Page:Despotism and democracy; a study in Washington society and politics (IA despotismdemocra00seawiala).pdf/166

 books. The result, however, was good, and she found it enabled her to meet men like Thorndyke on a common ground. In training her children, she had performed the inevitable function of training herself. Under her system, her children had become quieter and sweeter than American children usually are. The American women in general can more than hold their own with the women of other countries, except in two trifling particulars—the arts of housekeeping and of bringing up children. In these two things they generally fail egregiously, and the more money they have the more conspicuous is their failure. To paraphrase the Scripture—"See you the house of the rich American man? Behold therein a tribe of undisciplined and impudent servants and children." The newness of the rich in America may account for the undisciplined servants, of whom their mistresses are in mortal terror. But American women have been bringing up children ever since the settlement at Jamestown and the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, and every year they seem to know less about it.

However, Annette Crane's children were more quiet, more simply dressed than most American