The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-04-26
AMERICAN ADMIRATION FOR EUROPE.
A Writer ASKS Why 1t Is Roprehensibie
to Respect Foreign Opinions.

a W [AsNAS w AlS ~ II
to Respect Foreign Opinions.
We have long deferred to Europe in
many ways, and our saTirists and critics
have scourged mercilessly what thes
branded as our servility. rs the Hudson
not broadly magnificent enough, o recre
ant American, that you must prattle OF
the Rhine? Is the-the-the-Cap at
Albany or at Washington so insignificant
that you cannot forget u crambling Col
!seum or ruined Parthenon? Are moi
q, 000, 600 for street cleaning In New York
enough. that the streets Of Berlin or Glas
Cow must be thrown in our faces? The
Campagna, the Vale of Emma, Olympus
Hvmettus. what are they to the prairies OF
Illinois and the farther west, TO the valley
Of Wyoming, to the Rocky mountains?''
So frowns indignant patriotism, speaking
with firm set lips, and so the nightingale
Of the boards reproves Us for scorning our
own children whom Europe has not yet
crowned with laurel.
But may not something be said for
Europe? Although it be a country no
longer young, is it so hopelessly senile
that its approval is worthless? Because
we are the child of the morning, with q
boundless estate of the future, do we know
everything so much more fully and wisely
that we justly laugh at an older wisdom?
Is it weakness that stirs desire in the heart
of the young painter Of the prairie to see
miracles of Raphael, Of TitiGn Of Correg-
gio? Is it servility that draws the Ameri-
can sculptor to study the marbles of An
gelo and Phidias? Isit mistrust of his own
land and its genius that sends the architect
10 the schools Of Paris, the physician 20
Germany, the artificer to the countries that
sent wonders of delicate art to the Phila-
6elphia exhibition?
Is it is the shallow love of an echo that
will not let the scholar rest until he comes
face to face with the great masters of
human lore, and treads the great libraries,
Eheir workshops? is it slavishness or 10y
atty of the soul which makes the land of
Chaucer and Shakespeare, of Burns and
Scott, enchanted ground to the native of a
continent which Only because it is of re-
cent civilization is not yet stepped in the
soft air of glorious tradition?
Would not our melodioUs monitor agree
that it is beca,ise other and smaller coun-
tries are so sincerely devoted to the main
tenance Of lyric art, so versed in it, so edu-
Gated by taste and long training and ex-
perlenCe- Gn3G UnSlr opinion Is Uhe opinion
of knowledge, and therefore that their
praise signifies what the verdict of less ex-
perience and training does not signify?
Would not and should not the word of
Iinn9us command for botanist a conf
dence which the diploma of many an ex-
cellent American college could not secure?
When the audiences that made the fame
of Fhaiberg, of Chopin, of List, of Rubin
stein salute Paderewsk1. may we not listen
with just prepossession? 1t is a familiar
phrase of Cicero, iaudari lauGato. APP
probation from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise
indeed, says our later version.
Is the case fully stated when it is said
that we applaud because Europe applauds?
Is it not rather because we find that Europe
justly applauded? Its applause properly
bespeals our attention; but, in fact, our
applause does not follow ex of6cio, like
Diggory's laugh the squire's familiar jest;
IL follows our own perception of desert
"a perception undoubtedly and properly
guickened and guided by larger experience.
George William Curtis in Harper's