We must shake the old double reefs out of the canvas into the
wind and sunshine, and let in every modern subject, sure that any
subject will prove humanistic, if its setting be kept only wide enough.
Stevenson says somewhere to his reader: "You think you are just making
this bargain, but you are really laying down a link in the policy of
mankind." Well, your technical school should enable you to make your
bargain splendidly; but your college should show you just the place of
that kind of bargain--a pretty poor place, possibly--in the whole policy
of mankind. That is the kind of liberal outlook, of perspective, of
atmosphere, which should surround every subject as a college deals with
it.
We of the colleges must eradicate a curious notion which numbers of good
people have about such ancient seats of learning as Harvard. To many
ignorant outsiders, that name suggests little more than a kind of
sterilized conceit and incapacity for being pleased. In Edith Wyatt's
exquisite book of Chicago sketches called "Every One his Own Way," there
is a couple who stand for culture in the sense of exclusiveness, Richard
Elliot and his feminine counterpart--feeble caricatures of mankind,
unable to know any good thing when they see it, incapable of enjoyment
unless a printed label gives them leave.
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