On the whole all the subjects of study were introduced from abroad, for the most part from Germany. The textbooks in most departments were in German or French. Very few were in English which was little known. Even the Professor of Literary History could not pronounce English and began his lectures with an apology for not being able to do so. There was no doubt that he knew the language for he had published translations of Swedish poems. "But why did he not learn the pronunciation?" the students asked. Most of the dissertations for degrees were mere compilations from the German; occasionally they were direct translations which caused a scandal.
The fact was that the period had no special feature to characterise it. There is no such thing as Swedish culture any more than there is Belgian, Swiss, or Hungarian. Sweden had indeed produced a Linnæus and a Berzelius, but they had had no successors.
John had no spirit of enterprise. At school his work had been settled for him; at the university it was all left to him. He was overcome by lethargy and listlessness and worried by not knowing what to do at the end of the term. He saw that he must seek for a position in which he could support himself. A friend had told him that one might become an elementary teacher in the country without passing any more examinations and could very well support oneself in such a post. Now it was John's dream to live in the country. He had a natural dislike to towns though he had been born in the metropolis. He could not accustom himself to live without light and air, nor flourish in these streets and market-places, where the outward signs of a higher or lower position in the absurd social scale counted for so much, e.g. such subordinate things as dress and manner. He had hostility to culture in his blood and could never conceive of himself as anything else than a natural product, which did not wish to be severed from its organic connection with the earth. He was like a plant vainly feeling with its roots between the pavement-stones for some soil; like an animal pining for the forest.
There is a fish which climbs up trees, and an eel can go on land to look for a pease-field, but both of them return to the water. Fowls have been domesticated so long that their ancestral characteristics have died out, but they preserve the habit of sleeping on a perch which represents the branch on which the black-cock and the wood-grouse roost. Geese become restless in autumn, for an instinct in their blood tells them that it is migrating time. So in spite of accommodation to new circumstances there is always a tendency to go back.
Thus is it also with men. The dweller in the north, so long as he preserves civilised habits, has not been able to acclimatise himself thoroughly, and is still liable to consumption. His stomach, nerves, heart and skin were able to accommodate themselves, but not his lungs. The Eskimo on the other hand, originally a southerner, succeeded in acclimatising himself but had to give up civilised habits.
And what is the meaning of the northerner's longing for the south unless it be the wish to return to his first home, the land of the sun, the bank of the Ganges where he was cradled? And the dislike of children to meat, their longing for fruit and love of climbing, what is it all but "reversion to type?" Therefore civilisation means a continual strain and struggle to combat this backward tendency. Education winds up the clock, but when the mainspring is not strong enough it snaps and the works run down, till quiet ensues. As civilisation advances the strain is ever greater and the statistics of insanity show a perpetual increase. One cannot swim against the stream of civilisation, but one may escape to land. Modern Socialism which wishes to bring down the upper classes with their worthless and dangerous motto "Higher!" is a backward movement in a healthy direction. The strain will decrease as the pressure from above decreases, and thereby a great deal of superfluous luxury will be got rid of. In certain parts of German Switzerland there is already a certain relative quiet. There we find no restless hunting after honours and distinctions because there are none to be had. A millionaire lives in a large cottage and laughs at the bedizened townsfolk,—a good-natured laugh without any envy in it, for he knows that he could buy up their finery for ready cash, if he chose. But he will not, for luxury has no value in his neighbours' eyes.
Men could therefore be happier if competition were not so keen and they will yet be so, for the chief constituent of happiness is peace along with less toil and less luxury. It is not the railways which are to be blamed, but the superabundance of them. In Arcadian Switzerland railways have ruined whole districts where no freightage is required and people usually go on foot. To this day distances are reckoned by pedestrian measures.
"It is eight hours to Zurich," says some one.
"Eight! is it possible?"
"Yes, certainly."