In conceiving this paper, my patriotic purpose was to prove how humanism helps democracy, but all the way along I have been conscious of being guilty of an enormous _hysteron proteron_, for the real issue is not how humanism helps democracy, but how much democracy helps humanism. And what is humanism? Something too large to be defined in a single sentence or paragraph. It is a number of things. In the first place humanism is humaneness; not exactly, however, the kind of humaneness that the editor of the _New Republic_ believes in. Perhaps you remember how a year ago a distinguished professor of Greek hung a metaphorical millstone about the neck of Mr. Abraham Flexner and cast him into the midst of the sea, because he had attempted to poison the well-springs of knowledge for a whole generation of young people. On the millstone was inscribed the indictment: "Mr. Flexner is not the first man who has had the courage of his insensibilities." At this the editor of the _New Republic_ declared that the distinguished professor had been very inhumane, and was therefore an unfit exponent of the humanities. One wonders with what gentle and humane words Minos and Aeacus and Rhadamanthus will speak to Mr. Flexner when he comes to judgment in that long line of those who, having done irreparable harm in this world, present as their only excuse the fact that they were sincere in their good intentions. Humanism is humaneness based where Socrates and Plato based it, on knowledge, understanding and intelligence. Humanism is a conservation of the highest achievements of the human spirit. It gives substance to the seemingly paradoxical belief that for the rank and file of men, nine-tenths of the future lies in the past,--that certain giant men long dead, still have power to lead the race to heights that the majority of us but dimly see. To put it negatively, humanism represents the belief that a majority of each generation go to their graves without having entered upon their inheritance, without even having suspected that they had an inheritance, having lived not so much in their sins, as in ignorance of the glory that humanity has already attained.