The Americans

by Hugo Münsterberg

In this way, then, the tendency of the lower classes toward those things which are trivial may sometimes conceal the fine traits in the picture of the national intellectual life; just as the readiness for imitation may, for a time, bring in many a foreign trait. But nevertheless, there is in fact a clearly recognizable, a free and independent intellectual life, which everywhere reveals the opposition or the balance between Puritanism and utilitarianism, and which is everywhere dominated by that single wish which is common both to Puritans and to utilitarians—the desire for the best possible development of the individual, the desire for self-perfection.

Since, however, it remains a somewhat artificial abstraction to pick out a single trait—even if that is the most typical—from the intellectual make-up of the nation, so of course it is understood from the outset that all the other peculiarities of the American work together with this one to colour and shape his real intellectual life. Everywhere, for instance, one notes the easily kindled enthusiasm of the American and his inexhaustible versatility, his religious temperament and his strongly marked feeling of decorum, his lively sense of justice and his energy, and perhaps most of all his whimsical humour. Each one of these admirable traits involves some corresponding failing. It is natural that impetuous enthusiasm should not make for that dogged persistence which so often has brought victory to various German intellectual movements; so, too, a nice feeling for form grows easily impatient when it is a question of intellectual work requiring a broad and somewhat careless handling. Devotion to the supersensuous is inclined to lead to superstition and mysticism, while a too sensitive feeling for fair play may develop into hysterical sympathy for that which is merely puny; versatility, as is well known, is only too apt to come out in fickle dilettante activities, and the humour that bobs up at every moment destroys easily enough the dignity of the most serious occasion. And yet all this, whether good or bad, is a secondary matter. The spirit of self-perfection remains the central point, and it must be always from this point that we survey the whole field.

A social community which believes its chief duty to be the highest perfection of the individual will direct its main attentions to the church and the school. The church life in America is, for political reasons, almost entirely separated from the influence of the state; but the force with which every person is drawn into some church circle has not for this reason lost, but rather gained, strength. The whole social machine is devised in the interests of religion, and the impatience of the sects and churches against one another is slight indeed as compared with the intolerance of the churches as a whole against irreligion. The boundaries are drawn as widely as possible, so that ethical culture or even Christian Science may be included under the head of religion; but countless purely social influences make strongly toward bringing the spirit of worship in some wise into every man’s life, so that an hour of consecration precedes the week of work, and every one in the midst of his earthly turmoil heeds the thought of eternity, in whatever way he will. And these social means are even stronger than any political ones could be.

There is very much which contributes to deepen the religious feeling of the people and to increase the efficiency of the churches. The very numerousness of the different sects is not the least factor in this direction, for it allows every individual conscience to find somewhere its peculiar religious satisfaction. An additional impulse is the high position which woman occupies, for she is more religiously endowed than man. And yet another factor is the many social functions which the churches have taken on themselves. In this last there is much that may seem to the stranger too secular: the church which is at the same time a club, a circulating library, and a place to lounge in, seems at first sight to lose something of its dignity; but just because it has woven itself in by such countless threads to the web of daily life, it has come to pass that no part of the social fabric is quite independent of it. Of course the external appearance of a large city does not strongly indicate this state of things; but the town and country on the other hand give evidence of the strong religious tendency of the population, even to the superficial observer; and he will not understand the Americans if he leaves out of account their religious inwardness. The influence of religion is the only one which is stronger than that of politics itself, and the accomplished professional politicians are sharp to guide their party away from any dangerous competition with that factor.

The church owes its power more or less to the unconscious sentiments in the soul of the people, whereas the high position and support of the public school is the one end toward which the conscious volition of the entire nation is bent with firmest determination. One must picture to one’s self the huge extent of the thinly populated country, the incomparable diversity of the population which has come in, bringing many differences of race and language, and finally the outlay of strength which has been necessary to open up the soil to cultivation, in order to have an idea of what huge labours it has taken to plant the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific with a thick sowing of schools. The desire for the best possible school system is for the American actually more than a social duty—it has become a passion; and although here and there it may have gone astray, it has never been afraid of any difficulty.

