No More Learning

The English language befriends the grand American expression--it is brawny
enough, and limber and full enough. On the tough stock of a race who,
through all change of circumstance, was never without the idea of political
liberty, which is the animus of all liberty, it has attracted the terms of
daintier and gayer and subtler and more elegant tongues. It is the powerful
language of resistance--it is the dialect of common sense. It is the speech
of the proud and melancholy races, and of all who aspire. It is the chosen
tongue to express growth, faith, self-esteem, freedom, justice, equality,
friendliness, amplitude, prudence, decision, and courage. It is the medium
that shall well nigh express the inexpressible.

No great literature, nor any like style of behaviour or oratory or social
intercourse or household arrangements or public institutions, or the
treatment by bosses of employed people, nor executive detail, or detail of
the army or navy, nor spirit of legislation, or courts or police, or
tuition or architecture, or songs or amusements, or the costumes of young
men, can long elude the jealous and passionate instinct of American
standards. Whether or no the sign appears from the mouths of the people, it
throbs a live interrogation in every freeman's and freewoman's heart after
that which passes by, or this built to remain. Is it uniform with my
country? Are its disposals without ignominious distinctions? Is it for the
ever-growing communes of brothers and lovers, large, well united, proud
beyond the old models, generous beyond all models? Is it something grown
fresh out of the fields, or drawn from the sea, for use to me, to-day,
here? I know that what answers for me, an American, must answer for any
individual or nation that serves for a part of my materials. Does this
answer? or is it without reference to universal needs?
or sprung of the
needs of the less developed society of special ranks? or old needs of
pleasure overlaid by modern science and forms? Does this acknowledge
liberty with audible and absolute acknowledgment, and set slavery at
nought, for life and death? Will it help breed one good-shaped man, and a
woman to be his perfect and independent mate? Does it improve manners? Is
it for the nursing of the young of the republic? Does it solve readily with
the sweet milk of the breasts of the mother of many children? Has it too
the old, ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality? Does it look with the
same love on the last-born and on those hardening toward stature, and on
the errant, and on those who disdain all strength of assault outside of
their own?

The poems distilled from other poems will probably pass away. The coward
will surely pass away. The expectation of the vital and great can only be
satisfied by the demeanour of the vital and great. The swarms of the
polished, deprecating, and reflectors, and the polite, float off and leave
no remembrance. America prepares with composure and goodwill for the
visitors that have sent word. It is not intellect that is to be their
warrant and welcome. The talented, the artist, the ingenious, the editor,
the statesman, the erudite--they are not unappreciated--they fall in their
place and do their work.