In Saying
This, I Do Not Think That I Am Proclaiming Anything Disgraceful To
England, Though I Am Proclaiming Much That Is Creditable To
America.
To the Americans of the States was given the good fortune
of beginning at the beginning.
The French at the time of their
revolution endeavored to reorganize everything, and to begin the
world again with new habits and grand theories; but the French as a
people were too old for such a change, and the theories fell to the
ground. But in the States, after their revolution, an Anglo-Saxon
people had an opportunity of making a new State, with all the
experience of the world before them; and to this matter of
education they were from the first aware that they must look for
their success. They did so; and unrivaled population, wealth, and
intelligence has been the result; and with these, looking at the
whole masses of the people - I think I am justified in saying -
unrivaled comfort and happiness. It is not that you, my reader, to
whom in this matter of education fortune and your parents have
probably been bountiful, would have been more happy in New York
than in London. It is not that I, who, at any rate, can read and
write, have cause to wish that I had been an American. But it is
this: if you and I can count up in a day all those on whom our eyes
may rest and learn the circumstances of their lives, we shall be
driven to conclude that nine-tenths of that number would have had a
better life as Americans than they can have in their spheres as
Englishmen.
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