CHAPTER XIII.
Breadth of Life.
One of the prime characteristics of the man of culture is freedom from provincialism, complete deliverance from rigidity of temper, narrowness of interest, uncertainty of taste, and general unripeness.
The villager, or pagan in the old sense, is always a provincial; his horizon is narrow, his outlook upon the world restricted, his knowledge of life limited.

He may know a few things thoroughly; he cannot know them in true relation to one another or to the larger order of which they are part.

He may know a few persons intimately; he cannot know the representative persons of his time or of his race.

The essence of provincialism is the substitution of a part for the whole; the acceptance of the local experience, knowledge, and standards as possessing the authority of the universal experience, knowledge, and standards.

The local experience is entirely true in its own sphere; it becomes misleading when it is accepted as the experience of all time and all men.