Little Falls weekly transcript. (Little Falls, Morrison Co., Minn.) 1894-19??, 1896-04-10
What's the AIatter2

What's the Mstter7
ID Il getting oldl Did its Sunday
breakfast Of baked beans or its dinner Of
pumpkin pie disagree with it, little
stomach and put 1t ont Of sorts? Was
that what made it 60 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 college
professor. that, too, in great big Harvard
university itself. we should think from
the disgruntled outpour in The Forum
that 1t was . disappointed politician.
It is, however, Professor Charles
Eliot Norton. he sets in and abuses "up
hill and down dale" everything Ameri-
can that he has space for. 1t is . grave
misfortune with Us that we are such .
new people, 10 very new, and therefore
have to do without 40 many precious
legacies from the. past, the beauty, the
grace and the appeal to tho poetic imas.
ination which belong TO the old world.
Why, then. does not Mr.. Norton 60 to tho
old world and stay there If he feels 90
bad about it, We would grieve. but ws
could do without him. BY the way.
however, We are getting big doses Of
"these precious legacies from the past"
every year, more 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 arc tho logical
product Of it. How does Professor Nor
ton like them? y. "a
Furthermore. our people are proper
tionally much more ignorant than they
were 100 years ago. declares the profess
or. 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 q proper
education can only be got from high
toned American college professors who
think more highly Of England than they
do Of their own country Professor Nor
ton says in 60 many words that any en-.
oouragement Of a spirit Of hostility to
England lis far more threatening to the
United States than it 10 to Great Brit
ain" Take him home, England, do
take home your foster son and bring
him up by hand.
He has also his little whack at our
state politics-''th 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 Plat, and Of
Pennsylvania slowed away in the pocket
Of man like Quay-all three Of them
men Of a low order of ability and with
out a 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
q national disgrace because Of their
lack of fair play and common honesty.
American children are the most IN
whipped cubs in tho world, for their
lack of good manners and for their i'm
pertinence-hoodlums 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 love for
our country, and deep, intense Amer
icanism which may we'll be noted by
the dyspe1tic 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 on that low down
engine of wickedness, 1.-THE common
American newspaper. ''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
high order"
Charles Eliot Norton, sit in your
chimney corner and scold. Meanwhile
the great, loyal American people are
hustling this way and that to find the
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 to 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 its
defense would be the editors Of the COM
mon American newspapers. And the
college professor croaks on.
The death from paralysis Of Edgar W.