North America — Volume 1

by Anthony Trollope

In attempting to describe this difference in the political action of the two countries, I am very far from taking all praise for England or throwing any reproach on the States. The political action of the States is undoubtedly the more logical and the clearer. That indeed of England is so illogical and so little clear that it would be quite impossible for any other nation to assume it, merely by resolving to do so. Whereas the political action of the States might be assumed by any nation to-morrow, and all its strength might be carried across the water in a few written rules as are the prescriptions of a physician or the regulations of an infirmary. With us the thing has grown of habit, has been fostered by tradition, has crept up uncared for and in some parts unnoticed. It can be written in no book, can be described in no words, can be copied by no statesmen, and I almost believe can be understood by no people but that to whose peculiar uses it has been adapted.

In speaking as I have here done of American taste and American politics I must allude to a special class of Americans who are to be met more generally in New York than elsewhere,—men who are educated, who have generally travelled, who are almost always agreeable, but who as regards their politics are to me the most objectionable of all men. As regards taste they are objectionable to me also. But that is a small thing; and as they are quite as likely to be right as I am I will say nothing against their taste. But in politics it seems to me that these men have fallen into the bitterest and perhaps into the basest of errors. Of the man who begins his life with mean political ideas, having sucked them in with his mother's milk, there may be some hope. The evil is at any rate the fault of his forefathers rather than of himself. But who can have hope of him who, having been thrown by birth and fortune into the running river of free political activity, has allowed himself to be drifted into the stagnant level of general political servility? There are very many such Americans. They call themselves republicans, and sneer at the idea of a limited monarchy, but they declare that there is no republic so safe, so equal for all men, so purely democratic as that now existing in France. Under the French empire all men are equal. There is no aristocracy; no oligarchy; no overshadowing of the little by the great. One superior is admitted;—admitted on earth, as a superior is also admitted in heaven. Under him everything is level, and—provided he be not impeded—everything is free. He knows how to rule, and the nation, allowing him the privilege of doing so, can go along its course safely;—can eat, drink, and be merry. If few men can rise high, so also can few men fall low. Political equality is the one thing desirable in a commonwealth, and by this arrangement political equality is obtained. Such is the modern creed of many an educated republican of the States.

To me it seems that such a political state is about the vilest to which a man can descend. It amounts to a tacit abandonment of the struggle which men are making for political truth and political beneficence, in order that bread and meat may be eaten in peace during the score of years or so that are at the moment passing over us. The politicians of this class have decided for themselves that the summum bonum is to be found in bread and the circus games. If they be free to eat, free to rest, free to sleep, free to drink little cups of coffee while the world passes before them on a boulevard, they have that freedom which they covet. But equality is necessary as well as freedom. There must be no towering trees in this parterre to overshadow the clipped shrubs, and destroy the uniformity of a growth which should never mount more than two feet above the earth. The equality of this politician would forbid any to rise above him instead of inviting all to rise up to him. It is the equality of fear and of selfishness, and not the equality of courage and philanthropy. And brotherhood too must be invoked,—fraternity as we may better call it in the jargon of the school. Such politicians tell one much of fraternity, and define it too. It consists in a general raising of the hat to all mankind; in a daily walk that never hurries itself into a jostling trot, inconvenient to passengers on the pavement;—in a placid voice, a soft smile, and a small cup of coffee on a boulevard. It means all this, but I could never find that it meant any more. There is a nation for which one is almost driven to think that such political aspirations as these are suitable; but that nation is certainly not the States of America.

And yet one finds many American gentlemen who have allowed themselves to be drifted into such a theory. They have begun the world as republican citizens, and as such they must go on. But in their travels and their studies, and in the luxury of their life, they have learned to dislike the rowdiness of their country's politics. They want things to be soft and easy;—as republican as you please, but with as little noise as possible. The President is there for four years. Why not elect him for eight, for twelve, or for life?—for eternity if it were possible to find one who could continue to live? It is to this way of thinking that Americans are driven, when the polish of Europe has made the roughness of their own elections odious to them.

