Tradition 5
aloud even in the market-places : “Ho, everyone that thirst-
eth, Come ye to the waters.” Moreover, just as the Good
News in Galilee was to be received by the active response of
the inner man, or by faith, so liberal Culture is to be ac-
cepted by an active response that involves the effort to under-
stand it and the volition to work it into the fibre of one’s
being.
Culture cannot be fully embodied in the recluse ; the genu-
inely educated man finds himself in the community; he be-
comes of necessity a citizen. Some of the chief factors that
have gone to his making are Tradition, the exercise of
Enquiry or Freedom, the pursuit of the Beautiful, and the
faith and practice that are involved in Religion. Into na-
tional cultures all these ingredients have entered, though in
varying proportions ; but those cultures are likely to prevail
in which they are best balanced. In the individual, also,
in whom these principles are harmoniously effective the
highest quality of citizenship is manifest.
We shall consider first Tradition, or the element of Con-
tinuity. Every age, like every individual, has an inheritance
of ideas, sentiments, tendencies, which make up the capital
stock for its life’s adventure. These are the background of
continuity. Entering into life with this possession we do not
come as strangers ; nor when we depart do we leave a deso-
late wilderness. Our years are fleeting, but culture has a
long life. Were it not that we feel ourselves to belong to a
human family which persists we might think that all is de-
lusion ; that our life on earth is the shadow of a dream. But
ties invisible though real, mystical yet compelling, bind us
together. Weinheritandwetransmit. Wehaveconfidence
in our day when we think of those from whom we have come ;
we in our turn work until the night falls, because in our
descendants our good works follow on when we are no more.