hold services or to give religious instruction 
 in all the beliefs represented by the frequenters 
 of the settlement." 
 
 The growing tolerance, which is largely a 
 growth of the fair-play principle, is also seen in 
 the decrease of acrid theological discussions, 
 and in some areas in the indifference altogether 
 to matters of theological import. It is not 
 necessarily that the people are growing less 
 religious, but they are certainly becoming less 
 interested in the forms in which the religion of 
 the last generation were encrusted. Many of 
 us can remember how our own fathers became 
 
204 American Ideals 
 
 red in the face in their Sunday after-dinner 
 discussions of theology, and were quite willing 
 to brand men of different faith as semi-infidels, 
 even going so far as to establish a kind of un 
 conscious weekday boycott, in rural communi 
 ties, of the merchants and artisans who were not 
 fortunate enough to be able to "believe right" 
 or to "be sound" in their views, which meant 
 usually tobelieve as the religious censors believed. 
 It would be difficult to find a woman of the 
 present generation speaking as we once heard 
 an old lady of our grandmother s period re 
 mark, "I like Mary Smith, but if she joined 
 the Methodist church she could never step 
 her foot inside my door again!" We recall 
 vividly our childish memory of our mother 
 blanching before the Sunday discussions of the 
 doctrine of free will, predestination, and infant 
 baptism, and fairly worrying herself ill in trying 
 to invent less belligerent topics of conversation. 
 To-day a Jew, a Baptist, and a Christian Scien 
 tist may dwell and dine together in a peace as 
 perfect and unruffled as that of a June morning. 
 They have learned to emphasize their affirma 
 tions and points of agreement, and to minimize 
 their differences to an extent far greater than 
 was possible even a generation ago. 
 
Ideals in Religion 205 
 
 Some would say, "so much the worse for our 
 religion, and also for our country s tolerance, if 
 it is responsible for creating such indifference 
 to religion." The greater majority would 
 probably agree with the college president who, 
 after having made attendance at chapel ex 
 ercises voluntary rather than required, was 
 severely criticised by certain religious propa 
 gandists who ironically addressed him, saying, 
 "we understand that you have made God an 
 elective in your college!" The president re 
 plied, "No, but we understand that He has made 
 Himself elective everywhere." Religious toler 
 ance is to-day a commonplace, almost a uni 
 versal, condition in the United States. 
 
 Whether it is due to this growing spirit of 
 tolerance, or to the additional emphasis upon 
 the secular life of the period, there is a strong 
 drift, growing in volume year by year, toward 
 associating religion with daily life. The na 
 tional feeling is increasing that Sunday religion 
 and church going are not necessarily marks of 
 the kind of religion that is attractive and useful 
 in American eyes. The sanctity of Sunday 
 has decreasing hold upon the majorities, es 
 pecially the kind of Sunday that is different 
 in spirit from the other six days of the week. 
 
206 American Ideals 
 
 Meanwhile, the elemental needs of the Amer 
 ican heart are changeless through the years, and 
 the country that has always held personal and 
 national righteousness in its deepest thought 
 and as its loftiest ideal, coincident with true 
 worth and achievement of any andevery sort, will 
 not long go religionless. Indeed the American 
 temperament cannot, if it would, eliminate God 
 and the soul, with all that these represent in our 
 composite civilization. As a people we are 
 always somewhere near the mountain of re 
 ligious and spiritual vision, despite the fact that 
 the American will usually stoutly deny that 
 this is his first interest in life. 
 
 When one gets out of the cities into the coun 
 try and the smaller towns (where one sees 
 religious tendencies as all other tendencies 
 freer from the obstructing media of competitive 
 materialism and abnormal cosmopolitan in 
 fluences, and where one also sees the real nature 
 of the country reflected most truly), the church 
 bulks larger as an institution; it is still the 
 place where the majority of the people find the 
 centre of their social life as well as the fountain 
 of their spiritual interests. Even here, how 
 ever, if one examines the motives of church 
 going and church allegiance, one will find as 
 
Ideals in Religion 207 
 
 guiding principles the force of habit, public 
 opinion, " respectability," and the sense that 
 somehow, in a way that people do not exactly 
 stop to define, the organization of the church 
 stands for an element of communal good which 
 children and families can ill afford to be with 
 out. The loyalty to sect is much stronger 
 outside the cities, and there is a less noticeable 
 tendency to make service an ideal for the uplift 
 of the community. It is doubtful whether the 
 spiritual life of these churches flows much 
 higher than in the cities; one reason for so 
 thinking resides in the fact that a large number 
 of the rural population moving so rapidly to 
 the large centres fail to ally themselves with 
 city churches, but rather seem to regard the 
 new environment as a welcome opportunity 
 for release from the religious bonds which have 
 held them all too loosely in their deepest desires 
 and interests. 
 
 Notwithstanding these apparent signs of 
 indifference to church affiliations, the religious 
 ideal is confessedly one of the easiest ideals with 
 which to interest Americans, especially wheTT 
 it is clothed in the right sort of language, and 
 concerns itself, not with external technicalities 
 of doctrine and prohibition, but with the ele- 
 
208 American Ideals 
 
 mental relationships and realities of everyday 
 life. There are scores of ways by which this 
 religious feeling is moved to the point of wor 
 ship of "Something not ourselves. " 
 
 The university man, for example, reflects the 
 nation s characteristics in this direction quite 
 accurately. You will often see in a college 
 fraternity a group of students, more or less 
 athletically inclined, standing about a piano on 
 a Sunday afternoon, or on any evening sub 
 sequent to the evening meal, singing college 
 airs, while the ragtime musician of the frater 
 nity pounds out his variations in accordance 
 with his peculiar art. Slowly the sounds melt 
 downward toward the plantation melodies until 
 they frequently reach a deep emotional note 
 in the singing of the college Alma Mater. The 
 bystander noticed the change as this last song 
 was sung in one of these fraternities, and the 
 sentiment appealed to him as not being a 
 thousand miles removed from religious feeling 
 as it welled up in the voices of the singers. 
 Upon asking one of the men later about his sing 
 ing he said, "You know, it s funny, but when 
 we get to that last song, it does something to me 
 way down deep." Seme one has said that a 
 college man s songs and yells are his prayers. 
 
V 
 
 Ideals in Religion 209 
 
 We have seen a group of men in a city club, 
 certainly not notable for its religious atmo 
 sphere, so stirred by the singing of the ballad 
 "Oh, Friend of Mine" by a member of an opera 
 company that if some one at its close had 
 said "Let us pray!" the crowd would have 
 bowed its head with no great surprise. After 
 a darkey quartette in a big labor meeting had 
 finished singing the old Southern melody with 
 its plaintive strain, "The Lambs Are Calling 
 Shepherd Feed Thy Sheep" one man was over 
 heard to say, "It wouldn t be hard to have an 
 evangelistic meeting right here and now." All 
 of which goes to show that emotional feeling 
 and religious sentiment flow closely together in 
 the American temperament, and that the church 
 of to-day which substitutes intellectual ad 
 dresses and lectures upon everything from poli 
 tics to war problems, leaving out the great mov 
 ing appeals to the human heart, is not moving 
 nearer but farther away from the deep longings 
 of the American masses. 
 
 Arguments to prove the religiosity of Ameri 
 cans are needless. It is ours by heritage and 
 by nature. In every stage of the development 
 of the United States we have not been without 
 thought regarding the expression of this idealism 
 
2io American Ideals 
 
 in some form or other. Sometimes, alas, it has 
 seemed very much like bigotry, again a great 
 tide of evangelism has swept the land, and at 
 another period it has come to the surface in a 
 nation-wide eruption of honesty and moral pur- 
 posefulness or renovation. This ideal has always 
 seemed as natural as it has been needful in 
 the United States, both for the reinforcement of 
 our faltering purposes, the inspiring afresh to 
 personal achievement of character, and also as 
 the medium in which the people might hear the 
 Voice of a higher and invisible power. 
 
 Some would say that socialism has now be 
 come the religion of a great number. To others 
 church buildings reveal the inclination to wor 
 shipful surroundings with elaborate architec 
 ture and ritual. To many another religion is 
 synonymous with philanthropy, and to others it 
 signifies the dropping of old creeds and the taking 
 up of new ones so varied that even their names 
 would make necessary a new dictionary to ex 
 plain their tenets and their titles. There is 
 probably no limit to be placed upon the hetero 
 geneous expression which this religious motive 
 is capable of taking in a nation made up of so 
 many diverse forces, ard representing so many 
 strains of racial and national ideas and natures 
 
Ideals in Religion 211 
 
 released in an atmosphere of carefully guarded 
 religious freedom. 
 
 These mingled ideals and their methods of 
 fulfilment may be grouped under two heads: 
 
 First, those that aim at the ideal of a new 
 social organism as the surest means of "saving" 
 the people and the state a variety of large 
 and comprehensive socialism finding its arena 
 in multiplied efforts at betterment in restrictive 
 or reform legislation, and in multifold schemes of 
 economic and political readjustment. It is a 
 religion of humanity whose watchword is, 
 "Change the conditions of life, and you will get 
 a world in which the dwellers will find satis 
 factory environment making for their peace and 
 prosperity." 
 
 Second, there are those ideals which have for 
 a longer time been present in the American 
 consciousness, and which aim not so much at 
 society as at the man himself. They are repre 
 sented by the church and also by many outside 
 the church, and their insistence, differing with 
 times and localities, has been upon the belief 
 that the salvation of the social organism hinges 
 upon the reconstructed and regenerated individ 
 ual. The man, rather than the method, is 
 placed in the foreground. The sin of the per- 
 
212 American Ideals 
 
 sonal human heart is considered more important 
 to attend than the sin of the nation. Its slogan 
 is, "Change the heart! Efface the wrong in the 
 individual, especially the wish for wrong; give 
 him a right temper, a right desire and disposition, 
 and you will perforce, by the process of indirec 
 tion, make the nation right." Those holding 
 this ideal maintain that any other emphasis is a 
 temporizing and a palliative only, that drives 
 the unscotched evil of the units of the common 
 wealth into other forms of social and corporate 
 unrighteousness. 
 
 In other words, the religious idealism of 
 America is fairly divided at present between 
 what we may call social service, or socialism in a 
 large catholic sense, saving the world by the 
 strong forces of environment and philanthropy, 
 and Christianity as represented primarily in the 
 Gospel of Christ, which attaches the hopes of a 
 new order to the focussing of attention upon the 
 mind and heart and soul of the individual, 
 attending first of all to Christian character 
 rather than to the manufacture of uplifting 
 surroundings. 
 
 In the conflict of religious ideals in the United 
 States the present victory seems to lie with the 
 apostles of the service idea. In our philanthropy 
 
V 
 
 Ideals in Religion 213 
 
 we have outstripped and amazed the world. 
 While other nations have been stunned by dis 
 aster and famine and the persecution of weaker 
 races, America has started a subscription paper 
 and has raised trainloads and shiploads of sup 
 plies and succor for suffering and oppressed 
 humanity, even while other nations are reading 
 the news of the catastrophe. One needs only 
 to recall the opening of the American heart at 
 the time of such events as the Armenian massa 
 cres, the famines in India, the Galveston and 
 San Francisco and Messina calamities, and 
 especially the present rising up of the nation s 
 generosity in the case of the Belgian and Servian 
 sufferers. 
 
 Our "Foundations" medical, social, political, 
 peace, and educational, are almost staggering, 
 not only in their number, but in the vast prodi 
 gality of wealth with which they have been 
 established. Our pension systems for old sol 
 diers and for new ones, for professors, for miners, 
 and of late for civilians and artisans, are being 
 established so rapidly that world almanacs are 
 out of date almost before they get into circula 
 tion. The last dozen years have recorded almost 
 a continuous unearthing of evil in all sorts and 
 kinds of organizations and in well-nigh every 
 
214 American Ideals 
 
 division of the body politic; social, political, and 
 municipal shame of every grade and hue has 
 been unearthed and unloaded by the cartload. 
 We have investigated and reformed almost 
 everything investigable and reformable, rang 
 ing spaciously all the way from insurance com 
 panies to "Sunday" evangelism. Bad tene 
 ments, bad light, bad dance halls, bad sewerage, 
 bad medicine, and bad Mormons all have been 
 under the searchlight. We have spent the 
 cities money on commissions to study streets 
 and statesmanship and sanitation in Europe. 
 We have not neglected our sweatshops and our 
 stockyards, our prisons and our poorhouses, 
 while the "educational" and "social" and 
 "business" drama and melodrama, including 
 everything between white slavery and polygamy, 
 to the degradation of courts and the captains 
 of industry, have been spread before the nation s 
 appalled and wincing eyes. The only end to 
 this vast nation-wide mania of uplift for analysis 
 and reform is the natural ennui and disgust of the 
 populace. There is a lull at present in certain 
 quarters, for even the American gets tired of his 
 own excesses and must have new worlds to con 
 quer. The managers aad stockholders of some 
 of our most shame-mongering periodicals are 
 
Ideals in Religion 215 
 
 reported as calling a halt on muckrakers and 
 sexual fiction, and even the drama is showing 
 signs of passing out of unwholesome topics into a 
 cleaner air. The ideal, however, of saving society 
 by social revolution and publicity is still running 
 strong in the nation s consciousness. It is a pe 
 riod of social regeneration, and nothing secular 
 or familiar to the light of common day is alien 
 to it. 
 
 All to what end? Does a thoughtful glance 
 at the results of this highly specialized and so 
 cialized ideal in our modern civilization enspirit 
 us to further advances along this line, or does it 
 suggest more deliberate consideration relative 
 to means for the renovation and uplifting of the 
 modern state? 
 
 Does Germany, for example, with the cleanest 
 streets of any city in the world, confessedly with 
 the best municipal and educational system, 
 especially with its educational propaganda for 
 the industrial classes, encourage us in the con 
 tinuation of secular religion? Does Germany, 
 to whom we have gone to school in the varied 
 arts of beautification and perfection of environ 
 ments, of street cleaning, of care for defective 
 children, of old-age pensions and of model tene 
 ment houses, and a score of other advances in 
 
216 American Ideals 
 
 state and school and home does Germany give 
 us hope for saving ourselves and our country 
 through model changes in the social organism? 
 Does she not possess all these externalities of 
 regeneration to a degree of perfection that we or 
 any other nation can hardly expect to equal or 
 surpass? Yet when the real crisis for showing 
 the power and capacity of national ideals in 
 morals or religion occurs, in the real needs of 
 humanity when idealism is driven from its 
 hidden places, this socialized state tears up 
 treaties like "scraps of paper/ she disregards the 
 international safeguards of nations, the only 
 ropes by which the world s civilization can be 
 bound together with hope in moments of crisis; 
 she sweeps through neutral unbelligerent na 
 tions, carrying deadly and inhuman destruction 
 to lives and property, blighting with torturing 
 breath the most sacred sanctions of family and 
 home. This nation, which has grown great 
 through her attention to the outward details of 
 twentieth-century civilization, seems to lose both 
 her head and her heart when her selfish interests 
 are at stake; she throws a shell upon peaceful 
 sleeping hamlets by night, she poisons with 
 death-agonizing gases tiiose she may not kill 
 otherwise; then, as it would seem, in a premedi- 
 
Ideals in Religion 217 
 
 tated ideal of fright fulness and moral unrestraint 
 she places the capstone on the arch of her ruth 
 less and life-destroying regime by casting tor 
 pedoes at ships loaded with defenceless women 
 and little children, standing apart and listening 
 unresponsive to the anguished shrieks of the 
 drowning, 
 
 "Just as if Jesus had never lived, 
 As if He had never died." 
 
 Is it not proof, tragic beyond the reaches of 
 the imagination, that social and highly de 
 veloped environmental councils of perfection, 
 as nearly complete as anywhere on the face of 
 the earth, are as powerless as cobwebs to stay 
 the elemental passions of the untamed and un- 
 emancipated human heart? 
 
 We ask has Christianity collapsed in this 
 spectacle spread before our eyes in this most 
 deadly of all wars of the world? Is it only 
 left for us to say resignedly, 
 
 "Evil has won 
 
 In the horrid feud of ages with the throne. 
 Evil stands on the neck of good, and rules the world 
 alone." 
 
218 American Ideals 
 
 Do we as Christians despair of Christianity 
 because of scenes and conditions like these? 
 
 The very question is a travesty on words. It is 
 not Christianity which has collapsed, for the 
 Christian ethic or the Christian spirit have no 
 more to do with the informing and the bringing 
 to fruition of these baneful results than the 
 inquisitorial burning of martyrs had to do with 
 the healing, tolerant spirit of the Man of Galilee. 
 In the words of Teutonic idealism itself, these 
 events are the hallmark of a Napoleonic and 
 not a Christian regime, the practical evidence 
 before the eyes of all men of a religion that 
 makes no pretence at beating "its swords into 
 plowshares," but has accepted hate and might 
 and the religion of valor in its place, the polar 
 antithesis of every principle laid down by the 
 ethic of Jesus. It is the ideal of steel and iron, 
 crushing and trampling into dust the loftiest 
 hopes of the spirit and the soul of man. 
 
 If there was ever a visible and consummate 
 proof of the saying of a great scientist who was 
 once asked about the "failure of Christianity," 
 and answered, "The failure of Christianity? I 
 have never yet seen Christianity tried," it 
 would seem to be here. Amid all the heart 
 break of these days, if there is any such thing 
 
Ideals in Religion 219 
 
 still resident on earth as that which Gladstone 
 once called, "A double dose of original sin/ 
 this is a notable example of it. 
 
 Yet we do not need to go abroad to discover 
 the demolition of ideals that play only on the 
 surface of social organization but fail to reach 
 the roots of human nature, ideals that are the 
 resultant merely of secular and ethical na 
 tionalism. At the enormous expense of money 
 and press notices and a great expenditure of 
 legislative debate and legislation, we pass inter 
 state and various kinds of federal laws, aiming 
 at the restriction of evil-doing among railroad 
 officials, punishing often beyond reason and 
 justice the great carriers of the nation for their 
 mistakes which are as great as their achieve 
 ments. Then before the ink is fairly dry on the 
 statute books, new railroad scandals larger 
 perhaps than any that have yet appeared reveal 
 themselves in unlooked-for directions, with new 
 forms of chicanery and official corruption, and 
 widows and mothers from Portland to New 
 Haven are bereft of their savings, which have 
 gone to fill the deficits of railroad companies, 
 some of whose officials are among our much- 
 lauded philanthropists and apostles of the social 
 izing gospel. 
 
22O American Ideals 
 
 Is there not need to appreciate with new 
 candor, not simply the inadequacy of exter- 
 nalism as a religion, but also that such ideals 
 are far indeed from the teaching of the Founder 
 of the religious faith under whose banner our 
 country was inaugurated ? This Christian ideal 
 is aimed, not first at the body politic, but at 
 the individual man. It places its stamp, to be 
 sure, upon the command to serve and to minister 
 to our fellowmen. It would be an anachro 
 nism of Christian ideals that would advocate 
 the passing by on the other side of contempo 
 rary Samaritans, saying, "Be ye warmed and 
 clothed," but doing nothing to assist in the 
 process. But even Samaritan tending, accord 
 ing to the principles laid down and acted on by 
 Christ, is not the first or the central ideal of the 
 Christian religion. The first great command 
 ment is the love of man to God, which has been 
 translated as the life of God in the soul of man, 
 and this commandment came before the second, 
 not only in Biblical sequence, but in the entire 
 New Testament emphasis; it comes before it 
 in life, in our twentieth-century life, if the second 
 commandment is to be fully served. 
 
 Matthew Arnold said that it was by the 
 "spirit and the method of Jesus," and in no other 
 
Ideals in Religion 221 
 
 way, that religion is to be made permanent 
 in the world. If Christianity is to have a fair 
 trial, if this spirit and method of Jesus is to bear 
 any weight whatsoever upon the lives of men, 
 it must be the individual man rather than his 
 circumstances upon which we must rivet at 
 tention. The man is the maker of his circum 
 stances, and the circumstances have never truly 
 made or decided the course of great manhood. 
 
 It has been pointed out that pauperism was 
 more common in the first century than it is 
 to-day, far more common, yet the Founder of 
 the Christian faith neither organized nor ad 
 vocated reforms for pauperism; He left no such 
 system of poor laws as we find even in the old 
 Jewish histories of the Old Testament. No one 
 who has travelled in Eastern countries could 
 possibly get the impression that there was no 
 need at present, as in the first century, for atten 
 tion to sanitation and hygiene. Yet the early 
 founders of Christianity gave the matter, as far 
 as we know, little of their regard, in spite of 
 the fact that as far back as the time of Moses, 
 fourteen centuries previous, they had the ex 
 ample of laws of sanitation and all kinds of 
 bodily purifications as matters of legal and 
 religious significance. No one can maintain 
 
222 American Ideals 
 
 that the silence of the New Testament relative 
 to these matters can be urged on the strength of 
 their being unknown subjects or topics of incon 
 siderable importance to the people or the age. 
 Muhammad, contrariwise, recognized the need 
 of ceaseless ablutions, and made his laws 
 of bathing an inseparable preparation for 
 prayer. 
 
 But with the intuitive and certain concen 
 tration of great men, we find Christ sweeping by 
 the externalisms of his race, in both secular and 
 religious things alike, to strike at what was 
 to him evidently the core of religion. It was 
 this: 
 
 "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! 
 For ye cleanse the outside of the cup, and of the 
 platter, but within they are full from extortions and 
 excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside 
 of the cup and of the platter, that the outside there 
 of may become clean also." 
 
 It was good men before good measures. It 
 seems a slower process, yet the precepts of our 
 national faith correspond with the intuitive 
 good sense of a vast multitude of Americans 
 when they enjoin us twat we get on faster in 
 the end toward great religious ideals by giving 
 
Ideals in Religion 223 
 
 our attention first to making men, then laws, 
 and good bodily environment in order. "These 
 ought ye to have done, and not to have left the 
 other undone." Given good men and we must 
 by inherent necessity of natural law have good 
 laws, good schools, and harmonious cooperation 
 between classes. That all the advanced laws, 
 be they relative to tariff and government or to 
 rum or land tax or communism, are nerveless 
 and inadequate for good civilization in the 
 hands of bad men as administrators is a truism, 
 but it has not become sufficiently patent to 
 guide us in our acts. 
 
