Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/109

Rh in the gallery of the Senate many elegant toilettes, and very lovely faces, which seem to show themselves there—only to be seen. Again and again, as I gaze on those lovely faces, I am obliged to say silently, regarding their expression, “How unmeaning!” And involuntarily, but invariably, I am impressed more and more with the conviction, that the women of America do not in general equal that good report which some European travellers have given of them. I would that it were otherwise. And the beautiful examples which I have seen of womanly dignity and grace do not contradict my opinion. But it is not the fault of the women. It is the fault of their education, which, even when it is best, merely gives scholastic training; but no higher training for the world and social life. I cannot help it. The men of America appear to me in general to surpass the women in real development and good breeding. And it is not to be wondered at. The American man, if he have received only a defective school education, enters early into that great school of public and civil life, which in such manifold ways calls forth every faculty, every power, and whatever capacity for business nature has endowed him with. Thus he becomes early familiar with the various spheres of life, and even if he should not fathom any of them, still there are no cardinal points in them which are foreign to him, so far as they have reference to the human weal, and the well-being of social life. Besides, he acquires, through his practical life, local and peculiar knowledge, so that when one converses with a man in this country, one is always sure of learning something; and should he have received from Mother Nature a seed of a higher humanity, then shoot up, as if of themselves, those beautiful examples of mankind and man, which adorn the earth with an almost perfected humanity, some of which I have become acquainted with under the denomination of “self-made men.”