if it were not relieved by more encouraging signs. But it must be remembered that in the past hundred years we have accomplished a good deal of permanent work, as the world views it. If we are all in debt, we have built some splendid cities; constructed great bridges; netted the land with railways and telegraph wires; dotted the coasts with light-houses and harbors; built at enormous and sinful expense great public edifices, -- most of them ugly and inconvenient; got a steady market for our increasing crops of grain and cotton; and, after a long struggle, established manufactures that compete the world over with our ancient and most skillful rivals. We can sell American cambrics in London because they are better than the products of the Lancashire looms; and the Germans can sell iron-ware in South America and sewing-machines in Italy only by counterfeiting the American trade-marks.

Up to this time the country has been divided sectional-wise on political issues, and political issues that took a strong hold on account of the moral ideas involved. In one way or another, and even when unacknowledged, the slavery question was involved in every other question. But the sectional antagonism arising from this cause is daily dying away. We like to believe it is agreed, South and North, that we shall set our faces as one people in a new direction. Astronomically speaking, while heretofore one part of the country insisted on keeping its eye on the north star, and another on the south star, we now agree to fix our gaze on the temperate zone.

For some time to come the national issues must be material rather than moral. With such diverse climates and productions, it is unavoidable that there should still be sectional rivalries, but these are within the limits of a common national interest. The change taking place is more marked at the South than in the West. In the South, for reasons apparent, there has been little accumulation of wealth. There has been little exercise of economy. What was made was spent, and, American fashion, sometimes before it was made. Its wealth

consisted in its laborers, in lands which its system of labor always tended to depreciate, and in the next crop. The system of labor discouraged manufactures, and also the highest agricultural development. What, for other reasons, happened to the soil of New England happened to the South on a larger scale. The early settlers of the New England farms cut away the forests and skinned the thin soil of its virgin wealth, and then were driven into manufacturing and commerce, or to the less easily exhausted lands of the West. Their abandoned farms have been largely taken by foreigners, who apply more economical methods, and are content with less gain for the moment. The South had even less economy and forethought. It exhausted its lands by superficial culture, and did very little to develop the great resources of the country. No one can doubt that there is now a decided change in the South in respect to attention to its material interests. It is beginning vigorously to join the great productive and accumulating movement of the country. The South raises annually more cotton than ever before, and it needs but a few years of economical husbanding of resources to give a solid basis to other industries besides the agricultural.

With lines of communication established over the continent, slavery out of the way, and manufactures fairly rooted, we do not doubt that the country, notwithstanding temporary paralysis from speculation, universal living beyond our means, and debt, is about entering, North and South, upon an era of development of wealth and accumulation. Individual instances of great accumulation already multiply before our eyes. This will go on. Already corporations and institutions, religious and secular, are amassing vast properties. Where

are there any signs that this tendency will not increase?

It is a good thing for a country to be rich if there is anything like a fair distribution of wealth; it is a bad thing if the wealth is massed in a few hands. In the one case there is the comfort of all; in the other there is luxury for the few,

and misery for the many. It is a good thing for the country to be rich if the wealth is put to noble uses; it is a disaster if it is devoted to luxury. These are the truisms of history. And in their light the coming great material development of this country is full of anxiety.

The traveler from Philadelphia down the Delaware is impressed with the magnificent opportunities of this region. He is in the heart of the greatest possibilities. Nothing is wanting to the necessities of a dense and thriving population, and an unequaled variety of industries: a fat soil and a smiling land; a climate without great extremes; inexhaustible stores of iron and coal; forests within easy reach; and a superb river, broadening into an arm of the sea, destined erelong to be lined with ship-yards, to become an improved Mersey and a greater Clyde. This is not an unfair type of the varied capacities of the whole country. Wealth is thrust upon What will be the effect upon us, upon the American people, of the era of material prosperity? We know, historically, what is the result to a people who give themselves up to the temptations of wealth. Is there anything in our character, our situation, or the forces of religion and education, sufficient to save us from a like fate? We shall apprehend the danger by considering what is unfavorable.

us.

How shall we use it?

As to character, we have spoken of our wasteful and spendthrift propensities; of our eagerness to get money, unaccompanied by economy; of our tendency to display for the sake of position, partly growing out of our theory of equality; of the consequent liability to luxury and self-indulgence. In respect of indulgence, our very seriousness is somewhat against us. The American is sober, taciturn, intent in a grave way. Travelers think us a serious-minded, uncommunicative people. We lack vivacity of manner; have little gayety of temperament; little capacity to enjoy our selves without excess; not a habit of getting pleasure, like the Italians, the French, the Arabs even, out of simple things. We should hardly think our

selves launched upon a festive evening at a café when we had ordered a glass of water, two lumps of sugar, and a lucifer match. We want profusion, and we want things strong. We carry into our pleasures the same serious energy, with no relaxation in it, that we use to build a railway. There is an anecdote of a volunteer soldier who turned up in New York recently to receive the back pensions of thirteen years. It was a little fortune for a prudent man. The next day he landed in the station - house, without a cent in his pocket. He had compressed the delayed enjoyment of thirteen years into one royal night.

There is a notion, prevalent in and out of Congress, that we are somehow a peculiar people, and that our condition, our government, our isolation, exempt us not only from the universal laws of political economy, but from the rules that other nations, by long experience, have found necessary to healthful life; that there is an "American way" for everything, and that it is the best way. Intrenched in this conceit, we are disinclined to learn anything, simply because it is not American, from the English experiments in civil service, from the German organization of education, from the French household economy. The orator always carries his audience with him when he says of anything, "It is not suited to the genius of our people;" as if we had invented a new kind of intellect, and patented a new order of life. We used to hear, years ago, a great deal about an American school of landscape painting. We don't know what has become of it now; perhaps it disappeared at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. It should be said, however, that we make one exception in our exclusiveness: we take the foreign fashions, without regard either to our climate or

our means.

