AMERICA CAN TEACH US

Evening Star, Issue 19529, 9 April 1927, Page 9

AMERICA CAN TEACH US

PROUD WORKERS AND IDOLISED WOMEN An American is taught at home and at school that he owes a debt to his country, a debt that a good citizen ought to pay (writes H. Do Vero Stacpoole, in the ‘Sunday Chronicle’). A Briton, whatever Ids degree, believes that Britain owes him something. Comrade Cook calls it “The Right to Live.” Nature recognises no such right; and the Americans are nearer to Nature than wo are. As a boy I thought that I was entitled to a reasonable amount of hunting and shooting to bo paid for by others. Boys at the national schools expected tips and doles from the “ quality.” To-day, our artisans demand a maximum wage for a minimum amount of work. It is rare with us to find a love of work for work’s sake. Tho average American boy tackles his school text-books with a zest which astounded me till I learned from him that he had to “ make good,” because Ids father would be “let down” if ho didn’t. Accordingly ho helped himself with a large spoon to tho educational fare provided. BIG OUTPUT. I never hoard such a boy say: “I hope my father will inc.reate my allowance.” He is more likely to observe: “ I shall keep myself before I’m eighteen.” Americans take pride in their work; they want to “ get there with both feet.” This makes for efficiency, a favorite slogan. Outworn machinery is scrapped, output is increased. An American miner earns big wages, but his output is four times what it is per man in England and Wales. In America a stream is expected to rise higher than its source; 5011th is served; not age. Pride in work and efficiency, both linked with a disdain for what “ has been,” established the trusts and combines. Silurians and “moss-backs” predicted disaster. Tho exact opposite lias taken place. COMBINED CLUBS. Their country clubs can teach us a lesson. In our small towns and villages the football, cricket, golf, and tennis clubi are each “on its own.” One efficient management, one spacious clubhon.se, would servo the community bettor, but tradition and class distinctions obstruct co-operation, America has recuperative powers which wo may well envy. Failure is the stiepping-stono to success. Business is a succession of ups and downs. Failure, indeed, if the man has striven hard, is regarded as a feather in his cap. Ho is “drowned,” but ho bobs

up serenely. There is a deep-rooted contempt of the leisured and idle class, who cut no ico whatever. Their pronouncements are disdained. Their thirst for “improvements” is unslakcahle. Do we thank America as we should, for the extra bathrooms in our hotels and a thousand time-and-lahor-saving devices ? ■ IDOLISED WOMEN. , Detesting servility, American men are more considerate for others, and more sincerely polite than we arc. Their women have imposed a high standard. We must go far back to account for this. The pioneers who fought and coiifiucred against terrific odds placed their wives—who fought just as valiantly—on pedestals. Nothing was too good for them when the milk-and-honey day dawned. That tradition is still cherished. Whether or not the women have abused the consideration lavished upon them is another point. One humorist who stuck to his office when his wife was in Paris confided to mo that he was tired of standing hitched. As _ lovers, fathers, and husbands, Americans challenge attention. They make lovo better than we do, because . the girls demand raoro from their hoys —and they get_ it. As husbands and fathers, good citizens give generously nearly all that they have to - those dependent on them. ; BRITAIN NOT PLAYED OUT. ' What can America learn from England? A better and kindlier understanding of us and our ways not to bo gleaned from their school histories. We are not, and we never have been, the hereditary enemy; but about seventy-five million's of them so regard us, because they have been systematically taught to do SO.

I commend to them a finer appreciation of onr common tongue degenerating into a very vulgar tongue in the mouths of the “ Babbits.” Gracious curves— Crescent, Oval, and Circus—aro conspicuously- lacking in transpontine street architecture, because Uncle Sam likes to go straight to his objectives—and at excess speed. Ho travels so fast that he has lost the sense of “pace,” which includes the walk, trot, canter, and gallop. Our nicer appreciation of pace has cost ns championships. But to assume that we are, “played out” because wo have been handsomely trounced at polo, tennis, and golf is nonsense. If the Greek “pentathlon” were revived in modern form, if England challenged America, to send across a team of amateurs to compete against Englishmen _ in five successive events—polo, tennis, golf, shooting, and riding across country—the odds would bo in our favor. RELUCTANT CONCLUSION. An American admitted this to mo. He added.; “ We can teach you how to go fast; you can teach us how to go slow.”

Americans can learn from ns how to reduce their murder bill and a more rigorous administration of laws adopted from ns; wo can teach them a jnster consideration of “values” and “ angles.” They contend that onr angle is obtuse and their own acute, but the obtuse angle is the wider of the two. Still, all in all, after living seventeen years in America, where 1 trod many paths leading to the twin temples of fortune and misfortune, I am now sauntering to tho reluctant conclusion that wo con learn more from them than they can learn from us.