A
French boy is taught the glory of Moliere as well as that of Turenne; a
German boy is taught his own great national philosophy before he learns
the philosophy of antiquity. The result is that, though French
patriotism is often crazy and boastful, though German patriotism is
often isolated and pedantic, they are neither of them merely dull,
common, and brutal, as is so often the strange fate of the nation of
Bacon and Locke. It is natural enough, and even righteous enough, under
the circumstances. An Englishman must love England for something;
consequently, he tends to exalt commerce or prize-fighting, just as a
German might tend to exalt music, or a Flamand to exalt painting,
because he really believes it is the chief merit of his fatherland. It
would not be in the least extraordinary if a claim of eating up
provinces and pulling down princes were the chief boast of a Zulu. The
extraordinary thing is, that it is the chief boast of a people who have
Shakespeare, Newton, Burke, and Darwin to boast of.
The peculiar lack of any generosity or delicacy in the current English
nationalism appears to have no other possible origin but in this fact of
our unique neglect in education of the study of the national literature.
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