The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1899-12-12

lis recent years there has been much
n talk-much Of it vague and point
Iess-about culture. We have
been advised to become cultured, and
and we have been told that culture is
the best tesS Of the best test of the best
manhood and womanhOcd. Now cul.
lure we have been led TO suppose, was
she gift Of the schools especially the high
schools, academies, colleges and uni
Versities, and those OF us who in u
youth were denied the privileges Of
higher educationtioa have sometimes
times felt ina culture was not for US.
We have felt, also, that there was a
certain finish TO culture that could
be acquired only by those who had
b On admitted within the magic circle
Of what is called society-sometimes
polite society. So this was another
barrier in our way, for the doors to
society" swung on golden hinges.
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But q discovery was made. There is
q culture that is not the gift of college
and university and society. Self -cul-
ture was the thing discovered-a sort
of cultivation that might be done"
By any man with a hoe. And there
was and remains q good deal in this
discovery, and there Is such a thing as
culture OF the man By himself, then
she way is open to many a nan and
woman 80 whom the doors of the col
tegas are closed. And if men and
somen can be induced to work culture
as a desirable acquisition, then they
VII D greatly benefited,
BIE wcst is cul.urC2 l. has been a
word To conjure Ii5h-R sort cf gocje.y
a1i5o1.etn Rhich few understand and
fewer tried TO explain. Perhaps this
very yagueness added to the attEac.
uvencss Of she word. It had a pleas
ant found, and CULTURE became q
sort 5f fad among a large class Of we'll
ntentioned and more or less ambiJi-
tioua folk, the greater number of whom
we're not men.
Strange enough, while the word cul
tuFe seems to have an agricultural
origin aud meaning, most stud ents Of
what has been referred to as polite
society" would not expect to fad as
much culture in the country ss in the
city The men who knew no to cult
TRte the soil were not gu pposed to be
ekilled in the culture of the fallow
soil Of their own social natures. The
philosophy Of the thing (as applied to
corn and beans. wheat and oats, pota-
toes and other ~vegetables) they must
have understood, else they could not
have succeeds d so well in their meth
DDS of culture; but then-but then
the real thing must not be for farmers.
Aad why3 Simply because culture
was for the select-the select-and
farmers are two busy cu~ltivating the
food crops for other people to have
time 60 cultivate themselves.
+*#
"What is culture7" asks Kuno
Fra0cke. He his " ques-
Eion rs follows: Does Il consist in the
reiaement of the senses, in the increase
Of uesds, IN the perfection Of t~aleut5,
In the acqu'sit on Of knowledge, in the
widening OF the intellectual borizon3
AL these elements contribute to pro
duce culture, but they are not culture.
Culture is Tot an accom- 2IishmeDt, bus
state Il mind. Culture be alore has
Who Teal;E : the relation Of his accom-
~p}isbments, whatever they may be, to
she larger lie Of which he forms q
part. whose aim IN heightening his
own pc sonalj5y ia only to make it bet
Ter fitted for service to tae community.
The striving for true culture, therefore,
contains 8 democratic es we'll &c an
R~ristocrasic tendency. II is ~aristocrat-
10, for it tends to give to the most re
f0ed, the best sChooled, the most fully
developed, the part in public life which