arrive at independence what the Ger- | mans call Selbstständigkeit. Men of true culture, as distinguished from that false thing which usurps the name, may possess diverse intellectual temperaments, and reach widely separated points of vartage. But they agree in this, that each has acquired freedom from bondage to cliques and schools, from the prejudices of the worser and the fashions of the better vulgar. Goethe points out in two famous lines that this self-effectuation, which is the highest end of culture, demands different environments according to the different quality of the mental force to be developed.

Es bildet ein Tatent sich in der Stille,

Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.

"Talent forms itself in the silence of the study, character in the stream of the great world." But when formed, each mental force, whether it belongs to the contemplative or to the active order, each self, so cultivated, will possess the privilege insisted on by the same poet of being able "to live resolvedly in the Whole, the Good, the Beautiful;" not in the warped, the falsified, the egotistical; not in the petty, the adulterated, the partial; not in the school, the clique, the coterie; but in the large sphere of universal and enduring ideas.

In trying to solve the problem of culture, we are bound to leave genius unreckoned. The force implied in what we call genius is incalculable, uncontrollable. Genial natures are often doomed to frosts and thwartings; are sometimes favored by the grace of circumstance; are never fostered by prescribed rules and calculated issues. Handel, with nothing but a purely professional education, soared far higher into the ideal regions of his art than Mendelssohn with all the culture Germany could give him. Shakespeare, a mere playwright and theatre-lessee, darted his rays of dramatic insight far deeper and far wider than Goethe, who was nursed upon the lore and wisdom of all ages. Genius is the pioneer whom talent follows; and men of culture have been mostly talents, though we can discover here and there a genius among their ranks. In dealing with culture, then, we have to regard the needs of talent rather than the necessities of genius; intellectual facul ties of good quality, rather than minds of an exceptional, unique distinction.

66

Culture is self-tillage, the ploughing and the harrowing of self by use of what the ages have transmitted to us from the work of gifted minds. It is the appropriation of the heritage bequeathed from previous generations to the needs and cravings of the individual in his emancipation from It will be seen now that, when I speak that which binds us all, the common." of culture, I mean something different It is the method of self-exercise which from what is commonly intended by the enables a man, by entering into communhalf-slang phrase. It may be urged I am ion with the greatest intellects of past and ascribing too lofty and indefinite a func-present generations, by assimilating the tion to culture, when I define it to be the raising of intellectual faculties to their highest potency by means of conscious training. Still, the more we think about the derivation and the history of the word, the more shall we become convinced that this is its root meaning, its most abstract and essential signification. It is the duty of criticism always to aim at bringing back abused or debased words, so far as this is possible, to their logical and legitimate values.

But now comes the question, How is the man with educated faculties to achieve culture? In the case of rare and specially gifted natures, there is no need to ask this question. They attain culture, and more than it can give, by an act of instinct. They leap to their work impulsively, discover it inevitably. Owen Meredith, the late Lord Lytton, wrote no stronger line than this, which I quote from memory:Genius does what it must, but talent does what it can.

leading ideas of the world-spirit, to make himself, according to his personal capacity, an efficient worker, if not a creator, in the symphony forever woven out of human souls.

There are two principal methods for arriving at the ends involved in culture. These may be briefly described as humanism and science. In a certain sense, we owe both to that mighty intellectual movement of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with which the term Renaissance is

commonly connected. The so-called Reformation movement was a subordinate, though politically important, stream of its main current. The essential element in this great burst of energy has been well defined in Michelet's famous formula: the rediscovery of the world and of man. It began with the revival of learning, or the return of the medieval mind to fountain-heads of knowledge and of lifeexperience gushing from long-neglected antique sources. At first, as was natural,

ary or a scientific training. Still, the points of contact between humanism and science are so numerous that thorough study compels us to approach literature scientifically and also to pursue science in a humane spirit. The humanist remembers that his department is capable of being treated with something like the exactitude which physical research demands. The man of science bears in mind that he cannot afford to despise imagination and philosophy. Both poetry and metaphysic, upon the one hand, contributed to the formation of the evolutionary hypothesis. Without habits of strict investigation, on the other hand, we should not possess the great historical works of the nineteenth century, its discoveries in comparative philology, its ethnological theories and inquiries into primitive conditions of society.

