And that, perhaps, is importance enough. I say this in none of that college spirit which makes a man believe that his college, because it is his, is singled out for the peculiar attentions of the high gods who brood over academic welfare. A change, such as I am describing, if it took place at any other college, would be quite as important. The fact is that it could have taken place nowhere else.
Which brings us to the old Harvard and the popular misconceptions of its character. It was supposed to create a type of man, effeminate, detached, affecting superiority, incapable, and snobbish. Certainly men of this order did graduate from Harvard, but the great truth is that there was no Harvard type; there were always Harvard men, but there was never a “Harvard man.” The importance of this distinction is inestimable, because it points to the fundamental thing in the older Harvard life: its insistence upon individuality. In that the old Harvard struck deep through superficial things and came at once upon the fundamental thing identical in democracy and in aristocracy. It bestowed each man in accordance with his deserts and, following Hamlet’s dictum, according to its own nobility; and gave him according to his needs and according to his powers. Like every truly democratic institution, Harvard was aristocratic; like every truly aristocratic institution, Harvard was democratic. At the very moment when it was supposed to be breeding aristocratic snobs, Harvard was fulfilling the great mission of _democratic_ institutions in encouraging each man to be himself as greatly and completely as he could. At the very moment when it was supposed to exercise a mean and narrowing influence over its students, it was fulfilling the great mission of _cultural_ institutions in helping each man to a ripening of his powers, to enlargement of his interests, and to widening of his sympathies. Its effeminates went to war against dirt and danger and disease; its snobs devoted themselves to the advancement of social justice; its detached men became bankers and mill-owners and journalists; one of its weaklings conquered the world. The great thing was that in all of them the old impulse to a deep and full life remained; the tradition of culture was beginning to prosper. So that Harvard could send out a statesman who was interested in the Celtic revival, a littérateur with a fondness for baseball, a financier who appreciated art and a philosopher who appreciated life. At the same time it graduated thousands of men who took with them into professional life and into business life a feeling, perhaps only a memory, of the variety and excellence of human achievement—men who without pride or shame, which are equally snobbish, tried to substitute discipline and cultivation for disorder and barbarity. It is no petty accomplishment.