so many inventions are
perfected.

In a great measure I attribute the commercial prosperity of the
Americans to the soundness and practicability of their principles in the
matter of the commercial education of their youth. It is partly due to
the existence of the 'business college,' which has no counterpart in
England, but which is as great and powerful an institution in the States
as public schools are in England. Until Europe has such colleges, she
will never breed leaders of commerce and industry as they are bred in
America.

France possesses the best artisans in the world--glass-cutters,
cabinet-makers, book-binders, gardeners--simply because boys of the
working classes choose their trade early, work long apprenticeships, and
study.

The English boy of these classes becomes a plumber at thirteen, then he
tries everything afterward. He is in turn a mason, a gardener, anything
you like 'for a job.' In America it is the mind of boys which is
prepared for commerce in the business colleges. At twenty they are
practical men.

Of course, my mind is full of trusts. Is it possible that in a few years
all the great industries of America--its mines, its railroads, its
telegraphic and telephonic systems, its land, its land produce--will all
be amalgamated and transformed into trusts?

I am not inclined to look on this great system of trusts in too
pessimistic a fashion. In my view, they may eventually lead to the
nationalization of those gigantic enterprises, and in this way bring
about the greatest good for the greatest number, by the simple reason
that it will be much easier for the State to deal with all those
different trusts than with thousands of different companies and
individuals.

One day the earth will belong to its inhabitants, not to a privileged
few. Trusts may lead to the solution of the question.

Another impression deeply confirmed more than ever: the English may talk
of the 'blood-thicker-than-water' theory, but it will never stand the
test of a political crisis.

Of course, there are the '400' of New York who are entirely pro-English,
and half apologetic for being American; but the population of Greater
New York is 4,000,000. If out of 4,000,000 you take 400, there still
remain some Americans. And these have no love lost for England.

CHAPTER XXVI

SOME AMERICANS I OBJECT TO

An American was one day travelling with an Englishman friend of mine in
the same railway compartment from Dieppe