tly different to be treated distinctly.

(1) Hardly anyone would deny that some knowledge and appreciation of
literature is an indispensable part of a complete education. The full
member of a civilised society must be able to subscribe to the
familiar _Homo sum; nihil humanum a me alienum puto_. And literature
is obviously one of the greatest, most intense, and most prolific
interests of humanity. There have always been thinkers, from Plato
downwards, who for moral or political reasons have viewed the power of
literature with distrust: but their fear is itself evidence of that
power. Thus literature is a very important part both of the past and
of contemporary life, and no one can enter fully into either without
some real knowledge of it. A man may be a very great man or a very
good man without any literary culture; he may do his country and the
world imperishable services in peace or war. But the older the world
grows, the rarer must these unlettered geniuses become. Literature in
one form or another--too often no doubt put to vile uses--has become
so much part of the very texture of civilised life that a wide-awake
mind can scarcely fail to take notice of it. And in any case we need
not consider that kind of special genius which education does little
either to make or mar. No one is likely seriously to deny that for
taking a full and intelligent part in the normal life of a civilised
community--in love and friendship, in the family and in society, in
the study and practice of citizenship of all degrees--some literary
culture is absolutely necessary; nor indeed that, subject to a due
balance of qualities and acquirements, the wider and deeper the
literary culture the more valuable a member of society the possessor
will be. The lubricant of society in all its functions, whether of
business or leisure, is sympathy, and a sufficient quantity, as it
were, of sympathy to lubricate the complex mechanism of civilised life
can only be supplied by a widespread knowledge of the best, and a
great deal more than the best, of what has been and is being thought
and said in the world. Personal intercourse with one another and a
common apprehension of God as our Father are even more powerful
sources of sympathy; but literature provides innumerable channels for
the intercommunication and distribution of these sources, without
which the sympathies of individuals may be strong and lively, but will
almost always be narrowly circumscribed.