d hostility of
England towards us in the Revolution, statements which they have to
remember and master by study from day to day, tinctured by the anxiety
about the examination ahead, when the students must know them or fail,
these incidents of school work being also tinctured by another emotion,
that of patriotism, enthusiasm for Washington, for the Declaration of
Independence, for Valley Forge--thus established in the regular way of
all complexes, this anti-English complex is fed and watered by what we
learn of the War of 1812, by what we learn of the Civil War of 1861, and
by many lesser events in our history thus far. And just as a Republican
will admit nothing good of a Democrat and a Democrat nothing good of
a Republican because of the political complex, so does the great--the
vast--majority of Americans automatically and easily remember everything
against England and forget everything in her favor. Just try it any day
you like. Ask any average American you are sitting next to in a train
what he knows about England; and if he does remember anything and can
tell it to you, it will be unfavorable nine times in ten. The mere word
"England" starts his complex off, and out comes every fact it has seized
that matches his school-implanted prejudice, just as it has rejected
every fact that does not match it. There is absolutely no other way
to explain the American habit of speaking ill of England and well of
France. Several times in the past, France has been flagrantly hostile to
us. But there was Lafayette, there was Rochambeau, and the great service
France did us then against England. Hence from our school histories we
have a pro-French complex. Under its workings we automatically remember
every good turn France has done us and automatically forget the evil
turns. Again try the experiment yourself. How many Americans do you
think that you will find who can recall, or who even know when you
recall to them the insolent and meddlesome Citizen Genet, envoy of the
French Republic, and how Washington requested his recall? Or the French
privateers that a little later, about 1797-98, preyed upon our commerce?
And the hatred of France which many Americans felt and expressed at that
time? How many remember that the King of France, directly our Revolution
was over, was more hostile to us than England?

Chapter X: Jackstraws

Jackstraws is a game which most of us have played in our youth. You
empty on a table a box of miniatu