The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1882-05-28
Matthew Arnold on American Society.


rent number of the Nineteenth Century seem
to have given much offence to some sensitive
persons in this country We do not share
the feeling OF resentment, for two reasons.
Mr.. ARNOLD makes no independent asser
tions, but simply repeats what American citi-
zens have told him, and supposirg the in
formation to be correct we should have moth
ing to be ashamed Of We should rather be
proud to own that our national type Of civil
ization differs essentially from that advo-
Gated by the apostles Of light and sweetness,
seeing that 1t aims at the improvement OF
the collective, not the individual humanity,
at the well being of the many rather than the
perfection OF the few.
The gist Of Mr.. ARNoLD's offence seems to
be the inference which he draws from the
evidence presented to him that what he
terms middle-class intelligence and middle
class virtue are the characteristic features
Of our society, and that the number of more
highly educated persons is too small to ex-
ert much influence upon the mass. Why
should we be specially sensitive to a criti-
cism which has been repeatedly applied to
the most enlightened nations Of Europe
The term Philistine, as employed to describe
a certain narrowness Of intellectual and us
thetic cultivation, was invented in Germany,
and we conclude from the incessant appear
ance Of the word in German literature that
the thing designated must be still wide
spread and rampant in that country. As for
the French exponent Of middle-class ideas
the bourgeois-he has been the butt OF es-
saytsts, novelists, and caricaturists from the
time of BALZAo and GAvARNI to our own
day; and since the establishment of the re-
public the bourgeois is more than ever the
arbiter Of France. On the other side OF the
Channel it is notorious that literature and
art as tested by the most widely priced
achievements reflect strenuously and almost
exclusively the thought and feeling OF the
middle class. On this point Mr.. ARNOLD has
himself expressed far more emphatic opin-
ion than that which he has formed about
America from data furnished by ourselves
He has said that England presents us with
the spectacle OF an upper class materialized, a
middle class vulgarized, and lower class
brutalized;" that the British folk, in other
words, Is made up Of barbarians, Philistines,
and populace. Inasmuch as he admits that
we seem to be happily destitute Of barbarians
on the one hand and populace on the other,
there is really little to complain Of in his
definition Of American society-a definition
which, we repeat, is not dogmatic, but in
terrogative and provisional, put forward
merely as suggestion pending the receipt
Of more ample information.
Mr.. ARNOLD, 1t seems, was prompted to
discuss this subject by an article in Boston
newspaper assuring him that on this side Of
the Atlantic would be found innumerable al
tars to sweetness and light; that here, "in
the smaller cities of the interior, in the
Northern Middle and Southwestern States
Ibid the writer mean Arkansas n exists an
elegant and simple social order unknown in
England or Germany" and that there is
exhibited a manner Of life belonging to the
highest civilization in towns, countless and
States whose names Mr.. ARNOLD had never
heard" The inference drawn from this
| vaunt on the part Of our Boston contempt
rary is that either the writer has no clear
conception Of the distinction between middle
class ideas and the highest culture, or else he
has multiplied individuals into groups. AS to
the manner of life obtaining in the smaller
| towns of this country-if by the term we
should understand the thoughts, sentiments,
and manners, not OF isolated persons, but of
considerable social aggregates-Mr. ARNOLD
| submits that, so far from this being unknown
to him, it is very familiar indeed, being al
most identical with middle-class life in Eng
land That it Is this type of existence which
our Boston contemporary had in mind Mr.
| ARNOLD is constrained to think by other
testimony coming from equally credible
witnesses. He points out, for example, that a
writer in the Atlantic Monthly declares that
the hideousness and vulgarity Of American
manners are undeniable," and that " redemp-
ton is only to be expected by the work Of a
| few enthusiastic individuals" Mr.. HENRY
JAMES, Jr,, is also cited to prove that Gin
the smaller cities OF the interior" of New
England the Philistine is reRnant. We are
! told, too, that an American OF reputa-
tlon as O. man OF science" assured
Mr. ARNOLD THAT he lived in town
Of a hundred and fifty thousand people,
OF whom there are not fifty who dc
| not imagine the first chapters OF Genesis to be
exact history" The Nation has asserted, IL
seems, that u college education is Of no ap-
parent use to an American boy "in world
i'll which not one man in hundred thousand
has either the manners or cultivation OF a
gentleman or changes his shirt more than
once week, or eats with fork" 1t appears
moreover. that Mr.. LOWELL has described
| his own nation as "the most common.
schooled and the least cultivated people in
the world" like deduction Is drawn from
the popularity OF the humor OF MARX TWAIN
by some foreign critics, but not by Mr.. AR.
MOLD who distinctly intimates that the pop.
ularity OF DICKENS in England is almost
equally significant.
1t iplain enough that the evidence laid
before Mr.. ARNOLD by American critics OF
their own countrymen warranted him In
forming at least a provisional opinion. We
1 could probably shoW, hpwsvsE v We thought