[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR. " ] • SIR,—The article
in last Saturday's Spectator has . interested me, though I hold the writer's conclusion to be surprisingly wrong. The " terrible reserve " of which be speaks is a really high quality and excites no hostility. But the reserve of the mass of Englishmen is simply due to inability to adapt them- selves to any environment but their own. It is true that the history or the political situatiou•of any smaller State or Colony may be petty, but it is of acute interest to the natives, and the Englishman generally fails to interest himself in it or the affairs of his new neighbours because his education has made adaptability for him a slow and difficult process. A motto suitable to Scotchmen, Irishmen, or Welshmen would, speaking generally, be : Nihil humani alien um puto. I fear a Colonial would think Nihit extra Anglian sue tangtt suitable to the average Englishman. That is a fault of upbringing, and not of the mind or the race. During the last thirty years numbers of the wealthy middle class in Scotland have sent their sons to English public schools. These young gentlemen have returned manly and well mannered, with a surprising knowledge of bowling averages and the names of winners of the Ascot Cup or the Grand National during the seven or eight years of their residence in the South. It takes them years to lose that knowledge and take an interest in general affairs, as their contemporaries do who are not fortunate enough to be sent South for an education which is a handicap in the race of life.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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