arrow sense, will appear evident
upon a moment's reflection. In the case of
both branches of literature in the English
language, the losses of the last twenty years
have been so many and so great, the new
writers of real force so few and far between,
that we may well ask the question: Whom
have we left to present to the century upon the
threshold of which we are now standing?
Cleverness and technical mastery are indeed
offered us in many forms by our newer writers;
the cleverness is almost preternatural at times,
and the technique would put many of the older
masters to blush. But the soul of literature
does not live by these qualities alone, and,
whatever momentary admiration they may
arouse, they are not ultimately satisfactory.
Nothing but genius gives lasting satisfaction,
and to that we freely pardon those minor de-
fects upon which pedagogues are wont to
frown. Genius, however, is coming every year
to be a rarer commodity in English literature,
and the deficiency appears startling when we
contrast the conditions of to-day with those of
the sixties and the seventies.
With the Continental literatures the outlook
is not quite so dark. The latter part of the
century has been marked by a strong resurg-
ence of national feeling among nearly all of
the distinctive peoples of Europe. Magyars
and Czechs are no longer content to be merged
in the political conglomerate of Austria. Finns
and Poles resent with increasing vehemence
their subjection to Russian influences. Even
the Norwegians chafe under the enforced union
with their Swedish kinsmen, and assert their
own separate nationality in every possible way.
Thirty years of imperial Germany have really
accomplished much for that unity of feeling
which was only a dream of the future when
the King of Prussia assumed the title of Ger-
man Emperor in the palace at Versailles.
Even France, throughout all modern history
more unanimous and self-centred than the
other nations of the Continent, has achieved
a greater solidarity than ever before under the
régime of the Republic. The Mediterranean
countries, also, have shared in this renewal of
national feeling, of which evidence may be
adduced from the recent history of Greece,
Italy, and Spain alike. This fortification of
race sentiment, which has played havoc with
so many political ambitions, has proved highly
stimulating to literary activity.
Let us enumerate a few of the developments
of Continental literature during the past twen-
ty years, indicating at the same time some of
the losses that have been sustained. Taking
first the outlying countries, as distinguished
from France and Germany, which represent


330
[May 1,
THE DIAL
the core of present-day Continental culture,
the following are among the more conspicuous
facts to claim our attention. There has arisen
in Spain a distinctively modern school of fic-
tion, which has justly challenged the admira-
tion of the reading world. It is true that
Alarcon and Señor Galdos occupied the field
for some years before the period with which
we are dealing, but even Señor Galdos, in his
later manner, is a very different person from
the author of his earlier series of books con-
cerned with the romance of Spanish history,
and, taken in connection with Señores Walera
and Valdés, with Señora Bazan, and with the
dramatist, Señor Echegaray, he marks a tran-
sition in the spirit of Spanish literature which
affords the plainest evidence that contempo-
rary Spanish thought is no longer bound to
the traditions of the past, but takes an active
interest in all the problems of the modern
world. In Italy, the modern movement, al-
though it offers the unhealthful phase illus-
trated by the work of Signor d'Annunzio, of.
fers also the sane developments represented
by Signor de Amicis, Signor Fogazzaro, and
Signor Werga. Signor Carducci remains what
he has been for the last thirty or forty years,
the one great Italian poet of our time, great,
that is, in a sense that provokes comparison
with the best that any literature has to give us.
In Hungary, Mr. Jokai, full of years and
honors, is the one writer who is generally
known to readers everywhere; none of the
younger men have thus far attracted much at-
tention outside of their own country. Belgium
is so closely affiliated with France that its
writers do not appeal to us especially as Bel-
gians, but to this statement there is the one
noteworthy exception of M. Maeterlinck, whose
work has had much vogue of recent years, and
is particularly interesting on account of the
way in which it illustrates some of the more
exaggerated tendencies of what is called sym-
bolism. M. Maeterlinck writes in the French
language; the only living writer of Flemish
generally known to English readers is the
Dutch novelist, Heer Couperus, whose prob-
lem fictions have had a deserved success out-
side of Holland. That charming Dutch nov-
elist who chooses to write under the name of
“Maarten Maartens” has made himself prac-
tically an English novelist by writing his books
in our own language. It is within very recent
years, that is, within the last decade, that the
astonishing novels of Mr. Sienkiewicz have
come to be known throughout the world, and
have restored Poland to the literary map of
Europe, although the political map has no
place for it. It would hardly be an exaggera-
tion to describe this writer as the most re-
markable genius who has appeared in Conti-
nental literature during the period which we
are now reviewing. In his work the conscious-
ness of a noble race becomes intimately re-
vealed to us—more intimately, in fact, than
in the poems of Mickiewicz, or even in the
music of Chopin—and the great part played
by Poland in the history of Europe is made
known to us. When we turn to Russia, our
first thought is of the fact that Tourguénieff
was living and writing twenty years ago, and
of the irreparable loss to literature when he
died in 1883. Since then the one great name
in Russian literature has been that of Count
Tolstoy, but even of him, writing from a liter-
ary rather than from a sociological point of
view, one is compelled to say, stat magni
nominis umbra, for “Anna Karenina” was
published in 1877, and since then the author's
footsteps have been straying erratically about
in the morass of didacticism. In the Scandi-
navian countries, the most important happen-
ing of the last twenty years has been the im-
mense widening of the bounds of Dr. Ibsen's
reputation. Although for thirty years he had
been producing play after play, including
those great works upon which his fame will
chiefly rest when the final account is taken,
his name was practically unknown in 1880,
except in Germany, outside of the Scandina-
vian kingdoms. It was in 1879 that Mr.
Gosse, in his “Studies in the Literature of
Northern Europe,” first called the attention of
English readers to the writer who has since
become so widely read. Until well along in
the eighties we never heard the name of Dr.
Ibsen mentioned in this country, either in con-
versation or in print. Herr Björnson had for
many years been known to our public as the
author of certain idyllic tales of Norwegian
peasant life, although even he was entirely
unknown as dramatist or as lyric poet. The
great widening of Dr. Ibsen's reputation coin-
cided rather closely with the great change in
method and subject-matter which came over
his work about twenty years ago. In 1880
“The Pillars of Society” was three years old,
and “A Doll Home” had been published only
the year before. It is upon these two plays,
and their ten successors, all dealing with the
problems of modern society, that the author's
reputation is even now chiefly based, a caprice


1900.] THE
DIAL 331
of popular judgment which completely ignores
his real masterpieces. The same caprice of
popular judgment, which we do not believe
that time will justify, makes of him at present
a more conspicuous figure than his great Nor-
wegian contemporary. But, however these
critical values may be readjusted by the com-
ing generation, there is no doubt that for the
present generation Dr. Ibsen represents one of
the strongest influences now operating in lit-
erature. In Danish literature, the most im-
portant name of the last twenty years has been
that of Dr. Georg Brandes, which fact is par-
ticularly interesting as a revindication of the
claims of criticism to consideration as one of
the branches of literature proper. It is a
somewhat noteworthy fact that in one country,
at least, a literary critic should remain for a
long term of years its foremost man of letters.
German literature in 1880 had no poets
worth speaking of, unless we mention a few such
writers as Geibel, Bodenstedt, Fontane, and
the author of “Der Trompeter von Säkkin-
gen.” It had, however, an important group of
novelists in Auerbach and Freytag, Herr
Spielhagen and Herr Heyse. To-day, as in
1880, we still think of Heine as the last of the
great German poets, although a few, perhaps,
may claim for the author of “Die Versunkene
Glocke” the poetic laurel. Although Herr
Spielhagen and Herr Heyse are still living and
writing, their pristine fires are now little more
than embers, and there can be no doubt that
Herr Hauptmann now occupies the most con-
spicuous place in German letters. For some
years the race was close between him and Herr
Sudermann, but at present he seems to have
outdistanced his only serious competitor. The
prominence of these two writers, who are dis-
tinctly the most serious representatives of the
Young Germany of letters, is important not
only because of the intrinsic value of their
writing, which is considerable, but also because
they have given a new impulse to that form of
the drama which is both biihnenmässig and lit-
erary. This modern rehabilitation of the acting
drama as a form of literary art has been going
on in several countries, but in no other, not
even in France, as noticably as in Germany.
The respect with which the playhouse and its
associations are treated in that country repre-
sents one of the most important things that
Germany is now doing for literature. But in
spite of all that we may say in behalf of recent
German literature, the fact must be recognized
that the Empire has not, in the thirty years of
its existence, accomplished as much as might
reasonably have been expected. The output
has been enormous, but mediocrity has charac-
terized the greater part of it. It is only now
and then that a poem or a book, a play or a
critical monograph, has risen above that dead
level; very little of the German literature pro-
duced during the past twenty years has won for
itself that wide cosmopolitan hearing for which
no really important work, in our age of alert
publishing and quickly diffused intelligence,
has long to wait. Before closing this para-
graph, we should say a word about the influ-
ence exerted by the writings of Herr Nietzsche.
That influence has been unwholesome and de-
moralizing, but it must be reckoned with in
any attempt to trace the main currents of con-
temporary thought.
The French literature of the past twenty
years resembles our own in the balance of its
gains and losses, the former having been by no
means commensurate with the latter. The
greatest French writer of the century has died
within the period under consideration, and,
such was his vitality, and such the astonishing
fertility of his genius, that even his octogena-
rian years did not preclude him, up to the very
last, from continuing to enrich the treasure
house of French song. The death of Leconte
de Lisle, although far less significant than
that of Hugo, was still a heavy loss to French
poetry, and there are many persons to whom the
wayward and poignant note struck from the
lyre of Paul Verlaine came with a fresh charm
that makes them sincere mourners of his death.
Next to Victor Hugo, the greatest loss of
French literature during the period under con-
sideration was felt when Renan passed away in
1892, within a few days of the death of the
greatest of our English poets. The death of
Taine, soon thereafter, was also an event of
more than common significance. Taine and
Renan, however, had lived their lives and done
their work. But it was the promise, even more
than the achievement, of James Darmesteter
that lent a peculiar touch of sadness to his pre-
mature taking-off. French literature has also
lost the younger Dumas, Augier, Labiche,
Feuillet, Daudet, Maupassant, and Cherbuliez.
Flaubert died in 1880, at the very beginning of
the period now under discussion. It is obvious
that no such men are now left to French litera-
ture as those that have been taken away. To
set off against the name of Hugo we have the
names of MM. Sully-Prudhomme and Coppée.
Against the names of the older dramatists we


832 THE DIAT,
[May 1,
have those of MM. Sardou and Rostand. To
take the place of the lost novelists we have M.
Zola, whose present notoriety will not avail to
save his literary reputation, M. “Loti,” M.
Bourget, M. Rod, and a host of other excellent
second-rate men. We have also, indeed, M.
Anatole France, that well-nigh impecable pros-
ateur, but even his name cannot go far toward
restoring the lost balance. The French litera-
ture of the past twenty years has been as pro-
lific as ever, as far as the main departments of
belles-lettres are concerned, but very few works
in any of these departments command our at-
tention by their preeminent excellence. There
has been a noteworthy movement in poetry, in
the direction of what is vaguely known as
“symbolism,” much discussed by those who af.
fect the cult, but not to be considered very se-
riously by those who are concerned for the
higher interests of French literature. The
movement seems to be characterized by an
impatience of all artistic restraint, a revolt
against the chief canons of poetical form, a
somewhat sickly cast of thought, and a tend-
ency to exalt little men to the rank of great
masters. This tendency is, of course, exhibited
chiefly within the limits of its own clique of
mutual admirers, and is not characteristic of
sober criticism, as represented by such men as
MM. Brunetière and Faguet. In other words,
there is in the France of to-day, as in every
other country of Europe, a group of jeunes,
who are trying all sorts of unregulated experi-
ments in verse and prose, who are making a
great pother about their doings, and who are
minutely subdivided into little parties and
sects, united only in their common endeavor to
accomplish great things with small intellectual
means. Far more creditable to the contempor-
ary French spirit is that other and broader
movement of thought which has been seeking,
ever since the nadir of imperialism was reached
thirty years ago, to regenerate the moral ideals
of the French people, and to restore the atmos-
phere of earnestness which seemed to have been
lost. How nobly Renan and Taine labored to
this end is matter of familiar knowledge. Their
efforts have born fruit in the writings of Dar-
mesteter and Guyau, of MM. Brunetière, La-
visse, Wagner, and Rod, and of the Vicomte de
Vogüé. If this movement has in some cases
tended toward a reactionary neo-Catholicism,
its net outcome has been for good, and its in-
fluence upon the younger generation must have
been great, if not at the present time exactly
calculable.
Turning now to English literature — our
own literature upon the other side of the ocean
—the capital fact confronts us that in 1880
there were six great English poets among the
living, and that in 1900 there remains but one.
During the twenty years Tennyson and Brown-
ing, Rossetti and Morris and Arnold, have all
passed away, leaving Mr. Swinburne in ex-
alted isolation, the only great poet of the nine-
teenth century whom we may hope will live to
carry on into the twentieth its glorious liter-
ary tradition. Our age of gold has to all seem-
ing reached an end, and Mr. Stedman, who a
quarter of a century ago recognized in the
years of the Victorian reign a distinct literary
period, which even then showed signs of draw-
ing to a close, must himself be a little surprised
at the completeness with which his prediction
has been borne out by the event. In the place
of our major poets we have now only minor
ones, and the fact that we have them in larger
numbers than ever before offers us no consola-
tion for the loss of the great departed. Aside
from Mr. Swinburne, we are compelled to
point, when questioned concerning our living
poets, to Mr. Aubrey DeVere, Mr. George
Meredith, Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, Mr.
Robert Bridges, Mr. William Watson, Mr.
Stephen Phillips, Mr. W. B. Yeats, and Mr.
Rudyard Kipling. We hold these men in es-
teem, it is true, but however we may admire
the delicate art of Mr. Bridges, for example,
or the resonant virility of Mr. Kipling, our
sense of proportion does not permit us to set
these men upon anything like the plane occu-
pied by the great poets who have died since
1880. And, with but few exceptions, our
living poets seem to be no more than “little
sonnet-men,”
“Who fashion, in a shrewd, mechanic way,
Songs without souls that flicker for a day,
To vanish in irrevocable night.”
Prose fiction of some sort or other we have al-
ways with us, and the names of Mr. Meredith
and Mr. Hardy would lend distinction to any
period, but the great age of the Victorian nov-
elists ended with the death of “George Eliot.”
in 1881. Although frequently compared with
that woman of genius, Mrs. Ward, may hardly
be said to fill her place. Since her death we have
also lost Lord Beaconsfield, Trollope, Black,
Blackmore, and Stevenson. When wº turn to
the great writers of prose, the contrast between
the living and the dead is seen to be almost as
pronounced as in the case of the poets. Within
twenty years, Carlyle and Ruskin, by far the


1900.] THE
DIAL 333
greatest prosateurs of our time, have ceased to
appeal to us with the living voice. The per-
suasive eloquence of Newman and Martineau
has been hushed, and the plea for culture,
voiced in such dulcet terms by Arnold and
Pater, is no longer heard. All these men are
now among
"The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns,”
but to whose counsel we may no longer turn
when new questions arise and call for new so-
lutions. Of the four great men of science who
have caught the ear of the general public dur-
ing the past twenty years, and whose teachings
have wrought so complete a change in the at-
titude of all thinking men toward the claims
of scientific culture, and the place of science in
education, Mr. Herbert Spencer alone remains
to us. Darwin, Huxley, and Tyndall have
died, but happily they lived long enough to
witness the general acceptance of the ideas for
which they fought so good a fight, and to be
assured that the evolutionary principle had
won for itself the suffrages of all whose judg-
ment was worth having. The older school of
historical writing, as represented by Green and
Froude, has given place to the school repre-
sented by Dr. Gardiner and the Bishop of Ox-
ford. The scholarship of these men is no doubt
deeper and more accurate than was that of
their predecessors, but their “literature” is
sadly to seek, and their influence consequently
restricted. The general reader, with a taste
for this sort of writing, does not turn to the
“Select Charters,” but rather takes down from
the shelf his well-worn “Short History of the
English People,” and is not particularly con-
cerned with the fact that later research has in-
validated some of its positions. The two most
conspicuous cases of personal success achieved
in English authorship during the past twenty
years have been those of Stevenson and Mr.
Kipling. Both afford striking illustrations of
the “craze” in literature. A few years ago
we were told by many enthusiastic readers that
in Stevenson the great masters of our fiction
had found a worthy successor. More recently
we have been assured that Mr. Kipling is a
great poet, and the ill-considered laudations of
his admirers have been dinned into our ears.
Such outbursts of uncritical applause always
make the judicious grieve, but their effect soon
wears away, and the men who occasion them
come to be viewed in the proper perspective.
Stevenson has already taken his place as an
entertaining novelist of the second or third
class, and his singularly lovable personality is
not now mistaken for literary genius by any
great number of persons. Mr. Kipling, like-
wise, is fast coming to be viewed as a member
of the considerable company of the minor poets
of to-day, and his essential message, the more
closely we examine it, is found to make much
of its appeal to the more vulgar tastes and the
baser instincts of human nature. Mr. Stephen
Phillips is the latest of the “new poets” who are
discovered and exploited now and then by En-
glish critics, and there is no reason thus far
apparent why his case should not parallel that
of all the others. He has, no doubt, an excep-
tional gift of refined poetic expression, but
there is no distinctively new note in his song;
there is merely a new blending of the notes
which are already familiar to us. To illustrate
what is really meant by a new note in English
song we must go back to Rossetti's “Poems.”
of 1870, or to 1866 and the first volume of
Mr. Swinburne’s “Poems and Ballads.” The
past two decades have witnessed no such event
in English literature as was marked by the ap-
pearance of eithel of the volumes just men-
tioned. When we contrast the period of the
sixties and seventies with the period of the
eighties and nineties we may realize all the
difference between a period in which the cre-
ative imagination is at full tide, and a period
in which the flood of genius is fast ebbing
away. In the later of the two periods English
literature has rounded out the great work of
the earlier; as the great writers have died,
only lesser ones have appeared to take their
places; and many of the younger men, recog-
nizing the futility of any attempt to carry on
the old tradition upon its old lines, have be-
come mere experimenters in new moods and
forms, hoping to hit upon some promising line
of new literary endeavor, but not as yet indi-
cating with any precision the direction which
will be taken by the movement of the coming
century. This restlessness, this confusion of
ideals, and this uncertainty of aim are the un-
mistakable marks of a transition period in lit-
erature. A remarkable age has rounded to
its close, and it is impossible to determine with
any assurance whether the age to come will be
merely critical and sterile, or whether it will
give birth to some new creative impulse.
What has just been said of the last years of
our English literature is generally true of lit-
erature throughout the world. Its activities
are everywhere largely experimental; most of
the younger writers in all countries appear to


334
[May 1,
THE DIAL
be convinced that their only hope of making a
mark lies in the discovery of new methods and
new forms. We seem to be living in an age
of literary anarchy, in which every sort of ex-
cess or extravagance claims a hearing. There
are schools and sects and cliques everywhere,
but there are no controlling principles. This
aggressive and unregulated individualism even
seeks to bend criticism to its heterogeneous
aims by denying the very principle of critical
authority. It pretends that the belief in crit-
ical canons is a superstition, and that individ-
ual liking is the only test of good literature.
Impressionism in criticism is so far in the as-
cendant that many people no longer find intel-
ligible the point of view from which a critic
can say of a composition that he likes it per-
sonally, but that it is nevertheless bad liter-
ature. Yet this is the point of view that every
critic must at times be prepared to take, if he
have any regard for the seriousness of his call-
ing. Few critics have ever so succeeded in
eliminating the personal equation from their
make-up as to bring about an absolute align-
ment between their subjective impressions and
their objective judgments. In the presence of
all the diversity of purpose exhibited in the
literary activity of recent years, and of all the
diversity of critical opinion with which it has
been greeted, the search for any principle of
unity becomes well-nigh hopeless. There is,
however, one fairly comprehensive statement
which may be made, and upon which we are
justified in placing considerable emphasis. The
European literature of the last twenty years
has been more distinctly sociological in char-
acter than the literature of any preceding
period. The social consciousness has been
aroused as never before, and the complex rela-
tions of men and women, both to each other
and to society in the aggregate, have supplied
themes for a constantly increasing number of
novels and poems and plays. A large propor-
tion of the writers who have been named in the
foregoing pages illustrate some phase of this
new or at least heightened sense of the duties
of human beings toward one another. It was
more than accidental, it was rather in obedience
to an irresistible tendency of human thought,
that such men as Ruskin, Count Tolstoy, Herr
Björnson, and Dr. Ibsen turned at about the
same time, and with a common motive, from
the past to the present, from the romantic to
the real, from work in which the aesthetical
element was predominant to work in which the
ethical element was set, sometimes far too ob-
trusively, in the foreground. This movement
resulted in a manifest loss to art, but it has
accomplished much for the betterment of man-
kind. The change of aim and method which
in these writers marks so sharp a contrast be-
tween their earlier and their later work is par-
alleled in many other writers of less import-
ance. And many of the younger men, following
the biological law which makes the develop-
ment of the individual to a certain extent an
epitome of the development of the race, have
started upon their career as idealists, only to
succumb, after a few preliminary flights, to
the tendency which has done so much to make
of modern literature the handmaid of social
analysis and ethical reform. The interests of
pure literature have suffered in this transform-
ing process, but life is even more important
than literature, and it is possible that the final
reckoning will show the gains to have balanced
the losses. At all events, this introduction of
an avowed social and ethical purpose into
nearly all sorts of writing is the most charac-
teristic thing that the last twenty years have
done for the literature of the world.
WILLIAM MORTON PAYNE.
AMERICAN LITERATURE.
During the twenty years of its existence
THE DIAL must have reviewed nearly twice
twenty thousand books, and of these quite a
large proportion must have been produced in
America. How is such a mass of literature to
be sifted and weighed? And how is one who
has grown to manhood during the period, who
has formed friendships with contemporary
writers and been influenced by contemporary
books, to judge impartially of the value of a
literature that is still evolving, or to describe
its tendencies or fix its limitations?
I cannot answer my own questions, for books
and writers appear to compass me so thickly
about that when I think of recent American
literature I seem to be in a forest the range of
which I cannot estimate because I can see
nothing but trees. Yet whatever may be the
propriety of any contemporary's dealing with
so broad and complex a subject as American
Literature since 1880, it can scarcely be
doubted that it is eminently proper for THE
DIAL to celebrate its twentieth anniversary by
publishing a résumé of the achievements of
American authors during a period in which


1900.] THE
DIAL 335
the journal itself has been a source of inspira-
tion to all who care for good literature. Per-
haps in THE DIAL's necessity I may find my
opportunity for seeking and obtaining pardon
for the rashness of which I am about to be
guilty.
It may seem to be a bad omen to begin with
a necrology; but the necrology of a period of
literature is often instructive. More veteran
authors lived into and died within the last
two decades of our literary history than was
the case, seemingly, with any two previous
decades. Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier,
Lowell, Holmes, Whitman, Bancroft, Park-
man, Curtis, Mrs. Stowe — all these eminent
writers, who had won their fame years before,
passed away within our period and exerted a
powerful influence upon it, not merely by their
writings but by their presence in the flesh.
Many contemporary writers doubtless feel as
though they grew up among giants, and while
some have been incited to emulation, others
have perhaps suffered discouragement, and
still others have been tempted to win fame by
a revolt from established literary traditions.
It is at least clear that certain outré tendencies
among our younger writers date from years
when scarcely a veteran-author of the first rank
was left alive.
Some other names in our necrology will
serve to show how very different from its pre-
decessors is the epoch we are studying. Lydia
Maria Child and Jones Very died in 1880;
yet how far away do we who applaud Admiral
Dewey and read “David Harum” seem to be
from the days of the Abolitionists and the
Transcendentalists 1 And yet Christopher
Pearse Cranch, who wrote in Emerson's
“Dial” along with Margaret Fuller and other
by-gone worthies, lived until 1892, the year in
which Mr. Rhodes published the first volumes
of his History of the United States from the
Compromise of 1850. The long life of Judge
Gayarré, the historian of Louisiana, who died
in 1895 at the age of ninety, takes us back
equally into the ante-bellum period, as does
that of the romancer W. S. Mayo, author of
“The Berber,” who died in the same year at
the age of eighty-three. Hermann Melville,
famous for his sea tales, died in 1891, the year
that saw the publication of Mr. Stockton's
“Squirrel Inn” and Mr. Harris’s “Balaam
and his Master.” But the gulf that separates
us from the past is best revealed, perhaps, in
the fact that Albert Pike, who was born in the
same year with Poe and whose “Hymns to
the Gods,” published in “Blackwood's,” de-
lighted the readers of 1839, died compara-
tively unnoticed in the same year with Mel-
ville, George Bancroft, James Parton, and
Lowell.
But if veterans honored or practically for-
gotten have died within our period, others have
fortunately lived through it, and we have been
privileged to know and admire veterans in the
making. Mr. Donald G. Mitchell, Dr. Ed-
ward Everett Hale, Colonel Higginson, Mr.
C. G. Leland, Mr. Richard Henry Stoddard,
Mr. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Professor Charles
Eliot Norton, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe — to
mention no others — belong to the first class.
Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, Mr. Howells,
Dr. Weir Mitchell, Mr. Clemens, Mr. Harte,
Mr. Henry James, Jr., Mr. Stedman, obviously
represent the second. These lists could be
easily extended, but the names given will serve
our purposes.
Other names belonging to different cate-
gories must, however, be added. Within our
period careers that seemed to promise much in
preceding decades have been nipped, and oth-
ers have begun and been cut short. Sidney
Lanier who, whatever the rank ultimately as-
signed him, will doubtless be counted the most
important writer the South has produced since
Poe, succumbed in his brave fight against dis-
ease in 1881. Helen Hunt Jackson, probably
our greatest woman poet, died in 1885 at the
age of fifty-four. Emma Lazarus followed her
at the age of thirty-eight. H. C. Bunner,
Eugene Field, Harold Frederic, and Richard
Hovey rose to distinction within our limited
epoch, did their work faithfully, and passed to
their rewards. But our concern is chiefly with
the living, to whom we may now turn with the
remark that it may be interesting to note that
the necrology of the two decades contains be-
sides the names already given those of Phillips
Brooks, H. W. Grady, Wendell Phillips,
R. H. Dana, Jr., Francis J. Child, John Esten
Cooke, Paul H. Hayne, John G. Saxe, James
T. Fields, J. G. Holland, Lucy Larcom, W. W.
Story, Richard Malcolm Johnston, Justin
Winsor, Henry Ward Beecher, Charles A.
Dana, Celia Thaxter, Emily Dickinson, Con-
stance Fenimore Woolson, E. P. Whipple,
Richard Grant White, Joseph Kirkland, and
not a few others.
Are our living writers, including all our vet-
erans, equal in power and variety of perform-
ance to their brother writers whose deaths have
just been chronicled? This question naturally


