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Show ENGLISH IGNORANCE OF AMERICA.<br><br> One striking trait of British Philistinism is ignorance of other countries, and chiefly ignorance of America. To the Philistine this ignorance is his most cherished intellectual treasure. He guards it carefully, and plumes himself upon it. To enlarge and confirm it, he reads the travels of older Philistines, in America, and in some cases visits the States himself, to return with a confusion of mind and perversion of fact upon the subject which is the occasion of profoundest self-congratulation, and which makes him for the remainder of his life an oracle upon American affairs among his untraveled friends and neighbors. Let me frankly confess, however, that a like ignorance and confusion in regard to England among natives of other countries is sometimes courteously assumed by the Philistine. Some years before my visit to England a pretty and sweet mannered, although not very high class, Englishwoman was telling me, with the eyes and the voice of a dove, of something that had happened in Manchester; and then with gentle condescension she adding inquiringly; "You've ‘eard of Manchester?" I said that I had, and she was satisfied. There are little courts and alleys in London which are called mews; and I was kindly informed by one or two friends, as we passed some of them, that mews were places for the keeping of hawks in olden times. It was impossible even to laugh at interaction so kindly given; nor did I tell my good teachers that any school boy twelve years old in American knew that as well as they did. The elegant and very clever woman who recommended me to read Kenilworth before going to see the castle displayed this same sort of Philistinism. What need of telling her, either, that school boys in America read Kenilworth!-Richard Grant White, in Atlantic. |