e Americans in their ravening
famine reach out to grasp at once all that is good and beautiful in the
world, it may be that at first they cannot assimilate all that they draw
to them--they can grasp, but not absorb. To that extent there may be
much that is superficial in American culture. But every year and every
day they are sucking the nourishment deeper--the influences are
penetrating, percolating, permeating the soil of their natures (yes, I
know that I am running two metaphors abreast, but let them run)--and it
is a mistake to conclude because in some places the culture lies only on
the surface that there are not others where it has already sunk through
and through. Above all is it a mistake to suppose that the emotion
itself is shallow or that the yearning is not as deep as their--or any
human--natures.

* * * * *

It is possible that some critics may be found cavilling enough to accuse
me of inconsistency in thus celebrating the praise of War in a work
which is avowedly intended for the promotion of Peace. Carlyle wisely,
if somewhat brutally, pointed out that if an Oliver Cromwell be
assassinated "it is certain you may get a cart-load of turnips from his
carcase." But one does not therefore advocate regicide for the sake of
the kitchen-gardens.

FOOTNOTES:

[167:1] What is said above--or at least what can be read between the
lines--may throw some light on the fact, on which the English press
happens as I write to be commenting in some perplexity, that whereas
certain Australians among the Rhodes scholars have distinguished
themselves conspicuously in the schools, the only honours that have
fallen to Americans have been those of the athletic field. Those
journals which have inferred therefrom a lack of aptitude for
scholarship on the part of American youth in general may be amiss in
their diagnosis.

[169:1] To avoid misapprehension, let me say that, as an Oxford man, I
have all the Oxford prejudices as fully developed as any Englishman
could wish. Rather a year of Oxford than five of Harvard or ten of
Minnesota. How much of this is sentiment, and worthless, and how much
reason, it would be hard to say and is immaterial. The personal
prepossession need not blind one either to the greatness of the work
which the other institutions do, nor to the defensibility of that point
of view which sets other qualities, in an institution the professed
object of which is to educate and t