One day several years ago, when Mr. Lowes Dickinson's statement that he
had found no conversation and--worse still--no conversationalists in
America was fresh in our outraged minds, I happened to meet an English
woman who had spent approximately the same amount of time in our country
as had Mr. Lowes Dickinson. "What has been your experience?" I anxiously
asked her. "Is it true that we only 'talk'? Can it really be that we
never 'converse'?"

"Dear me, no!" she exclaimed with gratifying fervor. "You are the most
delightful conversationalists in the world, on your own subject--"

"Our own subject?" I echoed.

"Certainly," she returned; "your own subject, the national subject,--the
child, the American child. It is possible to 'converse' with any
American on that subject; every one of you has something to say on it;
and every one of you will listen eagerly to what any other person says
on it. You modify the opinions of your hearers by what you say; and you
actually allow your own opinions to be modified by what you hear said.
If that is conversation, without a doubt you have it in America, and
have it in as perfect a state as conversation ever was had anywhere. But
you have it only on that subject. I wonder why," she went on, half-
musingly, before I could make an attempt to persuade her to qualify her
rather sweeping assertion. "It may be because you do so much for
children, in America. They are always on your mind; they are hardly ever
out of your sight. You are forever either doing something for them, or
planning to do something for them. No wonder the child is your one
subject of conversation. You do so _very_ much for children in America,"
she repeated.