AMERICAN IDEALISM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3909, 19 February 1929, Page 1

AMERICAN IDEALISM.

“The characteristic middle and upper middle-class life, which we are apt to think, of as specially representing' civilisation in Europe, must in America be mechanised in a way that is not called for in European conditions,” says Mr. J. A. Slender, in his hook on America to-day. “The difficulty of obtaining domestic servants alone requires a different organisation of the home life; the automobile habit keeps America’s humanity in a perpetual state of circulation which looks feverish and restless to the European eye. Though often scoffed at by Europeans the idealism of the American people is a very real thing, and the signs of its unease ■may be seen in the stream of criticism which is being'poured out by the most distinguished American writers on the American way of life. The tolerance which is accorded these writers and the wide sales that they enjoy point to a response in the American people which presently may make itself felt in a demand for the things that money cannot buy and the leisure which it ought to bring. All the elements are there —the mental curiosity, the zeal of youth to be educated, and of women to be informed One sees the

American people some day turning in on themselves and being bred with an ambition to lead the world in a new civilising movement. All things are possible in this country.”