The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-06-05
Are Americans Degenerating ?

In the course of tonic essay in the
Chap-Bo John Burroughs mentions
that he recently asked a man who had
oeen for over thirty years a professor
in one of our large colleges for women
If he noticed any describable difference
in the character of the girls today, who
came under his influence, from those of
twenty or more years ago. The reply
is suggestive. HE reluctantly con-
fessed,' says Mr.. Burroughs, that
there was an appreciable difference
difference in earnestness; the girls
Of today were less serious and earnest
than those of decade or more ago.
More of them were sent to college;
fewer of them sent themselves"
1t is the essayist's belief that this
same difference can be seen in the
colleges for men. He accounts for 1t
by citing the fact that the leisure
classes are increasing, and by affirm
ing that such increase is not favorable
to the production of great men. 1.-THE
production of great men," he asserts,
requires a certain heroic fiber in the
community, certain, degree of plain
living; and if not of high thinking,
then of serious and worthy aspiration.
The chances of a great man being born
in this country were probably vastly
greater fifty or seventy-fve years ago
than at present, Notwithstanding so
many more children are brought into
the world. The farther we get from
primitive and pioneer conditions, from
the direct struggle with elemental
forces, the less, it seems, are our
chances Of producing a great charac-
ter. A certain isolation, a throwing
back of men upon themselves, a deep
ening and strengthening of the basic
human qualities. seems necessary"
This opinion is so widely prevalent
that it is hazardous to venture a con-
tradiction; nevertheless we make bold
to challenge 1t. The great characters
of pioneer times were great because
there We're few of them and those few
had the field to themselves. From the
dull background of untamed nature
they stood forth as much by rea-
son of contrast as because of
phenomenal intrinsic superiority. To-
day, every other man, almost, among
the multiplying millions, is an entered
competitor in the race for distinction
and it requires qualities of an extra
ordinary kind to project one individual
high above the steadily advancing
average level. 1t is true that modified
social conditions have altered the forms
of human endeavor; but it remains to
be proved that they have eased the
struggle. Daniel Boone could shoot In
dians and tread the tracliless intrica~
cies Of the forest; yet Daniel today
would, we suspect, have need of all his
old-time keenness, nerve and sagacity
If entered, for example, as a rival to
the Goulds the Pierpont Morgans and
the Sages on Wall street.
Let us follow this argument of Mr..
burroughs out to its logical conclusion.
If in fifty or seventy-fve years the
United States have lost the power to
produce great men; If in that brief
time earnestness, vigor "the heroic
| fiber" have diminished among the
young to such an extent as he appears
to believe, then II would be fair to
deduce the proposition that this deteri-
| Grafton must continue. We cannot re-
store the wilderness. We cannot recall
primitive conditions. If those condi-
tions were essential to the production
Of greatness, and IL those conditions
| have disappeared irrevocably, then it is
| clear that the hope for greatness in
future is to be increasingly futile. How
does this hypothesis tally with the his
| tory of other lands? How does it cor
respond with the facts in, say, Eng
land? England is no longer primitive.
Centuries have interviewed since on that
island the conditions Of social existence
were approximately similar to the So
| cial conditions in the United States
nifty or seventy-five years ago. Has
English manhood lost the qualities that
make for greatness: Are her public
men dogenerates? DO Gladstone, Sails
bury, Chamberlain and Balfour in po-
litical life. Herbert Spencer, Darwin
and Huxley, among the scientists and