 We have left at the side a mighty principle 
 in our great and sensible religion, and have said, 
 contrary to its injunction, u Feedthe man, culture 
 him, give him good morals, and if there is any 
 time left cultivate his soul!" We have reversed 
 the process of our religion. To change a man s 
 clothes and even to fill his stomach without 
 changing his mind and the innermost ideals of 
 his nature is the veriest acme of "poking the 
 fire from the top." It is to lose the true leverage 
 on the things that make the real difference in 
 human nature. It is to put the foreground in 
 the background of national progress. 
 
 The spiritual man is the chief hope of the 
 
224 American Ideals 
 
 moral, intellectual, or physically healthy and 
 happy man. In religion the official arbiter 
 is the spiritual consciousness of the individual, 
 as in science it is the intellectual consciousness. 
 Dr. Lyman Abbott once said, " Christ did not 
 begin with the bottom of the man and work up 
 to the top, he began with the top of the man 
 and worked down toward the bottom." This 
 was also the method of Socrates: "All good and 
 evil/ the old Greek said, "whether in the body 
 or in human nature, originate in the soul and 
 overflow from thence, as from the head into 
 the eye. And, therefore, if the head and body 
 are to be well, you must begin by curing the 
 soul: that is the first thing." 
 
 The Christian ethic and gospel, if it can once 
 get tried, is the epitome of the highest religious 
 idealism an idealism that draws a man s spirit 
 from above to the vision of his own profitable 
 individual perfection, a perfection that is worked 
 out through the stimulus of the vision of God. 
 This ideal has been in the background of 
 American civilization for a long time, but there 
 was never a period when it needed a more vig 
 orous restatement. Emerson s whole message 
 gathers around the iuea that the institution is 
 but the lengthened shadow of a man. That 
 
Ideals in Religion 225 
 
 church and that devoted pastor and all those 
 everywhere who have refrained from prostituting 
 the high message aimed at a renewed, reverential, 
 and divine manhood, to the merely temporary 
 expedients of a socialized and non-spiritual 
 opportunism these are the nation s bulwark 
 of power. 
 
 Count Okuma in speaking of the politics of 
 his nation said to me, "The great need in Japan 
 to-day is to spiritualize our politics." Likewise 
 in America, there is upon us even now the mo 
 ment when not only our country but the nations 
 of the world bid us gather up our broken idols 
 and half dreams of social and political progress, 
 not abandoning the new and helpful order of 
 service, but reinspiring it, breathing through it 
 the true spirit of the Founder of the religion 
 which has not really lost amongst us individ 
 ual or national respect for its reality and power. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 ATTITUDE TOWARD THE IMMIGRANT 
 
 The bulk of the Americans don t get as yet any 
 real sense of his portentous multitude. 
 
 H. G. WELLS. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 ATTITUDE TOWARD THE IMMIGRANT 
 
 THE present European war and its subsequent 
 results in the national and social mobility of the 
 nations of the world bring to our grave atten 
 tion the ideals America holds relative to the 
 10,500,000 immigrants who have landed in the 
 United States since the opening of the twentieth 
 century, and to the future attitude we shall take 
 regarding this vast flood of alien power and 
 possibility. Of these enormous accessions, added 
 so quickly to the lower strata of our social life, 
 less than 15 per cent, had $50 between them and 
 starvation when they reached our shores. Four 
 out of every five have no trade, and more than 
 seven million of the peoples of Slav, Latin, and 
 Asiatic blood are coagulated in crowded indus 
 trial centres where the traditional ideals of 
 European life, in many cases the antitheses of 
 those of America, are left to germinate almost 
 untouched save by the incitements of the labor 
 agitator. Only to consider, however superfici- 
 229 
 
230 American Ideals 
 
 ally, the fact that at present the male workers of 
 foreign parentage outnumber the workers of 
 native parentage, and that this flood of popula 
 tion eclipses our native-born birth rate, is to 
 suggest the enormity of our problem in Ameri 
 canizing these members of fifty-six different 
 immigrant nationalities. 
 
 The questions these figures arouse are almost 
 legion. There are those that involve education, 
 safeguarding of womanhood and childhood, re 
 spect and obedience to law,, naturalization and 
 citizenship, foreign government subsidies, class 
 legislation, exclusion by government, and a 
 score of theories of service and betterment, some 
 of which are in successful operation, but which 
 as a whole are lacking in coherence and in unity 
 to a common goal. The problem might natu 
 rally lead men like Mr. H. G. Wells, who take a 
 hurried glance at these congeries of peoples and 
 opinions regarding them, to say, "I could not 
 make them understand the apprehension with 
 which this huge dilution of the American people 
 with profoundly ignorant foreign peasants 
 filled me." 
 
 We must consider this problem in the light 
 of our past experience as-well as with our eyes on 
 the present and the future. 
 
Attitude Toward the Immigrant 231 
 
 Since the year 1845 there has been proceeding 
 a migration to the United States far beyond any 
 thing the world has known since the fifth and 
 seventh centuries, when in Europe and Western 
 Asia the Slavic and Teutonic tribes migrated to 
 the Roman Empire. The migration began even 
 as far back as 1820, when the English settlers 
 came in comparatively small numbers, about 
 20,000 per annum, to the last year when an 
 avalanche of 1,000,000 persons landed on our 
 hospitable shores. 
 
 The Bureau of Immigration reveals the ad 
 dition of 1,250,000 between the years 1845 anc ^ 
 1855, fr m Ireland, while the total Irish immi 
 gration between 1820 and 1909 was 4,218,107, 
 a vast Celtic wave in number equal to the entire 
 population of Ireland in the year 1909. 
 
 The coming of Germans to America began in 
 1852, and in the year 1909 reached a total of 
 5,320,312 persons of Teuton stock who looked to 
 the New World for their future home. 
 
 Next came the Scandinavians, beginning in 
 1856 with a strong current of migration reaching 
 in 1909 a total of 1,896,139 souls. 
 
 It was not until 1880 that the stronger tide of 
 immigration set in from the Austro-Hungarian 
 Monarchy, and in 1882 from Italy and Russia, 
 
232 American Ideals 
 
 From the year 1890 Central and Southern Eu 
 rope have led the van of these new Americans, 
 and their total in 1907 numbered 1,285,000, and 
 altogether between the years of 1900 and 1909 
 there were 8,000,000 additions to the American 
 population from this section of Europe. With 
 this latter influx also there came new elements in 
 both race and religion, and in some respects 
 these peoples have furnished the most intricate 
 problems of assimilation. 
 
 Furthermore, there is the record of far greater 
 growth by the birth rate than among the native- 
 born Americans. In certain states this rate is 
 three times that of the dwellers of native stock. 
 In the year 1910 more than half of the white 
 population of the country was foreign or children 
 of foreigners, and in that year we find that 
 twice as many offspring were born to foreigners 
 as to the native population. If the present rate 
 and proportionate addition from the various 
 nations of the earth continues, it has been esti 
 mated that in the year 1950 at least three fourths 
 of the population of the United States will be of 
 foreign extraction. 
 
 At first sight this would seem to mean an 
 almost impossible task of Americanization. 
 There are large considerations which mitigate 
 
Attitude Toward the Immigrant 233 
 
 the seeming huge problem of absorption. One 
 aid lies in the fact that with this new prospective 
 population of 1950, certainly one half will con 
 sist of the emigration from the United Kingdom, 
 Germany, and the Scandinavian countries, and 
 the process of assimilating these people of more 
 or less kindred interests in religion, and in some 
 cases likeness of government and racial tradi 
 tions, is much easier than is the case with some 
 of the races of Southern Europe and Asiatic 
 lands. Of these latter there will be, according 
 to the present ratio of immigration, enormous as 
 it seems, but about 20 or 25 per cent, of the total 
 incomers. It is also to be remembered that 
 the birth rate is declining among the second 
 generation of foreigners, and that there is also a 
 depletion of the foreign reserve in certain coun 
 tries. The conditions arising as a result of the 
 present war no one can surely predict. That 
 each of the nations now engaged in the conflict 
 will be more ready than perhaps ever before to 
 offer inducements to hold their people at home 
 to assist in filling up the broken lines of workers 
 so hideously shattered by the war we are now 
 witnessing seems probable. Even if these people 
 of the Old World should come to us in greater 
 numbers than ever, those who know best the 
 
234 American Ideals 
 
 growing needs of this land for labor of all kinds, 
 and also recognize the increasing number of 
 ameliorating and educative agencies at work to 
 care for the stranger within our gates, are not as 
 apprehensive of the results as are some of our 
 fleeting visitors. 
 
 There is, moreover, the past ability of this 
 country to bring this foreign material into new 
 adaptation to our institutions and life in a 
 manner indubitably rapid and unique. No 
 foreigner can quite understand it, and many an 
 American does not stop to reason out the matter 
 or to explain the suddenness with which the 
 leaven of Americanism begins to mold the im 
 migrant when it gets a chance at him in com 
 paratively small groups or individually. The 
 story is told of two Irish and English immigrants 
 coming into New York Harbor on the Fourth of 
 July. When the Englishman remarked to his 
 fellow prospective American, "What is that 
 noise we hear?" the Irishman replied, "We re 
 celebratin the day we licked ye." The atmos 
 phere of public opinion, the newspaper in its 
 varied languages, and the willingness of the new 
 comer to be transformed as soon as possible for 
 his own good, are all coi*ducive to a quick stamp 
 ing process in the stimulating environment of a 
 
Attitude Toward the Immigrant 235 
 
 progressive civilization. That the American 
 type has become more or less fixed, and that the 
 hordes of immigrants have in the past not been 
 able to radically or suddenly sweep it out of 
 existence, is a reason for the belief that it will 
 stand the test of the years ahead with perhaps 
 even greater tax upon its powers. 
 
 The dangers, however, are great enough even 
 at the best, both to the immigrant himself, be 
 ginning anew with the loosened restraints, 
 his national habits and his priest left behind, 
 feeling himself often "a tossing atom in a 
 seething crowd," and also to the Republic from 
 the congested and often unattended masses of 
 peasants from Europe thrown into a swarm of 
 industrial or mining laborers, losing their guid 
 ing stars of the Old World before they even 
 glimpse the orbits around which their new world 
 is swinging. 
 
 The hope of a successful solution of this vexed 
 problem lies in something more than the "eternal 
 vigilance" that passively believes we can some 
 how accomplish the miraculous by our wonderful 
 civilization. A great many of the people of 
 this country must begin to feel a new and a 
 different kind of obligation to the foreigner if 
 we are really to succeed in making him what he 
 
236 American Ideals 
 
 may become in this land of opportunity. It 
 means ever-increasingGovernment attention and 
 official sympathy in rules and laws executed for 
 individuals as well as for a herd at Ellis Island; 
 it means a vastly enlarged program of education 
 for adults as for children. It involves meeting 
 the foreigner at the water s edge and following 
 him closely into every state and construction 
 camp of his industrial work-a-day world; it 
 means more personal attention to his social and 
 religious and sentimental nature than we have 
 yet even meditated; it means that large numbers 
 of our people must give up a life work to the 
 study and service needed to prepare these eager 
 and often able men and women, whom we do not 
 know except under the somewhat demeaning 
 title of "immigrant," to take their citizenship 
 papers with a new sense of obligation to become 
 un-hyphenated and unequivocal adherents to 
 their adopted citizenship. 
 
 Surveys and Immigration Commissions and 
 Americanization Days and "Civic Rituals * are 
 good, but they will of themselves fail to Ameri 
 canize the foreigner. The two things that are 
 imperatively needed at present are new and 
 truer beliefs in the character and accomplish 
 ment of the new citizen on the part of native- 
 
Attitude Toward the Immigrant 237 
 
 born American men and women, and in the 
 second place actual workers rather than theo 
 rists about work. 
 
 I quote from a letter written to me by Dr. 
 Peter Roberts, one of the men who has pioneered 
 much of the splendid service at the port cities, 
 and who has also assisted in the preparation of 
 the foreigner, even as far back as his homeland 
 and embarking point, for the new conditions 
 awaiting him: 
 
 The great need as relating to the immigrant is 
 that American-born men may understand and fully 
 comprehend the meaning of democracy. Prejudice 
 against the foreigner is too common, indifference 
 to his well-being is prevalent, and in scores of com 
 munities a practical program for the assimilation 
 of immigrants is an impossibility because of the pre 
 judice of Americans. To remove this antipathy, to 
 convince the native born that the immigrant has 
 possibilities if he is only given a chance, is the great 
 work that needs to be done to-day in America. 
 
 The second great need is to convince the govern 
 ment of every state where the immigration problem 
 is acute, as well as the Federal Government, that it is 
 unjust to tax the alien without investing in him 
 something that will make him a good citizen of the 
 United States. I do not see how patriotic Americans 
 who know the need of immigrants can complacently 
 contemplate a fund of ten millions of dollars taken 
 
238 American Ideals 
 
 out of the pockets of poor immigrants coming to 
 this country, and not demand that this fund be used 
 for the education and the assimilation of the alien. 
 
 A sympathetic effort is also needed to induce aliens 
 who have been in the country five or more years to 
 become identified with the nation. There is need of 
 a modification of the law admitting aliens to natural 
 ization, giving an opportunity to character, amount 
 of property accumulated, and record of industrial 
 efficiency in any reliable plant to count in the ex 
 amination. It is a mistake to believe that aliens 
 seeking entrance into our family are desirable if only 
 they can write their names, read English, and know 
 something about our Constitution. 
 
 The putting of these ideas and many others 
 relative to the foreigner into active operation, in 
 some parts of our land at least, gives hope of a 
 wider nation-wide service for alien adults as well 
 as for children of foreigners. The work of the 
 Educational Alliance for the Jews from Russia, 
 Galicia, and Poland is notable by its emphasis 
 upon the family life of the immigrants, and also 
 by its attention to religious instruction, which 
 it is a peril to omit when dealing with the aliens. 
 The Young Men s Christian Association is 
 teaching 30,000 immigrants in classes, and is 
 reaching ten times this number through its 
 lectures and entertainments. The Association 
 
Attitude Toward the Immigrant 239 
 
 has also thirteen European secretaries serving 
 immigrants in foreign ports, and twelve secre 
 taries are at work with immigrants in the North 
 American ports. The enlistment of one thou 
 sand college students, most of them in engineer 
 ing courses in our universities, as volunteer 
 teachers and helpers among these newly arrived 
 peoples, is also to be credited to the work of the 
 Young Men s Christian Associations. 
 
 It is in the large cities especially that Amer 
 ican ideals are most alarmingly threatened by 
 the mass of undigested foreign elements. There 
 is 72 per cent, of the immigrant population 
 now in the cities of our country, drawn there 
 largely by the opportunities of industrial work. 
 In New York, for example, 58 per cent, of its 
 males of voting age were born on foreign soil, 
 and only 38 per cent, of this immigrant popula 
 tion is naturalized. In other words, we have as 
 our "naturalization problem" in the American 
 metropolis 510,702 men who are not held by 
 citizenship from the engagement in a score of 
 things inimical to good government, if not 
 tending toward violent socialism and some 
 thing resembling anarchy if their leadership 
 is sufficiently unscrupulous. 
 
 The need of grappling with the problem by the 
 
240 American Ideals 
 
 forces of an entire city and the success attendant 
 upon such unified activity are revealed in the 
 excellent work which is now being accomplished 
 in the city of Cleveland through the leadership 
 of the Cleveland Immigration League, which 
 has been the means of bringing into being a 
 Municipal Immigration Bureau as a part of 
 the Division of Employment in the Department 
 of Public Welfare. The Immigration League 
 composed of representatives of the Board of 
 Education, public libraries, headworkers of 
 settlement houses, superintendents of various 
 city missionary societies, secretaries of the 
 Young Men s and Young Women s Christian 
 Associations, together with the officers of foreign 
 societies, judges and clerks of the courts of 
 naturalization, and professors in the local 
 universities took upon itself the ideal, "to 
 assist the immigrant to solve his own problem/ 
 This League found various agencies doing good 
 work along separate and almost entirely inde 
 pendent lines, with no definite program for the 
 entire city. Its efforts have been successful in 
 increasing by 200 per cent, the attendance in 
 the citizenship classes of the "coming Ameri 
 can" in this city whure 74.8 per cent, of the 
 population are foreign born. In the study of 
 
Attitude Toward the Immigrant 241 
 
 the question the League found certain condi 
 tions existing in connection with the arrival of 
 immigrants at the railroad stations, and in the 
 treatment of these people by different organiza 
 tions calling for the cooperation of the municipal 
 forces of the city, and in 1913 the Municipal 
 Immigration Bureau was formed and joined 
 with the League in five branches of activity. 
 
 Depot work has developed until 12,426 
 foreigners have been met in a single year at the 
 station and assisted in finding proper location. 
 A suggestive hint in connection with the work has 
 been the statement of the cab drivers who have 
 borne witness that their revenue, largely through 
 overcharges to these people, ignorant of our cus 
 toms, has been decreased about 75 per cent. 
 
 The employment work has had the cooperation 
 of the State Industrial Commission and main 
 tains a State-Cities Free Labor Exchange, and 
 the Municipal Employment Bureau which has 
 cared for the foreign labor has been brought into 
 connection with the Municipal Civil Service Law. 
 
 A Department of Information and Complaints 
 has issued an "Immigrant Guide" of twenty- 
 seven pages published in nine foreign languages, 
 the demand for which calls for two editions 
 totaling 70,000 copies. This department has 
 
242 American Ideals 
 
 investigated and settled in a single year 887 
 cases of complaint against steamship agencies, 
 notaries public, private employment bureaus, 
 and similar institutions which have preyed upon 
 these new citizens. 
 
 In education, where perhaps the greatest ad 
 vance and the strategic point of influence is to 
 be found, a plan of cooperation formed in con 
 nection with the Board of Education has brought 
 about special training courses for teachers in 
 methods of instruction to immigrants and the en 
 largement of the elementary public night schools, 
 with an increase in these schools of 44 per cent. 
 
 The opportunities have been increased for 
 naturalization through night sessions at the 
 clerk s office of naturalization which has meant 
 the saving of from $2 to $6 per applicant on 
 account of opening the possibilities to apply at 
 night rather than lose a day s work. During 
 the year 1914, i>574 immigrants applied to this 
 agency for their naturalization papers, and 
 2,960 certificates of naturalization as diplomas 
 were issued to newly naturalized citizens at the 
 citizenship receptions. 
 
 Not least important is the course on methods 
 held every week in the offices of the Immigration 
 Bureau where social workers, together with 
 
Attitude Toward the Immigrant 243 
 
 those interested in the subject, speak and make 
 reports and discuss matters in connection with a 
 systematic publicity campaign now being carried 
 on through the newspapers. 
 
 It is with such agencies which are beginning to 
 assist on a large scale the immigrant to under 
 stand the country to which he has joined his 
 allegiance, as well as to aid the American to se 
 cure the point of view of the immigrant, that we 
 must look for the solution of this large problem. 
 An idea of the way in which individuals are de 
 voting virtually a life work to the assistance of 
 these people is brought out by the following 
 which I quote from a letter from Mr. W. P. 
 Waller, who is at present the General Secretary 
 of the Young Men s Christian Association in 
 Akron, Ohio, and who began his investigation 
 and work for the foreigner in the city of Cam 
 bridge, Massachusetts: 
 
 During the last fiscal year we had enrolled 1,525 
 scholars. The average age of these men was about 
 twenty-five. Over 152 were aided in taking out their 
 final citizenship papers, which makes a total of 300 
 in the last two years. I find that the men who apply 
 for their papers are entirely ignorant of American 
 history, the character of our great men, and other 
 essential features which are so necessary to be under 
 stood if our nation is to be truly a democratic one. 
 
244 American Ideals 
 
 On the other hand, I find that every one of them is 
 most eager to learn these facts. There is a decidedly 
 independent spirit among them, and with the right 
 kind of instruction and development of public sym 
 pathy toward them, I am certain that they should 
 prove of very great value to the strength of the na 
 tion. The attitude of the American people toward 
 the immigrant has been one of indifference, and some 
 times worse than that an attitude of disdain. We 
 have relegated them to live in the worst sections of 
 our cities; we have placed upon them the most 
 menial labors of our commonwealths. In fact, we 
 have disregarded almost all of the laws which we 
 know must be obeyed in order to produce clean, 
 strong, moral beings. 
 
 To my question to Mr. Waller regarding the 
 problem of increasing immigration and its 
 dangers, he replied: 
 
 The problem of immigration is an economic one, 
 and I believe the economic conditions will control 
 the ebb and flow. In any case, America should bear 
 its share of the world s burden. 
 
 In relation to what the immigrant has done 
 for New England and our country generally I 
 quote the following: 
 
 New England is rapidly becoming farmed by 
 immigrants. Native Americans left New England 
 
Attitude Toward the Immigrant 245 
 
 soil practically on the "junk heap." The Italians, 
 Portuguese, and many men from Southeastern 
 Europe have taken up the work discarded by Ameri 
 cans and are making grass to grow where weeds 
 flourished, trees to bloom where old decayed trunks 
 marred the horizon. This speaks volumes for the 
 value of the immigrant. If we turn to industry, or 
 to our great transcontinental railways, we cannot see 
 a single mile of track, a single car, a single train in 
 motion, without realizing, if we are thoughtful, that 
 in a very large measure the immigrant has made 
 possible this great progress by reason of his willing 
 ness to work under conditions that the ordinary 
 American workman would refuse to accept. 
 
 Quite apart from our great mass of immigrants 
 from Central and Southern Europe, whom we 
 consider only as "hewers of wood and drawers of 
 water, " there is a smaller but most important 
 contingent that we should recognize for the sake 
 of the artistic values which they bring to us. 
 
 While visiting in old Nuremburg I was watch 
 ing one day a famous wood carver lovingly 
 fashioning the wooden draperies on the statue 
 of a Madonna. When he had finished the deli 
 cate work, which revealed the developed talent 
 of a lifetime of devoted artisanship, he turned 
 and said, "You are from America; I have a son 
 in America." I asked him what his son was 
 
246 American Ideals 
 
 doing. "He is working in a furniture factory," 
 said he, "fitting the arms upon chairs. He is 
 not happy in that new land fitting arms to chairs 
 because he is the son and the grandson and the 
 great-grandson of wood carvers in Old Nurem- 
 burg." 
 
 The old German s words raised in my mind 
 the query, "Are we making the most of our im 
 migrants of artistic inheritance?" In these 
 times of specialists and machine-made articles, 
 in a period when an immigrant is so rapidly 
 converted into a cog in the wheel of our vast 
 industrial enterprises, are we not forgetful that 
 some of these men, at least, are bringing to us 
 the heritage of great talent, which is slowly being 
 crushed beneath the wheels of our materialistic 
 Juggernaut. 
 
