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both the Roman and Jewish engrafted on the modern European. Thus the Grecian is historically one remove farther from us than either of the others; while the mediæval Italian stands in our immediate neighborhood.

In the American phasis of European civilization, the most modern, the utilitarian element is predominant. Under its influence, just then coming into the ascendency, European civilization was transplanted to this country. It is therefore historically as well as practically the basis of our civilization; next comes the Roman-then the Jewish; and last of all the Grecian-the beautiful Grecian -which in fact has in it more of the distinctive character of proper civilization than any of the others, the religious element not excepted. For the main scope of religion transcends the direct objects of civilization, and only incidentally affects them. Civilization regards, exclusively, the present world; religion regards, chiefly, the world to come. Civilization regards society, or individuals only as composing society; religion regards individuals, or society only as composed of individuals. Each may use the other as a means for the accomplishment of its peculiar ends; but their ends being different, the two are radically distinguished. So with the Roman element; it is important, yet secondary. Political institutions, laws, regard the rights and corresponding duties of men chiefly in relation to their external well-being and safety; civilization regards also fitness, propriety, beauty, intellectual progress the whole culture of man as a social being. Thus it includes civil law, but includes it as a subordinate element.

It is a saying of Guizot, that the dignity of civilization never appears in a more striking light than when we observe that even religion prides itself upon contributing to its progress. "Thus facts the most important; facts, of themselves and independently of their exterior consequences, the most sublime in their nature, acquire increased importance, reach a higher degree of sublimity, by their connection with civilization. Such is the worth of this great principle, that it gives a new value to whatever it touches."

In this view religion is made to play a subordinate part; and in this view Christianity may be regarded as a constituent of civilization. But, in general, we should choose rather to consider religion

as a higher and broader subject, which includes and subordinates civilization as one of the elements of its own development. So that we should pronounce the religion of any age, nation or sect defective, which should not recognize it as one of its important functions to civilize its adherents. And this is not inconsistent with what we have already said of the main scope of religion. Civilization is essential not to the existence but to the perfection of true religion; as, on the other hand, the true religion is essential not to the existence but to the perfection of civilization. Thus morality also has its foundations in the essential principles of man's nature, and has its own proper sphere, independently of any positive religion. Yet, on the one hand, morality requires the sanction of religion for its full development, and, on the other hand, religion includes morality in its own complete idea; while, for all this, religion and morality are not identical. Like the sun in the solar system, religion embraces the true centre of the moral, intellectual, and social world-of all human ideas and human institutions; and, viewed from that centre, all are seen to move in the harmony of their true relations.

Yet there are other points of observation. The spectator may plant himself at another point; and the apparent relations or movements of the system, as seen from that point, are facts, and may be recorded as such. Assuming, then, one of these subordinate points-civilization, in the present instance-as our centre or stand-point; religion, though in truth the centre, will seem to move in some orbit around us. From this point of view we may rightly and earnestly insist upon moral and religious culture as essential to the permanence as well as the perfection of our civilization. Undoubtedly it is so. It is the element, the only element of certain conservation. We would not utter this sentiment in a corner. We would make it as emphatic as possible. We would repeat it, if needful, a hundred times in a hundred different forms-civilization must look to religion as the only element of certain conservation. Whatever parallel or contrast, if any, might be drawn between American and European civilization in respect to this element, we leave to other and abler hands.

But, after all, we think we are right in placing the classical element nearest

the heart of proper civilization. Let it not be said we are exalting taste above morals, and civilization above religion. That is precisely what we are not doing. We are insisting upon being content to call things by their right names, and let them pass for what they are worth. Religion is religion; and civilization is civilization-that is, it is what, by common usage and under the guidance of common sense, men have agreed to call civilization. Our appeal is to facts. The Greeks in the age of Pyrrhus are universally held to have been more civilized than the Romans; and in the fullest bloom of the classical spirit, in the Augustan age, Roman civilization is regarded as having reached its acme. Both Greeks and Romans we consider more civilized than the Jews; and even the Mussulman Saracens more civilized than the early Christian crusaders-though the latter in both cases were possessed of the true religion-and by what rule? Whatever other points of distinction there may have been; the prevalence of the classic spirit, of arts, science, philosophy, intellectual culture, is the decisive test. The revival of letters awakened Europe from the semi-barbarism of the dark ages; and the influence of classical learning had determined the peculiar type and refinement of European culture. This element had introduced and firmly established its influence in European society, before the economic-practical or utilitarian element had become expanded with such tremendous energy. The classical element has therefore, in Europe, an advantage in its struggle with its more modern competitor, which unfortunately it does not possess in this country.

