modelled their navy on the British, but not their army, nor
their banking system, nor did they copy much from British commercial or
industrial methods--nor did they take the British system of education.

The United States has been less free to choose. The Japanese had a new
house, quite empty, and they could do their furnishing all at once. The
American nation, though young, has, after all, a century of domestic
life behind it, in the course of which it has accumulated a certain
amount of furniture in the form of institutions, prejudices, and
traditions, some of which are fixtures and could not be torn out of the
structure if the nation wished it; others, though movable, possess
associations for the sake of which it would not part with them if it
could. Fortunately, however, the house has been much built on to of late
years and what goods, or bads, are already amassed can all be stowed
away in a single east wing. All the main building (the eastern wing used
to be the main building, but it is not now), and particularly the
western end and the annex to the north, are new and empty, to be
decorated and furnished as the owner pleases. And while the owner, like
a sensible man, intends to do all that he can to encourage home
manufactures, he does not hesitate to go as far afield as he likes to
fill a nook with something better than anything that can be turned out
at home.

Nothing strikes an Englishman more, after he comes to know the people,
than this eclectic habit, paradoxically combined as it is with an
intense--an over-noisy--patriotism. "The best," the American is fond of
saying, "is good enough for me"; and it never occurs to him that he has
not entire right to the best wherever he may find it. In England it is
only a small part of the population which considers itself entitled to
the best of anything. The rest of the people may covet, but the best
belongs to "their betters." The American knows no "betters." He comes to
England and walks, as of right, into the best hotels, the best
restaurants, the best seats at the theatres--and the best society. He
buys, so far as his purse permits, and often his purse permits a great
deal, the best works of art. The consequence is that the world brings
him of its best. It may defraud him once in a while into buying an
imitation or a second-class article patched up; but, on the whole, the
American people has something like the best of the world to choose from.
And what is true of th