he
open-mindedness and imagination implied in culture are potentially
destructive to a highly organized national Kultur. A cultured leader is
generally too much alive to the point of view of his rival to be a
wholly convinced partisan. Hence he lacks the intensity, drive, and
narrowness that make for competitive success. He keeps his place in the
sun not by masterfully overriding others, but by a series of delicate
compromises which reconcile the apparently conflicting claims. Moreover,
he has too great a respect for the differences between men's gifts to
formulate any rigid plan which, requires for its execution a strictly
regimented humanity. He will sacrifice a little efficiency that life may
be more various, rich, and delightful.

Hence nations with cultured leaders have generally been beaten by those
whose leaders had merely Kultur. The Spartans and Macedonians had
abundant Kultur; they generally beat the Athenians, who had merely very
high culture. The Romans had Kultur, and the Hellenistic world wore
their yoke. Germany unquestionably has admirable Kultur, and none of the
mere cultured nations who are leagued against her could hope to beat her
singly.

She Does Not Desire Culture.

On the other hand, Germany has singularly little culture, has less than
she had a hundred years ago, does not apparently desire it. She has
willingly sacrificed the culture of a few leading individuals to the
Kultur of the empire as a whole. Thus it is not surprising that Germany,
as measured by the production of cultured individuals, takes a very low
place today. Not only France and England, Italy and Spain, but also
Russia and America, may fairly claim a higher degree of culture. Here
the fetich of German scholarship should not deceive us. Culture--a
balanced and humanized state of mind--is only remotely connected with
scholarship or even with education. A Spanish peasant or an Italian
waiter may have finer culture than a German university professor. And in
the field of scholarship, Germany is in the main chiefly laborious,
accurate, and small-minded. Her scholarship is related not to culture,
but is a minor expression of Kultur. Such scholarly men of letters as
Darwin, Huxley, Renan, Taine, Boissier, Gaston Paris, Menendez y Pelayo,
Francis J. Child, Germany used to produce in the days of the Grimms and
Schlegels. She rarely does so now. Her culture has been swallowed up in
her Kultur.

The claim of Germany to realize her Kul