or bellowing, that roll in from the ancient realms of Pontiac and
the Prophet with a smoothness and velocity unattained by the most
luxurious coach that carried a First Congressman.

Everything that makes a nation, we are told, and the nation itself,
is the product of the soil. But the less immediate, finer and
most delicate fruits cannot usually be garnered until the soil is
thoroughly subdued. The mass of matter keeps the intellectual in
abeyance. Were Europe enlarged one-half, and her population reduced
to one-eighth what it actually is, the spectacle of culture she now
presents would be an impossibility. It is our merit that, thus brought
to American conditions, she would in no way compare with American
achievement. An offset wherewith we must at the same time be debited
is the aid we have, in so many forms, derived from her. Making every
allowance for this, it is a clear credit in our favor that one-tenth
of Christendom should have done so much more than a tenth of its
effective thinking simultaneously with taming the most savage half
of its domain. We have more than our share of laborers in the mental
vineyard, though fewer of them are master-workmen. We utilize for
Europe herself, and send back to her in its first available shape,
much of what her students produce. As between thought and substance,
the two continents interchange offices. We import the crude material
her philosophers harvest or mine, work it up and return it, just as
she takes the yield of our non-metaphorical fields and strata and
restores it manufactured. Much of the social, political and industrial
advancement of Europe within the century she may be said to owe to
the United States. Her governmental reforms certainly and confessedly
found here their germ. These gave birth to others of a social
character. In this manner, as well as more directly by our commerce,
inventions and example, we have stimulated her industry. We have