Saxon still. "Our American Republic will endure just as long as the traditions of the men of English descent who founded it are dominant there," and no longer. Embarrass traordinarily serious. It is not probable that the difficulties which beset civilized men at the present day are extraordinarily serious; indeed, it is quite certain that our ments not ex- troubles are small as compared with those with which, in the past, civilization has repeatedly been threatened. They are, however, sufficiently serious, and among civilized men to-day the English-speaking race has its full share of embarrassments. In a cursory way, some of these embarrassments have been indicated: it is no part of the purpose of this book to show how they must be met. The problems of the time are abundantly discussed. Let us only discuss here the matter whether our race, so numerous, so strong, so resourceful, is also in other respects so circumstanced as to be likely to wage a winning war. Let us ask two questions: 1. Does the English-speaking race respect and love the freedom which it has inherited? 2. Has the race within itself any proper feeling of brotherhood? Do its members stand ready to join hands, believing that in union there is strength? Only if these questions can be answered in the affirmative can Anglo-Saxon freedom be certain of permanence. CHAPTER XIX. DO WE RESPECT OUR FREEDOM? First. Do we respect the freedom which we have inherited? 30, 1889. On the 30th of April, 1889, the writer, in a great city lying in the border-land between North and South, watched the passing of a vast procession. The celebraThus the people had chosen, upon the cen- tion of April tenary of the inauguration of Washington and of the going into operation of the Federal Constitution, to do honor to our chief hero, and to the ordered Anglo-Saxon freedom which he fought to sustain. It was a city which at the time of the celebration was, and for many years before had been, a house divided against itself. Sharp race-conflicts between black and white, bitter religious feuds, discord between capitalist and laborer, between the drinker and prohibitionist, between Northerner and Southerner, quarrels of many kinds proceeding sometimes beyond recrimination to bloodshed, - had for however, was presented a remarkable spectacle of harmony. Over each division of the marching column, everywhere from house-tops and windows, waved the stars and stripes. A division of schoolboys followed a division of gray-beards. Catholic and Protestant stepped for once to the same music; so, too, the Knights of St. Patrick and the Society of St. George; years found in that city an arena. On that day, the negro and the master whose authority the Civil War had broken; Bohemians and Hungarians with a noisome flavor of anarchy in their somewhat sullen lines, and the solid representatives of the mart and of the bank; Confederate veterans and the Grand Army of the Republic. For the moment all was harmony; disputes were hushed; the "plain people was at one as regarded paying honor to the great instrument upon which our polity rests, and the great soldier and magistrate who was its main establisher and upholder, - at one in respect for our Anglo Saxon freedom. Saxon free dom. There can be no doubt that in England, too, the "plain people," however much reluctance the priviThe people's leged class might show, would be equally love of Anglo- harmonious, if similar occasion were given; nor can there be any doubt as regards the universal zeal for democratic freedom of each great English dependency. Nor is it the "plain people alone who stand strongly for democracy. However it may be here and there eyed askance, and its inevitable progress toward supreme power regarded as a calamity, it is not the sentiment of the scholars and thinkers best worth following. Andrew CarView of An- negie, a generous representative of capital, glorifies "Triumphant Democracy"; but there are voices better worth heeding than that of the fluent, quick-minded Scotch iron-master, that have spoken strongly, in well-weighed words, their faith. Says J. Toulmin Smith,2 treating of the kind drew Carne gie. 1 See Dilke on this point, Problems of Greater Britain, p. 490. 2 Local Self-Government and Centralization. London, J. Chapman, 1851, p. 40. of sense most useful in state affairs, with a confidence which many will think excessive: "It is well worthy of remark that it is not the mass of the folk and people who are insensible to sound argument and reason. This is a Of J. Toulcharge often made by those who imagine min Smith. themselves superior to their neighbors. The truth is, however, that the most really ignorant classes, and the most incapable of comprehending sound argument and reason, are often found to be those who are commonly called the educated classes. The cause of this is very simple. What is now called 'education,' and what many are anxious to enforce by a national system, is nothing but putting a certain artificial mould upon the mind, which, instead of developing its powers, does but serve to wrap it in prejudices and bind it to conventionalisms. The artisan classes, at least equally called upon by external circumstances to exercise the native powers of mind, have fewer prejudices to block the way to the sober entertainment of argument and reason. ... "For Anglo-Saxon freedom, we must have, indeed, educated men, but it is not reading and writing, science and arts, that ever did or ever can make the educated man. Engrossing the attention with these may indeed be made the most effective means of preventing the man from becoming truly educated. Of this, Prussia offers a striking example: with a nominal education, a state education of great elaborateness, the result is, as it was intended to be, a people incapable of dealing with their own wants and conditions, and submitting to be dealt with as herds of animals, who exist only for the behoof of kings. An observ ant and thoughtful writer, speaking of the Prussian system, so ignorantly held up as a system to be adopted in this country, well describes that people, as being the most superintended, the most interfered with, the most destitute of civil freedom and political rights, in a word, the most enslaved people in Western Europe; and the most educated, that is in what is conventionally called education, the drilling of the mind, not its development. This testimony is confirmed by all who thoroughly, and not merely superficially, have understood and watched the system, and who have not been deluded by meaningless statistics of schools." 1 Shall we accept this without qualification? Forty years have passed since the words just quoted were written. Much history has been made by Prussia in the intervening time. Under able leaders she has shown herself marvellously powerful. As regards the people, however, what the world has had occasion to notice particularly is the docility with which they have suffered themselves to be led. The initiative has been from the ruling dynasty and its great servants. The Court has supplied the plan of action, the brains and the energy for carrying it out, using the resources and mighty strength of an unresisting people to secure objects undoubtedly adapted to promote the well-being of the people (who can doubt the blessing coming to the Germans from a united Germany?); nevertheless, objects whose value the people did not at all appreciate till they were gained, and which they were quite incompetent to secure if they had appreciated them. It has been said that 1 Local Self-Government and Centralization, p. 321. |