IV
“Myself when young did eagerly frequent” lecture-halls and the abodes of the high-minded and the high-intentioned who were zealous in the cause of culture. This was in those years when Matthew Arnold’s criticisms of America and democracy in general were still much discussed. Thirty years ago it really seemed that culture was not only desirable but readily attainable for America. We cherished happy illusions as to the vast possibilities of education: there should be no Main Street without its reverence for the best thought and noblest action of all time. But those of us who are able to ponder “the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world” in the spirit of that period must reflect, a little ruefully, that the new schemes and devices of education to which we pointed with pride have not turned the trick. The machinery of enlightenment has, of course, greatly multiplied. The flag waves on innumerable schoolhouses; literature, art, music are nowhere friendless. The women of America make war ceaselessly upon philistinism, and no one attentive to their labors can question their sincerity or their intelligence. But these are all matters as to which many hear the call but comparatively few prostrate themselves at the mercy-seat. Culture, in the sense in which we used the word, was not so easily to be conferred or imposed upon great bodies of humanity; the percentage of the mass who are seriously interested in the finest and noblest action of mankind has not perceptibly increased.
Odd as these statements look, now that I have set them down, I hasten to add that they stir in me no deep and poignant sorrow. My feeling about the business is akin to that of a traveller who has missed a train but consoles himself with the reflection that by changing his route a trifle he will in due course reach his destination without serious delay, and at the same time enjoy a view of unfamiliar scenery.
Between what Main Street wants and cries for and what Main Street really needs there is a considerable margin for speculation. I shall say at once that I am far less concerned than I used to be as to the diffusion of culture in the Main Streets of all creation. Culture is a term much soiled by ignoble use and all but relegated to the vocabulary of cant. We cannot “wish” Plato upon resisting and hostile Main Streets; we are even finding that Isaiah and St. Paul are not so potent to conjure with as formerly. The church is not so generally the social centre of small communities as it was a little while ago. Far too many of us are less fearful of future torment than of a boost in the price of gasolene. The motor may be making pantheists of us: I don’t know. Hedonism in some form may be the next phase; here, again, I have no opinion.