"Have you seen any of our great institootions, sir?" That of course is a question which is put to every Englishman who has visited New York, and the Englishman who intends to say that he has seen New York, should visit many of them. I went to schools, hospitals, lunatic asylums, institutes for deaf and dumb, water works, historical societies, telegraph offices, and large commercial establishments. I rather think that I did my work in a thorough and conscientious manner, and I owe much gratitude to those who guided me on such occasions. Perhaps I ought to describe all these institutions; but were I to do so, I fear that I should inflict fifty or sixty very dull pages on my readers. If I could make all that I saw as clear and intelligible to others as it was made to me who saw it, I might do some good. But I know that I should fail. I marvelled much at the developed intelligence of a room full of deaf and dumb pupils, and was greatly astonished at the performance of one special girl, who seemed to be brighter and quicker, and more rapidly easy with her pen than girls generally are who can hear and talk; but I cannot convey my enthusiasm to others. On such a subject a writer may be correct, may be exhaustive, may be statistically great; but he can hardly be entertaining, and the chances are that he will not be instructive.

In all such matters, however, New York is preeminently great. All through the States suffering humanity receives so much attention that humanity can hardly be said to suffer. The daily recurring boast of "our glorious institootions, sir," always provokes the ridicule of an Englishman. The words have become ridiculous, and it would, I think, be well for the nation if the term "Institution" could be excluded from its vocabulary. But, in truth, they are glorious. The country in this respects boasts, but it has done that which justifies a boast. The arrangements for supplying New York with water are magnificent. The drainage of the new part of the city is excellent. The hospitals are almost alluring. The lunatic asylum which I saw was perfect,—though I did not feel obliged to the resident physician for introducing me to all the worst patients as countrymen of my own. "An English lady, Mr. Trollope. I'll introduce you. Quite a hopeless case. Two old women. They've been here fifty years. They're English. Another gentleman from England, Mr. Trollope. A very interesting case! Confirmed inebriety."

And as to the schools, it is almost impossible to mention them with too high a praise. I am speaking here specially of New York, though I might say the same of Boston, or of all New England. I do not know any contrast that would be more surprising to an Englishman, up to that moment ignorant of the matter, than that which he would find by visiting first of all a free school in London, and then a free school in New York. If he would also learn the number of children that are educated gratuitously in each of the two cities, and also the number in each which altogether lack education, he would, if susceptible of statistics, be surprised also at that. But seeing and hearing are always more effective than mere figures. The female pupil at a free school in London is, as a rule, either a ragged pauper, or a charity girl, if not degraded at least stigmatized by the badges and dress of the Charity. We Englishmen know well the type of each, and have a fairly correct idea of the amount of education which is imparted to them. We see the result afterwards when the same girls become our servants, and the wives of our grooms and porters. The female pupil at a free school in New York is neither a pauper nor a charity girl. She is dressed with the utmost decency. She is perfectly cleanly. In speaking to her, you cannot in any degree guess whether her father has a dollar a day, or three thousand dollars a year. Nor will you be enabled to guess by the manner in which her associates treat her. As regards her own manner to you, it is always the same as though her father were in all respects your equal. As to the amount of her knowledge, I fairly confess that it is terrific. When, in the first room which I visited, a slight slim creature was had up before me to explain to me the properties of the hypothenuse I fairly confess that, as regards education, I backed down, and that I resolved to confine my criticisms to manner, dress, and general behaviour. In the next room I was more at my ease, finding that ancient Roman history was on the tapis. "Why did the Romans run away with the Sabine women?" asked the mistress, herself a young woman of about three-and-twenty. "Because they were pretty," simpered out a little girl with a cherry mouth. The answer did not give complete satisfaction; and then followed a somewhat abstruse explanation on the subject of population. It was all done with good faith and a serious intent, and showed what it was intended to show,—that the girls there educated had in truth reached the consideration of important subjects, and that they were leagues beyond that terrible repetition of A B C, to which, I fear, that most of our free metropolitan schools are still necessarily confined. You and I, reader, were we called on to superintend the education of girls of sixteen, might not select as favourite points either the hypothenuse, or the ancient methods of populating young colonies. There may be, and to us on the European side of the Atlantic there will be, a certain amount of absurdity in the transatlantic idea that all knowledge is knowledge, and that it should be imparted if it be not knowledge of evil. But as to the general result, no fair-minded man or woman can have a doubt. That the lads and girls in these schools are excellently educated comes home as a fact to the mind of any one who will look into the subject. That girl could not have got as far as the hypothenuse without a competent and abiding knowledge of much that is very far beyond the outside limits of what such girls know with us. It was at least manifest in the other examination that the girls knew as well as I did who were the Romans, and who were the Sabine women. That all this is of use, was shown in the very gestures and bearings of the girl. Emollit mores, as Colonel Newcombe used to say. That young woman whom I had watched while she cooked her husband's dinner upon the banks of the Mississippi, had doubtless learned all about the Sabine women, and I feel assured that she cooked her husband's dinner all the better for that knowledge,—and faced the hardships of the world with a better front than she would have done had she been ignorant on the subject.

