The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-08-18
IGNORANCE ABOUT AMERICA. Well Educated Eneishmen Have Odd Notions About the United States.


 "Penn," in Philadelphia Bulletin.
 It Is amusing in England to note the odd notions which often exist there about the United States and things American on the part of ordinary Englishmen. once had occasion to go into Holborn publishing house, especially engaged in the sale of text books for schools. l ex- plained that one of the principal purposes of my call was to purchase one or two l books that would give an idea of the sort of interpretation which is put upon the events of the American revolution, as taught to English youth Courteous at tentlon was exhausted in the endeavors of the manager of the house to get me what l wanted in his stock or to send for it elsewhere But" said the young man, an apparently well educated clerk, who looked over the catalogue for the text books in vain to discover one which gave anything like a full account of the | revolution. T must say, sir, that when l | went to school we boys were taught very l little about 1t. Your American boys, sir, i must know more fin a day about English history than ours do about American his i tory in a year. l can see this from the kind of American text books we some time get here" It Is, therefore, not sur prising that most Englishmen grow up into manhood with queer ideas about the size and geography of the United States
  sachusetts and Pennsylvania. what New England is, the location of the IndfSns, what caused the revolution, the difference between q president and a governor, and other such themes of elementary import l have known not a few American boys and girls who could reel off a list of a~l the kings and queens of England from the time of William the Conqueror to Ed ward VII almost without stopping to take breath; but an English youth has usually no knowledge at all of American rulers save that he has read something about Washington. has a misty Idea of Lincoln as ma emancipator, and has heard just enough about Roosevelt in the newspa pers to be in some doubt as to whether he was an enterprising college professor or a reformed cowboy
 It Is still not uncommon to run across Englishmen who have an idea that New York is the capital of the United States. that Pennsylvania Is chiefly peopled by Quakers. that Indiana is the state which is given over to the Indians, that Chl- cago is on the Mississippi river that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest sol dier of general of the civil war. that Philadelphia is somewhere down in the southern country, that the American bus mess man usually goes about with q revolver or a bowie knife, and that Eng lishmen who live in this country are
 
 are a few of the specimens of the sort of observations which are made seriously by men who have had presumably what we would call a Common school edu- cation" Even excellent business men sometimes have hay notions on such things. l once met a delightful English gentleman, MT. James Webster of Liver pool He had just made a journey for the first time through Canada and the northern and western states. He ex- pressed his hearty admiration of most of the things he had seen, of the unex- pected degree of civilized comfort which he had found in our houses and of tho organization of hotels and great stores even in some of the youngest cities. He admitted that he had been considerably surprised at what he say. But he added, there Is nothing which will give more amusement when l settle down to home again and have my friends around the table than to tell them what l saw, then to watch how incredulously they will listen to me. Why, know that some of them actually believe that 1t Is not safe tc go into an American hotel un- less you have a six-shooter by the side of the plate on your table or under your pillow"