The last generation of Americans has taken a better method of asserting
their individual independence than that practiced by the heretics of the
Middle Period. Those who were able to gain leadership in business and
politics sought to justify their success by building up elaborate
industrial and political organizations which gave themselves and their
successors peculiar individual opportunities. On the other hand, the men
of more specifically intellectual interests tacitly abandoned the
Newer-Worldliness of their predecessors and began unconsciously but
intelligently to seek the attainment of some excellence in the
performance of their own special work. In almost every case they
discovered that the first step in the acquisition of the better
standards of achievement was to go abroad. If their interests were
scholarly or scientific, they were likely to matriculate at one of the
German universities for the sake of studying under some eminent
specialist. If they were painters, sculptors, or architects, they
flocked to Paris, as the best available source of technical instruction
in the arts.
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