 We ask why the old Florentine goldsmiths 
 were the greatest in the world, why Bernini has 
 never been surpassed as a worker in gold and 
 silver? These Florentine craftsmen took the 
 crude material and, with their own creative 
 hands, formed it into the object of their dream. 
 They saw not only the beginning but the finished 
 product of their hands. It had the effect upon 
 them that the finished poem has upon the soul 
 and the mind of the poet. Just as truly as the 
 
Attitude Toward the Immigrant 247 
 
 poet would have found it impossible to have 
 created his masterpiece if to him had been the 
 privilege of making the first two lines only 
 while other men added their allotted lines, none 
 of them seeing the finished poem as his own, 
 likewise the creative soul of the modern work 
 man is scarcely stirred by his piecemeal work; 
 it results in machine-made product and an 
 ambitionless and machinelike man. 
 
 Not all, to be sure, not indeed even more than 
 a small qualitative minority of these thousands 
 who annually seek American shores from their 
 ancient fatherlands are equipped either by 
 their inheritance or training to take the chisel, 
 the brush, or the hammer in creative, artistic 
 hands. Yet no one has watched that endless 
 stream of humanity flowing through the gates 
 of Ellis Island almost any day, without dis 
 covering here and there in the dreamy eyes of 
 the Jew, the Slav, or the Latin, the sleeping 
 capacity of a great artist or a great workman 
 along individually constructive lines. That he 
 does not at present find opportunity for the 
 expression of that which is most truly germane 
 to his aptitude and ideals in the heterogeneous 
 herding in twentieth-century American indus 
 tries goes without saying. 
 
248 American Ideals 
 
 The lines of Robert Haven Schauffler, in his 
 "Scum of the Earth," may be pondered with 
 benefit: 
 
 Mercy for us who dare despise 
 Men in whose loins our Honor lies; 
 Mothers of men who shall bring to us 
 The glory of Titian, the grandson of Huss; 
 Children in whose frail arms shall rest 
 Prophets arid singers and saints of the West. 
 
 Newcomers all from the eastern seas, 
 
 Help us incarnate dreams like these, 
 
 Forget, and forgive, that we did you wrong. 
 
 Help us to father a nation, strong 
 
 In a comradeship of an equal birth, 
 
 In the wealth of the richest bloods of earth. 
 
 In these days when we are meeting these new 
 citizens with so many various plans for training, 
 is it not worth while to consider the possibilities 
 found in this material for a school as yet un 
 heard of, a school in which the results of age-long 
 genius of Europe and Asia may be garnered for 
 fresh and larger achievements? This genius 
 would be expressed in forms diverse from that 
 in which it was revealed in the Old World; it 
 would be adapted natu r ally to the life and en 
 vironment and institutions of the New World. 
 
Attitude Toward the Immigrant 249 
 
 To disregard it or to crush it by our constantly 
 accelerated processes of industrial activity is as 
 certainly to deprive the individual of his prime 
 incentive as it is to rob America of one of the 
 richest assets to be derived from the stranger en 
 tering our gates. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE SHADOW OF SUCCESS 
 
 I cannot call riches better than the baggage of 
 virtue; the Roman word is better, "impedimenta," 
 for as the baggage is to an army, so is riches to virtue; 
 it cannot be spared, and left behind, but it hindereth 
 the march; yea, and the care of it sometimes loseth 
 or disturbeth the victory; of great riches there is no 
 real use, except it be in the distribution; the rest is 
 but conceit. 
 
 BACON. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE SHADOW OF SUCCESS 
 
 IT MIGHT seem inopportune to treat of the weak 
 nesses of a nation when the stones of that nation s 
 building are still leaping to find their places 
 in the unfinished structure, and while the sha 
 dows of our forefathers are still lying upon our 
 path. As it is, however, in the moving, easily 
 changed growth of youth, while his faults and 
 follies are entangled with his virtues, before age 
 has given the set to habits, that one finds both 
 attraction and possibility; so in national life we 
 do well to test the structure material while it is 
 still in hand, choosing and refusing as we build. 
 Here, as in other phases of American history, 
 the secret of her failures lies imbedded in her 
 success; her failures are the shadows of her 
 success. The hour of prosperity is the hour 
 of danger in the United States; it is the hour in 
 which to consider such weaknesses as easy-going 
 complacency trusting in a kind of shadowy 
 optimism and a blind sense of luck the in- 
 253 
 
254 American Ideals 
 
 difference to the inner light and the worship of 
 contemporaneousness placing action in the 
 room of merit seeking the wrong goal and be 
 coming proud of the secondary thing sordid 
 ideals of spending the perils of the vacant 
 mind idealizing of pleasure and forgetting the 
 finesse of life through the preoccupation of the 
 hunt: these are shadows falling across our pres 
 ent-day prosperity. 
 
 The weakness of American idealism gathers 
 about those dangers which are inclined to inhere 
 in republics where the government is decided 
 by majority suffrage. 
 
 Among the most prominent of these national 
 inclinations is the tendency to break down the 
 respect for law and vested authority; this is 
 followed at times by the evasion of the laws of 
 the land, providing it can be done safely. As an 
 old Pennsylvania farmer put it, "It s all right 
 to get the best of the railroad, providing you 
 don t get caught at it." It is a trait that re 
 sembles somewhat the Oriental s deceit, which 
 in the East is regarded as a virtue and a mark of 
 cleverness as long as it works, but is instantly 
 despised when it fails to delude. 
 
 It must be recognized, however, that in con 
 sideration of the scale upon which democracy 
 
The Shadow of Success 255 
 
 is being tried in the United States, a far more 
 extensive scale than that upon which republics 
 have heretofore existed in any part of the world, 
 the faults of indifference and a lack of responsi 
 bility relative to law and order, though often 
 alarming, are not sufficiently widespread or fla 
 grant to make Americans despair of their cure. 
 In fact, one only needs to get his fingers dusty a 
 bit in the examination of the history even of the 
 past fifty years to become convinced that we 
 are making progress in the matter of respect for 
 law. Some of the things of the dead past are 
 the "Night Riders"; the famous terrorizing 
 Ku-Klux Klan; the Western train brigandage, 
 led by such outlaws as the notorious Jesse 
 James; the "Molly McGuire" conspiracy of 
 Pennsylvania; and the fearsome blood feuds of 
 Kentucky, where even in the ten years as recent 
 as 1880 to 1890 it is stated that fifty members 
 of a single family met their death in one unlaw 
 ful murder following another in the trail of 
 barbarous revenge. The "Pinkertons," who 
 even in the memory of this generation numbered 
 one thousand armed men, were called upon by 
 different states to protect industries and quell 
 disturbances where the arm of the law was then 
 inadequate these and many other examples 
 
256 American Ideals 
 
 suggestive of a primitive state of authority have 
 passed largely into oblivion in the evolution of 
 the American Republic into a firmer and more 
 truly law-abiding democracy. 
 
 In spite of these encouraging facts, notwith 
 standing the satisfaction that the ruffianlike 
 sheriff of twenty-five years ago, with his swash 
 buckler cowboys, is chiefly a reality in our melo 
 dramatic moving pictures, the germ of disregard 
 for law has not been entirely eradicated; the 
 snake of sedition, forthat it truly is, has not been 
 killed even if it has been scotched; we are not 
 out of the woods even though we can see the 
 light in the clearing. 
 
 Ex-President Taft, speaking at Yale in 1906, 
 said, "I grieve to say that the administration of 
 the criminal law is in nearly all the states of the 
 Union a disgrace to our civilization/ And 
 again in the year 1906, Mr. Taft reiterated his 
 convictions in these words before the Pennsyl 
 vania State Bar Association: 
 
 No one can examine the statistics of crime in 
 this country and of successful prosecutions without 
 realizing that the administration of the criminal law 
 is a disgrace to our civilization, and without tracing 
 to this condition, as a moving and overwhelming 
 cause for them, the horrible lynchings that are com- 
 
The Shadow of Success 257 
 
 mitted the country over, with all the danger of in 
 justice and exhibition of fiendish cruelty which such 
 occurrences involve. 
 
 Not only is this feeling of uncertainty relative 
 to the sense of responsible citizenship shared by 
 many of the most far-sighted American jurists 
 and business men, whose position affords op 
 portunities to judge of our failures, but James 
 Bryce, than whom no foreigner has been more 
 astute or sympathetic in his close scrutiny of 
 the governing agencies of the United States, 
 in his "American Commonwealth" sums up his 
 discussions of our shortcomings with these 
 words: 
 
 This inquiry has shown us that of the faults tra 
 ditionally attributed to democracy one only is fairly 
 chargeable on the United States; that is to say, is 
 manifested there more conspicuously than in the 
 constitutional monarchies of Europe. This is the 
 disposition to be lax in enforcing laws disliked by 
 any large part of the population, to tolerate breaches 
 of public order, and to be too indulgent to offenders 
 generally. 
 
 While such things as the Thaw, the Becker, 
 and the Frank cases, with their long drawn-out 
 and uncertain litigation, their often sickening 
 
258 American Ideals 
 
 detail, confront us; while such abominable acts 
 as the murder of Frank still occur; while it 
 is still necessary to call out the Government 
 troops to quell Colorado mine troubles; while 
 gunmen still get their victims with amazing 
 frequency in perhaps the best policed city in 
 the country, it must be realized that there is 
 something inherently weak down below the 
 surface of these abnormal expressions of dis 
 order, some failure in the sense of citizenship 
 in the general body of which these enormities 
 are but the sad symptoms. 
 
 Were further contemporary signs of our 
 political unhealthfulness needed we might con 
 sider the inadequacy of the suffrage laws in 
 certain of the Gulf States relative to the negro; 
 the corruption in the State of Florida in recent 
 years by a financier who was confessedly in 
 control of certain divisions of the state legisla 
 ture for his personal advantage; the connivance 
 of both officials and people in recent matters 
 of racing, speculations in stocks, railroads, and 
 department stores; in the dead letter condition 
 of certain liquor laws, and especially the trav 
 esty of alleged execution of drinking legislation 
 in some of the "prohibition states," where the 
 very mention of the word "prohibition" is to 
 
The Shadow of Success 259 
 
 cause a laugh, so inadequate is it thought to be 
 to stop by law the sale of spirits. When a 
 governor of the Empire State is impeached for 
 crooked practices, and when another governor 
 is called to make the fight of his political career 
 on the plain issue of the enforcement of laws 
 that are already on the state statutes regarding 
 horse racing and betting, is there not afforded 
 evidence somewhat incontrovertible that the 
 law is not an authority par excellence in the 
 American mind? 
 
 There is also the drift toward a laxity of 
 discipline and blundering service in many an 
 institution of public character. In our stores 
 and on our street conveyances we find a 
 lack of respect and careful attention to details 
 on the part of overworked employees. In our 
 post offices, in our railroad ticket offices, in 
 restaurants and hotels, one could pick up a 
 volume of testimony and witness to the fact 
 that, through hurry or heedlessness or the grow 
 ing sway of professionalism in public and busi 
 ness affairs, the sense of personal responsibility 
 is weakened. Europeans are sure to accuse us 
 of the trait of being long-suffering to the point of 
 weakness, and the newspapers and public 
 officials of many a land supposedly less jealous 
 
260 American Ideals 
 
 of its rights, would be flooded with letters of 
 complaint for breaches of service to be expected 
 as a matter of course from servants of the people 
 in public institutions. 
 
 There is a feeling all too common that it is 
 in no wise dishonorable to do the daily task with 
 the eye on the clock rather than with a pride 
 of workmanship soaring above the feeling of 
 "getting home." Men will tell you that it needs 
 a stand-up fight to get orders out on time in 
 many a business house, and the man is best 
 served who makes the most determined and 
 unceasing demands for immediacy. A prom 
 inent builder told me recently that he was out 
 of pocket hundreds of dollars yearly by reason 
 of the necessity of sending back workmen to 
 finish incomplete or faulty construction. There 
 is a tendency to undertake more work than the 
 firm can do well, and this fills the air with a 
 constant sense of pushing on to the next job, 
 and depending upon the owner to "make a 
 kick," which he is usually obliged to do if he is 
 to receive quid pro quo for his money. It is 
 needless to point out the fatal twist in the self- 
 respecting sense of responsibility which this 
 doing of work so that It will pass, yet not so 
 well but that much of it will need doing over, 
 
The Shadow of Success 261 
 
 gives to the workman. It is making the stand 
 ard of service depend, not upon excellence of 
 work, but upon the good nature of Americans. 
 
 That labor organizations have been partially 
 responsible for this lack of personal obligation 
 in one s work, making an eight-hour day rather 
 than a perfect product the norm of their activi 
 ties, is probably true. That the previous grind 
 of the sweatshop and the inhuman dominance 
 of wealth in vast trusts and huge impersonal 
 industrial organizations was the prior cause of 
 this sordid emphasis of the trades unions, is 
 also true. 
 
 Meanwhile the "dear public" pays the piper 
 for the absence in many a phase of our life of 
 the consideration due to the average house 
 holder and citizen. There is running through 
 the democracy, as a counter to the feeling that 
 we are often imposed upon, the idea that a nation 
 gets as good government and service as it de 
 serves; anyhow, that we are making our own 
 institutions, political as well as private and pub 
 lic; and this satisfaction closes our mouths when 
 we would speak out against the cajolery of the 
 politician and the vexing incompetency of the 
 tradesman. 
 
 Behind this somewhat unconscious sense that 
 
262 American Ideals 
 
 we can change things if we will, there is a dis 
 inclination in the United States to stir up trouble 
 and a not pronounced sympathy with those 
 who are too forward in pointing out weaknesses. 
 We have in the American a temperament of 
 quick emotionalism and one that is ready to take 
 up with the last and best new thing wherever 
 he finds it, moving about without let or hin 
 drance in many spheres of his freedom; but yet 
 in respect to the toleration of abuses he is one of 
 the most lenient and conservative of persons. 
 As a rule he finds it is a safe working policy to 
 bear the ills he knows rather than flying to ills 
 he knows not of, which may exist quite likely 
 on the other side of his protest. He resembles 
 his countryman, Josh Billings, who said that if 
 when walking in the woods he encountered a 
 snake hole, he invariably turned out and went 
 some distance around, saying to himself, "That 
 hole belongs to that snake." 
 
 In this shunning of disagreeable responsi 
 bility the American is not unlike the China 
 man, who if he drag a drowning man out of the 
 water, according to the usage of the land, he 
 would be accused quite likely of having tried 
 to murder the man, aiid if he were fortunate 
 enough to escape with his head, he would prob- 
 
The Shadow of Success 263 
 
 ably have to assume the man s future support. 
 The dweller in the United States dislikes to 
 get into trouble if he can avoid it; hence he 
 often takes the easiest way, becoming a first- 
 class example of unconcerned, even if pained, 
 indifference. Furthermore, has he not the news 
 papers? and is there anything in the heavens 
 above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the 
 earth that the American newspaper fails to make 
 public, and in such a wealth and luxury of detail 
 and itemization as to almost relieve the ordi 
 nary individual of duty for the delayed and 
 delinquent processes of law and order! 
 
 Another shadow of our American idealism 
 is in the region of that good that becomes the 
 enemy of the best; I refer to the peace-at-any- 
 price talk and activity, especially to the attempt 
 to enlist our youth in a kind of anti-enlistment 
 sentiment savoring considerably of fanaticism 
 if it misses being called by a stronger word. 
 While the weakness of the Republic in the 
 enforcement of laws is due to the citizen s easy 
 going belief in the democratic order of which 
 he feels himself an integral part, this extreme 
 advocacy of peace on any terms is a distinct 
 foe to the spirit of self-respecting and vibrant 
 democracy. It not only smacks of treason to 
 
264 American Ideals 
 
 the spirit of devotion to law, but it is an egre 
 gious misconception of the condition of advance 
 of human nature. It is a blind attempt to 
 legislate into being a state or condition which 
 must first exist in the human heart, having its 
 secret and propelling cause far below all our 
 ingenious panaceas. No sane and worthy 
 citizen wants anything but peace among the 
 nations, as we all want peace between capital 
 and labor; but as in the latter case we very 
 sensibly recognize the limiting media in which 
 industrial peace must be brought about the 
 unregenerate nature of man in the former 
 matter we go about our Utopian peace tinker 
 ing as though evil and wrong-doing were ghosts 
 of a distant generation, long since laid by what 
 we are pleased to call modern civilization. 
 
 As a sad matter of fact, while it has accom 
 plished much in changing and reforming the 
 outside of the nature of the twentieth-century 
 man, civilization has not changed radically the 
 inside of him, and unfortunately, or sometimes 
 fortunately, it is the inner man that determines 
 the existence of peace or war. It is not to sup 
 port or to approve of an evil to acknowledge its 
 existence, but to fail to face the fact that hu 
 manity writes its history in one long story of 
 
The Shadow of Success 265 
 
 struggle, not unmixed in any long period with 
 bloodshed, is both to be ignorant of the past, 
 and what is more to the point just now, it is to 
 neglect to recognize the constitution of mankind 
 in its present reactions. The fight against sin 
 and wrong, as we see it, is the most common act 
 of humanity and its trail runs red across all the 
 life of men. All literature and all civilization 
 we know or care about is colored by it both in its 
 sacred and secular phases. It was by the 
 memory of their battles that Pericles and De 
 mosthenes adjured the Athenians. Did not 
 Horace boast that he had been a soldier, non 
 sine gloria ? Milton in one of his most sublime 
 sonnets said, "Peace hath her victories no less 
 renowned than war. " Our very hymns and 
 sacred chants are war songs, and the Book "our 
 mothers read" is filled with injunctions to "fight 
 the good fight of faith," and to follow those 
 heroes who sailed through bloody seas to win 
 the prize. One of the most popular hymns of 
 our American youth is, "The Son of God Goes 
 Forth to War." We may dream peace and pray 
 devoutly for peace on earth and good will be 
 tween men, but at the same time we must not 
 shut our eyes to facts as they are, nor would we 
 be sensible peacemakers if we deluded ourselves 
 
266 American Ideals 
 
 into thinking that we can sweep into the light 
 of a new and younger day, before the shadows of 
 conflict and belief in war have been driven from 
 the inner shrines of human thinking. 
 
 If we are at all impressed by recent events we 
 will find it difficult to evade the fact that in the 
 hearts of a good number of the races of men 
 there is still a considerable of that commodity 
 originally known as moral depravity, however 
 optimistically we may feel and act in our peace 
 conferences. As between ourselves as individ 
 uals, so between ourselves as nations, certain 
 things will yield to arbitration and measures more 
 or less peaceful; but there are other things deeply 
 rooted in the obstinacy of the human heart, 
 that are as difficult to settle without recourse to 
 physical pressure in our nation, where men are 
 supposed to see alike, as they are to adjudicate 
 between nations with whom ideals vary widely, 
 and add to the barriers to peace. 
 
 Why did we not arbitrate our differences with 
 England in the period of the War of the Revolu 
 tion ? Because we could not ; human nature was 
 against us. England could not arbitrate with 
 Germany in 1914; human nature on both sides 
 and on all sides was too strong for them, and 
 until we get considerable closer to the millen- 
 
The Shadow of Success 267 
 
 nium than we are at present, we must count on 
 this doughty and often most perverse antagonist 
 to large unselfish purposes, expressed in the 
 little word that Henry Drummond once said had 
 wandered out of theology into life, the word of 
 three burning letters S-I-N. The shadow of 
 this small word still looms dark and ominous 
 across the attempted successes of mankind, and 
 they reckon ill who forget it and try to railroad 
 us into havens of world peace. 
 
 I am reminded of an incident told of a devoted 
 missionary who had experienced indifferent 
 success in winning the heathen natives of a dis 
 tant island to his faith, when one day he chanced 
 upon the passage, "Give to every man that 
 asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy 
 goods, ask them not again. " As a last resort, 
 the good missionary tried this method of preach 
 ing. The natives came to his home admiring 
 his pictures and his books and his furniture, and 
 seeing his willingness, carried them all away 
 until the poor man had virtually nothing left. 
 He then sat down in his house and waited. The 
 next day the removers of the goods returned 
 bringing them all back and, according to the 
 account, this was the beginning of a great re 
 vival in the obdurate heathen community. A 
 
268 American Ideals 
 
 seemingly strong argument for peace-at-any- 
 price! The only reason that this method of mis 
 sionary propaganda has not become general in 
 difficult heathen sections, lies in the sequel of this 
 incident, which was told me in the region of this 
 event. The missionary, according to the report, 
 removed to another field and tried the same thing, 
 but in this case the heathen kept the furniture. 
 
 There is no conclusive evidence that volun 
 tary self-sacrifice and unprotected rights are as 
 yet current or common commodities among 
 nations wanting property belonging to others. 
 In a conversation with a British member of the 
 Government of India, as we sat comfortably at 
 the dinner of some foreign guests in Delhi, I 
 proceeded to ask the stock question, whether 
 England would ever give back India to the East 
 Indian? The Englishman replied with a know 
 ing wink, "Of course we shall give India back. 
 Didn t we give back America to you?" 
 
 Far be it from me to join the ranks of the 
 jingoists or to delude myself into thinking that 
 in our long history of peace-loving policies any 
 large portion of the inhabitants of these United 
 States have lost their pristine loyalty and devo 
 tion to their highest sei^se of patriotism. Even 
 our youth are old enough to remember the sight 
 
The Shadow of Success 269 
 
 of thousands of peace-desiring men ready to 
 rush to arms at the insult to our flag, crowding 
 "the road of death as to a festival." I would 
 be the last to advocate the exchange of our vic 
 tories of peace in the realm of industrial advance 
 for a nation of ironclads and ever-absorbing at 
 tention upon fortresses and militarism, which 
 breed the madness of the ruffian and the bully 
 among nations and men. 
 