the study of mankind in ancient languages, | schools. I shall content myself by pointand literatures and histories in Hebrew, ing out that if, as Pope says, "the proper Greek, and Roman records arrested curi- study of mankind is man," then humanism osity. Humanism the literary, philo- must always keep the first rank in the sophical, historical, artistic side of culture higher intellectual culture. It cannot be gave tone to European thought for dethroned by abstract mathematics or by many generations. Still, it was impossible the investigation of the physical universe. to pursue these studies of the past without Ideal culture involves both factors; and raising comparison with the present. The this ideal was to some extent realized in remoteness of the modern from the antique Goethe. Few men-none, indeed — can mind led to critical analysis; and out of hope now to exercise themselves comcriticism emerged science. Science in-pletely in both branches. We have to cludes all branches of exact co-ordinated choose between the alternatives of a literknowledge. Criticism, exerted first upon texts and theories, began to be extended to facts. In course of time the study of nature evolved itself out of the study of ancient philosophies. The curiosity about the external world, which had at first been poetical, æsthetic, sensuous, assumed the gravity of anxious speculation and of careful inquiry into actual conditions of existence. Mathematics, in the field of physics and astronomy, introduced novel conceptions of the universe. Without tracing the evolution of the natural sciences, it is enough to observe that at the end of the last century Europe became aware that humanism alone would not suffice as the basis of education and culture. The Renaissance had rediscovered man and the world. The criticism of man implied humanism. The criticism of the world, at a somewhat later period, led to science. Science, though later to emerge, proved itself the paramount force of the modern as distinguished from the antique and the mediæval spirit. The whole of this nineteenth century has been dominated by a rapid extension of scientific ideas. Scientific methods have been introduced into every department of study. We have arrived at the conviction that mental training of a thorough sort cannot neglect science. In other words, we know now that an interpenetration of humanism with science and of science with humanism is the condition of the highest culture. At present the fusion cannot be said to have been fully realized. And for the future it is probable that there will always be two differently constituted orders of minds, the one inclining to the purely humanistic, and the other to the purely scientific side of culture.

I have no wish to enter here into the controversy which has been carried on between scientific men and humanists as to the relative educational value of their methods. Nor do I want to touch upon the burning question as to whether the classics will have to be abandoned in our

I have been speaking about culture as a form of self-effectuation through conscious training of the mind. It is a psychical state, so to speak, which may be acquired by sympathetic and assimilative study. It makes a man to be something; it does not teach him to create anything. It has no power to stand in the place of nature, and to endow a human being with new faculties. It prepares him to exert his innate faculties in a chosen line of work, with a certain spirit of freedom, with a certain breadth of understanding.

This brings me to consider the relation of culture to those special industries, arts, and professions which are determined by the subdivision of labor and by the varieties of human temperament. We have seen already that "genius does what it must." Education and self-training exercise but slender formative influence over natures like Michael Angelo, Beethoven, Shakespeare. This is the pith of the old proverb that “a poet is born, not made.” Some of the greatest men of genius, Burns and Turner, for example, can hardly be called men of culture. Others, like Ben Jonson, Tasso, Heine, were so

emphatically. We have also seen that | deed, to botanists and oculists, palæog"Talent does what it can." For this raphers and lepidopterists, because these reason, culture is most important to men men devote their faculties to very strongly of talent. It enables them to know what demarcated fields of study. But, if we they can do; brings forth their latent ca- regard the problem from the point of view pacities; leads them to choose painting of personality, the specialist is one who or sculpture, pure literature or philosophy, applies the whole of his energies to the according to their innate bias. It also single task for which he is specially qualicompensates that bias by giving them a fied. I mean it is no less a speciality in general sympathy with things outside their philosophers like Hegel, Comte, and Herspeciality. In this respect it is of value bert Spencer, to attempt the co-ordination also for men of genius, whose bias in one of all human knowledge in one system, particular direction reaches the maximum. than it is a speciality in men like EhrenSpecialists, unless they be creative gen-berg and Edison to concentrate their iuses of the most marked type, require attention upon infusoria and electricity. to be armed by culture against narrow- Both types of individuals, those who strive mindedness and the conceit of thinking to embrace the whole, and those who delve that their own concerns are all-important. into a portion, stand in the same need of A man of moderate ability who cannot see culture. I am speaking of culture now beyond the world of beetles, beyond the under its moral aspect, as teaching us to painter's studio, beyond the church or measure any man's littleness against the chapel, beyond the concert-room, beyond vastness of the whole. Auguste Comte, the grammar of an extinct language, or to take an example of one sort, was defisome one period of history, is apt to be cient in the spirit of real culture, because intolerable. Culture teaches him his he thought he could reconstitute religion modest place in the whole scheme. Cul- on a fanciful basis. Darwin was not defiture is, therefore, absolutely essential to cient in this spirit of real culture, because the mental well-being of persons confined he published his epoch-making theory as by their craft or profession to a narrow a simple hypothesis, restraining himself range of intellectual interests. I am, of to rigorous inductions, and to limited decourse, not alluding here to handicrafts- ductions within a certain sphere of knowlmen and honest laborers, who do the work edge. No one was more aware than required of them without self-conceit, and Darwin that he had made a serious contriserve the immediate needs of society with- bution to his own branch of science. But out being aware of their own inestimable no one was more conscious of the immense value. But to return to the intellectual dark sphere of inscrutabilities surrounding specialist. It is fortunate for him that the the little spark of light he had evoked. downright examination of any branch of I must repeat that culture is not an end knowledge, the conscientious practice of in itself. It prepares a man for life, for any fine art, directs a man of ordinary work, for action, for the reception and talent on the path of real culture. This is emission of ideas. Life itself is larger due to the inter-co ection of all depart- than literature, than art, than science. ments in the schem of modern thought. | Life does not exist for them, but they for Humanists and scientists have been en- life. This does not imply that it is better gaged together for nearly five centuries in weaving a magic robe, warp and woof combined into one fabric, which gradually, through their accumulated industry, approximates to something like an organic tissue. The hope of the future is that any exact investigation of one part will imply an adequate acquaintance with the whole. An able man, therefore, who has made himself an accomplished specialist, will even now be found to have in him the spirit of true culture. That is to say, he will regard his own subject as one province of a vast, perhaps an illimitable, empire.

