Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and Men

[24] men, since the death of Richard Grant White, who was, moreover, as ardently anti-English in some directions as he was vehemently English in others. It is not found in our journalism, which aspires to lead the English, and actually leads it in enterprise, while falling behind it in evenness of execution and in the minor proprieties of life. It is not to be found in our public-school system or in our college systems, for these, where they are not American, are German. It is not found in our library methods, for in the librarians' conventions of the last few years Americans have led and not followed. Even when we come on more intimate and domestic ground, limitations still exist. Our standard of cookery, so far as we have any, is French and not English. No American lady would wish to be charged with dressing like an English woman, and no American man, when travelling anywhere but in England, would wish to be taken for an Englishman, for the simple reason that Americans are everywhere so much more popular. Nor would any one of our own countrymen desire to be said to speak foreign languages like an Englishman. Even in our amusements there exists a similar limitation, In yachting the interest is in the American type of yachts; as to horse-racing, mainly in the American breed of trotting-horses; our college students compete in base-ball, rarely in cricket; and almost all