THE NEW MAN.*
Ma. PHILIP GIBBS has brought an indictment against a nation- He has undertaken to describe the English man and the English woman of to-day. And a very unpleasant picture be has drawn. Unfortunately no one can deny that it is in many respects a true one. The new man and the new woman are in many ways inferior to their predecessors. Mr. Gibbs sets out the differences very well, and he does not stop to inquire within what limits and with what cautions his account of the new man is to be accepted. That within these limits and with these cautions it is accurate we do not question. We have all of us met the original of the portrait. But we are not quite as despondent about the future of England as Mr. Gibbs is. He sees but one sign of hope in the new nation. No doubt this is a sign that impresses him greatly. "Perhaps after all," he says, "the miracle will be worked by the Boy Scout.. . . If he fails us, we are finished." We have great admiration for the Boy Scout, but we cannot yet cling to him as to our last straw. There are still one or two facts which may yield some fragment of comfort. One is that when a clever writer sets out to describe the new man, he is likely to restrict his observation to the objects he is looking for. He is busy collecting specimens, and he leaves on one side the things he has known all his life. Yet they may be there all the time, and if he had been on the look-out for them be might hare found as much to say about the obstinate survivals of an old type as about the new type which is pressing it hard. A good deal, too, must be allowed for the imitative propensity in man and for his desire to be like his neighbours. The new man has already set a new fashion—a fashion of shirking work, of having no opinions that it takes any trouble to arrive at, of despising custom and tradition, of making pleasure his business, and leaving business to those who are too poor or too stupid to do anything else. But of those to whom this description apparently applies there may be some—perhaps many—who are capable of better things. They show the external symptoms of the malady, but the mischief may not have gone very deep. Perhaps here and there some of them will recognize their own portrait in Mr. Gibbs's sketch, and resolve that it shall no longer extort recognition. There is another qualification to be borne in mind. If we giant all that Mr. Gibbs says, there is still something to be accounted for. It is the enormous energy that is expended in keeping this faulty civilization going. The upper classes in France, on the eve of the Revolution, had some characteristics very much like what we see now. They were rich, they were extravagant, they lived only for amusement. But all the time the taxes were paid by the middle and lower classes, and France was drifting towards bankruptcy. Where in England to-day is there any counterpart to this state of things P The growth of the revenue, the enormous and increasing volume of trade, the creation and development of new enterprises in every direction testify to the presence of a residue, at all events, of national energy wholly inconsistent with the universality of the new man. He is among us, no doubt, but he has not yet taken possession of England to the extent that a hasty reader might infer from Mr. Gibbs's pages. Still, when all this has been said, we have a great deal more of the new man than is good for us, and we welcome the description of his character and habits which we find in Mr. Gibbs's opening chapter " Unlike his father and his forefathers [hej has no fixed con- victions. Ho has no authority to whom he can turn for guidance, because he has denied all authority. . . He takes nothing for granted. He questions the laws of life. . . Nothing seems to him wrong ; nothing right.. . Why should a man have only one wife ? Why should the Western world regard monogamy as the only possible basis of family life? Why should a woman be • The Non Non. By Philip Gibbs. Loudon: Sir Luse Pitman Sad Soon. Vied. sat.] • ostracized if she has a child without going through an ecclesias- tical ceremony ? Why should a people born in a certain environ- ment be punished for so-called crimes caused by that environment? Why should any kind of action be called sin and any kind of action be called virtue when all men and women are under the irresistible pressure of hereditary instinct, of economic conditions, of mental influences which impel them to do the things they do? . . . Why should men and women deny themselves the liberty of their desires and coerce themselves by unpleasant restraints without gaining any advantage in this world and without any hope of reward in any other world? "
The new man is always saying, Why? " Words like Empire, Patriotism, Duty, Honour, Glory, and God" have no meaning for him. He has "a fatalistic belief in his luck, inter- rupted by periods of apprehension and gloom." The most original chapter in the book is one which deals with the relation of the new man to the new woman. Economic, and intellectual influences have combined to place the women of the great middle class on an equality with men. They earn their own living, they are interested in the same literature, and they are claiming the same political rights. All this would have shocked the man of the middle of the last century, because it went against all the traditions in which he had been brought up. Ho might not be able to say why he dis- liked to see a woman smoke, or go about everywhere by herself, or choose her friends impartially from her own and the other sex. But then he stood in no need of reasons to justify his dislike. It was enough for him that women bad not done these things before. To him the violation of custom was the violation of law in its most sacred form. With the man of the twentieth century custom counts for nothing. His favourite " Why ? " is applied to women quite as much as to men. Who is he to dispute the equality of women "who are just as well educated as himself or a little better, who have faced the facts of life with amazing candour, who are completely independent of him financially, and maintain without argument—taking it for granted— a perfect intellectual and moral liberty " P The old and the new ways of regarding women cannot both be right, but, as he has no principle that can help him to judge between the two, he is content to accept facts as they are. He has a lingering respect for law, though it is only an inconsistent survival from an earlier generation, so he punishes the suffragettes. But he punishes them weakly. "He sentences them to long terms of imprisonment, but releases them after their brief hunger-strikes." He does not defend what they do, bat he distinguishes between their acts and their motives, and perhaps says that they remind him of the early Christians. If any reader will ask himself how many men of his acquaintance, and how many women, would leave a suffragette to die if she refuses to eat the food that would keep her alive, he will be surprised to find how much more willing women are than men to let militants take the con. sequences of their actions. The doctrine of the superiority of man over woman has disappeared over a large area of society, and as yet no one has framed a sex morality which shall take its place. The new man is not altogether easy about what be thinks inevitable, but he will probably smile pityingly at Mr. Gibbs's remark that the unlimited liberty of whole classes of girls to go where they like, do what they like, read what they like, leads in many cases "to lamentable little tragedies, because after all, though we have altered a good deal, we have not yet altered human nature."
The chapter on the education of the new man is an example of Mr. Gibbs's general method. It is true, but it is not universally true. It is true that some of our elementary schools have "thrown away all the old-fashioned principles of education as useless lumber and superstitious nonsense." But it is not tree of them all. It is true that some of the masters, having no respect for duty or discipline or for the virtues of obedience and honour, "do not trouble to teach them to their scholars." But it is not true of them all. We fear, however, that it is tending to become more true. Elementary teachers are more and more constituting a class by themselves, and they "are the heirs to the spirit of revolt which has taken possession of the new age." They are ambitious, poor, with a very good opinion of themselves, and very anxious to rise in their profession. But all this may coexist with great, indifference to the characters of the children committed to them—an indifference which is fostered by the softness which diseourages flogging and other primitive methods of maintain- ing order, and forces the teacher to "use bribes rather than discipline in order to obtain quietude in class." Mr. Gibbs gives us a specimen of a kind of teaching which aims at obtaining similar results in another way. It is from a catechism in use in a Socialist Sunday-school:- " Who creates all wealth?—The "Jerking class.
Who creates all poverty?—Our capitalist society.
Who is responsible for millionaires /-....Our capitalist society.
Who is responsible for paupers P—Our capitalist society.
What class of men get into Parliament P—The capitalist and aristocratic class.
How is that?—Because the workers are opposed by men who aro interested in keeping them poor."
This may seem very dull teaching for children, but it only reproduces the ideas which they meet in their homes, and the capable ones, at all events, will like to get some notion of what their fathers are constantly talking about. Although the effort to make a book continuously amusing cannot but lead to many exaggerations, there is much in The New Man that deserves and will repay serious consideration.
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