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Copyright, 1906, by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 
 Published, September, 1906 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two CoDies Received 
 
 MAY 17 I90fi 
 
 CLASS 7(^'x)(c. No. 
 ' COPY B' 
 
 fj 
 
 
 D. B. Updike, The Merry mount Press, Boston 
 
This Address was delivered before the Phi 
 Beta Kappa of Columbia University in June, 
 1905; and it was repeated at Rutgers College 
 on Charter Day in November, 1905 
 
American CCl^atacter 
 
 IN a volume recording a series of talks 
 with Tolstoi, published by a French wri- 
 ter in the final months of 1904, we are told 
 that the Russian novelist thought the Dukho- 
 bors 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 re- 
 turned 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 plea- 
 
^tnctican sure, systematically hostile to all idealism. The 
 (Z^avactet 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. They set out after Spain, 
 and attacked her; and now they begin to defy 
 Europe. Is there not something scandalous in 
 this revelation of the conquering appetite in a 
 new people with no hereditary predisposition 
 toward war?" 
 It is to the credit of the French correspond- 
 ent that after setting down this fervid arraign- 
 ment, he was honest enough to record Tolstoi's 
 dissent. But although he dissented, the great 
 Russian expressed no surprise at the virulence 
 of this diatribe. No doubt it voiced an opinion 
 familiarized to him of late by many a news- 
 paper of France and of Germany. Fortunately 
 for us, the assertion that foreign nations are a 
 contemporaneous posterity is not quite true. 
 Yet the opinion of foreigners, even when most 
 at fault, must have its value for us as a useful 
 corrective of conceit. We ought to be proud of 
 
our country; but we need not be vain about it. Jfmetican 
 Indeed, it would be difficult for the most pa- Character 
 triotic of us to find any satisfaction in the fig- 
 ure of the typical American which apparently 
 exists in the mind of most Europeans, and 
 which seems to be a composite photograph of 
 the backwoodsman of Cooper, the negro of 
 Mrs. Stowe, and the Mississippi River-folk 
 of Mark Twain, modified perhaps by more 
 vivid memories of Buffalo Bill's Wild West. 
 Surely this is a strange monster; and we need 
 not wonder that foreigners feel towards it as 
 Voltaire felt toward the prophet Habakkuk, 
 — whom he declared to be ''capable of any- 
 thing." 
 
 It has seemed advisable to quote here what 
 the Parisian journalist said of us, not because 
 he himself is a person of consequence— in- 
 deed, he is so obscure that there is no need 
 even to mention his name — but because he has 
 had the courage to attempt what Burke de- 
 clared to be impossible,— to draw an indict- 
 ment against a whole nation. It would be easy 
 to retort on him in kind, for, unfortunately,— 
 and to the grief of all her friends,— France has 
 laid herself open to accusations as sweeping 
 
 and as violent. It would be easy to dismiss the 
 man himself as one whose outlook on the 
 
 3 
 
Tltnetican world was so narrow that it seemed to be little 
 (Character more than what he could get through a chance 
 slit in the wall of his own self-sufficiency. It 
 would be easy to answer him in either of these 
 fashions, but what is easy is rarely worth while ; 
 and it is wiser to weigh what he said and to 
 see if we cannot find our profit in it. 
 Sifting the essential charges from out the 
 mass of his malevolent accusation, we find 
 this Frenchman alleging first, that we Ameri- 
 cans care chiefly for making money; second, 
 that we are hostile to art and to all forms of 
 beauty; and thirdly, that we are devoid of 
 ideals. These three allegations may well be 
 considered one by one, beginning with the as- 
 sertion that we are mere money-makers. 
 
 II 
 
 Now, in so far as this Frenchman's belief is but 
 an exaggeration of the saying of Napoleon's, 
 that the English were a nation of shopkeep- 
 ers, we need not wince, for the Emperor of 
 the French found to his cost that those same 
 English shopkeepers had a stout stomach for 
 fighting. Nor need we regret that we can keep 
 shop profitably, in these days when the doors 
 of the bankers' vaults are the real gates of 
 the Temple of Janus, war being impossible 
 4 
 
until they open. There is no reason for alarm JTmcrtcail 
 or for apology so long as our shopkeeping C^atactct 
 does not cramp our muscle or curb our spirit, 
 for, as Bacon declared three centuries ago, 
 "walled towns, stored arsenals and armories, 
 goodly races of horse, chariots of war, ele- 
 phants, ordnance, artillery and the like, all 
 this is but a sheep in a lion's skin, except the 
 breed and disposition of the people be stout 
 and warlike." 
 Even the hostile French traveller did not ac- 
 cuse us of any flabbiness of fiber; indeed, he 
 declaimed especially against our "conquering 
 appetite," which seemed to him scandalous 
 " in a new people with no hereditary predis- 
 position toward war." But here he fell into a 
 common blunder ; the United States may be a 
 new nation— although as a fact the stars-and- 
 stripes is now older than the tricolor of France, 
 the union-jack of Great Britain and the stan- 
 dards of those new-comers among the nations, 
 Italy and Germany,— the United States may 
 be a new nation, but the people here have had 
 as many ancestors as the population of any 
 other country. The people here, moreover, 
 have "a hereditary predisposition toward 
 war," or at least toward adventure, since they 
 are, every man of them, descended from some 
 
