The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1896-03-12
WHAT'S the Matter2

puIpklH PIE #uiSaSree With Its little
stomach and put it out Of sorts? Was
that what made it go and write in The
Forum such an awful screed against
everything American as that entitled
Some Aspects of American Civiliza-
tion?" Really if it wasn't a college
professor, that, too, in great big Harvard
university itself, we should think from
the disgruntled outpour in The Forum
that it was a disappointed politician.
1t is, however, Professor Charles
Eliot Norton. He sets in and abuses up
hill and down dale'' everything Ameri-
can that he has space for. It is a grave
misfortune with US that we are such a
new people, SO very new, and therefore
have to do without SO many "precious
legacies from the past, the beauty, the
grace and the appeal to the poetic imag-
nation which belong to the old world.
Why, then, does not Mr. Norton go to the
old world and stay there if he feels so
bad about it? We would grieve, but we
could do without him. By the way,
however, we are getting big doses of
these precious legacies from the past'
every year., moro than we know what
to do with, in the shape of hordes Of
ignorant, dirty, diseased, dangerous i'm
migrants from this same beautiful and
poetic old world. They are the logical
product Of it. How does Professor Nor
ton like them?
Furthermore, our people are proper
tionaliy much more ignorant than they
were 100 years ago, declares the profess
OF. We have not schools enough, our
children do not attend them if we have,
and finally public schools don't educate
anyhow We are to infer that a proper
education can only be got from high
toned American college professors who
think more highly Of Eng land than they
do of their own country. Professor Nor
ton says in SO many words that any en-
couragement of spirit of hostility to
England sis far more threatening to the
United States than it is to Great Brit
ain.' Take him home, England, do
take homo your foster son and bring
him up by hand.
He has also his little whack at our
state politics. the spectacle Of the con-
troll Of public affairs in New York pass
ing from the hands of a man like Gov
ernor Hill to another like Platt, and of
Pennsylvania slowed away in the pocket
of a man like Quay-all three of them
men OF low order Of ability and with
out single, trait that would Justify
popular regard, not statesmen or ora
tors, not educated men or gentlemen. -
But what would Professor Norton have?
We can't all be college professors, can
we?
Our athletic games fall little short of
a national disgrace because of their
lack of fair play and common honesty.
American children are the most I'M
whipped cubs in the world, for their
lack Of good manners and for their i'm
Standardization on the street cor
ner and toughs in college. The whole
barbarian lot Of us are characterized by
bad manners, says Norton. It is true
we have not the high bred courtesy that
we shall have little later. We are be-
ginning to cultivate it now, however.
But what then? We do have a love for
our country, and deep, intense Amer
icanism which may we'll be noted by
the dyspeptic little Miss Nancys that sit
up nights to howl at us-noted and i'm
itated as we'll.
Most of all, however, the professor
whose baked beans have not agreed with
him vents his spleen Oh that low down
engine Of wickedness, "the common
American newspaper. % F'They afford an
image of people with few mental in
terests, Of uncultivated tastes, of shall
low disposition, of dull lives and devoid
Of intellectual or moral education of a
high order
Charles Eliot Norton, sit in your
chimney corner and scold Meanwhile
the great, loyal American people are
uuo0AluS GAlS way anu . GIdL W uuu Tile
light. They are building good roads;
they are passing compulsory education
laws; they are purifying their city gov
ernments; they are cleaning out the
slums; they are trying in all ways to
make themselves healthy, beautiful and
good. They are spending $4,000, 900
every year in Europe in order o'see and
learn from that tremendous culture Mr..
Norton thinks so much of. And if war
should ever come to this beloved coun-
try, which heaven forbid, then the very
first to go out and shed their blood in it's
defense would be the editors Of the COM
mon American newspapers. And the
college professor croaks on.
The agrioulturists of New York have
formed a state farmers congress. They
will hold themselves together tight and
fast and enGeayor in all ways to further
the interests of that part of the COM
munity that tills the soil. Farmers ev-