In each case the men who introduced
me dwelt upon the increased good feeling between the English-speaking
peoples, and every complimentary allusion to England was received with
great applause." At the same time my correspondent adds: "Your division
of the American sentiment into three classes is exactly right; also your
sense of the relative importance of these three classes."]
III
It is commonly alleged that the anti-English virulence of the ordinary
school history of the United States is mainly responsible for this bias
towards hostility in the mind of the average American. Mr. Goldwin
Smith, a high authority, has contested this theory; and I must admit
that, after a good deal of inquiry, I have been unable to find the
American school historians guilty of any very serious injustices to
England. Some quite modern histories which I have looked into (yet
written before the Spanish War) seem to me excellently and most
impartially done. The older histories are not well written: they are apt
to be sensational and chauvinistic in tone, and to encourage a somewhat
cheap and blusterous order of patriotism; but that they commonly malign
character or misrepresent events I cannot discover.
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