The name is absent

Tradition                9

back. We are aware that we are late comers, if Anglo-
Saxons quite late comers, to this hemisphere. Ours is no
aboriginal culture or civilization; it was brought by our
fathers from Europe, and has been constantly reinforced
by new streams from the same sources almost contempo-
raneously with the rise of their levels in the older lands.

Our respect for tradition is shown on this continent by
the widespread desire to secure for the education of the
people at large memorials of the life, literature, and art
of the civilization not only of Europe but also of the far
past. Libraries get lavish and intelligent support. They
are storehouses in which both the records of the past of
all peoples and the published results of present endeavor
are treasured, and their use is made available by such in-
genious methods that the library has become a valuable
means of education for all classes and ages. The pace has
been set for this nation by the Congressional Library at
Washington, which is unsurpassed in the service it renders
by its bibliography, card-catalogue, and distribution of
books to readers and libraries all over the continent. Also
the Museum movement is particularly strong in the United
States. In no country do the great cities spend so much
upon them, nor is there anywhere more intelligent support
given them, nor better arrangement for fitting them to serve
their purposes in the higher education of the public. Pic-
ture and sculpture galleries cannot, in the nature of the
case, be so representative as the old galleries of Europe
of past tradition, because the examples of European and
Oriental art are limited, but they possess, nevertheless, an
abundance sufficient to illustrate richly humanity’s inherit-
ance of art ; though it can only be studied in its completeness
by those who are able to visit its home centers throughout
the world.

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