simplicity of an older generation--the rugged virtue of a more frugal
time--has given place to the sophistication of the Continent. When I was
a lad, going abroad was a rare and costly privilege. A youth who had
been to Rome, London and Paris, and had the unusual opportunity of
studying the treasures of the Vatican, the Louvre and the National
Gallery, was regarded with envy. Americans went abroad for culture; to
study the glories of the past.

Now the family that does not invade Europe at least every other summer
is looked on as hopelessly old-fashioned. No clerk can find a job on the
Rue de Rivoli or the Rue de la Paix unless he speaks fluently the
dialect of the customers on whose trade his employer chiefly
relies--those from Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois. The American no
longer goes abroad for improvement, but to amuse himself. The college
Freshman knows, at least by name, the latest beauty who haunts the
Folies Bergères, and his father probably has a refined and intimate
familiarity with the special attractions of Ciro's and the Trocadero.

I do not deny that we have learned valuable lessons from the Parisians.
At any rate our cooking has vastly improved. Epicurus would have
difficulty in choosing between the delights of New York and Paris--for,
after all, New York is Paris and Paris is New York. The chef of
yesterday at Voisin's rules the kitchen of the Ritz-Carlton or the Plaza
to-day; and he cannot have traveled much who does not find a dozen
European acquaintances among the head waiters of Broadway. Not to know
Paris nowadays is felt to be as great a humiliation as it was fifty
years ago not to know one's Bible.

Beyond the larger number of Americans who visit Paris for legitimate or
semilegitimate purposes, there is a substantial fraction who go to do