He knows the world beyond the hills; he sees the great
movement of life from which the village seems almost shut out; he
shares those inclusive experiences which come to each age and give
each age a character of its own. He is in fellowship and sympathy with
the smaller community at his doors, but he belongs also to that
greater community which is coterminous with humanity itself. He is not
disloyal to his immediate surroundings when he leaves them for
exploration, travel, and discovery; he is fulfilling that law of life
which conditions true valuation of that into which one is born upon
clear perception of that which one must acquire for himself.
The wanderings of individuals and races, which form so large a part of
the substance of history, are witnesses of that craving for deeper
experience and wider knowledge which is one of the springs of human
progress. The American cares for Europe not for its more skilful and
elaborate ministration to his comfort; he is drawn towards it through
the appeal of its rich historic life to his imagination and through
the diversity and variety of its social and racial phenomena.
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