Culture and the State 



oppression, and to save little children and their mothers 

 from sorrow and want. Who are the men who plan your 

 fine streets, secure for all the people your public parks, 

 your avenues, the play-ground for the children of the 

 poor? Who are all these? These are men of culture, 

 men who have ideals, who have dreams, if you please, 

 and who make their dreams come true ; not great money- 

 makers, perchance, but men who can persuade even 

 wealth to service, and so, without taxation, bring vast 

 private fortune to the aid of every good and glorious 

 cause. Nay, who is the man who at this moment in the 

 name of common humanity and in defense of the citizens 

 of the republic denounces the murder of innocent women 

 and children and calls warring nations to account ? Who 

 is this man? A man of culture, a college professor, a 

 student of history, a scholar, but a courageous and manly 

 man, whom the nation rises to honor and applaud with 

 unanimity unknown for fifty years. Culture, the most 

 impractical sort of culture, as men sometimes assert, does 

 somehow serve and serve tremendously in the great prob- 

 lems which affect mankind. 



But culture not only contributes to the satisfaction of 

 individual life and to the sanity and service of the com- 

 munity at large, but it serves the world in still another 

 way, and this perhaps the most remarkable and impor- 

 tant of all. Culture sets before men certain standards 

 of value which, in so far as they are seen, change and 

 temper the whole course of human living. Here I think 

 is to be found the explanation of most of the criticism 

 by which cultural education has been and to-day is so 

 fiercely assailed. 