 5 
 
Titnetican European more venturesome than his fellows, 
 (Zfjatactet readier to risk the perils of the Western Ocean 
 and bolder to front the unknown dangers of 
 an unknown land. The warlike temper, the 
 aggressiveness, the imperialistic sentiment,— 
 these are in us no new development of unex- 
 pected ambition; and they ought not to sur- 
 prise any one familiar with the way in which 
 our forefathers grasped this Atlantic coast 
 first, then thrust themselves across the AUe- 
 ghanies, spread abroad to the Mississippi, and 
 reached out at last to the Rockies and to the 
 Pacific. The lust of adventure may be danger- 
 ous, but it is no new thing; it is in our blood, 
 and we must reckon with it. 
 Perhaps it is because "the breed and disposi- 
 tion of the people" is "stout and warlike" that 
 our shopkeeping has been successful enough 
 to awaken envious admiration among other 
 races whose energy may have been relaxed of 
 late. After all, the arts of war and the arts of 
 peace are not so unlike; and in either a tri- 
 umph can be won only by an imagination 
 strong enough to foresee and to divine what is 
 hidden from the weakling. We are a trading 
 community, after all and above all, even if we 
 come of fighting stock. We are a trading com- 
 munity, just as Athens was, and Venice and 
 6 
 
Florence. And like the men of these earlier JTmerican 
 commonwealths, the men of the United States Character 
 are trying to make money. They are striving 
 to make money not solely to amass riches, but 
 partly because having money is the outward 
 and visible sign of success,— because it is the 
 most obvious measure of accomplishment. 
 In his talk with Tolstoi our French critic re- 
 vealed an unexpected insight when he asserted 
 that the passion of American life was not so 
 much the use of money as a delight in the con- 
 quest of it. Many an American man of affairs 
 would admit without hesitation that he would 
 rather make half a million dollars than inherit 
 a million. It is the process he enjoys, rather 
 than the result; it is the tough tussle in the 
 open market which gives him the keenest plea- 
 sure, and not the idle contemplation of wealth 
 safely stored away. He girds himself for battle 
 and fights for his own hand ; he is the son and 
 the grandson of the stalwart adventurers who 
 came from the Old World to face the chances 
 of the new. This is why he is unwilling to retire 
 as men are wont to do in Europe when their for- 
 tunes are made. Merely to have money does 
 not greatly delight him— although he would 
 regret not having it ; but what does delight him 
 unceasingly is the fun of making it. 
 
 7 
 
Jlmetican The money itself often he does not know what 
 (H^atactet to do with; and he can find no more selfish use 
 for it than to give it away. He seems to recog- 
 nize that his making it was in some measure 
 due to the unconscious assistance of the com- 
 munity as a whole ; and he feels it his duty to 
 do something for the people among whom he 
 lives. It must be noted that the people them- 
 selves also expect this from him ; they expect 
 him sooner or later to pay his footing. As a re- 
 sult of this pressure of public opinion and of 
 his own lack of interest in money itself, he 
 gives freely. In time he comes to find pleasure 
 in this as well; and he applies his business 
 sagacity to his benefactions. Nothing is more 
 characteristic of modern American life than 
 this pouring out of private wealth for public 
 service. Nothing remotely resembling it is to 
 be seen now in any country of the Old World ; 
 and not even in Athens in its noblest days was 
 there a larger-handed lavishness of the indi- 
 vidual for the benefit of the community. 
 Again, in no country of the Old World is the 
 prestige of wealth less powerful than it is here. 
 This, of course, the foreigner fails to perceive ; 
 he does not discover that it is not the man who 
 happens to possess money that we regard with 
 admiration but the man who is making money, 
 8 
 
and thereby proving his efficiency and indi- JJmetican 
 rectly benefiting the community. To many it Character 
 may sound like an insufferable paradox to as- 
 sert that nowhere in the civilized world to-day 
 is money itself of less weight than here in the 
 United States; but the broader his opportunity 
 the more likely is an honest observer to come 
 to this unexpected conclusion. Fortunes are 
 made in a day almost, and they may fade away 
 in a night ; as the Yankee proverb put it pithily, 
 " it's only three generations from shirt-sleeves 
 to shirt-sleeves." Wealth iz likely to lack some- 
 thing of its glamor in a land where well-being 
 is widely diffused and where a large proportion 
 of the population have either had a fortune and 
 lost it, or else expect to gain one in the imme- 
 diate future. 
 Probably also there is no country which now 
 contains more men who do not greatly care 
 for large gains and who have gladly given up 
 money-making for some other occupation they 
 found more profitable for themselves. These 
 are the men like Thoreau— in whose "Wal- 
 den," now half a century old, we can find an 
 emphatic declaration of all the latest doctrines 
 of the simple life. We have all heard of Agas- 
 siz, — best of Americans, even though he was 
 born in another republic, — how he repelled the 
 