336 - THE DIAL
[May 1,
forces itself upon us, but we may as well post-
pone our answer, and perhaps evade it alto-
gether. It is at least certain, however, that
in point of mere numbers we who are writing
in America to-day compose a more formidable
body than any previous generation of writers
has done in this country. This is naturally not
surprising, in view of the great increase that has
taken place in population; but, when we com-
pare the number of writers contemporary with
Charles Brockden Brown with the number con-
temporary with Mr. William Dean Howells, we
perceive that mere growth of population cannot
explain the phenomenon under discussion.
Authors have multiplied in answer to greater
trade demands made by publishers, in answer
to the promptings of the self-conscious spirit of
the age, and also because the spread of educa-
tion, especially in the vernacular, has made it
possible for more and more men and women to
develope a fairly good style and to master at
least the rudiments of the writer's craft. Our
republic of letters is fast ceasing to be aristo-
cratic in character and is becoming thoroughly
democratic — a change which is also taking
place in the mother country.
It is more possible to regret this change than
to deny it. Beside our literary men and
women of 1900 the “Literati’’ of the forties
cut quite a small figure; but where are our
Poe and our Hawthorne? Who among our
poets has taken Longfellow's place? Who
equals Lowell as a critic 2 What living nov-
elist is as secure of an undying reputation as
that old-fashioned romancer Cooper, at whom
some of the present-day purveyors of fiction
delight to sneer? “Perhaps after all,” a mali-
cious observer might remark, “the real reason
you modern writers form a democracy is that
you have no aristocrats — no really great men
among you!” Some of us might reply that such
a remark would not be quite fair, that sooner
or later
the bell-like fame
Of this or that down-trodden name
will meet our eager ears, and that at least the
authors of “ Huckleberry Finn" and “The
Rise of Silas Lapham ” are great enough to
lend respectability to the epoch. But, however
| legitimate such an answer, few of us, doubtless,
can survey our recent literary production with-
out concluding that with regard to the creation
of masterpieces of imaginative literature other
\ periods have surpassed us. In poetry no name
has attained great prečminence; in fiction, de-
spite the phenomenal sales of certain novels,
we have scarcely more than one book to men-
tion in the same breath with “The Last of the
Mohicans” and “The Scarlet Letter’”; in lit-
erary craftsmanship or art, while we can fairly
say that there are ten good writers now to one
in 1840, we must candidly admit that we have
not a single name worthy to be set alongside
that of Poe. Our strength plainly lies in the
number of our important writers, and in the
variety and high average merit of their work;
in other words, Democracy is justified of her
children even in the domain of letters.
Let us now take a nearer view of these wri-
ters and their work. With comparatively little
trouble I have made out a list of one hundred
and fifty authors living to-day within the United
States—with the exception of one or two exiles
—all or nearly all of whom would, I think,
deserve to have their work considered, to a fair
extent at least, by a literary historian working
on the scale adopted by Professor Moses Coit
Tyler. The writer of a handbook or a school
manual could undoubtedly afford to pass over
a third or more of these names; but a real in-
vestigator of the period would not omit nearly
so many. It is needless to say that before this
article is printed my list will have been de-
stroyed, and that I have no intention of giving
it here. After all, the individual names do not
matter much; what does matter is the large
total and the classes into which it may be dis-
tributed.
I find that of my one hundred and fifty
names twenty-seven are poets; twenty-seven
critics and essayists; sixty-seven novelists;
nineteen historians; and ten miscellaneous wri-
ters whom it is difficult to classify. Of course
some of these authors, like Mr. Howells and
Dr. van Dyke—for I do not mind saying that
both are on my list,-might easily be included
under three of the above heads, but I have
placed them where they seem primarily to be-
long. Now what conclusions do these figures
seem to suggest?
In the first place they tell us what we already
knew, that fiction is the dominant literary form
of the day. They show also that criticism and
history are holding their own well, as we should
naturally have inferred. They prove, too, that
writers still own allegiance to poetry, even if
most readers do not. They show furthermore,
I think, that the tendency to specialization of
scholarship, so marked of late years, has not
had quite the deleterious effect upon the pro-
duction of real literature that might have been
expected. Not a few of the critics, historians,


1900.] THE
DIAL 837
and miscellaneous writers included above are
specialists whose minute studies have not pre-
vented them from acquiring a broad, liberal
culture. Finally, our figures seem to prove
that in spite of or perhaps in reaction from
our utilitarian character as a people, a decided
majority of our writers who have made their
marks have striven to succeed in the highest
regions of imaginative literature. These as-
piring souls may not in the end invalidate the
judgment passed upon our literature, and more
especially its prose, by Professor George R.
Carpenter, to the effect that its sound, com-
mon sense, wholesome qualities make it essen-
tially a “citizen's literature”; but they are
doing their best to set it beside literatures rich
in imaginative works, such as those of Great
Britain and France. The literature in which
such a tendency can be discovered is surely in
no unhealthy state, even if it can at the time
boast of few living writers of eminent origin-
ality.
But the figures given are susceptible of
other manipulations—more or less instructive.
The list was made out with no thought as to
the respective proportions of the two sexes rep-
resented; at the end it was found that they
stood as five to one in favor of the sex that has
hitherto dominated literature. This seems to
be on the whole not a bad showing for our
women, and the disparity is likely to decrease
in the future in view of the large amount of
reading done by women, the spread of higher
education among them, and the remarkable
literary activity of their various clubs. The
showing made by them appears to be still
more noticeable from the fact that with prac-
tically only one exception every woman counted
is doing work in either poetry or fiction—that
is, in the highest ranges of literature. The
more ideal sex has the more ideal aims.
From some points of view literature should
know neither section nor country, but it is in-
teresting to observe that of the one hundred
and fifty names selected nearly one hundred
should be credited to the North and East, and
the remainder almost evenly divided between
South and West. New England is still influ-
ential, but does not dominate our literature as
formerly. The Middle States have at last
equaled her or surpassed her—perhaps in
consequence of the growth of a distinct school
of literary New Yorkers; the West has proved
that business prosperity is not its only ideal;
and the New South has distinguished itself in
no way so much as by finding in its young
writers an articulate voice. It is true that
many of the authors credited to the West and
South have found it desirable to join the im-
portant group of writers that has wrested the
primacy from Boston and made New York the
literary centre of the country; but they still,
like Mr. James Lane Allen, continue in their
writings to smack of the soil upon which their
youth was spent. On the other hand, this set-
ting of the literary tide toward New York,
which is paralleled by the similar movements
toward London, Paris, and Berlin, is some-
what counterbalanced by the facts that in the
past few years Boston has shown increased ac-
tivity in publishing, that Chicago has become
a centre of the trade in the Northwest, and
that even in comparatively smaller cities
numerous important firms are stimulating
the energy of local authors and scouring the
country to discover fresh talent. It seems quite
certain that from Boston to San Francisco the
future is likely to witness a fair development of
local writers and publishers.
This matter of local centres is more impor-
tant than it appears at first sight. The great
centres of artistic and literary production in the
past, from Athens to the Boston of the Trans-
cendentalists, have been also centres of a homo-
geneous population. Can a really great litera-
ture grow up in the midst of a heterogeneous
population, and how far are we Americans a
heterogeneous people? These questions con-
front every serious student of our literature,
and it would at least seem that our literary
future would be more assured if we could be
certain that the growth of New York, which is
quite inevitable, would not prevent the devel-
opment of local centres. Even as it is, we may
find profit in noting that the comparatively
homogeneous population of the South has made
the greatest relative advance in our period, and
that in the South, as elsewhere, it seems in the
main to be the comparatively homogeneous
stocks or strains of population, like those of
Tennessee and Kentucky, that have furnished
both writers and subjects for literary exploita-
tion.
From local literary centres we naturally pass
to local fiction, and we hardly need consult any
list of our novelists to conclude that American
fiction since 1880 has developed more fully the
tendency that became pronounced in the sev-
enties—to portray with minute skill the modes
of life and thought peculiar to limited classes
or stocks of population inhabiting limited
areas. The Forty-niners of Bret Harte and the


338
[May 1,
THE DIAL
ſ
*
*
Mississippi Valley types of Mark Twain have
been succeeded by Virginia negroes, Georgia
“crackers,” Louisiana creoles, Tennessee and
Kentucky mountaineers, Wisconsin farmers,
New England villagers and—but the list is too
formidable and the end is not yet. In this de-
velopment of local fiction, which has been par-
alleled in England and Scotland, our epoch
stands in distinct contrast with the ante-bellum
period, although books like Longstreet's
“Georgia Scenes” might be cited to show that
evolution rather than revolution has taken
place. That the work done in the various re-
stricted fields has been often admirable in
quality it would be foolish to deny, but whether
our novelists have shown sufficient knowledge
of the human heart and mind to give their
works currency after the manners and types
they portray have ceased to be strange or have
vanished before the leveling tide of civilization,
is a question that the future alone can answer.
Hawthorne's “House of the Seven Gables”
still holds it own; will posterity put any of our
stories beside it, no matter how accurate the
dialect or how painstaking the portraiture?
But some of our writers of fiction have aimed
at wider work and, whether consciously or un-
consciously, have taken for their master Balzac,
the great student of society, as a whole. A
small group of realists is treating New York in
the manner if not with the success that Balzac
treated Paris. The influence of Tourguénieff
and of Tolstoy has also been felt by them, and
they have done work distinctive in character
and far reaching in its effects. The general
~public has received this work often with slight
| courtesy and has turned with more relish either
to religious romances like “Ben Hur” or to
stories of the Revolution that furnish appro-
priate reading for the Sons and Daughters of
that prolific cataclysm, or to the specifically
local fiction that has just been mentioned.
“Give us a story that is a story”, they say
with some justice, and fall to reading a bril-
liant colonial romance. But will the brilliant
romances or the local fiction of a contracted
| type give the form and pressure of the time
to inquiring posterity as well as the less ab-
sorbing novels of our realists will? With the
exception of the numerous and excellent short
stories, an admirable form of fiction in which
Americans have succeeded since the days of
Irving, Poe, and Hawthorne, and in which the
period just closing has probably done more
than merely hold its own, is not the work of
the realists the most typical product of the
period? The reader must answer these ques-
tions as he will, and, if he be wise, he will
probably enjoy the good work his contempor-
aries are doing regardless of the permanence
or impermanence of its value. He may, how-
ever, quite properly find it in his heart to re-
gret that, in some notable cases, too great in-
sistence upon theories of fiction has limited the
appeal of great writers and, in one instance at
least, has rendered the self-imposed exile of a
distinguished novelist a matter of less regret to
his country and of less loss to the literature of
our period than it would otherwise have been.
Passing now to the higher but less culti-
vated form of imaginative literature known by
the sacred name of poetry, we find that, as in
so many other matters, we have closely paral-
leled recent British experience. Indeed one
marked characteristic of the period we are con-
sidering is what may be termed the general
intellectual leveling up of the two great
branches of the Anglo-Saxon race. British
books no longer dominate our market, and
American books are no longer unwelcome in
Great Britain. There is less disposition to
colonial subservience in literary matters on
our part and less reason for it, since modern
British literature is not obviously superior to
our own. As with us, so in Great Britain the
republic of letters seems to be losing its aris-
tocratic caste; bizarre youth plays its pranks
there as here; fiction that is often good but
seldom masterly is the dominant literary form,
and poetry is cultivated by an increasing num-
ber of surprisingly well-trained but still minor
poets.
This last phenomenon was some years since
made the subject of an interesting article by
the late Mr. Traill. He showed that Great
Britain possessed at the time some half a hun-
dred minor poets, any one of whom was
capable of doing work that in technique at
least would have seemed quite remarkable in
any other epoch. Doubtless the number of
these poets has increased in Great Britain, and,
as I have recently said elsewhere, there is
every reason to believe that there are just as
many meritorious minor poets in this country.
If the number of poets included in our list is
less, this is because it seemed wise to count
only those writers who had received a fair
amount of public recognition. But anyone who
has been called upon to review the annual out-
put of verse in America for the last few years
will readily admit that for minor poetry it
often shows marked excellence of rhythm and


1900.] THE
IXIAL 339
diction, distinct poetical temperaments on the
part of the writers, conscientious study of the
best models—in short most of the virtues of
good poetry except the saving one of strongly
original creative power.
If this saving virtue be demanded, it must
be confessed that few living American or Brit-
ish poets will stand the test. With the deaths
of the great New England poets and of Whit-
man we have been left with a few true and
fairly distinguished poets and with many minor
ones of varying excellence, but with no great
ones, even in the limited sense in which
“great” can be applied to any American poet.
Every year or two a new poet is hailed by his
friends, and the ear of the public twitches;
but that is about all, even though the poet sells
a few thousand copies of his book and makes
his appearance on the lecture platform. Nor
is anybody to blame for this state of things.
The public is right in not being stirred by
what is obviously not stirring, although this is
not saying that it cannot be aroused to unnec-
essary enthusiasm over the rather brazen ring
of some contemporary verse. On the other
hand, the friends of our poets are right in
standing by them loyally, for many of them
have distinct merits, and it is not well that the
cause of the fine art they are faithfully serving
should want defenders. After all, neither a
people nor a generation need feel ashamed if
great poets are conspicuous by their absence.
Our race has known poetic interregnums be-
fore, and the present one will probably cease
ere long.
Meanwhile two facts are interesting. The
first is that even in the most out-of-the-way
localities young poets, often of distinct ability,
are serving the muse in spite of public neglect
and of the pressure of our complex life. These
men are influencing their communities for good
and will at least help to smooth the paths of
great poets when they come. The second fact
is the attention our two most original poets,
Poe and Walt Whitman, are receiving. The
Poe cult has been sufficiently discussed in these
columns; that of Whitman has probably not
been adequately recognized by orthodox criti-
cism. That many of the claims made for our
rugged chanter of the glories of democracy are
extravagant, is doubtless true; but it is equally
true that his voice has a carrying quality that
makes it penetrate ears deaf to all other poetry.
This is but another proof of the democratiza-
tion of our literature, and it is a proof that the
process has its advantages as well as its disad-
vantages. In this connection it is interesting
to note that the natural Whitman has found
one of his stoutest champions in a student of
nature and a disciple of Thoreau, Mr. John
Burroughs, whose work is typical of a kind of
writing to which more and more Americans
are devoting themselves and which is not un-
worthy of being mentioned in connection even
with poetry itself.
The mention of Mr. Burroughs makes the
transition to criticism easy, but the space re-
maining to me is limited and I must hasten to
a conclusion. American criticism seems to be
in a healthy state so far as the ability of our
critics is concerned; but, as I have tried to show
elsewhere, there is still much to be done toward
attaining an adequate critical philosophy. We
have critics who are learned, critics of admira-
ble taste, and critics gifted with the power of
interpreting literature to the masses, but few
or none of large mould and speaking with au-
thoritative voice. Perhaps this fact is due in
part to the character of the age, which has no
great respect for authority of any sort; but it
is at least quite as much due to a lack of stand-
ards and philosophic methods on the part of the
critics themselves. But when all is said, the
generation that has produced such a book as
Professor Lounsbury’s “Studies in Chaucer,”
and that can point to at least a dozen success-
ful essayists, can hold its own in criticism with
any that has preceded it.
The same statement may be made with re-
gard to history, biography, economics, and pol-
itics, and classical scholarship, so far as concerns
the literary character of the chief recent works
in these departments of thought. As our great-
est critic died in Lowell, so probably our
greatest historian died in Parkman, yet history
in general has not merely not lost in the past
twenty years but has actually gained. Owing
to the influence of graduate schools in connec-
tion with our great universities, the spirit of
accurate historical research has spread through-
out the land. This research has been carried
on in the main by specialists often deficient in
literary gifts, but their methods have affected
more ambitious and talented historians, with
the result that a large number of elaborate his-
torical works have been written within our
period that would be a credit to any people
and to any age. It is impossible to specify
them all, but perhaps it will not be invidious
to lay special stress upon the histories of Mr.
John Fiske and of Mr. Henry Adams as illus-
trating the truth of what has just been said.


840
[May 1,
THE IXIAT,
As for biography, economics, and classical
scholarship still less can be said here. Recent
work in these lines has been especially note-
worthy and is likely to continue so—certainly
in economics in which the public finds many
reasons to take a vital interest. The taste for
biographical reading is also growing, and in
General Grant’s “Memoirs” at least the gen-
eration has probably produced a classic. If the
work of Professor Gildersleeve in the domain
of Greek scholarship and culture is less popu-
larly known, it is a comfort to some of us to
think that we have in him an American fully
worthy to rank with Professor Jebb himself.
Several topics remain that deserve discus-
sion, but they can now be mentioned only.
The last twenty years have seen great devel-
opments in periodical literature. The more
expensive magazines have kept their standing,
and cheap magazines, some good, some poor,
have made literature popular as it never was
before. The newspapers, too, are paying more
attention to literature than ever and find that
it pays to issue special literary supplements.
Reviews of all sorts have been established, al-
though in the main technical in character.
Cheap libraries of books famous and infamous
have had immense sales. Literary clubs of all
sorts have fostered a taste for reading and
have thus stimulated literary production. Pub-
lishers have adopted the larger business meth-
ods of the epoch and keep the presses running
night and day. With their numerous series of
all sorts they secure for new authors sales that
would be otherwise impossible; but on the
other hand they are insatiate in their demands
upon all available writers, and the result is
hasty, immature work that is demoralizing
both to author and to reader. Publishers are
also partly responsible for the fact that their
popular books, which they naturally advertise
in every way possible, often overshadow and
prevent the sale of more deserving volumes.
For this state of affairs the public is, however,
just as much to blame, for it allows itself to be
seized by a craze or fad and devours books
eagerly which in a short time it is only too will.
ing to forget. The end is not yet, nor can any
man predict with certainty what effect modern
conditions of literary productivity will have on
at least the higher forms of literature. Will
our children or grandchildren take fiction seri-
ously if every week in the year sees a new
novel reach the hundred thousand mark? But
our concern is not with the future, and as for
the immediate past it can be safely affirmed,
in conclusion, that whether the period we have
just left behind us be a great one or not, it is
certainly an interesting one, as well as one
that proves that we have not fallen behind in
letters as we have in politics. From Charles
Brockden Brown to William Dean Howells is
a distinct ascent; facilis est descensus from
Thomas Jefferson to any living American
statesman. Yet it seemed, years ago, that our
true glory lay in the political sphere.
WILLIAM P. TEENT.
AMERICAN PUBLISHING AND
PUBLISHERS.
“A thousand ages were blank, if books had
not evoked their ghosts,” wrote Bulwer; and
THE DIAL's twenty years of life crowd them-
selves with the ghosts of many ages. Within
the narrow confines of a score of years, pro-
gress has been made for which the elder world
waited centuries in vain. Great as our ma-
terial advance has been in the two closing de-
cades of the century, our intellectuallife has kept
pace with it; and of this progress the best rec-
ord and epitome is to be found in books.
The first glance backward is therefore one
of congratulation. But the books, their authors
and publishers, have come and many of them
have gone, leaving the mind overstocked with
memories and crowded with reflections. Dur-
ing THE DIAL's twenty years, the world of
English letters has been robbed of the great
names of Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier,
Lowell, Holmes, Lanier, Whitman, and Park-
man in America; of Tennyson, Browning,
Arnold, Rossetti, and Morris in England;
with scores of lesser authors in both lands.
With these have passed away many of the men
who made the reading public acquainted with
these authors, James T. Fields, Daniel S.
Appleton, Henry O. Houghton, J. B. Lippin-
cott, Fletcher Harper (second of that name),
Charles Welford, James R. Osgood, Robert
Clarke, Edward S. Mead, with other names of
power and influence in the world of books.
A score of years ago, books of poetry which
attracted hundreds and even thousands of read-
ers were appearing with every season; now,
more books of verse are put forth than ever
before, but the names their publishers used to
conjure with are absent. In other fields it is
the same. To join the present and that not
remote past of which we speak, Messrs. Sted-


1900.] THE
DIAL 341
man, Aldrich, Stoddard, Warner, Mitchell,
Howells, James, Stockton, and Eggleston still
flourish in America; Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Aus-
tin Dobson, Sir Walter Besant, and several
more, in England; but the times have changed,
and many of the names now most prominent in
current letters were unknown when THE DIAL
began its course.
In 1880, a few great houses controlled the
publishing business in America, and not many
smaller houses flourished beside them. In
other businesses centralization has since been
the rule of growth, and this is no exception;
yet the number of publishers seems to have
multiplied even more than the number of
books. The great houses survive—the lon-
gevity of authors, almost proverbial, seeming
to extend to the men whose function it is to
make the author possible in his relations with
the public; and there is probably no commer-
cial occupation which can show names more
old and venerable than those which stand as
monuments in the book-producing world. The
repute of publishing as the trade most nearly
resembling a learned profession is fully sus-
tained by the new blood which has flowed into
its veins. The older men, gone from the gen-
eration now passing, were men of sound char-
acter and cultivated minds, and their example
has been followed, until, with rare exceptions,
the American publisher stands well for Amer-
ican character and culture.
Twenty years have brought many changes in
the artistic and mechanical sides of bookmak-
ing, not all of them commendable, but on the
whole tending toward a finer and wider devel-
opment of art. Chiefly noticeable are the great
increase in the quality and quantity of illustra-
tion brought about through improved pictorial
processes, the increased attention paid to cover
designs, calling into service a body of artists
of which the older generation had not dreamed,
and the frequent use of color, even to the point
of landscape effects, on book covers. The use
of color in illustration, particularly in maga-
zines, is also a recent innovation, still some-
what in the stage of experiment. The intro-
duction of machine devices in book production,
such as the linotype substitute for type-setting,
has been indulged in but cautiously by the best
publishers, and whatever lowering of standards
has come from these processes has been more
than offset by improved faces of founders’ type
and by the common use of better grades of
paper made possible by the cheapening of
staple manufactures generally. In the form of
the best books, the tendency has been toward
simple elegance instead of costly show. The
elaborate and ponderous editions which
weighted down the book-shelves of our fathers
have mostly gone their way, and in their stead
thrives the sort of modest but more artistic
volume which challenges comparison with the
work of the old master printers.
In the great book publishing houses of
America it is peculiarly true that though the
individual wither yet the firm is more and
more. These are the houses that are built on
broad and deep foundations, and though the
members that compose them are taken one by
one yet the house still stands. Even the very
recent financial complications of two of the
oldest and largest firms in the country, start-
ling as they were, are not likely to affect seri-
ously their future usefulness and prosperity,
and thus while saddening are not discouraging.
In the first number of THE DIAL there ap-
peared the advertisements of just ten Ameri-
can publishing houses—a striking contrast to
the nearly one hundred firms appearing in the
present issue — and of these ten firms all but
two are still in active existence, while there is
hardly one of them but has lost meanwhile a
prominent and active member. A few details,
reviving memories of earlier days, may not be
out of place in this necessarily brief survey.
The same day that saw the birth of THE
DIAL saw also the separation of the historic
firm of Houghton, Osgood & Co. into the two
houses of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. and J. R.
Osgood & Co.; the former continuing to stand
distinctively for literary conservatism and
classic simplicity of typography and ornament,
while the latter devoted itself more particularly
to the heliotype reproduction of old engravings
of merit, foreshadowing those extensive photo-
graphic processes which have since made artis-
tic illustration possible for almost every book.
Both Mr. Houghton and Mr. Osgood, as also
Mr. Fields their immemorial predecessor, have
since passed away. Other Boston firms of our
initial period were Little, Brown, & Co., trac-
ing their origin back to 1784, and conducting
business under the present name unchanged
since 1847; Roberts Brothers, absorbed by the
firm just named after the death of Mr. Niles
of genial memory; Ginn, Heath & Co., since
divided into the two houses of Ginn & Co. and
D. C. Heath & Co., each since becoming far
more extensive than the parent house; T. Y.
Crowell & Co., lately removed to New York
City; Lee & Shepard, continuing the firm


342
[May 1,
THE DIAL
name unaffected by the death of Mr. Shepard
and the retirement of Mr. Lee; D. Lothrop &
Co., since incorporated as the Lothrop Pub-
lishing Company on the death of Mr. Daniel
Lothrop; and Estes & Lauriat, who were suc-
ceeded in 1898 in their publishing department
by Dana Estes & Co.
Turning to New York, we find the house of
Harper & Brothers, already over sixty years
old when THE DIAL was born, changing from
a co-partnership to a corporation in 1896;
Mr. Fletcher Harper, long an active member
of this firm, being included in the death-roll of
our score of years. D. Appleton & Co. had
been a firm for over half a century, having
been founded in 1825 by Daniel Appleton,
father of the Daniel S. Appleton whose death
occurred a few years ago. The firm of Charles
Scribner's Sons also began many years before
our period, taking its present name in 1878;
the importing branch of its business was long
done by the allied house of Scribner & Wel-
ford, which was merged with the parent house
six years after the death of Mr. Welford in
1885. In 1870 Scribner's Sons established a
magazine department under the name of Scrib-
ner & Co., from which descended one of the
present great houses, The Century Co., in
which Dr. Holland and Mr. Roswell C. Smith,
now both deceased, were leading and vital
spirits, and made the house famous not only
for its magazines but for its monumental en-
terprises, of which the great Century Diction-
ary is a fit example. G. P. Putnam's Sons
took their name as a co-partnership in 1873,
incorporating in 1892, when their manufac-
turing business was turned over to an allied
company called The Knickerbocker Press.
Dodd, Mead & Co. took their present name in
1870, retaining it unchanged by the death of
Mr. Mead in 1894. The business of Henry Holt
& Co. was begun in 1866, the present name
being taken in 1873, when the firm was al-
ready prominent and influential. Notable
among the deaths of our period is that of Mr.
Frederick Leypoldt, one of the founders of the
house last named, and ever gratefully remem-
bered for his American Catalogue and other
serviceable bibliographical work. E. P. Dutton
& Co., Fords, Howard, & Hulbert, John Wiley
& Sons, A. S. Barnes & Co., A. C. Armstrong
& Son, E. & J. B. Young & Co., and Baker &
Taylor Co., are recalled among the firms in
existence at THE DIAL's initial period.
In Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & Co. had
been publishing under that title since 1855,
though tracing their origin back to 1798.
After the death of Mr. J. B. Lippincott, in
1886, the firm was changed to a corporation,
which continues its extensive business un-
checked by the disastrous fire of a few months
ago. The firm of Porter & Coates was well
known long before THE DIAL was, becoming
Henry T. Coates & Co. a few years ago. In
Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co. had led an
honorable existence for many years among the
pioneers of Western publishing houses, con-
tinuing as a corporation since the recent death
of Mr. Clarke, the founder. In Chicago, the
trade has long been led by A. C. McClurg &
Co., now a corporation, and the earliest pub-
lishers of THE DIAL. Also in Chicago at the
beginning of our period were the well-known
religious house of Fleming H. Revell Co., the
law firm of Callaghan & Co., Henry A. Sum-
ner & Co., since gone out of business, and S. C.
Griggs & Co., whose business was transferred,
on the death of Mr. Griggs, to Scott, Foresman
& Co., who still continue it. Rand, McNally
& Co., Laird & Lee, C. H. Sergel Company,
H. S. Stone & Co., and the Open Court Pub-
lishing Co., have allentered the active field since
THE DIAL began its career.
That other houses besides those we have
named were in existence in this country at the
beginning of the period covered by our sketch,
is only too probable; as also that other names
of honor and influence have been taken from
the publishing world, and are borne in mem-
ory, though not set down in recollections so
disconnected and fragmentary. But if ithas been
found impossible, within the necessary limits,
to include all the old established houses of a
score of years ago, what can be done toward
mentioning the houses that have since come
into being 2 A novel feature of recent years
has been the appearance of a number of firms
which were, somewhat distinctively, composed
of young men, ardent, confident, full of en-
terprise, often with original ideas of consider-
able value, sometimes expecting too much of
these ideas and hoping that with them they
would revolutionize or conquer the publishing
world. They have not revolutionized it; not
all of them have even made themselves a place
in it. But they have not been without their
influence, and a certain improvement in artistic
taste and a quickening of ideas may doubtless
be traced to the influence of these young men.
Prominent among houses established since
the founding of THE DIAL may be mentioned
the firm of White, Stokes & Allen, now con-


