THE CULTIVATED?

_My Dear Daughter:_--No words in the English language are so much
bandied about in efforts to describe or classify society at the present
day as are the words "culture," "cultured," "cultivated" and their
antitheses. These are the terms that intimidate the vain, selfish,
illiterate rich; for to be described as "rich but uncultivated" is
regarded as a greater slur upon the social standing of families than to
be reported as having gained wealth by dishonesty or trickery. And then
the matter is made all the harder for those willing to acquire a
hypocritical polish at any expense if they can only be called
"cultivated," from the fact that they do not know what true culture is,
nor are they able to recognize it when they see it. They are like a
person lacking in all artistic sense, who wishes to buy pictures--at the
mercy of every impostor.

What, then, is the secret that lies behind the demeanor and manners of
the cultivated man or woman, or the cultivated family? What power or
what sentiment modulates the voice to kind and gentle tones; restrains
the boisterous conversation or laughter; gives such a delicate
perception of the rights of others as to make impossible the dictatorial
or arrogant form of address the impertinent question, the personal
familiarity, the curiosity about private affairs, the forwardness in
giving advice or expressing unasked opinions, the boastful statement of
personal possessions or qualities, the action that causes pain or
inconvenience or discomfort to associates or dependents, all of which
are the most common forms of transgression among the uncultivated?

In his famous address on "The Progress of Culture," delivered before a
celebrated college society in Cambridge in 1867, Emerson summed up the
whole matter in one sentence: "The foundation of culture, as of
character, is at last the moral sentiment." Here is the whole secret in
a single sentence. The restraining grace is "at last the moral
sentiment." It is a fine genuine unselfishness that, observing how all
these things may pain and wound, refrains from doing any of them. The
man or woman or family who can avoid transgressing in these particulars
can do so habitually only as the result of a fine moral sentiment
underlying the whole nature. And those who possess or have cultivated in
themselves this fine moral sentiment of unselfishness, justice, and
considerateness, will be surrounded by an atmosphere of culture though