The Dutch

ONE who knows the Dutch people well will be pleased to find them here presented precisely as he knows them. One who does not know them will wish he might. One’s first impression of Holland today recalls the observations of Voltaire in 1722: ‘Among the half-million people who live in Amsterdam there is not one loafer, not one pauper, not one fop or boor. In the midst of the populace we met the Grand Pensionary afoot with no attendants. Flnnkeyism is nowhere to be seen.’ In his first two chapters Mr. Barnouw analyzes the national character which gives rise to these appearances, as well as to many others quite as prepossessing which discover themselves to the visitor as his acquaintance ripens. Americans have long taken it for granted that the Dutch are an admirable people without knowing just what the traits are which make them so; for of all peoples in Western Europe those of the Low Countries — the Dutch and Flemish — are probably the most complete strangers to us. There are strong reasons why we should know them better, and Mr. Barnouw’s book gives us the best of introductions.

One reason, perhaps ethically the strongest, is that in all probability we owe the Dutch a great deal more than we think we do. Half a century ago a lawyer in New York, Douglas Campbell, published a remarkable book called The Puritan in Holland, England and America. It had a curious history; it ran through three editions in six months, then tor some reason suddenly went out of print, and is now hard to find. It put up a copper-riveted case for the thesis that an astonishing number of our fundamental institutions, political, legal, and social, which we have accepted as of English origin, were actually picked up by the English immigrants during their residence in Holland, and brought over to America from there. Mr. Campbell’s book is pretty close reading for people of these days, but its thesis seems important, it sound, and could easily be dealt with in a more popular manner. As a matter of taste this might perhaps be done with a better grace by an American than a Dutchman; still, Mr. Barnouw may like to look into the matter and see what he thinks of it.

Mr. Barnouw discloses (of course by implication only) another strong reason why we should know the Dutch better than we do. More highly than any other people they have developed just those national virtues in which we are most deficient, and their weaknesses are those which we could never by any chance be led to imitate; hence what we might get out of a closer acquaintance would be so much clear gain. It is rather odd, for example, that Americans who have coined a name for one of the noblest of virtues — cussedness — should possess so little of it, while the Dutch who have no name for it possess it in abundance. Thrift, caution, moderation, realism, self-reliance, independence, chronic distrust of authority, hatred of violence, hatred of publicity — in all these sterling qualities the Dutch are immeasurably our superiors, and we can learn from them. What they can learn from us is for them to say, not for us, and Mr. Barnouw suggests several points at which their life might profit by our example.

His book is as entertaining as it is instructive. His account of the effort to get up a Dutch Who’s Who is immensely amusing. The best newspapers in the world are Dutch, and he has something delightful — not nearly enough — to say about what makes them so. Again, all too little does he say about the fine shades of expression whereof the rich and forthright Dutch speech is so abundantly capable. One views with alarm, however, his saying that the language of the abutting Belgian provinces of Brabant and Flanders is ‘Belgian Dutch called Flemish,’ for the people of those provinces will certainly hang him for it if he ever ventures south of Roosendaal. They will have you know that their speech is the genuine old original article, pure and undefiled, and you have no idea of its resources until you hear what they have to say about the Dutch for so treasonably and villainously corrupting it into the foul jargon of Amsterdam.

The best recommendation of Mr. Barnouw’s work is that it makes the reader eager to go farther and learn more; for this is preëminently what a book of its kind should do.

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