American civilization

“ We seek for them the continuance of world civilization in order that their American civilization may continue to be invigorated by the achievements of civilized men and women in the rest of the world. ”

“ Out of new sentiments and ideas, not seen as yet, new forms of society will come, free from the antagonism of races, classes, men—representing the American idea in its length, breadth, depth, and height, its beauty and its truth, and then the old civilization of our time shall seem barbarous and even savage. ”

“ The American economic, political, and social organization has given to its citizens the benefits of material prosperity, political liberty, and a wholesome natural equality; and this achievement is a gain, not only to Americans, but to the world and to civilization. ”

“ It addresses the very core of human activity in today's global community. It is easy to understand why America appears to embody efficiency reached at the expense of many abandoned values: respect for authority, for environment, for resources, even human resources, and ultimately human values. The focus of the practical experience through which American identity is constituted is on limitless expectations regarding social existence, standard of living, political action, economic reward, even religious experience. ”

“ Emerson makes a definition of the civilization of America in the following selection wherein he describes the effect of American society and life upon the individual.
The true test of civilization is, not the crops, not the size of cities, not the census,—no, but the kind of man the country turns out. ”

“ Wherever they accumulate in numbers they present to my eye a social phase far below the level of either England, France, north Italy, or Switzerland. And, frankly, I do not find the American nation has either in its schools—which are as backward in some States as they are forward in others—in its press, in its religious bodies or its general tone, any organized means or effectual influences for raising these huge masses of humanity to the requirements of an ideal modern civilization. ”

“ And these younger communities, daily springing up, are constantly striving to take on the higher structure,—to become as highly civilized and to enjoy as many of the prerogatives of civilization as the rest. All this calls forth an enormous quantity of activity, and causes American life to assume the aspect of a life-and-death struggle for mastery over the material forces of that part of the earth's surface upon which it thrives. ”

“ one might enumerate the items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left. ”

“ This pernicious influence, inherent in the social organization of all Continental Europe during many centuries, the American people have for generations escaped, and they show other nations how to escape it. I ask your attention to the favorable conditions under which this contribution of the United States to civilization has been made. ”

“ More progress, a further advance in civilization, the extending of a helping hand to the afflicted and the welcoming word to the oppressed, should be concrete evidence of America's greatness and of the devotion of her people. ”

“ We will now leave this extraordinary nation, which has furnished materials for history of the most interesting nature, as it regards the character of man; their civil, political, and religious institutions, and the moral and social ties that connect society. ”

“ In general the Americans, above all, only consider civilization, not as a blessing which might polish savages, preserve their natural good qualities, extend the elements of well-being they already possess, reform their faults and vices, and modify their inclinations and character, but rather as a means of clearing this rich and fertile country of an independent, jealous, cruel, or at least useless, embarrassing, and degraded population. ”

“ The wisdom and justice of the American governments, and the virtue of the inhabitants, may, if they are not deficient in the improvement of their own advantages, render the United States of America an enviable example to all the world of peace, liberty, righteousness, and truth. ”

“ The love of domination and an uncontrolled lust of arbitrary power have prevailed among all nations and perhaps in proportion to the degrees of civilization. ”

“ Americanism to-day stands in a sense more accurate than before as the experiment of government of the people, for the people, and by the people, and for the most complete amalgamation of the blood of Christendom which the human race has ever known. We have lately been celebrating our centennial anniversaries. Already the great figures of our early history seem remote. The struggle in which we are engaged is intenser and broader than theirs: It concerns the progress of human society. You, whom I am addressing, find yourself a unit in a vast, heterogeneous population and a complex civilization. ”

“ The vitality of America lies in the brains, the energies, the enterprise of the people throughout the land; in the efficiency of their factories and in the richness of the fields that stretch beyond the borders of the town; in the wealth which they extract from nature and originate for themselves through the inventive genius characteristic of all free American communities. ”

“ Better that the country had remained undiscovered than that such vices and miseries should be introduced into the most fertile parts of the New World.
I cannot see that civilization gained anything, morally, by the discovery of America, until the new settlers were animated by other motives than a desire for sudden wealth. When the country became colonized by men who sought liberty to worship God,--men of lofty purposes, willing to undergo sufferings and danger in order to plant the seeds of a higher civilization,--then there arose new forms of social and political life. ”

“ Hang the walls of the school-room with pictures of great Americans. Let incidents from their lives be used as illustrations of moral lessons. Explain the principles and form of our government. Dwell upon the extent of its domain and its vast resources. Define simply the privileges conferred, and the duties imposed, upon the citizens of our government. Four things should be taught them: the three Rs and American history. What is needed among all our citizens, is a great lifting up where a broad view of our great land can be had. ”

“ This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character. ”

“ The eight years in America from 1860 to 1868 uprooted institutions that were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, transformed the social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations. ”