 9 
 
Tfmctican proffer of large terms for a series of lectures, 
 C^avactev with the answer that he had no time to make 
 money. Closely akin was the reply of a famous 
 machinist in response to an inquiry as to what 
 he had been doing, — to the effect that he had 
 accomplished nothing of late, — "we have just 
 been building engines and making money, and 
 I 'm about tired of it." And a few years ago a 
 college professor of known executive ability 
 declined the presidency of a trust company 
 which offered him a salary at least five times 
 what he was receiving. There are not a few 
 men to-day in these toiling United States who 
 hold with Ben Jonson that "money never made 
 any man rich, — but his mind." 
 
 But while this is true, while there are some 
 men among us who care little for money, and 
 while there are many who care chiefly for the 
 making of it, ready to share it when made with 
 their fellow-citizens, candor compels the ad- 
 mission that there are also not a few who are 
 greedy and grasping, selfish and shameless, 
 and who stand forward, conspicuous and un- 
 scrupulous, as if to justify to the full the as- 
 persions which foreigners cast upon us. Al- 
 though these men manage for the most part 
 to keep within the letter of the law, their mo- 
 rality is that of the wrecker and of the pirate. 
 
 10 
 
It is a symptom of health in the body politic Jimctican 
 that the proposal has been made to inflict so- (Ztjatactct 
 cial ostracism upon the criminal rich. We need 
 to stiffen our conscience and to set up a loftier 
 standard of social intercourse, refusing to fel- 
 lowship with the men who make their money 
 by overriding the law or by undermining it— 
 just as we should have declined the friendship 
 of Captain Kidd before he had buried his stolen 
 treasure. 
 In the immediate future these men will be 
 made to feel that they are under the ban of 
 public opinion. One sign of an acuter sensitive- 
 ness is the recent outcry against the accept- 
 ance of ''tainted money" for the support of 
 good works. Although it is wise always to give 
 a good deed the credit of a good motive, yet it 
 is impossible sometimes not to suspect that 
 certain large gifts have an aspect of "con- 
 science money." Some of them seem to be the 
 result of a desire to divert public attention from 
 the evil way in which the money was made to 
 the nobler manner in which it is spent. They 
 appear to be the attempt of a social outlaw to 
 buy his peace with the community. Apparently 
 there are rich men among us, who, having sold 
 their honor for a price, would now gladly give 
 up the half of their fortunes to get it back. 
 
 II 
 
^tncticatl Candor compels the admission also that by 
 Character the side of the criminal rich there exists the 
 less noxious but more offensive class of the idle 
 rich, who lead lives of wasteful luxury and of 
 empty excitement. When the French reporter 
 who talked with Tolstoi called us Americans 
 "avid of pleasure" it was this little group he 
 had in mind, as he may have seen the members 
 of it splurging about in Paris, squandering and 
 self-advertising. Although these idle rich ex- 
 hibit themselves most openly and to least ad- 
 vantage in Paris and in London, their foolish 
 doings are recorded superabundantly in our 
 own newspapers; and their demoralizing in- 
 fluence is spread abroad. The snobbish report 
 of their misguided attempts at amusement may 
 even be a source of danger in that it seems to 
 recognize a false standard of social success, or 
 in that it may excite a miserable ambition to 
 emulate these pitiful frivolities. But there is no 
 need of delaying longer over the idle rich ; they 
 are only a few, and they have doomed them- 
 selves to destruction, since it is an inexorable 
 fact that those who break the laws of nature 
 can have no hope of executive clemency. 
 
 " Patience a little ; learn to wait, 
 Years are long on the clock of Fate." 
 
 12 
 
in Jimctican 
 
 The second charge which the wandering Pari- (Z^dtactct 
 sian journalist brought against us was that we 
 ignore the arts and that we despise disinter- 
 ested beauty. Here again the answer that is 
 easiest is not altogether satisfactory. There is 
 no difficulty in declaring that there are Ameri- 
 can artists, both painters and sculptors, who 
 have gained the most cordial appreciation in 
 Paris itself, or in drawing attention to the fact 
 that certain of the minor arts — that of the sil- 
 versmith, for one, and for another, that of the 
 glass-blower and the glass-cutter— flourish in 
 the United States at least as richly as they do 
 anywhere else, while the art of designing in 
 stained glass has had a new birth here, which 
 has given it a vigorous vitality lacking in Eu- 
 rope since the Middle Ages. It would not be 
 hard to show that our American architects are 
 now undertaking to solve new problems wholly 
 unknown to the builders of Europe, and that 
 they are often succeeding in this grapple with 
 unprecedented difficulty. Nor would it take 
 long to draw up a list of the concerted efforts 
 of certain of our cities to make themselves 
 more worthy and more sightly with parks well 
 planned and with public buildings well pro- 
 portioned and appropriately decorated. We 
 
 13 
 
JTmecican might even invoke the memory of the evanes- 
 €tjatactet cent loveliness of the "White City" that graced 
 the shores of Lake Michigan a few years ago; 
 and we might draw attention again to the Li- 
 brary of Congress, a later triumph of the al- 
 lied arts of the architect, the sculptor and the 
 painter. 
 