1900.] THE
T)IAL 343
ducting its extensive business under the more
recent corporate name of the Frederick A.
Stokes Company; while latest, in point of time,
is the young Hercules firm of Doubleday &
McClure Co., founded in 1897 and growing so
vigorously that one house soon became too
small to hold all the members, and there re-
sulted the firm of Doubleday, Page & Co., the
McClure firm still continuing, all three big with
life and enterprise. The newer comers who have
won distinction and made their impression in
the publishing field are of course too numerous
to mention in the limited space at our disposal.
A word might be given to certain names
which suggest some noteworthy modern inno-
vations in book production,-such names as
Thomas B. Mosher of Portland, Maine, El-
bert Hubbard and his “Roycroft Press,” and
the “Brothers of the Book,” all indicating a
certain tendency which is not without signifi-
cance to the reading and the publishing worlds.
It would be interesting, did space and time
permit, to consider the growth and present con-
dition of the subscription book trade, but this
is hardly within the scope of this survey.
Neither are text-books, properly speaking,
though this field of publication has had an
enormous development in the past twenty years,
as shown by the organization and prosperity of
the great American Book Company and other
large concerns. The extension of many of the
religious publication societies, practically every
denomination now having its publishing estab-
lishment, into the field of general publishing,
is also a feature to be mentioned. Finally, if
we notice the increased activity of the various
University presses—of Harvard, Columbia,
Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, and
other of the large institutions of learning and
culture — we shall see how varied in interest
and how vast in total is the book output of the
United States.
Even an incomplete survey of American
publishing interests for the past twenty years
must not omit to mention International Copy-
right, which was adopted by the United States
in 1891, and must have had some important
effects upon the trade, though just what these
effects have been no one can very definitely
say. Whether or not it has done all that its
more zealous advocates had hoped, it was un-
questionably a policy of justice, and has un-
doubtedly been of help to American authors
both at home and in England. The American
market has become an object of greater inter-
est to the English publishing houses, an in-
creasing number of whom have found it to
their advantage to maintain their business on
both sides of the sea. The chief example of
this class is of course the great house of Mac-
millan & Co., whose American business has
had an enormous development under the man-
agement of Mr. George P. Brett, who suc-
ceeded his father, Mr. George E. Brett, upon
the death of the latter some ten years ago.
The well-known houses of Longmans, Green,
& Co., of Thomas Nelson's Sons, of John
Lane, of the Oxford University Press, and of
George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., are also to be
included among the active and influential firms
that are international in character, whose po-
sition makes it easier for an author to procure
the introduction of his work to those who speak
the same tongue everywhere, whether in En-
gland, America, or the colonies. One of the
results of this has been the enormous demand
for novels immediately upon their production,
testifying in a remarkable manner to the close-
ness of the tie that binds the English and
American reading public together. The first
American book for which a large demand was
had was “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” But this sale
was of slow growth, and for reasons other than
literary. Not long after THE DIAL's birth,
Mrs. Humphry Ward attracted the attention
of the reading public in both England and
America with “Robert Elsmere’’; but here
again, though the story had merit as literature,
its success was due largely to the theological
questions involved. But Dr. Mitchell’s “Hugh
Wynne" attained an international vogue which
can hardly be referred to other than a literary
cause; and this is true, successively, of Mr.
Winston Churchill’s “Richard Carvel,” Mr.
Ford’s “Janice Meredith,” and Miss Johnston's
“To Have and To Hold,” all of which deal with
colonial and revolutionary times, of interest,
apparently, to the English-speaking race.
Taking leave of the past as seen in this in-
adequate survey, we turn to the future which
ever lies bright before us. So far as appears
to even the experienced eye, there has never
been a period of greater promise in the pub-
lishing trade of the United States, and the
revival waited for during many weary months
shows no sign of waning, on the contrary, the
indications point to a memorable series of years,
in which the author, the publisher, and the
rapidly-growing reading public will combine to
give the publishing trade in America a period
of unprecedented prosperity.
FRANCIS F. BROWNE.


344 THE DIAL [May 1,
AMERICAN BOOKSELLING AND
BOOKSELLERS.
When THE DIAL started its effort for the
betterment of things literary, twenty years ago,
its projectors had plans of their own, and ideals
to be achieved, and though progress has been
made and results reached, still it can be seen
that contentment will not be had until more
and more progress is secured. Truly, it is the
law of life and will not be denied. Twenty
years ago is not so very far back, and yet what
a crowding of events there has been, and what
a multitude of changes have come to pass since
then l In printing we have passed from the
staid and plain and sqlid, to the brilliant and
many-tinted or more deeply colored; and
coupled with the changes there has been such
attention to the details and niceties of the art
that unlimited admiration has followed, and
rightly too.
It may be said at once that bookselling in
America is more of a science to-day than ever
before; that the scale on which it is conducted
is broader and higher, and the lines laid more
intelligently and to better purpose. The finer
and better equipped bookstores are furnished
with stocks such as the world never before
saw collected together for mercantile pur-
poses, and the books are displayed in such
inviting ways as to attract the buyer to first
examine and then to purchase. And this is
done without intent to trick or inveigle buyers,
by artifice or design, to buy that which they
do not need or would not otherwise invest in ;
the individual items are put in convenient
places to be handled, in assortments that are
intelligible to any observant mind, and classi-
fied so that the whole line of any one class in
the stock itself can be gone over by the cus-
tomer, and he readily find the special book he
may be seeking, and many more covering the
same field. It follows, of course, that cus-
tomers are oftentimes astonished and delighted
at finding books of equal value with the ones
they came to buy, and they go happily away
with one or more additional volumes to for-
tify them in their reading or study of the
subjects involved. It can be seen how by this
method the bookseller is benefitted, for it not
only increases the present sales from his stock,
but the customer who finds himself so aided in
one case is pretty certain to return in the
future, as often as he can possibly do so.
Another result in such an arrangement of
stock is that the clerks become more and more
intelligent and helpful. The very assorting of
stock in classes leads to definiteness of under-
standing as to what books of value there are on
a given subject, and, when that is known, to the
other and better point of which of them all is
the best on its topic. It then only remains to
suit the supply to the particular needs of the
customer on the subject in hand, to completely
satisfy the ideal requirements for which book-
stores should be established.
In the larger and finer class of bookstores
referred to, as may be imagined, it is necessary
that the salesmen be not only well posted, but
cultivated to a high degree in the expert knowl-
edge of their craft. Even to the most pains-
taking of them this requires time and perse-
verence and concentration of thought; and it
is a pleasure to record that there are now in
this country a considerable number who can
rightly be called masters in their field. To
those of the readers of THE DIAL who travel,
it will only be necessary to make clear the
style of bookstore to which reference is made,
to mention, in New York, Messrs. Charles
Scribner's Sons, Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons,
and Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co.; in Boston,
Messrs. Little, Brown, & Co. and Charles E.
Lauriat Co.; in Cleveland, Burrows Brothers
Company and Helman-Taylor Company; and
last but not least, in Chicago, Messrs. A. C.
McClurg & Co. Many more could be men-
tioned, but these will suffice to prove that the
highest intelligence is bestowed, and an al-
most unlimited amount of capital invested, in
these businesses; that to every such establish-
ment is given the greatest care in detail; and
that the results achieved are only secured by
taxing to the utmost the energies and atten-
tion of those in charge. All honor is due to
such men, and should be liberally bestowed by
those to whose wants they cater, and for whose
edification and gratification they give their on-
erous, though often delightful, labors. The
buyers of books should appreciate this, and
should be ready to pay for such services that
which will afford a profit commensurate with
the benefits bestowed. In the larger cities this
is recognized and granted, and the best that
the world produces can consequently be found
on the shelves of the bookstores.
In bookselling, as everybody knows, there
are differing phases brought about by locality
or other circumstances. A college town book-
store, for instance, will be looked to for tech-
nical books covering fields other than those
fixed for study, and beyond or in advance of


1900.] THE
DIAL 345
them. These are such as will be recommended
by professors for post-graduates for private
study, to those who wish to go beyond the lim-
its of any college or university course. That
the bookseller should have these goes without
saying; but it must be remembered by buyers
that their purchases of these must be made of
their local dealer, or he will ultimately avoid
keeping them. It is such stock that rapidly
uses up capital, and without the constant sup-
port of the local buyer it will prove a source
of loss to the dealer, rather than profit. To
give him that support is his just due, and the
with-holding of it is that which sometimes
causes buyers to inveigh (causelessly) against
the bookseller. . Every bookseller will keep a
full stock if it will pay him to do so; and the
more prompt and ready the purchasers, the
more varied and complete will be the stock.
The booksellers in the smaller cities have
had to face several changes. In not every case
has the town or city grown larger, and where
it has, it has not necessarily meant a propor-
tionate increase of book buyers. The dealer
has striven, under changing conditions, to keep
pace with changing tastes and, where possible,
to build up an enlarged trade. Purchases have
been larger, but expenses heavier in proportion,
and the profit on the increased amount has
often been less than of old. This, of course,
has been discouraging to some, and enterprise
has been nipped in the bud and effort to over-
come the conditions has ceased. Inasmuch as
the population of this country is sure to in-
crease everywhere, it is to be hoped that those
thus affected by belittlement of results will
soon find a proper reward for their enterprise
and labor, and be encouraged to continue until
success is renewed.
A striking feature of recent times is the
ſº of certain historical novels, some of
| which have reached sales of unusually high
numbers. Of “Richard Carvel ” there have
| been sold 430,000 copies; “David Harum,”
500,000; “To Have and to Hold,” 200,000;
“Janice Meredith,” 250,000; “Red Rock,”
84,000; and the call for them still continues
unabated. The definite reason for these phe-
nomenal sales is not easily ascertained. The
books themselves each have merit of a high
* order, and the same public is appealed to in
each case by their publishers, who advertise in
about the same journals. But the fact remains
that these volumes are read by their hundreds
of thousands of readers, and have become the
topic of discussion in all quarters. They are,
for the time, “the fashion,” and there is no
knowing when the public will cease to give
them attention for some newer idols. It would
be an interesting question to settle, on behalf
of good literature, if by the sale of such items
a maximum could be named for the sale of a
genuinely high-class novel, in this land of sev-
enty-five millions of people.
For more than the particular twenty years
with which we are especially concerned, there
has been a disturbing element entering into
the bookselling situation, to the great and in-
creasing discomfort of those whose living has
depended solely on bookselling, namely, the
sale of books in “Department” stores; more
strictly, the sale of them there at “cut” prices.
It would be folly to go over the discussion
again in the ways so frequently used. The
subject is threadbare, and certainly is unpleas-
ant in many ways. It may be said, however,
that better conditions exist to-day than for-
merly, and that it is possible that some routine
may be followed that will bring a measure of
relief.
The complaint has been just, that in the be-
ginning, and for most of the period, the De-
partment stores have offered popular books
which were leaders in their time at wholesale
prices to retail buyers, and at times at lower
prices than they could be bought for by the
bookseller. The harm came because the book-
seller was deprived of his rightful profit on
books that were selling freely, and was com-
pelled to eke out a living on the items that sold
one by one. In the Department stores the
popular books have been sold without profit,
and sometimes at a loss, that these books might
be used as “leaders” or inducements to get
patrons to come into their stores. A profit
was then secured through the customer's pur-
chases of other goods, on which a margin could
be made. The result was that many men were
driven out of the book business, and others
were compelled to change the proper methods
of a lifetime to meet conditions thus wrongly
thrust upon them. We pass all the details of
this to say that it seems that to-day the book-
buying public are using the bookstores more
freely; that they find that the cheaper books
offered them are not of the quality that they
wish to have in their libraries; that therefore
they seek the better ones where they can be
had ; and that many of the Department stores
are thrown more upon the sales of their “cheap”
volumes. It remains true, however, that every
few months a furore is created by some De-


346
[May 1,
THE DIAL
book of the moment at a very low figure, with
the resulting demoralization of all local trade
in the item itself. It looks as though the evil
cannot be cured wholly, but it also has appeared
of late that the tendency is towards less “cut-
ting,” and that the Department stores are find-
ing it to their benefit to secure a better average
price on even the “popular” items. In some
localities they are even agreeing not to cut
prices below an average rate, the latter being
quite reasonable by comparison with the ex-
treme cuts made before.
To illustrate the loss entailed on somebody
by cut prices, an example might be taken of
“Richard Carvel,” of which 400,000 copies
have been sold.
The retail price of the book is . . $1.50
It sells in many Department stores at . 1.14
When sold at an extreme “cut” price has been . .81
Which shows a difference per copy of . .33
Multiply the whole edition by that difference,
and we have a loss of profit of $182,000 on
that one book alone. If the Department stores
sold half the edition at the cut price named, they
have given to the retail buyers $66,000, or if
only one-fourth the edition, $38,000 in amount.
It is not claimed that these quantities are
known to have been sold at the lowest price
quoted, but the ratio of loss is true, no matter
what the quantity may be, and it is manifest
folly to sacrifice stock in any such way.
The parties effecting the larger sale of books,
next to the retail bookseller, are the “Jobbers,”
and of them only carefully chosen words should
be said. In earlier times, if one should have
tried to set down their names, he would have
found almost a legion of them. Every large
city had at least one such dealer who could be
classed under that head, since he distinctly
made efforts to supply his fellow booksellers
with stock that he did not expect to use in his
own retailing department. To a degree such
dealers are still to be found in all sections, but
owing to radical changes in the extending of
population in some cases, and in the changing
of people to larger centres in others, two results
have been produced. The larger city book-
sellers can buy stock in quantities great enough
to secure bottom rates, direct from the pub-
lishers, thus doing away with the need of the
middle-man (the jobber). On the other hand,
the smaller booksellers have been compelled to
look for very small quantities of many pub-
lishers' books from fewer jobbers, and thus the
jobbers have temporarily found their number
of customers increased and they themselves
obliged to keep larger stocks to supply the
larger variety of trade catered to. It can be
seen that this latter method of stocking-up
must drive out, as it has, the jobber of smaller
means, and permit the one with larger means
to take the trade. This has come about, and
to-day there are comparatively few jobbers in
the field. Though there are others, essentially
the jobbers of to-day are Messrs. A. C. Mc-
Clurg & Co., of Chicago, The Baker & Taylor
Co., The American News Co., and The H. B.
Claflin Co., of New York, and Messrs. De-
Wolfe, Fiske & Co., of Boston. It is to be
hoped that these concerns reap a proper re-
ward for their toil and risk. It is probably the
most exhausting branch of the trade, requiring
large capital with which to purchase stock,
unusual wisdom and discrimination in selecting
and buying, and, as can easily be shown, giving
but the slightest margin of profit with a very
large ratio of risk. Truly it requires great
courage on the part of new men to enter it,
and gives no adequate profit for the expendi-
ture of energy and money in conducting it.
The members of the book trade, as a whole,
can thank their good fortune that they are able
to secure the services of the painstaking men
who now supply their wants in this line, and
they should pay them liberally for the efforts
they put forth to fill their orders.
John H. DINGMAN.
AMERICAN LIBRARIES.
The present status of American Libraries,
and their significance and value in our busy
life, can best be understood by a brief glance
at their development. The school and the
library have been closely connected as a part
of our educational equipment, and have come
up through stages of development which are
closely parallel.
We have, broadly speaking, first, the college
and other institutions for higher education;
second, the private and endowed schools for
secondary education; and finally the free pub-
lic school. On the other hand, from the be-
ginning, we have had the college and other
special libraries for the scholar; then came the
proprietary and subscription library, of the
type of the Philadelphia Library Company,
founded in 1732; and finally the Library free
to all, of which the oldest is the Boston Public


1900.] THE
IXIAL 347
Library, founded in 1852. Thus the college
library is as old as the college itself, the first
being that of Harvard, 1686; the subscription
library is well along in its second century;
and the public library is a little less than a
half century old.
The first general statistics of libraries in
America were published by the Commissioner
of Education in 1876. At that time there
were 12,000,000 volumes in 2,500 libraries.
In 1896 there were 33,000,000 in 4,000; and,
as we know that the growth has been rapid
since that time, it is fair to assume that there
are now in the libraries of the country about
40,000,000 volumes.
This wonderful growth has been due in part
to fostering legislation. Until recently this
was mainly permissive, granting charters, and
authorizing but not requiring the levy of taxes
for library support. Some recent legislation
gives active assistance by means of State Li-
brary Commissions and travelling libraries,
and finally, in 1895, New Hampshire passed
the first law making the establishment and
support of libraries compulsory, thus putting
them on the same footing as the schools.
The growth of libraries has been much
promoted by many generous benefactions.
Notable among these are the Astor, Lenox,
and Tilden gifts, now united in one founda-
tion as the New York Public Library; the
gift of John Crerar, $3,000,000, and of
W. N. Newberry, $2,000,000, to Chicago;
of George Peabody, $1,400,000, and of
Enoch Pratt, $1,200,000, to Baltimore; and
of Benjamin Rush, $1,500,000, to Philadel-
phia. Far exceeding any of these in amount
are the many gifts of Mr. Andrew Carnegie.
In addition to his numerous previous donations
and foundations, Mr. Carnegie has given since
the beginning of 1899 about $7,000,000 as his
contribution to library extension in America.
Most of the gifts mentioned have been made
within the past twenty years, and in addition to
these we might enumerate a score of others
varying from $50,000 to $500,000, and many
smaller ones.
This rapid growth of the older collections
has required, and has in part received, more
adequate housing. Twenty years ago the old
Boston Public Library building was regarded
as one of the best library buildings in the
country, the Chicago Public Library occupied
quarters in the City Hall, and the Library of
Congress had poorly lighted rooms in the
Capitol, crowded to the last degree of incon-
venience. Now the Congressional Library,
which is really the National Library, and
should be so designated, occupies one of the
most noble structures on the face of the planet,
by far the largest and finest building ever
erected for library purposes. Boston has front-
ing on Copley Square, and Chicago looking
out on the lake front, the greatest Public Li-
brary buildings in the country. The cost of the
Congressional Library building was $6,300,-
000; that of Boston cost $2,300,000; and that
of Chicago $2,000,000; in round numbers, ex-
clusive of the sites. Milwaukee has just com-
pleted a building costing $500,000; and in
various cities, East and West, are library build-
ings costing from $100,000 to $300,000.
The most noteworthy American college
library building is that of Columbia Univer-
sity, occupying a commanding location on
Morningside Heights, overlooking the great
city and the Hudson. It was the gift of the
president of the university, as a memorial of
his father. Princeton, Cornell, and other uni-
versities and colleges, have fine modern build-
ings. All of those mentioned, with the excep-
tion of the last one, have been completed within
the past ten years.
I have thus far spoken only of that which is
outward and visible, the buildings, the books,
the financial support. This wonderful increase
in these material and measurable things has
been accompanied by a scarcely less wonderful
development and improvement of methods, an
enlargement of the library field in extent, and
an increase in the variety and value of its vari-
ous activities. A comparison will best show
this. Less than twenty years ago, when the first
meeting of the American Library Association
was held, the need of any special training for
library work was not yet recognized, nor was
there any provision for it. Now there are four
well established library schools, those of the
State University of New York, the State Uni-
versity of Illinois, the Pratt and the Drexel
Institutes. These give courses of one, or two
years, devoted exclusively to the study of library
methods, and the necessary technical training.
Their graduates may be found in libraries in
all parts of the country, and they have had
great influence in elevating the standard of
library work. When the first Association
meeting was held, most librarians were using
their own methods of charging, classification,
and cataloguing, many of them cumbrous, un-
reliable, and ineffective. There were no rec-
ognized standards, or generally approved meth-


348
[May 1,
THE DIAL
ods. Now, the principles of library accounting
are as well understood, and taught as definitely
and exactly, as commercial book-keeping. Now
there are approved systems of library classifi-
cation, to which guides are published, and
which are generally adopted. Then, however
broad and thorough the scholarship of the cat-
aloguer, much of his work failed to reach its
full measure of usefulness from the lack of a
well understood plan. Now systematic work,
according to carefully devised rules, gives cer-
tainty and uniformity of result, and much
greater usefulness. Libraries of all classes
have taken part in making these great improve-
ments and have shared in their benefits.
Along with this development of method has
come another still more important change,
that from a comparatively passive condition to
one of great activity. The older librarian was
well content to wait for people to come to him.
The modern librarian attracts people to the
library, or sends it to them. The older libra-
rian thought the full measure of his duty con-
sisted in taking care of the library, opening it
at certain hours, and permitting people to use
it, as well as they were able, under regulations
which were often serious restrictions. The
whole tendency has been toward greater free-
dom, and attractiveness, and usefulness for the
largest possible number.
In college libraries this tendency has shown
itself in less rigid rules, longer hours of open-
ing, extending the use of the library to others
than their own students, and in the introduc-
tion of the seminar.
In public libraries the hours have been in-
creased to suit the convenience of readers; the
age limit for children has been lowered or en-
tirely removed, and much is done in other
ways to make the library useful to the young.
Special rooms for children, both for reading
and for the issue of books, are an essential
part of our modern equipment. Children's
needs and tastes are studied, and special col-
lections of books and reading lists prepared for
them. Bulletin boards, with pictures, and read-
ing lists upon the various holidays, and other
timely topics are posted. Children's Library
Leagues for promoting the care for and read-
ing of good books, are organized in many
cities. Close relations are maintained with the
schools. The librarian is informed as to the
courses of study, and part of the buying is di-
rected to meet the needs of both teacher and
pupil, for collateral reading. Books are issued
both from the library direct and from deposits
in the school buildings. The library also sup-
plies the needs of the various clubs for literary
work.
Another important change has been in the
direction of allowing greater freedom of access
to the shelves of the circulating departments
of our larger libraries. Formerly these were
scrupulously closed off from the public rooms,
and it was necessary to select from a catalogue
and wait for the book to be brought by an at-
tendant, as is, unfortunately, still the practice in
a majority of our large libraries. In a few,
however, of the largest and most successful
city libraries, the shelves of the circulating
departments have been thrown open with the
greatest freedom to all borrowers and readers,
with the most favorable results. The increased
value of a library conducted on this plan can-
not be estimated. Twenty years ago the sug-
gestion that the shelves of a large city library
might be thrown open to all users, would have
been regarded as visionary, impracticable, and
altogether undesirable. Now it is generally
accepted by librarians as a desirable thing, and
with proper building arrangements, and with
certain obvious exceptions, is regarded as en-
tirely feasible. I have spoken in this of the
circulating departments especially, as greater
freedom is generally permitted in the reference
departments. The work of subscription and
proprietary libraries has shared some of the
changes noted above. It has occurred in many
instances that a subscription library has been
changed into a free library.
Another important extension of the work has
been in the establishment of branches and sta-
tions in our cities and larger towns. The
reason for this is obviously the same as that
which dots our cities with school-houses. It is
as impossible for people from all sections of a
great city to get any adequate supply of books
from one main library, as it would be for them
to send their children all to one school; hence,
the necessity for the branch or station. It is
a positive injustice to tax a whole city for
library purposes, without providing reasonably
equal facilities for its different sections.
Another important phase of library exten-
sion is the work of library commissions in giv-
ing advice and active help to libraries already
established, or by lending travelling libraries,
which meet an immediate need in some special
neighborhood, and often lead to the establish-
ment of permanent libraries.
If I have dwelt principally in the forego-
ing on public library work, it is because that


1900.] THE
DIAL 349
seems to be so broad as to include in some of
its phases, if the work is thoroughly done and
all its possibilities understood, all library
work. The librarian of the village, of the
university, and of the city, despite the differ-
ence of circumstance, have recognized the
essential unity of their work; and it is this
recognition which has rendered possible that
cordial cooperation among all librarians that
has brought about the improvements in meth-
ods, and the enlargement and success of the
work.
Let us sum up briefly the results of the past
twenty years. During that period libraries
have much more than doubled in volume, that
is, they have made a larger growth than in all
the previous years of their history. All of the
greater library buildings in the country have
been built within that time. The income for
library purposes has greatly increased. The
most valuable laws providing for library exten-
sion have been passed within that time. A
great share of all the large library donations
have been made within that time, and a large
proportion within a very few years. While it
has been a period of growth it has been just as
definitely a period of organization, a period in
which systems have been devised, and stand-
ards fixed.
We have thus far dealt with the material
and systematic phases of library growth, but
even more important is it to inquire what has
been the spirit and tendency of the work, what
is its value and significance in the life of to-day,
and what are its possibilities.
The practical reason for the maintenance of
libraries is the same as that for schools, namely,
the necessity of education for a self-governing
people. Libraries, like schools, are educational
institutions, whose work tends to make better
citizens. This is the only sufficient reason for
their public support, the only strong attraction
for private beneficence. They do this by fur-
nishing books which give practical instruction
in the arts of life, which inform as to civic
duties, which appeal to the emotions and feed
the intellectual and spiritual nature. They are
broader than the schools in this scope, as they
begin with the children, go with them through
school and college, and give them the oppor-
tunity to carry their education through life.
The underlying motive, the compelling force,
which has induced this open-handed expendi-
ture of money, this intelligent and faithful
work, is a generous free spirit, ever seeking to
enlarge the area of freedom and enlightenment,
earnest, active, and aggressive, with the kindly
aggressiveness of the missionary.
Within the past twenty years, libraries have
come to fill a much larger place in our social
life in many ways. The location of the new
library of Columbia, as the centre of the group
of university buildings, is significant of the
place the college library is coming to occupy
as the centre of college life and activity. So
the public library should, and I believe will,
become the centre of the intellectual life of the
city, the common meeting-ground, the store-
house and study for all who are active for the
welfare of the city in any of its various inter-
ests. It will furnish rooms for scientific and
literary societies and study clubs, and will give
facilities for all educational work not provided
for by the regular schools with which it will
work in close harmony. The great growth of
libraries during the past two decades has been
a rapidly accelerating one, greater in the past
few years than ever before. If this continues,
the growth of the first twenty years of the
next century will be much greater than the past.
This will mean grander opportunities, more
weighty responsibilities. As the success of the
past has clearly been due to the coöperation of
librarians with each other, so the greater work
of the library in the future may be done by
bringing about a broader coöperation. In ad-
dition to its own direct work for education, may
it not offer a common meeting-ground, and
bring about a closer coöperation of all the
forces which make for the betterment of social
conditions, for higher civilization ?
WILLIAM H. BRETT.
AMERICAN PERIODICALS.
When one is asked, as I have been, to write
of periodical literature, and especially about
American periodicals of the twenty years dur-
ing which THE DIAL has existed, one has a
vision of a multitudinous swarm buzzing out
from the press rooms. Some of them are
ephemera and some come to stay with us.
There are glimpses of illustrations, rude and
good; pen and ink drawings of lay figures
which seem to have been cut out with the jag-
gedest blade of an old jack-knife; wash draw-
ings of merit and demerit, occasionally leering
towards the realm of Anthony Comstock;
much red, yellow, blue, and green; and occa-
sionally nothing but letterpress. So many
have come and gone! A list of them would


