French & English

In England there is not much physical education of a formal and methodical nature; the English are not remarkable for a love of gymnastic exercises, and they seldom train or dev...

Educators in both countries have persistently maintained the incomparable superiority of Latin and Greek over modern languages, not only for their linguistic merits, but also on...

In both music and drawing the French have shown themselves far better educators than in languages. Their ways of teaching drawing are especially marked by seriousness, by the di...

This chapter is very difficult to write, because I shall have to deal with what cannot be accurately ascertained. A man can hardly know how far he has been successful in the mor...

John Mill pointed out long ago the advantage that the French have in the cultivation of the feelings. This is very much an affair of utterance in language, for it is utterance w...

France, being a more advanced democracy than England, has made greater efforts to bring secondary education within the reach of many, and the consequence is that such education,...

The tender feeling of patriotism, as distinguished from the proud, is more general in France than in England, and it has increased in France during the last twenty years, whilst...

In the first chapter I indicated certain causes which make the patriotic sentiment less tender in England than in France. The same causes make English patriotism prouder than Fr...

The condition of things that most readily produces jealousy between rivals is a near approximation to equality, provided that the equals are very few in number, and that each of...

This is a more agreeable chapter to write than the two which have preceded it, for the idea of patriotic duty is always ennobling, even when that difficult kind of duty is irreg...

There is a strong resemblance between the great French and English political movements of modern times, but they differ from each other chronologically, and also in the terms by...

“Liberty” is a sacred word in England, its birthplace and its home. We all know what we mean by it, and I need not attempt a definition, still it may be well for us to think how...

No country can be more favourable than France for the observation of that process by which a startling novelty is taken after a short time under the protection of the most sober...

It is customary with the reactionary parties in France to look to England as the model of everything that is stable; and as their ignorance of English affairs prevents them from...

An established religion is a religion under the especial protection of the Government, and which is held to be national, at least in this sense, that it represents the nation be...

There are two reasons why the road to disestablishment is plainer in France. The first is the abolition of the monarchy, which takes away the defender of the royal faith. The se...

What I mean by the social power of a religion is the power of enforcing conformity by the double sanction of social rewards and penalties. If the clergy can improve the social p...

The word “Faith” is used in two different senses. In ordinary language it means little more than a custom or a name. When people say that Napoleon I. belonged to the Roman Catho...

The distinction between formalism and hypocrisy in religion is, that the formalist follows a custom without setting up any claim to depth or sincerity of conviction, whilst the...

The Special Committee of the London School Board issued a report in the early part of the year 1888, in which it declared that “fearless truth, bravery, honour, activity, manly...

What is meant by “justice” in this chapter is the power of suspending judgment until evidence is forthcoming, and then the disposition to decide on the merits of the case unbias...

Of all subjects this is the most difficult to treat satisfactorily; because there is, and must be, an inevitable reticence that is sure to weaken the argument at the most import...

The French are supposed to be a much more temperate nation than the English, and, in fact, there used to be few drunkards in France. That country has, however, a peculiar charac...

Thrift is classed as a social virtue, because in a thrifty society few people fall upon others for their support. The thrifty man looks to his own independence during sickness,...

Entering London one day with a friend in the railway train, I asked him what, in his opinion, would have been the impressions of an ancient Roman if he could have accompanied us...

I think it must be admitted that there has been an apparent decline in national courage both in England and France during the latter half of the nineteenth century. They now, bo...

It is a commonplace that the French and English of to-day are extremely unlike each other--wonderfully unlike each other, considering that they are such near neighbours, and the...

There seems to be a contradiction in the English character on this very important subject, for the English are at the same time one of the hardiest peoples in the world and quit...

It is most difficult to fix any common standard of luxury in two different nations. In a single nation the question whether an indulgence may be considered luxurious or not is s...

Codes of manners have a very restricted rule. They are national, and in the nation each class has its own code. If, therefore, one nation judges another by its own standard, it...

The French laugh at the English for their “_décorum anglais_,” as if the English were alone in having a strict rule about what is becoming. The French themselves are equally str...

England and France are alike in this, that caste is not yet abolished in either country, and they also resemble each other in passing through a state of false caste which appear...

England and France are the richest countries in Europe, and, of the two, England is generally believed to be the richer. I believe the same, and yet am unable to give evidence o...

The notion of marriage as an alliance is more generally prevalent in France than in England, where it belongs only to the upper, or at least the wealthier classes. The ideal of...

One of the most prevalent popular errors, for it is prevalent both in France and England, is the belief that the French are the more sociable people of the two. The truth is qui...

The estimate of what constitutes personal success varies so much in the two countries, and in the different classes of each, that it is very difficult to arrive at any common st...

There is a private national success as well as a public one. Private success, for a nation, is to have got the kind of religion and the kind of government that are suitable to t...

This kind of success is of importance only so far as it affects the wealth or the independence of a nation. Otherwise, success abroad is merely a subject of national vanity of a...

European travellers in the more benighted parts of Asia, such, for example, as the interior of Arabia, have sometimes had to contend with a peculiar difficulty in making their n...

The _Rue de Rivoli_, the _Champs Elysées_, and the _Boulevard des Italiens_ are familiar to the travelling English, but they know little of provincial France, and they reciproca...