 But however full of high hope for the future 
 we may esteem these several instances of our 
 reaching out for beauty, we must admit— if we 
 are honest with ourselves— that they are all 
 more or less exceptional, and that to offset this 
 list of artistic achievements the Devil's Advo- 
 cate could bring forward a damning catalog of 
 crimes against good taste which would go far 
 to prove that the feeling for beauty is dead 
 here in America and also the desire for it. The 
 Devil's Advocate would bid us consider the 
 flaring and often vulgar advertisements that 
 disfigure our highways, the barbaric ineptness 
 of many of our public buildings, the squalor of 
 the outskirts of our towns and villages, the 
 hideousness and horror of the slums in most 
 of our cities, the negligent toleration of dirt 
 and disorder in our public conveyances, and 
 many another pitiable deficiency of our civili- 
 zation present in the minds of all of us. 
 The sole retort possible is a plea of confession 
 14 
 
and avoidance, coupled with a promise of re- Jimetican 
 formation. These evils are evident and they Character 
 cannot be denied. But they are less evident to- 
 day than they were yesterday; and we may 
 honestly hope that they will be less evident to- 
 morrow. The bare fact that they have been ob- 
 served warrants the belief that unceasing ef- 
 fort will be made to do away with them. Once 
 aroused, public opinion will work its will in 
 due season. And here occasion serves to deny 
 boldly the justice of a part of the accusation 
 which the French reporter brought against us. 
 It may be true that we "ignore the arts,"— al- 
 though this is an obvious overstatement of the 
 case ; but it is not true that we despise beauty. 
 However ignorant the American people may 
 be as a whole, they are in no sense hostile to- 
 ward art— as certain other people seem to be. 
 On the contrary, they welcome it ; with all their 
 ignorance, they are anxious to understand it ; 
 they are pathetically eager for it. They are so 
 desirous of it that they want it in a hurry, only 
 too often to find themselves put off with an 
 empty imitation. But the desire itself is indis- 
 putable ; and its accomplishment is likely to be 
 helped along by the constant commingling here 
 of peoples from various other stocks than the 
 Anglo-Saxon, since the mixture of races tends 
 
 IS 
 
^mctican always to a swifter artistic development. 
 
 Character It is well to probe deeper into the question 
 and to face the fact that not only in the arts 
 but also in the sciences we are not doing all 
 that may fairly be expected of us. Athens was 
 a trading city as New York is, but New York 
 has had no Sophocles and no Phidias. Flor- 
 ence and Venice were towns whose merchants 
 were princes, but no American city has yet 
 brought forth a Giotto, a Dante, a Titian. It 
 is now nearly threescore years and ten since 
 Emerson delivered his address on the "Ameri- 
 can Scholar," which has well been styled our 
 intellectual Declaration of Independence, and 
 in which he expressed the hope that "perhaps 
 the time is already come . . . when the slug- 
 gard intellect of this continent will look from 
 under its iron lids and fulfil the postponed ex- 
 pectation of the world with something better 
 than the exertions of a mechanical skill." Nearly 
 seventy years ago was this prophecy uttered 
 which still echoes unaccomplished. 
 
 In the nineteenth century in which we came 
 to maturity as a nation, no one of the chief 
 leaders of art, even including literature in its 
 broadest aspects, and no oneof the chief leaders 
 in science, was native to our country. Perhaps 
 we may claim that Webster was one of the 
 i6 
 
world's greatest orators and that Parkman was JJmetican 
 one of the world's greatest historians; but (Z^atactCt 
 probably the world outside of the United States 
 would be found unprepared and unwilling to 
 admit either claim, however likely it may be 
 to win acceptance in the future. Lincoln is in- 
 disputably one of the world's greatest states- 
 men; and his fame is now firmly established 
 throughout the whole of civilization. But this 
 is all we can assert ; and we cannot deny that 
 we have given birth to very few indeed of the 
 foremost poets, dramatists, novelists, painters, 
 sculptors, architects or scientific discoverers 
 of the last hundred years. 
 Alfred Russel Wallace, whose renown is 
 linked with Darwin's and whose competence 
 as a critic of scientific advance is beyond dis- 
 pute, has declared that the nineteenth century 
 was the most wonderful of all since the world 
 began. He asserts that the scientific achieve- 
 ments of the last hundred years, both in the 
 discovery of general principles and in their 
 practical application, exceed in number the 
 sum total of the scientific achievements to be 
 credited to all the centuries that went before. 
 He considers, first of all, the practical applica- 
 tions, which made the aspect of civilization in 
 1900 differ in a thousand ways from what it had 
 
