Literature and the American College: Essays in Defense of the Humanities

Not reconciled, -

Law for man, and law for thing;

The last builds town and fleet,

But it runs wild,

And doth the man unking."

- EMERSON.

*
• *
• *

FROM THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

NEARLY half the matter in this volume has been printed elsewhere. "The Rational Study of the Classics," "Literature and the College," and "On Being Original" are reproduced with immaterial changes from the "Atlantic Monthly." Two papers in the "Nation" are combined with a great deal of new material in the essay on " Literature and the Doctor's Degree." Portions of the essays on "Ancients and Moderns " and "Academic Leisure" are taken from two articles in the "Harvard Graduates' Magazine." I wish to thank the publishers of these periodicals for permission to reprint.

I have often been forced in these essays to tread on burning ground, at the risk of giving offense to some of my readers. I may at least say that my aim has been to define types and tendencies, and not to satirize or even label individuals. Individuals are usually not easy to label, especially at a time like the present. A highly unified age may offer examples of highly unified personalities; but there is likely to exist in the individual of to-day the same confused conflict of tendencies that we see in the larger world. What I try to show is, not that our contemporary scholars are lacking in humanistic traits, but that the scholars in whom these traits predominate are few (rari nantes in gurgite vasto).

I would also remind the reader that my treatment of certain eminent persons of the past and present is limited by my subject, and makes no claim to completeness. It was, for example, inevitable in dealing with college education that I should discuss the role of President Eliot. It was also inevitable, in the case of one who has exercised so many-sided an influence on his time, that I should fall very far short of a rounded estimate.

I desire to take this opportunity of expressing my sense of obligation to Professor Charles Eliot Norton. Those who during the past generation have felt the need of a more humane scholarship are indebted to him, many for direct aid and encouragement, and all for an example. To Mr. Paul E. More, literary editor of the New York "Evening Post" and the "Nation," who read several of these essays in manuscript, acknowledgments are due for various criticisms and suggestions.