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One of the most serious charges made against the Americanized foreigner has been that through him there has developed in our political system a strain of corruption which endangers our institutions. Political corruption did not come with the immigrants: it was known in all its forms years ago.
Psychology has collected numerous examples of this mode of knowing in the instinctive and divinatory faculties of animals; in the spontaneous talent of certain men born mathematicians and artists, independent of all education; finally, in most of the primitive human institutions and monuments, products of unconscious genius independent of theories.
It became a fashion among the rich to give all that they had to these institutions for the salvation of their own souls. There was now no need of basket-making or the weaving of mats. The brotherhoods increased rapidly.
There, an the opponent of some of President Jackson's measures which were most offensive to the New England people, he was feted with extraordinary enthusiasm. He dined and supped, made speeches, which generally consisted of but one short anecdote, and visited nearly all the public institutions.
"We are worse off than our neighbours for the simple reason that it is the intention of the American system, which has been deliberately framed, and which is moreover the result of a bargain, to carry out its theory in practice; whereas, in countries where the institutions are the results of time and accidents, improvement is only obtained by innovations.
If the constitution is to be sacredly observed, why should there be a struggle for sectional ascendency? The instrument is the same in all latitudes, and does not vary with the domestic institutions of the several States.
There is probably no better test of the political genius of a nation than the power which it possesses of adapting old institutions to new wants; and it is, I think, in this skill and in this disposition that the political pre-eminence of the English people has been most conspicuously shown. It is difficult to overrate its importance.
And now, in order to give you a rough outline of the range of ideas from which I shall attempt to form a judgment concerning our educational institutions, before proceeding to disclose my views and turning from the title to the main theme, I shall lay a scheme before you which, like a coat of arms, will serve to warn all strangers who come to my door, as to the nature of the house they are about to enter, in case they may feel inclined, after having examined the device, to turn their backs on the premises that bear it.
But, as Machiavelli says of political institutions, that life may be preserved and renewed, if men should arise capable of bringing back the drama to its principles.
And cheerfully has that title been recognized, as the vast audience assembled here to-night, in spite of the storm, fully testifies; and well has our illustrious friend spoken of the growth of civilization and of the improvement in the condition of mankind, both in the Old World the institutions of which he has so lately observed and in the country which is proud to claim him as one of her children."
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