Chapter II: Appendix: 451

INDEX 453

The Twentieth Century American

"_If I can say anything to show that my name is really
Makepeace, and to increase the source of love between the two
countries, then please, God, I will._"--W. M. Thackeray, in
_Letters to an American Family_.

"_Certainly there is nothing like England, and there never has
been anything like England in the world. Her wonderful
history, her wonderful literature, her beautiful architecture,
the historic and poetic associations which cluster about every
street and river and mountain and valley, her vigorous life,
the sweetness and beauty of her women, the superb manhood of
her men, her Navy, her gracious hospitality, and her lofty
pride--although some single race of men may have excelled her
in some single particular--make up a combination never
equalled in the world._"--The late United States Senator Hoar,
in _An Autobiography of Seventy Years_.

"_The result of the organisation of the American colonies into
a state, and of the bringing together of the diverse
communities contained in these colonies, was the creation not
merely of a new nation, but of a new temperament. How far this
temperament was to arise from a change of climate, and how far
from a new political organisation, no one could then foresee,
nor is its origin yet fully analysed; but the fact itself is
now coming to be more and more recognised. It may be that
Nature said at about that time: 'Thus far the English is my
best race; but we have had Englishmen enough; now for another
turning of the globe, and for a further novelty. We need
something with a little more buoyancy than the Englishman; let
us lighten the structure, even at some peril in the process.
Put in one drop more of nervous fluid and make the American.'
With that drop, a new range of promise opened on the human
race, and a lighter, finer, more highly organised type of
mankind was born._"--Thomas Wentworth Higginson, _Atlantic
Monthly_, 1886.

"_The foreign observer in America is at once struck by the
fact that the average of intelligence, as that intelligence
manifests itself in the spirit of inquiry, in the interest
taken in a great variety of things, and in alertness of
judgment, is much higher among the masses in the United States
than anywhere else. This is certainly not owing to any
superiority of the public school system in this country--or,
if such superiority exists, not to that alone--but rather to
the fact that in the United States the individual is
constantly brought into interested contact with a greater
variety of things and is admitted to active participation in
the exercise of functions which in other countries are left to
the care of a superior authority. I have frequently been
struck by the remarkable expansion of the horizon effected by
a few years of American life, in the minds of immigrants who
had come from somewhat benighted regions, and by the mental
enterprise and keen discernment with which they took hold of
problems to which, in their comparatively torpid condition in
their native countries, they had never given thought. It is
true that in the large cities with congested population,
self-government as an educator does not always bring the most
desirable results, partly owing to the circumstance that
government, in its various branches, is there further removed
from the individual, so that he comes into contact with it and
exercises his influence upon it only through various, and
sometimes questionable, intermediary agencies which frequently
exert a very demoralising influence._"--Carl Schurz's
_Memoirs_, II, 79.

"_Anglo-Saxon Superiority! Although we do not all acknowledge
it, we all have to bear it, and we all dread it; the
apprehension, the suspicion, and sometimes the hatred provoked
by l'Anglais proclaim the fact loudly enough. We cannot go one
step in the world without coming across the Anglo-Saxon. . . .
He rules America by Canada and the United States; Africa by
Egypt and the Cape; Asia by India and Burmah; Australasia by
Australia and New Zealand; Europe and the whole world, by his
trade and industries and by his policy._"--M. Edmond Demolins
in _Anglo-Saxon Superiority_ "_A quoi tient la Superiorite des
Anglo-Saxons?_"

"_It may be asking too much, but if statesmanship could kindly
arrange it, I confess I should like to see, before I die, a
war in which Britain and the United States in a just quarrel
might tackle the world. After that we should have no more
difficulty about America. For if the Americans never forget an
injury, they ever remember a service._"--The late G. W.
Steevens in _The Land of the Dollar_.

The Twentieth Century American