350
[May 1,
THE TOIAL
make dreary reading unless it could be accom-
panied by the secret history of some of the
failures, in which event it might be amusing
although it would oftener be pathetic; for al-
most all these efforts are sincere and many of
them worthy endeavors to command success.
Most of them, it is true, seek simply the mys-
terious pathway to the public's pocket. Their
founders and conductors are ready to do any-
thing to gratify what they think is the public
taste, or lack of taste. They will flash upon
the ignorant eye in color vivid enough to de-
stroy a very fine optic nerve, or they will con-
duct youth behind the scenes whither the vul-
gar young are always ready, perhaps eager, to
be led. Clever men will prostitute their tal-
ents, and seemingly respectable men will sell
their consciences and principles in order to
find that mazy pathway. It seems to be the
faith of the second-rates that large and profit-
able circulations must be gained by spicing
torpid minds into activity—the pleasure of
any emotion or of anything like an intellectual
sensation being so unusual, and therefore so
attractive, to large numbers of the community
that they are willing to pay many small sums
for it. The public is a good deal above these
second-rates, however, as we shall see in our
brief progress. It may be true enough that
the largest circulations are gained by intellec-
tual pandering, but it does not follow that
pandering is the most profitable form of edi-
torial, or even of publishing, activity. There
are vulgar periodicals, and books, too,-in-
deed there is no monopoly of vulgarity and ig-
norance in the realms of literature, that have
a basis, or a grain, of sound sense or of useful-
ness—like a column of useful household sug-
gestions, or an occasional intelligent opinion,-
and perhaps the makers of these would be as-
tonished to know how large a part of the popu-
larity of their product is due to its utility or
its integrity. It is not true, of course, that all
who are earning the wages of debasement —
whether the degradation be ethical or aesthetic
— are thereby selling intellects or consciences.
There are some who are just dull, and these
occasionally are moved by the environment of
respectability into which they have been born,
or married, to endeavor to be important. They
produce for their social atmosphere, as the
vulgarians produce for theirs, and with the
same unconsciousness of the existence of any
region of mental or moral activity outside of
that of their own vestry room, or debating
club, or sewing circle. Their editorial per-
formance is imparted by the spirit of the vicin-
age, like their religious observances, their
serious church-going faces and walking sticks.
Think as they may about it, however, their
conduct is not nearly so respectable as that of
the sixteenth century Italian cynics who used
to thrust their tongues into their cheeks of
Sunday mornings and remark to one another:
“Come, let us conform to the popular error!”
But what ineffable attainder of wrong and in-
jury has their dull efforts worked From how
many promising minds has the light been ex-
cluded because of the repulsive dullness of
their attempted importance!
Having uttered this by way of notice of the
vulgar ephemera, and other commercial de-
signs upon the public pocket, I shall proceed
to say what I think is the prevailing evidence
of these twenty years as to the tendency of
periodical literature. It is difficult to com-
press a large collection of facts into a short
definition, and I cannot enter into critical com-
parisons for fear that lack of space may lead
not only to seeming but to real injustices. The
obvious fact, however, in the history of peri-
odicals of the last twenty years, is that there is
in this country an increasing demand for sound
information and discussion on literature, art,
the bewildering achievements of modern sci-
ence, and on public questions.
The story magazine we know. It existed
before 1880; and the story-telling weekly ex-
isted then, too, but as it was then it has largely
gone. Perhaps it is because the ten-cent maga-
zines give so much more for so much less that
the “New York Ledger” has become a month-
ly, while some of its old-time associates are
not making so much noise as we once heard
from them. There are better stories now than
we used to have, and the new romancers, who
write on history instead of hasheesh, are not
only more improving, but are much more en-
tertaining. The weekly story paper must be
still in demand, however strongly convinced
Mr. Bonner was that the seventh day periodi-
cal had outlived its time, for we have the
“Saturday Evening Post,” of Philadelphia,
and it is flourishing. This change in the
weekly field is also due to the appearance of
the Sunday illustrated annex to the daily news-
paper.
magazine—and it is, in most cases, a veritable
magazine of explosives, dimly related to art
and letters, and possessing some of the noxious
effects of lyddite, if one may compare imma-
terial to material stenches. There are some
It is ambitiously dubbed a Sunday-


1900.] THE
IDIAL 351
illustrated supplements, it is true, not open to
the lyddite charge. They have been made
possible by the development of the cheap pro-
cesses by means of which photography has be-
come so essentially the basis of modern illus-
trative work. Cheap paper and cheap pictures
are the causes of these weekly efforts on the
part of the daily press, and there is little com-
plaint to be made of some of them. When
the “color schemes” of some of the Sunday
spectacles are worked out, perhaps they will
all be tolerable. For one thing we shall have
eventually to thank them; they will greatly
advance the art of making the illustrated
weeklies like “Harper's,” “Collier's,” and
“Leslie’s.” These papers must go back to
the artist, and some of them are already show-
ing evidence that they recognize the fact that
they can compete with the illustrated supple-
ments only in quality.
It is not, however, in these periodical pre-
sentations of the arts that please the eye and
the fancy, that the interesting movement in
periodical literature has taken place. When
THE DIAL was born, the New York “Nation”
was easily the first among the weekly papers of
the country, easily first in its knowledge of its
subjects, in the great ability with which it dis-
cussed the political, social, economic, literary,
and artistic questions of the time. Nothing so
thorough or so clever as its book reviews had
been regularly published in this country. Here
was a journal of which we could all be proud,
even in our wrath, and even when we rejoiced
in discovering that it was not infallible. It be-
came the fashion. People who liked good read-
ing on important subjects took it and enjoyed
it, and people who liked to be in the intellect-
ual fashion cut its leaves and had it on the
centre table. Therefore it paid dividends, and
became an inspiration and example to editors
and publishers who had not otherwise attained
to a comprehension of the richness of the in-
tellectual mine. The “Nation” exists to-day,
and is as interesting as it would be had it still
a separate and an independent life, but, unfor-
tunately for its urban influence at least, it is
largely a re-print of the “New York Evening
Post,” so that the feast it has to offer is in the
nature of a réchauffée.
The “Nation's '' influence has been of sur-
prising value, and it supplements the wonder-
fully increased activity of the universities and
colleges. When we reflect that there now come
about as many graduates each year from these
institutions as there used to be undergraduates
in all four classes thirty years ago, we ought
readily to understand why so many periodicals
are seeing and realizing the advantage of en-
deavoring to attract the friendship and support
of minds that do not need spice to arouse them
into action. There is now an encouraging rec-
ognition of the public's demand for intelligent
presentation of the important facts and ques-
tions of the world's current history. It shows
that editors and publishers are not really very
far behind the educated public, as well as that
the educated public is increasing in numbers
and exactions. Within the twenty years, the
old and new monthlies, the “Century,” “Har-
per's,” “Scribner's,” the “Atlantic,” the “Cos-
mopolitan,” and “McClure's,” have been con-
sidering subjects which are topics of the daily
press, and which are important. But this reach-
ing out after subjects that, in the horrible and
horrifying modern English, are called “newsy,”
is best shown by some of the important of the re-
ligious weeklies, like the “Independent,” the
“Outlook,” and the “Churchman.” Doubtless
there is quite as much of essential piety in
these papers as when they were almost exclu-
sively conveyers of church news and theological
speculation. There is distinctly less of sermon-
izing in them and much less of spiritual theor-
izing. The truth is recognized that a large
number of good people want to know what is
going on in the world that is of real interest
and real importance. Some of them live be-
yond the boundaries of the daily paper. Some
do not like the confusion of the large daily, or
its idea of the relative importance of crime and
lechery to the really momentous achievements
and questionings of men. They like the clear
statement and sound perspective of the events
of the week, which they find in these weekly
papers, and they like also clear and well-con-
sidered discussion.
There is no doubt that the periodical litera-
ture of the country has greatly increased in im-
portance, and what we call weight, in the last
twenty years, and that the tendency is towards
still greater importance. The growth in liter-
ary and scientific periodical literature is clear
evidence of this. Now we have THE DIAL it-
self, of which I must speak, however much I
may dislike to flatter it to its very face, but its
successful existence, in a field little known in
the East, hardly known at all twenty years ago,
is a revelation, a most gratifying revelation,
of the profit awaiting those who are willing
and capable of doing serious work for the edi-
fication of people who know books, and who


352 THE DIAL
[May 1,
want to read intelligent discussion and clear
thinking on topics that are worth while—that
give pleasure and mental and moral stimulation
to rational beings. In New York we have the
“Critic,” the “Book Buyer,” and the “Book-
man,” and the Saturday supplement of the
“Times,” giving us news and gossip of liter-
ary men and women and criticism of what they
have done. And in different paths than that
of pure literature and science, in the plastic
arts, in painting, in architecture, in economics,
we have a periodical literature that I venture
to say could not have found needed sustenance
in the days of more than twenty years ago.
The spirit of the times, so far as periodical lit-
erature is concerned, seems to me to be repre-
sented by the “Review of Reviews,” which
stands for something more than the “quick-
lunch-for-busy-men.” principle, although that
feature of it is of sound material, the best that
the markets, domestic and foreign, afford. We
have a whole host of magazines and weeklies
informing and teaching us as to special and
general interests—like the “Political Science
Quarterly,” “Journal of Economics,” “Popu-
lar Science Monthly,”“Science,” the “Forum,”
the revivified “North American Review,”
“Good Government,” and the “International
Monthly.” The very existence of these, the
success of many of them, show that the tend-
ency of periodical literature in our day is to-
wards the satisfaction of a distinctly higher
and finer standard than was dreamed of by
most of the magazines and weeklies of twenty
years ago. Perhaps if any subjects are demand-
ing more attention than others, they are those
of political administration, of good government,
of municipal socialism, and of economics as
they relate to social and individual prosperity
and comfort. Notwithstanding the gains of the
literary periodicals, the marked growth has
been in the literature of practical subjects, and
this is in harmony with the national character.
Periodical literature is taking a livelier and
more intelligent interest in the larger affairs of
life, and the history of the last twenty years
points to a much finer growth for the future, to
a notable development of the journals and mag-
azines not wholly devoted to practical ques-
tions, to more and higher literary and art crit-
icism, and to perhaps richer expressions of
idealism. All of which is full of instruction to
the publishers who act on the principle that
only the vulgar or the stupid commonplace
“go "with the American public.
HENRY LOOMIs NELSON.
AMERICAN EDUCATION.
The years 1880 and 1900 have no especial
educational significance, except that 1900
rounds out the century, and so furnishes a fit-
ting opportunity to review past history, to
summarize results, to take an account of the
present situation, and to forecast the future,
while 1880, of course, we take as a starting
point in order to see what progress has been
made during THE DIAL's twenty years. We
do not propose, however, to take advantage of
this opportunity in any particular sense, but
shall use the dates merely as labels, marking
two cross sections of the general educational
movement of the country that are sufficiently
far apart to present data for instructive compar-
ison. We shall begin with the public schools.
1879-80. 1897-98.
50,155,783 72,737,100
Total population . . . . . .
Number of persons 5 to 18 years of
15,065,767 21,458,294
in schools . . . . . . . . 9,867,505 15,038,636
Per cent of population enrolled . 19.67 20.68
Per cent of persons 5-18 years of
age enrolled . . . . . . . 65.50 70.08
Average daily attendance . 6,144,143 10,286,092
Ratio of same to enrollment . . 62.3 68.4
Average length of school, in days. 130.3 143.1
Average number of days attended
for each person, 5 to 18 years
of age . . . . . . . . . 53.1 68.6
Average number for each pupil
enrolled . . . . . . . . . 81.1 97.8
Whole number of teachers . . . 286,593 409, 193
Number of schoolhouses . . 178,222 242,390
Walue of school property . . . . $209,571,718 $492,703,781
Total receipts. . . . . . . . 134,194,806 199,317,397
Total expenditures . . . . . . 140,506,715 194,020,470
Average expenditures per capita of
population . . . . . . . 1.56 2.67
Average expenditure per pupil, in
average attendance . . . . 12.71 18.86
Statistical tables are considered forbidding
reading, but such a table as the foregoing is,
nevertheless, the most effective way in which
to present a comparative view like this. While
the figures, for the most part, tell their own
story, two or three brief remarks may serve a
useful purpose.
It will be seen at once that the cross-sections
are not twenty years, but only eighteen years,
apart. Unfortunately for our purpose, the sta-
tistics for the current year will not be available
until sometime late in 1901, or possibly until
1902. But if we assume that the gains of
1898–1900 equal those of 1896–98, which is
certainly a reasonable assumption, we shall
close the century with 244,700 schoolhouses and
418,000 teachers; 15,700,000 pupils enrolled
in the schools and an average daily attendance


1900.]
353
THE IDIAL
,
of 10,825,000; an annual school income of
$206,230,000 and an expenditure of $203,-
587,000. The total common school expendi-
ture of the country is now increasing at the
rate of about $5,000,000 a year.
Dangerous fallacies lurk in comparative sta-
tistics unless great care is taken in selecting
and combining them. Undoubtedly our edu-
cational statistics have improved in quality since
1880, and this improvement has tended in one
way to increase and in another way to diminish
the aggregates. On the whole, however, there is
no reason to think that the comparison presented
in the table is not a fair one. Moreover, the
improved methods of collecting and sifting
statistics are one of the improvements that have
been made in educational science.
The tests usually applied to such tables as
the above show that the minor movements
within the whole movement are in the right
direction. The per cents of persons between
5 and 18 years of age enrolled in the schools,
the ratio of average daily attendance to such
enrollment, the average length of the school
year, the average number of days attendance
for each person between the ages of 5 and
18, the average amount of schooling received
per pupil, and the school expenditures per
capita for both the total population and the
average number of pupils attending, all show
a healthy increase. The facts point to the
increasing wealth of the country, and to an en-
hanced interest in education. The Commis-
sioner of Education points out the fact that
the gratifying “increase in the length of the
school year keepspace with the growth of large
villages and cities.” “Urban populations,” he
says, “have a school session of nine or ten
months, while rural districts have three or four
months, or at the highest six months. But this
view must not be pressed to the point of assum-
ing that rural communities have not length-
ened their terms of school. For example, the
school term grew in North Carolina 19, South
Carolina 18, Georgia 42, Tennessee 22, Louis-
iana 15, Texas 19, days in the year. The
amount of schooling furnished in these States
as measured by the length of the term is still
painfully small; but perhaps as much progress
has been made as could reasonably have been
expected. Equal gains were not to be looked
for in the old States of the North, as their
school terms were already well extended. In
another respect the South shows to advantage
in comparison with the North. The per cents
of population from 5 to 18 years of age in-
creased in all the South Atlantic and South
Central States, in Arkansas considerably more
than doubling; while in the North Atlantic
and North Central States such per cents actu-
ally fell off in many cases, and in none did
much more than to hold their own. That con-
siderable gains were not made is intelligible
enough; but that a loss noticeable in degree
should occur in such a State as Massachusetts
has never been adequately explained. Perhaps
it is due in part to the very improvement of
the schools—an increasing number of the
children obtaining their elementary education
at an earlier age than before. When we pass
to the average expenditure per capita of the
population, and of the pupil, based on the
average daily attendance, the comparison is
not so reassuring. It is true that many States
of the Old South more than doubled such ex-
penditures, but so did many States at the
North. Possibly an advance from 27 cents to
58 cents per capita of the population in North
Carolina, or from 81 to 84 cents in Georgia,
all things considered, is as significant as an
advance from $2.80 to $5.07 in Massachusetts,
or from $1.90 to $4.12 in Rhode Island; but
the large ratio is overlooked in the small terms.
In 1880 the school expenditure per capita of
school population of the sixteen former Slave
States and the District of Columbia approxi-
mately classified by races was, white $2.76,
colored $1.09. In 1898 the same averages
were $4.01 and $2.84.
One of the promising movements of the
times is the concentration of rural schools in
sparsely populated districts at central points,
such as elegible villages, which has been going
on in some of the old States, whereby the
peculiar advantages of the urban graded school
are secured for country children; but this
movement has not assumed proportions that
sensibly affect the average length of the school
year, or the attendance per cent. The com-
parative merits of the township and the district
types of school organization have been under
discussion throughout the period, with a steady
inclination of the argument to the former; but
the practical progress that has been made in
this direction has by no means been commen-
surate with the discussion.
The opinion that our methods of school ad-
ministration need to be radically changed, at
least in cities of considerable size, has gone
abroad very widely. The large school board
that does a great amount of the executive
work which a school system requires through


354
[May 1,'
THE DIAL
its own standing committees, has fallen into
much disfavor, and even contempt, and the
small board with limited powers acting through
expert executive officers is strongly preferred
by the most competent judges. In several
cities, as New Haven, Cleveland, Cincinnati,
Toledo, St. Louis, and Milwaukee, the new
ideas, in whole or part, have been enacted into
law, and are now undergoing the test of expe-
rience. In other cities, as Boston, Detroit, and
Chicago, strenuous efforts have not, so far, been
able to effect the desired reform.
It is much easier to deal with education ob-
jectively than subjectively; and it is never easy
to extract from statistics their moral signifi-
cance. Still, undoubted progress has been made
in the subjective elements, if not as much as
in the objective ones. The average course of
elementary study has been somewhat changed
for the better, and methods of teaching some-
what improved. Instruction has been made
less verbal and more real, as is shown by the
extension or introduction of nature studies and
manual training. Less stress is laid upon for-
mal Grammar and Arithmetic than formerly,
and more time is found for language-lessons,
literature, and history. Teachers are slowly
emancipating themselves from the old slavery
to the text-book, and are gaining larger con-
trol of their own minds. To sum up the total
effect so far of child-study upon the schools
would be an impossible task. Something we
may carry to the credit of the movement.
Moreover, when child-study has exchanged its
high “scientific” methods for common sense,
and has ceased to be a fad, it will contribute
materially to our culture, but far more as a
method reacting upon the minds of teachers
than as a body of definitely ascertained acts or
a system of doctrine.
Slow changes have been going on in the
teaching force. At the earlier period, 42.8 per
cent. of the public school teachers were men;
at the later period only 32.2. Women teach-
ers have been steadily gaining ground in parts
of the country where they were not formerly
held in high esteem, as in the Southern States.
Mixed consequences flow from the change. In
some communities the employment of more
women means higher culture and better char-
acter in the teaching force; in other commu-
nities, it means a distinct loss of power in the
schoolroom. Something depends upon the rela-
tive number of men and women found in the
schools, as well as upon the educational and per-
sonal qualifications of candidates applying for
teachers' positions. When the average per cent.
of men teachers in any State falls below 20, it
is time to remember that men as well as women
are needed in fair proportion in the schools.
The evidence that the preparation of com-
mon school teachers is improving, is convinc-
ing. Dr. Harris has shown that from 1880 to
1897 the enrollment in public normal schools
increased from about 10,000 to over 40,000,
or fourfold, and in private normal schools from
2,000 to 24,000, or twelvefold. At the first
date there were 240 normal students in every
million of our population; in 1897 there were
976 in every million. In the same period the
total number of teachers increased from 280,-
094 to 403,333, or 44 per cent. -
| Something has been done to improve the
teachers' tenure of office. In Cincinnati, for
‘instance, after the teacher has passed a suitable
novitiate he is elected for good behavior. The
average term of service in a particular school,
and the average period of service, are both
lengthening. A number of cities have taken
imeasures to establish teachers' pension funds;
but unfortunately these measures have some-
times been taken so clumsily that there is reason.
to fear that the school authorities will be obliged
to go backward before they can go forward.
It was not until ten years ago that the Bu-
reau of Education attempted to obtain returns
from high schools that were outside of cities.
In 1890 only 2,526 such schools, with 202,963
pupils enrolled, reported; in 1898 the number
had increased to 5,315 schools, with 459,818
ipupils. Well may the Commissioner call this:
increase “phenomenal.” Still, the number of
ipupils he holds to be somewhat too small, as
there are many secondary pupils outside the
completely organized high schools whom there
are no means of reaching. --Still more, 1990
private schools—high schools, academies, pre-
paratory schools, etc.—furhished instruction
to 166,302 pupils. The grand totals are,
therefore, 7,305 secondary schools reporting
and 626,111 pupils. Or if we add the sup-
posed pupils in public schools not reported, we
have a total of 650,000. Students in commer-
cial schools still remain outside the list. The
isecondary pupils were 3.75 per cent. of the
aggregate enrollment in schools of all kinds,
inot mentioning the miscellaneous schools to be
named farther on. - - -:
: In the high schools we meet an intimation
of one of the most significant facts in our re-
cent history, viz., the increasing number of
women-who are seeking the higher education.


1900.] THE
DIAL 355
The pupils enrolled in the public schools, high
schools included, were thus divided between
the two sexes: males, 7,643,496; females,
7,395,514. But in the public high schools
alone the division was : males, 189,188,
females, 260,413 ; while in all the schools re-
porting secondary pupils, there were 284,379
males to 341,736 females.
The various secondary schools graduated
65,170 pupils, or nearly 12 per cent. of the
total number enrolled. The pupils who were
preparing for college were 77,559, or about 14
per cent. of the total number. But of the
graduates, 19,940, or nearly 31 per cent., had
prepared for college. Confining the view to
the public high schools, about 10 per cent. of
the males and 12 per cent. of the females grad-
uated, or 19,247 of the one sex, and 33,775 of
the other; while 13.5 per cent. of the males
and 9.75 per cent. of the girls, or 25,627 and
25,425, respectively, were preparing for col-
lege. Again, of the graduates the correspond-
ing per cents were 84.8 and 23.25, and the
corresponding numbers 6,699 and 7,853. It
is significant that while the total number of
students preparing in public higher schools for
college is all the time increasing, the propor-
tion of such students to the total number
taught in such schools is Alth. time falling
off. In 1890 the latter per cent. was 14.44;
in 1898 it had fallen to 11.36. These per
cents, taken in connection with other facts,
show conclusively that for eight years, at least,
secondary education grew much more rapidly
than higher education. And yet higher educa-
tion made a remarkable growth, as we shall
soon show.
The last observation calls up the twin func-
tions of American high schools—to fit one
class of students for active life and another
class for college. These schools are undoubt-
edly growing more rapidly in the one direc-
tion than in the other. They are emphasizing
the people's college idea more than the fitting
school idea. This fact is somewhat accentuat-
ing the old difficulty of so constituting courses
of study as to make them answer, or well
answer, both purposes. This problem, along
with other related problems, has engaged the
earnest attention of some of our ablest educa-
tors. The Committee of Ten on Secondary
Education and the Committee on College
Entrance Requirements have both grappled
with important phases of the general subject,
and with good results. In these discussions,
the purely secondary school view, or high
school view, has received the recognition that
it never received before. Hitherto secondary
teachers have been an uninfluential body com-
pared with secondary teachers in the leading
countries of Europe; they are still, no doubt,
inferior to them in this particular; but they
are now becoming a strong, as well as a
numerous, host. College professors should at
once face the fact, if they have not already
done so, that college entrance requirements
will exert much less influence upon secondary
schools in the future than in the past.
The relative number of students in colleges
at different times, compared with the whole
population, has fluctuated very considerably.
In 1870 President Barnard, of Columbia Col-
lege, showed that the ratio of New England
alone at four different periods was as follows:
1826, 1 to 1,513; 1838, 1 to 1,294; 1855, 1
to 1,689; 1869, 1 to 1,927.
From 1838 to 1869, while the college ratio
was falling off, the population of New England
increased more that 50 per cent. A similar
declension, Dr. Barnard claims, had taken
place all over the country, and his analysis of
the New York statistics sustains the claim with
respect to that State. These conclusions have
never been impeached. Fortunately, however,
things soon took a turn for the better. The
Commissioner of Education, in his last Re-
port, printed a table showing that the num-
ber of students to a million of the popula-
tion increased as follows from 1872 to 1898:
Undergraduate, collegiate, and technical stu-
dents, from 573 to 1,193; graduate students,
from 5 to 74; law students, from 49 to 168;
medical students, from 142 to 328; theo-
logical students, from 83 to 117. The total
increase was from 852 to 1,875.
It is not easy to discover all the causes that
enter into such changes as the fluctuations in
relative college attendance present to our view.
Dr. Barnard was convinced that the general
adherence of colleges to the old rigid course of
study had much to do with the losses from
1838 to 1869. The traditionary type of col-
lege education had ceased to meet, he con-
tended, the demands of American society; and
he found proof of his statements in the growth
of institutions where modern studies received
more encouragement and where a liberal elec-
tion of studies was allowed. He pointed to
Harvard and Cornell Universities and the
University of Michigan to enforce his argu-
ments. Were Dr. Barnard still living, he
would no doubt find a clear demonstration of


356
[May 1,
THE DIAL
his view in the later developments, and he
would apparently have a perfect right to do
so. It is certainly a significant fact that the
recent extraordinary growth of the number of
students attending the higher schools has ac-
companied, or followed hard upon, the general
modification of the old college curriculum with
respect to range of studies, composition of
courses, freedom of elections, and the relaxa-
tion of other requirements.
The total amount of money invested in uni-
versities and colleges and schools of technology
in 1898 was $311,842,000. The benefactions
for the year were $8,204,000. All told, there
were 144,477 students enrolled in the higher
institutions, including professional schools —
108,695 men and 35,782 women. In the five
great sections of the Union the ratios of popu-
lation to a college student were as follows:
North Atlantic States, 714; South Atlantic
States, 1,030; South Central States, 1,237;
North Central States, 716; Western States, 532.
The most striking fact that appears in the
college statistics of the period is the prodigious
growth of the strong, and especially of the
great, institutions. Trinity College and Wes-
leyan University, Conn., together increased
their students from 264 to 409. Yale College
increased hers from 687 to 1,724. Amherst
College grew from 339 to 369; Williams Col.
lege from 227 to 359; Harvard College from
886 to 2,240. Brown University advanced
from 247 to 759. The stronger State univer-
sities of the West made similar gains. The
University of Michigan leaped from 521 to
1,584 in eighteen years; its three leading com-
petitors, if we may trust the tables, actually
fell from 395 to 343. Indiana University in-
creased four-fold, the University of Wisconsin
three-fold. These statistics, it should be re-
marked, include proper college students only.
The meaning of the facts just presented is
easily read. They show the great advantage
that the strong institutions have in prestige,
strong faculties, and abundant resources, over
the small ones. What will the end be 2 is a
question which many of the smaller colleges
and universities are now asking themselves
with some misgivings as to the answer.
Full and accurate statistics of attendance
upon private schools are hard to obtain, except
in the well educated and highly policed states
of Europe. In 1898 the Commissioner re-
ported 1,554,725 pupils enrolled in private
and incorporated schools of all kinds, to 15,-
132,918 in public schools and institutions.
Estimation, however, played a great part in
the first of these results. The ratio of the one
number to the other is a little more than 9 to
100, while the Commissioner holds 15 to 100
to be the normal standard of the country. In
1898 the relative attendance upon private
schools had already begun to increase, and
since that year it has no doubt made consider-
able progress toward the normal standard. All
things considered, the prosperity of the pri-
vate schools of the country is perhaps the best
educational criterion that we have of the busi-
ness state of the country. Besides the pupils and
students now enumerated, the Commissioner
found 485,292 other pupils attending schools
of a miscellaneous character that cannot be
described. Adding this number to the pre-
ceding number, we have a grand total of 17,-
172,935 persons enrolled in schools of some
kind at some time during the year. The ratio
to the estimated population was practically 17
to 72, or 1 to 44.
Such are a few of the many interesting
phases that American education presents for
the last twenty years. Perhaps they have not
all been wisely preferred to others which could
readily be made. Perhaps disproportionate
stress has been placed upon external and quan-
titative features, as we Americans are some-
times charged with doing. The writer denies,
however, most emphatically, that he is forget-
ful of the object of education, and guards him-
self against possible misapprehension with the
further remark that great progress has un-
doubtedly been made in subjective or qualita-
tive elements. Defects in our national educa-
tion are both numerous and serious; but, upon
the whole, the showing for twenty years is dis-
tinctly encouraging.
At the close, a word may well be given to
the growth of educational associations and
societies of one sort and another. The growth
of many of these bodies in numbers and influ-
ence is among the greatest surprises of the
period. For example, an attendance of 10,000
members contributing to the treasury upon an
annual meeting of the National Educational
Association, is not now at all unusual. What is
more to the purpose, however, is the contribu-
tion to real educational progress that this asso-
ciation has made through its discussions and
published proceedings, and especially through
the very useful series of reports embodying
the results of special investigations that it has
conducted through its committees.
B. A. HINSDALE.


