Tradition 19
would be decided by the quality of the culture that each
would offer to mankind. Which would be best worth hav-
ing? There is much in our tradition that would be rejected
as worthless or outgrown; therefore in order to secure its
vitality, we should submit it constantly to scrutiny.
In view of the present condition of the world and of its
probable direction, we who are pondering the kind of edu-
cation that would seem to be most effective for citizens of
our own countries, must not be oblivious of the fact that
we cannot shut ourselves from a world that, whether we
like it or not, throngs us on all sides. Nor can we assume
that all our traditions are so attractive that the outside
world will readily accept our ideals. A few years ago in a
conservation with a cultured Chinese gentleman I suggested,
somewhat tactlessly I am afraid, that the world would be
a much happier place if the English-speaking peoples could
come together with a more common purpose. He at once
replied that the rest of the world would be suspicious of
the powerful imposition of their ideals. My reflection on
that occasion at my own table was felt by him to be due to
the old Anglo-Saxon assumption that our civilization should
be supreme. The complete citizen of today must be more
than a narrow nationalist. We are suffering, as we all
know, from economic nationalism; but our troubles will be
more radical and enduring if we continue to isolate our-
selves culturally. At the recent meeting in Toronto of the
American Historical Association, the President, Professor
Bolton of California, gave timely emphasis to the necessity
of studying American history in the context of the western
hemisphere in order to avoid the danger of undue nation-
alism. I should go further in regard to education for citi-
zenship, and say that we should aim at sympathetic under-
standing of the attitude of other races to ourselves. Their