feelings toward us are of the very highest importance. If we can imagine such a person giving free expression to his feelings at the first sight of such a phenomenon (a phenomenon observable in all other European states equally with our own), what he would say would probably be something after this manner: "These nations of Europe present some very singular anomalies. Their newspapers, of whatever country, are full of complaints of the absolute inability of all foreigners to gain the least comprehension of the institutions of that particular country. The English and Germans alike speak of the French as a nation wholly swallowed up in themselves, and ludicrously ignorant of every thing outside themselves. The French retaliate by calling the Germans barbarians and the English shopkeepers. The Americans say that no foreigner, except a certain De Tocqueville, has ever gained the smallest glimpse of their character; while the English affirm that the Americans themselves are blinded to every thing except what they think their national grandeur. And what is more," the observer might go on to remark, "these complaints are, for the most part, not only true, but obvious, and obviously disastrous in their results. Witness the fact that the leading English newspaper, not many years ago, inserted a leading article on what turned out to be an absurd mistake of its own respecting one of the chief institutions of Germany—the Zollverein—a mistake which it had to acknowledge the day after. Or, again, witness the fact that one of the chief French authors can hardly employ an English word in his books without a ludicrous misspelling. Or, again, the more serious fact that the French enter upon a war in the firm belief that they will find allies in the States of South Germany; instead of which, they find them enthusiastic enemies. This being the case," he might conclude by saying, "I naturally looked to those bodies in these countries whose office it is to attain and diffuse knowledge to the widest degree possible—the universities—assuming that the means of remedying so great a defect in knowledge, and one so universally complained of, would at any rate be under their consideration. To my surprise, I find that they had hardly even noticed the subject at all. Every one of these nations seemed to me to be in the position of a man whose whole time was occupied in investigating the biography of his great-grandfather, while with his relations, connections, friends, and acquaintances, he only transacted the most barely necessary business for the shortest possible space of time."
An observer who spoke in this way would, it may be granted, be speaking in ignorance of many of the causes of the phenomenon he wondered at, and of the practical necessities that might be held to justify it. But he would surely not have in the least exaggerated the strangeness of the phenomenon. Every conceivable branch of knowledge—physical science, mathematics, philosophy, theology—all ancient culture, is thought in England worth systematic study, except this. It is only the condition, material and spiritual, of the nations with whom