1900.]
357
THE DIAL
TRIBUTES FROM OUR FRIENDS.
The announcement of the completion of THE
DIAL's twentieth year, and of its anniversary
number, has brought from friends of the paper
in all parts of the country, and in England,
many delightful words of congratulation, and
it is a sincere pleasure to the Editors and Pub-
lishers to present some of these herewith.
THE DIAL has uniformly directed its energies to
the work of upholding the best standards of liter-
ary criticism in this country. It has done this with
dignity, courage, and strength; and it has added
modernity of its own. There is much to be thank-
ful for in the fact that such a publication has had
so long and so prosperous a life, and that it
should now seem to be but entering upon its youth.
JAMES LANE ALLEN.
New York, April 8.
It affords me genuine pleasure to be able to con-
gratulate the editors and publishers of THE DIAL
on the completion of the twentieth year of publica-
tion. I have been a constant reader during these
memorable twenty years, and have noted with great
satisfaction the success of THE DIAL as a factor in
American literature. May it continue to maintain
the same high ideal as in the past, and remain a
power for good long after its editor and contributors
of twenty years ago shall have laid away their pens
forever.
RASMUs B. ANDERSON.
Madison, Wis., March 29.
I am glad to join in the chorus which must by
this time be swelling in your ears, on THE DIAL's
having entered upon the year of its majority. For
a journal of criticism, having such a high standard
of excellence as THE DIAL, to have lived for twenty
years among a hurried and nervous people, too busy
most of them to give to it the thoughtful considera-
tion which it merits and which it really needs in
order that its value may be demonstrated, is in it-
itself an achievement. I congratulate not only
yourselves in having so successfully lived up to
your ideals, but the American people as well for
having had the good taste to like you and your
ways sufficiently to make your twentieth anniver-
sary possible. May THE DIAL wax fat and pros-
perous, and some day be found celebrating its five
times twentieth anniversary.
John KENDRICK BANGs.
New York, April 4.
I congratulate you on this your twentieth anni-
versary. THE DIAL represents to me much the
best periodical of its class in this country, and I
wish you for the future every success.
GEORGE P. BRETT.
New York, April 7.
I tender to you my congratulations on your
twentieth birthday. May you live a thousand years!
If you have a bric-a-brac corner for nonsense verses
in your anniversary number, I enclose a foolish but
honest contribution.
A NONSENSE RHYME OF GAFFER TIME
AND THE DIAL.
Time and The Dial looked each other in the face.
Quoth Time to The Dial: “You have earned your
place.
No gall is in your vial, but with dignity and grace
You have kept espial on the scribbling race.”
Time and The Dial shook each other by the hands.
Quoth Time to The Dial: “You’re one that under-
stands,
Though a book must stand its trial, and failure
bear the rub,
It is better to annihilate with courtesy than club.”
Time and The Dial struck up a friendship true.
Quoth Time to The Dial: “I beg you’ll see me
through.
I will take no denial, for should Golden Age accrue,
And I turn poet, Dial, I would be reviewed by you.”
KATHARINE LEE BATEs.
Wellesley, Mass., April 12.
In common with other literary men I have heard
with great interest that THE DIAL is about to cele-
brate the completion of its twentieth year of publi-
cation. I can say in all sincerity that, busy man as
I am, I confine my reading to a very few papers
and periodicals, among which THE DIAL has a
foremost place on account of the judicious criticism,
the fairness, and the terseness which distinguish its
contents. J. G. BouriNoT.
House of Commons,
Ottawa, March 31.
THE DIAL is to be heartily congratulated on the
attainment of its twentieth birthday. It is easily
our most valuable literary review. It has been
faithful to the best literary traditions from the
first, and will no doubt continue to be so.
John BURRoughs.
West Park, N. Y., April 7.
I note with pleasure the completion of THE
DIAL's twentieth year, and heartily congratulate
you. By the sanity of its literary judgments, by
the catholicity of its tastes and of its opinions, and
by the responsible character of its signed book re-
views, THE DIAL makes a peculiarly strong appeal
to men and women interested in the study of lit-
erature, and in the development of high standards
of literary taste and judgment, in the United States.
NICHOLAs MURRAY. BUTLER.
Columbia University,
New York, March 28.


358
[May 1,
THE TXIAL
It is a cause for congratulation among all lovers
of good literature that a paper like THE DIAL has
been able to live twenty years—and not only live
but thrive. It is one of the very few publications
in this country devoted to such matters, that is
dignified, self-respecting, intelligent, and reliable.
Long may its banner wave! Richard BURTon.
University of Minn.,
Minneapolis, April 5.
The completion of THE DIAL's twentieth year of
publication is something upon which the American
people, as truly as the paper's conductors, should be
congratulated. THE DIAL has maintained a stand-
ard of literary excellence, of critical faithfulness,
and of probity and dignity, which has been the more
valuable because emanating from a part of our
country which itself proudly insists upon its new-
ness. It has, moreover, done American literature a
special service by unresentingly resisting pressure
which every such publication must encounter in our
land and day—to use those catchy methods of re-
view and editorship which yield pages so easy to
read that they are still easier to forget. Long live
THE DIAL, which chooses to draw its faithful
shadow not from the earth, but from the sun.
GEORGE W. CABLE.
Northampton, Mass., April 5.
I love THE DIAL, and count it among the choicest
journals that come to my hand. It has been my
welcome companion from the first number, and has
held me in touch with the best thought in Chicago,
so long my home, and the region we call the Mid-
dle West, which was “Way out West” when I went
to live there more than forty years ago. I read THE
DIAL also because I like to be well informed about
what is going on in the world of letters, and feel
sure it is no mere mouth-piece or hired servant of
the publishers, and I know of no higher praise.
Robert Colly ER.
New York, April 18.
I read THE DIAL with interest because it does
not delude me with false pretensions. I like it
because, on the whole—for it is a bit unequal, and
sometimes falls below its highest standards—its
tone is mainly neither truckling nor captious; be-
cause it stands for ideas and principles, and does
not pander to the idle whimsies of the passing
hour, nor feed each baneful madness as it arises.
I admire it because it is not only readable, but
seems to me to stand for enlightened patriotism,
for order and progress, for the encouragement of
wholesome literature, and to be strong and brave
enough to utter its opinions in the teeth of those
who, whether carelessly or wilfully, strive to be-
little and overthrow the institutions which are the
hope of humanity. May it flourish until those in-
stitutions have triumphed over all their foes, and
may it have an honored place in the procession
which celebrates the victory ! ALBERT S. Cook.
Yale University, New Haven, Conn., April 21.
For the past eight years I have read THE DIAL
every issue. I have had from it during those years
more satisfying and exact criticism in literary mat-
ters than from all the other magazines I have ever
read in all the years of my life. I wish I could
say more—of the uprightness, dignity, and intel-
ligence which speak to me from every page of THE
DIAL. But my words, however expressed, would
fail to tell you all I think—so these few lines
must suffice.
ALICE MoRSE EARLE.
Brooklyn, N. Y., April 7.
..I send my greetings and congratulations to you
upon the completion of the twentieth year of the
publication of THE DIAL. I recognize it as a pow-
erful force in the strengthening and purification of
contemporary literature. It has done much for the
cultivation of taste and the elevation of literary
standards in our country. It is a force which I
should be sorry to miss, and, with the growth of our
country, I heartily wish THE DIAL not only pros-
perity but length of days.
WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIs.
Ithaca, N. Y., April 9.
I am glad to learn of THE DIAL's anniversary. I
cannot believe that it is twenty years since the world
has had the advantage of reading THE DIAL. But
I do know that the world has advanced in every-
thing admirable in that time, and I am quite sure
that THE DIAL may claim a noble place in that
advance.
EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
Roxbury, Mass., April 9.
It is a great pleasure to join with a word of con-
gratulation your many other readers, on the occa-
sion of the twentieth anniversary of THE DIAL's
founding. I cannot, to tell the truth, look back
over THE DIAL's two decades; it is the second
only that I survey, with lively feeling when I
think of the continual interest and stimulus with
which I have considered the results of your work.
There are many forms of criticism, but in almost
all of them there is the possibility of sincerity,
scholarship, dignity. THE DIAL can show in the
long run most of the different critical tempera-
ments. That is due to its contributors, who will be
different by nature. But with all such differences,
there will be something that remains the same, and
this it is which the paper itself supplies. This spirit,
this character, THE DIAL has long had, nor do I
think the last decade has altered it, save in the way
of strengthening. I can couple no better wish with
my congratulations than a hope that in all the
changes among its contributors, it will preserve the
character and tone which have now so long distin-
guished it. E. E. HALE, JR.
Union College,
Schenectady, N. Y., April 18.


1900.] THE
DIAL 359
The citizens of Chicago should congratulate them-
selves that THE DIAL has reached the twentieth
year of its publication. It means much for Chicago
and the Northwest that THE DIAL has made steady
forward progress, and, as it is a source of help to
every man or woman who is interested in intellect-
ual matters, every such man or woman should help
THE DIAL. Many of us at the University will join
in congratulating its editor that the journal has
reached the age of twenty years.
WILLIAM R. HARPER.
University of Chicago, April 6.
I have always felt proud of THE DIAL's excel-
lent editing and judicial criticism, and have always
been thankful that such a journal could be published
in the great Western metropolis. I am therefore
glad that you are celebrating the twentieth anni-
versary of this remarkable periodical.
WILLIAM T. HARRIs.
Bureau of Education,
Washington, D.C., March 31.
I beg to extend to you my hearty congratulations
upon the near completion of the twenty years of
THE DIAL. I know of no publication that for the
last twenty years has more consistently and success-
fully contended for the best things in literature than
has THE DIAL. D. C. HEATH.
Boston, March 30.
Allow me to congratulate you upon the twentieth
birthday of your valuable publication. The career
of THE DIAL has been creditable to American lit-
erature, in my judgment, as regards ability, integ-
rity, and independence.
THOMAS WENTwo RTH HIGGINSON.
Cambridge, Mass., April 11.
I congratulate THE DIAL upon its anniversary,
and I wish for it an increasing success, because THE
DIAL represents a thoughtful consideration of cur-
rent literature. It is not only that THE DIAL has
maintained a high standard of critical comment that
I wish it well, but also because THE DIAL is so im-
portant a medium of literary interpretation in the
great empire which may roughly be termed the
Middle West. I know and care much for the West,
which is proving its literary possibilities, just as it
has long since proved its right to a commanding
place in the business world. I wish you good things
for the future. RIPLEY HITCHCOCK.
New York, March 29.
I am glad of the opportunity to send a word of
congratulation not only to you, but to the reading
public, and the public which may yet be cultivated
to read, on THE DIAL's having completed twenty
years of its useful career. Whatever may be the
attitude of the East toward the culture of the West,
I at least have been rejoiced to find in Chicago an
organ whose judgments on literary matters have
commanded my respect so thoroughly. Long may
your work continue, and great may be your satis-
faction in it! HENRY Holt.
New York, March 29.
I wish prosperity in all ways to THE DIAL.
HENRY IRVING.
Providence, R. I., March 28.
I am glad to congratulate you on your twentieth
anniversary. THE DIAL has always stood for
character. It has the old Puritan conscience on
which everything that is lasting in our country is
built. It is sane, wise, truthful; it is honest, hope-
ful, and kindly, and with all this it is the best journal
of literary criticism which we have, and we ask no
better. DAVID S. JorDAN.
Stanford University, Cal., April 18.
I hope THE DIAL's sun may never go back on it
(a circumstance unusual, but with biblical prece-
dent). ANDREW LANG.
St. Andrews, Scotland, March 29.
THE DIAL has been for years not only a comfort
but rather a mystery to me. Amid its time and
circumstance it has seemed very much as to one
scaling the Bolivian Andes would seem a hail in
pure English from the cliff above. An adventitious
piquancy is doubtless added to our surprise by the
mere fact of locality; but the intrinsic wonder is
to find such a journal published anywhere, to-day.
Even a frontiersman may be forgiven sensitiveness
over the spread of insincerity, flippancy, shallow-
ness, commercialism, in American letters; and re-
lief at finding here and there an undraggled stand-
ard. For the frontier is far enough from the foot-
lights to get perspective on the stage; and near
enough Nature to retain some notion of what the
make-believe really all comes to. In such a seat
even the dullest onlooker may learn. My first
knowledge of THE DIAL came about by a personal
suggestion by Whittier, who practiced what he
preached. During all the years since, it has been
a preferred creditor, putting me deeper and deeper
in its debt. Of more than a hundred periodicals
every month brings to my desk, there are two I in-
variably read throughout—“The Nation” and
THE DIAL. Critical criticism is as valuable as it
is rare. Sometimes I find it elsewhere. I can
depend on finding it here. Anú"with it the anti-
dote for many imminent pessimisms. In any serious
adjudication we must, I believe, rank as one of the
finest and rarest achievements in American jour-
nalism the upbuilding, through a changeful genera-
tion and in its most fevered city, a review so cool,
so sane, so competent, so unbitten with our generic
new unrest; so immune against our penny-foolish-
ness and our Yellow-plush attitude to literature; so
even-handed in upholding so high standards of


360
[May 1,
THE DIAL
criticism. The twentieth anniversary of such a
paper seems to a Far Westerner to call for more
than the mere perfunctory compliments of the day.
It is a due time to express the sincere gratitude of
such Americans as find, in general, not too many
things to be grateful for. CHAs. F. LUMMIs.
Los Angeles, Cal., April 2.
From the very beginning of its career THE DIAL
has stood consistently for the highest standards of
literary art, for sound and true workmanship, for
large and sane views. It has been notably free
from provincialism of taste, and from the weak-
ness of confusing the novel and striking with the
true and the real. It has kept the perspective of a
comprehensive knowledge of literature, and has
happily combined loyalty to the great traditions
with love of freedom and openness of mind. Its
wise conservatism has been a check to eccentricity
of taste; its catholicity has kept it in touch with
the best in contemporary writing. It has been a
medium for sound scholarship, and it has steadily
encouraged that quality of mind which makes way
for true art even where it does not produce it. In
the intellectual history of two decades it has loyally
served the best interests of American scholarship
and literature; while its dignity and moderation
have done much to disseminate good taste and a
true valuation of sound form.
HAMILTON W. MABIE.
New York, April 5.
My congratulations to THE DIAL on its growing
age. Men shrink from the crowding years: a jour-
nal should rejoice in them. THE DIAL has been
coming to my library table for a long decade; and
I look to it with confidence for seasoned opinions on
the literary movements of the time. I wish it agreen
old age.
Brooklyn, N. Y., April 16.
EDw1N MARKHAM.
I like your journal thoroughly, and wish it well,
and hope it may have a long life—in which to
show (as it has shown in all the past) that dignity
and conscience and kindliness may go to good criti-
cism, without sacrifice of thoroughness, or of acumen.
DoNALD G. MITCHELL.
Edgewood, April 11.
I beg leaverco congratulate the editors of THE
DIAL on its twentieth anniversary. I do not think
you would wish me here to praise at length the
scholarly breadth, and the good manners of its criti-
cism. I have read it for years, and it has always
given me the impression of being in the company
of refined gentlemen who are agreeably relating the
literary affairs of the day. S. WEIR MITCHELL
Philadelphia, March 28.
I congratulate THE DIAL on its birthday and
wish it a great many more of them. Like Mr.
Riley's old man who'd turned threescore and ten,
“it has found out the trick and can do it again.”
The trick in THE DIAL's case has been always tell-
ing the truth, fearlessly though modestly. I believe
that by doing so it has won the confidence of both
writers and readers.
CHARLEs LEONARD MooRE.
Philadelphia, March 30.
It gives me pleasure to say that for nearly all the
past twenty years I have read THE DIAL con-
stantly, and found it speaking with dignity and au-
thority on the subjects which have interested me.
Its reviews appeal to me as do those of the best
English papers, minus the acidity. I congratulate
you upon your fifth of a century, and I sincerely
hope you may attain to the rounded century itself.
HARRIson S. MoRRIs.
Philadelphia, March 30.
THE DIAL has long seemed to me to be one of
the best and most successful efforts ever made in
this country in sound literary criticism. Its stand-
ard has been high, and it has been intelligent and
just. Its editors and publishers are to be sincerely
congratulated on their achievement and on the suc-
cess which has crowned their twenty years of work.
HENRY Loom Is NELson.
New Rochelle, N. Y., x4pril 10.
I am glad to offer you my congratulations on the
completion of the twentieth year of the life of THE
DIAL, but I feel even more inclined to offer my
congratulations to its readers, to whom this anni-
versary gives assurance of the prosperity and per-
manence of a journal which they could ill spare.
The good sense, the sound critical judgment, the
liberal spirit, the high principles of THE DIAL, all
maintained with simplicity, steadiness, and without
pretension, have secured the respect as well as the
cordial regard of its readers. It has been from the
outset one of the best evidences of the civilization,
and one of the best agents of the culture, of Chi-
cago. CHARLEs ELIOT Norton.
Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass., April 21.
As a lover of good literature I admire and sym-
pathize with your efforts to speak of letters as they
should be spoken of—as something affecting the
highest interest and most enduring emotions of
mankind. In these days Literature is in danger of
being degraded to an infinitely lower level than
when it lurked in the squalidest attics of Grub
Street; it is falling a prey to the most ignorant and
pernicious kind of smart society journalism, or it is
being listed as a brand of national output on the


1900.] THE
DIAL 361
same level as hides and tallow, shoddy cloth or pat-
ent medicines. All honor to the journal which still
judges the product of man's thought and fancy by
other than a cash standard, and is more concerned
to appreciate the work than to gabble pointlessly,
where not offensively, about the worker. Cordial
greeting and good wishes. ALFRED NUTT.
London, March 28.
It is a pleasure to congratulate THE DIAL upon
the completion of twenty years of distinguished
service to the higher life of America. The qualities
which I admire most in THE DIAL are its public
spirit, its courage, its wholesome plainness of speech,
its severe standards of literary excellence, and its
freedom from mere literary gossip.
BLISS PERRY.
Boston, April 12.
I learn with pleasure of your twentieth anniver-
sary celebration, and wish to congratulate you on
the event. I am, as ever, cordially interested in
the continued prosperity of the journal which has
done so much for good literature and whose stand-
ard of criticism and of literary presentation is so
high and so refined.
New York, March 28.
GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM.
I first saw a copy of THE DIAL some six years
ago, and since then have read it regularly. I re-
gard it as one of the very best of our literary peri-
odicals, and have always taken pleasure in com-
mending it in my lectures and lessons. I am glad
it is to celebrate a twentieth anniversary.
W. J. Rolf E.
Cambridge, Mass., April 16.
It is a pleasure to think that THE DIAL has lived
a score of years. No motley fool ever drew it from
his poke and looked at it with lack lustre eye, for
it makes no appeal to such. The lovers of good
literature, and those who believe in the dignity of
literature, are especially grateful to it for its free-
dom from petty gossip; one can really tell time by
THE DIAL: it does not confuse one by having a
looking-glass face. HoRACE E. Scudder.
Cambridge, Mass., April 9.
While noting the fact that THE DIAL has made
its regular appearance under that name for a term
of twenty full years, I think it especially worth while
to bear in mind how steadfast the paper has been in
its aims, purposes, and methods. Many periodicals
have changed editors, altered their form and ap-
pearance, and still more greatly changed their
policies and objects. But THE DIAL has gone
serenely forward, true as steel to its own high
ideals, and faithful to its own high standards of
criticism and canons of good taste. I have had the
pleasure and advantage of a familiar acquaintance
with THE DIAL ever since its first days. Those who
have known THE DIAL do not need to be told how
perfect has been the discriminating sympathy of its
editor with all that has been finest and best in our
literary and social progress. With all deference to
other editors, I cannot think of any in our own gen-
eration, east or west, who has seemed to me so con-
sistently devoted to the best ends of criticism and
literary journalism, and so wholly free from com-
mercialism on the one hand or passing fads on the
other. THE DIAL has always preferred the signed
review. It has kept itself free from that anonymous
pettiness, detraction, and stabbing-in-the-back that
has prevailed in some other quarters, and that has had
the effrontery to palm itself off for scholarly and
sincere criticism. THE DIAL has had no blacklist
of authors whom its editor and its reviewers have
conspired to write down and injure irrespective of
the merits of their books. Those log-rolling methods
so prevalent in the literary journals and book-
reviewing circles of London, and to some extent sup-
posed to be known also in, New York, have never
been countenanced by THE DIAL. The paper has
on the contrary sought always to be just and con-
siderate.
New York, April 4.
ALBERT SHAw.
All health to THE DIAL | From no literary jour-
nal, foreign or domestic, have I derived more profit
during the twenty years of its existence—a time
in which it has been needful for me to keep in touch
with current publications. The review has been so
free from the “diseases of childhood,” nervous or
otherwise, as to constitute it almost a species by
itself. On the rare occasions when a reader dis-
sents from its criticism, he must still recognize its
good taste and style, its scholarship, and the open
mind of the reviewer. Nothing less, I think, could
have enabled THE DIAL to thrive and continue, in a
country where too meagre a support is given by the
book-trade and the public to our few strictly critical
journals. THE DIAL has been of such service that
it would be ill indeed if anything were to hinder its
future life and increase.
EDMUND C. STEDMAN.
Bronxville, N. Y., April 14.
It is my opinion that THE DIAL occupies a lead-
ing position in the front rank of purely literary
periodicals, published in the English language, and
I congratulate it on its twentieth anniversary.
FRANK R. STOCKTON.
Charles Town, W. Va., April 11.
For years I have read your columns with deep
interest and with perfect confidence. I have even
said to myself, “When in doubt consult THE DIAL:
surely it cannot lie.” I congratulate you on your


362
[May 1,
THE DIAL
twentieth anniversary, and if I am still in the flesh
I shall be glad to do it again when you are twice
as old. All good wishes!
CHARLEs WARREN Stoddard.
Washington, D.C., April 17.
Congratulations to THE DIAL on its twentieth
anniversary, to its publishers and its editors,
whose good work from the far away beginning I
have personally known, good because sincere,
strong, refined, sane, in spite of appalling contem-
porary inducements to blaze, and glare and vul-
garity and the tyranny of cliques.
Moses CoIT TYLER.
Cornell University,
Ithaca, N. Y., April 20.
I note with interest that you are approaching
your twentieth birthday. My profession naturally
compels me to do a large amount of reading, and
therefore I can only skim many American papers
that come into my hands, but of the two or three
that are always attractive, I confess THE DIAL
takes almost first place, as I find it keeps me au
courant with American books. May you have
many years of successful career in the interest of
good literature. T. FISHER UNWIN.
London, March 29.
Congratulations to THE DIAL on twenty years
of loyalty to the light that fails not.
HENRY van DYKE.
Princeton, N.J., April 5.
Congratulations to THE DIAL on its twenty years
of life . It has always stood for intelligence, hon-
esty, and sobriety—qualities which are still (thank
heaven!) held in esteem. More power to its elbow
in these days when the sense of proportion seems
to be forgotten, and hysterical enthusiasm blazes
its yellow way through the book-review and the
literary “appreciation”! John C. WAN Dyke.
Guaymas, Mexico, April 12.
THE DIAL is certainly to be congratulated upon
having reached a vigorous and prosperous man-
hood, and gained the solid respect of the country
as a serious and impartial journal of literary criti-
cism, without resorting to pictures or personalities,
or mistaking the back-stairs gossip about writers
for literature. CHARLEs DUDLEY WARNER.
Norfolk, Va., April 2.
Your paper has so constantly combined kindness
of temper with frank honesty of critical opinion
that anyone must feel a rare pleasure in being per-
mitted to offer congratulations on its twentieth birth-
day. BARRETT WENDELL.
Harvard College,
Cambridge, Mass., April 16.
A DIRECTORY OF THE AMERICAN
PUBLISHING TRADE.
In connection with THE DIAL's twentieth anniversary
number, it has been thought that a complete and authorita-
tive Directory of the American Publishing Trade, as consti-
tuted May 1, 1900, would be of value and interest, and accord-
ingly the following list is presented to our readers. The
Directory has been prepared especially for this issue of THE
DIAL, from information furnished for the purpose by the pub-
lishers themselves. The data given, which is necessarily lim-
ited and condensed, aims to cover the following points: Firm-
name in full, successive changes in firm-name with dates of
such changes, names of officers or present members of com-
pany or firm, special line of publications, number of titles on
list, address in full. It is believed that no name of any sig-
nificance in the legitimate publishing trade of the country has
been omitted. It may be mentioned that in a few instances
publishers failed to respond to our request for information,
and in such cases the firm-name and address only is given.
ABBEY PRESS, THE. Established 1898.
Present
members: Carlos Martyn, Charles F. Rideal. 114
Fifth Ave., New York.
ADVANCE PUBLISHING CO. Corporation.
Founded 1880. Officers: J. C. Kilner, Mrs. H. S.
Harrison, P. A. Kilner. Religious and juvenile
publications. Titles, 14. 215 Madison St., Chicago.
ALLEN & CO., HENRY G. Founded 1887. Henry
G. Allen only present member. Works of reference.
Titles, 6. 150 Fifth Ave., New York.
ALLYN & BACON. Founded 1870, John Allyn;
1888, Allyn & Bacon. Present members: John
Allyn, George A. Bacon. Educational text-books.
Titles, 173. 172 Tremont St., Boston.
ALTEMUS COMPANY, HENRY. Corporation.
Founded 1842, Henry Altemus; incorporated 1900,
Henry. Altemus Company. Officers: Henry Alte-
mus, Howard E. Altemus, Henry Altemus, Jr. Mis-
cellaneous publications. Titles, 418. 507–513 Cherry
St., Philadelphia.
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND
SOCIAL SCIENCE. Corporation. Founded 1889;
incorporated 1891. Officers: Edmund J. James,
S. M. Lindsay, F. H. Giddings, Woodrow Wilson,
L. S. Rowe, Stuart Wood. Works on political and
social science. Titles, 273. Station B., Philadelphia.
AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY.
Corporation. Founded 1824. Officers: Samuel A.
Crozer, A. J. Rowland, B. F. Dennisson. Business
manager, M. Strien. Religious publications. 1420.
Chestnut St., Philadelphia.
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY. Corporation.
Founded 1890. Officers: H. T. Ambrose, Alfred C.
Barnes, Charles P. Batt, Gilman A. Tucker. Educa-
tional text-books. Titles, 2500. Washington Square,
New York.
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.
New York.
APPLETON & COMPANY, D. Corporation.
Founded 1825 by Daniel Appleton; 1838, Daniel
Appleton & Company; incorporated 1897. Fiction,
scientific and educational works, and miscellaneous.
72 Fifth Ave., New York.
ARMSTRONG & SON, A. C. Founded 1879. Pres-
ent members: Andrew C. Armstrong, J. Sinclair
Armstrong. Theological and miscellaneous publica-
tions. 51 E. 10th St., New York.
150 Nassau St.,


