MODERN LITERATURE
13
lerns which he
is
told he can master only by means of attitudes
and generalizations, that quiet place in which he can be silent, in
which he can
know
something-in what year the Parthenon was
begun, the order of battle at Trafalgar, how Linear B was de–
ciphered: almost anything at all that has nothing to do with the
talkative and attitudinizing present, anything at all rather than
variations of the accepted formulations about
anxiety,
and
urban
society,
and
alienation,
and
Gemeinschaft
and
Gesellschaft,
all
the matter of the academic disciplines which are founded upon
the modem self-consciousness and the modem self-pity. The
modem self-pity is certainly not without its justification; but, if
the grounds for our self-pity are ever to be overcome, we must
sometimes wonder whether that task is likely to be accomplished
by minds which are taught in youth to accept these sad condi–
tions of ours as ineluctable, and as the only right objects of con–
templation. And quite apart from any practical consequences,
there
is
the simple aesthetic personal pleasure of having to do
with young minds, and maturing minds, which are free of cant,
which are, to quote an old poet, "fierce, moody, patient, ventur–
ous, modest, shy."
This line of argument I have called eccentric and maybe it
ought to be called obscurantist and reactionary. Whatever it
is
called, it
is
not likely to impress a Committee on the Curriculum.
It was, I think, more or less the line of argument of my depart–
ment in Columbia College, when, up to a few years ago, it de–
cided, whenever the question came up , not to carry its courses
beyond the late nineteenth century. But our rationale could not
stand against the representations which a group of students made
to our dean and which he communicated to us. The students
wanted a course in modem literature- very likely, in the way of
students, they said that it was a scandal that no such course was
being offered in the College. There was no argument that could
stand against this expressed desire: we could only capitulate,
and then, with pretty good grace, muster the arguments that
justified our doing so. Was not the twentieth century more than
