...BY...

JESSE FEIRING WILLIAMS, A. B., M. D.

The outstanding features of this new text in physiology and hygiene for high schools are

I. A timely application to the secondary school field of the theory, long acknowledged in the case of the elementary curriculum, but seldom lived up to even there, that the study of anatomy and physiology is worth while chiefly because of its bearing on life, through the medium of hygiene.

2. Relatively full informational background for important hygienic principles; correspondingly brief treatment of such topics as the mechanism of the eye.

3. Classification of information regarding the structure of the body by function rather than by location.

4. Pedagogical arrangement and equipment of the maximum usefulness: experiments, questions, exercises, glossaries, topical summaries.

5. Charts, diagrams, and drawings that are unequalled in the clearness and directness of their visual appeal.

Devoted to the Science, Art, Philosophy and Literature

of Education

VOL. XL.

NOVEMBER, 1919

No. 3

Culture and Efficiency; Their Relation to the
English Subjects

WALTER BARNES, HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT,
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, FAIRMONT, W. VA.

T

I.

.................................○ determine whether the English subjects are essentially cultural or practical is the purpose of this discussion. But before we can judge whether the principles of Culture or of Efficiency should be predominant in the teaching of the English subjects, we must examine closely our two major terms. Many of the misunderstandings and misconceptions we have labored under, many of the blunders we have made in education and life have been due to vague and crooked thinking, to lazy acceptance of hazy catchwords, to traditional notions heirlooms from a remote past. In this paper, therefore, I propose to devote a good deal of my attention to a consideration of the general principles, then make but a brief application of those principles to the teaching of English. What is Culture? What is Efficiency? And what relation do they bear to the group of English subjects? These I conceive to be the vital questions. The discussion may be poorly proportioned; but if I can clear up the larger problem involved, I shall be content merely to state some of the details of their application.

And first, what is Culture? The reader need not fear that I shall attempt to mark out the exact limits beyond which Culture. may not extend, to erect a tight, high fence around it. To define

Culture too straitly is to deny it altogether. It is too spiritual to be embodied in substantial rules; you cannot shut up this genie in a bottle. It is easier to recognize Culture than to analyze it. Yet I must, so far as I am able, resolve it into its elements; I must break up this warm, clear beam of sunlight into the colors that compose it. Clear-cut thinking on this subject were not possible otherwise. It is to this task that I now address myself. But before I attempt a positive determination of what are the component elements in Culture, before I attempt to answer the question, What is Culture? I wish to attack the question, What is Culture not? For there are two prevalent errors concerning Culture that stand in the way of our analysis.

The first error is that Culture is politeness, polish, good manners, observance of the laws of etiquette. Culture is no such superficial, artificial thing as that. Good manners is a matter of fixed rules, which are altered, like fashions, as ways and customs and modes of living come and pass, which hold sway for a limited time in a circumscribed sphere. What was "good form" a century ago is "bad form" now. What is "good form" in the city is not necessarily "good form" in the country. It is impolite to speak to a stranger in a crowded city street; it is impolite not to speak to a stranger in a lonely country road. Cultivation is not culture; often it is not even indicative of culture. The crude farm boy who fails to lift his hat to a lady may have more true reverence in his heart than the urbane gallant who knows all the pretty ways of social usage. Surely Culture is not such a petty, ephemeral matter; it is essential, unchanging in its attributes, as immutable as truth or beauty. There is no "new" Culture, though we may have new attitudes toward it, may make new discoveries in it. Let us not confound Culture with good breeding, though we should not the less appreciate good breeding and all that it implies.

The second misconception is that Culture is knowledge, usually interpreted as knowledge of the "liberal arts" subjects, of the humanities, of belles-lettres. According to this view, you must be familiar with literature and history, you must be able to read in at least one foreign language, you must have "gone through"

geometry, you must be able to prate glibly about books and authors, painting and music, else you are outside the pale. You may be an estimable person, useful, even influential, but you are not cultured. Now there is a modicum of truth in the foundationidea of this conception of Culture; as we shall see later, certain subjects undoubtedly contain more cultural food than do others and may thus contribute more generously to the nurture of Culture. But knowledge is never synonymous with Culture, however closely related it may be. One may attain Culture with extremely little knowledge of the so-called cultural subjects, and one may fail to attain Culture after a lifetime spent in the acquisition of the humanities. The setting up of a narrow prescribed list of information as containing the sum and substance of Culture, as including "that knowledge that is the common property of all cultured persons" is destructive of the very essence of Culture. Pray, what is it that makes the knowledge that "agricola" is the Latin word for "farmer" more precious and powerful in life than a knowledge of farming? Why, pray, should knowing about the Rosetta stone be more important in the enrichment of life than knowing shorthand? or knowing what kind of clothes Queen Elizabeth wore be more significant than the ability to make one's self a dress? No single mind can now take all knowledge as its province; no one should arrogate to his subject or group of subjects all the grace and beauty and benignity and humanizing influences of knowledge. Culture can bloom and flourish on the scantiest of learning. What counts is not so much the contents of one's mind as the state of one's mind. Let us not confuse knowledge with Culture, though we should by no means despise knowledge of any kind, whether useful or pleasant.

Along with these two great misconceptions we must place a number of other narrow and perverted ideas of the nature of Culture. I once heard a gentleman of the old school assert very positively that you could always tell a cultured person by the elegance and correctness of his language, adding that a truly cultured person never uses slang. Piffle! I have heard that one who cannot write a good social letter is uncultured. Gammon!

Some one else says you must have traveled widely before you may call yourself cultured. Nonsense! Culture is nothing so definite, so obvious, so recognizable. It does not reveal its presence through such crude tests. The moment you erect artificial standards of this sort, you cheapen and stultify the very idea of Culture. None of these are of the true and authentic nature of Culture, though all may or may not-make contributions to it or give evidence of its existence.

What, then, is Culture? Its elements, I think, are five: appre-ciation of beauty, a rich emotional nature under control, manysided interest in life, sympathy, and a well-trained mind. I shall discuss these elements in the order in which I have named them.

First, a feeling for, an appreciation of beauty, and a full recognition of its gracious influence in the life of men. And by beauty, I hasten to say, I do not mean mere prettiness, mere shapely form or musical sound or fragrant odor or bright, wellharmonized color. A farmer is cutting the purple asters and goldenrod that grow in his fields, and a poet passing by groans at the wanton destruction of beauty. But the farmer may have in his mind's eye a vision of broad fields of wheat, may see that grain feeding Belgian children; he may discern a beauty far finer than that of the poet; he may be mowing down surface prettiness to make room for essential beauty. How beautiful are the gossamer hammocks which the spider swings, during the night, over the herbs and weeds in the fields! But not as beautiful as the delicate and intricate organism by which the spider which we deem ugly-spins its web. A butterfly hovering above flowers is lovely, yet not so wondrous beautiful as the metamorphosis of the worm into that same butterfly. Serenely beautiful was the death-bed of Tennyson-the majestic figure reposing in such peace and resignation upon the bed, content and hope on his brow, the soft moonlight beaming upon him, and the volume of Shakespeare on his breast. Yes, but not so beautiful as the death of a young American soldier writhing in the slime and muck of a Flanders battlefield in the midst of the hideousness and filth of war.