an Atlantic steamer, or in
the refined seclusion of a New York boarding-house, can fail to have been
struck by this characteristic of their civilisation. In America the
young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the
full benefits of their inexperience. A boy of only eleven or twelve
years of age will firmly but kindly point out to his father his defects
of manner or temper; will never weary of warning him against
extravagance, idleness, late hours, unpunctuality, and the other
temptations to which the aged are so particularly exposed; and sometimes,
should he fancy that he is monopolising too much of the conversation at
dinner, will remind him, across the table, of the new child's adage,
'Parents should be seen, not heard.' Nor does any mistaken idea of
kindness prevent the little American girl from censuring her mother
whenever it is necessary. Often, indeed, feeling that a rebuke conveyed
in the presence of others is more truly efficacious than one merely
whispered in the quiet of the nursery, she will call the attention of
perfect strangers to her mother's general untidiness, her want of
intellectual Boston conversation, immoderate love of iced water and green
corn, stinginess in the matter of candy, ignorance of the usages of the
best Baltimore society, bodily ailments and the like. In fact, it may be
truly said that no American child is ever blind to the deficiencies of
its parents, no matter how much it may love them.

Yet, somehow, this educational system has not been so successful as it
deserved. In many cases, no doubt, the material with which the children
had to deal was crude and incapable of real development; but the fact
remains that the American mother is a tedious person. The American
father is better, for he is never seen in London. He passes his life
entirely in Wall Street and communicates with his family once a month by
means of a telegram in cipher. The mother, however, is always with us,
and, lacking the quick imitative faculty of the younger generation,
remains uninteresting and provincial to the last. In spite of her,
however, the American girl is always welcome. She brightens our dull
dinner parties for us and makes life go pleasantly by for a season. In
the race for coronets she often carries off the prize; but, once she has
gained the victory, she is generous and forgives her English rivals
everything, even their beauty.

Warned by the example of her mot