GERMAN CULTURE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.“1
SIR,—The average Briton who does not make a study of words and their meanings is apt to feel annoyed when he finds that a word may have more than one meaning. When a German uses a phrase which is translated as "the advance- ment of German culture," he simply means the advancement of German ideas, methods, and rules. The average Briton aforesaid insists that "German culture" must refer to a higher education and a love of art. Of course it means nothing of the kind, and the mistake arises from using German words in an English sense. In this favoured isle of ours we are prone to insist that foreign words must mean what we think they ought to mean. This menial attitude is no doubt worthy of all praise, but it may lead us into strange verbal pitfalls. German culture means German management, and nothing else. As a cognate instance, the word agriculture means the management of land, and nothing else. When public speakers mention the atrocities at Louvain and else- where as samples of German culture, we can see the full irony of the phrase. But a German using the word in a more prosaic sense would fail to see the irony unless he happened to be a philologist.—I am, Sir, &c., FITZ-JAMES MOLONY.
Porlock, Somerset.
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