508
STEVEN MARCUS
the right one, has to be itself central to some kind of vital understand–
ing of the present, before our application of it to the past can yield
much that is satisfactory. Moreover, the likelihood that the model
from the present that we apply will be itself taken from a present that
existed about thirty years before is, especially in the case of academic
humanists, quite high. At the same time, we should bear in mind that
there is at least one theoretical tradition-the tradition associated in
Europe with Hegel and Marx-that self-consciously tries
to
incorpo–
rate within itself the movement of history. And if we should bear this
in mind then we should bear in mind as well an opposing considera–
tion: Nietzsche once observed that the business of interpretation is
constituted out of violations, adjustments, abridgements, omissions
and substitutions. These are minor criminal activities, and it is re–
freshing to be reminded that if we are all inescapably involved in illicit
dealings we ought at least to be responsible enough to commit the
right crime. These are problems of central importance for the
humanities, and we shall return to them later.
When we turn to the humanities as part of education, we find
similar circumstances. In the nineteenth century, for example,
"humanism" or "the humanities" implied primarily a classical educa–
tion, an education in the literature and history of Greece and Rome,
or in the cultures of antiquity. This curriculum itself involved a dif–
ferential series of projections back onto the past, since it derived in the
first instance from the Renaissance ideal of the courtier, who was
supposed to be educated to become a ruler by having all his capacities
developed in due proportion and harmony. This ideal was in time
modified, and by the nineteenth century the courtier had been re–
placed by the gentleman, who was to receive a similar kind of educa–
tion and to be trained for similar public or social functions. In both
situations we can observe the past being interpreted and re-structured
by the selective projection of a model from the
p~esent
back onto it.
This model came in time to be regarded as narrow and inadequate. It
was narrow in the sense that
it
represented class interests, and inadeo–
quate in the sense that it left out a large and growing range of subjects
that had to do with both man and the world man made. Figures such
as Matthew Arnold recognized such shortcomings and tried to
broaden and extend this traditional educational ideal, and defend it
against the attack being made by the successful new adherents of the
