Few young men, however, pause to observe. They rush into friendships which prove their temporal and spiritual ruin, on the strength of an introduction, a show of goodfellowship, a bit of flattery, or even a convivial glass. This remark applies with peculiar force to Young America, who does not understand, or, if so, despises, the conventional code in European society, which makes an applicant always show his credentials. The satiric maxim, "Believe every man a rogue til you find him honest," is at once contrary to Christian charity and absurd; for did we but cultivate, even in a small degree, the observant faculties that God has given us, we could in by far the majority of cases discover a man's calibre with as much rapidity as certainty. After personal observation, books serve materially in introducing us to character. Not all books, but those written by acknowledged readers of the human heart. The world instinctively recognizes the power of such authors, and confers immortality upon their works. Why is it that Homer sings his deathless song to the listening ages? Not because of his matchless rhythm or language, but because, under the magic of his genius, there rise before us men and women whom we recognize and claim as kindred; because he sketches ourselves, and we seem to have pre-existed in the beings whose mind and hearts, hopes and fears he describes. Tears start from us as he pictures the agony of Priam, father of kings, prostrate in the dust, at the feet of the murderer of his child, his royal brows uncrowned, his gray hairs veiling his anguish-riven face, his aged hands outstretched in supplication for the dead body of his boy. The mysterious tie of nature binds us to the bereaved man. The light of his fatherly love illumines, and his broken sob re-echoes through two thousand years. We feel that the author who could so sympathize with and depict an overmastering grief, understood our nature. So in modern literature, Shakspeare, master of the human heart, is to us a wellspring of unfailing delight. The humor and braggadocio of Falstaff, the guilt-wasted soul of Macbeth, the truculency of Richard, the tenderness of Julietall his imaginings crystallized in his perfect language, touch and move us, because he so well knew how to realize his own rule of "holding the mirror up to nature." Thus, too, in regard to the things around us, their mastery over us depends upon their power of revealing glimpses of nature. All the exquisite gems, the fluted pilasters, perfect statuary, and the manifold appliances of a great and beautiful civilization, that have been unearthed from the buried cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, have not moved the great heart of humanity so profoundly as did two simple discoveries. The first was the lava-moulded form of the Roman sentinel who stood at his post, leaning on his spear, and met the avalanche of ashes, as it fell like a pall upon the doomed city. His silent form is a token of the courage and fidelity of which our nature is capable. The second discovery was the sweet home-picture of a mother fondling her little one, and holding up to its baby grasp an apple, as, all intent upon her child, she did not hear the rush of the lava and fire, that were to mould her and her babe in an immortal group, the thought and the sight of which would move men deeply than any statue chiselled by Praxiteles, or any painting limned by Apelles. more Books and works of art that deal with any subject for which universal sympathy and interest cannot be excited, are of their nature limited in power, save to the the few to whom they are addressed. There is, 'tis true, something exceedingly beautiful and romantic in the idea of Linnæus, the eminent botanist, traversing the globe in the pursuit of his favorite study, bending over flowers, shielding their tender petals from the storms that visited the rough climes through which his flower pilgrimage led him, and rising from the contemplation of his floral favorites, to embody their fragrant loveliness in his botanical writings. Yet, after all, his work does not appeal to our sympathies as powerfully as the simplest story of life. Audubon with his birds, Cuvier and Buffon with their animals, Tyndall, with his searchings into the mysteries of light, Agassiz and his minerals, fail to disprove the saying of the poet, "The proper study of mankind is man." Now the natural variety of human character, the diversified forms into which our plastic nature turns, and the influences to which it is so keenly susceptible, combine in each era to produce different types of character. Yet as the basis of nature remains al ways the same, receiving as a substratum the different forms and impressions made upon it, there results a unity in variety; so that despite the varying dispositions and different objects of men, there is in each period a prevailing type of character, a sameness of traits, a particular cast of thought and sort of identity of habits, customs, and spirit. These embodied constitute the man of that day. He sums up the peculiar genius, temperament, and civilization of his age. It would immensely aid our readers in the course of thought which this essay is intended to awaken, if they would familiarize themselves, through history, with the man of the most remarkable epochs. For instance, the man of the Greek heroic perfod was he who could hurl the dart and discuss farthest; who could wrestle the most powerfully; who could guide the glowing wheels of the chariot most skilfully around the Olympic circle. In contrast with him stands the man of the Greek literary era. So the republican Roman was the ideal of a warrior; and the degenerate children of the Empire, the realization of the sensualist's dream. Nothing furnishes the mind so much healthy amusement and instruction as the tracing of apparently trivial causes to the mightiest effects, upon the whole character of an age. The brusqueness of the