...expatriated Americans, even Henry James himself, have always seemed to me somewhat anchorless, rudderless, drifting before thewind.
Virginia GildersleeveFor more than twenty-five years my mind had been deeply troubled by the fact that these mechanical and scientific achievements ofman had outrun his intellectual and spiritual power. ...Throughout the Second World War this terrible problem hung in the back of my mind. As I write these words the problem and the danger are as threatening as ever. We hope our nation will survive, but in its effort to survive will it transform itself intellectually and spiritually into the image of the thing against which we fought?
Virginia GildersleeveThe peace conference must not adjourn without the establishment of some ordered system of international government, backed by power enough to give authority to its decrees.Unless a league something like this results at our peace conference, we shall merely drop back into armed hostility and international anarchy. The war will have been fought in vain.
Virginia GildersleeveThe ability to think straight, some knowledge of the past, some vision of the future, some urge to fit that service into the well-being of the community - these are the most vital things that education must try to produce.
Virginia Gildersleeve