of good-breeding, and the habits of others obnoxious in many respects, the traveller in a country not his own is, I think, bound to remember that he came to these annoyances-if such he feels them to be-and not they to him, and that probably, if he were to come again when he was twenty years older, he would find that many of them had disappeared. And if he looks above these secondary matters, and sets to work to endeavour to understand the "form and pressure," the meaning and the bearing of the vast society that is, within this century, to fill up the great valley of the Mississippi, with all their present experiments in government, in religion, in laws, and in social life, he will, if he be one of English training, find subjects of reflection, speculation, and inquiry, which the application of a year or two, if he had time for it, would scarcely satisfy. It was everywhere a subject of regret among the educated portion of the community that so few Englishmen not connected with mercantile pursuits visited them. I believe it would be greatly to the public benefit on both sides of the water if more did so, and if

we saw more of the upper class of American society here.*

Whoever from this country visits the United

* On the subject of manners, which has proved so attractive to other pens, I do not intend to say more than one word, and that shall be neither offensive nor flattering.

I suspect that, if all people in this country were compelled, if they travelled at all, to travel in third-class carriages, or, which comes to nearly the same thing, if a general average of comfort were struck between first, second, and third, and there were no escape from the mode of travelling that resulted from it, the process would not be agreeable to sensitive minds. Happily, the use of tobacco in its most repulsive form is all but unknown to us, and, therefore, you would not find persons guilty of practices resulting from it, that are inexpressibly disgusting, and from which, moreover, you have often no exemption, whether you are sitting near persons of the most respectable exterior or otherwise. (It must be remembered, however, that it is most rare to see any one in the rank of a gentleman in the United States offending in that particular.) Neither, if you had just risen from a chair on the deck of a steamboat, to take a momentary look at a passing view or to reach anything, with a most evident "animus revertendi," would you be likely to find that a "gentleman" standing near you, and having a keen eye to number one, had taken the chair from under you and appropriated it to himself; and also that it required no slight tact and good humour to induce him to surrender it again. Similarly with regard to your seat in a railway carriage. Nor would you, probably, be often addressed in a manner that would not sound quite appropriate to "ears polite." If, however, there is one thing on which the press of the United States is unanimous, it is in condemning and endeavouring to correct what remains of these "disagreeables." They need no one's aid or interference; and, indeed, in this, as in many other matters of no

States for the purpose of mere travelling, will probably at first experience a little difficulty in conforming to the mode of life in the great

concern to us, such interference and harsh comment have led to much mischievous irritation.

I was informed, and indeed I saw evidence of it in all parts of the country, that the root of these matters was being attacked in the public schools.

The following was a statement made to me on the subject by a gentleman of large experience, holding an important public office in the education department of one of the eastern States :

"We are aiming at the reformation of manners in all our public schools, and in our normal schools, teachers' institutes, and county associations of teachers. Manners are made a prominent subject of criticism daily in all the teachers' institutes of the State. Any impropriety of speech or demeanour is commented upon, without, however, reference to the individual. Several of our leading writers on education have held that the national manners ought to be corrected through the public schools."

In a considerable number of the many public schools I visited in different parts of the United States I had been struck with the entire absence of good manners on the part of the children, whenever any circumstance gave occasion for exhibiting their ordinary demeanour. There was a marked want of any outward demonstration of deference and respect, and, on the part of the teacher, what appeared to me a most singular submission of himself to the children. Nothing was put to them as from authority, but the most trifling command was conveyed in a tone and in language implying that it was for them to judge whether they would obey it or not; and in some addresses to the children I heard somewhat inflated appeals to them as responsible for their own actions, and soon about to become citizens of the greatest and most glorious Republic that the world had ever seen, with

hotels. Private sitting-rooms are seldom asked for, except for families, and therefore not always to be had by persons travelling alone, or if so, at in some cases rather a high rate. The early dinner-hour is at first felt to be a constraint; but

other topics in the same strain, all tending, as it seemed, to produce a most undue notion of themselves in the minds of the children, and a complete independence of all control, parental or any other. In other schools I observed nothing of the kind; but, on the contrary, the master or mistress maintaining their proper position and speaking with authority, yet asserting it with all due mildness.

I asked a gentleman, holding an official position in the educa tion department of one of the States, for a solution of this. His answer was as follows:

"What you have noticed has been the result of a reaction against the Puritan severity in the management of children, which has carried many among us to a contrary extreme. It produced a school of thinkers who maintained that nothing but 'moral suasion' should be resorted to in the management of children. They are called 'non-resistants;' they think that no force should be used in the management or training of children, but only appeals to their affections, their conscience, and their reason, and that human nature can be depended upon largely for bringing them right. These doctrines have been carried into the public schools in numerous instances. The effect is, that the master appears in a false position before the children, and the principle of deference to authority is loosened, or rather not established at all. Opinion is now beginning to set the other way, and we are endeavouring slowly to reproduce more authority in our schools."

Both manners and principles will, I apprehend, in time feel the benefit of the gradual diffusion of these sounder views.

there is more trouble in deviating from, than in adhering to, the usual practice. At some of the best hotels at New York the hour is later, five to half-past, but in the other cities from two to three. French cookery is the rule in the cities, and an imitation of it in the country and on board the steamboats. Those remarkable river steamboats, some of them of astonishing dimensions, have been often described. They are bold conceptions, and admirably adapted to their double purpose of freight and passenger traffic. But on surveying with surprise the luxury and splendour of their decorations, you are tempted to ask yourself for what potentate of the East or West they were originally constructed, and how they contrived to get across the Atlantic. Everywhere you meet with uniform civility and attention, and even in the smallest country inns universal cleanliness, though often a scanty supply, according to English notions, of the materials of the toilette. The high wages of servants, and the difficulty of obtaining good ones, are, I believe, among the principal causes of the custom of so many people