San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-11-30
TIE NAMELESS NATION.
!, ,.0,,,.Iou Of America and Americans.

,a,l., Impression Of America and Americans a
A.. Edward A. Freeman, the English
Man. having been on a visit ia
oaanptry, has published his "impres'
tS nus The following are interesting
eH mso word america" for some pur-
inV means tho United States only;
pose some other purposes it means the
iVi 10 American continent. II is Ger.
s hVIU odd that american languages
t And be everywhere understood as
v O; the native languages of the
nnnt;nept, while american literature"
co Guns 60 much of English literature as
h"Iopqs locally to the United States.
w. g me Prescott and Motley seem as
.,ucb English historians, Longfellow
nnd whittier seem as much English
noets. as if they had been and had
Pyittsn in Great Britain. They are
Enclish writer's, writing in the English
tonSue, their own tongue, in which they
have inst as much right as any native
- GREAT Britain. But in common
American speech, English literature"
means the literature of the local Eng
land only. american literature" be-
longs exclusively to the United States.
The phraze hardly takes IN the English
literature, if there be any, of Canada;
Il certainly does not take in the Span
isb literature, if there be any, of Mexico.
The oldest use of all is when the word
American" is used geographically to
sbut out certain parts of the American
continent. At Niagara people talk of
the american side" and the English
side" I suggested "for American read
English and for English read
French" The truth is that the great
land of the United States has not yet a
name, real local name. like England
or France, or even like Canada or Mex
leo. know not whether it is any COM
fort that, as I once observed elsewhere,
the lack is common to the United States
of America with the other chief confed-
erations of the world. The kingdom of
the Netherland, once the Seven United
Provinces, is commonly spoken of as
Holland" the name of one of its
provinces only, while we commonly
call its people Dutch" the name of a
great race which takes in ourselves.
It is by kindred confusion, though
one which does not take exactly the
same form, confusion arising from
the same lack of real name for the
country, that, when we speak of "Ameri-
can literature" American institutions"
American politics" American So
ciety," we mean the institutions, the
literature, the politics and the society
of the United States only, while by
American zoology" American geolo-
co." etc., we mean those of the whole
continent, while American languages"
distinctly excludes those languages in
which American literature has been
possible. The want of q real name for
the land, and the awkwardness to which
one is driven for the lack of it, struck
me at every turn in my American
travels.
It struck me, says Mr.. Freeman, that,
with regard to reading and knowledge
at least in these branches of which I
can judge-America stands to England
very much as England stands to Ger
many. I conceive that in Germany the
proportion of those who know some
thing is smaller than it is in England,
while the proportion of those who
know great deal is certainly larger.
Anyhow the distinction is perfectly
true between England and America.
There is mysterious being called the
general reader" OF whom some editors
seem to live in deadly fear. Now 1 had
long suspected that the general reader"
was not so great fool as the editors
seemed to think, and my American ex-
perience has confirmed that suspicion.
America strikes me as the land OF the
general reader" and, if so, | am not at
all disposed to think scorn of the "gen-
eral reader" It seemed to me that In
America the reading class, the class OF
those who read widely, who read, as far
as they go. intelligently. but who do
not read deeply-the class for those
who, without being professed scholars,
read enough and know enough to be
quite worth talking to-form larger
proportion of mankind in America than
they do in England. On the other
hand, the class of professed scholars,
is certainly much smaller in proportion
in America than it is in England. The
class exists; it numbers some who have
done thoroughly good work, and others
from whom thoroughly good work may
be looked for; but it sometimes fails to
show itself where one might most have
expected to find it.