the days
of little things, still slaves--they of all people!--to an old and
outworn formula. They have not yet comprehended that within their arm's
reach there lies an achievement greater than has ever been given to a
nation to accomplish, and that they have but to take one step forward to
enter on a destiny greater than anything foreshadowed even in the
promise of their own wonderful history.

And when those who would be their coadjutors are willing and waiting and
beckoning them on, have they any right to hold back? Is it anything
other than moral cowardice if they do?

* * * * *

I wish that each individual American would give one hour's unprejudiced
study to the British Empire,--would sit down with a map of the world
before him and, summoning to his assistance such knowledge of history as
he has and bearing in mind the conditions of his own country, endeavour
to arrive at some idea of what it is that Englishmen have done in the
world, what are the present circumstances of the Empire, what its aims
and ambitions. I do not think that the ordinarily educated and
intelligent American knows how ignorant he is of the nation which has
played so large a part in the history of his own country and of which he
talks so often and with so little restraint. The ignorance of Englishmen
of America is another matter which will be referred to in its place. For
the present, what is to be desired is that the American should get some
elementary grasp of the character of Great Britain and her dependencies
as a whole.

In the first place it is worth pointing out that the Empire is as much
bigger than the United States as the United States is bigger than the
British Isles. I am not now talking of mere geographical dimensions, but
of the political schemes of the two nations. Americans commonly speak of
theirs as a young country--as the youngest of the Great Powers,--but in
every true sense the British Empire is vastly younger. The United States
has an established form of government which has been the same for a
hundred years and, all good Americans hope, will remain unchanged for
centuries to come. The British Empire is still groping inchoate: it is
all makeshift and endeavour. It is in about that stage of growth in
which the United States found herself when her transcontinental railways
were still unbuilt, when she had not yet digested Texas or California,
and the greater part of the West remained unsett