contribution to human progress? The answer comes back with a
monotonous reiteration which has already sickened us of the word. It is
_Kultur_, or, as we translate it, culture. Germany's contribution to
progress consists in the spread of her culture.

_Kultur_ is a difficult word to interpret. It means "culture" and a
great deal more besides. Its primary meaning, like that of "culture," is
intellectual and aesthetic: when a German speaks of "Kultur" he is thinking
of such things as language, literature, philosophy, education, art,
science, and the like. Children in German schools are taught a subject
called _Kulturgeschichte_ (culture-history), and under that heading they
are told about German literature, German philosophy and religion, German
painting, German music and so on.

So far, the English and the German uses of the word roughly correspond. We
should probably be surprised if we heard it said that Shakespeare had made
a contribution to English "culture": but, on consideration, we should admit
that he had, though we should not have chosen that way of speaking about
him. But there is a further meaning in the word _Kultur_, which explains
why it is so often on German lips. It means, not only the product of the
intellect or imagination, but the product of the disciplined intellect and
the disciplined imagination. _Kultur_ has in it an element of order, of
organisation, of civilisation. That is why the Germans regard the study of
the "culture" of a country as part of the study of its history. English
school children are beginning to be taught social and industrial history in
addition to the kings and queens and battles and constitutions which used
to form the staple of history lessons. They are being taught, that is, to
see the history of their country, and of its civilisation, in the light
of the life and livelihood of its common people. The German outlook is
different. They look at their history in the light of the achievements of
its great minds, which are regarded as being at once the proof and the
justification of its civilisation. To the question, "What right have you to
call yourselves a civilised country?" an Englishman would reply, "Look at
the sort of people we are, and at the things we have done," and would point
perhaps to the extracts from the letters of private soldiers printed in the
newspapers, or to the story of the growth of the British Empire; a German
would reply (as Germans are indeed replying now),