which in the least savor of monarchy or hierarchy, and eager to blaze
as new a path for itself in the social as it has succeeded
in accomplishing in the political world. Combined with this
is the American characteristic of saving time. Time is precious to all of us,
but to Americans it is particularly so. We all wish to save time,
but the Americans care much more about it than the rest of us.
Then there are different notions about this question of saving time,
different notions of what wastes time and what does not,
and much which the old world regards as politeness and good manners
Americans consider as sheer waste of time. Time is, they think,
far too precious to be occupied with ceremonies which appear
empty and meaningless. It can, they say, be much more profitably filled
with other and more useful occupations. In any discussion of American manners
it would be unfair to leave out of consideration their indifference
to ceremony and their highly developed sense of the value of time,
but in saying this I do not forget that many Americans are devout ritualists,
and that these find both comfort and pleasure in ceremony,
which suggests that after all there is something to be said for the Chinese
who have raised correct deportment almost to the rank of a religion.

The youth of America have not unnaturally caught the spirit of their elders,
so that even children consider themselves as almost on a par
with their parents, as almost on the same plane of equality;
but the parents, on the other hand, also treat them as if they were equals,
and allow them the utmost freedom. While a Chinese child
renders unquestioning obedience to his parents' orders,
such obedience as a soldier yields to his superior officer,
the American child must have the whys and the wherefores
duly explained to him, and the reason for his obedience made clear.
It is not his parent that he obeys, but expediency and the dictates of reason.