PICTURE OF AMERICA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 11 October 1928, Page 8

PICTURE OF AMERICA

,\ PERIOD OK SELF-SCRUTINY.

Speaking at (he Summer School of Gougraphv al Oxford, Professor A. P. Brigham,'of Colgate University, Now York, said that, in spite of the curious outbursts of which they had heard, the, American spread-eagle era, had passed and the period of self-scrutiny had conic. Americans were not, so sure they were always right, as they once were, though they might be more nearly sane than siime' of (heir European critics thought 'hey were. They wore, not selfsufficient, even in Nature's resources, nor in that manifold network of thoughts, (asles. purposes, and experiences, which made up life. If they could not indict a nation, neither could they fully describe a nation environmentally or spiritually. Some Americans, having seen the cliffs of Dover, four days of London, four hours of Oxford, and a dash of Strafford, Warwick, and Chester, .thought they know England, Some Englishmen were suro about Iho United States when they bad seen New York, Niagara, Chicago, and Washington. To make a composite photograph of a country or its jioople was an unattainable, art. Nowhere was such an achievement more, difficult than in the United Slates, with its vast sizo and limitless varieties of man and nature. Having drawn a contrast between iho States of Massachusetts and Virginia, Professor Prigham pointed out that there were 46 States besides. Who could understand such a country? When they saw the United States as a whole, or even tho long, narrow Atlantic border, they were baffled by the variety of what they tried to put'in a single picture. What was true of one part was not true of another. Full knowledge and broad charity should underlie serious judgment of his country or of any other. England should send not her literary egoists but her Lord Bryces if she wanted tho story of Ins country from an Englishman. ■ ,