1900.] THE
DIAL
363
ARNOLD & COMPANY. Founded 1884. Present
members: James McKean Arnold, George H.
Buchanan. Cook books and miscellaneous. 420 San-
som St., Philadelphia.
BADGER & COMPANY, RICHARD G. Founded
1897. Richard G. Badger only present member.
Fiction, poetry, and belles lettres. Titles, 50. 157
Tremont St., Boston.
BAKER & TAYLOR CO., THE. Corporation.
Founded 1830; incorporated 1886. Officers: James
S. Baker, Herbert S. Baker, Nelson Taylor. Miscel-
laneous publications. Titles, 100. 5–7 E. 16th St.,
New York.
BANCROFT-WHITNEY CO., THE. 613 Clay St.,
San Francisco.
BARNES & CO., A. S. Founded 1838, in Hartford,
Conn.; moved to Philadelphia, 1840, A. S. Barnes &
Co.; moved to New York, 1844; 1850, Barnes &
Burr; 1865, A. S. Barnes & Co. Henry B. Barnes
only present member. Hymn books, etc., and mis-
cellaneous. Titles, 167. 156 Fifth Ave., New York.
BARRIE & SON, GEORGE. 1313 Walnut St.,
Philadelphia.
BIDDLE, DREXEL. Founded 1894, Drexel Biddle
& Bradley Publishing Co.; 1896, Drexel Biddle.
Miscellaneous publications. Titles, 50. 228 S. 4th
St., Philadelphia.
BLAKISTON'S SON & CO., P. Founded 1843, Lind-
say & Blakiston; 1880, Presley Blakiston; 1882, P.
Blakiston, Son & Co.; 1898, P. Blakiston's Son & Co.
Kenneth M. Blakiston only present member. Medi-
cal and scientific publications. Titles, 298. 1012
Walnut St., Philadelphia.
BONAME, LOUISE.C. 258 S. 16th St., Philadelphia.
BONNELL, SILVER & CO. Founded 1896. Present
members: Charles E. Bonnell, Elmer B. Silver.
Miscellaneous publications. Titles, 42. 24–26 W.
22d St., New York.
BOSTON BOOK CO., THE. Freeman Place Chapel,
Boston.
BOUTON, J. W. 10 W. 28th St., New York.
BOWEN-MERRILL CO., THE. Corporation.
Founded 1838, Merrill & Co.; by consolidation with
Bowen, Stewart & Co., The Bowen—Merrill Co.
Law books and miscellaneous. 9–11 W. Washing-
ton St., Indianapolis, Ind.
BRADLEY & CO., A. I. 234 Congress St., Boston.
BRADLEY COMPANY, MILTON. Corporation.
Founded 1884. Officers: G.W. Tapley, Milton Bradley.
Kindergarten publications. Springfield, Mass.
BRANDT, ALBERT. Founded 1900. Miscellaneous
publications. Titles, 6. Trenton, N. J.
BRENTANO’S. Corporation. Founded 1852, August
Brentano; 1877, Brentano's; incorporated 1899.
Officers: Simon Brentano, Arthur Brentano, Charles
E. Butler, Clive Mecklem. Miscellaneous publica-
tions. Titles, 150. 31 Union Square, New York.
BROWN & COMPANY. Corporation. Founded 1898.
Officers: Charles B. Pendleton, C. L. Stebbins. Fic-
tion, belles lettres, history. Titles, 14. 12 Pearl St.,
Boston.
BUCKLES & CO., F. M. Founded 1899. Present
members: Frank M. Buckles, George N. Fenno.
Fiction and novelties. Titles, 33. 9–11 E. 16th St.,
New York.
BURROWS BROTHERS COMPANY, THE. Cor-
poration. Founded 1873; incorporated 1886. Offi-
cers: C. W. Burrows, H. B. Burrows. Historical and
miscellaneous publications. Titles, 75. 133–137
Euclid Ave., Cleveland, O.
BUTLER, SHELDON & CO. 919 Walnut St., Phila-
delphia.
CALLAGHAN & COMPANY. Founded 1864, Cal-
laghan & Cutler; later, Callaghan & Cockroft; 1871,
Callaghan & Company. Present members: Wilson
L. Mead, Frederick Darvill, Charles E. Gill, James
E. Callahan, N. A. Clark. Law books exclusively.
Titles,800. 114 Monroe St., Chicago.
CARTER & CO., H. H. 5. Somerset St., Boston.
CASSELL & COMPANY., Ltd. 7–9 W. 18th St.,
New York.
CENTURY CO., THE. Founded 1870, Scribner &
Co.; 1881, The Century Co. Officers: Frank H.
Scott, Chas. F. Chichester, William W. Ellsworth.
Subscription books and miscellaneous. Titles, 289.
33 E. 17th St., New York.
CLARKE COMPANY, THE ROBERT. Corporation.
Founded 1858, Robert Clarke & Co., succeeding by
purchase H. W. Derby & Co. (founded 1845 as
Derby, Bradley & Co.); incorporated 1894, The
Robert Clarke Company. Officers: Roderick D.
Barney, John W. Dale, Howard Barney, Alexander
Hill. Law books and miscellaneous. Titles, 493.
31–35 E. 4th St., Cincinnati, O.
COATES & CO., HENRY T. Founded 1864, Davis
Porter & Co., successors to Willis P. Hazard; 1866,
Davis Porter & Coates; 1867, Porter & Coates;
1895, Henry T. Coates & Co. Juveniles and mis-
cellaneous. Titles, 839. 1222 Chestnut St., Phila-
delphia.
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY SCHOOL AND
PUBLISHING SOCIETY. Founded 1868. Gen-
eral business agent, J. H. Tewksbury. Religious
publications (issued under imprint of The Pilgrim
Press). Congregational House, Boston.
CONTINENTAL PUBLISHING COMPANY. Cor-
poration. Founded 1896. Officers: Egbert Gilliss
Handy, William George Jordan, William S. Howell,
Ramon Reyes Lala. Fiction and miscellaneous.
Titles, 210. 24–26 Murray St., New York.
COOK PUBLISHING COMPANY, DAVID C. 36
Washington St., Chicago.
CROSCUP & STERLING COMPANY. Corporation.
Founded 1898. Officers: George E. Croscup, Joseph
H. Sterling, Wm. H. Ludington. Subscription edi-
tions standard authors. 135 Fifth Ave., New York.
CROWELL & CO., THOMAS Y. Founded 1870;
1900, removed from Boston to New York. Present
members: Thomas Y. Crowell, E. Osborne Crowell,
T. Irving Crowell, J. Osborne Crowell. Standard
and miscellaneous publications. 426-428 W. Broad-
way, New York.
CURTIS & CAMERON. Founded 1895 by Benjamin
Curtis, as Curtis & Company; 1896, Curtis & Cam-
eron. Present members: Benjamin Curtis, James
B. Noyes. Art publications. Pierce Building, Boston.
CUSHING & COMPANY. Founded 1810, Joseph
Cushing; 1889, Cushing & Co. J. M. Cushing only
present member: Law books and miscellaneous.
Titles, 35. 34 W. Baltimore St., Baltimore, Md.


364
[May 1,
THE DIAL
DENISON, T. S. Founded 1876. Dramatic publica-
tions. Titles, 235. 163 Randolph St., Chicago.
DILLINGHAM CO., G. W. 29 W. 23d St., N.Y.
DODD, MEAD & CO. Founded 1839, Moses H.
Dodd; 1870, Dodd, Mead & Co., composed of Frank
H. Dodd and Edward S. Mead, Moses H. Dodd retir-
ing. Present members: Frank H. Dodd, Bleecker
Van Wagenen, Robert H. Dodd. Miscellaneous
publications. Titles,800. 372 Fifth Ave., New York.
DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY. Corporation.
Founded 1889. Officers: O. W. Nordwell, James
F. Mason, B. Lust. Art calendars and miscellane-
ous. Titles, 134. 150 Fifth Ave., New York.
DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO., THE. Corpora-
tion. Founded 1897. Officers: F. N. Doubleday,
Walter H. Page, J. L. Thompson, H. W. Lanier.
Miscellaneous publications. Titles, 150. 34 Union
Square, East, New York.
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. Founded 1900. Pres-
ent members: F. N. Doubleday, W. H. Page, J. L.
Thompson, S.A. Everitt, H. W. Lanier. Miscellaneous
publications. 34 Union Square, East, New York.
DOXEY'S. Corporation. Founded 1900, successors
to The Doxey Book Company of San Francisco.
Miscellaneous publications. New York.
DRAMATIC PUBLISHINGCOMPANY, THE. Cor-
poration. Founded 1886; incorporated 1887. Charles
H. Sergel, president. Dramatic literature exclu-
sively. Titles on list,760. 358 Dearborn St., Chicago.
DUTTON & CO., E. P. Founded 1852, Ide & Dut-
ton; 1858, E. P. Dutton & Co. Present members:
E. P. Dutton, Charles A. Clapp. Religious and mis-
cellaneous publications. 31 W. 23d St., New York.
EATON & MAINS. 150 5th Ave., New York.
ELDREDGE & BRO. Philadelphia.
ESTES & COMPANY, DANA. Founded 1898, suc-
cessors to publishing department of Estes & Lauriat.
Present members: Dana Estes, Frederick R. Estes,
Eugene C. Belcher, Francis H. Little. Subscription
editions of standard authors, juveniles, and miscel-
laneous. Titles, 400. 212 Summer St., Boston.
FENNO & CO., R. F. Corporation. Founded 1894; in-
corporated 1895. Officers: Robert F. Fenno, Desmond
FitzGerald. Fiction. 9–11 E. 16th St., New York.
FLANAGAN, A. Founded 1883. Teachers' helps,
etc. Titles, 175. 267-269 Wabash Ave., Chicago.
FOR BES & COMPANY. Founded 1898. Present
members: J. B. Edmonson, W. A. Gray. Books of
verse and miscellaneous. Titles, 7. Box 1478, Boston.
FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT. Corporation.
Founded 1867, J. B. Ford & Co.; incorporated 1877,
Fords, Howard, & Hulbert. Officers: J. R. Howard,
G. S. Hulbert, F. H. Bell. Miscellaneous publica-
tions. Titles, 99. 47 E. 10th St., New York.
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY. Corporation.
Founded 1876. Reference works and miscellaneous.
Titles, 1450. 30 Lafayette Place, New York.
FOWLER & WELLS CO. 27 E. 21st St., New York.
GEBBIE PUBLISHING CO., Ltd. 900 Chestnut
St., Philadelphia.
GINN & COMPANY. Founded 1867, Edwin Ginn;
1872, Ginn Brothers; 1876, Ginn & Heath; 1881,
Ginn, Heath & Co.; 1885, Ginn & Co. Educational
text-books. Titles, 1000. 9-13 Tremont Place, Boston.
GOUPIL & CO., Manzi, Joyant & Co., successors.
Established 1887, as American branch of Goupil &
Co., Paris. Resident manager, Albert Smith. Art
works in limited editions. 170 Fifth Ave., New York.
GROSSET & DUNLAP. 11 E. 16th St., New York.
HARDY, PRATT & CO. 3 Somerset St., Boston.
HARPER & BROTHERS. Corporation. Founded
1817, J. & J. Harper; 1833, Harper & Brothers;
incorporated 1896. Officers: G. B. M. Harvey,
John W. Harper, J. Henry Harper, Henry Sleeper
Harper, James Thorne Harper. Miscellaneous
publications. Titles,3000. Franklin Square, New York.
HARPER, FRANCIS P. Founded 1882. Present
members: Francis P. Harper, Lathrop C. Harper.
American exploration, genealogy, etc. Titles, 34.
14 W. 22d St., New York.
HEATH & CO., D. C. Corporation. Founded 1886;
incorporated 1895. Officers: D. C. Heath, C. H.
Ames, W. E. Pulsifer, W. S. Smyth. Educational
text-books. Titles, 864. 110 Boylston St., Boston.
HELMAN-TAYLOR COMPANY, THE. Corpora-
tion. Founded 1897, successors to Taylor-Austin
Co. Officers: Byron E. Helman, G. B. Rogers,
W. S. Lewis, W. J. Morgan. Miscellaneous publica-
tions. Titles, 21. 23-27 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, O.
HILL CO., GEO. M. 166 S. Clinton St., Chicago.
HINDS & NOBLE. 4 Cooper Institute, New York.
HOLMAN & CO., A.J. 1222 Arch St., Philadelphia.
HOLT & CO., HENRY. Founded 1866, Leypoldt &
Holt; 1871, Leypoldt, Holt & Williams; 1872, Holt
& Williams; 1873, Henry Holt & Co. Present
members: Henry Holt, Charles Holt. Educational
text-books, and miscellaneous. Titles, 1000. 29
W. 23d St., New York.
HOME PUBLISHING COMPANY, THE. Founded
1887. Present members: A. C. Gunter, E. L. Gun-
ter. Fiction exclusively. Titles, 53. 3 E. 14th
St., New York.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. Founded 1828,
Carter & Hendee; 1832, Allen & Ticknor; 1833,
W. D. Tickmor; 1851, Ticknor, Reed & Fields; 1854,
Ticknor & Fields; 1868, Fields, Osgood & Co.; 1871,
James R. Osgood & Co.; 1878, by consolidation with
Hurd & Houghton (successors in 1864 to firm of
Bolles & Houghton, founded 1849), Houghton,
Osgood & Co.; 1880, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pres-
ent members: George H. Mifflin, James Murray
Kay, L. H. Valentine, Henry O. Houghton, Oscar R.
Houghton, Albert F. Houghton. Standard works ingen-
eral literature, especially of American authors, and ed-
ucational text-books. Titles, 2000. 4 Park St., Boston.
HUMBOLDT LIBRARY, THE. Corporation. Found-
ed 1879; incorporated 1897. Treasurer and man-
ager, D. O'Loughlin. Scientific and economic pub-
lications. Titles, 286. 64 Fifth Ave., New York.
INLAND PUBLISHING COMPANY, THE. Cor-
poration. Founded 1895; incorporated 1896. Offi-
cers: Chas. F. Patterson, Isaac Craft. Educational
text-books. Titles, 26. Terre Haute, Ind.
JACOBS & CO., GEORGE W. Founded 1893. Pres-
ent members: George W. Jacobs, George C. Thomas,
Jr. Miscellaneous publications. Titles, 100. 103–105
S. 15th St., Philadelphia.
JENKINS, WILLIAM R. Founded 1875; conducted
since 1890 by Estate of Wm. R. Jenkins, J. Irvin


1900.]
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THE
Murray, Jr., manager. Educational text-books, vet-
erinary publications, and miscellaneous. Titles, 300.
851–853 Sixth Ave., New York.
JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMER-
ICA, THE. Corporation. Founded 1888; incor-
porated 1896. Publications on Jewish subjects.
Titles, 28. 1015 Arch St., Philadelphia.
JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS, THE. Founded 1879.
Scientific publications written or edited by members
of Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins
Hospital. Baltimore, Md.
KETCHAM, W. B. 9 W. 18th St., New York.
LAIRD & LEE. Founded 1887, by Fred C. Laird and
William H. Lee; 1894, Mr. Lee became sole pro-
prietor. Fiction, reference books, and miscellaneous.
Titles, 400. 263-265 Wabash Ave., Chicago.
LANE, JOHN. Established 1896, as American branch
of John Lane, London. Resident manager, Temple
Scott. Belles lettres, poetry, fiction, essays, and fine
art books. Titles, 500. 251 Fifth Ave., New York.
LEA BROTHERS & CO. 708 Sansom St., Philadel.
LEACH & CO., T. S. Founded 1899. Present mem-
bers: T. S. Leach, A. J. Ferris. Miscellaneous pub-
lications. Titles, 4, 29 N. 7th St., Philadelphia.
LEE & SHEPARD. Founded 1861, by William Lee
and C. A. B. Shepard, Mr. Shepard now deceased
and Mr. Lee retired. Juveniles and miscellaneous.
Titles, 1300. 202 Devonshire St., Boston.
LEMCKE & BUECHNER. Founded 1848, B. West-
ermann & Co.; 1896, Lemcke & Buechner (name
used for American trade only). Present members:
- E. Lemcke, O. Buechner, F. Koehler. Miscellaneous
publications. Titles, 85. 812 Broadway, New York.
LIFE PUBLISHING CO. 19 W. 31st St., New York.
LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, J. B. Corporation.
Founded 1798, Benjamin Johnson; 1819, Benjamin
Warner; 1821, Warner & Grigg; 1823, Grigg &
Elliott; 1847, Grigg, Elliott & Co.; 1849, Lippincott,
Grambo & Co.; 1855, J. B. Lippincott & Co.; incor-
porated 1885, J. B. Lippincott Company. Officers:
Craige Lippincott, J. Bertram Lippincott, Robert P.
Morton. Medical, scientific, and educational publi-
cations, and works of fiction and reference. Titles,
1954. 624 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. -
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Samuel Cabot; 1797, William T. and Samuel Blake;
1806, William Andrews; 1813, Cummings & Hill-
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Gray, & Co., the Co. being Charles C. Little; later,
Hilliard, Gray, Little, & Wilkins; 1837, Charles C.
Little & James Brown; 1847, Little, Brown, & Com-
pany. Present members: John M. Brown, Charles
W. Allen, Hulings C. Brown, James W. McIntyre.
Law books and miscellaneous. Titles, 1353. 254
Washington St., Boston.
LUPTON PUBLISHING COMPANY, THE F. M.
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don (founded 1725). Present members (of Amer-
ican firm): W. S. Green, T. N. Longman, C. J. Long-
man, H. H. Longman, G. H. Longman, C. J. Mills.
*Miscellaneous publications. Titles, 3250. 91–93
“Fifth Ave., New York.
LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY. Corpora-
tion. Founded 1850, D. Lothrop & Co.; incorpor-
ated 1894, Lothrop Publishing Co. Officers: Frank
M. Hoyt, Harry E. Morrell. Juveniles and miscel-
laneous. 530 Atlantic Ave., Boston.
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porated 1896, The Macmillan Company. Officers:
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publications. Titles, 4000. 66 5th Ave., New York.
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Co.; 1886, A. C. McClurg & Co.; incorporated 1899.
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MARLIER, CALLANAN & CO. Founded 1835,
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riam Company. Officers: Homer Merriam, O. M.
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law books. Springfield, Mass.
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866 THE
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BONNELL, SILVER & CO. • 373 JEWISH PUB, sociFTY OF AMERICA 367a SERGEL COMPANY, CHARLES H. 3.18
OUTON, J. W. . . . . . • * | LAird & Lee . . . . . . .308 SMALL, MAYNARD & CO. 305
BRANDT, ALBERT . . * | LANE. John. . . . 314 SPENCER, WALTER T. . . . . . . 373
RENTANO'S (Chicago). 878 ire & siterard . 369 | STOKES COMPANY, FREDERICK A. 374a
RENTANO'S (New York). • *70* | Lemcke & BUEchNER . . 370a | STONE & CO., HERBERT S. . . 37.3a
BROWN & CO . - - * | Lippincott company, J. B. . 307 | STUDEBAKER THEATRE . . . . . 375
CALLAGHAN & CO. . * | Little, brown, & co. . 302 SUSACUACWEAVING COMPANY . . 374
§ºr:#" - #. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. . . 372a | TAYLOR & CO., J. F. - ;
ce -- - - - - - - - TIMBY, H. H. . . . . . . . . . 37;
CHICAGO ELECTROTYPE COMPANY 374 º:& ** . ºnsurance company .
Chicago & Northwestern R. R. 375 || MARLIRR, º'co. ...s TRUScott BoAT company . 368a.
Chicago, MILwaukee&st P.R.R. 374 McCLURE, Phil LIPs - - UNION FENCE COMPANY . . . . 368q.
*Hººp TELEphone company . 374 | McCLURG & Co., A. C. . * * | UNITEDsocºy ChristN ENDEAv'R 367a
CLARKE company, Robert . 372, 374a | MERSHON COMPANY, THE . • 359a | van Nostrand company, D. . . 370a
CoATES & Co., HENRY T. . . . . .319 MORRIS, F. M. . . . . . . * wessels company, A. . . . 368
CROSCUP & STERLING COMPANY. 373 MOSHER, THOMAS B. . . * I wiley & sons, John 317
DEvoRE & SoN, A. A. . . . . . 374 | NELSON & SONS, THOMAS 318, 367 - -
DODD, MEAD & CO. . . . . 301 | NEw AMSTERDAM Book company 317 | WILSON, H.W., ; ; ; . . 36.2
podg; publishing company . . 373 || New TALMUD PUBLISHING CO. . .367a YoUNG & Co., B. & J. B. . 367


THE
DIAL
3 &tmi-ſāonthlg 3ournal of 3Littrarg Criticism, HBigtuggion, amb Information.
THE DIAL (founded in 1880) is published on the 1st and 16th of
each month. TERMs or Sunscauption, $2.00 a year in advance, postage
prepaid in the United States, Canada, and Merico; in other countries
comprised in the Postal Union, 50 cents a year for extra postage must
be added. Unless otherwise ordered, subscriptions will begin with the
current number. REMITTAxces should be by draft, or by express or
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for tubscriptions with other publications will be sent on application;
and SAMPLE Copy on receipt of 10 cents. AdvKRTISING RATEs furnished
on application. All communications should be addressed to
THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago.
No. 334. MAY 16, 1900. Vol. XXVIII.
CONTENTS.
THE STAR SYSTEM IN PUBLISHING . .
COMMUNICATIONS . . . . . . . . . 891
Chicago and London as View-points of Literature.
Walter Besant,
Honey or Winegar in Book Reviewing. W. R. K.
Death of a Japanese Scholar and Educator. Ernest
Pac-
. 389
W. Clement,
THE ABSORPTION OF LITERATURE. (Sonnet.)
F. L. Thompson . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
IN NORTHWESTERN HUNTING GROUNDS,
E. G. J. . . . . . . . . . . 393
THREE GREAT CHAMPIONS OF FREEDOM.
Francis Wayland Shepardson . 395
ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES AND MEN, Wallace
Rice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
THE CLIMAX OF MASPERO'S ORIENTAL HIS-
TORY. Ira M. Price
RECENT FICTION. William Morton Payne . . . 400
Castle's The Light of Scarthey...—Churchill's Sav-
rola.-Lee's The Gentleman Pensioner.—Mathew's
One Queen Triumphant.— Mrs. Blundell's Yeoman
Fleetwood.-Silberrad's The Enchanter.—Tolstoy's
Resurrection.—Sienkiewicz's The Knights of the
Cross.-Jokai's The Poor Plutocrats.-Jokai's Debts
of Honor.—Gras's The White Terror.—Galdos's
Saragossa.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS
A new book on the Old Northwest. — A Scottish
literary shadow. — Wild flowers and their insect
friends and foes.—A brief history of Austria.-Wal-
uable additions to Brook Farm literature.—An old-
fashioned commonplace book.-An old-time hero of
the U.S. Navy.— Practical agitation in public affairs.
- A Boer appeal to the United States.—Lamb and
Hazlitt.-Folk-lore and magic among the Malays.-
Child-life studies in many lands.-Indian songs and
musical notation.-Secrets of the sanctum.
BRIEFER MENTION . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
NOTES . . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - 409
LIST OF NEW BOOKS . . . . . . . . . . . 410
THE STAR SYSTEM IN PUBLISHING.
A few years ago complaint was made, in
accents more or less querulous, of the fact that
the books which had the largest sale and en-
joyed the widest popularity in this country were
novels by English writers. The American nov-
elist seemed to have no chance at all in the
competition with his transatlantic rival. One
of the chief arguments by which the campaign
for international copyright had been brought
to a successful issue was that the American
novelist occupied a disadvantageous position in
his own country, because publishers would nat-
urally give preference over his work to that of
the English novelist who was not in the position
to exact a royalty. The plea was a sound one,
and there is no doubt that for many years
American novelists, as well as American writ-
ers in other departments of letters, were put at
a considerable disadvantage by the fact that
publishers of predatory instincts (and such
were not lacking) might seize upon whatever
English books they wished, and reproduce
them without the leave of either authors or
proprietors. As between an already success-
ful English novel upon which no royalty need
be paid, and an American manuscript which
might or might not make a successful book and
for which the author would certainly demand
compensation, the balance of probable profit
turned toward the side of piracy, and the
American writer who had not already conquered
his public found it difficult to obtain a hearing.
At last, however, the law was passed which ac-
corded the bare measure of justice (or some-
thing less than that) to the English author,
and placed the American author in a position
to compete with him without being handicapped
from the start.
In some respects the working of the law
proved disappointing. The cheap “libraries,”
it is true, found their opportunities restricted,
and many of them disappeared altogether from
the market. But the anticipated “boom” in
American literature was slow in appearing.
English books that were worth reading, as well
as those that were not, seemed to find their way


