8 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. [LECT. 



influenced as they are by school and university tradi- 

 tions. In their belief, culture is obtainable only by a 

 liberal education ; and a liberal education is synony- 

 mous, not merely with education and instruction in 

 literature, but in one particular form of literature, 

 namely, that of Greek and Eoman antiquity. They 

 hold that the man who has learned Latin and Greek, 

 however little, is educated ; while he who is versed 

 in other branches of knowledge, however deeply, 

 is a more or less respectable specialist, not admissible 

 into the cultured caste. The stamp of the educated 

 man, the University degree, is not for him. 



I am too well acquainted with the generous catho- 

 licity of spirit, the true sympathy with scientific 

 thought, which pervades the writings of our chief 

 apostle of culture to identify him with these opinions ; 

 and yet one may cull from one and another of those 

 epistles to the Philistines, which so much delight all 

 who do not answer to that name, sentences which 

 lend them some support. 



Mr. Arnold tells us that the meaning of culture is 

 " to know the best that has been thought and said in 

 the world." It is the criticism of life contained in 

 literature. That criticism regards " Europe as being, 

 for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great con- 

 federation, bound to a joint action and working to a 

 common result; and whose members have, for their 

 common outfit, a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and 

 Eastern antiquity, and of one another. Special, local, 

 and temporary advantages being put out of account, 

 that modern nation will in the intellectual and spiritual 