 17 
 
Jimctican been in 1801. He names a dozen of these prac- 
 €fjatactet tical applications : railways, steam navigation, 
 the electric telegraph, the telephone, friction- 
 matches, gas-lighting, electric lighting, the 
 photograph, the Roentgen rays, spectrum an- 
 alysis, anesthetics, and antiseptics. It is with 
 pride that an American can check off not a few 
 of these utilities as being due wholly or in large 
 part to the ingenuity of one or another of his 
 countrymen. 
 But his pride has a fall when Wallace draws 
 up a second list not of mere inventions but of 
 these fundamental discoveries, of those fecun- 
 dating theories underlying all practical appli- 
 cations and making them possible, of those 
 principles "which have extended our know- 
 ledge or widened our conceptions of the uni- 
 verse." Of these he catalogs twelve; and we 
 are pained to find that no American has had 
 an important share in the establishment of any 
 of these broad generalizations. We may have 
 added a little here and there; but no single one 
 of all the twelve discoveries is mainly to be 
 credited to any American. It seems as if our 
 French critic was not so far out when he as- 
 serted that we were ** terribly practical." In the 
 application of principles, in the devising of new 
 methods, our share was larger than that of any 
 18 
 
other nation. In the working out of the stimu- JTmertcan 
 lating principles themselves, our share was Character 
 less than **a younger brother's portion." 
 It is only fair to say, however, that even though 
 we may not have brought forth a chief leader of 
 art or of science to adorn the wonderful cen- 
 tury, there are other evidences of our practical 
 sagacity than those set down by Wallace, evi- 
 dences more favorable and of better augury for 
 our future. We derived our language and our 
 laws, our public justice and our representative 
 government, from our English ancestors, as 
 we derived from the Dutch our religious tol- 
 eration and perhaps also our large freedom of 
 educational opportunity. In our time we have 
 set an example to others and helped along the 
 progress of the world. President Eliot holds 
 that we have made five important contribu- 
 tions to the advancement of civilization. First 
 of all, we have done more than any other peo- 
 ple to further peace-keeping, and to substitute 
 legal arbitration for the brute conflict of war. 
 Second, we have set a splendid example of the 
 broadest religious toleration, — even though 
 Holland had first shown us how. Third, we 
 have made evident the wisdom of universal 
 manhood suffrage. Fourth, by our welcoming 
 of new-comers from all parts of the earth, we 
 
 19 
 
JJmetican have proved that men belonging to a great 
 (Zfjatactet variety of races are fit for political freedom. 
 Finally, we have succeeded in diffusing mate- 
 rial well-being among the whole population to 
 an extent without parallel in any other coun- 
 try in the world. 
 
 These five American contributions to civili- 
 zation are all of them the result of the practi- 
 cal side of the American character. They may 
 even seem commonplace as compared with the 
 conquering exploits of some other races. But 
 they are more than merely practical; they are 
 all essentially moral. As President Eliot in- 
 sists, they are "triumphs of reason, enterprise, 
 courage, faith and justice over passion, self- 
 ishness, inertness, timidity, and distrust. Be- 
 neath each of these developments there lies a 
 strong ethical sentiment, a strenuous moral 
 and social purpose. It is for such work that 
 multitudinous democracies are fit." 
 
 IV 
 
 A "strong ethical sentiment" and a "strenu- 
 ous moral purpose" cannot flourish unless they 
 are deeply rooted to idealism. And here we 
 find an adequate answer to the third assertion 
 of Tolstoi's visitor, who maintained that we 
 are "hostile to all idealism." Our idealism may 
 
 20 
 
be of a practical sort, but it is idealism none J^mctican 
 the less. Emerson was an idealist, although (Character 
 he was also a thrifty Yankee. Lincoln was 
 an idealist, even if he was also a practical poli- 
 tician, an opportunist, knowing where he 
 wanted to go, but never crossing a bridge be- 
 fore he came to it. Emerson and Lincoln had 
 ever a firm grip on the facts of life; each of 
 them kept his gaze fixed on the stars,— and 
 he also kept his feet firm on the soil. 
 There is a sham idealism, boastful and shabby, 
 which stares at the moon and stumbles in the 
 mud, as Shelley did and Poe also. But the basis 
 of the highest genius is always a broad com- 
 mon sense. Shakspere and Moliere were held 
 in esteem by their comrades for their under- 
 standing of affairs ; and they each of them had 
 money out at interest. Sophocles was entrusted 
 with command in battle ; and Goethe was the 
 shrewdest of the Grand Duke's counsellors. 
 The idealism of Shakspere and of Moliere, of 
 Sophocles and of Goethe, is like that of Emer- 
 son and of Lincoln ; it is unfailingly practical. 
 And thereby it is sharply set apart from the 
 aristocratic idealism of Plato and of Renan, 
 of Ruskin and of Nietzsche, which is founded 
 on obvious self-esteem and which is sustained 
 by arrogant and inexhaustible egotism. True 
 
 21 
 
JJmetican idealism is not only practical, it is also liberal 
 
 Ctjatactet and tolerant. 
 
