Elmore bulletin. [volume] (Rocky Bar, Idaho) 1889-1906, 1891-10-03
OUR ANGLOMANIACS.
ENGLAND DOES THIS, SAYS THAT OR
THINKS THE OTHER.

But what Docs Il All signlfy to Any
4 Coed Amcriesnr~iet Us FOLLOW Our
Own Methods and MAX. Our own
Manners.
! matter that will constantly excite the
wrath OF good Americans Is the perpetual
! Iteration o. the way IN which the people u
\ England do this, or say that. or thluk the
other in contradistlnction to the way in
\ which we upon this side of the glote do, say
and think. as II in English methods only
were 70 lc found the highest scat Of judg-
ment and last court of appeal This defer
ence to English ideas has developed among
US an etnasculatsrd class u minds that does
not even think its own thoughts, achieves
| only pale reflection aud Imitation nf the
oris inal art Gle, and in endeayoring to he
come pure English succeeds in becoming
poor American. This Is apparent in dress,
in manner, in style aud action and speech;
and IL creates the liability OF returning Us 10
our old colonial estate. la which We shall
cease to he people Of a new development OF
mental, as we have been aud ~ We arc uf
material life.
Our country could hardly have been do
signed as perpetual colony OF Great
Britain Its geographical situation, its
extent, its Possession of all climates, all soils,
all woods, all metals, all common and all
precious things, mark il out as for place OF
its own, while generations have impaired TO
the descendants Of its first settlers a charac
ter OF their own, and It Is given to the de
sccudants of later settlers here to intermarry
and associate with those Of longer date, and
make themselves "a homogeneous people
There is no more reason why this peoples
| civilization, then, should be ON AN English
than ON a French, an Italian or "A German
model. Ii should he on none Of them II
should he American In the course Of time
II should be one great American people,
varying only with the necessities OF its par
allels, the customs OF it, tropics the life Of
its hills and plains and ssashore as IL may
be, but all On one broad scale and scheme of
a new and lofiier civilization possibly than
has appeared IN the world before
IL would seem that Il would be wise to let
the manners and speech and habits Of such a
people develop according To their own needs
aud not To attempt Ia enforce upon them an
| arbitrary system of another aud totally diff
| ferent country, clinnte and institution of
caste. What odds Is IL to the woupisnen Of
the northern peninsuas. To the cowboys OF
the southwestern prairles, to the miners of
| the Rocky mountains and the Sierras, to the
planters Of the Mississippi levels how English
| lords and ladies aud scholars address their
visiting cards, enter their carriages, dip their
| spoonsi Aud why should the girl graduate
| Of Nassar or Wellesley trouble herself with
the fancy that because she does not use the
rising infection of voice at the close of all
her sentences the Girton graduate does,
her education is therefore deficient and her
/ resources limitedi
/ N ia t,,attar II ,,,axts,,, ,.,l..h.n Al.
English domestic life, pure as it is, is of
purer quality than the German; whether the
| English mental life is Of finer strain than the
| French; whether the Swede and Norwegian
are not AS manly, genial, as true, as the
/ English. IL the Italian and the SpanIard are
i not OF a more ppetical sort: whether, in
| short, there is any peculiar reason why the
/ English behavior and thought shouL be
made our standard rather than that of any
other people We may be told that some
reason lies in the fact that we speak the
same language; but when we come to con-
slider the matter of Ian suage, tse question be-
comes a still more open one. There is not a
whole county in all England where the laa-
guage is generally spoken in anything APP
preaching purity; there is but one where il Is
| pretended that 1t Is so spoken; there is no
region of hundred square miles in the three
kingdoms where il is spoken with the purity
and perfection that is used, for instance, in
the state OF Massachusetts, in our own
country; and there is neither rhyme nor
reason in the effort To impose upon us a
foreign vernacular, especially those portions
OF IL which have become the slang OF the
| upper CLASSES using that vernacular, in which
.'nousense" is called rot bad weather is
called ''beastly," our own euphonious 'swill''
is called "hog wash,n nnseemly conduct is
called nasty" and peculiar people are
called ''rnm ones ~
1t seems to ns that perhaps II would be Just
as well To follow our own methods and make
our own manners, sure that manners which
are gentle, cleanly and pure, aud which hurt
no ones feelings and hinder no ones advan-
tages, can only be right manners; that the
language OF Shakespeare and the Bible, which
is spoken more nearly here than anywhere
else In the world. is good enough language
and form of speech for us, answering all pur-
poses of literature and daily life and that
eventually the English, il their insular con-
ceit ever allows them, may wake To the fact
that the best thing they can do is 20 follow
our example in a few things, II not in all
and setting aside written sreech, which is a
fixed quantity, correct their own spoken
speech by one that more closely touches tho
standard Of precision than Is at present
reached by their own yernacular -Harper's
Bazaar.