[III]
THINGS I LIKE IN THE UNITED STATES
Some Englishmen, I am told, go to the United States with a spirit of criticism, and search round for things that seem to them objectionable, taking no pains to conceal their hostile point of view. They are so hopelessly insular that they resent any little differences in social custom between American and English life, and sum up their annoyance by saying, "We don't do that sort of thing in England!" Well, that seems to me a foolish way of approach to any country, and the reason why some types of Englishmen are so unpopular in France, Italy, and other countries, where they go about regarding "the natives," as they call them, with arrogance in their eyes, and talk, as an English officer, not of that type, expressed it to me, "as though they had bad smells at the end of their noses." I am bound to say that during my visit to the United States I found much more to admire than to criticize, and perhaps because I was on the lookout for things to like rather than to dislike I had one of the best times of my life—in some ways the very best—and came away with respect, admiration, and gratitude for the American people. There are so many things I like in their character and way of life that I should be guilty of gushing if I put them all down, but although I have no doubt they have many faults, like most people in this world, I prefer to remember the pleasant, rather than the unpleasant, qualities they possess, especially as they left the most dominant impression on my mind.
I think every Englishman, however critical, would agree that he is struck at once, on his first visit to America, by the clean, bright, progressive spirit of life in the smaller towns beyond the turmoil of New York. I have already described the sensational effect produced upon one's imagination by that great city, and have given some glimpses of various aspects of the social life which I had the good fortune to see with untiring interest; but I confess that the idea of living in New York would affright me because of its wear and tear upon the nerves, and I think that the "commuters" who dwell in the suburbs have good sense and better luck. The realities of America—the average idea, the middle-class home, the domestic qualities upon which a nation is built—are to be found more deeply rooted in the suburbs and smaller towns than in the whirligig of Manhattan Island, to which a million and a half people, I am told, come every day, and from which, after business or pleasure, they go away. To me there was something very attractive in the construction of such places as Rye, Port Chester, Greenwich, and Stamford, an hour away from New York, and many other townships of similar size in other parts of the United States. I liked the style of their houses, those neat buildings of wood with overlapping shingles, and wide porches and verandas where people may sit out on summer days, with shelter from the sun; and I liked especially the old Colonial type of house, as I think it is called, with a tall white pillar on each side of its portico, and well-proportioned windows, so that the rooms have plenty of light, and as much air as the central-heating system permits—and that is not much. To English eyes accustomed to dingy brick houses in the suburbs of big cities, to the dreary squalor of some new little town which straggles around a filthy railway station, with refuse-heaps in undeveloped fields, and a half-finished "High Street," where a sweetstuff-shop, a stationer, and an estate agent establish themselves in the gloomy hope of business, these American villages look wonderfully clean, bright, and pleasant! I noticed that in each one of them there were five institutions in which the spirit of the community was revealed—the bank, the post-office, the school, the church, and the picture-palace. The bank is generally the handsomest building in the place, with a definite attempt to give it some dignity of architecture and richness of decoration. Inside it has marble pillars and panels, brass railings at the receipt of custom, a brightly burnished mechanism for locking up the safe, a tiled floor of spotless cleanliness. The local tradesman feels secure in putting his money in such a place of dignity, the local lady likes to come here in the morning (unless she has overdrawn her account) for a chat with the bank manager or one of his gentlemanly assistants. It is a social rendezvous dedicated to the spirit of success, and the bank manager, who knows the private business and the social adventures of his clients, is in a position of confidence and esteem. He is pleased to shake the finger-tips of a lady through the brass railings; while she is pleased to ask him, "How do you like my new hat?" and laughs when, with grave eyes, he expresses sympathy with her husband. "Twenty years ago he was serving behind the counter in a dry-goods store. Now he has a million dollars to his credit." Everybody brightens at this story of success. The fact that a man starts as a butcher-boy or a bell-boy is all in his favor in social prestige. There is no snobbishness, contemptuous of humble origin, and I found a spirit of good-natured democracy among the people I watched in the local bank.
THE SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE OF AN AMERICAN POST-OFFICE
Competing with the bank in architectural dignity is the village post-office, generally of white stone, or wood, with the local Roll of Honor on the green outside, and, inside, a number of picture-posters calling to the patriotism of the American people to support the Liberty Loan—the fifth when I was there. Small boys at the counter are buying thrift stamps. Chauffeurs who have driven down from country houses are collecting the letters of the family from lockers, with private keys. College girls are exchanging confidences at the counters. I liked the social atmosphere of an American post-office. I seemed to see a visible friendliness here between the state and the people. Then there is the school, and I must say that I was overwhelmed with admiration for the American system of education and for the buildings in which it is given. England lags a long way behind here, with its old-fashioned hotch-potch of elementary schools, church schools, "academies for young gentlemen"—the breeding-grounds of snobs—grammar-schools, and private, second-rate colleges; all of which complications are swept away by the clean simplicity of the American state school, to which boys of every class may go without being handicapped by the caste system which is the curse of England. If the school to which I went at Montclair, or another at Elizabeth, New Jersey, or another at Toledo, is at all typical of American schools generally (and I think that is so), I take my hat off to the educational authorities of America and to the spirit of the people which inspires them.
The school at Montclair was, I remember, a handsome building like one of the English colleges for women at Oxford or Cambridge, with admirably designed rooms, light, airy, and beautiful with their polished paneling. The lecture-hall was a spacious place holding, I suppose, nearly a thousand people, and I was astonished at its proportions when I had my first glimpse of it before lecturing, under the guidance of the head-mistress and some of the ladies on her committee. Those women impressed me as being wise and broad-minded souls, not shut up in narrow educational theories, but with a knowledge of life and human nature, and a keen enthusiasm for their work. At Toledo I saw the best type of provincial school, and certainly as an architectural model it was beyond all words of praise, built in what we call the Tudor style, in red brick, ivy covered, with long oriel windows, so that it lifts up the tone of the whole town because of its dignity and beauty. Here, too, was a fine lecture-hall, easily convertible into a theater, with suitable scenery for any school play. It was a committee of boys who organized the lectures, and one of them acted as my guide over the school-building and showed me, among other educational arrangements, a charming little flat, or apartment-house, completely furnished in every detail in bedroom, sitting-room, and kitchen, for the training of girls in domestic service, cookery, and the decoration of the home. Here, as in many other things, the American mind had reached out to an ideal and linked it up with practical method. Equally good were the workshops where the boys are trained in carpentry and mechanics.... Well, all that kind of thing makes for greatness in a nation. The American people are not, I think, better educated than English people in the actual storing-up of knowledge, but they are educated in better physical conditions, with a brighter atmosphere around them in their class-rooms and in their playgrounds, and with a keener appreciation in the social influences surrounding the schoolhouse of the inherent right of every American boy and girl to have equal opportunities along the road to knowledge and success. It is this sense of opportunity, and the entire absence of snob privileges, which I liked best in these glimpses I gained of young America....