The second result is still more prejudicial and perilous.  This is the glorification of mediocrity, of the average man and woman whose low standard must be a norm to statesman and publicist.  Such cult of the common and the ignoble is the more prejudicial because it “wars against all distinction and against the sense of elevation to be gained by respecting and admiring superiority.”  Its characteristic predominance in a race which, true to its Anglo-Saxon origin, bases and builds the strongest opinions upon the weakest foundations, hinders the higher Avatars of genius and interferes with the “chief duty of a nation which is to produce great men.”  It accounts for the ever-incroaching reign of women in literature—­meaning as a rule cheap work and second-rate.  And the main lack is not so much the “thrill of awe,” which Goethe pronounces to be the best thing humanity possesses, but that discipline of respect, that sense of loyalty, not in its confined meaning of attachment to royalty, but in a far higher and nobler signification, the recognising and welcoming elevation and distinction whatever be the guise they may assume.  “The soul lives by admiration and hope and love.”

And here we see the shady side of the educational process, the diffusion of elementary and superficial knowledge, of the veneer and polish which mask, until chipped-off, the raw and unpolished material lying hidden beneath them.  A little learning is a dangerous thing because it knows all and consequently it stands in the way of learning more or much.  Hence, it is sorely impatient of novelty, of improvement, of originality.  It is intolerant of contradiction, irritable, thin-skinned, and impatient of criticism, of a word spoken against it.  It is chargeable with the Law of Copyright, which is not only legalised plunder of the foreigner, but is unfair, unjust and ungenerous to native talent for the exclusive benefit of the short-sighted many-headed.  I am far from charging the United States with the abomination called “International Copyright;” the English publisher is as sturdy an enemy to “protection” as the Transatlantic statesman; but we expect better things from a new people which enjoys the heritage of European civilisation without the sufferings accompanying the winning of it.  This mediocrity has the furious, unpardoning hatred of l’amour propre offense.  Even a word in favour of my old friends the Mormons is an unpardonable offence:  the dwarfish and dwarfing demon “Respectability” has made their barbarous treatment a burning shame to a so-called “free” country:  they are subjected to slights and wrongs only for practicing polygamy, an institution never condemned by Christ or the early Christians.  The calm and dispassionate judgments of Sir Lepel Griffith and the late Matthew Arnold, who ventured to state, in guarded language, that the boasted civilisation of the United States was not quite perfect, resulted in the former being called a snob and the latter a liar.  English stolidity would