"Matthew Arnold", by Irving Babbitt, review of Matthew Arnold: How to Know Him, by Stuart P. Sherman, The Nation, August 2, 1917, posted at National Humanities Institute.
"Now that Arnold and his message have been put thus persuasively before Americans, one is naturally tempted to inquire what value this message is likely to have for them. In answering this question, it is well to insist with Professor Sherman on a point that is often missed—on Arnold's essential modernity. What is more, one may affirm that Arnold was misunderstood by his contemporaries, not because he was less modern, but because he was more modern than they, and that he is still misunderstood for the same reason."
See Arnold, "The Study of Poetry", and "Sweetness and Light" from Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism. in Gateway to the Great Books (10 Vol., 1963) volume 5.
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