In comparing ourselves, therefore, with Europeans in respect to intellectual, and particularly in respect to classical and aesthetical culture, we should expect to find them our superiors. Yet even in making this comparison, one important distinction is not to be forgotten. When we speak of the civilization of a country, we may refer to the aggregate or average condition and culture of society in that country, or taking the term in a more restricted and, by usage, more appropriate sense, we may refer to the higher culture and social progress of those who take the lead in the community around themof those who stand as the representatives of that country in the eyes of the world. These two spheres of civilization do not

always correspond either in their centre, circumference or axis. Though, without arrogance, we may claim superiority to England in the former sphere, yet she is so much superior to us in the latter and narrower sphere, that, by the common consent of the rest of the world, she is regarded as actually superior to us in point of civilization. If Russia and Switzerland be compared, the converse will be the result; that is, Switzerland will be pronounced more civilized than Russia, notwithstanding the superior culture of a few of the Russian nobility.

The genius of our civilization leads us to an undue depreciation of this restricted sphere: but it is unfair that we should be compared with others in view of this exclusively; though foreigners, seeing only what is most prominent, are likely, to content themselves with such a comparison. Thus much we may safely say in our behalf, that civilization has nowhere attained its highest, noblest end, until it has pervaded the whole mass of society with its refining influences. In respect to other nations, we insist upon the general diffusion of social and intellectual culture among us; in respect to ourselves we have reason to deplore our deficiency in higher civilization.

The average correctness and propriety, for instance, with which the English language is spoken by our whole popu lation, are incomparably greater than England with all her counties can boast of; while it is a rare case that an American has that easy, unconscious, graceful command of his mother tongue, both in speaking and writing, which is common among the higher classes in England. If American and English society-using the term society in its more trivial sense

be compared, the result will be similar. Taking the average of all classes-and American society is really a sort of miscellaneous aggregate we are superior to the English; while we have scarcely anything to compare with the polished refinement, the natural ease, propriety and simplicity of the English aristocratic circles. Yet these being the representatives of England to foreigners, she of course secures the general voice in favor of her absolute superiority. As a nation we appear abroad in our every-day dress, and admit visitors indifferently to any part of our establishment; while both the English and the French make their appearance only in their holyday suits, and receive strangers in their best saloons.

The substantial facts being ascertained in respect to both parties, it is a mere question of words to inquire which is the more civilized? Yet it is a question of some importance; for we have, and it is right we should have, some pride in being civilized. But we suppose that, according to the general usage and historical acceptation of that term, the question must be answered adversely to our claims. For, paradoxical as it may appear, it must yet be admitted that the average of mental and social culture may be much higher among us than in England; and, nevertheless, we may be rightly accounted less civilized. That is, Society as a whole, as a system, may not be so magnificently and harmoniously developed to the eye of the spectator, and for the purposes of outward impression-just as an ill-officered army, with all its soldiers tolerably versed in tactics, may yet be vastly inferior to another composed of ignorant boors, but led by able and experienced generals.

Whether our civilization do not want more in intensity than it surpasses in extension, and whether greater intensity be not necessary to preserve and increase its extension, are questions of vital importance for our consideration. Elasticity has a limit. The cultivation of the few may indeed be carried to a high degree without requiring, either as a condition or a consequence, the general elevation of the community; but the general elevation of the mass can never proceed safely, or reach a high degree, without being preceded and guided by the higher culture of a few. There is no instance of such a phenomenon in history, and never will be. The course of nature will not be altered to suit any theories of ours, however they may pretend to be purely democratic.

Hence the importance not only of retaining but elevating the higher type of education which belongs to our colleges and universities. Hence the peculiar claims of classical education upon the vigorous defence and jealous protection of all enlightened men. If the great fountains are neglected or dried up, what will become of the little streams? Yet there are men among us who pretend to be the elect sons of freedom and apostles of progress, and who nevertheless assail all such institutions and studies, not only

as useless in themselves but as agents and means of tyranny. Is it possible that the genius of democracy is inconsistent with the highest forms of social and intellectual culture?* Can men in the highest places have the effrontery to say publicly that the establishment of a national institution for the promotion and dissemination of knowledge is abhorrent to the principles of freedom, and could serve only to fetter the mind of the people? And that when a benevolent foreigner has munificently furnished the means for such a purpose, we must reject them, and say, "we are democrats, and cannot use them?”

