Evening Post. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1924. CLOSER RELATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 130, 28 November 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1924. CLOSER RELATIONS

It is a commonplace which is not seriously disputed on either side °* the Atlantic, or on either side oi the Pacific, that a serious breach between the two great divisions of tne English-speaking peoples wou d be a terrible calamity for the whole world, and that in their mutual sympathy and co-operation lies its best security for peace and prosperity. What form that cooperation may ultimately take is a question'about which the wisest of prophets will be least disposed to hazard a guess. That it may soon be so close as to be irresistible is a conclusion which is encouraged by the magnificent work accomplished under American initiative by the English-speaking combination at the Washington Conference of 1921-22. The exactly contrary conclusion that since the Armistice America has swung back not merely to pre-war but.to pre-nine-teenth-century ideals of isolation is one. which may be as plausibly ]iistified. The strong undercurrent of opposition to her participation m the World Court, and the abandonment, even by ex-President Wilson's party, of the proposal for her unconditional entry into the League of Nations, certainly show that the faith of George Washington still carries greater weight in her councils than that of Woodrow Wilson. But it is a far cry, indeed, from an Anglo-American understanding to the League of Nations, and, entirely regardless of their differences on the measure of co-oper-ation that may be ultimately or even immediately possible, all men of goodwill iri both nations are united' in their desire for a closer intimacy and a better understanding between the two as equally essential to their own well-being and the world's.

It is also common ground that intimacy and understanding can only spring from mutual knowledge, and that close co-operation on any terms must be insecure or even impossible until the parties are much better acquainted with one another than they are at present. The twisting of the lion's tail doubtless played a much smaller part in the elections decided a few weeks ago in the United States than they did on any previous occasion of the kind in living memory. And whatever the American democracy may think about the possibility of excluding Europe from its consideration, no European statesman, supposes that America can be excluded from the consideration of Europe. Still less does any statesman of Britain or of any of her Dominions dream that sfie can be excluded from any plans for the future of the British Empire. Yet our knowledge of America and,the American standpoint is none too intimate in the Dominions, and in the Mother Country it is probably still less. The wife of a distinguished American who had spent some months in England not long after the Washington Conference, mostly in the abodes of learning, remarked that the first person she had met in the country who seemed to take any interest in America was a visitor fromthe Dominions. If British culture makes this impression of ignorance, indifference, and aloofness upon American culture, the masses of the people have obviously a very long way to go before the gQal of a really discerning sympathy is in sight.

One excellent method for improving the position is suggested by the British Ambassador in an address reported to us by cable from Washington yesterday, and previously broadcasted for the benefit of Europe. The suggestion is that American history and geography should be taught in English schools, and a greater personal knowledge of the United States should be disseminated in order to strengthen the good understanding between the English-speaking nations. In spite of the immense scale' of the country America's history, like that of the Dominions; strikes an outsider as, to a very, large extent, parochial and dull and uninspiring. But America has her great men, her great episodes, and her great movements, and it is ridiculous to suppose that the lives of such men as Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt—to go no further than the names mentioned by Sir Esme Howard—could not be made just as interesting to British children as those, say, of William the Conqueror or George 111. For the young, at any rate, biography is still the main part of history, and on the personal interest excited by the careers of such great men a general knowledge of America's marvellous development and of the main currents of her history might be based which would give the rising generation a much better chance of appreciating what she means to the world, and especially to the.British Empire, than our own has had.

History, according to Mr. Henry Ford, is "bunk"—a remark which shows that his omniscience in regard to motor-cars does not-extend to all other fields of knowledge. But it must be admitted' that in his own country English history has often been something worse than lausk, It has been taught in such ssay. as to suggest fctoi in i'luakev

Hill" we may have a sort of comparative of bunk and that "buncombe" may be a near relation. But in recent years there has been an immense improvement. History is no longer used in the American schools, or, in a majority of them, as a means of poisoning the infant mind against the country whose despotic yoke the Fathers threw off a century and a half ago in order to found the first free State in the world. Mr. Chesterto'n's description of the American revolution as engineered by an English country gentleman against a German King has not yet been adopted by the American historians any more than by our own. But America is giving the British Empire a fair run in her schools, and it is time that we returned the' compliment. '