LETTER VIII - Who are the cultivated?
My Dear Daughter: No
words in the English language are so much bandied
about in efforts to describe or classify society at
the present day as are the words “culture,”
“cultured,” “cultivated” and
their antithèses. These are the terms that
intimidate the vain, selfish, illiterate rich; for
to be described as “rich but uncultivated”
is regarded as a greater slur upon the social standing
of families than to be reported as having gained wealth
by dishonesty or trickery. And then the matter
is made all the harder for those willing to acquire
a hypocritical polish at any expense if they can only
be called “cultivated,” from the fact
that they do not know what true culture is, nor are
they able to recognize it when they see it. They
are like a person lacking in all artistic sense, who
wishes to buy pictures at the mercy of
every impostor.
What, then, is the secret that lies
behind the demeanor and manners of the cultivated
man or woman, or the cultivated family? What power
or what sentiment modulates the voice to kind and
gentle tones; restrains the boisterous conversation
or laughter; gives such a delicate perception of the
rights of others as to make impossible the dictatorial
or arrogant form of address the impertinent question,
the personal familiarity, the curiosity about private
affairs, the forwardness in giving advice or expressing
unasked opinions, the boastful statement of personal
possessions or qualities, the action that causes pain
or inconvenience or discomfort to associates or dependents,
all of which are the most common forms of transgression
among the uncultivated?
In his famous address on “The
Progress of Culture,” delivered before a celebrated
college society in Cambridge in 1867, Emerson summed
up the whole matter in one sentence: “The
foundation of culture, as of character, is at last
the moral sentiment.” Here is the whole
secret in a single sentence. The restraining
grace is “at last the moral sentiment.”
It is a fine genuine unselfishness that, observing
how all these things may pain and wound, refrains
from doing any of them. The man or woman or family
who can avoid transgressing in these particulars can
do so habitually only as the result of a fine moral
sentiment underlying the whole nature. And those
who possess or have cultivated in themselves this
fine moral sentiment of unselfishness, justice, and
considerateness, will be surrounded by an atmosphere
of culture though their dwelling-place be an uncarpeted
cabin, while those who lack this restraining grace
will be “uncultivated” though their surroundings
afford every comfort, beauty, and luxury. It should
be a thought of encouragement to us, and an inspiration
of hope that we may possess the true and imperishable
riches of a cultivated spirit, however poor and struggling
our lives may be, or however barren of external beauty
our surroundings. Culture depends not on material
possessions. In fact, the very abundance of conveniences
and comforts and elegances often seems to have an
injurious and deteriorating effect on individuals and
families by producing in them a selfish love of personal
ease and exclusiveness. On the other hand, the
painful and patient economizing of humble toilers
often produces an unselfishness and patience and gentleness
of demeanor which is in effect the very finest culture.
In these days of specialists and artists
and architects and upholsterers, anyone who has money
can possess himself of the material surroundings of
taste and culture. His house may be “a poem
in stone” exteriorly, and a “symphony
in color” in its interior adornments. This
much of the products of genuine culture he may buy
with money. But no money can buy the pearl of
great price, the cultured spirit in the individual
or family, without which the most palatial mansion
is but a dead and lifeless shell. Lacking this
moral sentiment and culture, how many a handsomely
appointed home is the abode of rudeness, unkindness,
selfishness, and misery! The rude speech or cutting
retort or selfish act are doubly and trebly incongruous
when pictured walls and frescoed ceilings and luxurious
surroundings of artistic beauty are the silent witnesses
of the vulgarity. On the other hand, there is
opportunity for the display of the best and kindest
and most cultivated manners in the humble home where
lack of suitable furnishings and dearth of conveniences
puts everyone’s unselfishness to the test.
I have frequently heard wise parents
and teachers speak of the perplexity of spirit which
they feel when they see that in so many instances
the acquirement of accomplishments, as they are termed,
fails to add any moral strength or beauty to the character
of the young people in whose welfare and advancement
their hearts are so entirely absorbed. This young
girl sings and plays beautifully, paints and draws
in a genuinely artistic manner, speaks French and
German like a native, and yet she is ill-tempered
and shrewish if circumstances happen to cross her
inclination. Here is a young man who is possessed
of a fine collegiate education, and who is also an
excellent musician. Yet he can be rude and disrespectful
to his mother, insolent to his father, overbearing
and arrogant towards servants and subordinates, and
a perfect boor to his younger brothers and sisters.
Both these young persons have uncultivated spirits.
So we see that the cultivation of the intellectual
nature, the acquirement of accomplishments, the practice
of any art, the advantages of travel, the surroundings
of elegance, may or may not tend to the genuine culture
of the spirit; and as wise and earnest parents and
teachers perceive this truth, they realize more and
more that the great problem of culture, alike for parent
and teacher, is how to develop the moral sentiment.