Happy birthday!

Mr. Barzun always sought to be a teacher in the widest possible sense, and his books were directed as much to those outside the walls of academia.

In his memoir of this time, Mr. Barzun quotes Matthew Arnold: "The men of culture are the true apostles of equality. They have a passion . . . for carrying from one end of society to the other the best ideas of their time." Then Mr. Barzun adds: "It is clear in retrospect that not we alone but the mid-century as a whole, particularly in the United States, made a many-sided effort to carry out the Arnoldian mandate. The hope of a collective enjoyment of the best in thought and art was still strong."

Two other posts on Barzun's 100th:

Age of Reason, in The New Yorker
Jacques Barzun at 100 , in The New Criterion

For more, see Barzun 100, a blog dedicated to the celebration of Jacques Barzun's 100th year.