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Self-cultivation in English and The Glory of the Imperfect
Selfcultivation in English and The Glory of the Imperfect Author:George Herbert Palmer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE GLORY OF THE IMPERFECT The following Address was delivered at the first Commencement of the Woman's College of Western Reserve University and printed fro... more »m stenographer's notes. As it is now to assume permanent form, it has been revised and in some parts rewritten. G. H. P. Few years ago Matthew Arnold, the eminent English critic, after travelling in this country and revising the somewhat unfavorable opinion of us which he had formed earlier and at a distance, still wrote in his last paper on Civilization in the United States that America, in spite of its excellences, is an uninteresting land. He thought our institutions remarkable. He pointed out how close a fit exists between them and the character of the citizens, a fit so close as is hardly to be found in other countries. He saw much that is of promise in our future. But after all, he declares that no man will live here if he can live elsewhere, because America is an uninteresting land. This remark of Mr. Arnold's is one which we may well ponder. As I consider how many of you are preparing to go forth from college and establish, yourselves in this country, I ask myself whether you must find your days uninteresting. You certainly have not been finding them uninteresting here. Where were college days ever dull? It is a beautiful circumstance that, the world over, the period of youthful education is the period of romance. No such thing was ever heard of as a college student who did not enjoy himself, a college student who was not full of hope. And if this has been the case with us prosaic males of the past, what must be the experience of your own hopeful sex? I am sure you are looking forward with eagerness to your intended work. Is it to be blighted? Are you to find life dull? It might seem from the remark of ...« less