A Frenchman in America Part 6
This afternoon I paid a most interesting visit to several girls'
schools. The pupils were ordered by the head-mistress, in each case, to gather in the large room. There they arrived, two by two, to the sound of a march played on the piano by one of the under-mistresses. When they had all reached their respective places, two chords were struck on the instrument, and they all sat down with the precision of the best drilled Prussian regiment. Then some sang, others recited little poems, or epigrams--mostly at the expense of men. When, two years ago, I visited the Normal School for girls in the company of the President of the Education Board and Colonel Elliott F. Shepard, it was the anniversary of George Eliot's birth. The pupils, one by one, recited a few quotations from her works, choosing all she had written against man.
When the singing and the recitations were over, the mistress requested me to address a few words to the young ladies. An American is used from infancy to deliver a speech on the least provocation. I am not. However, I managed to congratulate these young American girls on their charming appearance, and to thank them for the pleasure they had afforded me.
Then two chords were struck on the piano and all stood up; two more chords, and all marched off in double file to the sound of another march. Not a smile, not a giggle. All these young girls, from sixteen to twenty, looked at me with modesty, but complete self-a.s.surance, certainly with far more a.s.surance than I dared look at them.
Then the mistress asked me to go to the gymnasium. There the girls arrived and, as solemnly as before, went through all kinds of muscular exercises. They are never allowed to sit down in the cla.s.s rooms more than two hours at a time. They have to go down to the gymnasium every two hours.
I was perfectly amazed to see such discipline. These young girls are the true daughters of a great Republic: self-possessed, self-confident, dignified, respectful, law-abiding.
I also visited the junior departments of those schools. In one of them, eight hundred little girls from five to ten years of age were gathered together, and, as in the other departments, sang and recited to me.
These young children are taught by the girls of the Normal School, under the supervision of mistresses. Here teaching is learned by teaching. A good method. Doctors are not allowed to practice before they have attended patients in hospitals. Why should people be allowed to teach before they have attended schools as apprentice teachers?
I had to give a speech to these dear little ones. I wish I had been able to give them a kiss instead.
In my little speech I had occasion to remark that I had arrived in America only a week before. After I left, it appears that a little girl, aged about six, went to her mistress and said to her:
"He's only been here a week! And how beautifully he speaks English already!"
I have been "put up" at the Players' Club by Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, and dined with him there to-night.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "HOW BEAUTIFULLY HE SPEAKS ENGLISH."]
This club is the snuggest house I know in New York. Only a few months old, it possesses treasures such as few clubs a hundred years old possess. It was a present from Mr. Edwin Booth, the greatest actor America has produced. He bought the house in Twentieth Street, facing Gramercy Park, furnished it handsomely and with the greatest taste, and filled it with all the artistic treasures that he has collected during his life: portraits of celebrated actors, most valuable old engravings, photographs with the originals' autographs, china, curios of all sorts, stage properties, such as the sword used by Macready in _Macbeth_, and hundreds of such beautiful and interesting souvenirs. On the second floor is the library, mostly composed of works connected with the drama.
This club is a perfect gem.
When in New York, Mr. Booth occupies a suite of rooms on the second floor, which he has reserved for himself; but he has handed over the property to the trustees of the club, who, after his death, will become the sole proprietors of the house and of all its priceless contents. It was a princely gift, worthy of the prince of actors. The members are all connected with literature, art, and the drama, and number about one hundred.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FLOURISHING OF COATS-OF-ARMS IN AMERICA--REFLECTIONS THEREON-- FOREFATHERS MADE TO ORDER--THE PHONOGRAPH AT HOME--THE WEALTH OF NEW YORK--DEPARTURE FOR BUFFALO.
_New York, January 11._
There are in America, as in many other countries of the world, people who have coats-of-arms, and whose ancestors had no arms to their coats.
This remark was suggested by the reading of the following paragraph in the New York _World_ this morning:
There is growing in this country the rotten influence of rank, pride of station, contempt for labor, scorn of poverty, worship of caste, such as we verily believe is growing in no country in the world. What are the ideals that fill so large a part of the day and generation?