 Perhaps it might seem to be claiming too 
 much to insist on certain points of similarity 
 between us and the Greeks of old. The points 
 of dissimilarity are only too evident to most 
 of us; and yet there is a likeness as well as an 
 unlikeness. Professor Butcher has recently 
 asserted that "no people was ever less de- 
 tached from the practical affairs of life" than 
 the Greeks, "less insensible to outward utility; 
 yet they regarded prosperity as a means, never 
 as an end. The unquiet spirit of gain did not 
 take possession of their souls. Shrewd traders 
 and merchants, they were yet idealists. They 
 did not lose sight of the higher and distinc- 
 tively human aims which give life its signifi- 
 cance." It will be well for us if this can be said 
 of our civilization two thousand years after its 
 day is done; and it is for us to make sure that 
 "the unquiet spirit of gain" shall not take pos- 
 session of our souls. It is for us also to rise to 
 the attitude of the Greeks, among whom, as 
 Professor Butcher points out, "money lavished 
 on personal enjoyment was counted vulgar, 
 oriental, inhuman." 
 
 There is comfort in the memory of Lincoln and 
 of those whose death on the field of Gettys- 
 
 22 
 
burg he commemorated. The men who there JJmetican 
 gave up their lives that the country might live (Z^avactet 
 had answered to the call of patriotism, which 
 is one of the sublimest images of idealism. 
 There is comfort also in the recollection of 
 Emerson, and in the fact that for many of the 
 middle years of the nineteenth century he was 
 the most popular of lecturers, with an unfad- 
 ing attractiveness to the plain people, per- 
 haps, because, in Lowell's fine phrase, he 
 "kept constantly burning the beacon of an 
 ideal life above the lower region of turmoil." 
 There is comfort again in the knowledge that 
 idealism is one manifestation of imagination, 
 and that imagination itself is but an intenser 
 form of energy. That we have energy and to 
 spare, no one denies ; and we may reckon him 
 a nearsighted observer who does not see also 
 that we have our full share of imagination, 
 even though it has not yet expressed itself in 
 the loftiest regions of art and of science. The 
 outlook is hopeful, and it is not true that 
 
 "We, like sentries, are obliged to stand 
 In starless nights and wait the appointed hour." 
 
 The foundations of our commonwealth were 
 laid by the sturdy Elizabethans who bore 
 across the ocean with them their having of that 
 imagination which in England flamed up in 
 
 23 
 
JJmetican rugged prose and in superb and soaring verse. 
 
 Character In two centuries and a half the sons of these 
 stalwart Englishmen have lost nothing of their 
 ability to see visions and to dream dreams, 
 and to put solid foundations under their castles 
 in the air. The flame may seem to die down 
 for a season, but it springs again from the 
 embers most unexpectedly, as it broke forth 
 furiously in 1861. There was imagination at the 
 core of the little war for the freeing of Cuba, — 
 the very attack on Spain, which the Parisian 
 journalist cited to Tolstoi as the proof of our 
 predatory aggressiveness. We said that we 
 were going to war for the sake of the ill-used 
 people in the suffering island close to our 
 shores ; we said that we would not annex Cuba ; 
 we did the fighting that was needful ; — and we 
 kept our word. It is hard to see how even the 
 most bitter of critics can discover in this any- 
 thing selfish.' 
 
 There was imagination also in the sudden 
 stopping of all the steamcraft, of all the rail- 
 roads, of all the street-cars, of all the incessant 
 traffic of the whole nation, at the moment when 
 the body of a murdered chief magistrate was 
 lowered into the grave. This pause in the work 
 of the world was not only touching, it had a 
 large significance to any one seeking to under- 
 24 
 
stand the people of these United States. It was JJmetican 
 a testimony that the Greeks would have appre- (Character 
 dated; it had the bold simplicity of an Attic 
 inscription. And we would thrill again in sym- 
 pathetic response if it was in the pages of Plu- 
 tarch that we read the record of another in- 
 stance: When the time arrived for Admiral 
 Sampson to surrender the command of the 
 fleet he had brought back to Hampton Roads, 
 he came on deck to meet there only those of- 
 ficers whose prescribed duty required them to 
 take part in the farewell ceremonies as set 
 forth in the regulations. But when he went over 
 the side of the flagship he found that the boat 
 which was to bear him ashore was manned by 
 the rest of the officers ready to row him them- 
 selves and eager to render this last personal 
 service; and then from every other ship of the 
 fleet there put out a boat also manned by of- 
 ficers, to escort for the last time the commander 
 whom they loved and honored. 
 
