at all Americans who have
travelled and have seen their compatriot in his social relations with
foreigners, will agree with this, reluctant as I am to acknowledge it.

That a sister and brother brought up together, under the same influences,
should later differ to this extent seems incredible. It is just this
that convinces me we have made a false start as regards the education and
ambitions of our young men.

To find the reasons one has only to glance back at our past. After the
struggle that insured our existence as a united nation, came a period of
great prosperity. When both seemed secure, we did not pause and take
breath, as it were, before entering a new epoch of development, but
dashed ahead on the old lines. It is here that we got on the wrong road.
Naturally enough too, for our peculiar position on this continent, far
away from the centres of cultivation and art, surrounded only by less
successful states with which to compare ourselves, has led us into
forming erroneous ideas as to the proportions of things, causing us to
exaggerate the value of material prosperity and undervalue matters of
infinitely greater importance, which have been neglected in consequence.

A man who, after fighting through our late war, had succeeded in amassing
a fortune, naturally wished his son to follow him on the only road in
which it had ever occurred to him that success was of any importance. So
beyond giving the boy a college education, which he had not enjoyed, his
ambition rarely went; his idea being to make a practical business man of
him, or a lawyer, that he could keep the estate together more
intelligently. In thousands of cases, of course, individual taste and
bent over-ruled this influence, and a career of science or art was
chosen; but in the mass of the American people, it was firmly implanted
that the pursuit of wealth was the only occupation to which a reasonable
human being could devote himself. A young man who was not in some way
engaged in increasing his income was looked upon as a very undesirable
member of society, and sure, sooner or later, to come to harm.

Millionaires declined to send their sons to college, saying they would
get ideas there that would unfit them for business, to Paterfamilias the
one object of life. Under such fostering influences, the ambitions in
our country have gradually given way to money standards and the false
start has been made! Leaving aside at once the question of money