Unlovely and Impressive.
In a broader view, the war may be regarded as a contest between the metallic, half-mechanical Kultur of Prussianized Germany and the more flexible civilizations of States that have inherited culture or aspire to it. Germany herself has rejected the humane and somewhat hazardous ideal of culture, so she cannot wonder or complain when she sees that the culture of the world is almost unanimously hostile to her. There is no quarrel with German Kultur itself; merely a feeling that it has its drawbacks, that it is, on the whole, as unlovely as it is impressive, that there is quite enough of it in the world already, and that its broad extension would be disastrous.
Meanwhile the nations of culture have much to learn from Germany's Kultur. Flexibility may mean weakness. The United States, for example, could well have a standing army and an army reserve commensurate with its history and prospects without incurring any danger of militarism. There is, finally, some disadvantage in being merely a culture nation, for such a nation can add a large measure of Kultur without belying itself. On the contrary, so highly developed a Kultur nation as the German Empire puts itself in a position where it is almost impossible to acquire any considerable degree of culture. Culture is the enemy of such a state—it must remain in the Spartan or Macedonian stage. Rome began to decline as soon as Hellenistic culture got the ascendency over the old Latin Kultur. Kultur, in short, galvanizes; culture liberates. A survey of modern Germany hardly warrants a desire for her world dominion.
If any reader is still unclear about the distinction between culture and Kultur, let him examine his most-gifted friends as to their sympathies in the present war, choosing, of course, persons who have no racial reasons for taking sides. Almost without exception he will find they fall into two sharply defined classes. The mental characteristics of his pro-German friends will pretty certainly illustrate Kultur quite concretely, while he may read the meaning of culture in his more-gifted friends who favor the Allies.
FRANK JEWETT MATHER, Jr.
Princeton, Nov. 6, 1914.