 But I would add my voice against those who 
 would set before our nation a soft peace-at-any- 
 price ideal, for this means when it is grown a 
 weak passivity in the presence of wrong and 
 oppression. It means the loss of power to have a 
 part in the great neutral counsels of mankind; 
 it is also a travesty on any great religion. Out 
 side the comparatively small and uninfluential 
 Eastern mystics and medieval saints who have 
 solved the problem of peace in the world by giv 
 ing it up and leaving the earth for the monastery, 
 outside the visionaries and the sentimentalists, 
 the high-minded religious souls of the world 
 have recognized the inevitable necessity of 
 fighting evil with weapons best suited to its 
 demolition, since they have discerned it as the 
 causal agency of unhappiness and the enemy of 
 every advance of man to durable peace. The 
 
270 American Ideals 
 
 Christian Scriptures in their wide sweep and 
 plain injunction give warrant for the use at 
 times of the weapons of the children of "dark 
 ness" when the issue is drawn against the down- 
 treading of the weak and the innocent, and the 
 ruthless violation of homes and firesides. That 
 there are times when war has a greatness of its 
 own, and when to die fighting is better than to 
 live safe, when for the truth we ought to die, is 
 the truism of both history and religion. 
 
 America is too great a nation to be satisfied 
 with peace that involves dishonor, or a laying 
 down of weapons against unrighteousness. 
 Such peace would choke her. It would stifle 
 the very breath of her lofty and democratic 
 independence for which our fathers died. There 
 are things far more corrosive and crushing than 
 war for a principle. There are things more poi 
 soning to a nation than poisoned gas; one of 
 them is breathing a poisoned patriotism, buying 
 peace with a shattered self-respect. There is a 
 fighting spirit all shining with honor, that in the 
 high phrase of the English poet, 
 
 Blameless in victory stands 
 
 * * * 
 
 Shines with immaculate hands; 
 Stains not peace with a scar. 
 
The Shadow of Success 271 
 
 We want untarnished peace, and when one 
 distant day, universal peace "shall lie like a 
 shaft of light across the lands, and like a line 
 of beams athwart the sea," we are disposed to 
 believe that our large free land will have added 
 some ray to that brightness, not by refusing a 
 hand over the darkness to the oppressed, but 
 by her valiant championship of the Rights of 
 Man, and by saving others, saving herself, 
 keeping in life or in death the sovereign integrity 
 of her own soul. 
 
 Another shadow casting itself more or less 
 ominously over our remarkable successes is the 
 money delusion, as represented in the tendency 
 to display and extravagant spending. It is 
 almost inevitable that the rapid accumulation 
 of wealth, united with the excitability and 
 the love of the picturesque in the American 
 character, should induce among certain portions 
 of the population a condition of self-indul 
 gence and the desire to show off in the realm of 
 material prosperity. In this inclination toward 
 extravagance and striving for effect, the rich 
 especially go the Oriental one better. 
 
 In a recent account of a wedding, described 
 in the columns of one of the steadiest metro 
 politan newspapers, we are regaled with two 
 
2J2 American Ideals 
 
 long columns under such headlines as the fol 
 lowing: 
 
 $500,000 in Gifts at Wedding. 
 
 Bishop officiates before 600. 
 
 Six Hundred of Society Attend. 
 Ceremony in Palm Room. 
 The Bridal Procession. 
 The Wedding Gifts. 
 
 The words standing out in the account of the 
 proceedings are "the great estate that extends 
 over 4,000 acres/ "emergency dispatchers of 
 fice" "fourteen mounted Deputy Sheriffs pa 
 trolled the estate" "gifts of guests amounting 
 to $300,000." The father s wedding gift to his 
 son, the account goes on, was a check for 
 $200,000. "The bride s cake towered several 
 feet in height." Among the splendid presents 
 noted were "a superb string of pearls" "a 
 magnificent stomacher of diamonds" "dia 
 mond sapphire brooch," etc. Then after the 
 narration of what the guests and participants 
 wore, in words defying translation, we hear 
 about the private cars that carried off the couple 
 and the glowing description of their summer 
 home at the seashore, the denouement consisting 
 of a detailed list of the "society people" present 
 
The Shadow of Success 273 
 
 an inventory resembling the complete roster of 
 the "Social Register." 
 
 The Arcadian simplicity of John Alden and 
 Priscilla would be somewhat jarred by such a 
 wedding, removing to a distant limbo of misty 
 forgetfulness the days of Cotton Mather and 
 the era of "plain living and high thinking." The 
 democratic nature of this profuse occasion is 
 suggested withal by the fact that the daughter 
 of a big tobacco merchant weds with the son 
 of an old family in Philadelphia, where if any 
 where in the United States blood is revered. 
 
 But what objection should any one have to 
 rich people spending their money freely? Does 
 it not put gold into circulation? And does it 
 not give employment to all sorts of dressmakers, 
 flower sellers, and hordes of artisans and work 
 ing folk of various classes? Rich men in a 
 community are an asset and inducements are 
 justly held out to them, especially by smaller 
 cities and towns because of the benefit their 
 wealth will bring to the community. 
 
 No sane person can have a quarrel with wealth 
 when it is used with a touch of communal or 
 unselfish interest. Were it not for the fact that 
 money exists in large quantities, many an ideal 
 ist and apostle of art and letters would starve. 
 
274 American Ideals 
 
 Material is the basis of the larger growing ideal 
 ism of America, and without it there can be 
 little hope of progress in a democratic state. 
 
 It is the extravagant and vain and unpro 
 ductive use of wealth, "riches wriggling in 
 the grass of inexperience," as Clement of Alex 
 andria said two thousand years ago, that forms 
 the menace to any country. This employment 
 of money on "importunate inutilities" more 
 than offsets any temporary economic advances 
 it may give to a handful of traders or artisans 
 by the baneful influence that the display ideal 
 exerts on people who do not stop to think. A 
 showy and costly wedding occasion in the United 
 States is on much the same plane with the 
 vast picturesque durbar of an East Indian 
 prince, whose resplendent line of gayly and 
 richly caparisoned elephants, jeweled carpets, 
 and ruby necklaces are a studied game to 
 delude the native with exhibitions of grandeur. 
 They are both caterers to the cult of the second 
 best, they are both representations of demi-god 
 worship with the real gods of the higher civiliza 
 tion in the far background. The Indian prince 
 uses them to impress the subjects with his 
 power of sovereignty o T ;er them, as the English 
 used the great and carefully planned durbar at 
 
The Shadow of Success 275 
 
 Delhi, when King George visited India, with 
 deliberate purpose of making an indenture 
 on the show-loving mind of the native concern 
 ing the ruler s ability to rule. The difference 
 between the English durbar and a flamboyant 
 and costly American show in a great marriage 
 or a gorgeous society event, is that in one case 
 the money is spent with a deliberate purpose 
 to deceive the natives, and in the other it is 
 an attempt to fool one s self or one s immediate 
 friends. The object of the one was the reduc 
 tion of a nation to tractability beneath the 
 hand of a governing race; the object of the 
 other is to add to the personal vanity and the 
 spirit of self-indulgence, which are usually quite 
 sufficient before the event. 
 
 The bane of spending in America for physical 
 splendor lies in its effect upon the rank and file, 
 as well upon the lowered ideals of the rich, since 
 the American is dazzled by the display of wealth 
 as truly as is the East Indian. When a prom 
 inent man in the public eye pays $37,000 a year 
 for his apartments, as a certain official of the 
 government is said to do; when another busi 
 ness man of wealth spends thousands of dollars 
 to fit up with costly decorations and furnishings 
 brought from abroad a suite of fifteen rooms in 
 
276 American Ideals 
 
 one of the most expensive hostelries on Fifth 
 Avenue, rooms which he seldom uses except for 
 show purposes and elaborate dinners to his 
 friends; when a score or two of rich families 
 spend millions to keep up palatial residences in 
 various parts of the country, some of which are 
 hardly visited in a year; when a certain lady 
 pays $25,000 merely for the redecoration of her 
 hotel apartments, from which she removed in 
 less than six months; and when with like reck 
 lessness money is poured out like water by the 
 old and the nouveau riche alike, to purchase 
 things whose values have been inflated by shop 
 keepers and hotel restaurants and automobile 
 firms to suit this penchant for the vainglorious 
 tastes of the people of wealth there is certain 
 to be a reactive effect upon a naturally imitative 
 people. 
 
 It is partly at least because of this example of 
 heedlessness or recklessness with money that 
 we find the middle class mortgaging their homes 
 and their life insurance policies, and loading 
 themselves with burdens of debt that only a 
 miracle in the turn of Fortune s wheel can ever 
 relieve. This lack of true appreciation of the 
 meaning of wealth sets up in our country an 
 artificial standard for places in which to eat and 
 
The Shadow of Success 277 
 
 to recreate, for streets in which to dwell, and for 
 clothes to wear, that permeates more or less all 
 grades of our city life. 
 
 Even the wage-earner receives a fillip from 
 this mania of spending and wanting to show 
 others that we spend, this lust of display that 
 filters down through the various ranks of so 
 ciety. The attempt to appear prosperous is a 
 deadly germ in America. Who of us does not 
 know clerks who spend a week s wages on a 
 theatre and the after exercises thereof, simply 
 because the young man is determined that his 
 lady may not call him "cheap," or because he 
 does not have the nerve to be sensible? 
 
 Our shop girls and working youth in the stores 
 and banks dress so well as to make distinctions 
 between the poor and well-to-do scarcely recog 
 nizable so far as outward appearances go. A 
 whole year s savings goes, often with an easy 
 abandon, for the best room at a fashionable 
 hotel by the seaside in order that the clerk may 
 be able to say, "I stopped at the Marlborough- 
 Blenheim," or "I spent my holiday at Palm 
 Beach." 
 
 A man and his wife came from London re 
 cently to reside in New York for business pur 
 poses. I asked them concerning the things 
 
278 American Ideals 
 
 that first and most deeply impressed them. 
 They answered, "the lack of class distinction/ 
 When I pressed for an answer as to how this 
 lack of class distinction revealed itself they said, 
 "For example, we go back and forth every day 
 in the Broadway subway. We cannot tell the 
 class of the people travelling in the subway with 
 us each day by their dress or bearing, with the 
 exception of the laborer. One of the first things 
 that we noted was that every one wore silk 
 stockings, which would be an unheard-of ex 
 travagance for the same class of people in 
 England." 
 
 This inability of the Englishman to discern 
 differences in the strata of our society from out 
 ward appearances is shared by Americans them 
 selves. Recently I was introduced to a woman 
 who, by her charming appearance and gracious 
 manners and faultless dress, gave all the ap 
 pearance of descent from generations of breeding 
 and culture. I was astonished when told that 
 she was the daughter of a railroad engineer, 
 her brothers were brakemen on the railroad, and 
 her mother was a simple ordinary working- 
 man s wife. It was also found that the whole 
 family had sacrificed themselves far beyond 
 their means in order that their pretty daughter 
 
The Shadow of Success 279 
 
 might have a chance of a marriage in a grade 
 above that of her class (not unlike the Chinese 
 who bind one daughter s feet in order that she 
 may become a "lady" and have the chance of an 
 advantageous marriage, even though the family 
 wait upon her and sacrifice many of the actual 
 necessities of life). 
 
 The result of this attempt at display, in order 
 to achieve a stratum of society above them can 
 not be otherwise than detrimental as a rule to 
 people s ideals of lasting value and the aims of 
 doing good work. Extravagance and ineffi 
 ciency always go hand in hand. Living for 
 appearance, whatever the motive, soon breeds 
 working for appearance. Where a man s heart 
 is, thither his thought and the cunning of his 
 hand are inevitably directed. Upon such aspir 
 ants for showy elevation, debts are inclined to 
 sit more lightly with every passing year. As 
 one young man said, "Why, you know I should 
 never have any money if I paid my debts"; or as 
 another frequenter of the races said to his friend: 
 "Stop at the best hotel always; if you win a lot 
 of money, you don t care; if you lose, a little 
 more don t count." The man on a comfortable 
 salary gets the fever of spending, or his wife 
 gets the fever for him, the gregarious influences 
 
280 American Ideals 
 
 of his set of acquaintances get too strong for his 
 power of resistance, and the story is the same 
 the world over mortgages, " business troubles," 
 and overdrafts on bank and on friends. If the 
 crash does not come publicly it is sure to come 
 privately in the shape of habits of borrowing 
 from one to pay another, and the arrival, sooner 
 or later, at the "What s-the-use" stage of exist 
 ence, where the "deceitfulness of riches" gets its 
 toll in the coin of a man s loss of the sovereign 
 possession self-respect. 
 
 In the words of one of Dickens characters, 
 "Income, one pound; expenditure, one pound, 
 no shillings, ha penny: result misery. Income, 
 one pound: expenditure, nineteen shillings, 
 eleven pence ha penny: result happiness." 
 
 The display germ that is to-day a simple toy, 
 a harmless bit of spending because a man "owes 
 it to himself and family," to-morrow is the soul- 
 crushing experience of debt that soon grows into 
 that monster of irresponsibility and despair, the 
 "world-owes-me-a-living" feeling, and this is 
 personal suicide. 
 
 It is to the country where still the great ma 
 jority of the people live that we must look for 
 the redeeming and steadying factors in this rage 
 of spending. It is to the rural districts that we 
 
The Shadow of Success 281 
 
 must go to find the permanent ideals of the sim 
 ple life still regnant. If it is true that the soul 
 of a people lives at home in the country dis 
 tricts, we may not be discouraged for urban 
 America. To be in debt in the country in the 
 United States is still a disgrace, and the farm 
 mortgage is still the thing that is not talked 
 about as a meritorious incumbrance. It is in 
 the smaller cities, in the little towns, and in the 
 agricultural caste of America that one finds 
 many of the above conditions absolutely re 
 versed, and the pride of not buying unless you 
 can "pay down" is one of the commonest char 
 acteristics. 
 
 There is certain to be a reaction from this lust 
 of the eyes and the pride of that life that money 
 can buy. The metropolis will never rule the 
 country in this respect of money recklessness and 
 money extravagance. The laws of happiness, 
 of experience, and of good sense are all against it. 
 The American, even in the cities, is showing signs 
 
 dp disgust and boredom over this frenzied use of 
 ealth. He is getting out of the city to the 
 country home and a little patch of land with 
 flowers and vegetables to "Love s contentment 
 more than wealth," and even though the place 
 be humble and the sacrifice of commuting is 
 
282 American Ideals 
 
 heavy, it is one of the sure signs of better times 
 in this money delusion. People are learning 
 that the lure of Broadway becomes less vivid in 
 relation to the distance we place between it and 
 our calmer, simpler satisfactions. Slowly but cer 
 tainly we are learning that, as Browning would 
 say, there is a star that is below Saturn, there are 
 some things that are not worth the candle, even 
 though they are attractive and bear the dollar 
 mark, things that never can compare with 
 
 A simple, guileless, childlike man, 
 Content to live where life began. 
 
 The people of America are too great a folk to 
 be permanently captured by the thing, however 
 splendid, that is second best. The mere empty 
 display of wealth is too insignificant as an ideal 
 to hold for long the imagination of a people of 
 great capacity for the values of more durable 
 and dignified satisfaction. America can never 
 be a "peacock alley" through and through. 
 There are reasons both traditional and inherent 
 that prevent. The citizens of the United States 
 may be deluded in their transitional evolution 
 by the domination of the obvious and by the 
 glitter of the jewels in the flashing material 
 
The Shadow of Success 283 
 
 crown. But they will never be satisfied with a 
 part of life, or with an imitation that crumples 
 in the hand that grasps it. 
 
 Wu Ting-fang once said to me, speaking of the 
 Chinese race, "We are a commonsense people. 
 We love peace." He drew a pen picture then of 
 the dweller in the United States as well as the 
 inhabitant of the Middle Kingdom. The vulgar 
 display of money is not sensible, and in the end 
 it is the enemy to peace, individual as well as 
 national. Its results enslave and hamper the 
 national spirit which, in Lincoln s phrase, is 
 "conceived in liberty." It is second-rate; it is 
 partial; it is un-American. Therefore, for the 
 vast majority, extravagance and waste cannot 
 cast their shadows permanently on the ideals of 
 the country. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 AN AMERICAN SYMPOSIUM 
 
 But money is only a means; it presupposes a man to 
 use it. * * * It is always better policy to learn an 
 interest than to make a thousand pounds; for the 
 money will soon be spent, or perhaps you may feel no 
 joy in spending it; but the interest remains imperish 
 able and ever new you have thrown down a barrier 
 which concealed significance and beauty. The blind 
 man has learned to see. The prisoner has opened a 
 window in his cell and beholds enchanting prospects, 
 he will never again be a prisoner as he was; he can 
 watch clouds and changing seasons, ships on the 
 river, travellers on the road, and the stars at night; 
 happy prisoner! his eyes have broken jail! 
 
 ROBERT Louis STEVENSON. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 AN AMERICAN SYMPOSIUM 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD in one of his essays in criti 
 cism referred to the difficulty inherent in the 
 task one undertakes when he tries "to pull out 
 a few more stops" in that powerful but at pres 
 ent somewhat narrow-toned organ, the modern 
 Englishman. "I have always sought," he con 
 tinued, "to stand by myself and to compromise 
 others as little as possible." 
 
 Likewise in a book in which the author at 
 tempts to set forth opinions relative to such 
 illusive matters as a people s ideals, one would 
 hesitate to take upon himself the responsibility 
 of standing for any one s opinion other than his 
 own. Since, however, my convictions concern 
 ing certain American ideals have been greatly 
 strengthened by the witness of a wide circle of 
 Americans from various walks of life and from 
 diverse sections of the country, I have planned in 
 this chapter to present a brief symposium upon 
 Americanideals as seenbyAmericans themselves. 
 
 287 
 
288 American Ideals 
 
 One hundred men were asked the following 
 question: "What in your opinion are the lead 
 ing ideals of the men with whom you most fre 
 quently associate?" 
 
 The following are among the replies received. 
 A governor of a large Eastern state said: 
 
 1. Personal code in public service. 
 
 2. A higher education for the masses to save 
 our Democracy. 
 
 3. A rumless nation. 
 
 4. The application of business efficiency to public 
 service. 
 
 5. It never pays to be smart i. e. "to put one 
 over" on the other fellow. 
 
 6. Revival of religious belief in men of affairs. 
 
 A mayor in a Middle West city replied: 
 
 1 . An institutional expression of the humanitarian 
 philosophy which is distinctive of American thought 
 within the last ten years. 
 
 2. Some solution of the problem presented by the 
 larger leisure which industrial development has 
 brought, with the feeling that upon the use which 
 we learn to make of this leisure will depend the 
 soundness and sweetness of the development of our 
 national life. 
 
 3. The creation of a national philosophy which 
 will have the will to justice as a substitute for the 
 
An American Symposium 289 
 
 will power which has been tried and led us apparently 
 to disaster. 
 
 From a college president on the Pacific Coast: 
 
 To leave things better than one found them. 
 To alleviate human distress. 
 To protect the weak. 
 To give each his chance. 
 
 The president of a New York bank answered 
 as follows: 
 
 The ideals of the men of whom I see most are 
 generally to live helpful lives and to build for pos 
 terity on foundations in which as much of the good 
 in past experience is included and as much as possible 
 of the bad eliminated. Furthermore, most of the 
 men I know are conducting themselves in their 
 business life as though they were bearing a great 
 measure of public responsibility and had a great 
 duty devolving upon them in the way of public serv 
 ice. This, I know, sounds idealistic and Utopian, but 
 it is not. It is the truth, as I see it from day to day. 
 
 From the president of the graduating class 
 (1915) at the University of California: 
 
 The men of California are dominated by the great 
 Western spirit of freedom. Ours is a land of promise 
 and of opportunity. This may sound like real-estate 
 
290 American Ideals 
 
 advertising, but I assure you it is sincere. Contrary 
 to the belief of most of our Eastern brothers, the men 
 of California have not set up the dollar as their God 
 and standard. It is true our boys are inspired by 
 the successes of their parents, and each one longs to 
 be independent, and to secure enough means to take 
 the grind out of work. I think I am right when I 
 say that the majority of the seniors who are graduat 
 ing from the eight colleges of our University this 
 spring have in mind, 
 
 (1) Achievement in the line in which they have 
 specialized. 
 
 (2) Financial success which will make them socially 
 and economically independent. 
 
 (3) By no means least because last, I believe that 
 we look toward the establishment of true, loyal, 
 American homes. 
 
 An American playwright says: 
 
 My intimate acquaintanceship is made up largely 
 of one class, ideally speaking. Most of the men I 
 know are either doing, or trying to do, something 
 that will add to the sum total of the world s beauty. 
 In other words they are artists of some sort, potential 
 or actual. 
 
 A travelling secretary of the College Young 
 Men s Christian Associations in the South: 
 
 Certainly one of the Heals of Americans is effi 
 ciency which is rather a broad term, but it means real 
 
An American Symposium 291 
 
 capacity to do the thing which one has in hand. I 
 question very much whether cultural ideals have a 
 very large sway in the minds of the great majority 
 of the people. I am not a pessimist in any sense, 
 yet I do feel keenly that we have elevated the dollar 
 into an entirely undeserved place and the man who is 
 able to get money has much larger position thrust 
 upon him than his capacity really warrants. How 
 ever, I do believe that there is growing in the hearts 
 of a great many people in America the belief in what 
 might be called a democratic culture; that is, a 
 larger cultural life for the whole people. . . . 
 
 One s heart bleeds when he thinks how little we 
 really appreciate the sacredness and value of the in 
 dividual person which is a sign of all real Democracy. 
 This reveals a weak place in our national life which is 
 not peculiar to us our false valuation of humanity. 
 We value men because of position, money, etc., 
 whereas we ought to value them for their character 
 and for the essence of personality that lies within 
 them. 
 
 I am not at all sure but that straightforwardness 
 and the square deal is one of the real ideals of 
 America . . . this is about as fine an ideal as 
 we could possibly have. 
 
 A prominent magazine editor: 
 
 Our ideals are 
 
 Honesty and integrity. 
 Intellectual achievement. 
 
292 American Ideals 
 
 Beauty in art and music as a solace in life. 
 Domestic happiness. 
 Service to one s fellows. 
 
 Confidence in the great mission of our Democ 
 racy. 
 
 From a real-estate man: 
 
 It is difficult to define precisely what an ideal is. 
 If it mean a standard of taste which one has toward 
 masterpieces in every department of human en 
 deavor, then I should reply that tastes differ so widely 
 that it will be impossible to answer the question. 
 
 If, on the other hand, by ideal is meant the thought 
 of personal achievement which each man has for 
 himself, I should say that the chief aspiration of 
 most of the men I know is to produce by their life s 
 work something of permanent value to the world, 
 and to have their names associated or identified with 
 that achievement. In other words, to do something 
 worth while and to be known by others as doing it. 
 What particular things men desire to do are governed 
 by their capabilities and temperament. 
 