In a certain sense all people who have developed their own nature to the utmost are specialists. We give the name, in

to be a man of no culture than a man of
culture. The man of culture is obviously
capable of living to more purpose, of
getting a larger amount out of life, than
the man of no culture. He can also judge
more fairly in all cases of comparative
criticism. Still, I am unable to perceive
that the refinements of the intellect on any
line of its development involve an enno-
bling or a strengthening of the human
being. Given individuals of equal cali-
bre, as many wise men may be found
among the artisans and peasants as among
reputed savants. Household proverbs
are not unfrequently a safer guide to con-
duct than the aphorisms of professors.
We all of us probably have known flawless
characters, men, as the Greeks said,

Is it not something that has been better told or done before?

Have you not imported this, or the spirit of Is it not a mere tale ? a rhyme? a prettiness? it, in some ship?

And again :

Rhymes and rhymers pass away, poems distilled from poems pass away;

"four-cornered without defect," who have | What is this you bring? not enjoyed the privileges of education. The life of no great nation lies either in humanism or science. The arts and literature of Italy in the sixteenth century did not make her powerful or virtuous. The so-called progress to which she is now sacrificing the monuments of her past, a progress dominated by scientific notions, has substituted ugliness and vulgarity for beauty and distinction, without adding an iota to her strength or general intelligence. We ought not to despise culture. The object of this article is to demonstrate its value. But the nearer a man has come to The pith of his contention lies in the folpossessing it, the less will he over-esti-lowing admonition, which breathes the mate acquirements or accumulations of knowledge, the more importance will he attach to character, to personality, to energy, to independence.

The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass,
and leave ashes;
Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make

but the soil of literature.

spirit of an antique Spartan or Roman: Fear grace, elegance, civilization, delicatesse." Shun the atmosphere which enfeebles, the learning which encumbers, the customs and traditions which trammel independence. Prophetic utterances of this sort are apt to be exaggerated. It is good, however, that cultured people should be told not to let culture draft them into cliques and coteries, separate them from the people, blunt them to the main thoughtcurrents and vital interests of their age.

few.

At this point it may be useful to glance at the polemic which Walt Whitman, the prophet-poet of democracy, used to carry on against culture. His arguments, to a large extent, miss their mark, because they are directed against the vulgar conception of culture, as an imitative smattering, a self-assertiveness of so-called cultivated people. He has ignored the No great and spontaneous growths of higher significance which may be given to art have arisen in an age of erudition and the word, and which I have sought to assimilation. The Greek drama, the bring forth. Yet much that he said is Gothic style of architecture, the romantic worthy of attention. He endeavored to drama of Elizabethan England, were prodenforce the truth that a great and puissant ucts not of cultivated taste, but of instincnation does not live by sensibility and tive genius. There is profound truth in knowledge, but by the formation of char-what Herder taught to the young Goethe, acter, by the development of personal that really great poetry has always been energy. "What is our boasted culture?" the product of a national spirit, and not he asks. Do you term that perpetual, the product of studies confined to a select pistareen, paste-pot work American art, American drama, taste, etc. ?" Culture is good in its way; but it is not what forms a manly personality, a sound and simple faith. "As now taught, accepted, and carried out, are not the processes of culture rapidly creating a class of supercilious infidels, who believe in nothing?" "Shall a man lose himself in countless masses of adjustments, and be so shaped with reference to this, that, and the other that the simply good and healthy and brave parts of him are reduced and chipped away, like the bordering of box in a garden?" The only culture which is of service to a nation must aim less at polish than at the bracing of character. "It must have for its spinal meaning the formation of typical personality of character, eligible to the uses of the high average of men, and not restricted by conditions ineligible to the masses." To the man of letters he exclaims: :

