Are Indigenous English Dumber Than American WASPs?
Matthew Yglesias wants to know!
Matthew Yglesias tweets:
As Matthew Yglesias implies, England has historically not been a Country of Immigration, but more of a Country of Emigration.
On the other hand, has it really been brain-drained all that badly?
I suspect the first world country most deprived by outflow of top talent is Scotland, with much of that going to England. Aberdeen, for instance, is a beautiful place, but it’s extraordinarily far north, further north than Moscow and parts of Alaska.
The most famous biography in the English language is The Life of Johnson, Scotsman James Boswell’s delightful 1791 account of that prototypical Englishman, Dr. Samuel Johnson. A recurrent theme is Johnson joshing Boswell by pointing out why Boswell is in England rather than Johnson is in Scotland:
“The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!”
He would not allow Scotland to derive any credit from [legal reformer] Lord Mansfield; for he was educated in England. "Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young."
“What enemy would invade Scotland, where there is nothing to be got?”
Mr. Arthur Lee mentioned some Scotch who had taken possession of a barren part of America, and wondered why they would choose it. Johnson: "Why, Sir, all barrenness is comparative. The Scotch would not know it to be barren." Boswell: "Come, come, he is flattering the English. you have now been in Scotland, Sir, and say if you did not see meat and drink enough there." Johnson: "Why yes, Sir; meat and drink enough to give the inhabitants sufficient strength to run away from home."
“Your country consists of two things, stone and water. There is, indeed, a little earth above the stone in some places, but a very little; and the stone is always appearing. It is like a man in rags; the naked skin is still peeping out.”
“A tree might be a show in Scotland as a horse in Venice. At St. Andrews Mr. Boswell found only one, and recommended it to my notice; I told him it was rough and low, or looked as if I thought so. This, said he, is nothing to another a few miles off. I was still less delighted to hear that another tree was not to be seen nearer. Nay, said a gentleman that stood by, I know but of this and that tree in the county.”
It’s striking how forgotten today is the old Scottish reputation for business acumen.
Mark Twain’s 1899 article “Concerning the Jews,” which he wrote after spending 18 months in Vienna where his daughter was training in music (she acquired a talented Jewish husband who became the conductor of the Detroit symphony) frequently is on the verge of declaring the Jews the smartest businessmen in the world, when Twain stops himself to award the top honor to the Scots:
The Jews are harried and obstructed in Austria and Germany, and lately in France; but England and America give them an open field and yet survive. Scotland offers them an unembarrassed field too, but there are not many takers. There are a few Jews in Glasgow, and one in Aberdeen; but that is because they can’t earn enough to get away. The Scotch pay themselves that compliment, but it is authentic.
My impression is that Scottish emigres assimilated into multiple bourgeoisies. So, now, we aren’t all that impressed by the Scots, even though they leave their genetic imprint upon our finest thinkers.
Somewhat similarly but more violently, Ireland got decapitated of its Catholic elite in the 17th Century. So you see Bernardo O’Higgins, son of one of the Wild Geese who became the Spanish viceroy of Peru, as the George Washington of Chile.
In contrast, I’m not sure that there was all that much elite immigration out of England, with some exceptions like Puritans to America in the 1630s and Tories in the 1650s, some top farmers to Rhodesia (such as the Actons) in the 20th Century, and middle class talent to Australia after WWII.
The U.S. tends to have a lot of Smiths and Johnsons (some of them Anglicized Continental names) compared to England and fewer upper crust surnames like Cavendish and Montagu.
Did the U.S. Brain Drain England before WW2?
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