SOURCE: Aldridge, A. Owen. “Irving Babbitt and Lin Yutang.” Modern Age 41, no. 4 (fall 1999): 318-27.

In the following essay, Aldridge traces Irving Babbitt's influences on the life and career of Lin, who was enrolled in Babbitt's courses at Harvard University in 1919 and 1920.

Although it is generally accepted that T. S. Eliot was the most illustrious of Irving Babbitt's students at Harvard, no agreement exists on who is next in line. The usual candidates are Walter Lippmann and Van Wyck Brooks. Judged from the perspective of international reputation, however, there can be no doubt that the most widely-known and perhaps the most influential of the great humanist's students was a native Chinese, Lin Yutang (1895-1976), who was enrolled in Babbitt's classes in 1919-1920. During a residence of nearly thirty years in the United States, Lin wrote in English a number of best-selling volumes of fiction and philosophy, some of which...