قراءة كتاب The Twentieth Century American Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great Anglo-Saxon Nations

تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"

‏اللغة: English
The Twentieth Century American
Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great Anglo-Saxon Nations

The Twentieth Century American Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great Anglo-Saxon Nations

تقييمك:
0
No votes yet
المؤلف:
دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 3

Wild-fowling—The Amateur in American Sport—At Henley—And at Large—Teutonic Poppycock.

  CHAPTER XVI Summary and Conclusion 429

A New Way of Making Friends—The Desirability of an Alliance—For the Sake of Both Peoples—And of all the World—The Family Resemblance—Mutual Misunderstandings—American Conception of the British Character—English Misapprehension of Americans—Foreign Influences in the United States—Why Politicians Hesitate—An Appeal to the People—And to Cæsar.

  Appendix 451   Index 453

The Twentieth Century American


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 "À quoi tient la Supériorité 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


CHAPTER I

An Anglo-American Alliance

The Avoidance of Entangling Alliances—What the Injunction Meant—What it Cannot Mean To-day—The Interests of the United States, no less than those of England, Demand an Alliance—But Larger Interests than those of the Two Peoples are Involved—American Responsiveness to Ideals—The Greatest Ideal of All, Universal Peace: the Practicability of its Attainment—America's Responsibility—Misconceptions of the British Empire—Germany's Position—American Susceptibilities.

The American nation, for all that it is young and lacks reverence, still worships the maxims and rules of conduct laid down by the Fathers of the Republic; and among those rules of conduct, there is none the wisdom of which is more generally accepted by the people than that which enjoins the avoidance of "entangling alliances" with foreign Powers. But not only has the United States changed much in late years, but the world in its political relations and sentiments has changed also and the place of the United States has changed in it. That sacred instrument, the Constitution itself, holds chiefly by virtue of what is new in it. Whatever is

Pages