For the very highest products of man's life in this world are his ideas and ideals; they grow out of his highest nature; they react on his character; they are the precious deposit of all that he has thought, felt, suffered, and done in word and work, in feeling and action.

The richest educational material upon which modern men are nourished are these ultimate conclusions and convictions of the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Roman.

These ultimate inferences, these final interpretations of their own natures and of the world about them, contain not only the thought of these races, but their life as well.

They have, therefore, a vital quality which not only assures their own immortality, but has the power of transmission to others.
These ultimate results of experience are embodied in art, and especially in literature; and that which makes them art is this very vitality.

For this reason art is absolutely essential for culture; it has the power of enriching and expanding the natures which come in contact with it by transmitting to them the highest results of the life of the past, by sharing with them the ripeness and maturity of the human spirit in its universal experience..