Englishman, the politeness of the French, the stolidity of the German, in fact, the distinctive characteristics of all the modern nations, open a field for investigation in which the mind may long dwell with pleasure and instruction. This department of ethnology is almost wholly abandoned to materialists, whose only object is to prove that material causes alone, such as climatic influences and diet, differentiate men, whilst the fact is, religious, educational, and social ideas exert by far the most powerful influences. In illustrating these theories, we take up the average American. He presents an admirable subject for dissection and analysis. Our American life is in its very essence changeful, kaleidoscopic, abounding in rapid transitions, spirited and sensational. If you go to China, you will find the same traits, the same customs, the same insti- . tutions that Confucius founded. The son follows the trade or the profession of his father. In keeping with the system of caste, both in China and India, a tailor will show you with admiring awe the needle and scissors used by his great grandfather, and the shoemaker will exhibit the original kit of tools of the founder of his house. Nothing is more different from the constant change perpetually he is slow and not inclined to hard going on in our social system. It is a boast with us that we have no distinctions except those of worth, intellect, and industry. The widest scope is given to our man to develop his brain, tact, and resources. The result of this obliteration of any hereditary conditions or influences upon a man's individual career gives a vast stimulus to personal energy and enterprise. When our man has made his for tune he does not care if in tracing his pedigree, as some one says, you stumble across a wheelbarrow or pickaxe. It is of course rather difficult to particularize the characteristics of so versatile a being, but on reflection we think it will be found true to define his general character as fast. Rapidity enters as chief element into all his doings, from changing the Constitution to eating his dinner. People coming from the busiest metropolis of Europe and landing in New York, have their breath almost taken away, on sight of our man and the boundless activity which he displays. He has made the fastest time on record, clearing the circle of business, science, literature, and politics at a rate compared with which the progress of other nationalities is a veritable snail's pace. He is sent to school at an age when European children are still in the nursery. The average American boy gives up childish plays at ten, at which mature age you will find him in the parlor, chatting familiarly with his elders. This precociousness is developed and stimulated by our system of public school education. We have seen boys of twelve engaged in the study of political economy and mental philosophy. The child is whirled through a course of study that confuses and perplexes him; but he is told that the motto is "Swifter and higher." If, luckily, study, as every healthy child should be, he is railed at and browbeaten without mercy. School committees pat the bright boy on the head, and tell him that he will become President of the United States. This abnormal development of the head is conducted without regard to the heart. No religious training, no moral influence, no æsthetic relaxation, in fact, come in to divert his strained attention. The Sabbath-school is only day-school with a change of text-books. His morality is measured by the number of Scriptural texts he has committed to memory. To hasten education every device is resorted to. The calm, orderly processes of thought, that form the highest education, give way to a system of cramming, as hurtful as it is useless. A multiplicity of studies is confusion. But it matters not provided our boy can "graduate" at fifteen. Hence the marked lack in this country of the highest culture in the professions. We have more books but fewer thorough scholars. The race of famous lawyers and physicians seems to have become extinct, not through want of natural talent in their successors, but through a superfluity of educational aids that do away with the necessity of thinking. A physician can prescribe from any number of medical dictionaries; a lawyer can get up a brief by simply copying from a legal lexicon. Things have come to the pass they have reached in England, where, it is said, a clergyman can command. any sermon he desires, at prices ranging from a shilling to five pounds. Aside altogether from religious grounds, our common school system has produced a superficial, impudent, and worthless scholarship, which has entered into college and university, and has turned many a promising student, that gave warrant of ripe culture, into a conceited sciolist. Truly assured of his superiority in every respect, our American youth starts out in life with one idea, to make money as fast as he can. His mind is filled with visions of self-made men. He reads advertisements of such characters in the illustrated papers. Mr. Porkpacker, for instance, has his portrait and a biographical sketch regularly reproduced for the benefit of "struggling young men." Mr. Porkpacker, the sketch informs us, was born in very humble circumstances. He learned to read by the light of a pine-knot in a backwoods log-cabin. He started out in life with nothing but a few hogs and a ten-cent note. By honest industry and pluck he managed to thrive well. He speculated with hogs so successfully that he managed to get up a corner in the pork market, and cleared in one day over two hundred thousand dollars. He is now universally known as the "Hog-Prince of the Great West." Under the inspiriting influence of these and kindred examples of rapidly made fortunes, our man begins to work, work, work; doing more in a week than men of other nationalities accomplish in a month. He thinks nothing of rushing to the railway station with a valise