 V 
 
 As another illustration of our regard for the 
 finer and loftier aspects of life, consider our 
 parks, set apart for the use of the people by 
 the city, the state and the nation. In the cities 
 of this new country the public playgrounds 
 
 25 
 
JJmctican have had to be made, the most of them, and at 
 Character high cost, — whereas the towns of the Old 
 World have come into possession of theirs for 
 nothing, more often than not, inheriting the 
 private recreation-grounds of their rulers. And 
 Europe has little or nothing to show similar 
 either to the reservations of certain states, like 
 the steadily enlarging preserves in the Cats- 
 kills and the Adirondacks, or to the ampler 
 national parks, the Yellowstone, the Yosemite 
 and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, some 
 of them far larger in area than one at least of 
 the original thirteen states. Overcoming the 
 pressure of private greed, the people have or- 
 dained the preservation of this natural beauty 
 and its protection for all time under the safe 
 guardianship of the nation and with free access 
 to all who may claim admission to enjoy it. 
 In like manner many of thebattlefields, where- 
 on the nation spent its blood that it might be 
 what it is and what it hopes to be, —these have 
 been taken over by the nation itself and set 
 apart and kept as holy places of pilgrimage. 
 They are free from the despoiling hand of any 
 individual owner. They are adorned with monu- 
 ments recording the brave deeds of the men 
 who fought there. They serve as constant re- 
 minders of the duty we owe to our country and 
 26 
 
of the debt we owe to those who made it and JJmetican 
 who saved it for us. And the loyal veneration Character 
 with which these fields of blood have been 
 cherished here in the United States finds no 
 counterpart in any country in Europe, no mat- 
 ter how glorious may be its annals of military 
 prowess. Even Waterloo is in private hands; 
 and its broad acres, enriched by the bones of 
 thousands, are tilled every year by the indus- 
 trious Belgian farmers. Yet it was a French- 
 man, Renan, who told us that what welds men 
 into a nation, is " the memory of great deeds 
 done in common and the will to accomplish 
 yet more." 
 
 According to the theory of the conservation of 
 energy, there ought to be about as much virtue 
 in the world at one time as at another. Accord- 
 ing to the theory of the survival of the fittest, 
 there ought to be a little more now than there 
 was a century ago. We Americans to-day have 
 our faults, and they are abundant enough and 
 blatant enough, and foreigners take care that 
 we shall not overlook them; but our ethical 
 standard — however imperfectly we may attain 
 to it —is higher than that of the Greeks under 
 Pericles, of the Romans under Caesar, of the 
 English under Elizabeth. It is higher even 
 than that of our forefathers who established 
 
 27 
 
^mctican our freedom, as those know best who have 
 Character most carefully inquired into the inner history 
 of the American Revolution. In nothing was 
 our advance more striking than in the different 
 treatment meted out to the vanquished after 
 the Revolution and after the Civil War. When 
 we made our peace with the British the native 
 tories were proscribed, and thousands of loyal- 
 ists left the United States to carry into Canada 
 the indurated hatred of the exiled. But after 
 Lee's surrender at Appomattox, no body of 
 men, no single man indeed, was driven forth 
 to live an alien for the rest of his days; even 
 though a few might choose to go, none were 
 compelled. 
 
 This change of conduct on the part of those 
 who were victors in the struggle was evidence 
 of an increasing sympathy. Not only is section- 
 alism disappearing, but with it is departing the 
 feeling that really underlies it, — the distrust of 
 those who dwell elsewhere than where we do. 
 This distrust is common all over Europe to- 
 day. Here in America it has yielded to a friendly 
 neighborliness which makes the family from 
 Portland, Maine, soon find itself at home in 
 Portland, Oregon. It is getting hard for us to 
 hate anybody, — especially since we have dis- 
 established the devil. We are good-natured and 
 
easy-going; Herbert Spencer even denounced j(mctican 
 this as our immediate danger, maintaining that (Character 
 we were too good-natured, too easy-going, too 
 tolerant of evil ; and he insisted that we needed 
 to strengthen our wills to protest against wrong 
 and to wrestle with it resolutely, and to over- 
 come before it is firmly rooted. 
 
 VI 
 
 We are kindly and we are helpful ; and we are 
 fixed in the belief that somehow everything will 
 work out all right in the long run. But nothing 
 will work out all right unless we so make it 
 work ; and excessive optimism may be as cor- 
 rupting to the fiber of the people as "the Sab- 
 bathless pursuit of fortune," as Bacon termed 
 it. When Mr. John Morley was last in this 
 country he seized swiftly upon a chance allu- 
 sion of mine to this ingrained hopefulness of 
 ours. "Ah, what you call optimism," he cried, 
 "I call fatalism." But an optimism which is sol- 
 idly based on a survey of the facts cannot fairly 
 be termed fatalism; and another British stu- 
 dent of political science, Mr. James Bryce, has 
 recently pointed out that the intelligent native 
 American has— and by experience is justified 
 in having— a firm conviction that the majority 
 of qualified voters are pretty sure to be right. 
 
