8 MY AMERICAN FRIENDS

American education by the point at which it has
now arrived, he would probably judge it un-
favourably. But on looking nearer he would
observe that American education is in the state of
experimentation and moving at certain points in
directions that are full of promise and may
possibly lead hereafter to results of great value, as
examples to mankind at large.

3. Whenever the observer is struck by a
feature which seems to him peculiarly good or
peculiarly evil, let him at once look out for its con-
trary. He is sure to find it. Let him observe
also how definitely the two things are in conflict^
how close, if I may say so, is the grip which good
and evil in America have on each other's throats,
The tendency to exaggeration which characterizes
so many currents of American life (though not all)
seems to extend itself to good and evil. They
exist in their extreme forms and the conflict
between them is one of extreme intensity. What
is elsewhere a struggle between good and evil here
becomes a struggle between the best and the
worst, the best- being very good and the worst
very bad. And yet it is not by a study of either
extreme, nor by a study first of one and then of
another, that the observer will arrive at a true
interpretation of what he observes. The sig-
nificant fact is not the existence of these opposites
but the fierce struggle for mastery in which they
are everywhere engaged.

And yet even the strictest observance of the