The New era. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1865-1871, 1866-04-12
4 French Tieac of Ameyicdaa FGDsiGv
Life.

Life.
A French tourist has recently publish.
ed his experience in the United States
under the title of " HUT Mois en- Amer
que"-Eight Months in America. He
was much struck with the contrast be-
tween the American and European fam
lily system. He says:
There are few families in New York
OF whom some member is not either
wandering asa traveller in distant parts
OF the world, or has taken up his perma-
nent abode there, and become almost q
stranger to his own country. These
family trials are accepted with an in
credible coInposure and resignation
You know the story Of that American
father whose son, arrived from Austria
LA, unexpectedly knocked at the door;
ne received him politely, inquired after
his health, offered him a chair. and fl
nally invited him to dinner. The
American family resembles, little. a
brood OF sparrows; the little ones escape
as soon as they have feathers 70 fly with
and claws to defend themselves: thew
forget the paternal nest, and often the
parents themselvesknoW them no more.
They take the pains to protect them in
their youth, but once this task accom-
plished, their rights and their duties
terminate at the same time. It is the
law OF nature in all its crude 1oirefe !:
family associations last only Just so long
as it is indispensable to its members.
By way of retaliation, if the parents
give little they exact still less. Pater-
nal power has never been a rigorous law
in the American family, and filial docil-
lty never one OF its greatest virtues
Neither do the parents make much ef-
fort to retain their authority, or to keep
the imprisoned bird in its shell. On the
contrary, they feel pleasure in develop
ing in him, the precociouls instinct of
liberty, and they are in haste to emanci-
pate him, either because they wish to
get rid as early as possible of an impor-
tant charge, or becauseit is repugnant to
them long to exercise a species of do
nestle royalty, and because they i'm
moderately respect the spirit of indie
pendenee which they possess them
selves. It is fact that nowhere are chill
dren as free, as much e4fuaats te17i6zes, as
in america. In public places, in rail-
road ears and elsewhere, you see them
run, yelling with all their might, climb
ing up your knees, playing with your
watch chain, spell i'll the book you hold
in your hand, and speak to you famil-
larry, without any one checking them
for it. They are not overwhelmed with
those discourses, those precepts, those
fine moral lessons of which we are so
prodigal, and which make ne more i'm
preston than water eli the surface Of
glass.
Still less do they employ against them
those energetical means of conviction
which are called the right OF the
At all times the Americans
reserved this for their negroes.
AS to their children and their horses.
they have always treated them with
kindness, as intelligent and reasonable
creatures, in whom care must be taken
not TO arouse the spirit Of revolt. In
order to form and develop their reason,
they rather count upon experience than
instead of Keeping them
with their feet and arms tied up to the
age Of manhood, they suffer them at an
early hour to knock against things. 1t
is this freedom which ripens the Amer
leans and develops in them practical
reason at an age when, with us, it is
still slumbering in the dreams and iIlu-
sions of youth.
With us, the intellectual education
precedes the moral; here is the reverse.
At twelve years, the moral education OF
girls is considered as finished;
they freely go and come, often alone;
their practical ideas seem to be all form
ed, and custom even permits that they
be initiated in all the realities of life
They are not led by the hand as if they
were blind, nor ordered to always cast
down their eyes up to the day when the
horizon of life is suddenly disclosed to
them; nothing is hidden from them
which it is necessary for them 10 learn,
since they have to be one day sole mis-
tresses OF their own fate. They also
choose their partners without Illusion
and without enthusiasm, and when NOR
titication, and trials present themselves
before them, they have to bear them
without murmuring, since they can only
accuse themselves for ail their errors and |
As to the men, this rough school of
liberty and experience is not less salu-
AIRY to them. AS soon as they begin to
think they find themselves engaged in |
the struggle with the positive necessities !
Of life; the affairs the interests, the con-
tinual Iahors of their profession, absorb, |
form and mark them viii, q stamp that
c nnr.boI,S somewhat rpriph hut which