Reflection as Creation

In Literature and the American College (1908), Irving Babbitt defends "the humane endeavor which it is the special purpose of the college to foster--that effort of reflection, virile above all others, to coordinate the scattered elements of knowledge and relate them not only to the intellect but to the will and character; that subtle alchemy by which mere learning is transmuted into culture.  The task of assimilating what is best in the past and present, and adapting it to one's own use and the use of others, so far from lacking in originality, calls for something akin to creation."