common-schooled

Updated: May 22, 2025

For the cultivated American of to-day, the Boomster booms and the Sibyl sibyllates in vain. I find no justification, in this city at any rate, for the old saying which described America as the most common-schooled and least educated country in the world.

William Archer - America To-day, Observations and Reflections

We have got to learn that statesmanship is the most complicated of all arts, and to come back to the apprenticeship system too hastily abandoned.... So long as we continue to be the most common-schooled and the least cultivated people in the world, I suppose we must consent to endure this condescending manner of foreigners toward us.

- The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index