social value of American national achievement has been written by Mr.
John B. Crozier; and the importance of the matter is such that it will
be well to quote it at length. Says Mr. Crozier in his chapter on
"Reconstruction in America," in the third volume of his "History of
Intellectual Development": "There [in America] a natural equality of
sentiment, springing out of and resting on a broad equality of material
and social conditions, has been the heritage of the people from the
earliest times.... This broad natural equality of sentiment, rooted in
equal material opportunities, equal education, equal laws, equal
opportunities, and equal access to all positions of honor and trust, has
just sufficient inequality mixed with it--in the shape of greater or
less mental endowments, higher or lower degrees of culture, larger or
smaller material possessions, and so on--to keep it sweet and human;
while at the same time it is all so gently graded, and marked by
transitions so easy and natural, that no gap was anywhere to be
discovered on which to found an order of privilege or caste. Now an
equality like this, with the erectness, independence, energy, and
initiative it brings with it, in men, sprung from the loins of an
imperial race is a possession, not for a nation only, but for
civilization itself and for humanity. It is the distinct raising of the
entire body of a people to a higher level, and so brings civilization a
stage nearer its goal. It is the first successful attempt in recorded
history to get a healthy, natural equality which should reach down to
the foundations of the state and to the great masses of men; and in its
results corresponds to what in other lands (excepting, perhaps, in
luxury alone) has been attained only by the few,--the successful and the
ruling spirits. To lose it, therefore, to barter it or give it away,
would be in the language of Othello 'such deep damnation that nothing
else could match,' and would be an irreparable loss to the world and to
civilization."