is, that
neither the discipline nor the subject-matter of classical education is
of such direct value to the student of physical science as to justify
the expenditure of valuable time upon either; and the second is, that
for the purpose of attaining real culture, an exclusively scientific
education is at least as effectual as an exclusively literary education.

I need hardly point out to you that these opinions, especially the
latter, are diametrically opposed to those of the great majority of
educated Englishmen, influenced as they are by school and university
traditions. In their belief, culture is obtainable only by a liberal
education; and a liberal education is synonymous, not merely with
education and instruction in literature, but in one particular form of
literature, namely, that of Greek and Roman antiquity. They hold that
the man who has learned Latin and Greek, however little, is educated;
while he who is versed in other branches of knowledge, however deeply,
is a more or less respectable specialist, not admissible into cultured
caste. The stamp of the educated man, the university degree, is not
for him.

I am too well acquainted with the generous catholicity of spirit, the
true sympathy with scientific thought, which pervades the writings of
our chief apostle of culture to identify him with these opinions; and
yet one may cull from one and another of those epistles to the
Philistines, which so much delight all who do not answer to that name,
sentences which lend them some support.

Mr. Arnold tells us that the meaning of culture is "to know the best
that has been thought and said in the world." It is the criticism of
life contained in literature. That criticism regards "Europe as being,
for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound
to a joint action and working to a common result; and whose members
have, for their common outfit, a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern
antiquity, and of one another. Special, local, and temporary
advantages being put out of account, that modern nation will in the
intellectual and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most
thoroughly carries out this programme. And what is that but saying
that we too, all of us, as individuals, the more thoroughly we carry it
out, shall make the more progress?"

We have here to deal with two distinct propositions. The first, that a
criticism of life is the essence of culture; the second, that
literat