"The American woman or girl highly esteems the elegant and noble, striving ever to form herself after this pattern, on which account French female teachers are universally preferred, even when very imperfectly qualified. The revolutions in France have driven forth many well educated persons to America, who have been compelled to seek by teaching a livelihood. Louis Philippe himself was once among the number. In addition to the fact that no nation surpasses the French in personal accomplishments, they have for Americans the further recommendation that their nation has played an important part in modern history. The American is impressed in favor of France, because she aided him in freeing his country from the yoke of England; and this inclination manifests itself continually in language.
"And when the American boy glances over his school-books, he sees France represented in pictures as the polite nation, and reads in history that she aided his country in the war of freedom, and that Lafayette was the friend of Washington; while the same work represents the German as a merely agricultural race, portrayed in the caricature of an Altenburger peasant and his wife, in their fantastic national dress. From the same book he also learns that a German prince sold his subjects for so many pounds per head to aid England to subdue his country. Such contrasts cannot but awake in the child's mind deeply-rooted prejudices, far from favorable to the German race.
"And since there has been for years an emigration to America of Germans who were very generally poor and uneducated—people speaking a revolting dialect, employed in the lowest offices, and not unfrequently much resembling the pictures in the geographies, the prejudice formed in early youth has been thus strengthened, that the Germans are a rough, uncultivated race, industrious and domestic, it is true, but yet very little improved by civilization—of all which the native Pennsylvania Germans afford unfortunately striking examples. The well-educated American, of course, knows better how to appreciate the true value of the Germans; he is aware of the value of their contributions to literature, science, art, and music; only in politics, and in the practical application of knowledge, he places (and not without justice) but little confidence in them.
"But the personal appearance and bearing of many Germans, who are in themselves truly worthy of respect, often induce the well-educated and refined American to place in the back ground their otherwise estimable qualities. There is often something rough and harsh about the German, and his domestic habits are not invariably in unison with his erudition and excellent education, but frequently destroy the good impression which the latter might produce; moreover, their 'geselliges Leben,' (social jovial life) as Germans term it, with its accompaniments of pipe and mug, are in the highest degree revolting to an American. And further, it is taken ill of the German that he considers that regard for the sex, entertained by the American, as carried somewhat too far, and allows himself to form on this point a too hasty, and not seldom unfavorable judgment, without seeking to examine more accurately this domestic characteristic. Many Germans find it impossible to enter into the spirit of American life, customs, and manners, while on religious subjects it appears impossible for either to adopt the same views: so that there is apparently almost no point in common between them."
After stating that many educated Germans might succeed as teachers in this country, could they dispense with national peculiarities, and a description of the manner of establishing schools, in which he pays a high compliment to the general appearance of such institutions in our country, he adds:
"The superintendent of such an establishment must entirely renounce all visits to bar-rooms and coffee-houses. He must learn to impart to his system of instruction the elements of novelty and attractiveness, and especially learn to make friends of the children. It is utterly impossible in this country to manage a school by the mere force of power and authority, and the teacher attempting this, soon experiences a revolution by which indeed he is not exactly driven forth, but left alone on his cathedra."
With this extract we close, regretting that we have been obliged to leave untranslated many more practical and not less interesting items. We consider the entire work as the best possible answer which can be given to the question, 'Why has America done so little for England's fair?' No one who contemplates in it the immense range of our manufactories—our incredible combinations of excellence and cheapness, and the almost superhuman rapidity of our progress in every branch of industrial and social life, will entertain for an instant the slightest regret that we have not done more to increase the profits of John Bull's raree-show.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Muffins?—International.
[2] Pariser-tracht—French dress—is the epithet usually applied in Germany to our ordinary style of costume, in contradistinction to the Bauern-tracht, or peasant's costume, which is so frequently seen among German immigrants.