在中國現代文學批評史上，歐文．白璧德和馬修．阿諾德的思想產生了遙遠的迴響，這種影響是通過留美學生的接受、傳播和闡發而發生。學衡派的思想資源得自於白璧德人文主義和阿諾德的文化論，並在現代中國引發一場人文主義文化思潮。這一思潮對於五四時期的傳統文化批判具有反思性，對中國文化參與世界對話具有一定的合理性內涵。白璧德和阿諾德對學衡派的影響，並不是一套現存理論對一個空虛頭腦的單向灌輸，而是一種內在的精神契合。同樣的，他們的思想主張從西方移植到中國，也非簡單的時空變遷，而是一種「古今之爭」的語境轉換，其中蘊含著當時一批知識分子溝通中西進行文化選擇的努力。是以，考察學衡派的思想資源──白璧德和阿諾德在中國既被大規模接受、又被激烈抵抗的獨特文化遭際，應可給二十一世紀的文化現代化建設帶來重要啟示。

Both Irving Babbitt and Matthew Arnold had tremendous influence on literary criticism in modern China. This happened through a process in which their ideas were received, interpreted and spread by the Xueheng School, a group of Chinese students who had returned from the USA. Inspired by Babbitt’s humanism and Arnold’s cultural criticism, the Xueheng School introduced humanistic cultural thoughts to modern China. This cultural humanism evoked an introspection in the critique of traditional Chinese culture in the May Fourth period; it also opened rational dialogue between Chinese and other cultures in the world. The influence of Babbitt and Arnold upon the Xueheng School was not a one-directional instillation of a ready-made theory into a vacuous brain, but an intrinsic spiritual conjunction. Similarly, the transplant of humanism from the West to China was not a simple move in time and space, but rather, involved debates between antiquity and modernity by these intellectuals who came in cultural contacts between China and the West. This study of the Xueheng School’s intellectual choices—a unique cultural phenomenon in which Babbitt and Arnold were accepted on a large scale and at the same time fiercely resisted--should provide inspiration to China in its cultural modernization in the twenty-first century.