the size of a pocket-book, and riding from an Atlantic seaboard town through to San Francisco. Speed less than forty miles an hour puts him in a bad humor. He wonders how his ancestors contented themselves in a stage-coach. He smiles pityingly at the thought of the old papers that issued extras with ten days later from Europe." His dress indicates the same love of speed that characterizes all his movements. The short nobby coat, the light hat, the convenient shoes, the easily adjusted collar and neck-tie, are in contrasted rapidity with the ponderous coats and sur touts, the immense hats, the buckled and elaborate shoes, and suffocating neckcloths, harnessed and begirt in which his slow ancestors paced leisurely along. Why wonder we that under the action of these rapid life-currents our society is continually changing, our modes of thought ever fluctuating, our love of the sensational intensified? Anything with the rapid element in it charms us. We like to be startled. A newspaper without a sensation in it bores us. Our man growls at but secretly enjoys the details of a robbery or political fraud that runs into the millions. If he goes to the theatre, he yawns over a tragedy, but looks with interest on a sensational drama. Fires less than Chicago's or Boston's will not kindle his enthusiasm. Not that he delights in any dread calamity, but the intense activity of his life feeds on sensation. His energy is not so continuous as swift. He would engage to tunnel the planet through to China, if it could be done within a definite time. Under the application of this energy he has overcome every obstacle. He plunges into the bosom of the earth and wrings from her the treasures which she has hidden in primeval darkness, welded in the grasp of granite, and guarded by sentinels whose very breath threatens to wither up his life. His newspaper The fires of his consuming energy light up his thousands of workshops. The unending whirr and sweep of his vast engines are music to his ear. is the world in print. If he makes up his mind to interview an explorer in the wilds of Africa, he does it. If he wants to hear how all the music in the world sounds at once, he builds a Colosseum and hears it. He amuses himself in the same quick manner. In fact we have no recreation properly so called. The quiet conversation, the lingering visits to art galleries, the exquisite pleasures of music, the leisurely stroll, are not to our man's taste. He likes to stand up at a bar with a cigar and talk business or politics. Here is stimulus, the best thing after speed and its general accompaniment. His political like all his views are the result not of deep thought but natural quickness. Our republican institutions afford him a wider scope for activity. Of the science of government he has only one idea, that his government is the best on the face of the earth. His patriotism is laudable, and the general fact is true. But unless our man learns to think and act as deliberately as the founders of our government, he will not be able to make the boast much longer. The war with the South resulted from our unfortunate habit of doing everything with a rush. The government is at the mercy of the class that think the least. Were it not for the President's good sense, we should have gone to war with Spain about a crew of freebooters. The "sober second thought" seems rarely to come to us. Combined with our mechanical energy there is this thoughtlessness about matters of the highest moment. A constituency will return a candidate to office who is notoriously incompetent or even dishonest. Corruption and bribery may have some part in the election; but the chief reason for such election is the indifference of our people. They will not take time to think. They vote as a matter of routine. They laugh over the rascality that robs them, and the stupidity that legislates for them, but make no effort to remedy matters. Not one in ten cares about reading the details of Congressional investigations into official misdemeanors. It takes too long! The same carelessness shows itself lamentably in our man's religious opinions. The secret of the success of Methodism here is the stimulus, the sensation it causes, and the rapidity with which it makes its conversions. But taking the general people, indifferentism is the prevailing characteristic. Its reason is found in the same reluctance to think or investigate. As we remarked in the introductory paragraphs, a man who is obliged to think out a religion for himself will tire of the work. The native American class care nothing for religious disputes. Any animosity against the Church can be traced to the presence of Irish Orangeism or other old world rancor. This latter element working upon American indifferentism has had some power in prejudicing the American mind against Catholicity; but practically it matters not to our man whether you are a Protestant or a Hindoo. This indifferentism is to be deplored. Any creed, not positively immoral, is better than none. Indifferentism is the avenue to all vagaries in belief, and from wrong belief generally come bad morals. The liberalism that makes no distinction between Jew and Christian is pernicious, however goodnatured it seems. Yet if this doctrine is taught, forthwith the cry of "religious intolerance" is raised. So far from attempting to check this unfortunate tendency in the public mind, Protestantism seems to encourage it. Unable to unite doctrinally, the sects practice indifferentism and call it unity. The dogmatic lines of difference among them have become dimmer year by year, until the Catholic Church is, as she necessarily must be, the only thoroughly distinctive and unique religious body in Christendom. Nobody values the blessings of religious liberty more highly than Catholics, to whom they are generally denied. At the same time we do not believe in that liberalism and indifferentism which rank all religions alike. To such an idea may |