390
[May 16,
THE I)IAL
into our houses almost as readily as before,
although it was no longer possible to purchase
the latest production of Mr. Black or Mr.
Hardy for a small fraction of a dollar. Such
books now came to us in respectable garb, and
were sold at a fair price. The point is that they
continued to come and to be sold in large num-
bers. Even our popular magazines continued
their practice of contracting for the serial rights
in works of English fiction, instead of offering
that encouragement to home industry about
which American novelists had raised such a
clamor. There continued to be years in which
nearly every one of our story magazines had
for its principal feature the novel of some
English writer, offered to readers upon the
instalment plan. There were the stories of
Mr. Kipling, for example, and the romances
of Robert Louis Stevenson, with which no
American writer of fiction could hope to com-
pete. Then there was the series of highly
successful individual books, beginning with
“Robert Elsmere” and coming down in rapid
succession to “Trilby’’ and “The Christian.”
The dear public wanted these books, even if it
had to pay roundly for them; and those who
had expected international copyright to effect
a revolution in popular taste found that condi-
tions remained very much as they had been
before. These selfish grounds were not, of
course, those upon which the serious advocates
of that act of plain international duty rested
their case, but they no doubt had considerable
influence in securing its adoption.
The conditions of a few years ago seem, how-
ever, to have become completely changed of
late, and American fiction seems at last to have
come to its own. The most striking fact in
the publishing business of the past year is that
of the extraordinary success of certain novels
by American writers. Five such novels have
won the public favor to such an extent that
their sale has broken nearly all recent records,
that to find its match, in the case of American
fiction at least, we must go back to the history
of “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” That this success
has been in all cases deserved, we are by no
means willing to admit. Of the five novels in
question, one is a homely character-study hav-
ing for its passport to favor a plentiful supply
of mother-wit rather than an effective plot.
The other four are historical romances. One
of these four, the work of a woman, deserves
very high praise as representing the best type
of historical fiction. Two of the others are at
least admirable narratives, and present inter-
esting phases of our colonial history with re-
markable sympathy, industrious grasp of detail,
and vivid dramatic force. The fourth is an
extremely mediocre example of the class of
work to which it belongs, common in both style
and treatment, not noticeably better or worse
than a score of other books of its sort published
during the twelvemonth, and chiefly interesting
as an illustration of what can be done for a
poor book by shrewd and persistent advertising.
On the whole, our cause for satisfaction in the
success of these five novels is not so great as
those who are interested in them would have
us believe, and the record of their sales is a
brilliant episode in the history of American
bookselling rather than in the history of Amer-
ican literature.
Whether the publishing trade is really to be
congratulated upon such a series of popular
successes as this, is open to serious doubt. In
one case, at least, the profits accruing from a
sale of hundreds of thousands of copies could
not avail to save a great and long-established
house from serious business embarrassments.
Such enormous sales of single books, of which
the merit, even if great, is not likely to be
fairly proportional to the sales, does not seem
to us to betoken an altogether healthy condi-
tion of the publishing trade. Publishers them-
selves know well enough that their success in
the long run depends, not upon the fortunate
acquisition of an occasional book that enjoys a
sky-rocket career, but upon the possession of a
substantial list of works of permanent value,
works that occupy a standard place in litera-
ture and may be depended upon to provide a
steady income for many years. The publisher
who has a list of this sort is, of course, glad
enough to get hold of an exceptionally success-
ful novel from time to time; such a book rep-
resents to him so much clear gain, and he would
not be human did he fail to keep an intelligent
watch for productions of this sort. But if he
allows his head to be turned by visions of this
kind of luck, if he despises the more modest
but safer ventures, if he bends his energies to-
ward achieving an abnormal sale for a few books
instead of a normal sale for many, he is likely
to come to grief. His real interests lie in the
possession of many claims to public esteem
rather than in the making of a few successful
appeals to popular caprice.
It seems to us that there is an evident anal-
ogy between the ideal of publishing that aims
to push a few books into successful acceptance
and the ideal of theatrical or operatic manage-


1900.] THE TOIAL 891
ment which depends almost exclusively upon
the popularity of a few artists. The star sys- comMUNICATIONS.
tem in stage affairs has long been understood | CHICAGO AND LONDON AS VIEW-POINTS OF
LITERATURE.
by all competent observers as being extremely
demoralizing to the true interests of art. The
recent history of our grand opera has brought
this principle home to many who had not real-
ized it before. A few singers and a few operas
become established in public favor, and the
short-sighted policy of the management, relying
upon this fact, gathers for the time a rich har-
vest. But presently the public wearies of its
favorites, and, never having been educated to
the point of healthy musical culture which can
find interest and inspiration in a great variety
of works, never having been made to feel that
the works themselves and not the manner of
their performance should be its chief concern,
now deserts the opera-house, in spite of all the
allurements of new voices and new productions.
The management then complains that audiences
have no taste for a varied repertoire, that the
production of untried compositions spells finan-
cial disaster. Of course it does: the public
should have been prepared for these composi-
tions long before; they should have been pro-
duced repeatedly, even at some temporary loss,
at the time when the public was most clamor-
ous for the sensations of the hour. The star
system in publishing brings about very similar
results. Many worthy books are neglected in
order that a few may be kept well to the front.
When the caprice is past, when the serried
ranks of worn copies of “Trilby’” gather dust
upon the shelves of the public library, when
the unsold copies in the hands of the publisher
and bookseller become “plugs,” the publisher
should then know better than to complain be.
cause his other books do not sell. The fact
often is that he has not tried to sell them, that
he has left them unadvertised and uncared-for,
that they have now lost their chance because
his “enterprise” has seen fit to promote the
sale of a few books at the expense of all the
rest. The well-advised publisher, in our opin-
ion, is the one who recognizes the evils of the
star system, and is not misled by its promise
of present temporary gain. He is the publisher
who secures for his list as many books of last-
ing value as he can. And he is the publisher
who cares for the interest of all of his books,
because he understands that the permanent suc-
cess of his business depends upon the accept-
ability of his total output rather than upon the
vogue of a few books taken here and there
from his catalogue.
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
On the twentieth birthday of THE DIAL, may I, as a
Transatlantic reader, be permitted to offer my humble
congratulations on the successful conduct of the paper
for so many years, and my best wishes for a future as
honorable as its past?
THE DIAL, to one who lives on this side of the
water, has a twofold interest and importance. It keeps
him acquainted with the course and current of Amer-
ican literature, and with the opinions and thoughts of
those who lead the country. It also enables him to
understand how current English literature is regarded
by the American critic. This is still more important
when the judgment of the critic is influenced, as some-
times happens, by a difference in the point of view—a
difference which the Englishman sometimes finds it
hard to understand. The American point of view, in
literature as in politics, must be apprehended, and it is
too little understood. Perhaps the same thing might
be said on the other side.
The criticism of THE DIAL on our own writers should
be, above all, valuable to ourselves as being absolutely
free from personal considerations. There is no suspicion
in its columns of log-rolling, of private friendships, of
private animosities, such as disfigure too much of our
criticism upon ourselves.
THE DIAL, again, illustrates the very important fact
that “ local” or “national” literature is one thing, and
that “English” or “Anglo-Saxon” literature is another.
In other words, the paper enables us to realize that
there exist, side by side, two distinct literatures: that
of America and that of Great Britain. Practically,
each is sufficient for its own people; each contains all
that is wanted in art, science, philosophy, history, divin-
ity, and every other branch. But there is also a liter-
ature which belongs to the whole of the English-speaking
race—I call it “English” or “Anglo-Saxon” on ac-
count of the language, but I would rather call it Anglo-
Celtic on account of the two races which most pro-
foundly influence this literature. It is the supreme
prize of the modern writer—a prize rarely achieved
— to speak to the whole of the English-speaking peo-
ples, whether of America, the United Kingdom, Aus-
tralia, New Zealand, or India. Never before in the
history of the world has a writer had such a possible
audience; never before has his possible influence been
so deep, so wide, so far-reaching.
May we not consider it an inestimable advantage that
this part—the nobler part—of our literature should be
drawn from two sources so widely apart, as regards
that point of view, as Chicago and London 2
WALTER BESANT.
Hampstead, London, May 1, 1900.
HONEY OR VINEGAR IN BOOK REVIEWS.
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
An old-fashioned acquaintance of mine complains
that reading a modern Review leaves him with an un-
pleasant sensation as of having dined wholly off honey.
The book-reviewer of to-day is altogether too lenient,
too considerate, too apologetic, too blandly deferential
a creature to suit this reader's robust taste. He laments
the decay of that fine old spirit of ferocity which ani-


392 THE DIAL
[May 16,
mated criticism in the palmy days when Jeffrey and his
merry men used to fling themselves on an aspiring
“Laker” or “Cockney” with the joy of an Iroquois
scalping his victim, and the fluency in insult of the late
Mr. Brann. The most readable thing in the world, he
thinks, is a merciless “roast” of a new book — some-
thing in the way of Macaulay's flagellations of Croker
and Robert Montgomery. Holding these opinions, this
charitable soul was naturally much gratified the other
day when a well-known critic proclaimed in print the
present crying need of a Review conducted on the old
savage Edinburgh lines. The article in which this
opinion is aired smells, it is fair to say, suspiciously of
paradox. But, at all events, what the writer of it ap-
pears to think is wanted in these degenerate days of
critical urbanity and super-abundant human kindness is
a Review whose amiable specialty it shall be to damn
and disparage, to thwart the “booms” of publishers, to
clip the wings of aspiring young authors, to knock new-
born reputations promptly on the head, and, in fine, to
play in the world of current letters a part not unlike
that played in politics by Marat's L'Ami du Peuple.
Now I, for one, should be very sorry to see a recru-
descence in criticism of the spirit of “Maga,” which
was so largely a spirit of malice, not to say black-
guardism, exercised by a parcel of spiteful scribblers
against better men than themselves. An ill-natured
reviewer who takes pleasure in saying things likely to
wound the feelings and cloud the prospects of his author,
seems to me about as respectable a person as the scamp
who strews tacks on a cycle path. But deprecating
a return to the old gall-and-wormwood style of criti-
cism does not estop one from regretting a tendency in
the modern Review to eschew fault-finding altogether
and become a mere honey-pot. It can hardly be denied,
I think, that the criticism of the modern reviewer is
mostly of a sort that does more credit to his heart than
his head. His eagerness to praise constantly impels
him to over-praise — to lavish upon mediocrity terms
that should be reserved for genius. I have often
thought that the sanguine American lady who was
gently taken to task by Matthew Arnold for asserting
that excellence is “common and abundant” must have
been a great reader of Reviews. The habit would easily
account for her cheerful delusion.
Perhaps, after all, a slight infusion into the honeyed
sweetness of the new Review of the spice and vinegar of
the old might not be unsalutary. W. R. K.
Pittsfield, Mass., May 10, 1900.
DEATH OF A JAPANESE SCHOLAR AND
EDUCATOR.
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
The recent death of Dr. Toyama, President of the
Imperial University at Tokyo, is an event worthy of
being chronicled in an American journal in view of his
residence and education in the United States, as well as
by reason of his distinguished position in literature,
education, and public life in Japan. His study of En-
glish, in which he later became so proficient, was begun
at the early age of thirteen in his native land. He
studied abroad twice: first in the sixties, when he was
sent to London, and was the first, and at that time the
only, Japanese student in that great metropolis; and
second, in the seventies, when he pursued courses of
study in Ann Arbor (Mich.) High School, graduating
later from the University of Michigan. Returning
to Japan, he entered upon a long service in the Imperial
University, Tokyo, of which he finally became President.
In 1898 he served as Minister of Education for a few
months in Marquis Ito's short-lived Cabinet; and he
was also a prominent member of the House of Peers,
where he was known as a forcible and brilliant debater.
It is, however, to his literary work that most general
interest attaches. He is said by a leading Japanese
journal to deserve very great credit for being “the first
to recognize the advantages which the Japanese poet
might derive from a study of European models”; and,
in collaboration with others, he developed the Shin-
taishisho, or “Poetry of New Form,” which is properly
said to mark “an epoch in the history of poetry in
Japan.” This new style of poetry ignores the old short
suggestive odes, and seeks to adapt the long poem to
modern conditions. Dr. Toyama himself brought out
a poem on the great earthquake of 1885, “which has
not only great merit in itself, but occupies a unique
position in Japanese literature.” This new school of
poetry manifested its aspirations not only in original
poems, but in translations from English verse. The
latter include “The Mariners of England,” “Charge of
the Light Brigade,” Gray’s “Elegy,” Longfellow's
“Psalm of Life,” and four extracts from Shakespeare.
Mr. Aston, in his “History of Japanese Literature,”
thus characterizes the style of this new school: “Toyama
and his colleagues, finding the ancient classical lan-
guage unequal to the expression of the new ideas
. and largely unintelligible to a modern public,
rankly adopted the ordinary written language of the day,
which had hitherto been only used for popular poetry of
the humblest pretensions. In their choice of themes, in the
length of their poems, and in the general tone of thought,
the influence of European models is plainly traceable.”
Regarding the unification of the written and spoken
languages of Japan — a measure so important to the
future of that country – a recent number of that influ-
ential newspaper, the “Japan Mail,” says: “It is really
preposterous that a country should have two languages,
one for writing and the other for speaking. The ques-
tion bears incidentally on the position of women in
Japan, for since the language used by men when dis-
cussing any subject outside the daily routine approxi-
mates to that of books and newspapers, it cannot be
understood by a woman unless she has received an ex-
traordinary education, and the result is that intellectual
intercourse between the sexes becomes impossible.”
The influence of Dr. Toyama on this and other measures
of vital moment to Japanese progress and culture renders
his loss a conspicuous one. ERNEst W. CLEMENT.
Tokyo, April 15, 1900,
THE ABSORPTION OF LITERATURE.
Great Master, whom disciples greet with awe,
Throughout the toiling day your art is schooled
To urge that man may govern life with law,
And philosophic empires may be ruled:
At dusk your eyes are strenuous no more;
Then unafraid I come; most lovingly
I lay my head upon your arm; therefore,
Knowing right well how clearly I shall see,
Yearnings you picture far more precious, deep
As fill the state foreknown of youth when led
To gather First and Last within its sweep
And with transcendence sweeten death's dear dread.
This proud faith then my happiness assures:
Till death your thoughts are mine, and mine are yours.
F. L. THOMPSON.


1900.] THE
DIAL 393
Čbe Hºtu jocks.
IN NORTHWESTERN HUNTING GROUNDS.*
A book from the pen of that keen Nimrod,
mountaineer, sportsman-naturalist, and very
agreeable writer, Mr. W. A. Baillie-Grohman,
is always sure of a welcome as broad as the
section of the reading public its genre appeals
to. We are not ourselves, we admit, thor-
oughly in sympathy with the instinct which
impels men like Mr. Grohman and our stren-
uous Colonel Roosevelt to devote their allot-
ment of leisure largely to hunting down and
slaying the “native burghers” of forest and
plain. But there is this to be said for Mr.
Grohman and his kind: that he is no less de-
voted to the preservation than the killing of
big game (paradoxical as it may seem), and
that if we are to have any big game at all
in this country worth mentioning twenty-five
years hence it will be largely due to the efforts
of the “gentleman sportsman” to prevent its
extinction at the hands of the game-butcher,
through game laws scientifically framed and
properly enforced. Mr. Grohman has some
wise words to say on this slighted theme of
American game preservation which we com-
mend to the special attention of those inter-
ested.
Mr. Grohman's latest production, “Fifteen
Years' Sport and Life in Western America
and British Columbia,” is of rather miscella-
neous content, embracing matter of interest not
only to the amateur of wild life and the chase
generally, but also to those in quest of practical
information from an original source as to the
conditions and outlook that confront the pio-
neering settler or the investor in the raw North-
west—Mr. Grohman's knowledge in this order
being derived from some stirring and pictur-
esque, if not wholly satisfactory, experiences
in the eighties as a land concessionnaire in the
then virgin Kootenay region of British Colum-
bia. The account of the author's pioneering
in Kootenay occupies about a quarter of the
volume, and forms a lively and rather instruct-
ive off-hand picture of frontier life, well
seasoned with stories stirring or humorous, of
which Mr. Grohman has an unfailing stock.
To this section of the volume Mrs. Grohman
*FIFTEEN YEARs' Sport AND LIFE in the Hunting Grounds
of Western America and British Columbia. By W. A.
Baillie-Grohman; with a chapter by Mrs. Baillie-Grohman.
Illustrated. New York: Imported by Charles Scribner's Sons.
adds her mite in the shape of an amusing
chapter on Chinese servants. Certain views
of one of these pig-tailed domestics, devel-
oped in the course of discussions with “Missus
Gloman" on questions more difficult even
than those of frontier housekeeping, are worth
quoting.
“Why [said the author] do you take chickens and
wine and cakes to the graves of your uncles, and then
bring them back to Chinatown and eat them yourself?
You must know, as you eat them yourself, the things
can be of no good to your dead relations.” “You see,’
replied he quickly, taking up a cup, and holding it in
front of a lamp so that a sharp shadow was thrown on
the white tablecloth. “You see that,’ pointing to the
shadow, “dead men all the same that, he eat all the
same that (shadow) of food and wine, I this,' flicking
the cup with his finger; “if I no get all the same this,
me die pretty soon quick.' . . . “Pull down the other
blind, the sun is coming in.” “This morning I pull down
one blind, sun look in that window, now he look in this
window, bye and bye he look in another window, and
then white man say sun he no walkee; he walkee all the
time; white man heap liar.’”
Mr. Grohman's opening chapters are in his
more familiar vein, and treat for the most part
of sporting lore and adventure pure and sim-
ple, under such captions as Travelling in the
Western Hunting Grounds; the Slaughter of
Big Game and the Game Laws of America;
the Wapiti, its Antlers and its Chase (with
illustrations taken from the now rare catalogue
of the great American Trophy Show of 1887);
the Antelope Goat of Pacific Slope Mountains;
the Moose, Caribou, and Deer of the Pacific
Slope; the Bears and the Bison of North
America; the Salmon of the Pacific Coast. A
special chapter is devoted to a quasi-scientific
discussion of the seal and other fur-bearing
animals of the Pacific Coast, and of the inter-
national difficulties that have from time to
time grown out of the pelt-hunting industry on
the northwest coast. As to the Alaskan pur-
chase, Mr. Grohman observes:
“The million and a half sterling paid for Alaska in
1867 secured to the United States the last remaining
retreat of the pelt-bearing ferae naturae on the globe.
To pay for a territory nine times the size of England
and Wales what we would expend upon two first-class
inonclads, was not a bad bargain. A fraction less than
a penny per acre permits a good many of them to con-
sist of barren rocks or swamps, without making it a
losing transaction. And when we hear that on two of
its tiny islands, sixty square miles in extent—the famous
Prybiloffs—Nature has created and is maintaining a
unique mine of untold wealth, that has already more
than repaid the Government dollar for dollar the mil-
lions paid to Russia, the true character of astute Brother
Jonathan's last “Conquest by the Almighty Dollar'
begins to dawn upon one. If we add the further tri-
fling detail that on another tiny isle there is a gold mine


394 THE DIATL [May 16,
that has already produced more gold than the whole
country cost, our admiration for America's commercial
wisdom is only increased. . . . What a profitable
investment the purchase of Alaska has proved to be
for the United States is shown by the fact that in the
twenty-one years (1870–90) the rent and taxes of the
Prybiloffs amounted to £1,250,000 and the duties on
the returning dressed skins” (almost the entire Pry-
biloff catch goes to England for dressing, and about
half of it returns to this country and is heavily taxed
on entry), “amounting to over one million sterling,
brought the total up to £2,250,000. Verily a famous
purchase!”
After giving an interesting sketch of the
history of the pelt-hunting industry in Alaska,
including a description of the Prybiloff rook-
eries (one is tempted to ask, with David Cop-
perfield's aunt, “Why rookery 2”) during the
breeding season, Mr. Grohman goes on to de-
scribe and discuss pelagic sealing, and to give
his opinion touching certain vexed questions
which the industry has given rise to. That
pelagic or open-sea sealing is, as American
authorities contend, infinitely more wasteful
than the leisurely abattoir-like methods of
killing pursued at the rookeries, where only
animals of suitable age and sex are taken, he
has no manner of doubt; and the facts he ad-
duces certainly seem more than sufficient to
bear out his conclusion. The waste of pelagic
sealing is the necessary result of haste, of poor
marksmanship *(a large percentage of wounded
animals escaping capture to die a lingering
death later on), and of conditions that prevent
deliberate and accurate selection of victims—
many breeding females being uselessly and
wastefully slaughtered. To the plea that
defends pelagic sealing as being the more
“sportsman-like " method, Mr. Grohman re-
plies with a sportsman's indignation and a rea-
sonable man's disdain:
“One plea advanced by those blindly favoring the
British case, which otherwise is such a prečminently
sound and just one, is particularly unfortunate. When
condemning the land killing as conducted on the rook-
eries as “rank butchery,’ as “a revolting destruction of
animal life,” “as cruel as it is unsportsmanlike,” “slaugh-
ter of animals without giving them a chance for their
lives,' etc., one can only shake one's head in indignation
at such unreasonable special pleading. Even some of
those voicing their authoritative opinions in the Blue
Book pander, one regrets to see, to this inhuman plead-
ing. Par. 610 says: “The accusation of butchery laid
against those who take the seals on shore cannot be
brought against this pelagic method of killing the seal,
which is really hunting” (save the mark!) “as distin-
guished from slaughter, and in which the animal has
what may be described as a fair sporting chance for its
*An entry in the log-book of the sealer “Angel Dolly.”
reads: “Issued to-day to my boats 300 rounds of ammuni-
tion; all expended, and got one sealskin.”
life.” Was ever more mischievous nonsense written?
Does it not stand to reason that the method which
eliminates all chances of (1) a lingering death from
wounds, (2) that spares all females, (3) that prevents all
avoidable waste of life, (4) that kills in a merciful way
only those animals that are best suited for the uses to
which their pelt is put and that can best be spared in
the economy of seal life, is a better and more humane
method than one which fails to regard any one of these
important considerations? One might just as well
argue that, instead of putting our cattle to a speedy
and painless death, we should turn them loose in a
deep lake and shoot them or wound them from un-
steady boats, letting those that are not killed instantly
die a slow death and sink out of sight. There is no
more reason for depriving a steer of a “fair sporting
chance for its life’ than a bachelor seal when its skin is
at its best.”
The preservation of the fur seal is, Mr.
Grohman thinks, more feasible than that of
any other wild animal.
“With a birth-rate of about 143,000, as estimated
by the most recent and entirely trustworthy examina-
tion by Professors D'Arcy Thompson for the British
and Starr Jordan for the United States Government, it
is surely possible to insure the perpetuation of the race;
while £100,000 would, it is said, amply indemnify the
Canadians for completely ceasing pelagic sealing.”
It will be gratifying to sportsmen to know
that so high an authority as Mr. Grohman does
not at all agree with those writers who reach
the mournful conclusion that American hunt-
ing grounds are, in respect of big game, virtu-
ally “shot out.” Prince Wied, writing sixty-
five years ago, deplored the disappearance of
bighorn and wapiti, while a more recent visitor,
Lord Dunraven (he of “concealed ballast”
memory, we suppose) writes: “An English-
man going to the States or to British American
territory for big game shooting, and for noth-
ing else, is sure nowadays to be disappointed.”
Says Mr. Grohman:
“Both were right so far as the country they passed
through was concerned, both were wrong in their gener-
alizations. There are even to-day countries, the size of
small kingdoms, in British North America into which
no hunting party ever penetrated, and where the frying-
pan's capacity of a few prospectors has, so far, meas-
ured the destruction of game; countries where moose,
caribou, and antelope-goat are still unfamiliar with the
sight of white-skinned human beings. . . . I enjoyed
unrivalled sport in years subsequent to the period when
the author of the “Great Divide’ expressed such a
pessimistic view, and that concerning localities not a
hundred miles west of the country through which he
passed.”
Mr. Grohman shows much appreciation of
the humor, as well as the humors, of the Far
West, especially of the “tall stories” charac-
teristic of that land where, proverbially, “talk
is cheap and lies are worth nothing.” One of
the “tallest” of the stories, taken from a


1900.]
395
THE DIAT,
Western newspaper, may be subjoined as a
close to our quotations.
“A wonderful fish is becoming numerous in Goose
Lake. It is called by some the “greenback’ fish, for it
is certainly an inflationist. It has the power to fill itself
with air until it becomes very much like a round ball.
Of evenings about sundown they may be seen playing
on the surface of the water. They will swell up by
taking in the air, and the wind will blow them over the
lake. They reflect all the colors of the rainbow, and
when sporting over the lake are a grand sight. A
hunter several weeks ago saw a crane swallow one of
these fish when in its normal condition, but before the
crane had got fifty feet above the lake the fish had
taken in enough air to explode the crane, which, at the
sound of a report like that of a gun, flew all to atoms,
and the fish came lightly down on the water, no worse
off for the short ride in the air. The fish is a great
curiosity, never having been found, I believe, in other
waters.”
What a fine item that would have made for
Doctor Goldsmith !”
Mr. Grohman qualifies the title of his book
by stating in the preface that he did not live
for fifteen consecutive years on the Pacific
Slope. He spent the greater part of each of
fifteen years there, his first four or five visits
being devoted exclusively to big game shooting.
The natural grandeur and ample promise of
the magnificent domain to the west of the
Rockies are glowingly and picturesquely de-
scribed, for, it is fair to say, Mr. Grohman
views nature with the eye of a lover and an
artist, and not merely with that of a hunter,
and as an arena for the sportsman. In point
of literary quality this latest production of Mr.
Grohman's is hardly up to the level of one or
two of its predecessors, the delightful “Sport
of the Alps” for example; but in spite of its
occasional lapses of style it is in the main
crisply and pleasantly written, and is packed
with information on points as to which the
author is a recognized authority. The book is
handsomely made and copiously illustrated.
The frontispiece, a fine photo-process plate,
shows the author seated contemplatively in his
study at Schloss-Matzen, surrounded by tro-
phies of his gun, notably the superb wapiti head
familiar to readers of English and Continental
illustrated sporting journals. While this noble
head is doubtless a source of much pride to
Mr. Grohman, it should also, we should say,
form something of a thorn in his conscience.
E. G. J.
*"In his ‘Animated Nature’ he relates with faith and per-
fect gravity all the most absurd lies which he could find in
books of travels about gigantic Patagonians, monkeys that
preach sermons, nightingales that repeat long conversations.
“If he can tell a horse from a cow,” said Johnson, “that is the
extent of his knowledge of zoölogy.’”–Macaulay.
THREE GREAT CHAMPIONS OF
FREEDOM.”
With the publication of the three volumes
telling of the lives of Chase, Sumner, and
Adams, the collection of short biographies
called the “American Statesmen Series” is
complete. A carefully prepared index-volume
is promised, which will make the thirty-one
distinct books a connected whole, and will
vastly enhance their value to the student of
American history, who has already learned to
esteem them of much importance in a consid-
eration of the varied political problems which
have attended the development of the United
States.
The three men studied in the volumes now
at hand have many traits in common. Each
was an individual of marked personality, firm
in conviction and fearless in action. Each one,
despite many reasons which might have per-
suaded to the contrary decision, broke away
from old political associations and joined the
forces of the “Conscience ’’ voters of the North,
when the slavery question was the burning one
of the day. And when the “irrepressible con-
flict” finally came, each one contributed a most
important part to the history of his country.
The place of Mr. Chase is fairly shown by
Professor Hart in these words:
“At first an obscure member of a little group of
anti-slavery politicians, he came to something like
headship of that party in the campaign of 1848. He
was the first efficient anti-slavery senator, and in his
management of the opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska
Bill showed great qualities as a parliamentary leader.
He came forward as secretary of the treasury in the
midst of chaos, and made suggestions and developed
financial ideas which may have been imperfect, but
which were so clear and definite that Congress was com-
pelled to adopt most of them. Almost single-handed,
he began the attack upon the sixteen hundred state
banks, which were the entrenched fortresses of a vicious
sytem, and compelled both bankers and congressmen to
accept a better scheme. More than any other man, he
seized upon the conditions of the Civil War as leading
straight to the legal and political freedom of the negro,
and to him more than to anyone else is due that system
of negro suffrage which he advocated, not because he
thought it was ideal, but because he saw no half-way
place in giving to the negro his long-usurped rights.
In his latest years he well used his opportunity to
stand for the principle of limited powers, as against
the conception of a sovereign legislature, both in the
State and in the Union.”
The quotation indicates the importance of
the part played by Mr. Chase, and also shows
*SALMon P. CHAs E, by Albert Bushnell Hart. CHARLEs
FRANCIs ADAMs, by Charles Francis Adams. CHARLEs
SUMNER, by Moorfield Storey. (American Statesmen Series.)
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.


