An American of the present day reading his Sunday newspaper in a state of lazy collapse is one of the most perfect symbols of the triumph of quantity over quality that the world has yet seen.

Babbitt's Literature and the American College (1908) caused a stir but it was assembled from writings already circulated. Blackmur Oscar Cargill Ernest Hemingway Harold Laski Sinclair Lewis H. Then he took a master's degree at Harvard including Sanskrit.

Irving Babbitt (August 2 1865 – July 15 1933) was an American academic and literary critic noted for his founding role in a movement that became known as the New Humanism a significant influence on literary discussion and conservative thought in the period between 1910 to 1930. He was an advocate of classical humanism but also offered an ecumenical defense of religion.