The European who is accustomed to see the question of education left to the government can hardly realize with what intensity this entire population participates in the solution of theoretical problems and in the overcoming of practical difficulties. No weekly paper or magazine and no lecture programme of any association of thinking men could be found in which questions of nurture and education are not treated. Pedagogical publications are innumerable, and the number of those who are technically informed is nearly identical with the number of those who have brought up children. The discussions in Germany over, we may say, high schools and technical schools, over modern and ancient languages, or the higher education of women, interest a relatively small circle as compared with similar discussions in America. The mere fact that this effort toward the best school instruction has so deeply taken hold of all classes of society, and that it leads all parties and sects and all parts of the country to a united and self-conscious struggle forward is in itself of the highest value for the education of the whole people.

In the broad basis of the public school is built a great system of higher instruction, and the European does not easily find the right point of view from which to take this. The hundreds of colleges, universities, professional schools, and polytechnics seem to the casual observer very often like a merely heterogeneous and disordered collection of separate institutions, because there seems to be no common standard, no general level, no common point of view, and no common end; in short, there seems to be no system. And nevertheless, there is at the bottom of it all an excellent system. It is here that one finds the most elaborate and astonishing achievement of the American spirit, held together in one system by the principle of imperceptible gradations; and no other organization, specially no mere imitation of foreign examples, could so completely bring to expression the American desire for self-perfection.

The topics of school and university would not make up one-half of the history of American popular education. In no other country of the world is the nation so much and so systematically instructed outside of the school as in America, and the thousand forms in which popular education is provided for those who have grown beyond the schools, are once more a lively testimony to the tireless instinct for personal perfection. Evening schools, summer schools, university extension courses, lecture institutes, society classes, and debating clubs, all work together to that end; and to omit these would be to give no true history of American culture. The background of all this, however, is the great national stock of public library books, from which even the poorest person can find the best books and study them amid the most delightful surroundings.

The popular educational libraries, together with the amazingly profuse newspaper and magazine literature, succeed in reaching the whole people; and, in turn, these institutions would not have become so large as they are if the people themselves had not possessed a strong desire for improvement. This thirst for reading is again nothing new; for Hopkinson, who was acquainted with both England and America in the middle of the eighteenth century, reported with surprise the difference in this respect between the two countries. And since that time the development has gone on and on until to-day the magazines are printed by the hundreds of thousands, and historical romances in editions of half a million copies; while public libraries exist not only in every small city, but even in the villages, and those in the large cities are housed in buildings which are truly monuments of architecture. As the influence of books has grown, the native literature has increased and the arts of modelling and sculpture have come forward at an equal pace, as means of popular culture. Museums have arisen, orchestras been established, the theatre developed, and an intellectual life has sprung up which is ready to measure itself against the best that European culture has produced. But the real foundation of this is even to-day not the creative genius, but the average citizen, in his striving after self-perfection and culture.

Once every year the American people go through a period of formal meditation and moral reflection. In the month of June all the schools close. Colleges and universities shut their doors for the long summer vacation; and then, at the end of the year of study, according to an old American custom, some serious message is delivered to those who are about to leave the institutions. To make such a farewell speech is accounted an honour, depending, of course, on the rank of the institution, and the best men in the country are glad to be asked. Thus it happens that, in the few weeks of June, hundreds of the leading men—scholars, statesmen, novelists, reformers, politicians, officials, and philanthropists—vie with one another in impressing on the youth the best, deepest, and most inspiring sentiments; and since these speeches are copied in the newspapers and magazines, they are virtually said to the whole people. The more important utterances generally arouse discussions in the columns of the newspapers, and so the month of June comes to be a time of reflection and meditation, and of a certain refreshment of inspiration and a revival of moral strength. Now, if one looks over these speeches, one sees that they generally are concerned with one of two great themes. Some of them appeal to the youth, saying; Learn and cultivate yourselves, for this is the only way in which you will arrive at becoming useful members of society: while the others urge; Cultivate yourselves, for there is in life nothing more precious than a full and harmonious development of the soul. The latter sentiment is that of the Puritan, while the former is that of the utilitarian. And yet the individualistic tendency is in both cases the same. In both cases youth is urged to find its goal in the perfection of the individual.