The Study of Nature.
Another important influence of the fine arts is in directing the national mind more to the love and study of nature. Art and nature are not the same, yet art gives a new delight in nature. I am not aware that this goes much beyond a refreshment of the faculties, yet, in an age when men are jaded by over-work and by the peculiar fatigue of life in large towns, a refreshment of this kind may be, and is, more important than in simpler times. One of the modern modifications of English character is that it seeks for natural beauty with a new desire. The modern love of nature is connected with a certain independence of conventionalism, and this is important, because conventionalism includes so much.
Changes in the French Character.
Modern Industrial Enterprise.
As the English character is changing in these and other ways, so the French character is changing by its passage from the military to the industrial epoch. It is unfortunate that the enterprise of the Panama Canal seems doomed to failure, because it afforded exactly the outlet that was desirable for French industrial ambition. It was by treating it as a patriotic enterprise and playing upon the patriotic chord that M. de Lesseps attained a delusive appearance of success. The exhibition of 1889, the Eiffel Tower, and the proposed bridge over the Channel, are also proofs of French industrial enterprise on a scale intended to attract attention. The ambition to excel is still in French imaginations, but it is diverted in great part from military to peaceful pursuits. There is no reason why French democracy, which is really averse to war, should not take a legitimate pride in undertakings that require as much science and energy, and almost as much treasure, as the greatest military operations.
Common Sense in Education.
Desire for Physical Improvement.
Another change in the French estimate of things is the increasing tendency to apply common sense to education in spite of old habits and traditions, to discard what cannot be mastered, and to learn more thoroughly what is practically possible and worth learning. The French are also inclined to attach more value to physical exercises. The English have lately become aware of this in consequence of M. Paschal Grousset’s very laudable efforts as a journalist in favour of more active amusements in the lycées; but the movement began several years earlier, and that writer would not have succeeded as he did without a public opinion already prepared to be favourable. I have shown elsewhere that the French are by no means indisposed to gymnastics and military drill. They are ignorant of cricket, as were the ancient Greeks, certainly not the most inactive people of antiquity.
Dominant Tendencies.
The dominant tendencies in the two countries appear to be these. The English are becoming more open-minded and the French are gaining in practical sense and prudence. The English are advancing in religious, and the French in political liberty. Material progress of all kinds is obvious and conspicuous in both.