If the whole object of life be, to get to the end of it as comfortably as possible; if to eat, drink and sleep, to be clothed and housed in competence in quiet be all men want-there is no need of a liberal education. If men were made to be good farmers, artisans, traders, and nothing more--there is no need of a liberal education. In proportion as an occupation is manual rather than mental, intellectual discipline is, of course, less to the purpose-though improvement in all the arts and handicrafts of life may depend much upon such discipline and culture. But is it not of some importance to be a man -a civilized man--as well as a good artisan or tradesman? Let us not be understood as treating these pursuits with contempt. By no means. The mere classical scholar is as deficient in the full development of manhood as the mere farmer or the mere mechanic. Besides, men must eat, drink and sleep, or they cannot live to be civilized. Those ordinary employments of life are necessary to the very existence of society as well as of man, and their improvement is closely connected with the progress of civilization. It is plain that, although we assign the first place to intellectual culture among the constituents of proper civilization, it is not of itself sufficient for the full development of humanity. In our bodily organization the heart is most necessary, but even the heart will not perform its functions alone. Practical habits must more fully draw out and invigorate intellectual culture, must lop off its excrescences and check its vagaries; and, on the other hand, intellectual as well as moral culture must interpenetrate, regulate and refine the practical

* See Senator Allen's Speech on the appropriation of the Smithsonian Bequest.

habits, before the highest type of civilization can be reached-before we can have a whole man or a perfect citizen. The wide separation of learning from life, and the unprecedented extent to which the division of intellectual labor has been carried in Germany, have prevented the immense erudition of German scholars from raising their country to a corresponding rank in the scale of civilization. The principle of division of labor, so efficient in promoting the improvement and productiveness of the mechanic arts, is not less efficient as applied to the various departments of scholarship; but it is attended, in both cases, with this evil-that, in respect to the individuals employed, it cripples, stints and mutilates humanity. What, then, we chiefly object to, is, that a man should be so entirely absorbed in any one pursuit as to lose all sympathy with other pursuits, or to set before himself no higher object than the thrift consequent upon the skillful and diligent prosecution of his own handicraft. What we mean, is, that a mere tradesman-if a mere tradesman can be found-though he excel ever so much in his appropriate trade, is but the fraction of a man.

The theorizing philosopher and the musing poet, though amidst our thrifty community they may hardly get a living for themselves, or a hearing from others, contribute infinitely more to the advancement of the race, to the civilization of mankind, than multitudes of active and enterprising men of the various lucrative trades and professions. Many men, industrious and successful in their pursuits, lived comfortably and grew rich, while Milton dictated the Paradise Lost; but has not that single poem contributed more to the culture and elevation of the human mind than the ephemeral labors of them all?

It may sound strange to many, yet we believe it to be a most serious truth, that we need more theorizers and fewer empirics-i. e., more men of comprehensive thought, and fewer men of mere off-hand practice. We need eyes well as hands. Because the sense of touch can judge of certain immediate properties of things better than that of sight, and thus prevent or correct many false optical judgments, are we content to grope our way along through the world, dispensing with vision altogether? Because, by a sharpened practical instinct, we can determine what is good and profitable for the mo

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ment, shall we utterly repudiate that high discourse of reason which looks before and after ""

What has, more than anything else, brought theory and all philosophy into such discredit among us, is, in fact, the pretension of a multitude of mere quacks to be theorists and philosophers, joined with the popular habit of generalizing from the narrow premises of a few present facts. If we have no closet philosophers, we have plenty of street philosophers and bar-room philosophers. We may have discarded the name of philosophy, but we have the men who act as if they had mastered and outrun all the philosophy and theory in the world. But in truth there neither is nor can be any rational practice without theory of some kind. Every man who acts with design and plan, who combines means for the accomplishment of an end, is so far a theorist. The question is, shall his theory be a long-sighted or a shortsighted theory? Shall he think patiently, dig deep and lay its foundations upon a rock, or shall he erect it upon the shifting sands of immediate experience? We are already beginning to reap the long harvest of bitter fruits, in the shape of indirect consequences, from several of our spasmodic, empirical attempts at religious, moral and social reform. In political theory we think we are--and if anywhere we ought to be—especially proficient; yet how many among us, even of our legislators, have thought it necessary to make themselves acquainted with the established principles of political science or even of political economy, or with the general history of legislation and politics in this and other countries and ages? Yet while it is manifest that, without such knowledge as a basis, there can be no sound theory; it is equally manifest that, without the same knowledge and the theory based upon it, there can be no safe practice or permanent progress.

