4 Making of the Complete Citizen
walls, or the music to which he listens. Education is an inner
characteristic partly derived from reaction to environment,
but never constituted solely by external conditions. Mere
“good form” passively absorbed is like a surface stain which
does not reach the texture of thought and judgment. Cul-
ture is the soul of civilization : it is the spiritual reaction to
environment; indeed it constantly creates a new environment
for itself, refashioning tradition into a more ample abode for
its day of life. Civilization, however, is not simply external
environment. In a civilized society there are embodied ideas
of authority and freedom ; and part of the function of civil-
ized nations is to promote the maintenance of good order
and security, which make possible the fullest culture of the
individual and of society by ensuring for it the most favor-
able outward conditions.
The individual is a member of the spiritual family of his
own land and age. He inherits its cultural traditions,
but in inheriting he must as an educated person appropriate
them, make them really his own, and in that process remint
them with the stamp of his own personality, and thereby
make the only real contribution which it is in his power to
make to the culture and civilization of his own time. Thus
in using the word culture I am not thinking of refinement of
manners as the badge worn by a distinguished but select
order : I intend by it the quality of the spiritually developed
manhood of any day or country, in fact, education in its
widest sense. It has the note of comprehensiveness, expan-
siveness, liberality. Culture is the mark of a “liberally”
educated person, because he must give generously of what
he has, must be willing to share with all who can and will
take what he has to offer. Culture in its essence is consti-
tuted by such universal qualities that it is a veritable gospel.
Like the Spirit of Wisdom of old, liberal Culture also cries