 29 
 
Jimctican Then he suggested a reason for the faith that 
 (Z^atactet is in us, when he declared that no such feeling 
 exists in Europe, since in Germany the gov- 
 erning class dreads the spread of socialism, in 
 France the republicans know that it is not im- 
 possible that Monarchism and Clericalism may 
 succeed in upsetting the Republic, while in 
 Great Britain each party believes that the other 
 party, when it succeeds, succeeds by mislead- 
 ing the people, and neither party supposes that 
 the majority are any more likely to be right 
 than to be wrong. 
 Mr. Morley and Mr. Bryce were both here in 
 the United States in the fall of 1904, when we 
 were in the midst of a presidential election, 
 one of those prolonged national debates, cre- 
 ating incessant commotion, but invaluable 
 agents of our political education, in so far as 
 they force us all to take thought about the un- 
 derlying principles of policy by which we wish 
 to see the government guided. It was while 
 this political campaign was at its height that 
 the French visitor to the Russian novelist was 
 setting his notes in order and copying out his 
 assertion that we Americans were mere money- 
 grubbers, "systematically hostile to all ideal- 
 ism." If this unthinking Parisian journalist 
 had only taken the trouble to consider the ad- 
 30 
 
dresses which the chief speakers of the two !Mtnetican 
 parties here in the United States were then Character 
 making to their fellow-citizens in the hope of 
 winning votes, he would have discovered that 
 these practical politicians, trained to perceive 
 the subtler shades of popular feeling, were 
 founding all their arguments on the assumption 
 that the American people as a whole wanted 
 to do right. He would have seen that the ap- 
 peal of these stalwart partisans was rarely to 
 prejudice or to race-hatred, — evil spirits that 
 various orators have sought to arouse and to 
 intensify in the more recent political discussion 
 of the French themselves. 
 An examination of the platforms, of the let- 
 ters of the candidates, and of the speeches of 
 the more important leaders on both sides re- 
 vealed to an American observer the significant 
 fact that "each party tried to demonstrate that 
 it was more peaceable, more equitable, more 
 sincerely devoted to lawful and righteous be- 
 havior than the other;" and **the voter was in- 
 stinctively credited with loving peace and 
 righteousness, and with being stirred by sen- 
 timents of good-will toward men." This seems 
 to show that the heart of the people is sound, 
 and that it does not throb in response to ig- 
 noble appeals. It seems to show that there is 
 
 31 
 
Jimetican here the desire ever to do right and to see right 
 
 (Z^atactet done, even if the will is weakened a little by 
 
 easy-going good-nature, and even if the will 
 
 fails at times to stiffen itself resolutely to make 
 
 sure that the right shall prevail. 
 
 "Liberty hath a sharp and double edge fit 
 only to be handled by just and virtuous men," 
 so Milton asserted long ago, adding that "to 
 the bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief 
 unwieldy in their own hands." Even if we 
 Americans can clear ourselves of being " bad 
 and dissolute," we have much to do before we 
 may claim to be "just and virtuous." Justice 
 and virtue are not to be had for the asking; 
 they are the rewards of a manful contest with 
 selfishness and with sloth. They are the re- 
 sults of an honest effort to think straight, and 
 to apply eternal principles to present needs. 
 Merely to feel is only the beginning; what re- 
 mains is to think and to act. 
 A British historian, Mr. Frederic Harrison, 
 who came here to spy out the land three or 
 four years before Mr. Morley and Mr. Bryce 
 last visited us, was struck by the fact— and 
 by the many consequences of the fact — that 
 "America is the only land on earth where 
 caste has never had a footing, nor has left a 
 trace." It seemed to him that "vast numbers 
 32 
 
and the passion of equality tend to low aver- Jfmerican 
 ages in thought, in manners, and in public C^atactct 
 opinion, which the zeal of the devoted minor- 
 ity tends gradually to raise to higher planes 
 of thought and conduct." He believed that we 
 should solve our problems one by one because 
 "the zeal for learning, justice and humanity" 
 lies deep in the American heart. Mr. Harrison 
 did not say it in so many words, but it is im- 
 plied in what he did say, that the absence of 
 caste and the presence of low averages in 
 thought, in manners, and in public opinion 
 impose a heavier task on the devoted minor- 
 ity, whose duty it is to keep alive the zeal for 
 learning, justice and humanity. 
 Which of us, if haply the spirit moves him, 
 may not elect himself to this devoted minor- 
 ity? Why should not we also, each in our own 
 way, without pretense, without boastfulness, 
 without bullying, do whatsoever in us lies for 
 the attainment of justice and of virtue? It is 
 well to be a gentleman and a scholar; but after 
 all it is best to be a man, ready to do a man's 
 work in the world. And indeed there is no rea- 
 son why a gentleman and a scholar should not 
 also be a man. He will need to cherish what 
 Huxley called "that enthusiasm for truth, that 
 fanaticism for veracity, which is a greater pos- 
 
 33 
 
^tnetican session than much learning, a nobler gift than 
 Character the power of increasing knowledge." He will 
 need also to remember that 
 
 "Kings have their dynasties, —but not the mind ; 
 Caesar leaves other Caesars to succeed, 
 But Wisdom, dying, leaves no heir behind." 
 
MAYn^i^oe: