LIFE IN AMERICA

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 266, 6 August 1929, Page 9

LIFE IN AMERICA

AN ENGLISH PROFESSOR’S IMPRESSIONS “United States citizens often claim, not without reason, that the problem of capital and labour has been solved in their country by the universal diffusion of wealth,” said Dr. L. P. Jacks, principal of Manchester College, Oxford, on his return’ from a lecture tour in America. “There is no doubt that the standard of living as measured by the power to purchase commodities, is higher there than in any country in the world. Whether the standard of value is equally high is another question. The general feeling in the States appears to be one of confidence as to the future. At the same time there is an element of misgiving, like that of one who is travelling at a breakneck speed or standing on a giddy height. The voice of the pessimist is not unheard in the land. Most generalisations about the United States may be set down as false. The country is too vast, its life to many-sided, and the elements of it too heterogeneous, to be covered by any single formula. For example, it is not true that the people are bound body and soul to the worship of the ‘almighty dollar.’ Vast numbers of them are, but the forces which resist materialism are also in evidence, and are active everywhere. The intellectual life of America is marked by an intense eagerness to learn. One might almost say that the American mind welcomes disturbance by new ideas. The hunger for knowledge is widespread, like the diffusion of wealth. It is true that knowledge is mostly valued as a means of earning money, but that is by no means the end of the story. The, interest in education is widespread, and though the quality of American education has many glaring defects, these defects are well known to the leaders of American thought, and immense efforts are being made to remove them.”