Culture and the State 49 



Culture tends, it is believed, to injure the state by en- 

 larging the army of the inefficient. 



It is admitted, of course, that cultural education, what- 

 ever its basis, may not always succeed; does not always 

 furnish forth a man of service. This for two good rea- 

 sons : first, notwithstanding venerated authority, all men 

 are not created equal. There is diversity of gift. Sec- 

 ond, the influence of the teacher in the college is not the 

 only factor in determining individual activity. Condi- 

 tions of wealth or poverty, health, environment, early 

 surroundings and education, parental care all these 

 things affect, as they do other people, men who enjoy 

 opportunities for culture. Intellectual training not in- 

 frequently corrects such handicaps to individual success ; 

 but not always. There is no culture of the plant unless 

 the plant is alive ; it must respond ; and so there is no in- 

 tellectual culture without effort on the part of the sub- 

 ject. Culture should make for activity, and I am pre- 

 pared to show that the man of culture is not only ready 

 to work along the lines, unremunerative generally, in 

 which he has at college found pleasant employ ; but he is 

 perfectly ready to join the vast industrial army of the 

 commonwealth, and to do work with his hands, directly. 

 Hopkinson Smith was a lighthouse builder. Some of 

 the most cultured men I have known have worked at 

 the bench, designing and building beautiful furniture, 

 houses, wheels, etc. Some have been carpenters, print- 

 ers, weavers, gardeners, farmers. It is simply idle, there- 

 fore, to say that culture and labor do not go together: 

 the wide school of those who follow William Morris rise 

 up to confute forever such a notion. 



