Harvard for Culture

That is an entertaining subject which the young gentlemen of Harvard and Cornell will debate next Saturday night at 9.30: "Resolved, that the foreign indictment of American culture is justified." As Prof. ("Be a Snob") Rogers of M.I.T. will preside, and the discussion will be broadcast, a large unseen audience will attend. It is gratifying to know that the Crimson will uphold our culture....

Our foreign friends have been poking fun at American culture, and even doubting the existence of it, for a long time. The exasperating question of Sydney Smith more than a century ago is well remembered; and he was not the first, as certainly he was not the last, to deride us. James Bryce handed down an indictment or two and Siegfried and others have expanded his question into volumes. The tone has become more bitter since the United States became the creditor of Europe. The critics make few allowances for the youth of the nation. They compare our developing civilization with the crystallized customs of countries which were mellowed when Americans were felling the forests and striving for mastery over nature. American culture is still in process. Meanwhile, the average American, comparing our general well-being with distressed conditions elsewhere, can detect the foundations of a culture which, although it will be different from that of other lands, is not likely to be less admirable. --The Boston Herald.