“ Society, colonial by origin and depen­dent by the conditions of its existence, was striving to exist without external support. Whether it would stand or fall, and whether, either standing or falling, it could contribute any new element to American thought, were riddles which, with so many others, American history was to answer. ”

“ He must see in American society with its vast spaces, its sections equal to European nations, its geographic influences, its brief period of development, its variety of nationalities and races, its extraordinary industrial growth under the conditions of freedom, its institutions, culture, ideals, social psychology, and even its religions forming and changing almost under his eyes, one of the richest fields ever offered for the preliminary recognition and study of the forces that operate and interplay in the making of society. ”

“ For my part, the America I wish to see is America increasing and prosperous, raising her head in graceful dignity, with freedom and firmness asserting her rights at your bar, vindicating her liberties, pleading her services, and conscious of her merit. ”

“ Instead of guarding round the infant republic of America, by a total detachment from foreign connections, affection, or influence, we have already seen the inhabitants of the United States interesting themselves beyond the common feelings of humanity in the operations of European wars, dissensions, politics, and government. ”

“ In short, even in what are called social works, the American often seemed to me more idealist, more of a dreamer, and less practical than the European; more ready, that is to say, to venture on a struggle against the innumerable ills of life without being quite sure of possessing adequate means for conquering them, at the summons of a mystical faith in the progress of the world. ”

“ In attempting to estimate what progress means, one could not do better, I suppose, than describe the civilization of the United States. For in describing that, one will be describing the whole civilization of the future, seeing that what America is our colonies are, or will become, and what our colonies are we, too, may hope to attain, if we make the proper sacrifices to preserve the unity of the empire. Let us see, then, what, from an objective point of view, really is the future of this progressing world of ours. ”

“ Thus, in as comprehensive a manner as possible, is presented the present general situation and its evident tendencies, which bring us to the special consideration of the present condition of the country, which, of all countries, is destined to play the most prominent part in the third order of civilization—the United States of America. ”

“ Many were poor; many had suffered oppression; but all were strengthened by a rich culture, an ancient heritage, a belief in freedom's promise, and a willingness to work for their share of the American Dream. ”

“ The United States stood there among the great powers of the earth, strong and respected. The Republic had no foreign foe to fear; its growth in population and wealth, in popular intelligence and progressive civilization, the wonder of the world. There was no visible limit to its development ”

“ It was an American who bade you hitch your wagon to a star, and you have only to reflect in order to recall the spiritual vigor, the righteous force of will, the strength of aspiring mind, the patriotic courage, the tireless soul-struggle of the early generations of choicely educated, simply nurtured Americans. Their thought and conscience, true and star-seeking even in its limitations, laid the foundations of law and order, of civic liberty and private welfare, of national honor and domestic repute. ”

“ After due consideration he referred to us as “the Yankees.” “But,” turning to his hearer, he said, with great emphasis, “I do not look upon the people of the United States as a nation, but as a new civilization.” In other words, our nation is not simply one of fertile farms, enormous mines, great forests, unparalleled railroad systems, palatial stores, or wealthy cities, but he saw that we are a people of different economic, political, educational, social, moral and religious ideals. ”

“ We want in this country an American system; we wish to carry into operation, into practical effect, ideas, policies, theories in harmony with our surroundings.
This is a great country filled with intelligent, industrious, restless, ambitious people. Millions came here because they were dissatisfied with the laws, the institutions, the tyrannies, the absurdities, the poverty, the wretchedness and the infamous spirit of caste found in the Old World. ”

“ Is it, then, too much to hope—reasoning from the past—that when the exhaustless energies of the American mind are turned to this subject, we shall go further still, and, under these more favourable circumstances, rear up a noble population, where all shall be not only well fed, but well instructed also; where all classes, rich and poor, if they wish, may obtain the fairest culture of all their powers, and men be free in fact as well as in name? ”

“ In America, on the other hand, we see a civilization precisely the reverse of this. We see a country, of which it has been truly said, that in no other are there so few men of great learning, and so few men of great ignorance. ”

“ They were of a new race, the like of which no other sun nor age had looked upon—Americans, indeed, in the broadest sense—men sent to prepare the 61soil of civilization for the rich fruit and flowers which already cover the furrows turned by their brave and vigorous arms. ”

“ The intellectual life of the country was being formed and controlled by English Protestants while the physical American was being built up of a mixture of all of the bloods of the western world and the process is still, I believe, going on. ”

“ The new Americans, of whom he was to be one, must, whether they were fit or unfit, create a world of their own, a science, a society, a philosophy, a universe, where they had not yet created a road or even learned to dig their own iron. ”

“ When we discuss the events of American history we place our scene upon a stage which has an immense background of wide prairie and high mountain. In this vast and dim territory [Pg vii] there is always room for another man of force and energy, and society is a rudimentary bond between free and sovereign human beings, unrestricted by any previous tradition or ordinance. Hence we study the accounts of a peculiar race which has grown up under conditions of complete independence and which relies upon its own endeavors to accomplish those things which it has set out to do. ”