 If by ideal is meant the kind of personal conduct a 
 man would choose for himself, most of the men I 
 know desire to so live that they will both satisfy 
 their own consciences, and meet all reasonable criti 
 cism of their fellowmen. Most men desire to so live 
 that other men will say: "His word is as good as his 
 bond." It seems to me that most of the men I know 
 prefer to have other mei* think of them as good 
 rather than clever. They may desire to have both 
 
An American Symposium 293 
 
 of these qualifications attributed to them, but would 
 prefer the former. 
 
 A New York clergyman says: 
 
 The men with whom I most frequently associate, 
 although not constituting a very large number, are 
 fairly representive of the rank and conditions of 
 American society. In trying to imagine what a 
 composite photograph of my circle would reveal, I 
 believe that the prevailing ideals would be self- 
 reliance quick action big results. Education must 
 be directed to "practical ends" how to build a fifty- 
 story skyscraper in a year. Along with this a feeling 
 of unrest; that "bigness" is not greatness, and that 
 life is not expressed entirely in terms of the five 
 senses. Witness Booth Tarkington s "The Turmoil"; 
 a groping, therefore, toward the spiritual not to 
 say the religious. Social service, literary clubs, 
 musical societies, art classes, and free libraries, in 
 dicate a strong tendency even where they are merely 
 affectation. 
 
 A physician writes: 
 
 During the past ten years I have observed a de 
 cided rise in the tide of professional self-respect. At 
 various physicians associations and conventions 
 there is purposefulness and conviction for greater 
 things. The possession of basic principles proved 
 by modern research and clinical experience has so 
 clarified the minds of the professional leaders that the 
 
294 American Ideals 
 
 true spirit of the reformer is evident. The ideal 
 seems little short of absolute perfection. Fifteen 
 years ago it was publicly averred that the mercenary 
 spirit dominated the profession. It is my observa 
 tion that this spirit is on the wane. 
 
 A librarian of a New England university: 
 
 The men with whom I associate most are college 
 professors. They very seldom talk about their 
 ideals. The inner life of men in our generation is 
 very much less self-conscious than that of their 
 fathers even. I wonder if I can say more of them as a 
 whole than that they are chiefly occupied with their 
 daily work, with providing for their families, and with 
 living up to the standards of their social and profes 
 sional class. In external matters do we not now say 
 Social standards" or "standards of living," where a 
 few years ago men said "ideals?" Aren t ideals what 
 we give the right of way in our daily lives, regardless 
 of what we profess? 
 
 A consulting engineer writes: 
 
 The American ideal is activity and energy, readi 
 ness to change, demanding improvements of living 
 ^conditions, freedom of rule, independence of action, 
 y and willingness to correct wrong and to see future 
 possibilities. 
 
 Development of women is an American ideal. 
 This means more than suffrage. 
 
 Recognition of laborers rights to participate in 
 
An American Symposium 295 
 
 profits is an ideal that is coming fast into large rec 
 ognition. Its proper and wide adoption and opera 
 tion would solve the so-called problem of capital vs. 
 labor and would probably replace socialism in this 
 country. 
 
 Making money is the ideal that is attached to us 
 by many foreigners who do not distinguish nor under 
 stand the underlying motives. The fact that an 
 American takes the greatest interest and pleasure 
 in conducting his business and working out new 
 problems makes his progress in inventions, discov 
 eries, new appliances, free from the thought of 
 plodding or the sordid making of money; therefore, if 
 the American does not get pleasure out of his business, 
 he is quite sure to neglect it, and reveals thereby that 
 money-making is not his ideal. 
 
 Travel, comprising the desire for knowledge and 
 understanding of all other peoples of the world, is 
 undoubtedly an American ideal. It has been incul 
 cated possibly by a desire for change of scene. It is 
 an expression of the underlying spirit that has formed 
 and made the United States of America, and when 
 intelligently indulged, it results in the broadening 
 of thought and a development of ideals that cannot 
 come so easily and readily in any other way. 
 
 Head master of a large school for boys: 
 
 As I meet men to-day, not only those in my own 
 profession, but business men men who are in the 
 stress and strain of active business life in our cities 
 I am impressed with the change in ideals as compared 
 
296 American Ideals 
 
 with those of twenty years ago. It seems to me that 
 underneath all the desire to accumulate wealth, 
 which is common enough to-day, is a very deep- 
 seated desire to be of real service in the world. Only 
 a month ago I heard one of the leading business men 
 of America tell how he took over a large publishing 
 enterprise chiefly because it seemed to him to afford 
 an opportunity to accomplish some good, as well as 
 to make some money. That seems to me typical 
 of the ideals of a very large proportion of the better 
 and more successful business men of to-day. I am 
 quite sure that it is the ideal of men in my own 
 profession. 
 
 The editor of a Socialist paper sent to me what 
 he considered to be the chief ideals of a dozen 
 people with whom he was closely associated: 
 
 Adventure, a free personal life, revolutionary ad 
 justment of social conditions. 
 
 Destruction of established forms of coercion. 
 
 Personal artistic achievement; the achievement of 
 a more sane and liberal social life. 
 
 Spread of knowledge concerning economic evolu 
 tion, and increase of effort in line with that knowl 
 edge. 
 
 More personal freedom, more self-expression, less 
 responsibility. 
 
 Personal artistic achievement, self-knowledge, hap 
 piness in personal relationships. 
 
 Furthering of social revolution. 
 
An American Symposium 297 
 
 Personal artistic achievements; personal happiness 
 in human relations. 
 
 Social fair play; self-expression. 
 
 Discovery in the field of art. 
 
 Personal artistic achievement. 
 
 Service in behalf of artistic freedom and social 
 revolution. 
 
 Self-expression; artistic achievement; freedom 
 from responsibility. 
 
 Readjustment of economic arrangements. 
 
 The editor who sent these characterizations of 
 his friends added this footnote. : 
 
 Reading these over, I realize that they seem very 
 much alike. But ! 
 
 A prominent publisher: 
 
 While it is true that wealth and success figure 
 conspicuously among many of the men of America, 
 I am not inclined to accept these as the controlling 
 ideal. Big business, great wealth, and success are 
 closely related to the unlimited resources and extent 
 of the country; and the men of our country, seeing 
 the door of opportunity, knocked persistently until 
 it responded. But beneath the surface of these 
 material things there are to be found finer concep 
 tions and ideals, freedom, justice, large-heartedness, 
 humor, optimism, and an abiding faith in the people. 
 Nowhere has the peace ideal met with a finer re- 
 
298 American Ideals 
 
 sponse than in America, and the men with whom I 
 have had the honor to associate impress me as stand 
 ing more for honor and justice than for success and 
 wealth. The search for "the more abundant life" is 
 more in evidence in America than almost anywhere 
 else. Of course, it is only too true that in that 
 search gross mistakes have been made, and will be 
 made until the end of the chapter. Yet it is marvel 
 lous how the ideal of self-government has entered 
 more and more into the life of the American people, 
 taking on larger forms as the needs of the people 
 demanded it. 
 
 The vice-president of a Boston savings bank: 
 
 Imagination, working with and expressing itself 
 in material resources. Morgan was more of an 
 idealist and artist in finance than in his collection of 
 "objects of art." His satisfaction was in power 
 rather than in delight in owning something that 
 others couldn t own, rather than in the beauty of the 
 objects themselves. Our captains of industry are 
 idealists up to a certain point, for they have vision 
 and they create. Who now will rear the structure 
 on the foundations they have so magnificently laid? 
 
 Our poets, novelists, painters, sculptors, archi 
 tects, are moved to the expression of energy rather 
 than to the creation of beauty something that 
 satisfies of itself by virtue of its eternal Tightness and 
 harmony. 
 
 Social and political reform points immediately to 
 the amelioration of physical conditions: better 
 
An American Symposium 299 
 
 housing, higher wages, more comforts, and increased 
 efficiency, honesty in officials, as involving less waste 
 of the taxpayer s money. Does reform look for 
 ward also to the release of the human spirit for the 
 enjoyment of the "things that are more excellent?" 
 
 We have the materials and the conditions of a 
 great civilization, but our civilization is not great. 
 What are the ideals, and with whom are they to be 
 found, which shall achieve a spiritual end at all com 
 mensurate with the material means? 
 
 A well-known author and traveller: 
 
 The spirit of brotherhood and a thoroughly genuine 
 interest in fellowmen. My experience, especially 
 in city clubs for men, leads me to conclude that this 
 feeling is keener in America than in the countries of 
 Europe where I have lived and travelled. I think 
 the American man is peculiarly sensitive to the rights 
 and feelings of his fellows. 
 
 Keen interest in truly democratic movements and 
 factors in social adjustment. I think our men really 
 want to be brought into larger and more sympathetic 
 participation in the activities of our civilization. 
 
 A really knightly attitude toward women. 
 
 A growing spirit of tolerance in matters of religion 
 and social usages and personal habits. 
 
 From a professor in Columbia University: 
 
 My associates are mostly students and teachers. 
 The ideal of scholarship, the enlargement of knowl- 
 
300 American Ideals 
 
 edge, is very powerful with the University professors, 
 and perhaps equally powerful is the less definable 
 professional ideal the personal qualities that belong 
 to a scholar and a gentleman. Students, too (mine 
 are all graduate students), share in these ideals and 
 also in the astonishingly powerful ideal of education. 
 
 It seems to me that the faith in education is really 
 connected with the growing faith in our power to 
 better things an idealism which glorifies human 
 energy. Hence the zeal to make money, to improve 
 one s social station, to get an education, to be of 
 service to others. These all rest on a profound faith 
 in the power of human energy to create a better 
 world. 
 
 With educated women, there is no doubt that the 
 ideal of a freer and more variegated life for women 
 is nowadays very much alive. I think it has its 
 roots in that same confidence in the ability of the 
 human being to make the world over. 
 
 A Wall Street financier and vice-president of 
 a large trust company: 
 
 I think that the leading ideals of the men with 
 whom I associate are in general the ethics of Wall 
 Street, where a man s word is of greater value than 
 anywhere else in the country. I feel, too, that their 
 attitude has become much less provincial than hereto 
 fore, and that often the good of the country, the 
 state, and business at large is considered by them 
 more than individual profit. 
 
An American Symposium 301 
 
 A well-known Jewish scientist: 
 
 This question is difficult to answer as it really refers 
 to the innermost thoughts of men. What appears 
 on the surface may be an inclination toward world 
 peace and charity, refinement and culture. I am 
 afraid that, however, under the surface, the real mo 
 tives are still selfishness and self-gratification, effi 
 ciency for the purpose of personal success, ease of 
 life, and pleasure. I do not think that what goes un 
 der the name of charity is genuine in most instances. 
 I find, even among my friends, that they are more 
 ready to spend ten dollars on self-gratification than 
 one dollar on public welfare from truly altruistic 
 motives. 
 
 A schoolmaster said: 
 
 Selecting twelve close friends, representing teach 
 ing, business, law, medicine, the ministry, and farm 
 ing, I discover them to be animated by the following 
 ideals: 
 
 Public service without thought of personal gain 
 
 9 
 Thrift 6 
 
 Personal advancement, per se 4 
 
 Wealth, that is, the accumulation of money for 
 the sake of family or for self 5 
 
 Generosity, of time and interest, as well as of 
 money 3 
 
 Advancement of the profession as a science 6 
 
302 American Ideals 
 
 A farmer in northern New York: 
 
 I do not know as I understand exactly what you 
 mean by "ideals," but the things I am trying to live 
 up to are: 
 
 I want to give my boy and my girl as good an edu 
 cation as they can get, for I didn t have the chance 
 when I was a boy to study. 
 
 I want to be looked up to in my church and my 
 community as a man who pays his debts and whose 
 word can be trusted. 
 
 I want my work to be well done. When I shovel a 
 path in the snow I try to shovel it wide and clean, 
 and when I plow a furrow I try to make it straight 
 and deep. 
 
 I want a home free from debt and enough money 
 for myself and wife to live on when we can t work no 
 more. 
 
 The president of one of the largest life insur 
 ance companies: 
 
 In business 
 
 To succeed. Success means more than mere 
 money; it means the power to advance methods and 
 thereby benefit others. 
 
 Socially 
 
 An utter contempt for "society" as that word is 
 usually applied. No especial social program that 
 does not aim directly at intellectual quickening and 
 social betterment. 
 
An American Symposium 303 
 
 A lawyer in a large city of the Middle West 
 writes : 
 
 I have picked out fifteen men with whom I am closely 
 enough acquainted to feel that I can interpret to some 
 extent the ideals which seem to me to dominate them. 
 
 1. Wealthy man. Head of large manufacturing 
 business. Accumulation of money. Position of 
 social and financial power. 
 
 2. Head of large manufacturing business, national 
 in scope. Accumulation of money. Personal serv 
 ice to a limited extent. 
 
 3. Minor officer in large corporation. Accumu 
 lation of money. Social position. 
 
 4. Head of moderate-sized local business. Accu 
 mulation of money. Social position. 
 
 5. Assistant to business man just mentioned. 
 Accumulation of money. Proper education and 
 rearing of family. 
 
 6. Agent working on commission. Accumulation 
 of money to spend on personal pleasure. Married, 
 but does not want family. 
 
 7. Agent working on commission. Money enough 
 to get married. 
 
 8. Travelling man. Accumulation of money for 
 realization of high-grade family life. (Wants to be 
 able to stay at home.) 
 
 9. Prominent lawyer. Community service, na 
 tionally and locally, to the point of self-sacrifice. 
 
 10. Lawyer. Accumulation of money for per 
 sonal pleasure. 
 
304 American Ideals 
 
 11. Physician. Money enough to retire from 
 practice and go into farming and dairying on a large 
 scale. 
 
 1 2. Chief executive of social-service organization. 
 Community service, and a happy family life. 
 
 13. Minister. Service. 
 
 14. An old man whose chief aim is to live, and who 
 devotes all of his time and money to this one end. 
 
 15. A working man. Money to properly bring 
 up and educate his family. 
 
 The ideals given above are what I would call 
 " leading." Of course, there are less prominent ideals 
 in all these cases which are more altruistic. 
 
 The above replies give a somewhat compre 
 hensive idea of the ideals that exist in the minds 
 of Americans of widely different classes. Space 
 would not permit presenting the answers of 
 the entire one hundred witnesses as to the 
 character of the ideals regnant in America, but 
 the following summary of answers of the one 
 hundred men who replied is significant. 
 
 "What are the leading ideals of the men with 
 whom you most frequently associate?" 
 
 The following ideals were mentioned : 
 
 No. timei 
 mentioned 
 
 To be of service to one s fellows 46 
 
 To make money for selfish enjoyment or personal 
 power 28 
 
An American Symposium 305 
 
 No. times 
 mentioned 
 
 The search for truth and justice, intellectual 
 achievement, to contribute to human knowl 
 edge 24 
 
 To provide fora family, domestic happiness, and 
 
 education of children 22 
 
 Efficiency, self-reliance n 
 
 Honesty, integrity, fair play the square deal 11 
 Confidence in Democracy and its institutions . 9 
 To attain reputation and high professional stand 
 ing i. e., personal ambition 8 
 
 Deeper religious life 8 
 
 Tolerance in religious, social, and personal mat 
 ters; greater freedom of the individual . . 8 
 Love of beauty (art, music, literature, etc.) 
 
 and the creation of beauty. . ... 6 
 
 Chivalry toward women and protecting of the 
 
 weak 3 
 
 Education of the masses 2 
 
 Prohibition 2 
 
 The answers summarized in the table just 
 given represented the opinions of persons living 
 in twenty different states of the Union. The call 
 ings and positions represented by the one hun 
 dred persons answering were as follows: 
 
 Law, Engineering, Medicine, Business (in various 
 divisions: Real Estate, Insurance, Advertising, 
 Clerks, Agents, Managers, Manufacturers, Trades- 
 
306 American Ideals 
 
 men), Artists, Clergy, Educators, Professors, Col 
 lege Presidents, State Governor, Congressman, 
 Librarian, Actor, Poet, City Officials, Secretaries and 
 Heads of Social and Religious Societies, Musician, 
 Undergraduates, Playwright, Authors, Travellers, 
 Scientists, Publishers, Missionaries, Newspapermen 
 and Editors, Farmers, Principals of Academies and 
 High Schools, Bankers, Miners, a Multimillionaire, 
 and a Travelling Salesman. 
 
 It is possible that the person reading and 
 studying the aims suggested by this circle of 
 Americans may get the impression that we are 
 inclined to be unduly optimistic. In order that 
 there might be a balanced picture of the idealism 
 existing in the minds of the average and rep 
 resentative American citizen, I added another 
 question which was also answered by the same 
 one hundred men. This question read as fol 
 lows: 
 
 " "What do you consider to be the chief points 
 of weakness in our contemporary American 
 life?" 
 
 I append some of the answers received. 
 
 From the president of a large college for girls: 
 
 Laxness in honor; slackness of moral fibre when not 
 on parade; willingness to .shirk the labor of honest 
 detail; in a word, a willingness to dodge obligation. 
 
An American Symposium 307 
 
 Out of this comes our attitude toward law, which is 
 no further advanced than a schoolboy s, who plays 
 hookey if he can. 
 
 From a New England author: 
 
 Speaking now of my countrymen in general 
 narrowness of vision; self-indulgence; "cheapness of 
 soul"; deference to success regardless of how it was 
 won; ease in Zion, or rather in its hinterland; 
 the Narcissus-like self-contemplation of that poor 
 creature the "man in the street"; lack of thorough 
 ness; lack of respect for the intellect; just now a sense 
 of world importance without a corresponding sense of 
 world responsibility; all this is helped on by a lack 
 of an acknowledged moral aristocracy. 
 
 This from a poet : 
 
 Lack of responsibility in public affairs. 
 
 Toleration of dishonesty. 
 
 Want of thoroughness and discipline. 
 
 Complacency with cheap ideals of comfort, luxury, 
 and fashion. 
 
 Failure to understand the functions of intellectual 
 influences. 
 
 Need of constructive imagination 
 
 A bank examiner considered the following to 
 be our chief points of weakness: 
 
 Materialistic tendencies. 
 
 Striving for effect at the expense of any or all ideals. 
 
308 American Ideals 
 
 Lack of simplicity. 
 
 Lack of serious application to present or future 
 problems. 
 
 Loss of early ideals through the breaking up of 
 what formerly constituted "Home Life." 
 
 Lack of interest in religious thought. 
 
 A prominent member of an American Peace 
 Society said: 
 
 The tolerance of liquor as a factor in society. 
 
 The failure to know and to understand other na 
 tions. 
 
 The heedless waste of national resources. 
 
 The dominance of money and the neglect to guard 
 the interest of_the_peoplejfrom_it j 
 
 The belief that the state should help people in 
 doing what they ought to do for themselves. 
 
 The belief that the state should go beyond its 
 cardinal duties of justice, sanitation, education, and 
 peace. 
 
 In all these regards I believe that America has a 
 better record than any other large nation. 
 
 A popular author said that American s weak 
 nesses consist of 
 
 Inability to properly use their leisure hours, due 
 to lack of education in the refined pleasures of life 
 music, literature, painting, etc. 
 
 Lack of free outdoor activity; failure to develop 
 basal fundamental muscles, and the growing tend- 
 
An American Symposium 309 
 
 ency to participate passively rather than actively in 
 manual sports (they prefer to "see" athletics rather 
 than to participate in athletics. Consequently the 
 danger of muscular degeneration and over-stimulus 
 of the brain). 
 
 Disregard of laws of personal hygiene and matters 
 of sanitation. Intemperance in the matter of over 
 eating, undersleeping, and "bibbing" alcoholic bever- 
 >ages. 
 
 Perhaps a lack of independence in thought and 
 
 | feeling; undue desire to do as the others of their 
 
 , group do; the "keeping up with Lizzie" sort of living 
 
 / and consequent luxuries and their improper valua- 
 
 jtion. 
 
 A shoe manufacturer in Massachusetts con 
 sidered the shadows of our ideals to be the fol 
 lowing: 
 
 Unemployment. It is not creditable to our civil 
 ization that better arrangements have not been made 
 for the systematic utilization of the brain and 
 muscle labor of the race. 
 
 "Theearth brings forth abundantly," in accordance 
 with God s primeval ordinance, but human methods 
 of developing and distributing that product are 
 haphazard, and a part of the population get too 
 much, and a part none at all. 
 
 A tendency to waste and extravagance both in 
 private life and in the government of the city, the 
 state, and the nation. This involves carelessness 
 
3io American Ideals 
 
 about the future and probable eventual embarrass 
 ment, and it breeds radicalism in private and public 
 policy. If we are thoughtless about the day after 
 to-morrow and come to grief, while our neighbor is 
 forethoughtful and prosperous, we are inclined to 
 resent his advantage and to seek in some way to 
 penalize him. Note certain phases of the otherwise 
 laudable labor movement, and also the demoralizing 
 tendency toward class legislation. 
 
 A professor and editor writes: 
 
 It seems to me that the greatest defect of the body 
 politic in our land is too little devotion to civic duties 
 combined with the tendency to adhere too closely to 
 party lines or to yield too readily to the claim of party 
 allegiance. As I compare our own civic, state, and 
 national politics and that of say England, I 
 find a great gap. The government of Birmingham 
 or Manchester is a century in advance of that of 
 New York or Philadelphia so far as an intelligent 
 comprehension of the needs of a great population 
 is concerned, or so far as wise measures go to meet 
 these needs. Were our own citizens fired with the 
 will to do their parts in understanding the funda 
 mental requirements of political administration, to 
 exercise soberly the duty and right of choosing those 
 administrators, and then of following them up to see 
 that they " administered" properly, our politics would 
 be cleaner and more effective. I would like to see 
 our leisure class, the so-called "idle rich," engaged 
 more earnestly in the study and pursuit of economics 
 
An American Symposium 311 
 
 and the higher politics. Whatever may be said of 
 the English aristocracy, it has furnished a line of ably 
 equipped men to work in state offices, on the bench, 
 in diplomacy, and elsewhere. 
 
