“The barbarian laden with gold” is, then, a legendary personage, but it is not at all surprising that such a conception should exist. Modern society is organised in such fashion that it is impossible even to conceive of a people at once rich and ignorant. Industry, business, agriculture, demand nowadays very special technical knowledge, and a very complete social organisation; that is to say, they imply a scientific, political, and judicial civilisation of a reasonably high order. Thus America is not at all uninterested in the higher activities of the mind. It would be more just to say that as a nation, and without regard to individual instances, she interests herself in such activities less than in industry, in business, and in agriculture. But is not this also the case with Europe? Who would dare affirm that the progress of the arts and sciences and letters is at this moment the principal concern of the governments and of the influential classes of the Old World? We Europeans have only to listen to what people round about us are saying. Their talk is all of bringing the cultivation of the land to economic perfection, of opening coal and iron mines, of harnessing waterfalls, of developing industries, of increasing exports. Kings who rule “by the grace of God” publicly declare that nothing interests them so much as the business of their countries! If all this were characteristic only of American barbarism, we should be obliged to admit that Europe is Americanising herself with disconcerting rapidity. But this economic effort of Europe in turn presents nothing that need surprise us; like the American development, it is only the dizzy acceleration of a vast historic movement whose beginnings go back to the far distant day when an obscure and obstinate Genoese set sail, and in the midst of the waters of the Atlantic crossed the impassable boundary of the Old World. Yes, before that day, Europe had created admirable arts and literatures, profound philosophies, consoling religions, lofty morals, wise systems of justice, but—she was poor. She produced little, and produced it slowly; she had defied tradition and authority; she had fettered human energy by a multitude of laws, precepts, and prejudices. To humble men’s pride, she kept repeating to them that they were feeble and corrupt creatures. She taught them to use Virgil’s beautiful figure that they were like “a rower who painfully forces his boat against the current of the stream. Evil be on his head if for one instant he forgets, and ceases to struggle against the current’s force; in that moment, he is lost; the flood sweeps away his fragile boat.”