OCTOBEB 16, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



499 



more intent on knowing what will be of 

 material benefit then on discovering truth 

 from the love of it." One defendant of 

 democracy, overwhelmed with the sense of 

 its failure in this respect, tells us that 

 "aristocracy distributes political power 

 and rewards in favor of intelligence and at 

 the expense of justice; democracy dis- 

 tributes them at the expense of intelligence, 

 while trying, perhaps unsuccessfully, to 

 satisfy the claims of justice." 



It is hardly worth while to spend time 

 criticizing the somewhat preposterous 

 statement that aristocracy favors culture 

 more than democracy. For, in the first 

 place, aristocracy as a form of government 

 and of society has had a far longer lease 

 of life in the world's history than has 

 democracy, so that a fair comparison can 

 not be made. Moreover, we certainly can 

 not say that the members of any aristoc- 

 racy have been the developers of culture, 

 or its exponents. It is probably true that 

 more of them have been devoted to the 

 racing track than to po.etry and art, and to 

 the exploitation of the rest of society by 

 war and government than to the promotion 

 of their interests by letters and the arts. 

 The long list of names great in science, art, 

 poetry, literature and philosophy is com- 

 posed largely if not mainly of those of poor 

 men of the middle or lower class. The 

 only sense in which it can be claimed that 

 an aristocracy is favorable to culture is 

 that its members act as patrons of culture 

 and have aided its devotees. But the claim 

 is too great, if it is meant to be exclusive. 

 The heroes and martyrs of civilization have 

 as often gnawed crusts and fed on crumbs 

 as they haVe sat at the banquet table of 

 aristocracy as equals. What aristocrat 

 paid for the Acropolis 1 Was it the classes 

 or the masses that inspired Watt, Fulton, 

 Shakespere, Milton, Kant, Voltaire? 



When one sits in that little room in 

 Dresden and feels stirring within himself 



the spiritual ideals of a hundred genera- 

 tions of his race, is he to feel grateful to 

 any aristocracy or to any aristocrat for the 

 immortal work of Raphael? Is it not 

 rather true that that great work is the ex- 

 pression of the spiritual ideals and life of 

 the common people and that it was made 

 possible by the beneficence of that great 

 democratic institution, the Roman Cath- 

 olic Church? The possession of wealth, 

 whether in railroad bonces or broad acres, 

 does not prepossess its owner in favor of 

 culture. That is a matter of the spirit. 

 If the spirit is present the leisure that 

 wealth gives aids, to be sure, but it never 

 can create, culture. 



Later prophets warn us that democratic 

 materialism, commercialism and the de- 

 mand for the practical are killing pure 

 science and throttling literature. But yes- 

 terday a Cassandra voice in our midst an- 

 nounced that there is no scholarship in this 

 democratic country of ours, and a repre- 

 sentative of a people, many of whom like 

 to claim that there is no scholarship but 

 among themselves, proposes to promote it 

 here by killing off two thirds of the pro- 

 fessors in our university. When these 

 critics are told to look about them and see 

 what this democratic people of ours is do- 

 ing to promote higher education and to 

 stimulate scholarship and research by their 

 great public school system and their state 

 universities, unable to deny the facts, they 

 take refuge in a subterfuge. They tell us, 

 as an eastern university president did, not 

 long since, that while it is true that many 

 of the states are promoting higher educa- 

 tion, it is a kind of higher education which 

 is not consonant with, but antagonistic to, 

 culture. We are told that the state uni- 

 versities may develop practical education, 

 that from them we may look for great 

 results in engineering and in agriculture, 

 and in all those matters which are some- 

 times criticized as "bread and butter" 



