Produced by David Widger
By Charles Dudley Warner
There has been a great improvement in the physical condition of thepeople of the United States within two generations. This is morenoticeable in the West than in the East, but it is marked everywhere; andthe foreign traveler who once detected a race deterioration, which heattributed to a dry and stimulating atmosphere and to a feverish anxiety,which was evident in all classes, for a rapid change of condition, findsvery little now to sustain his theory. Although the restless energycontinues, the mixed race in America has certainly changed physically forthe better. Speaking generally, the contours of face and form are morerounded. The change is most marked in regions once noted for leanness,angularity, and sallowness of complexion, but throughout the country thetypes of physical manhood are more numerous; and if women of rare andexceptional beauty are not more numerous, no doubt the average ofcomeliness and beauty has been raised. Thus far, the increase of beautydue to better development has not been at the expense of delicacy ofcomplexion and of line, as it has been in some European countries.Physical well-being is almost entirely a matter of nutrition. Somethingis due in our case to the accumulation of money, to the decrease in anincreasing number of our population of the daily anxiety about food andclothes, to more leisure; but abundant and better-prepared food is thedirect agency in our physical change. Good food is not only more abundantand more widely distributed than it was two generations ago, but it is tobe had in immeasurably greater variety. No other people existing, or thatever did exist, could command such a variety of edible products for dailyconsumption as the mass of the American people habitually use today. Inconsequence they have the opportunity of being better nourished than anyother people ever were. If they are not better nourished, it is becausetheir food is badly prepared. Whenever we find, either in New England orin the South, a community ill-favored, dyspeptic, lean, and faded incomplexion, we may be perfectly sure that its cooking is bad, and that itis too ignorant of the laws of health to procure that variety of foodwhich is so easily obtainable. People who still diet on sodden pie andthe products of the frying-pan of the pioneer, and then, in order topromote digestion, attempt to imitate the patient cow by masticating someelastic and fragrant gum, are doing very little to bring in thatuniversal physical health or beauty which is the natural heritage of ouropportunity.
Now, what is the relation of our intellectual development to thisphysical improvement? It will be said that the general intelligence israised, that the habit of reading is much more widespread, and that theincrease of books, periodicals, and newspapers shows a greater mentalactivity than existed formerly. It will also be said that the opportunityfor education was never before so nearly universal. If it is not yet trueeverywhere that all children must go to school, it is true that all maygo to school free of cost. Without doubt, also, great advance has beenmade in American scholarship, in specialized learning and investigation;that is to say, the proportion of scholars of the first rank inliterature and in science is much larger to the population than ageneration ago.
But what is the relation of our general intellectual life to populareducation? Or, in other words, what effect is popular education havingupon the general intellectual habit and taste? There are two ways oftesting this. One is by observing whether the mass of minds is bettertrained and disciplined than formerly, less liable to delusions, be