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If, too, the practice of going to Europe be dangerous to American faith and morals, the number of those who go makes it of immense importance. There is probably no American who has risen above very narrow circumstances who does not go to Europe at least once in his life. There is hardly a village in the country in which the man who has succeeded in trade or commerce does not announce his success to his neighbors by a trip to Europe for himself and his family. There is hardly a professor, or teacher, or clergyman, or artist, or author who does not save out of a salary, however small, in order to make the voyage. Tired professional or business men make it constantly, under the pretence that it is the only way they can get “a real holiday.” Journalists make it as the only way of getting out of their heads such disgusting topics as Croker and Gilroy, and Hill and Murphy. Rich people make it every year, or oftener, through mere restlessness. We are now leaving out of account, of course, immigrants born in the Old World, who go back to see their friends. We are talking of native Americans. Of course, all native Americans cannot go, because, even when they can afford it, they cannot always get the time. But we venture on the proposition that there is hardly any American “in this broad land,” as members of Congress say, who, having both time and money, has not gone to Europe, or does not mean to go some day or other. So that, if Mrs. Stevenson’s account of the moral effects of the voyage were true, it would show that the very best portion of our population, the most moral, the most religious, and the most educated were constantly exposing themselves by tens of thousands to most debasing influences.

But is it true? We think not. Americans who go to Europe with some knowledge of history, of the fine arts, and of literature, all recognize the fact that they could not have completed their education without going. To such people travel in Europe is one of the purest and most elevating of pleasures, for Europe contains the experience of mankind in nearly every field of human endeavor. They often, it is true, come back discontented with America, but out of this discontent have grown some of our most valuable improvements–libraries, museums, art-galleries, colleges. What they have seen in Europe has opened their eyes to the possibilities and shortcomings of their own country.

To take a familiar example, it is travel in Europe which has done most to stimulate the movement for municipal reform. It is seeing London and Paris, and Berlin and Birmingham, which has done most to wake people up to the horrors of the Croker-Gilroy rule, and inflame the determination to end it as a national disgrace. The class of Americans who do not come back discontented are usually those who had no education to start with.

“Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll!”

So, even when standing on the Acropolis at Athens or in the Tribuna at Florence, they feel themselves sadly “out of it.” They think longingly of Billy or Jimmy, and the coffee and cakes of their far Missouri or Arkansas home, and come back cursing Europe and its contents. No damage is ever done by foreign travel to the “true democratic American spirit” of this class.

And now as to “Anglomania,” a subject to be handled with as much delicacy as an anarchist bomb. Anglomania in one form or other is to be met with in all countries, especially France and Germany, and has shown itself here and there all over the Continent ever since the peace of 1815. The things in which it most imitates the English are riding, driving, men’s clothes, sports in general, and domestic comfort. The reason is that the English have for two centuries given more attention to these things than any other people. No other has so cultivated the horse for pleasure purposes. No other has devoted so much thought and money to suitability in dress and to field sports. No other has brought to such perfection the art of living in country houses. In all these things people who can afford it try to imitate them. We say, with a full consciousness of the responsibility which the avowal entails on us, that they do right. It is well in any art to watch and imitate the man who has best succeeded in it. The sluggard has been exhorted even to imitate the ant, and anyone who wishes to ride or drive well, or dress appropriately, or entertain in a country house, ought to study the way the English do these things, and follow their example, for anything worth doing ought to be done well. It is mostly in these things that Anglomania consists.