The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-01-10
ANGLoMAN1A IN FRANCE.
English Prestige, Artistic, Social
and Moral, Never Higher.

has the prestige of Observation-Disclosures
al, artistic, social and moralEstood so
high in France as at the present time
While the Russian alliance has in no
perceptible degree drawn the republic
and the great autocracy together, quite
otherwise is it with the two countries
SO often, politically speaking, at vari-
ance. This subject might we'll I'll many
pages. I will endeavor in the briefest
possible language to indicate a phase
and account for an enthusiasm desig-
mated as Anglomania by unfriendly
critics over the water. The immense
attention of late years paid in France
to English institutions, art anad letters
has not escaped general observation
among ourselves. Indeed, some of the
excellent works recently published on
such topics have been translated, nota-
bly, M. Demolin's celebrated eulogium of
the Anglo-Saxon. Our public schools,
our colonies. our trades unions have
found opponents in M. Max Leclerc, Lee
roy-Beaulieu and others equally impair
tial and equally competent historians,
abandoning the legendary animus of
their predecessors, have treated Eng
land from judicial point of view in
manuals written for the Lycee and pri-
mary schools. Following in their wake,
critics have turned from Tolstoi and
Turgeneff to Wordsworth and Elizabeth
Barrett Browning.
The most important book inspired by
the poet of THE Excursion" in any Ian
guage is from the pen of Lycee Pro-
fessor, while another enthusiast for
English poetry, M. Texte, has just writ
ten a charming monograph on Aurora
Leigh"
Nor is English art neglected, either by
individuals or the State Most readers
are doubtless familiar with the papers
that have from time to time appeared
on Ruskin, Burne-Jones and others in
the Revue des Deux Mondes," and
surely most visitors in Paris will visit
the recently opened "Salle Anglaise' of
the Louvre, a gallery devoted to Con-
stable, Romney and other old English
painters Artistic folks in France pa
per their walls with the designs of Will
lam Morris and Walter Crane. The
decoration of a modern French draw
ing-room recalls Melbury Road.
Other importations from our shores
may be learned by referring to the lat
est dictionary appendix. Golf, foot
ball, paper chase have been added to
the list of outdoor sports. "Patiences,''
or card games of patience, will soon,
doubtless, follow. We are no longer
invited by French hosts to midday de-
buttered toast is the accompaniment Of
3 o'clock tea.
England, indeed, so say d-fashioned
French folks, has been overpraised, and
is in danger of being over-imitated.
This talk about Anglo-Saxon excel
lence is all very WELL observed one
critic of this caliber to an English
friend but we French folks have our
own character, let us keep it. I have
Travelled in your country, and have
good English friends, nevertheless,
hold to my opinion. The present fash
ion of anglicizing everything is being
carried much too far. Your young
girls who go out cycling with their
friends of the other sex alone have been
brought up to independent habits, and
risk nothing by indulging in them.
With young French girls the case is
AullC CAlt anu 1 4Ol CSCC TIC 6IdfSSb
danger from such an innovation"
How far English and French educa-
ton differ in the nursery the following
examples will show. Quite lately two
little English boys, aged respectively
and 8, received Royal Humane Society's
medals for rescue and attempted rescue
of their companions.
And the other day a Frenchwoman
and her English guest were partaking
of tea in a neighbours garden. Look
at that big boy Of NINE" remarked the
former. He has his nose in book
from morning till night, yet has to be
washed and dressed like a baby. How
French all this isl" Nevertheless, these
coddled, petted, overcared-for little be-
ings are often subjected to ordeals hap
PLY unknown among ourselves We
have no Lycees-those dreary prisons
to which hapless children are con-
signed in tender years, those "Bastiles
awaiting another revolution" so NOV
ingly described by Jean Aicard in his
photographed novel, Lame dun
enfant."
Just as French educationalists are
insisting upon the superiority of our
nursery regime-a following up of Her
bert Spencer's theories so do they
clamor for Lycee Intervals or the mass
ing together of boarders-hundreds of
boys from years and upward as COM
pletely shut out from home and fem
mime influence as our criminals in
Portland Prison. M. Aicard's book is a
bitter indictment Of the military sys-
tenn in education. There is one point
most strikingly brought out by all
French writers in England. Whether
they are treating of our schools, our
social and philanthropic movements,
our trades unions or our home legisla-
ton, one and all dwell on the education
of the conscience with US, the moral
and religious training as developed in
the various phases of our national life.
Take, for instance. the great work of
the first living French philosopher LA
Psychologist due Peuple Francais' of
NJ. Fouillee. TT has been Justly re-
marked" he writes. ''that the temper
ance cause makes far more progress in
Protestant countries, where it Is es-
sentially allied with religion. Again.
take the conscience clause and vac
cination. In the excellent little fort
nightly review called la Fol ct. la
Vie,' another writer thus concludes a
paper on the subject: Happy the peo-
pie with whom such self government
-