been due to the fundamental belief of our people as to the likeness of men to one another.

The ideal of public education, like the many other elements of American quality, came to us from the mother country. Except, however, in the fancies of idealists the projects of instruction which were developed in the Old World were not intended to apply to all sorts and conditions of men, but to a chosen few. Although in the several colonies the motive which led to the development of educational systems differed much in intensity, it appears in some degree to have existed in all, and to have been active in the minds of the hardest pressed of their frontiersmen. Thus, with the first settlers of Kentucky, who were facing the trials and perils of an unknown wilderness, we find among the brief proceedings of their first parliament, held in 1775 under a tree, a provision for the establishment of a school. Another of these memorable enactments provided for the suppression of profane swearing; yet another for the improvement of the breed of horses—all of which goes to show how the ideal and the practical went together in the minds of our pioneers, whether they were of Massachusetts Bay or of the Virginia plantations.

Beginning doubtfully in the colonial period, the ideal of public education has grown with the growth of the fundamental concept of democracy, that of the essential likeness of men, and with the sympathetic bond which this view of life creates, until it is one of the most characteristic elements of the quality of our people. It has commanded a share of devotion such as has been given to no other feature of our public life. It has so far entered into our hearts that the greediest of fortune seekers may be said to dream of founding schools. It is to be noted that this desire that the youth be adequately trained, has little relation to the economic results of such training. So far from desiring that the end to be attained shall be instruction in crafts or professions, the intent of our people has ever been that their schools shall lead toward culture; to enlargement rather than to more immediate profit; to the quality of the citizen rather than to that of the artisan. It has, indeed, been difficult to obtain from public money or from private gifts the means imperatively

demanded for instruction in applied science. It is in the character of the educational system which has been developed in this country that we find the most indisputable evidence as to the essential quality of the American man. Seen in his moneyhunting form, he seems to the ordinary observer as devoid of all ideals as was the Indian he has replaced. Considered in the light of his lofty devotion to the interests of the unborn, we gain another and better view of his complicated nature. It may be granted that these schools are in many ways most imperfect, but the concept on which they are founded and the devotion with which they have been supported tell much of American quality.

Looking at the social organization of this country in a broad way, we may note another feature, exhibited in very legible facts, which deserves our attention. This is the ease with which this society has taken in, and, as we may say, assimilated a vast body of very foreign people, very generally converting them or their immediate descendants into characteristic Englishmen of the American variety. To see the nature of this accomplishment, we should first note that in the fifteen decades or so of colonial life our people had a chance to shape their society with relatively little disturbing invasions from other than English countries. The Dutch colonists, then, were near kinsmen to the Palatinate Germans of Pennsylvania, and those of North Carolina, though more remote, were akin in race and religion and bound to the English people by the memory of the help lent them in their extremity; as were, also, the Huguenot French. Perhaps nine-tenths of the folk at the beginning of the Revolutionary War were of English stock, and the remainder no hindrance to the prevailing race. It is evident that these colonies had attained to a social organization which was singularly efficient in making a common serviceable product out of the odds and ends of humanity that immigration began to bring to the new nation in the early part of the nineteenth century. For near a hundred years the tide of foreigners has poured into the United States with increasing volume. To many good observers it has appeared impossible that grave changes in the quality of

the country should not be brought about by this invasion. Yet this material, so far as it is of European origin, has been effectively, if not completely, Americanized.

It is true there has been no considerable adoption of the aborigines into the commonwealth, but this failure is due to the nature of the Indian. It is also true that the adjustment of the African is yet to be brought about, but there is some reason to believe that it may be accomplished. But, so far as the progress of our own race is concerned, the entrance of foreigners into our life, while here and there highly disadvantageous, has not been disastrous. In one or two generations, even where they retain, as in the case of the Pennsylvania Germans, their native speech and customs, they are, in all important regards, completely naturalized. This swift digestion of the millions from countries of a spirit very alien to its own, indicates what we may term the organic intensity of American society; in other words, the eminently political quality of the association. Into this invisible, intangible, yet most real, social whole the ardent quality of its citizens so enters that it can quickly efface the imprint of the ages upon those who come to it from foreign lands, and stamp them as its own.

It has been the purpose of this writing to consider only those elements of American quality of which we have evidence in recorded or evident facts. Only by such limitation can we avoid those highly romantic speculations as to the character of our folk which so fill the pages of would-be observers from abroad. In summing up the story, it seems not unreasonable to consider what is to be the future of the evidently novel type of Englishman; we might, indeed, term him this spiritually new variety of man. It is clear that his most eminent quality consists in his detachment from the control of the past, his self-sufficiency in the better sense of the term. He has learned to feel, beyond others of his kind, the value of his individuality. It is, perhaps, as a reflection of this sense that he places a like high rating on his neighbor. He feels the bond of human brotherhood in a curiously intense degree. As all the coöperative work of man depends upon this sense of human kinship, his large measure of

it should carry the American far-in just what direction it is not easy to foretell.

It requires no analysis to see that the fundamental judgment of democracy, that of the essential likeness of men, though a truth of vast import, is but a half truth. True for the primary qualities which should determine the rights of all, it is profoundly untrue as regards those secondary features of the intelligence which give to human minds a range and variety of capacity really greater than the differences in the frames of men. An apparent consequence of this excessive idea of common likeness in his kind, is the comparative absence of critical ability in the American people. In a large sense of the term, criticism rests upon a conception of the very great difference of one individual from another. As applied to life, it leads to an understanding of its vast complication, of its far-reaching interdependencies, of its splendors and its shames. In the field of morals, it teaches that there are herds and leaders; that men have won the heights because they knew their prophets, or have gone to the deep because they knew them not.

It is evident that the path on which this America-shaping and America-shaped man has journeyed separates him from the critical state of mind. Yet he has so prospered in his journey on it, has gained such a measure of will and discernment, that the critic would not really know his cautious trade if he ventured to forecast his limits. The most reasonable judgment concerning this essentially new form of strong man is, that on this deep and broad foundation of his sympathies and understandings he will, in time, build all that his friendly critics could wish him of enlargement.

AMERICAN CHARACTER1

BRANDER MATTHEWS

[Brander Matthews (1852- -) was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, but early in life went to New York to live. After a brief experience with law, he turned to literature in which he distinguished himself as a writer of fiction and criticism. Since 1892 he has been a professor in the English department of Columbia University. The discussion of American character, which is here given, supplements the selection from Shaler in approaching the matter from a somewhat different angle. It was originally an address delivered on several academic occasions.]

I

In a volume recording a series of talks with Tolstoi, published by a French writer in the final months of 1904, we are told that the Russian novelist thought the Dukhobors had attained to a perfected life, in that they were simple, free from envy, wrath, and ambition, detesting violence, refraining from theft and murder, and seeking ever to do good. Then the Parisian interviewer asked which of the peoples of the world seemed most remote from the perfection to which the Dukhobors had elevated themselves; and when Tolstoi returned that he had given no thought to this question, the French correspondent suggested that we Americans deserved to be held up to scorn as the least worthy of nations.

The tolerant Tolstoi asked his visitor why he thought so ill of us; and the journalist of Paris then put forth the opinion that we Americans are "a people terribly practical, avid of pleasure, systematically hostile to all idealism. The ambition of the American's heart, the passion of his life, is money; and it is rather a delight in the conquest and possession of money than in the use of it. The Americans ignore the arts; they despise disinterested beauty. And, now, moreover, they are imperialists. They could have remained peaceful without danger to their national existence; but they had to have a fleet and an army.

1From The American of the Future and Other Essays. (Copyright, 1909, Charles Scribner's Sons.) Reprinted by permission.