But to say no more of poetry and philosophy-there are certain employments in society which have a special connection with civilization, and are essential to its proper development, but which require a higher discipline and more thorough mental training than are needful for the manual laborer. The business of the merchant, taking the appellation in its higher sense-as it has an important bearing upon civilization, so it forms a connecting link in passing for

ward to those other employments which we have in view. A portion of the merchant's, as of all other, business is indeed routine, drudgery if you will, but another portion will call every faculty into exercise and task his highest powers. Either, therefore, he must have received a thorough preparatory mental training, or he must be introduced and carried forward in his pursuit very gradually.

But who could expect to have good lawyers, good physicians and good divines, without a thorough discipline and education; and that not only with a particular reference to their particular professions, but to the due and well-balanced development of the whole mind? We might indeed have pettifoggers, quacks and ranters; and these might make not only more noise but more money than well-educated men. But what becomes, in the mean time, of the interests-we will not say, of civilization, but of jurisprudence, and of medical and theological science? And when the tree is dead, what will become of the parasite plants, which twined luxuriantly around it and lived upon its sap?

There are indeed some people who think that the learned professions themselves are excrescences upon society, and do more harm than good. Be it so; how will you remedy it? No civilized community can exist without them. Abolish them to-day, and they will reappear in some shape or other to morrow. There will be some persons who will make it their business to tell their neighbors the law, and prescribe for the diseases of their souls and bodies. The only practical question is, shall those professions be filled with learned, able and skillful men, or with ignorant pretenders?

In like manner, if all our higher institutions of learning were annihilated at once; unless all our civilization and yearnings after civilization were annihilated with them, it would not be many years before our wants would imperiously demand, and infallibly bring about, their restoration, or the establishment of something like them. No better general discipline for the whole mind-including the reason, imagination, taste-will probably ever be invented than is furnished by the classics combined with the mathematics. The study of language itself is a most noble and humanizing discipline; and the classics furnish the best

models of style in poetry, eloquence, history, philosophy. These together with the mathematics are, and should remain-with such additions from the arts and sciences and modern languages as may be found practicable-the basis of a liberal, that is to say, of a liberalizing, civilizing education. There is great danger of endeavoring to combine with them too many other things, partly from a laudable desire to enlarge the sphere of general knowledge, and partly, by rendering a liberal education more practical, to propitiate popular prejudices. The consequence of this multifarious mass of study compressed into the space of half-a-dozen years, is either to crowd out the mathematics and classics, or to cram instead of cultivating the mind-or more probably both and the end must be to bring our higher institutions of learning into still greater disrepute. If our colleges cannot stand on the simple ground of the merits and benefits of a mathematical and classical discipline; if they must become institutions for the communication and acquisition of all sorts of so-called useful knowledge, merely to furnish abundant materials for stopping empty bags; in a word, if they must become encyclopedias instead of mental gymnasia; why, then, they cannot be sustained at all in their true character; they might as well be christened by a new name.

Let it never be forgotten that such institutions are designed to furnish facilities for a fundamental, intellectual discipline, and not for wide, general acquisitions, which, under the circumstances, if attempted, must terminate in a smattering of many things and a knowledge of nothing. We say, they are designed to furnish facilities. They will not communicate mental discipline to a passive recipient by mere external contact. There is no opus operatum in education. Nor is there any so great difference as some seem to imagine between a publicly-educated and a so-called self-educated man-provided only he be really educated. Every disciplined mind must have disciplined itself. Every educated man must have educated himself, and must feel that he has disciplined and educated himself. All that others-all that any institutions-can do for him, is, to furnish facilities, helps, incitements; he must do the work himself.

The man who thirsts for knowledge, who diligently and greedily improves

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