Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/595

Rh our Latin neighbors and for which they have to make allowance in dealing with us.

In offering these adverse criticisms of the South American as he appears to me to-day, I must beg not to be misunderstood. There are naturally many exceptions to the rule. I know personally many individuals that do not have any of the characteristics here attributed to South Americans in general. I have in mind one South American, a resident of a much despised republic, whose ancestors fought in one of the great battles of the Wars of Independence, who has as much push and energy as a veritable New York captain of industry. He has promoted a number of successful industrial enterprises. He keeps up with the times; he meddles not in politics; he enjoys such sports as hunting with hounds and riding across country. The difference between him and the New Yorker is that he speaks three or four languages where the New Yorker only speaks one or two and he has sense enough to take many holidays in the year where the New Yorker takes but few. I know another, a cultured young Chilean lawyer who gives dinner parties where the food is as good, the manners as refined, the conversation as brilliant and the intellectual enjoyment as keen as any given anywhere. He, too, speaks four languages fluently and could put to shame the average New York lawyer of his own age in the variety of topics upon which he is able to converse, not only at his ease but brilliantly and with flashes of keen wit. I know another, a distinguished historian, who has been described by a well-known American librarian, himself the member of half a dozen learned societies, as the "most scholarly and most productive" bibliographer in either North or South America.

Such men are worth cultivating. We have much to learn from them, especially of the value of polite language and courteous intercourse. At close range we may dislike some of their manners and customs, but not any more so than European critics disliked ours half a century ago. And not any more so, be it remembered, than the South American dislikes ours at the present day.

The South Americans of to-day have so many of the faults of the Americans of yesterday that all our dealings with them should be marked by appreciative understanding and large-minded charity. Any feeling of superiority, like that "certain condescension" which we have noted (and hated) in foreigners, will only make our task the harder, and international goodwill more difficult to achieve.