 A radical change is coming over the ideas of the 
 distribution of wealth. We shall surely learn, are 
 indeed in some small degree already putting it into 
 practice, to distribute wealth more equably. Capital 
 must have its due return, so must labor. Profit- 
 sharing has come to stay. It must grow in extent 
 of application. On the other hand, the levelling of 
 the incompetent and the competent laborers as im 
 plied by some past labor movements has not and 
 cannot justify itself. "A fair day s labor for a fair 
 day s wage" is as imperative in requirement as is 
 "A fair wage for a fair day s labor." The maxim of 
 the old Chinese sage must govern in the industrial 
 world. He used the single word, "reciprocity." 
 That must be fired with the Christ spirit, realization 
 of a universal brotherhood, a brotherhood that is not 
 enfeebled by its universality, but rather enriched by 
 its expansiveness; this seems to me to be the key to the 
 world s betterment. 
 
 A clergyman in St. Louis: 
 
 The chief points of weakness in our contemporary 
 American life are (a) in social life, shallowness, the 
 building of social relations upon artificial things such 
 as ancestry, money, etc. (b) Intellectually, the lack 
 of thoroughness. People do not think. They trust 
 newspapers, often clothing them with infallibility. 
 
312 American Ideals 
 
 In religion the same is true. There is a woful lack 
 of intelligence on religious matters, not only outside of 
 religious circles, but among members of churches. 
 This downright ignorance is responsible for the 
 growth of all sorts of fads in religion, (c) Lack of 
 ethical enthusiasm. This is seen in industrial rela 
 tions, business transactions, social ideals, religious 
 life, and everywhere else. 
 
 I do not think that the United States is any worse 
 off than any other country. Indeed, I believe the 
 contrary. 
 
 From a college president in Ohio: 
 
 1. Lack of forethought. 
 
 2. Too great fondness for physical comfort and 
 physical splendor. 
 
 3. Indisposition to think hard and to read good 
 
 Lack of individuality or the presence of the 
 to follow the fashion. 
 
 5. Too great fondness for the picturesque. 
 
 6. A newspaper press without proper sense of 
 responsibility. 
 
 7. Disregard of properly constituted authority. 
 
 The secretary of a national missionary society 
 of one of the larger denominations has this to 
 say: 
 
 Failure to read strong, vigorous, wholesome books, 
 especially the Bible. 
 
An American Symposium 313 
 
 Tendency to look upon the college course more as 
 a pleasure than as a source of intellectual profit. 
 
 Living beyond one s means and trying to keep up 
 two or more establishments when one is sufficient. 
 
 Tendency to untruthfulness and to lower grad 
 ually the standards of daily conduct. 
 
 A pride in past achievements, and mistaking move 
 ment for progress, while gradually the whole life is 
 running on the down grade. 
 
 A teacher in the University of Michigan: 
 
 To me, as a foreigner, the weakness (no less than 
 the strength) of contemporary American life asserts 
 itself very distinctly, the more that the process is 
 unconscious. Folk live far too much in the moment: 
 they stop to reflect too seldom. Above all, they 
 tend to postpone the really serious things of life 
 under the supposition that, till a certain material or 
 economic plane has been reached, this postponement 
 is safe. I take it that this is due in a large measure 
 to the one main characteristic in which the residents 
 of the United States agree a political outlook. 
 
 This makes for compromise; but it hides the fact 
 that compromise, even if thoroughly viable, leaves the 
 fundamental questions of principle untouched. And 
 principle cannot be determined except by close 
 attention to thinking, and by serious study of the 
 permanent things. The result is that, as concerns 
 these most serious affairs, we rush blindly at a con 
 clusion when stress arises, and pay ourselves with 
 makeshifts. 
 
314 American Ideals 
 
 A secretary of the Young Men s Christian 
 Association in the West: 
 
 To be more afraid of being caught than we are 
 afraid of wrongdoing. 
 
 To mistake an outward veneer of pretence for a 
 deep-rooted inner life. 
 
 Too much time is given to the hurry and bustle 
 of life and not enough to its best values. 
 
 The home and home life as such receives too little 
 attention for our own best good. 
 
 Mistaking acquaintances for friends underesti 
 mating the value of true friendship. 
 
 Depending too much upon outside entertainment 
 rather than trying to develop such a life as will 
 make one s self good company for others as well as for 
 one s self. 
 
 A university president in California states his 
 opinion: 
 
 Our chief national failing is made up of a union of 
 fussiness, nervousness, hurry; "keeping up with the 
 times"; reading the latest novel; seeing a little of 
 everything, just enough to talk about it; general thin 
 ness due to admiration of versatility; "government" 
 by bluff, a natural result of shallow equipment. 
 
 A multimillionaire mine owner thinks that 
 our weaknesses consist of 
 
 Extravagance and inefficiency. The Americans of 
 formergenerations have been the most efficient people 
 
An American Symposium 315 
 
 in the world and in many respects they are so yet, 
 but I think there has been a great decrease in this 
 respect in the American people during the past two 
 generations. This is probably mainly due to educa 
 tion and association with other inefficient people. 
 
 Aside from our technological and so-called voca 
 tional educational institutions, the education fur 
 nished seems to be much like giving a young man or a 
 young woman a box of tools, and without instruc 
 tions how to use them, expect them to build wagons, 
 furniture, houses, etc. I think there has been some 
 change for the better in this respect during recent 
 years, but the ordinary education seems to be con 
 fined to furnishing the tools and allowing the student 
 to find out how to use them as he may. 
 
 In former generations so much was done at home 
 that young people growing up unconsciously became 
 thoroughly acquainted with all practical matters 
 relating to life and the human effort required in 
 carrying on the affairs of life; but during the past 
 two generations the factory system has developed so 
 rapidly that now nearly everything is made in fac 
 tories, and young people get little or no practical in 
 struction at home. 
 
 I have had many college men apply to me for posi 
 tions who did not know how to get in and out of the 
 office decently, and who did not know how to do a 
 single thing that was of any practical benefit to any 
 one. Such education as they had received seemed to 
 be actually a detriment, and I am glad to see a tend 
 ency toward a more practical effort in this direction. 
 
316 American Ideals 
 
 A clergyman in a large Eastern city, believes 
 that: 
 
 The chief points of weakness in our contemporary 
 life are: 
 
 First, shallow spiritual experience without ideas 
 and with poverty-stricken ideals. 
 
 Second, a_gregariousness. which seems to render the 
 individual incapable of thinking, doing, or being for 
 himself as an individual. 
 
 Third, an absurd reverence for external signs of 
 prosperity. 
 
 ""Fourth, the absence of a sense of moral obligation 
 in relation to the ordinary affairs of everyday people. 
 
 Fifth, a growing attempt to make social and exter 
 nal conditions a substitute for internal Christianity. 
 
 Sixth, a pernicious activity which has made repose, 
 serenity, inwardness of life, practically impossible. 
 
 Seventh, a puerile lowering of the standards of 
 virility to the level of little children. 
 
 The editor of one of the most widely circu 
 lated American weeklies considers our chief 
 points of failure: 
 
 The supreme worship of wealth and the struggle 
 to attain it, the principal flaw in our character as a 
 people. In this struggle there is almost always too 
 great a sacrifice. . Were wealth sought in reasonable 
 measure, it would bring comfort and enjoyment; but 
 the common tendency is to seek it, not for rational 
 
An American Symposium 317 
 
 uses, but as a means for acquiring still more. There 
 is no country in the world where we find so many men 
 of middle age still engrossed in making money. 
 Other lands have their leisure class, who have with 
 drawn, to some extent at least, from the active 
 struggle in order that they may study those graces 
 that give refinement and nobility to age, and which 
 furnish opportunities for helping those who are be 
 ginning the battle in stress and difficulties. Wealth, 
 rightly considered, is a stewardship which should 
 carry with it a wide recognition of our responsibility. 
 Fortunately, this recognition is steadily growing. 
 I think Andrew Carnegie was right when he said 
 that the time was coming when it would be considered 
 a disgrace for an American to die rich. The really 
 wise and good man should be his own executor. 
 
 Another outstanding element of weakness in our 
 social and business life is the widely prevalent lack of 
 appreciation of the Golden Rule. Selfishness and 
 indifference lead to many hard and cruel situations. 
 If the Christ spirit were within us, even in small 
 measure, we would give greater attention to our busi 
 ness methods. There would be less misrepresenta 
 tion, less driving of close bargains, less exploiting of 
 employees, less of the evils of drudgery and child 
 labor in a word, less selfishness. The application of 
 the simple rule of Christ s teaching would help us to 
 think more of our neighbor than we do, and to give 
 more consideration to the rights of others. We are 
 intent in everything we undertake, so full of the sheer 
 love of the battle that we show little or no mercy. 
 
318 American Ideals 
 
 The president of the graduating (1915) class 
 at the University of Wisconsin writes: 
 
 The chief weakness in our public life at present, as 
 it appears to me, is the feeling that if I don t do a 
 thing some one else will. Few men in public life 
 are taking a share in doing a thing for which they 
 are not directly responsible, and too many are not 
 doing the things for which they are directly respon 
 sible. The unpleasant thing about our private life 
 in America is that it is difficult to have a private life 
 under present conditions. The citizen as a private 
 individual is a slave to public opinion, and conse- 
 [uently does not dare to do what he thinks best or 
 wisest if that thing excites comment. 
 
 A New York banker: 
 
 I feel that present political consideration makes it 
 difficult for individuals confidently to go into new 
 ventures or to look forward to future prosperity, and 
 that this unrest and tendency toward socialism is at 
 the bottom of the present depression and lack of 
 employment. 
 
 A Boston banker: 
 
 The passion for "getting on," with accompanying 
 failure to see what one is getting on toward. 
 
 Pride in power and in the ownership of things. 
 Too great reliance on the finality of material. 
 
 The lust for spending ami having others know that 
 one spends. 
 
An American Symposium 319 
 
 Too much confidence in the necessary and fore 
 ordained greatness of the United States. 
 
 Failure to relate ideals to practical conduct, to 
 realize the one and to transfigure the other. 
 
 A congressman: 
 
 Extravagance in living. Most Americans prefer 
 to spend money rather than not to spend it, and 
 therefore very many spend money foolishly, and 
 upon things which were better not purchased. 
 
 The feeling that what we do ought to meet the 
 approval of other nations, for example, rather than 
 our own approval. This is because as a nation and 
 as individuals we are stillrather more vain than proud. 
 
 Editor of an educational magazine: 
 
 From the standpoint of the best interests of the 
 country I regard the greatest weakness and the 
 greatest source of danger to be the tendency to main 
 tain "solidarity" among various classes. "The 
 solidarity of women"- - "the solidarity of Roman 
 Catholics"- "the solidarity of the German Irish- 
 Italian vote." The future of the Democracy de 
 mands that we shall work together and not stand 
 apart, preserving and abetting social, racial, religious 
 antagonisms. 
 
 Another weakness is a tendency on the part of a 
 large number of Americans to leave important re 
 sponsibilities to the few. Too little understanding 
 of public questions and the workings of practical 
 
320 American Ideals 
 
 politics. Too little real interest in the public school. 
 Too little comprehension of the causes of social un 
 rest. 
 
 While things go well with us we are not inclined to 
 concern ourselves with the real problems of the day. 
 
 Headmaster of a boys academy in Penn 
 sylvania: 
 
 If the spirit of high honor prevailed throughout the 
 nation, even in the. far corners of the same, as it 
 prevails in the lives of many of the best men I know, 
 our nation would be the most nearly ideal nation on 
 the face of the earth. 
 
 A well-known New Jersey city official states 
 that our weaknesses are 
 
 Selfishness insincerity jealousy. 
 
 Tendency to destroy rather than to construct. 
 
 Too little attention given individually to the seri 
 ous side of life. 
 
 Ignorance concerning our public life and officials 
 outside of knowledge gathered from the newspapers. 
 
 Too busy to live up to what we know is right. 
 
 Entertainment receives more consideration than 
 education. 
 
 A high-school principal: 
 
 One of the chief weaknesses is an absence of 
 tenacity and a dearth of purpose. 
 
An American Symposium 321 
 
 There is also too little of abstract philosophical 
 thinking on any subject. 
 
 A religious director of six thousand university 
 students: 
 
 One weakness is that of indulgence. Our life is 
 crammed these days with opportunities for relaxing; 
 the picture show, the ball game, the theatre, the 
 novel, and the canoe grip the lives of a great many 
 and absorb their best energies. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 I firmly believe that there are more men of exalted 
 religious type in our colleges and universities than 
 anywhere else in the world. 
 
 A public official in Cleveland, Ohio: 
 
 A belief in our national good luck which makes 
 us assume rather light-heartedly that America can 
 not help turning out well, and, therefore, indisposes 
 us to the labor of making it turn out well. 
 
 Our tolerance of such evils as sensational newspa 
 pers, debasing dramatic exhibitions, and overemo- 
 tional motion picture shows. These are probably due 
 to our not having yet solved the problem of leisure. 
 
 The head of a New York publishing house 
 says that our weaknesses are 
 
 A tendency to subordinate everything to making 
 money and dancing, and to getting up societies for the 
 reformation of everything. 
 
322 American Ideals 
 
 An author of wide repute finds three failures 
 in our ideals: 
 
 Excessive popular influence in politics. 
 Lack of information about European affairs. 
 Too much self-confidence and complaisance. 
 
 A leading sociologist writes: 
 
 The chief point of weakness is the identifying of 
 success in life with money-making or ordinary com 
 mercial success. This comes from the past ascend 
 ancy of business men in shaping the ideals of 
 Americans. Although within the last ten years the 
 revelations of business morals have weakened some 
 what this ascendancy, nevertheless, even to-day, the 
 public gives too much heed to the business class and 
 too little to such champions of permanent value, as 
 poets, artists, thinkers, educators, social workers, 
 physicians, eugenists, economists, and geologists. 
 
 A second point of weakness is the excessive rever 
 ence on the part of the Courts for the rights of prop 
 erty in cases in which the management of property 
 comes into conflict with the life, wealth, or happiness 
 of human beings, with the interest of society, or with 
 the vitality of the race. 
 
 A professor in Baylor University, Texas, con- 
 sidersourneed of improvement to lie in relation to 
 
 The disintegrating factors of selfishness and com 
 petition over against the necessity of the community 
 
An American Symposium 323 
 
 spirit, the brotherly life, and the outward expression 
 of it in organized cooperation. 
 
 The secretary of a large foundation fund con 
 siders that our failures consist in 
 
 Personal preferment and pleasures at any cost. 
 
 The refusal of so many to think, to face the facts, 
 and to come to a wise attitude toward life and to a 
 determination of well-thought-out ideals. 
 
 The president of the Board of Education in 
 an Eastern city: 
 
 I believe that we are too greatly disposed to depend 
 on an optimistic belief in our ability to handle almost 
 any question, no matter how limited our knowledge 
 or experience may be. The thorough and painstak 
 ing effort and specialized knowledge of which we have 
 seen recent examples in other nations, are not, in my 
 opinion, sufficiently valued by our people. 
 
 The head of a large military academy in the 
 Middle West reports our failures in the follow 
 ing directions: 
 
 Rural depopulation and urban congestion. 
 
 Race suicide of the fittest and overbreeding by the 
 unfit. 
 
 Mental superficiality as manifested by a lack of 
 thoroughness in almost every line of work, by the 
 patronage of cheap literature, cheap music, degrading 
 
324 American Ideals 
 
 plays, and the almost total eclipse of the inner 
 man. 
 
 As a result of this mental superficiality the preva 
 lence of half-baked and prejudiced opinions on mat 
 ters of local or national importance and almost total 
 ignorance of the great thoughts of the past. 
 
 An analysis of the answers of one hundred 
 men as to the chief points of weakness in our 
 contemporary American life, from which the 
 preceding quotations have been taken, reveals 
 the following facts : 
 
 (The table below gives the number of times the 
 designated weaknesses were mentioned.) 
 
 No. times 
 mentioned 
 
 Materialism, dominance of money, worship of 
 
 bigness, deference to material success ... 27 
 
 Want of thoroughness, superficiality . ... 20 
 
 Extravagance and wastefulness 16 
 
 Self-indulgence and complacency . . . . 15 
 Lack of perspective and ignorance of foreign 
 
 nations 14 
 
 Lack of public responsibility generally ... 13 
 Breaking up of home life and lack of home train 
 ing for children 9 
 
 Shallowness in religion 8 
 
 Evasion of law when possible without being 
 
 caught 8 
 
 Lack of respect for intellect 6 
 
An American Symposium 325 
 
 No. times 
 mentioned 
 
 Class legislation and class solidarity ... 5 
 
 Imitativeness, lack of independence ... 4 
 Exaggerated opinion of the greatness of the 
 
 United States 4 
 
 Intemperance in liquor, eating, etc 3 
 
 Love of display 3 
 
 Lack of education for liberal leisure .... 2 
 
 Irresponsible journalism 2 
 
 Unemployment 2 
 
 " Organizations" for everything 2 
 
 Unequal distribution of wealth I 
 
 Danger of our mixed population I 
 
 The conclusion forced upon us by these testi 
 monies is that while we have not yet attained 
 our ideals as a people, we have become increas 
 ingly conscious of them. Our civilization has 
 not reached the highest greatness, but it con 
 tains the elements of that greatness. Our men 
 and women are not as yet full statured, but they 
 are growing. 
 
 These trenchant words of some of our best 
 types of Americans remind us that democracy 
 is still an earth spirit struggling often with 
 indifferent success to lift itself above the petty 
 intrigues of politicians, and rising only occasion 
 ally to the "vision splendid" of fraternal equality 
 and sure justice. We are still the worshippers 
 
326 American Ideals 
 
 of physical force and material rewards. Our 
 idols have feet of clay. Our courts still mete 
 out limping justice. Our education drives itself 
 into the grooves of money and the making of a 
 living rather than the building of strong man 
 hood and womanhood. We still fill the air of 
 our modern Babylons with the strident cries 
 of sensual satisfactions, and we barter our birth 
 right for a mess of pottage that only adds to our 
 fleshly hunger and fails to feed our famishing 
 souls. Our much vaunted civilization proves 
 to be all too frequently in hours of crisis an un 
 substantial dream, and like our religion it is 
 too often but a thin cloak to cover the naked 
 ness and selfish sordidness of perverse and pride- 
 filled hearts. 
 
 No thoughtful student of our times is blind 
 enough to delude himself into sublime ease of 
 mind and spirit, even while beholding our 
 philanthropies, our pensions, and our peace 
 policies that bedeck the outward surface of our 
 modernity. No one who hears the confused 
 wrangling of labor at Bayonne and in many a 
 mining and industrial camp will wrap the man 
 tle of self-sufficiency aHout him and cry, "We 
 are the People! Wisdom and virtue will die 
 with us!" Our finest progress toward the sense 
 
An American Symposium 327 
 
 of Beauty and inward Power is but, in the words 
 of Tennyson, 
 
 The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds. 
 
 Our ideals are too far from realization to per 
 mit of boasting; they are not as yet fixed guiding 
 stars. 
 
 Yet I venture to say that no one can read 
 these frank and earnest answers of contempo 
 rary Americans, residing in widely separated 
 areas and employed in diverse callings, without 
 \ feeling that underneath even the most pessi- 
 T" mistic of them there runs a sense, not of failing, 
 but of succeeding, even if slowly, in the perfect 
 ing of our life of business and public and private 
 institutions. The private letters that accom 
 panied these witnesses abound in faith and hope. 
 The very consciousness of the unattained 
 y/ ideals that our weaknesses exemplify are the 
 surest signs of encouragement. The ideals of a 
 people are always the forerunners of their 
 practice, and when a higher ideal is sighted or 
 taken in place of a lower one, the change in 
 practice is sure to follow. 
 
 Modern Christians do not always (as ancient 
 pagans did not) exhibit the graces of mercy and 
 
328 American Ideals 
 
 brotherly love; but the members of the present- 
 day Christian civilization in America feel what 
 men in the old Roman age did not feel that in 
 the failure to rise to the loftiest height of social 
 cooperation with their fellows they are dropping 
 below the standards of true men. The ideal of 
 "service" easily leads all others in the above 
 answers. The danger of the old pagan civiliza 
 tion, which placed brute force and violence, 
 above brotherhood and the constructive arts of 
 peace, lay not merely in its deeds of violence 
 but in its admiration and worship of such exter 
 nal agencies as the true ideals of greatness. 
 Spiritual ideals did not have a chance even in the 
 mind. 
 
 It is here that America is learning the first 
 great lesson in national and individual idealism 
 the grasping of the truth that physical domi 
 nance and the vulgar, selfish pursuit of money 
 as an end in itself are not the highest manifesta 
 tions of power. The man who delves into the 
 American motives will find this in general to be 
 true. This is a long step in idealism. To be 
 sure many of the brutish and sordid relics of 
 paganism and barbarism are yet evident among 
 us and seem quite deeply rooted in human na 
 ture; but these do not survive in our admiration 
 
An American Symposium 329 
 
 or approval, and I believe that they are gradually 
 losing their influence over our thought the 
 centre from which all action springs. This is 
 the triumph of American idealism. 
 
 Even the man who has not attained to his 
 ideals finds them ever present in the anticipation 
 of his heart. He sees them realized in others 
 and admires them from afar: and here in 
 America we have a remarkable tendency to be 
 come what we admire. We are, as a nation, 
 great enough to admire the character of Lincoln 
 and to revere his name more and more as the 
 days of our years go by. We are increasingly 
 conscious of that high-mindedness and states 
 manlike bearing exhibited by the almost ideal 
 Secretary of State, John Hay; and more than one 
 of late has remarked with peculiar pride these 
 qualities of devotion to humanity s cause 
 shining so transparently in the life of Lincoln, 
 and the choice, thoughtful culture of Mr. Hay, 
 appearing together in the acts and habits of our 
 President, Woodrow Wilson. 
 
 The final aim of all great ideals is to make 
 great men. That cause is strong, as Lowell has 
 said, which has not a multitude but one strong 
 man behind it. It should be the high aim of our 
 American idealism to lift the nation above its 
 
330 American Ideals 
 
 weakness and frailty by the production of men 
 of quality, men of larger mental mould, men of 
 firmer moral fibre, men who, whether storms or 
 sunshine come, can be depended upon to say as 
 did Seneca s pilot: 
 
 "O Neptune: you may save me if you will; 
 you may sink me if you will; but whatever 
 happens, I shall keep my rudder true/ 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 AMERICA COMING OF AGE 
 
 Forever alive, forever forward, 
 
 Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, tur 
 bulent, feeble, dissatisfied, 
 
 Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, re 
 jected by men, 
 
 They go! They go! I know that they go, but I 
 know not where they go, 
 
 But I know that they go toward the best toward 
 something great. 
 
 WALT WHITMAN. 
 
