By Frank Jewett Mather, Jr.
_To the Editor of The New York Times:_
Current discussion of the worth of German culture has been almost
hopelessly clouded by the fact that when a German speaks of Kultur he
means an entirely different thing from what a Latin or Briton means by
culture. Kultur means the organized efficiency of a nation in the
broadest sense--its successful achievement in civil and military
administration, industry, commerce, finance, and in a quite secondary
way in scholarship, letters, and art. Kultur applies to a nation as a
whole, implying an enlightened Government to which the individual is
strictly subordinated. Thus Kultur is an attribute not of
individuals--whose particular interests, on the contrary, must often be
sacrificed to it--but of nations.
Culture, for which nearest German equivalent is Bildung, is the opposite
of all this. It is an attribute not of nations as a whole but of
accomplished individuals. It acquires national import only through the
approval and admiration of these individuals by the rest, who share but
slightly in the culture they applaud. The aim of culture is the
enlightened and humane individual, conversant with the best values of
the past and sensitive to the best values of the present. The
open-mindedness and imagination implied in culture are potentially
destructive to a highly organized national Kultur. A cultured leader is
generally too much alive to the point of view of his rival to be a
wholly convinced partisan. Hence he lacks the intensity, drive, and
narrowness that make for competitive success. He keeps his place in the
sun not by masterfully overriding others, but by a series of delicate
compromises which reconcile the apparently conflicting claims. Moreover,
he has too great a respect for the differences between men's gifts to
formulate any rigid plan which, requires for its execution a strictly
regimented humanity. He will sacrifice a little efficiency that life may
be more various, rich, and delightful.
Hence nations with cultured leaders have generally been beaten by those
whose leaders had merely Kultur. The Spartans and Macedonians had
abundant Kultur; they generally beat the Athenians, who had merely very
high culture. The Romans had Kultur, and the Hellenistic world wore
their yoke. Germany unquestionably has admirable Kultur, and none of the
mere cultured nations who are leagued against her could hope to beat her
singly.
She Does Not Desire Culture.
On the other hand, Germany has singularly little culture, has less than
she had a hundred years ago, does not apparently desire it. She has
willingly sacrificed the culture of a few leading individuals to the
Kultur of the empire as a whole. Thus it is not surprising that Germany,
as measured by the production of cultured individuals, takes a very low
place today. Not only France and England, Italy and Spain, but also
Russia and America, may fairly claim a higher degree of culture. Here
the fetich of German scholarship should not deceive us. Culture--a
balanced and humanized state of mind--is only remotely connected with
scholarship or even with education. A Spanish peasant or an Italian
waiter may have finer culture than a German university professor. And in
the field of scholarship, Germany is in the main chiefly laborious,
accurate, and small-minded. Her scholarship is related not to culture,
but is a minor expression of Kultur. Such scholarly men of letters as
Darwin, Huxley, Renan, Taine, Boissier, Gaston Paris, Menendez y Pelayo,
Francis J. Child, Germany used to produce in the days of the Grimms and
Schlegels. She rarely does so now. Her culture has been swallowed up in
her Kultur.
The claim of Germany to realize her Kultur at the expense of her
neighbors is at first sight plausible. Her Kultur is unquestionably
higher than theirs. She has a sharply realized idea of the State, and
she has justified it largely in practice. In a certain patience,
thoroughness, and perfection of political organization her pre-eminence
is unquestionable. The tone of her apologists shows amazement and
indignation over the fact that the world, so far from welcoming the
extension of German Kultur, is actively hostile to that ambition. Yet,
even if it be conceded that Germany's Kultur is wholly good for
herself--surely a debatable proposition--it does not follow that it is
or would be a universal benefit. Nations may deliberately and
legitimately prefer their culture, with its admitted disadvantages, to
the Kultur which pleases Germany. England is often mocked for the way in
which she "muddles through" successive perils, yet she may feel that the
stereotyping of her people in a rigid administrative frame might be too
high a price to pay for constant preparedness. As for us Americans, we
have made a virtue, perhaps overdone it, of avoiding a mechanical
Kultur. We prefer the greatest freedom for the individual to the
perfectly regimented state. We will move toward culture and cheerfully
assume the necessary risks of the process.
Unlovely and Impressive.
In a broader view, the war may be regarded as a contest between the
metallic, half-mechanical Kultur of Prussianized Germany and the more
flexible civilizations of States that have inherited culture or aspire
to it. Germany herself has rejected the humane and somewhat hazardous
ideal of culture, so she cannot wonder or complain when she sees that
the culture of the world is almost unanimously hostile to her. There is
no quarrel with German Kultur itself; merely a feeling that it has its
drawbacks, that it is, on the whole, as unlovely as it is impressive,
that there is quite enough of it in the world already, and that its
broad extension would be disastrous.
Meanwhile the nations of culture have much to learn from Germany's
Kultur. Flexibility may mean weakness. The United States, for example,
could well have a standing army and an army reserve commensurate with
its history and prospects without incurring any danger of militarism.
There is, finally, some disadvantage in being merely a culture nation,
for such a nation can add a large measure of Kultur without belying
itself. On the contrary, so highly developed a Kultur nation as the
German Empire puts itself in a position where it is almost impossible to
acquire any considerable degree of culture. Culture is the enemy of such
a state--it must remain in the Spartan or Macedonian stage. Rome began
to decline as soon as Hellenistic culture got the ascendency over the
old Latin Kultur. Kultur, in short, galvanizes; culture liberates. A
survey of modern Germany hardly warrants a desire for her world
dominion.
If any reader is still unclear about the distinction between culture and
Kultur, let him examine his most-gifted friends as to their sympathies
in the present war, choosing, of course, persons who have no racial
reasons for taking sides. Almost without exception he will find they
fall into two sharply defined classes. The mental characteristics of his
pro-German friends will pretty certainly illustrate Kultur quite
concretely, while he may read the meaning of culture in his more-gifted
friends who favor the Allies.
FRANK JEWETT MATHER, Jr.
Princeton, Nov. 6, 1914.