In the
New World, it has not yet proved necessary to provide against popular
discontents or to bribe popular patriotism with spectacles and
state-parade; and if it were so, there is no government with an interest
of its own separate from that of the people to adopt this policy. It has
therefore been concluded that democratic institutions must necessarily
lack splendor and great public provision for the gratification of the
aesthetic tastes or the indulgence of the leisure of the common people.
The people being, then, our sovereigns, it has not been felt that they
would or could have the largeness of view, the foresight, the sympathy
with leisure, elegance, and ease, to provide liberally and expensively
for their own recreation and refreshment. A bald utility has been the
anticipated genius of our public policy. Our national Mercury was to be
simply the god of the post-office, or the sprite of the barometer,--our
Pan, to keep the crows from the corn-fields,--our Muses, to preside over
district-schools. It begins now to appear that the people are not likely
to think anything too good for themselves, or to higgle about the
expense of whatever ministers largely to their tastes and fancies,--that
political freedom, popular education, the circulation of newspapers,
books, engravings, pictures, have already created a public which
understands that man does not live by bread alone,--which demands
leisure, beauty, space, architecture, landscape, music, elegance, with
an imperative voice, and is ready to back its demands with the necessary
self-taxation.
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