The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-04

trained. Since the war, an epoch of crOaking
has set in. Perhaps it will disappear with
the income tax; but meanwhile it is the
fashion TO say that our whole system, schools
and all, leads to great deal of heartburn
ing and social discomfort. We have seen this
more or less plainly limited in half-a-dozen
speeches and essays of late, mostly from per-
sons fresh from foreign travel; for your
travelled American is apt to boast of his
native land until he returns to its shores, or
rather he is like Horace Walpole, who said
that he should love his country very much,
if it we're not for his countrymen. And as
your American, under such circumstances, is
apt to be suffering under double discomfort
that which took him abroad, and that which
attacks him on returning-his eye for that
emotion must naturally be pretty sharp.
Sowe are discontented, are we? The bet
ter for us 1t is the maxim of Oriental gov
ernments that O man should be content with
his CASTE" 1t is the result of modern govern
ments that he should be discontented with it,
1t applies not merely to America, but to all
countries so far as they are Americanized.
Modern history is the history of discomfort
and since the French Revolution the old
social order has satisfied nobody. Mrs.
Trench, in her delightful letters, found great
fixedness of caste in Germany in 1893, and
contrasted it with ''the mixture of ranks"
which was already visible in London. 'Here,
eyery one remains contentedly in their own
class-there, all are struggling to associate
with those above them, whence proceeds q
vast share of expense and dissipation" Yet
now Germany is where England was then,
and the England of to-day seems "ferce
democracie' compared with the England of
George ~.
Is all this good thing? Certainly it is.
The first step towards improvement is discon-
tent Diasatisfaction with mammal labor for
instance, makes men work with their brains;
and this is what keeps the Patent Office busy.
''Set men working by the piece" said the
head of great mandatory, ''and each man
begins to contrive some way to save labor,
and soon they accomplish more. Ihey dOu-
6Je right Qp." In this way, the great mecha-
nical improvements come. Take away the
wholesome discomfort as regards poverty and
hard work. and the man invents no more
machines, but becomes one himself.
Wordsworth, the poet, thought it well that
the poor should learn to read, and perhaps to
write. 'But this, he added, sis far from
equally certain" The poorest immigrant on
our shores is, so far, wiser than the philos-
ophic poet, that he finds it quite certain that
his child will need the whole of the three Rs
He knows it will make him discontented, and
sends him to school for that purpose. Once
fortified with ''learning, the boy is expected
to make some use of it to become saint, or
an alderman, or something. The London cos
termonger told Mr.. Mayhem that every man
wished his son to have better start in the
world than he himself had; and what is there
vision may here be reality If our free
schools excite all with the wish to be gentle
men and ladies, so much the better. The uni
versal struggle will, in time, elevate the mean
ing of those words. Indeed, it has already
done SO. Gentleman and lady once i'm
piled social distinction, but they now imply
personal distinction-they refer to manners
and education, not to property or pursuit. II
is great step. People advertise for ''sales-
ladies' in shops assuming the new but true
| opinion that every shopwoman should be as
ladylike as her customers. Even in England
partly through the reflex influence of Americf
| the same improvement goes on; and you
| may shear tinman in a municipal council
| rebuke grocer for not behaving like gen
tleman, or a candidate address the mob at the
| hustings as gentlemen and electors.
This social ambition brings follies with it
no doubt. But the first thing is to have the
ambition-the power to directit wisely comes
afterwards. Social discomfort leads foolisl
people to folly, but it leads the wise to self
| improvement, to virtue, culture, and tn
graees. The energy that marks American
men, the capable" qualities that mark tn
American woman, grow directly from on
social condition, and, above all, from our fre
schools Where all are educated, the days o
privilege are ended. Bringing each year a ney
| generation into the pursuits of life, our school
gradually infuse through the whole communit
desirefor something better than their father
had. With few this desire will take The
form of ''shoddy" display. With others i
will take the form of more rational and agree
able living. 1t will lead some to despis
labor, but others will learn by it to elevat
labor into something more eonobling an
more attractive. The dream of Napoleon
that in France all trades should be elevate
into arts is likely to be first reached in Anne
rica. Until then, it is the duty of all to b
dissatisfied. The biographer of young Gene
raj Lowell, who fell so nobly in the late war
says that, after leaving college, she viewe
the actual order of things with generou
discomfort, of which Mr.. Emerson said:-'
hope he will never get rid of it, And th
attitude of that young hero is the proper att
tude for all.