No one feels this more than one who, like myself, has devoted a large portion of his life to the history of that period which developed modern culture. I mean the Italian Renaissance. Humanism inflicted an irreparable damage on the national literature of Italy. It impeded the evolution of the mother-tongue by the preference given to composition in dead languages. It caused an abrupt division between the learned classes and the people. When men of genius began again to use Italian for great works of art, they found themselves hampered in two ways. They were clogged with classical reminiscences and precedents. They were separated from popular sympathy and deprived of popular support. The masterpieces of their predecessors, Petrarch and Boccaccio, had become classics, and were slavishly imitated. It was not in the lyric or the drama, but in the plastic arts, that the national genius

of the Italians expressed itself during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Germany presents a parallel instance. It is in music that the modern Germans have displayed their national originality. Yet the Germans have been the most thoroughly cultivated of the European nations during the last century and a half. That is to say, they have worked at both branches of culture, humanism and science, with the greatest diligence, and have applied both to literary studies with the most philosophical breadth of intelligence. It cannot be said, however, that the creative literature of this cultured race, in poetry, oratory, the drama, and the novel, taken as a whole, has been of the highest order. It is true that their representative man of genius, the Olympian Goethe, was essentially a poet of culture; and he shows to what altitudes the cultivated intellect may climb, when it resides in a noble and exceptionally gifted personality. Goethe towers so markedly superior to all the other poets of culture upon German soil, that his example tests the rule,

Some of these sayings may sound hard in an age and country where culture appears to have superseded originality. They seem especially intended to discourage those of us who are doomed by the limitations of our nature to be critics, men of learning, taste, assimilation. We must comfort ourselves by reflecting that it is impossible to transcend the conditions of the times we live in, or the limits of our personality.

carve cherry-stones, dance ballets, turn rondeaux, are as much needed as those who till the soil, lead Cabinets, or fabricate new theories of the universe. True culture respects hand-labor upon equal terms with brain-labor, the mechanic with the inventor of machinery, the critic of poetry with the singer of poems, the actor with the playwright. The world wants all sorts, and wants each sort to be of the best quality. True culture knows that the quality cannot be first-rate when the species is looked down upon. On the other hand, false culture, the kind against which Walt Whitman prophesies, encourages the growth of prigs who despise folk because they do not pursue some branch of industry which is conventionally regarded as being higher in the scale than others. It makes Pharisees, who feel themselves superior to their neighbors, because these people do not belong to their own set, their own coterie, their own creed, and so forth.

The liberality and width of toleration upon which I am insisting as signs of true culture do not imply a facile acquiescence in every doctrine or in every mode of liv. ing. True culture does not prevent a man from being pugnacious, ready to fight for his opinions, eager to conquer in what he regards as the right cause. In the universal symphony strife is no less important than concord. Fully developed personalities cannot co-exist and energize together without clash and conflict. Innovation works with conservatism, powers of revo

tionary or retrogressive forces, to keep the organism in a state of active energy. As Empedocles put it, both love and hate are necessary to the balance of the cosmic sphere. Culture prepares us to acquiesce in this state of things as part of the universal order. While recognizing our own right and duty to struggle for the truth as we perceive it, we acknowledge the same right and the same duty in our opponents. For some reason hidden from our mortal ken the world was meant to be so governed. Phenomenal existence is in a perpetual state of becoming; becoming implies cohesion and dissolution; both processes involve contention. All the soldiers in all the armies, if they act with energy, sincerity, disinterested loyalty, serve one lord and master.

Society would reach something like per-lution and of progress combine with stafection if each individual succeeded in self-effectuation, fulfilling the law of his own nature, and being distinguished from his neighbors by some marked quality, some special accomplishment. The concord of divers instruments constitutes the music of a symphony. The blending of distinct personalities creates the finest mental and moral harmony. To some extent, of course, this result is attained wherever human beings are associated. But we suffer too much from the tyranny of majorities, the oppression of custom, the gregarious instincts of commonplace and timid persons. As I have already tried to demonstrate, true culture tends to the differentiation of individualities, by enabling people to find out what they are made for, what they can do best, what their deepest self requires for its accomplishment. True culture is never in a condescending attitude. It knows that no kind of work, however trivial, ought to be regarded with contempt. People who

There is, therefore, no reason to fear that the higher culture should involve men in supercilious indifference, or cynical acceptance, or the Buddhistic inertia of contemplation.