 The United States will never see fifty again; nor a 
 hundred. We are full grown. 
 
 OWEN WISTER. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 AMERICA COMING OF AGE 
 GEORGE WADE, the sculptor, once said: 
 
 I could tell an American immediately, not by 
 manner, walk, or clothes, or anything external, but 
 by the peculiar expression of his eye. It is an ex 
 pression I find hard to analyze. It is a look which 
 seems to embrace the future rather than the present 
 or the past. The American has the open-eyed look of 
 confident anticipation. 
 
 Emerson was not the only one who has called 
 America another term for opportunity. Many a 
 prophet has seen envisaged on this Western con 
 tinent an all-encompassing future civilization, 
 a land of promise without parallel, the country 
 of the new hope. 
 
 " Borne over the Atlantic," cried the prophetic 
 Carlyle in his warning to Europe, "to the closing 
 ear of Louis, king by the grace of God, what 
 sounds are these muffled, ominous, new in our 
 centuries? Boston Harbor is black with un- 
 
 333 
 
334 American Ideals 
 
 expected tea; behold a Pennsylvania congress 
 gather; and ere long, on Bunker Hill, Democ 
 racy announcing, in rifle volleys death-winged, 
 under her star banner, to the tune of Yankee- 
 doodle-do, that she is born, and, whirlwind-like, 
 will envelop the whole world!" 
 
 Prophecy has been made history and America 
 has become of age. Her Alps are passed; her 
 Italy lies before her. With face still shining 
 in youthful hope and unquenched optimism, 
 America yet belongs to the Party of the Present, 
 but she is becoming interested in the Party of 
 the Future. 
 
 America has been called a Providential re 
 public. By the nature of an unseen and often 
 unappreciated cosmic force she has been in 
 evitably urged far ahead of the dreams of her 
 founders. The processes of the years have 
 gradually widened her boundaries. To the south 
 came Texas and New Mexico and the French 
 lands where Napoleon had dreamed of making 
 a new empire in the West for France. Later in 
 a hundred days of war, which we at the time 
 could scarcely understand, the West Indies 
 became America s southern boundaries. It 
 was as if propelled by this irresistible force of 
 destiny that Lewis and Clarke forged their way 
 
America Coming of Age 335 
 
 through the western wilderness and "planted 
 our banners by the shores of the Peaceful Sea." 
 Then the nation that never dreamed of conquest 
 found Alaska as her child in the frozen North, 
 and her star of empire was to lead her yet 
 farther, even toward the Eastern sunrise, until 
 her West became East, and the eagle in her 
 flight found her stepping-stones upon the isles 
 of the Pacific and in distant Southern Seas. 
 It was not by chance that the hand of Jefferson 
 wrote with intuitive fingers an instrument of 
 "delegated powers" that has served as chart 
 and compass over these new and untried waters. 
 A Greater Hand moved the pen whose writing 
 has served so well to guide a new race of men in 
 their purposed destiny. Theodore Roosevelt, 
 in a memorable address with which he dedicated 
 the St. Louis Exposition, said, "As is so often 
 the case in nature, the law of development of a 
 living organism showed itself in its actual 
 workings to be wiser than the wisdom of the 
 
 wisest." 
 
 This new republic, carved out of the unknown, 
 the unexpected, is no longer an experiment. It 
 has been tried by war and by peace, by adversity 
 and by prosperity. American ideals are facts 
 for which men have dared to die. 
 
336 American Ideals 
 
 Here she has shown her capacity, not only to 
 tame a wilderness and to irrigate deserts, but 
 also to govern successfully ICXD,OOO,OOO of the 
 most diverse populations known on the face of 
 the earth. Here she has settled once for all 
 time her union of states in a dolorous but de 
 livering civil war. She has gone out to the 
 uttermost parts of the earth with her commerce 
 and her colonists. By adhering through many 
 a conflict to sound economics, she has estab 
 lished her financial credit on a basis as firm and 
 trustworthy as that of any nation beneath the 
 sun. Her home industries are attended by a 
 prosperity at once both the envy and the emula 
 tion of her national neighbors. She has built 
 through the Isthmus of Panama a waterway as 
 unprecedented in its conception and construction 
 as it is, in its equal access to all the world, sig 
 nificant of human serviceableness. Scarcely 
 an achievement known to modern science is a 
 novelty in America. Already the United States 
 has revealed herself as her own most sedulous 
 policeman, and her reforms of herself have been 
 as startling as the perils they foreshadowed 
 have been ominous. She has raised up great 
 men, great political parties, great schools, and 
 great colleges. She has become the fostering 
 
America Coming of Age 337 
 
 mother of some of the finest charities, the great 
 est railroads, and the most prodigious manu 
 facturing and business corporations extant. In 
 this vast world drama of modernity enacted 
 before the eyes of men there pass indescribable 
 scenes filled with laborers, technicians, capital 
 ists, builders of cities and tunnels, makers of lit 
 erature and laws, seers and saints of a new 
 world of imagination and religion, and a pro 
 cession well-nigh endless of strong, intrepid 
 youth. 
 
 It is a story of enchantment, this shining 
 record of progress and freedom of America com 
 ing of age. These things of the hand and the 
 mind and spirit she has accomplished "without 
 an ally and without an enemy" among the 
 nations. She stands to-day upon the hilltop, 
 and they that look upon her achievements are 
 like them that dream. 
 
 With such unexampled growth, with a face 
 still radiant with the light of her morning, 
 America is to-day entering upon a new period 
 the period of maturity. Livingstone, at the end 
 of his daring and successful discoveries in the 
 heart of the Dark Continent, said: "The end of 
 the exploration is the beginning of the enter- 
 
338 American Ideals 
 
 prise." It is with some such feeling that the 
 American, rich in his unexpressed idealism, cap 
 able in the realm of his spirit and imagination 
 as in the sphere of his material world, faces the 
 light of a new era. 
 
 There is a sense in which every hour in a 
 nation s progress is a critical hour, a sense in 
 which every day is doomsday. In a philosophical 
 mind every hour marks the end of an era, and 
 every year sets its sign on a new order of ages. 
 In a certain sense a country is always passing 
 through a transition period, and the rapidity 
 with which the life of yesterday coalesces with 
 the life of to-day in this strangely progressive 
 land has often puzzled and baffled the contem 
 porary prophet and historian who has endeavored 
 to restrict America within distinctive epochs. 
 But there come times in the career of nations as 
 of individuals, so plain that he who runs may 
 read, when there is a necessary cleavage between 
 the past and the future, and when a people, 
 especially, are pressed forward as by a dynamic 
 force into a new and inevitable destiny. 
 
 One of these moments was recorded when 
 these United States swept forward alone into a 
 strange world of political responsibility that 
 memorable hour of transfer of national leader- 
 
America Coming of Age 339 
 
 ship from British to American hands. Another 
 fixed and unforgettable point of duration marked 
 the day when over the martyred form of Lincoln 
 the North and the South clasped hands of un 
 divided citizenship. And when the Book of 
 History is fully written there will be at least 
 one other turning of the tide in America there 
 portrayed. It will be the painting of the days 
 our eyes are now beholding, when the thunder 
 of cannon and the hiss of torpedoes are rever 
 berating in the ears of a war-maddened world, 
 and America almost alone stands apart, the 
 fateful spectator and arbiter of this "Iliad of 
 woes/ In these days of changing and tangled 
 destiny in the life of European nations, when 
 the United States is called upon to bear back 
 to Europe some light from the torch which was 
 kindled there and which has brightened into a 
 steady flame in America s hand, in these hours 
 when the country s ideals and institutions and 
 men are put to the test as perhaps never before, 
 we must perforce choose our path with a fresh 
 directive eye; we must stamp our present period 
 with a new reappraisement. 
 
 What ideals now emerging must emerge, 
 if we are true to ourselves, to awaken our present 
 energies, to give tonic and timbre to our future 
 
340 American Ideals 
 
 hopes? What sleeping, inarticulate dreams are 
 being rudely disturbed and dragged forcibly out 
 into the light of common day by this doomful 
 cataclysm of war? 
 
 If we mistake not, they are the ideals and the 
 dreams that prefigure America s coming of age. 
 They are the ideas and the convictions which will 
 foreshadow the new creative idealism of the 
 inner spirit of America, rising out and above the 
 foundations of her vast material conquests and 
 growing life. Mr. A. E. Zimmern, the don of 
 Oxford, in his essay entitled "Seven Months in 
 America," calls America "a state of mind." It 
 is in a change of this American "state of mind," 
 or perhaps in an opening of an untried or unoccu 
 pied portion of it, the part that lies in the realm 
 of the spirit and the resources of the higher 
 understanding, that she is to see herself in these 
 new days of her richer maturity. America is 
 facing a mighty test of her ideals. The spirit 
 of Democracy, which at the centre is brother 
 hood, or meant to be, is on trial. The informing 
 and vital breath of the country s religion will be 
 fanned into new flame or will be withered by 
 these days. The voice of the nation s con 
 science, which is the voice of God, will be heard 
 afresh, and there will be a new soul s awakening. 
 
America Coming of Age 341 
 
 Those in America who have been turning their 
 new and leisured thought to art, to literature, 
 or to the putting of their moral and spiritual 
 house in order, will find in the massive events of 
 these heart-stirring hours meanings that are not 
 found in pictures or books or written on our 
 altar cloths. 
 
 There are two great words frequently heard in 
 the United States these days, standing for two of 
 the inherent ideals of the nation: these words are 
 Peace and Humanity. These words stand for 
 aims deeply embedded in the original life of the 
 nation; they belong to our first traditions; they 
 breathe the atmosphere of the real and essential 
 existence of America which is rooted in a spirit 
 of equal justice and flowers in humanitarian 
 sympathy on the high levels of man s brother 
 hood with man. It is for the revelation and the 
 incarnate expression of these great ideals that 
 all our previous history has prepared the way. 
 It was to find an arena for this wider and larger 
 sense of humanity that our early forefather 
 pioneers in New England, in Virginia, and the 
 South, "under such sullen and averted stars," 
 laid the forests and built their homes and schools 
 in this western hemisphere. It has been in 
 
342 American Ideals 
 
 prelude to these ideals, these higher and far- 
 sweeping dreams of the human spirit and 
 imagination, that the later sons of the West have 
 enlarged the borders of their agriculture, and 
 have forged out their enormous scientific devel 
 opments in steam machinery, in electrical, 
 economic, and political advance. It is for such 
 ideals that the Republic finds its material civil 
 ization a meaningful ministrant and without 
 which all its splendid wealth and earthly re 
 sources are as pointless as the tinkling of a tem 
 ple bell. Into this new idealism of a world made 
 peaceful for the sake of its most precious prod 
 ucts the members of the human race our 
 country has been slowly moving, and the wars 
 of the nations have accelerated the wheels of its 
 progress. 
 
 Why is America at the daybreak of a new 
 period of her constructive history predisposed 
 and pledged to peace? Why is the ideal of be 
 ing the peacemaker among the nations attrac 
 tive in her eyes? It is because we came first 
 to these western shores as searchers for this 
 spiritual, peaceful inheritance; it is because deep 
 in the inner consciousness of Americans there 
 has always persisted the dim realization that 
 if we lose this ideal, notwithstanding all the 
 
America Coming of Age 343 
 
 opulence of our power and wealth, we shall be 
 poor indeed. "Peace and Liberty" these are 
 America s sovereign words. They have been 
 the watchwords of our greatest leaders. 
 
 Washington said: "My first wish is to see this 
 plague of mankind (war) banished from the 
 earth. We have experienced enough of its evils 
 in this country to know that it must not be wan 
 tonly or unnecessarily entered upon." 
 
 Grant had reason to understand the full signif 
 icance of his words when, out of a heart weary 
 with war, he cried: "Let us have peace!" The 
 phrase of Sherman, "War is hell!" has become 
 an epigram in the country, as trite as it is true, 
 and stands in the common sentiment beside the 
 prayer of the dying Lincoln that "this mighty 
 scourge of war might speedily pass away." The 
 name of one of America s most honored states 
 men, John Hay, is associated inextricably with 
 the Golden Rule policy of peace and good will, 
 both at home and abroad, the ideal of men of 
 quality. In his address before the Press Parlia 
 ment of the World at the Louisiana Purchase 
 Exposition at St. Louis in 1904, Mr. Hay uttered 
 words pregnant with the national idealism and 
 worthy to be framed above the desk of every 
 newspaper editor in this and in every land: 
 
344 American Ideals 
 
 ft If the press of the world would adopt and per 
 sist in the high resolve that war should be no 
 more, the clangor of arms would cease from the 
 rising of the sun to its going down, and we could 
 fancy that at last our ears, no longer stunned 
 by the din of armies, might hear the morning 
 stars singing together and all the sons of God 
 shouting for joy." 
 
 No nation has followed more devotedly in the 
 wake of its statesmen s ideals in pioneering the 
 causes of arbitration; no nation has poured out 
 its money more lavishly in the interests of per 
 manent peace. Even when there is no peace 
 in the sight of men, the American sees it afar 
 off and seeks it sometimes almost blindly, be 
 cause his wish is the measure of his mind. In 
 this regard a nation s ideal, like that of a man, is 
 estimated by what he wants quite as much as by 
 what he gets. In the United States the sign of 
 peace is a watermark of the racial consciousness. 
 It belongs to us as truly as do our industries, it 
 is the pledge and the prerequisite of our indus 
 tries the eternal condition without which 
 American freedom is not. 
 
 It is with such heritage at home, and with 
 strains of indebtedness to other nations we too 
 seldom pause to consider, that we are bound and 
 
America Coming of Age 345 
 
 indissolubly enmeshed in the peace and progress 
 of mankind. It is sometimes overlooked both by 
 our foreign neighbors and our own people that 
 we did not begin in America. Many of our insti 
 tutions came as it were by enchantment, full 
 statured in their transfer from the old to this 
 new world. The "clouds of glory" of American 
 spiritual life trail far back into distant Asia. 
 Many of the roots of romance and insight, 
 many a strain of thought and tradition, followed 
 to its source would reach to France and Spain 
 and England, whose children brought their 
 visions and their culture Americaward. When 
 the hard, steel-like face of the seemingly ma 
 terialistic American lights up before the admi 
 ration of the beautiful, the chivalrous; when the 
 warm tones of emotional feeling sweep the 
 heartstrings of the practical business man, it 
 is a strain of the Latin temperament that is 
 speaking, it says to those who are most intent: 
 "You must be a great and spiritual land, Amer 
 ica, for you are the offspring of all that is most 
 excellent in this Old World from which you have 
 drawn your life. You must be great for your 
 own sake, and also for us who are to be more and 
 more dependent upon you for that eternal 
 spring of youth, and that priceless gift of peace 
 
346 American Ideals 
 
 with liberty of which you are the embodiment 
 among the nations." 
 
 But it is not the full story of America s coming 
 of age to repeat that she has been conceived and 
 nourished and has grown to maturity in the 
 atmosphere of peace. There is another and 
 even a more fundamental ideal for which this 
 land is renowned. A greater word than peace 
 to the new western world is this word Hu 
 manity. It is for humanity, not in the abstract, 
 not merely in the masses, not in the form of 
 nations entirely, but in the concrete human in 
 dividual that America is to be more and more a 
 specialist. There is no peace of nations where 
 there is no peace in the heart of the individuals 
 who compose those nations. There is no unity 
 worthy of the name in monarchy or democracy 
 where there is no harmony and disciplined power 
 in the units who unite. America can never 
 be truly great and truly free, she can never 
 expect peace to reign within her borders, nor 
 can she dream of peacemaking around the world, 
 until she awakens anew to the thought that the 
 institution is but the elongated shadow of the 
 man; that the body corporate can advance no 
 farther than the body individual has advanced, 
 and that the secret of any lasting renown among 
 
America Coming of Age 347 
 
 the races of men resides in the degree in which 
 great ideals and high convictions have caught 
 fire in the souls of individual men men one by 
 one. This is the high business of democracy, 
 this individualism of the private soul, this rivet 
 ing the strength of the nation to the disciplined 
 wills and the enlarged hearts of persons, who 
 are more potent than policies. This is building 
 the national temple with the "living stones" 
 of human personalities who have been awakened 
 to the superb consciousness and eternal dignity 
 of themselves. That nation that strengthens 
 its individuals strengthens itself, and in the 
 surest manner possible. It is the most unfail 
 ing patriotism that anchors its hope not in 
 chancelleries, nor in admiralties, but in the 
 inflexible purposes of righteousness in the hearts 
 and consciences of the great men and women 
 whom individual patriotism has made. 
 
 To draw an illustration from the pages of 
 celestial wisdom, there was a time in the days of 
 the King Josiah when the imperial splendor of 
 Judah seemed about to take precedence over 
 the private life of the individual. The nation, 
 the masses, the armies, the government, and the 
 material power were more and more. The 
 people, dazzled with the glory of might and 
 
348 American Ideals 
 
 things, cried: "The days of our David have 
 returned." Before the eyes of the little Jewish 
 Kingdom there passed only visions splendid of 
 promised lands and political power for the na 
 tion. The man was lost in the crowd. 
 
 Suddenly there comes a crash. The king 
 falls upon the bloody field of Megiddo, Judah 
 as a nation goes to pieces, is carried captive to 
 Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. On the banks 
 of the Chebar where the captive people were 
 set to work, after the blast of imperialism and 
 material worship had passed, we are shown that 
 for the first time in their history the God of 
 ancient Judaism began to speak to each in 
 dividual, to address not the nation but the 
 person man by man. Heretofore the Jew had 
 said: "These messages are not for me, they are 
 for the nation; our God is too political to be 
 personal, too zealous for the mass to care for 
 me." The very sense of loyalty to the nation, 
 the working for the matchless splendor of 
 Judah, had obscured the rights of the individual 
 soul. In their exile, in their disassociation from 
 corporate satisfactions, they found their souls. 
 
 It is somewhat thus that one discovers, here 
 and there atleast,inthe United States a tendency 
 to pass out of the "age of arithmetic" into the 
 
America Coming of Age 349 
 
 age of the adornment of the individual spirit. 
 Even our socialized service has been, like Judah s 
 patriotism, an obstacle to the development of 
 those individual ideals without which no na 
 tional ideal is meaningful. 
 
 America has all the conditions of a great 
 civilization, but it must be remembered that 
 in the highest sense her civilization is not yet 
 great, she has not achieved the full use of her 
 wings. There is indication that the people who 
 have seen with clear eyes during these days of 
 world war, noting the fact that great materiali 
 ties or great aristocracies are not synonymous 
 with great humanities, are perceiving that a 
 high civilization can never be truly defined in 
 terms of physical armament or by such words 
 as bulk, and size, and far, and near. Great 
 states, like great individuals, belong to that 
 "remote concentration" that believes and stakes 
 all upon the sovereignty of great ideas, of larger 
 education, of unbounded belief in individualism 
 and peace among men. 
 
 Upon her material and vast industrial bases 
 America, grown to maturity, must now build 
 carefully and faithfully her thought life, her 
 life of the international and individual mind. 
 To learn to think straightly and dispassion- 
 
3 O American Ideals 
 
 ately, to add knowledge to knowledge, and to 
 supplement her resistless energy by disciplined 
 restraint, is the new and peculiar opportunity of 
 America coming of age. 
 
 The United States in its youth has learned the 
 lesson purchased by its own blood, that no 
 people permanently will endure the subjugation 
 of their rightful liberty that freedom, real 
 and not fanciful, old and also new, and always 
 fresh and heaven-born, is the one and only 
 force that will unite in undying cause the souls 
 of men. She has yet to learn, at least in its 
 larger and finer scope, that the only element 
 in which freedom can freely live and move and 
 have its being, is that of the larger universal 
 mind to which the independence of the in 
 dividual minds have contributed each a share. 
 Freedom is the ideal of America, and Wisdom 
 must be Freedom s guiding spirit. 
 
 America is coming of age in a period of un 
 exampled opportunity in world affairs. Her 
 fancied isolation has been rudely shattered. 
 The present world conflict, with its earth-shak 
 ing influences, already by its tremendous effect 
 upon our economic, industrial, and emotional 
 life, has awakened the nation at a destined 
 
America Coming of Age 351 
 
 moment to the fact that we can no longer exist 
 on a continent apart, but that we have become 
 by the arbitrament of time and tragedy of 
 circumstance a part and parcel of world respon 
 sibility. In her young manhood America is 
 summoned to cultivate an aptitude for altruism, 
 and her future as a great or small civilization 
 hangs upon her present choice. Henceforth, if 
 we are to make the gift of our forefathers -that 
 sacred deposit of freedom meaningful, we must 
 be ready with foresight and wisdom heretofore 
 unsummoned to take our burden of world 
 obligation, as well as to prepare to care for the 
 enlarging interests that are our own. The 
 nation s calamity howlers and the sword rattlers 
 who have been crying out during the past years 
 for armament have doubtless caught transient 
 gleams of this new order of America s respon 
 sibility, and even though their remedies have 
 been so clumsily presented, they demand our 
 consideration. Now, furthermore, these are 
 joined by wiser and more numerous cooperators 
 who are drawing a sword never before dreamed 
 of in America, whose banner carries no spread- 
 eagleism, no mere selfish slogan of "America 
 for Americans," save as such battle-cry may be 
 needful against unprecedented attacks upon our 
 
352 American Ideals 
 
 homes and firesides. These leaders of the new 
 order are the apostles of a wider perspective. 
 President Wilson has spoken the words of their 
 Magna Charta in his already famous Philadel 
 phia address: 
 
 It is sometimes possible to be so right as not to 
 have to fight for our rights. 
 
 It is thus that we match the patriotism of our 
 youth with the wisdom of our manhood, and 
 gain the seerlike capacity to see beyond the 
 moment, beyond passion, beyond hurt feelings, 
 beyond the domination of the temporal. This 
 new America is not the cowardly America; it is 
 the America sobering with her age^ rising in her 
 stirrups, so to speak, using the eyes of her mind 
 as well as the vigor of her national spurs, look 
 ing across the hilltop the nation refusing to be 
 stampeded because she "sees things steadily 
 and sees them whole." 
 
