| AMERICAN TITLES AND DISTINCTIONS. |
By Professor W. Le CONTE STEVENS,
WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY.
THOMAS CARLYLE is credited with the statement that England has a population of twenty or thirty millions—'mostly fools.' The definition of fool is not given. If the word means anything else than an expression of dislike it is that the unfortunate man who bears such a title is so deficient in intelligence or in good judgment as to be worthy of unenviable distinction. But a distinguished man, whether his distinction be good or bad, stands out among his fellows in some way. It is impossible for the larger part of any mass of human beings composing an organized body, whether the students of an educational institution, or the devotees of fashionable society, or the population of a great nation, to be distinguished. The mere fact that in such a body a majority possesses qualities which might otherwise confer distinction upon an individual destroys the possibility of preeminence based on such possession. Every one recognizes that Carlyle's epigram expressed no objective truth, but that he displayed only the acidity and peevishness of one whose influence was perceptibly waning.
Epigram is never quite consistent with truth. It may contain enough mixture of truth with falsehood to command the momentary assent of even a thoughtful man. Its essential feature is brightness rather than solidity, and it arrests the attention when accuracy fails to attract. A French writer who has recently passed away, Paul Blouët, visited America some years ago, and the inevitable book of impressions was the natural consequence. His fondness for epigram had amused many readers of a previous book entitled 'John Bull and his Island.' The first chapter of 'Jonathan and his Continent' began with the following words in imitation of Carlyle: 'The population of America is sixty millions—mostly colonels.' In a subsequent chapter he emphasized this idea with the statement, "Every American with the least self-respect is colonel or judge; but if you should discover that your interlocutor is neither colonel nor judge, call him 'Professor,' and you are out of the difficulty." This implication that professors belong by exclusion to a class without the least self-respect may be unwelcome to some of the unfortunates who are compelled to carry this mark of Cain; but there is enough truth in the Frenchman's epigram