In order to make a comparison between the schools of London and those of New York, I have called them both free schools. They are in fact more free in New York than they are in London, because in New York every boy and girl, let his parentage be what it may, can attend these schools without any payment. Thus an education as good as the American mind can compass, prepared with every care, carried on by highly paid tutors, under ample surveillance, provided with all that is most excellent in the way of rooms, desks, books, charts, maps, and implements, is brought actually within the reach of everybody. I need not point out to Englishmen how different is the nature of schools in London. It must not, however, be supposed that these are charity schools. Such is not their nature. Let us say what we may as to the beauty of charity as a virtue, the recipient of charity in its customary sense among us is ever more or less degraded by the position. In the States that has been fully understood, and the schools to which I allude are carefully preserved from any such taint. Throughout the States a separate tax is levied for the maintenance of these schools, and as the tax-payer supports them, he is of course entitled to the advantage which they confer. The child of the non-tax-payer is also entitled, and to him the boon, if strictly analysed, will come in the shape of a charity. But under the system as it is arranged, this is not analysed. It is understood that the school is open to all in the ward to which it belongs, and no inquiry is made whether the pupil's parent has or has not paid anything towards the school's support. I found this theory carried out so far that at the deaf and dumb school, where some of the poorer children are wholly provided by the institution, care is taken to clothe them in dresses of different colours and different make, in order that nothing may attach to them which has the appearance of a badge. Political economists will see something of evil in this. But philanthropists will see very much that is good.

It is not without a purpose that I have given this somewhat glowing account of a girls' school in New York so soon after my little picture of New York women, as they behave themselves in the streets and street cars. It will, of course, be said that those women of whom I have spoken, by no means in terms of admiration, are the very girls whose education has been so excellent. This of course is so; but I beg to remark that I have by no means said that an excellent school education will produce all female excellences. The fact, I take it, is this,—that seeing how high in the scale these girls have been raised, one is anxious that they should be raised higher. One is surprised at their pert vulgarity and hideous airs, not because they are so low in our general estimation but because they are so high. Women of the same class in London are humble enough, and therefore rarely offend us who are squeamish. They show by their gestures that they hardly think themselves good enough to sit by us; they apologise for their presence; they conceive it to be their duty to be lowly in their gestures. The question is which is best, the crouching and crawling or the impudent unattractive self-composure. Not, my reader, which action on her part may the better conduce to my comfort or to yours! That is by no means the question. Which is the better for the woman herself? That I take it is the point to be decided. That there is something better than either we shall all agree;—but to my thinking the crouching and crawling is the lowest type of all.

At that school I saw some five or six hundred girls collected in one room, and heard them sing. The singing was very pretty, and it was all very nice; but I own that I was rather startled, and to tell the truth somewhat abashed, when I was invited to "say a few words to them." No idea of such a suggestion had dawned upon me, and I felt myself quite at a loss. To be called up before five hundred men is bad enough, but how much worse before that number of girls! What could I say but that they were all very pretty? As far as I can remember I did say that and nothing else. Very pretty they were, and neatly dressed, and attractive; but among them all there was not a pair of rosy cheeks. How should there be, when every room in the building was heated up to the condition of an oven by those damnable hot-air pipes!