'Sut,—Having spent some little time .with the Americans in North
Africa, Sicily and Italy during the last war, I was very interested to read Professor Avery Craven's rejoinder to Miss Quigly's article. Although myself a great admirer of the Americans and their many robust qualities, I was particularly struck by their almost complete lack of interest in their surroundings in the countries in which the fortunes of war had placed them. Of the many hundreds of Americans of widely varying types I met, I do not recall one who ever acquired one sentence of the French or Italian languages. This is by no means to suggest that the British soldier was an intensely cultured fellow who always learned to speak the local language fluently, but after a few weeks he had usually managed to learn some of the more useful words and phrases, and could ask the time or his way to the nearest wine-shop. Other things being equal, it is not difficult to imagine who got on better with the local inhabitants.
' Why was there this disparity ? I can suggest two possible reasons myself, and there may be others. Firstly, in the normal course of events only a very small percentage of Americans are able to overcome the difficulties of distance and expense involved in going abroad for a holiday, and anyway they have in their own continent such a wide variety of climate and scenery available that there is no particular inducement to do so. I believe, therefore, that the great majority become even more insular than we are supposed to be. Secondly, the American educational system would seem to be concentrated far more than our own on technical subjects, with a consequent neglect of its broader and more enduring aspects. Professor Craven makes great play of the plight of the American soldier, torn from his home surroundings and forcibly transplanted to less congenial soils. This, however, can scarcely be relevant. It is happening these days to the young men of many nations, and most of them appear to benefit from the process rather more than the Americans. One can sympathise with the feelings of one in Professor Craven's post, who, properly anxious for better Anglo-American relations, reads what he may consider to be an ill-natured article. But to deny the existence of something for which there is a considerable basis in fact does not improve the situation. Miss Quigly may have been tactless to write the article, and you, Sir, tactless to publish it, but that its contents were - absolutely accurate I, for one, can Vouch.—Yours faithfully,
E. P. BAZALGETTE.
104 The Avenue. West Wickham, Kent.
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