For the boy it is riches; for the girl the marrying of a t.i.tle. The ideal of this time in America is vast riches and the trappings of rank. It is good that proper scorn should be expressed of such ideals.
American novelists, journalists, and preachers are constantly upbraiding and ridiculing their countrywomen for their love of t.i.tled foreigners; but the society women of the great Republic only love the foreign lords all the more; and I have heard some of them openly express their contempt of a form of government whose motto is one of the clauses of the great Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal." I really believe that if the society women of America had their own way, they would set up a monarchy to-morrow, in the hope of seeing an aristocracy established as the sequel of it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A t.i.tLE.]
President Garfield once said that the only real coats-of-arms in America were shirt-sleeves. The epigram is good, but not based on truth, as every epigram should be. Labor in the States is not honorable for its own sake, but only if it brings wealth. President Garfield's epigram "fetched" the crowd, no doubt, as any smart democratic or humanitarian utterance will anywhere, whether it be emitted from the platform, the stage, the pulpit, or the hustings; but if any American philosopher heard it, he must have smiled.
A New York friend who called on me this morning, and with whom I had a chat on this subject, a.s.sured me that there is now such a demand in the States for pedigrees, heraldic insignia, mottoes, and coronets, that it has created a new industry. He also informed me that almost every American city has a college of heraldry, which will provide unbroken lines of ancestors, and make to order a new line of forefathers "of the most approved pattern, with suitable arms, etc."
Addison's prosperous foundling, who ordered at the second-hand picture-dealer's "a complete set of ancestors," is, according to my friend, a typical personage to be met with in the States nowadays.
Bah! after all, every country has her sn.o.bs. Why should America be an exception to the rule? When I think of the numberless charming people I have met in this country, I may as well leave it to the Europeans who have come in contact with American sn.o.bs to speak about them, inasmuch as the subject is not particularly entertaining.
What amuses me much more here is the effect of democracy on what we Europeans would call the lower cla.s.ses.
A few days ago, in a hotel, I asked a porter if my trunk had arrived from the station and had been taken to my room.
"I don't know," he said majestically; "you ask that gentleman."
The gentleman pointed out to me was the negro who looks after the luggage in the establishment.
In the papers you may read in the advertis.e.m.e.nt columns: "Washing wanted by a lady at such and such address."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NEW YORK CABMAN.]
The cabman will ask, "If you are the _man_ as wants a _gentleman_ to drive him to the _deepo_."
During an inquiry concerning the work-house at Cambridge, Ma.s.s., a witness spoke of the "ladies' cells," as being all that should be desired.
Democracy, such is thy handiwork!
I went to the Stock Exchange in Wall Street at one o'clock. I thought that Whitechapel, on Sat.u.r.day night, was beyond compet.i.tion as a scene of rowdyism. I have now altered this opinion. I am still wondering whether I was not guyed by my pilot, and whether I was not shown the playground of a madhouse, at the time when all the most desperate lunatics are let loose.
After lunch I went to Falk's photograph studio to be taken, and read the first page of "Jonathan and His Continent," into his phonograph.
Marvelous, this phonograph! I imagine Mr. Falk has the best collection of cylinders in the world. I heard a song by Patti, the piano played by Von Bulow, speeches, orchestras, and what not! The music is reproduced most faithfully. With the voice the instrument is not quite so successful. Instead of your own voice, you fancy you hear an imitation of it by Punch. All the same, it seems to me to be the wonder of the age.
After paying a few calls, and dining quietly at the Everett House, I went to the Metropolitan Opera House, and saw "The Barber of Bagdad."
Cornelius's music is Wagnerian in aim, but I did not carry away with me a single bar of all I heard. After all, this is perhaps the aim of Wagnerian music.
What a sight is the Metropolitan Opera House, with its boxes full of lovely women, arrayed in gorgeous garments, and blazing with diamonds!
What luxury! What wealth is gathered there!
How interesting it would be to know the exact amount of wealth of which New York can boast! In this morning's papers I read that land on Fifth Avenue has lately sold for $115 a square foot. In an acre of land there are 43,560 square feet, which at $115 a foot would be $5,009,400 an acre. Just oblige me by thinking of it!
_January 12._