 Our fathers brought to our shores from 
 Europe in their frail sailing ships a precious 
 endowment with which to inform and to actuate 
 the young republic. They were the ideals of 
 political and religious freedom. These ideals 
 
America Coming of Age 353 
 
 have not yet been fully perfected in our hands, 
 but they have been fostered and extended in a 
 legion of ways among our own citizenship, 
 as well as among those who have sought 
 homes on our shores. These ideals have per 
 meated all our institutions. They have made 
 an atmosphere for American hopes and Amer 
 ican enterprises. We of to-day may be 
 called upon in the new morning of America s 
 maturity, in the very dawn of her spiritual 
 strength, as the unhostile representatives of her 
 wealth and insight, to send back to Europe this 
 priceless spirit of idealism, not in the terms of 
 battleships, but in the language of brotherhood, 
 not wearing the insignia of world power, but 
 clothed in the shining garments of Peace. 
 
 THE END 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Dr. Lyman, regarding religion .... 224 
 
 Achievement, American desire for S 8 
 
 Activity, law of American being 45 
 
 Agassiz, Professor, Ideas on Education .... 167 
 
 Akron, Ohio, immigration classes 243 
 
 Alden, Henry Mills 52,60 
 
 America 
 
 Defined by Oxford don 34 
 
 Growth of 334 
 
 New period 337 
 
 Opportunity and world affairs 35 
 
 Wealth per inhabitant l?> l8 
 
 Materialistic 3 
 
 American 
 
 Active temperament 5 
 
 Adaptability II2 
 
 Analyzed by Frenchman 3 
 
 Anticipating IO 
 
 Bigness attractive I3 61, 64 
 
 Business man 37 
 
 Civilization 349 
 
 Contrasted with Britisher, 8, 2O, 8l, IOI, 104, 115, 118 
 Contrasted with East Indian . . 58,128,134,136 
 
 Economics 336 
 
 European rootage 345 
 
 Expansive imagination 124 
 
 357 
 
358 Index 
 
 American Continued PAGB 
 
 Geniality 60, 67 
 
 Humor 14, 60 
 
 Humanitarian ideals 103,111 
 
 Industry 15 
 
 Latin temperament -345 
 
 Love of difficulties 83 
 
 Love of money 21,116 
 
 Love of new things 112, 113, 118 
 
 Maturity of 333 
 
 Mysticism 153 
 
 Poor Men 26 
 
 Providential Republic 334 
 
 Religious temperament 206 
 
 Steam machinery 1 1 
 
 Symposium 287 
 
 Timesavers 12 
 
 Traditions 342 
 
 Annapolis, Naval Academy 181 
 
 Arbitration 266, 267 
 
 Aristocracy, in England and United States . . . 102 
 Arnold, Matthew, criticisms of America and Eng 
 land 99, 220, 287 
 
 Art, present day tendencies 341 
 
 Asia, influence on Occident 130 
 
 Austen, Jane 55 
 
 Austro-Hungarian immigration 231 
 
 B 
 
 Bacon regarding wealth 251 
 
 Banker of Boston regarding civilization . . . 298 
 
 Banks as moulding forces 193 
 
 Baroda, Gaekwar of 139 
 
 Bayonne, labor troubles 326 
 
Index 359 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bedouin chief n 
 
 Bergson, philosophy of 43, 183 
 
 Best sellers 54 
 
 Bible study in colleges and schools .... 122, 184 
 
 Bible versus Vedanta 137 
 
 Billings, Josh - .... 262 
 
 Birthrate 232 
 
 Bismarck regarding German youth 182 
 
 Books, circulation of in New York Public Library . 57 
 
 Books on America by Englishmen 100 
 
 Bowring, Doctor, quoted 5 
 
 British commission on education 165 
 
 British failure in Far East 114 
 
 Broadway and the simple life . 282 
 
 Brotherhood, Cain and Abel example .... 92 
 
 Bryce, James, on lax enforcement of laws . . . 257 
 
 Bryan, W. J., pictured by cartoons 66 
 
 Buddhism 136, 147 
 
 Business 
 
 Business men too influential, says sociologist . 322 
 
 Better understanding needful 95 
 
 Fear 94 
 
 Troubles 280 
 
 C 
 
 California undergraduate writes 289 
 
 Carlyle, quoted concerning literature, humor, and 
 
 prophecy 9, 46, 62, 333 
 
 Carnegie 23 
 
 Catholic church 200 
 
 Charities 337 
 
 Chinese responsibility 262 
 
 Chinese ancestor worship 75 
 
360 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chinese poet, quoted 156 
 
 Citizenship and the colleges 179 
 
 Christianity and war 217, 221 
 
 Christianity for the individual . . . . 212, 220 
 
 Church, contemporary opinion of .... 193, 199 
 
 Churchill, Winston 48 
 
 City, church life 207 
 
 Clemens, S 27, 62 
 
 Clough, John E., autobiography .... 144, 145 
 
 Clergyman on national tendencies 293 
 
 Clement of Alexandria regarding riches .... 274 
 Columbia University, teacher quoted .... 299 
 Comenius, Bishop ideal of education . . . . 167 
 
 Columbus sailed to find East 129 
 
 Core of Christian religion 222 
 
 Coit, Stanton 44 
 
 Culture and agriculture 168 
 
 Commons, Prof. John R 34 
 
 Cornell, Ezra, foundation idea of university . . . 169 
 
 Constitution, American 72, 73, 198 
 
 Constitution, British 80 
 
 Cleveland Immigration League described . . . 240 
 
 Country life, attraction of 281 
 
 Culture defined by Frenchman 178 
 
 D 
 
 Dairy Department in university, research work . 170 
 
 Daniels, Josephus 66 
 
 Debts, disgrace of in country sections .... 281 
 Democracy 
 
 Lincoln s idea 69 
 
 Square deal 71, 74 
 
 Universal desire for 81 
 
Index 361 
 
 Democracy Continued PACK 
 
 In Canada 82 
 
 Gain in respect for law 85 
 
 Dependent on sacrifice and brotherhood . 95, 340 
 
 Utopian vagaries relative to 90 
 
 Denominations, religious, number of 197 
 
 Dharma, its place in India 139 
 
 Dickens, receipt for happiness 280 
 
 Discipline, lacking in public institutions . . . 259 
 
 Drama 214 
 
 Drink problem 78, 288 
 
 Drummond, Henry 267 
 
 E 
 
 East India, heart of Asia 134 
 
 Eaton, Walter Prichard 52 
 
 Edison, Thomas A 12, 103 
 
 Education 
 
 An American passion 157 
 
 Classical 166 
 
 Coalescing with life 168 
 
 Cost of 161 
 
 Definition of 178 
 
 Educational Alliance 238 
 
 Growth of 160 
 
 Industrial 86,315 
 
 Intellectual independence 162 
 
 Practical 165 
 
 Spiritual culture 174 
 
 Teachers 173 
 
 Variety of 169 
 
 Vocational 171 
 
 Waywardness of 173 
 
362 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan 197 
 
 Efficiency engineering 10 
 
 Eliot, Charles W., concerning Mr. Roosevelt . . 45 
 
 definition of educated man 159 
 
 Emerson, quoted 25, 97, 147, 163 
 
 Egyptian Government students 173 
 
 Engineer tells of professional aims 293 
 
 English versus American ideals 81, 108, 268 
 
 Ellis Island immigrants 247 
 
 Equality, educational, political, and social 74, 89, 91, 164 
 
 Essay writers 56, 62, 63 
 
 Ettrick Shepherd 21 
 
 Extravagance 271, 272 
 
 Spending for show 275 
 
 Spending leading to inefficiency 279 
 
 Testimony of Congressman 319 
 
 Testimony of multimillionaire 314 
 
 F 
 
 Fair play ideal 73 
 
 Family pride 65 
 
 Farmer writes of his views 302 
 
 Fear as a national menace to prosperity 93 
 
 Fiction, present day 46 
 
 Fielding 55 
 
 Fifth Avenue 276 
 
 Filipino politicians 81 
 
 First National Congress 73 
 
 Florentine goldsmith 246 
 
 Ford, Henry 41 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, quoted II 
 
 Freedom, the uniting force of 350 
 
 Free schools 164 
 
Index 363 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Frohman, Charles, honesty of 88 
 
 Frost, Robert 52 
 
 G 
 
 Galsworthy, John 104 
 
 Gary plan of education 170 
 
 George, Lloyd, political speeches 107 
 
 Germany 23 
 
 Example of social religion 215 
 
 Immigration from 231 
 
 State church 199 
 
 Uniformity of education 164 
 
 Gilman, Daniel C, ideal of education 175 
 
 Gladstone regarding original sin 219 
 
 Goethe _^. . . 35 
 
 Goethals and Panama Canal 58 
 
 Governor, State, regarding national tendencies . . 288 
 
 Government compared with England . . . . 310 
 
 popular influence 322 
 
 Grant, U. S., ideas of peace 343 
 
 Grecian women and racial traditions .... 74 
 
 Greek thought contribution to America . . . . 131 
 
 Gobble, Francis, concerning Jowett 107 
 
 H 
 
 Habits, definition of 180 
 
 Haldane, Lord, on international understanding . . 99 
 
 Harper, William R 7 
 
 Harriman, E. H 27 
 
 Hasting, H. L., lecturer 76 
 
 Hay, John, quoted 69, 86, 344 
 
 Headmaster points out change of ideals .... 296 
 
 Henry, O 49 
 
364 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hindu versus American religion 136 
 
 Hindu at Ganges 75 
 
 Holmes, O. W 9 
 
 Honor, spirit of, needed 320 
 
 Humanity, ideals of 341,346 
 
 Humor, American type 60-67 
 
 Huxley, Thomas, definition of education . . . 178 
 
 I 
 Ideals 
 
 Accomplishment 30 
 
 American versus Oriental 127 
 
 Bigness 13 
 
 Business 7 1 
 
 Church, Christian 193, 224 
 
 Democratic 78 
 
 Display of wealth 282 
 
 Economic 21 
 
 Education 172, 174 
 
 Existing in thought 329 
 
 Importance of ix 
 
 Individual regeneration 211 
 
 Leisure 308 
 
 Liberty 79 
 
 Missionary 143 
 
 Peace and humanity 341 
 
 Public responsibility 289 
 
 Racial 74 
 
 Religious 193 
 
 Seen by Americans 288 
 
 Self-indulgence 307 
 
 Service ~ 212 
 
 Social uplift 211 
 
 Success . 26 
 
Index 365 
 
 Ideals Continued PAGE 
 
 Summarized 304-305 
 
 Timesaving 12 
 
 Unfulfilled 84 
 
 Weakness of 254 
 
 Immigrant, attitude toward 229 
 
 Agencies 234 
 
 Hope of problem 235 
 
 Number of 229-233 
 
 Artistry among 246 
 
 Ingersoll, Robert 76 
 
 India 
 
 Division of life 141 
 
 Millet fields 12 
 
 Mother of Idealism 134 
 
 Ruled by 178 
 
 Individualism 
 
 Christian 220 
 
 Decides equality 92 
 
 Importance of 346 
 
 Intemperance 309 
 
 Interstate Commerce Commission 94 
 
 j 
 
 James, Professor, on effort and philosophy . .183, 186 
 
 Japanese gardens 39 
 
 Jefferson, writer of "delegated power" .... 335 
 
 Jewish kingdom 347-348 
 
 Jewish scientist on tendency of nation .... 301 
 
 Jordan, David Starr, regarding progress of democracy 88 
 
 Joubert, definition of religion 191 
 
 K 
 
 Karr, Alfcnse 61 
 
 Keate, Doctor, story of at Eton 177 
 
366 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Kilmer, Joyce 51 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, on "Peace of Mood" . ... 152 
 King George in India 275 
 
 Labor conditions 309 
 
 Lamb, Charles, after-dinner speech 63 
 
 Larned, Colonel, regarding West Point curriculum . 181 
 
 Latin temperament 345 
 
 Laws 
 
 and religion 223 
 
 Lack of respect for 254, 256, 306 
 
 Taft on criminal law 256 
 
 Lawyer in West gives result of investigation . . 303 
 
 Lewis and Clarke 334-335 
 
 Liberality of young clergyman 195 
 
 Liberty, religious 302 
 
 Librarian regarding "social standing" .... 294 
 Life insurance president regarding business ideals . 302 
 Lincoln, Abraham 
 
 His heart quality 103 
 
 Prayer regarding war 343 
 
 Relative to books 47 
 
 Lindsay, N. V 5 
 
 Literature, contemporary 46, 299 
 
 Realistic ideals of 56 
 
 Livingstone, explorer, quoted 337 
 
 Londoner s view of working classes .... 277-278 
 Lowell, J. R., quoted relative to democracy and 
 
 education 62, 77, 161 
 
 Lynchings 256 
 
Index 367 
 M 
 
 PAGE 
 
 McClure, S. S., devotion to business 6 
 
 McCutcheon, George Barr, quoted 57 
 
 Magazine editor regarding ideal 292 
 
 Maine farmer, incident of 64 
 
 Markham, Edwin 52 
 
 Masters, E. L 51 
 
 Material prosperity, display of 271, 307 
 
 Mayflower company 171 
 
 Milnes, Richard Monckton 31 
 
 Milton quoted on peace and war 265 
 
 Missionaries in India 44, 143 
 
 a unique method 267 
 
 Moody, D. L 62 
 
 Morgan, J. P 42 
 
 Muckraking 55>2i5 
 
 Muir, John 26 
 
 Muhammad, religious laws 222 
 
 Multimillionaire mine owner on national failures . 314 
 
 Miiller, Max, quoted 125 
 
 Municipal Immigration Bureau, Cleveland, Ohio . 241 
 Murray, Prof. Gilbert, contrasting English and 
 
 American students 123 
 
 N 
 
 Naidu, Sarojini 138 
 
 Napoleon 
 
 Attitude to obstacles 5 
 
 Dreams of new France in the United States . 334 
 
 In Egypt 129 
 
 Napoleonic not Christian 218 
 
 Nationality, difficult of translation 100 
 
 Nationalization . 28 
 
368 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 New Jersey official relative to our contemporary life . 320 
 Newspapers 
 
 As present forces 193 
 
 Publicity agents 263 
 
 John Hay s address to the Press 344 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, quoted 152 
 
 New York, immigration problem 239 
 
 Nuremburg, old wood carver of 245 
 
 O 
 
 Okuma, Count, interview concerning needs of Japan 225 
 
 Orange, William of 201 
 
 Orient 
 
 Becoming westernized 139 
 
 Brahmin caste rigid 134 
 
 Home of "things invisible" 129 
 
 Interchange of ideas necessary 132 
 
 Mysticism similar to that of Americans . . 154 
 
 Sympathetic imagination needful .... 133 
 
 Oriental versus American 127, 274 
 
 Oriental 58,131 
 
 Oxford repression 105 
 
 Oxford Union debates 106 
 
 P 
 
 Palmer, Professor, quoted 95 
 
 Panama-Pacific Exposition 15 
 
 Isthmus of 336 
 
 Canal Bill 87 
 
 Parker, Theodore, definition of Democracy ... 85 
 
 Participation of people in making laws .... 80 
 
 Past, necessary to regard 130 
 
Index 369 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pastors relative to admission of church members . 200 
 Peace 
 
 Victories of 265 
 
 Ideals of 341 
 
 Unstained 270 
 
 Peace-at-any-price, foe to democracy . . . 263, 269 
 
 Peabody, Francis, quoted 1 86 
 
 Pennsylvania State Bar Association 256 
 
 Personality .... 188 
 
 Perspective, need of 318 
 
 Philanthropy 213 
 
 Phillips, Wendell 63 
 
 Physician s estimate of profession 294 
 
 Pilgrim ancestry, educational influence .... 161 
 
 Pinkertons 255 
 
 Playwright quoted 290 
 
 Poet, ideals of 307 
 
 Poetry, contemporary 50-52 
 
 Preparatory schools, character of boys . . . . 176 
 
 Press Parliament, John Hay s address .... 343 
 
 Princeton 58 
 
 Prohibition laws 258 
 
 Public schools, English 120-121 
 
 Public opinion 79 
 
 Publicity as a means of saving the State . . . . 215 
 
 Publisher regarding American aims 297 
 
 Q 
 
 Quietness the gift of Asia 148 
 
 R 
 
 Railroad officials 219 
 
 Real-estate man s ideals 292 
 
370 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Reform movements and weakness of same . . 213, 321 
 Religion 
 
 American versus Eastern 136 
 
 College 196-208 
 
 Discussion of 201, 206 
 
 Defined 191 
 
 Temperament of people 210 
 
 Social betterment 211 
 
 "Rights" 75, 108 
 
 Riis, Jacob 26 
 
 Rockefeller, J. D 23 
 
 Roberts, Dr. Peter, on immigration 237 
 
 Root, Elihu xi 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore 45>335 
 
 Russia, vodka legislation 79 
 
 S 
 Sanyassis 141 
 
 Scandinavian immigration 231 
 
 SchaufHer, R. H., poem quoted 248 
 
 Schoolmaster, giving summary of ideals of France . 301 
 
 School discipline 181 
 
 Scott, W 55 
 
 Self-made men 104 
 
 Seneca s pilot quoted 330 
 
 Service, public 195, 213, 289 
 
 Settlements, social 203 
 
 Social betterment as an ideal 211 
 
 Socialism as a religion and danger 210, 318 
 
 Socialist editor summarizes ideals 296 
 
 Socrates ~ 224 
 
 Square deal sentiment in college and everyday 
 
 affairs . .... .71, 87, 88 
 
Index 371 
 
 PACE 
 
 Stanford, Senator, founding university . . . . 163 
 
 Stanley, Henry M I 
 
 Stevenson, R. L., quoted regarding style, English, 
 
 and money 54, 105, 287 
 
 Sunday, attitude toward 200 
 
 Success, as an ideal 26, 253 
 
 Symonds, J. A., regarding Whitman philosophy . 148 
 Symposium, an American 285 
 
 T 
 Taft, ex-President, on prosperity and criminal law 95, 256 
 
 Tarkington, Booth 52 
 
 Teachers 
 
 Needed 173 
 
 Obligation of 175 
 
 of Columbia 185 
 
 Science and religion 185 
 
 Students opinion of 187 
 
 Twofold work 175 
 
 Theology versus science 197 
 
 Times Square incident 201 
 
 Tolerance, growth of, etc 198, 203, 205, 262 
 
 Turkish description of social duties 150 
 
 Twain, Mark, quoted 27, 48, 65 
 
 U 
 
 United States Bureau of Education . . . . . 163 
 United States 
 
 Her unique periods 338, 339 
 
 Her obligation 339 
 
 Her responsibility to Europe 353 
 
 University of Michigan professor on national weak 
 ness 313 
 
372 Index 
 
 V 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Van Dyke, Henry , 89 
 
 Vice-president of trust company on Wall Street ideals 300 
 Vitae Lampada, Henry Newbolt s poem . . . .177 
 "Votes for Women" . . 75 
 
 W 
 
 Wade, George, characterizing Americans . . . 333 
 
 Waller, W. P., on immigration 243 
 
 War and Christianity 217 
 
 War dependent on human nature 264 
 
 place in civilization 265 
 
 Washington on peace 343 
 
 Weaknesses in contemporary life 306-324 
 
 Wealth 
 
 High cost of living 24 
 
 Love of money and display 21,283 
 
 Menace of 273 
 
 Testimony by editor of large weekly paper . . 216 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, on habits 180 
 
 Wells, H. G., on immigrants 227, 230 
 
 Welton, J., on theory of education 157 
 
 Wesley 44 
 
 West Point Academy 181 
 
 Whitman, Walt, regarding Americans . . . . 331 
 
 Wilde, Oscar 7 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow, quoted and referred to 
 
 58, 79, 152, 329, 352 
 
 Winchester schoolmaster testimony .... 166 
 Wister, Owen, regarding literary criticism and Amer 
 ica 47>33i 
 
 Wordsworth, quoted 
 
 Work, hours of, in college 183 
 
Index 373 
 
 PAGE 
 
 World affairs, American opportunity in . . . . 351 
 Wu Ting Fang, characterization of Chinese . . 283 
 
 Y 
 
 Yankee humor and notions 11,13,63 
 
 Yellow Sea incident with Scotchman . . . . 117 
 Young Men s Christian Association 
 
 Acting secretary quoted 243 
 
 Witness of officials in West and South . 290, 314 
 
 Work and classes for immigrants .... 238 
 
 Z 
 
 Zimmern, A. E., defines America 340 
 
The American Books 
 
 A Library of Good Citizenship 
 
 TO vote regularly and conscientiously and 
 never to have been arrested for disorder 
 is not the be-all and end-all of good citi 
 zenship. The good citizen is he or she who bears 
 an active hand in cleansing and making merry 
 the black spots of the neighborhood; who cher 
 ishes a home however small; who takes an 
 increasingly intelligent interest in all that con 
 tributes to the country s welfare, and feels a 
 keenly patriotic hope for the future of the nation. 
 
 For such citizens THE AMERICAN BOOKS are 
 designed a series of small volumes on current 
 American problems. The keynote of the series 
 will be the discussion of distinctively American 
 movements and questions connected with the 
 future prosperity of the United States. 
 
 The series was planned long before the great 
 war, but it has derived added importance from 
 the position which that great struggle has given 
 America on the face of the globe. The United 
 States, standing aloof from the suicidal blood 
 shed of the Old World, has necessarily become 
 the peaceful arbiter of the earth s destinies and 
 the flywheel to keep the world s industry re 
 volving. 
 
An inquiry into the meaning and tendency of 
 American civilization to-day is thus not only a 
 matter of interest but of patriotic duty. The 
 publishers wish THE AMERICAN BOOKS to be a 
 series of brief, authoritative manuals which will 
 attempt to lay bare some of the problems that 
 confront us to-day ; written in popular terms that 
 will inspire rather than discourage the casual 
 reader. The series should prove not only of 
 great interest to all American citizens who wish 
 to aid in solving their country s pressing prob 
 lems, but to every foreigner visiting this country 
 who seeks an interpretation of the American 
 point of view. 
 
 The publishers wish THE AMERICAN BOOKS to 
 be written by the best men, and to this end they 
 seek the widest publicity for the plan. They 
 will be glad to receive suggestions as to appro 
 priate titles for inclusion in the series and will 
 welcome authoritative MSS submitted from any 
 quarter. In particular they submit the plan to 
 the consideration of the American colleges where 
 the problems of the country are being studied. 
 In science, literature, business, politics, in the 
 arts of war and the arts of peace, the publishers 
 will seek writers who have stood for fearless 
 achievement or equally fearless failure, who will 
 build up A LIBRARY OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP. 
 
 (For complete list of volumes in 
 this series see opposite title page.) 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
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