displaced teacher was instantly appointed to another position. Nothing
of this sort, says Arnold, could have occurred in England; but still
less could it occur in America. Had we such an educational system,
there would presently be an "Education Ring" to control it. Nor can this
difference be ascribed to the less eager political activity of Germany.
The Prussian state of things would have been possible in ancient Athens,
where political life was as absorbing and nearly as turbulent as in the
United States. The difference is due to our lack of faith in culture, a
lack of faith in that of which we have not had adequate experience.
We lack culture because we live in a hurry, and because our attention is
given up to pursuits which call into activity and develop but one side
of us. On the one hand contemplate Sokrates quietly entertaining a crowd
in the Athenian market-place, and on the other hand consider Broadway
with its eternal clatter, and its throngs of hurrying people elbowing
and treading on each other's heels, and you will get a lively notion of
the difference between the extreme phases of ancient and modern life. By
the time we have thus rushed through our day, we have no strength left
to devote to things spiritual. To-day finds us no nearer fruition than
yesterday. And if perhaps the time at last arrives when fruition is
practicable, our minds have run so long in the ruts that they cannot be
twisted out.
As it is impossible for any person living in a given state of society
to keep himself exempt from its influences, detrimental as well as
beneficial, we find that even those who strive to make a literary
occupation subservient to purposes of culture are not, save in rare
cases, spared by the general turmoil. Those who have at once the
ability, the taste, and the wealth needful for training themselves to
the accomplishment of some many-sided and permanent work are of course
very few. Nor have our universities yet provided themselves with the
means for securing to literary talent the leisure which is essential
to complete mental development, or to a high order of productiveness.
Although in most industrial enterprises we know how to work together so
successfully, in literature we have as yet no co-operation. We have not
only no Paris, but we have not even a Tubingen, a Leipsic, or a Jena, or
anything corresponding to the fellowships in the English universities.
Our literary workers have no choice but to fall into the ranks, and
make merchandise of their half-formed ideas. They must work without
co-operation, they must write in a hurry, and they must write for those
who have no leisure for aught but hasty and superficial reading.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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