baffled to discover just what the results of
science are regarding the true psychological
and moral meaning of race differences. . . . All
men in prehistoric times are surprisingly alike
in their minds, their morals and their arts.
. . . We do not scientifically know what the
true racial varieties of mental type really
are." ¹

I have often thought of these utterances of
my colleagues, as I have attempted to teach
something about lyric poetry in Harvard
classrooms where Chinese, Japanese, Jewish,
Irish, French, German, Negro, Russian,
Italian and Armenian students appear in be-
wildering and stimulating confusion. Pre-
cisely what is their racial reaction to a lyric of
Sappho? To an Anglo-Saxon war-song of the
tenth century? To a Scotch ballad? To one
of Shakspere's songs? Some specific racial
reaction there must be, one imagines, but such
capacity for self-expression as the student
commands is rarely capable of giving more
than a hint of it.

And what real response is there, among the
majority of contemporary lovers of poetry, to
the delicate shades of feeling which color the

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