One result of this conceit, that we have not the common liabilities of other peoples, - joined to an ignorance of the history of other nations, has led us into the most fantastic and crude experiments. We suppose it is confidence in the purity of human nature that is re

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ducing our army to the Shaker standard. But it is in the regions of finance that we have specially distinguished ourselves, - in the adoption of theories and expedients that, over and over again, have brought disaster to other peoples. We do not doubt that many people think it is an American invention that you can make a dollar by stamping a piece of metal, one dollar; in God we trust;" that is, that you can induce people to give a dollar's worth of cloth for it; much as the Christian Commission sought to convert the army of the Potomac by sending the soldiers little biscuits stamped with texts of Scripture. The soldiers took the biscuits willingly; not, however, for the value of the stamp, but according to the grains fine of flour they contained.

If one were asked to name a characteristic of American life which is very prominent, he might say it is the desire to get something rather than to be something. This desire is not by any means confined to Americans, but it is more marked here than elsewhere because of the absence of traditions, and because of our flexible social condition. It constitutes a special danger in view of the coming struggle for material advantage and prosperity. It is a desire which cannot be too seriously considered by those who are getting the elements of their education and preparing for their careers; for it neglects thoroughness in education and preparation for the career. This desire, which is more than a tendency, may be described as a disposition to get place and rank, with little regard to fitness for them. It reverses the natural order, and presupposes that success in life is not due to training and discipline so much as it is to opportunity. Hence our many failures of all sorts, the direct result of our eager assumption of office, of business, of trades, without adequate preparation. The ambitious thought stirring in most young minds is what career they shall choose; not how they shall train themselves for a career. It is the ambition to do something rather than to learn how to do something; as we said, the eagerness to get a place rath

er than to train one's self for the duties of that place. It is unnecessary to say how opposite this is to the method which has made the Germans strong in every department of human endeavor. The leading idea in gymnasium and university is training, — solid preparation for the chosen career.

A familiar illustration of our self-confidence without preparation is that of the young lady who proposes to go upon the stage with no training, and seeks a manager when she should go to an elocutionist. It is the same in other affairs. The young man's thoughts of business or of an office are not so much in relation to his ability to perform it as to get into it. No doubt all things would be better done - from cabinet-making up to law-making- if people had a habit of getting ready to do things before they began. It is worth while to stop and think to whom it is that we intrust the most delicate duty performed in human society, -the making of our laws. Of course we know that our laws are made by our legislature. And who are the legislators? These law-makers are not the proper result of our political system, but of our political machine. And here again the young man has the precocious wisdom of his generation. If he determines to go into politics, or to enter the civil service of his country, he does not prepare himself for the duties of the one nor for the position coveted in the other; he makes himself an adept in the manipulation of caucuses and the securing of the favor of those who can help him. If he seeks a consulate at Naples, he does not study Italian; he "carries " his ward. Here, again, the American is more eager to get something than to be something; and yet it should be said in respect to the civil service that there is this excuse for the young man: there is no other way to get into it than that named. Our civil service is what the English was fifteen years ago, and it is about the most undemocratic in the world. It is closed to those who are not favored by the accident of political influence. The English service until recently was almost exclusively filled by

the aristocracy; it was the patronage of the Parliament and the ministry. Now, through the door of competitive examination, it is open to the humblest lad in the land if he have talent, and we may be sure that the father of the middle class will never surrender this privilege for his son. Nor will the American people, when they understand the subject, consent that so honorable and profitable a career shall be the object of patronage and the perquisite of successful political manipulation. They will insist that it shall be open to the fair ambition of those willing to fit themselves for it. It will become a legitimate career, like law or medicine; and one advantage of opening it to public competition and it is not unimportant - is the stimulus it will give to education.

Is it a relief to turn from minor politics to Congress? Perhaps we have never considered why it is that the American Congress stands so high in the opinion of this country and of the world. This is the reason: When a man contemplates the possibility of a congressional career, he sets himself seriously to prepare for that exalted station. He studies geography, especially that of his native land, so that he may not be liable to vote for an appropriation for digging a river where a turnpike would be better; he studies history, and American history thoroughly; he masters American politics; he devotes laborious days and nights to the acquisition of a knowledge of political economy, to a study of the laws of finance and of trade as they are illumined by our own expe

rience and that of other peoples; he makes himself familiar with the course of legislation as it affects the vital interests of the country, for he knows that he is to deal with imperial concerns, and that his votes will have a far-reaching influence in a vast republic. Perhaps he acquires the art of expressing himself concisely, clearly, and readily. When the people see a man thus accomplished, they take him up by a sort of popular movement in the party and send him to Congress. When he is there, he keeps himself in the background at first, studying the situation, and learning the art of parliamentary legislation, a science in itself. And the congressman so accomplished and so trained the people keep in Congress as long as he continues honest and capable and represents the principles of his district.

Such are some of the present aspects of American life. The topic is fruitful of suggestions, which we have no space to follow, and it is useless to moralize. Long ago the philosophers decided that it is important what a man is, not what he has. It was an apothegm of Solon that "satiety is generated by wealth, and insolence by satiety;" and again, that members of a community are most effectively deterred from injustice "if those who are not injured feel as much indignation as those who are." Or, to put this in modern phrases, we see the danger of a national habit that estimates success by possession, and not by character, and nurses the delusion of equality without sympathy between classes.

Charles Dudley Warner.