896
[May 16,
THE DIAL
the three well-defined periods of his life: that
of the leadership of anti-slavery forces in the
West, that of the secretaryship of the Treas-
ury, and that of the judgeship. Mr. Hart has
followed these lines of division, half the volume
being taken with the first period up to the time
of Mr. Lincoln's election. The situation in the
Middle West is shown to have been a very
interesting one, and the forces at work, espe-
cially in Ohio, were many, all tending strongly
to influence a man of Mr. Chase's personality
to join hands with the friends of the slave.
The chapters devoted to cabinet membership,
including the straining of relations with the
President, and to the problems of Reconstruc-
tion as they came before the Supreme Court,
are full of important suggestions; but the early
parts of the narration perhaps deserve more
notice, because they deal with less familiar
themes. The faults of Mr. Chase are clearly
set forth, notably those which cropped out in
connection with his hopes for the presidency.
The illumination of history through biography
has been Mr. Hart's evident purpose, rather
than the setting forth of personal details, which
might have made the volume easier reading,
but at the sacrifice of a prevailing method of
historical writing.
By far the most interesting narrative of the
three under consideration is that concerning
Charles Francis Adams. It does not cover so
large a period as that of the other two states-
men, Chase and Sumner. One paragraph sums
up this period thus:
“The active public life of Mr. Adams practically
ended, as he had surmised it might, with the Geneva
arbitration. It had extended over just thirteen years.
It covered the whole period of the Civil War, including
the process of Reconstruction; and he was, in all re-
spects, singularly happy in the share of the work allotted
to him. It was important; it was work for which he
was by nature peculiarly adapted; it was done amid
congenial surroundings; it was complete; and it was
successful. A public man could ask for nothing more.
The contentions in which he was engaged were of sur-
passing magnitude, and involved momentous conse-
quences; they extended through a long period of time;
they were carried on wholly with foreign nations; and
in their conduct he came in collision with some of the
foremost of European public men. Yet his success was
as final as it was complete and unquestioned. When
he landed in New York on November 13, 1872, he had
a right to exclaim, as he did, ‘Io Triumphe l’ for every
issue between Great Britain and the United States
growing out of the great Civil War was either definitely
settled, or was in course of early settlement. His work
was done; and done thoroughly.”
The issues with whose discussion Mr. Adams
was intimately associated were those connected
with the treatment accorded to Confederate
representatives in England, the Trent Affair,
General Butler's famous Order at New Orleans,
the Cotton Famine, the question of recognition
of the Confederacy, the Emancipation Pro-
clamation, the Alabama case and the Laird
Rams, and the Geneva Award; some attention
being paid also to the attitude of France toward
the diplomatic questions of the day. It is ex-
tremely interesting and suggestive to look at
these matters from the point of view of one
who was in a foreign country at the time,
charged with the welfare of his native land,
and yet having for his guidance neither a clear
knowledge of affairs at home, nor a definite
understanding of the workings of the mind of
the Secretary of State. Oftentimes, in the ab-
sence of information, the ambassador of the
United States had to grope blindly. It was
very fortunate for the country that Mr. Adams
was a man of prudence and good sense, else
some rash step might have precipitated the
trouble which above all it was his particular
duty at that time to prevent. The slowness of
means of communication very probably saved
the Union from serious difficulty with England;
and no one can read this short story of Mr.
Adams's experience during the Civil War with-
out understanding the great change which has
necessarily come over diplomacy since the lay-
ing of the Atlantic cable and the introduction
of other improvements in the methods of speedy
communication. The corrective value of the
account of the work of Mr. Adams in connec-
tion with an examination of Mr. Seward's
career as Secretary of State will be readily
appreciated by the reader of this little book;
and all will wish for a speedy publication of the
promised larger work, which is to include the
various letters and papers of Mr. Adams. In
a study of father by son, especially of an Adams
by an Adams, a tendency to overestimation
might be expected; but such a charge cannot
lie against this book. The treatment is candid
and fair, and the general impression made upon
the reader is that this will rank among the best
of the monographs contained in the “American
Statesmen Series.” If there was to be criticism
of the style employed, it might attach to the
constant use of illustrations from card-playing,
which are so numerous as to be almost offensive.
Two brief paragraphs from the life of Charles
Sumner will indicate the ideas of the author
regarding the place of the third of the three
friends of freedom.
“Charles Sumner was a great man in his absolute
fidelity to principle, his clear perception of what his


1900.]
397
THE DIAL
country needed, his unflinching courage, his perfect
sincerity, his persistent devotion to duty, his indiffer-
ence to selfish considerations, his high scorn of anything
petty or mean. He was essentially simple to the end,
brave, kind, and pure. In his prime he was a very elo-
quent speaker, and his unbending adherence to the
highest morality gave him insight and power in dealing
with great questions and a strong hold upon the moral
forces of the country. . . . From the time he entered
public life till he died, he was a strong force constantly
working for righteousness. He had absolute faith in
the principles of free government as laid down in the
Declaration of Independence, and he gave his life to
secure their practical recognition. They were not to
him glittering generalities, but ultimate, practical
truths, and in this faith Lincoln and Sumner were one.
To Sumner more than to any single man, except pos-
sibly Lincoln, the colored race owes its emancipation
and such measure of equal rights as it now enjoys. To
Sumner more than to any single man the whole country
owes the prevention of war with England and France
when such a war would have meant the disruption of
the Union.”
Mr. Sumner entered the Senate in 1851,
and soon indicated very clearly the position he
was to take in the impending crisis. His illness
as a result of the Brooks assault took him
abroad, and the great part of his life-work was
done after he returned to his seat in the Senate
in December, 1859. Mr. Storey claims for
him an influence in connection with the Trent
affair which is not recognized at all by Mr.
Adams, and, indeed, taking these three books
together, one finds a number of cases where
the relative claims of Chase and Sumner, or
Sumner and Adams, seem to overlap, and to
need sifting by comparative study. But the
efforts in behalf of the negro do not need denial
or limitation. What Mr. Sumner accomplished
may be indicated by quotation from his letter
to the Duchess of Argyle, dated July 4, 1864.
“Congress will disperse to-day, having done several
good things: (1) all fugitive slave acts have been re-
pealed; (2) all acts sustaining the traffic in slaves on
the coast from one domestic port to another have been
repealed, so that now there is no support of slavery in
our statute-book; (3) the railroads here in Washington
have been required to admit colored persons into their
carriages; (4) greatest of all in practical importance,
the rule of evidence excluding colored testimony in the
United States courts has been abolished. All these
measures are now the law of the land. They were all
introduced and pressed by myself.”
Mr. Sumner took many positions, in his later
life, which angered his former friends and led
to estrangements from those with whom he
had often worked in harmony. It is possible
that Mr. Storey has unduly emphasized the
importance of his hero in these connections.
But the many intricate and perplexing prob-
lems of Reconstruction days are discussed with
sustained interest, so that this volume will be
used frequently by students who desire to get
information and suggestion about them.
In fine, here are three studies of three
great Americans who had much to do with
making the history of their country in a time
of grave national peril. The volumes meet a
positive want. There have been biographies
of Chase and Sumner, but they were written
some time ago, and were without that fine dis-
crimination which is marked in these books,
which are written according to later historical
methods, and will be respected because in them
mere eulogy gives place to sober and thought-
ful consideration of great national problems
reflected in the lives of a nation's great men.
FRANCIS WAYLAND SHEPARDSON.
ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES AND MEN.”
To the American, still floating in a hetero-
geneous and various national life devoid of
great centres of interest and incapable of habit-
ual concert of action with many of his fellows,
the compactness and solidarity of the national
life of England is a constant wonder. An aris-
tocratic government conspires with geograph-
ical conditions to make this possible, with con-
comitant age and settled institutions; but the
surprise with which the American realizes the
almost literal truth that everyone in England
worth knowing knows everyone else worth
knowing, is never ceasing, and not without a
tinge of envy.
Such books as these under consideration
show how great a part the two ancient English
universities play in this unification of men and
ideas. Mr. J. Willis Clark, registrary of the
University of Cambridge, in a series of brief
biographies commemorates ten men of his uni-
versity with a complete understanding of and
sympathy with their lives and aims which is in
itself proof of the intimacy referred to. These
articles include accounts of William Whewell,
master of Trinity; Connop Thirlwall, bishop
of St. David’s ; Richard Monckton Milnes
(Lord Houghton); Edward Henry Palmer,
professor of Arabic in Cambridge, most cruelly
murdered in the Arabian desert by Bedouins;
Francis Maitland Balfour, first professor of
animal morphology at Cambridge, lost in an
*OLD FRIENDS AT CAMBRIDGE AND ELSEwBERE. By
J. Willis Clark, M.A. New York: The Macmillan Co.
Five GREAT OxFord LEADERs. By the Rev. Aug. B.
Donaldson, M.A. New York: The Macmillan Co.
PAssages IN A WANDERING LIFE. By Thomas Arnold,
M.A. London: Edward Arnold.


898 THE DIAL
[May 16,
Alpine accident; Henry Bradshaw, librarian at
Cambridge; William Hepworth Thompson,
successor to Whewell as master of Trinity;
Coutts Trotter, vice-master of Trinity; Richard
Okes, provost of King's College and vice-
chancellor of Cambridge University; and Henry
Richards Luard, also a registrary of Cam-
bridge University. To these is added an ap-
preciation of the life and work of Richard
Owen, the only one of the group not thoroughly
identified with Cambridge, from which institu-
tion, indeed, he only received an honorary de-
gree. Such work as this, some of it brought
forward by way of a review of a biography of
the person commemorated and some of it by
way of obituary notice following close upon
death, lacks the formality and heaviness which
attends the preparation of too many memoirs,
and may be said to represent at its best that
sort of publicly intimate account of a life which
does away with the possibilities of such mis-
haps as befell Carlyle's memory at the hands
of Froude.
Of a different nature — since Mr. Clark is
concerned with all manner of activities, polit-
ical, popular, and scientific as well—is the
Rev. Mr. Donaldson’s “Five Great Oxford
Leaders.” The five include John Keble, John
Henry Newman, Edward Bouverie Pusey,
Henry Parry Liddon, and Richard William
Church. As is to be expected from so august
a list of theologians, the work becomes a per-
sonal history of the Oxford movement which
brought the Church of England into possession
of many long foregone uses and doctrines in
the nature of a more Catholic feeling. The
book as a whole revolves about its central figure,
that of Dr. Pusey, in whose life alone is the
detail furnished which brings the others into
connection with it, chronologically and in other
respects. Here too is that animating spirit of
broad comprehension which adds so greatly to
the value of Mr. Clark's work. The Rev. Mr.
Donaldson is a part of the time he interprets
so vividly, and he fairly makes the past, living
in the successors of the five men, live in the
present with them. In more places than one,
the feeling of his pages amounts to tenderness
and beautiful affection.
More points of resemblance exist between
the two books just discussed than with the
third, Mr. Thomas Arnold’s “Passages in a
Wandering Life”; yet between this last and
its predecessors there are more points of re-
semblance than of difference, and the dramatis
personae of the three, so to speak, are much
the same. Mr. Arnold is the second son of
Dr. Arnold of Rugby, - his elder brother,
Matthew, having been born December 24, 1822,
and himself November 30, 1823, and the por-
trait of the author here used as frontispiece
showing a marked personal likeness. But Mr.
Arnold became a wanderer on the face of the
earth soon after his graduation from Univer-
sity College, Oxford; seeking occupation in
New Zealand, where he led a life in the forest
remote from civilization for a time; then pass-
ing over to Tasmania to become, like his more
famous brother, an inspector of schools, a posi-
tion he soon lost through his union with the
Church of Rome; then to Dublin, to accept the
chair of literature in the newly founded uni-
versity there, and to labor under John Henry
Newman for six years; then to Oxford to prepare
pupils for admission to the university, alternat-
ing his residence there with life in Dublin after
an appointment as fellow of the Royal University
in the Irish capital; and finally, since the death
of Mrs. Arnold in 1888, to roam about through
Europe at intervals, writing betimes and ad-
vancing the cause of his Church.
The book which tells all these things is not so
well unified as might be expected, but is often en-
tertaining and never without interest,-whether
the author is telling of his experiences at the
antipodes, defending his ideas of what a Catholic
university ought to be, or enjoying a sly jest at
the church of his fathers, as in this anecdote:
“Monckton Milnes was strolling on the beach at
Jaffa, when a boat arrived conveying some distinguished
strangers. These were the new Evangelico-Anglican
bishop Dr. Alexander, who had come to take possession
of the see of Jerusalem, and the members of his family.
The Greeks on the shore, whose language is the lingua
Franca of debased Italian commonly spoken in Syria,
watched the landing with the greatest interest. The
shovel hat, correct Episcopal attire, and knee-breeches
of the bishop, who was the first to land, impressed them
greatly. “Wescovol Vescovo!” they cried out in admira-
tion. Mrs. Alexander followed. The Greeks were
puzzled, but being informed by some one that this was
the bishop's wife, they shouted, but in a lower key,
“Wescoval Wescoval' Finally, four or five children of
various ages came up the beach after their mother.
Ascertaining who these were also, the Greeks threw up
their hands in unbounded astonishment, exclaiming,
• Wescoviniſ Wescovini!’”
The “Bishop,” “Bishopess,” and “all the little
Bishops” of the story were the more wonderful
to the Greeks because of the Episcopate of the
Greco-Russian Church being recruited exclu-
sively from the monastic orders.
Mr. Arnold discloses an agreeable person-
ality in his book, and is an acquaintance one
feels glad to have made. WALLACE RICE.
.


1900.] THE
DIAL 399
THE CLIMAX OF MASPERO’S ORIENTAL
HISTORY.”
The third and last volume of Professor Mas-
pero's great “Histoire Ancienne des Peuples
de l'Orient” appears in its English dress under
the unconventional title of “The Passing of
the Empires.” This, with the two preceding
volumes, “The Dawn of Civilization” (1894)
and “The Struggle of the Nations” (1897),
give us the most scholarly, the most popular for
its compass, the most complete, and the best
up-to-date history of the peoples of the ancient
Orient yet produced. Professor Maspero's sci-
entific methods, his command of the literature
of his subject, and his power of popularization,
have made this work of indispensable value
both to the history-specialist and to more ad-
vanced students and readers of ancient history.
The first two volumes in English dress were
provocative of sharp criticism because the au-
thor's views of biblical criticism had not been
faithfully transferred and represented. The
present volume appears not to be subject to
such strictures. Indeed, the committee of the
English publishing society assumes no respon-
sibility for the positions taken by the author
on biblico-critical matters.
This third volume covers a period of over
five hundred years, and the years most eventful
for the kingdoms of Israel and for the great
nations who swayed their sceptre over these
kingdoms. This half-millennial period saw the
decline and fall of the great civilizations located
on the Euphrates and the Tigris in the East,
and on the Nile in the West, before the invin-
cible arms of the Greek. This period, too, sur-
passes all others in the abundance of its avail-
able original historical documents, found in the
temples, tombs, and mounds of the Orient.
The abundance, importance, and scope of these
inscriptions, and the readiness with which they
yield to the efforts of the translator, have made
this section of ancient oriental history pecu-
liarly new and attractive. The continuity of
the history and its character, as illustrative of
Israel's times and life, present special claims
upon the attention of students of biblical lore.
Professor Maspero treats this stretch of time
and its body of events in seven comprehensive
chapters, as follows: I., The Assyrian Revival
*THE PAssING of THE EMPIREs, 850 B.C. To 330 B.C. By
G. Maspero, Professor at the College of France. Edited by
A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford. Translated
by M. L. McClure, Member of the Committee of the Egypt
Exploration Fund. With maps, three colored plates, and
numerous illustrations. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
and the Struggle for Syria; II., Tiglath-pileser
III. and the Organization of the Assyrian
Empire, 745–722 B.C.; III., Sargon and Sen-
nacherib (722–681); IV., Esarhaddon and
Assurbanipal; W., The Medes and the Second
Chaldaean Empire; WI., The Iranian Con-
quest, and VII., The Last Days of the Old
Eastern World. Each chapter is preceded by
an analysis, without, however, any indication
of the pagination referred to. This deficiency
is somewhat relieved by the fact that the head-
line of the right-hand page names the theme
discussed on that and adjoining pages.
Although not a recognized Assyriologist, the
author has fully utilized the valuable material
furnished by this department of research. He
has scanned the whole horizon of learning
within his period of study. The evidence of
his wide research, and the proof of the truth-
fulness of his statements, are found in the ful-
ness of the footnotes, often swollen, though in
finer type, to one-third and occasionally to more
than one-half of a page. This critical and
bibliographical material is the scholar's pride
and a precious possession, but it is the disturber
of the peace of mind of the conscientious pop-
ular reader. A careful examination of several
sections of the work reveal the author's wise
discrimination in the selection and marshalling
of his facts. He has constructed the narrative
with due regard to the amount and kind of
available material, and has produced in proper
proportions an interesting, connected, and lucid
history.
Questions of biblical criticism properly re-
ceive slight attention. Where they touch the
historical narrative, however, somewhat more
would be expected. Belshazzar, for instance,
is noticed as a son of Nabonidus (p. 685), but
the question of his identity with the character
in the book of Daniel is passed over in silence.
It is evident from the few statements made
that the author is progressive in his views, and
is not retarded by any immovable prepossession
in his interpretation of the facts of biblical and
contemporaneous history. The author's com-
prehensive grasp of his subject, his masterful
method of arraying his facts, his transparency
of style, and his candor and fairness in argu-
ment, will heartily commend the work to the
mind of every reader.
The annual output or outcome of excavations
in the East is so great that the final word of
to-day may be superseded to-morrow. The firs
two volumes of this great work should be sup-
plemented already by the latest finds in Tello,


400
[May 16,
THE TOIAL
Susa, Armenia, and Egypt. The last word
cannot be spoken until all discoveries cease.
Scholars will remember, and all readers will
learn, that even this best up-to-date history of
the Orient, encyclopaedic and authoritative as
it is, must be supplemented and modified by
subsequent discoveries. The work is profusely
illustrated with elegant drawings made by the
artists Faucher-Gudin and Boudier, which add
greatly to the pleasure and profit of the reader.
IRA. M. PRICE.
RECENT FICTION.”
“Among the works of every writer of fiction
there are generally one or two that owe their being
to some haunting thought, long communed with —
a thought which has at last found living shape in
some story of deed or passion.” These words are
placed in the forefront of Mr. Egerton Castle's
latest and most ambitious romance, “The Light of
Scarthey.” This book, he goes on to tell us, is his
“dream-child,” the “one nearer his heart than all
the rest.” Knowing the charm of Mr. Castle's work,
its pathos and its passion, its tenderness and its dar-
ing invention, such introductory phrases as these
set high our anticipations—we expect all the ro-
mantic glamour and full-blooded charm of “Young
April’” and “The Pride of Jennico,” and something
more as well, something deeper and more inti-
mate. In this we are not disappointed. Both
the setting and the execution of the story are
By Egerton
*THE LIGHT of ScARTHEY. A Romance.
Castle. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co.
SAVRola. A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania. By
Winston Spencer Churchill. New York: Longmans, Green,
& Co.
THE GENTLEMAN PENSIONER. A Romance of the Year
1569. By Albert Lee. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
ONE QUEEN TRIUMPHANT. By Frank Mathew. New
York: John Lane.
YEom AN FLEETwood. By M. E. Francis (Mrs. Francis
Blundell). New York: Longmans, Green, & Co.
THE ENCHANTER. By U. L. Silberrad. New York: The
Macmillan Co.
REsurrecTION. A Novel. By Leo Tolstoy. Translated
by Mrs. Louise Maude. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.
THE KNIGHTs of THE CRoss. First Half. By Henryk
Sienkiewicz. Translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Cur-
tin. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.
THE Poor PLUTOCRATs. By Maurus Jokai. Translated
from the Hungarian by R. Nisbet Bain. New York: Double-
day & McClure Co.
DEBTs of Honor. By Maurus Jokai. Translated from
the Hungarian by Arthur B. Yolland. New York: Double-
day & McClure Co.
THE WHITE TERRoR. By Félix Gras. Translated from
the Provençal by Catherine A. Janvier. New York: D.
Appleton & Co.
SARAGossa. A Story of Spanish Valor. By B. Perez
Galdos. Translated from the Spanish by Minna Caroline
Smith. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.
highly successful in their appeal to the intelligence
and the sympathies. The scene is the England
of nearly a century ago — more than a century
ago at the outset, for the first scenes are placed
in the time of the French Terror, and the closing
episodes have to do with the events of the Hundred
Days. The story is not, however, as one might
infer from these facts, concerned other than inci-
dentally with French history. Scarthey is on the
coast of Lancashire, and the hero is an Englishman,
although the heroines—for there are two, mother
and daughter—are Frenchwomen. The former,
loved by the hero with all the reckless passion of
youth, is the victim of a Republican noyade; the
latter, who comes unexpectedly into his life a score
of years later, is equally beloved, with the more
restrained but really richer passion of ripened man-
hood. There is one jarring note in the romance.
It is not found in the difficulty of making the love
for the daughter appear natural for a man in whom
the fires of passion seemed to have been long
burned out—this difficulty is triumphantly sur-
mounted. It is found rather in an escapade of the
later heroine, for which we are wholly unprepared,
and which does not accord with her character as
previously revealed. We cannot quite reconcile
ourselves to this sudden transformation; it seems
like an evil dream rather than a possible actuality.
But this one defect does not greatly mar our enjoy-
ment of the book as a whole, which is picturesque
in treatment and flushed with color. The characters
are firmly and clearly drawn, and their creator has
imparted to them the unmistakable breath of life.
Mr. Winston Spencer Churchill's “Savrola” was
published as a serial three years ago, and now ap-
pears in book form. It is described as “a tale of
the Revolution in Laurania,” and is a romance of
the familiar “Zenda” type. The Republic of
Laurania would be difficult to locate upon the map.
It is a Mediterranean state, possessing a fleet and
colonial interests in South Africa. Its President
has ruled as a dictator for several years, and the
people are restless. The revolution of which this
storytells usis of the social democratic type, and ends
with the death of the tyrant, and the union of his
beautiful widow with the leader of the revolt. The
story is rather dull at first, and its movement slow;
but the pace becomes quickened about midway in
the volume, and there is no lack of excitement to-
ward the close.
“The Gentleman Pensioner,” by Mr. Albert Lee,
is a romance of the conventional pattern, filled with
heroic emprise and desperate peril. It tells of the
period in the reign of Elizabeth when the Catholic
plot was ripening, and called for the most energetic
measures on the part of the Queen. An important
message is entrusted to one of the Queen's servants,
to be delivered into the hands of General Hunsdon.
Since this message contains the plan of campaign
against the conspirators, they seek by every means
in their power to gain possession of it before it can


1900.] THE
DIAL 401
be delivered. The adventures of the messenger,
and his successful performance of the task com-
mitted to him, make up the whole story. The Queen
of Scots figures incidentally in the closing chapters,
and her removal to a place of safety eventually
thwarts the rebellious Catholics. The story is well
old, and the author deserves especial praise for
knowing when to stop in the invention of new perils
for the hero, and of other familiar devices for
“prolonging the agony” at critical junctures. Few
writers of the sort of book in question have ever
| learned this lesson.
T “One Queen Triumphant,” by Mr. Frank Ma-
thew, is another romance of the same period, the
scene being placed only a few years later, and con-
cerned especially with the Babington plot and the
execution of Mary Stuart. The hero is a soldier
of fortune, steadfast in his allegiance to Elizabeth,
although his loyalty is sorely taxed by his sympa-
thies for the unfortunate Queen of Scots. The
heroine is no other than the child of Mary Stuart
and Bothwell, supposed to have died in the hour of
her birth. But the heroine in this case counts for
little, since the rival queens occupy the foreground,
and claim most of the interest of the readers. The
figures of Burleigh, Walsingham, and Leicester take
conspicuous places in the narrative, and illustrate,
as well as those of Elizabeth and Mary, the author's
really remarkable powers of character delineation.
For this romance is far more dramatic than most
works of the class to which it belongs; it is con-
cerned with character quite as much as with plot,
and mere narrative, so comparatively easy of exe-
cution, gives place to animated dialogue, which few
writers of historical fiction know how to manage.
Very much out of the ordinary is this reconstruc-
tion of a fascinating chapter of history, and not
more than one book of its sort out of a score achieves
a like degree of excellence.
“Yeoman Fleetwood,” by Mrs. Francis Blundell,
is a novel of English life in the days of the Re-
gency, and has for its hero a prosperous tiller of
the soil, possessed of a remarkably simple and up-
right character. He is, indeed, almost the only
person in the narrative who inspires our sympathy,
for the remaining characters are representatives of
county families, and the distinction of caste between
Fleetwood and the others is made the leading mo-
tive of the tale. The snobbishness of all the other
people concerned makes them very disagreeable,
and even the heroine, lovable as she is in most re-
spects, has to struggle with her prejudices for a
long time before she can become reconciled to a
union with the man who has won her heart. It
seems to us that this note of class prejudice is a
little forced, even for the times in which the scene
is laid, for it is difficult to believe that people of any
breeding at all would be capable of the sort of vul-
garity which distinguishes most of the characters in
their treatment of the hero. The scene in which
the heroine, after the clandestine wedding upon
which she has herself insisted, learns that her father
is under financial obligations to her husband, and
leaps to the conclusion that she has been made in
some sort the subject of a bargain, is dramatically
conceived, but here again the note seems to us
forced. How she flees from her husband, plunges
into the artificial society of which Brummel is the
exemplar, attracts the insulting admiration of “the
first gentleman of Europe,” and is rescued from a
midnight orgy by the husband whom in her heart
of hearts she really loves, all of these things are
effectively recounted, and this turmoil prepares the
way for a happy ending.
“The Enchanter,” by Miss U. L. Silberrad, is a
novel of which the earlier chapters promise more
than the later ones perform. It starts out to write
the biography of a child of genius — like “Senti-
mental Tommy” or the hero of “the Ship of Stars”
—and as long as this purpose is kept in view, the
treatment is successful to the point of fascination.
But when the child grows up, his fortunes become
mingled with those of the unreal person who is des-
ignated by the title of the novel, and who is repre-
sented as a hypnotist and a dabbler in occultism.
This substitution of charlatanism for psychological
interest, this change of appeal from intelligence to
morbid curiosity, so weakens the book that the
total resulting impression is rather unpleasant, in
spite of the marked ability displayed in many ways
by this new and promising writer.
Among recent translations of foreign fiction there
are a half dozen particularly noteworthy volumes,
and the most important of them, all things consid-
ered, is Count Tolstoy’s “Resurrection,” which
comes to us in a careful version made by Mrs.
Louise Maude. The commanding position occupied
in the cosmopolitan world of letters by the author
of this book, and the deep sense of our gratitude to
him for his great services to the cause of humanity,
make the appearance of such a work in the highest
degree significant, although even these considera-
tions must not be permitted to blind us to its defects
as a production of literary art. We had hoped,
indeed, to find in “Resurrection” a worthy suc-
cessor to “Anna Karénina,” a book which might
fairly be ranked among the great novels of our
time. What we do find is a book which only a man
of genius could have written, yet which perversely
renounces most of the advantages which genius has
over ordinary talent. There are episodes of the
most poignant artistic truthfulness, there are char-
acters delineated with a mastery almost absolute;
but there are also countless pages of matter having
no artistic relevance whatsoever. The judicial pro-
cesses of a Russian criminal court have their interest,
no doubt, but it is not the interest that appeals to
a reader of fiction. Neither does such a reader
care to become involved in a lengthy argumentative
defense of the peculiar doctrines of the late Henry
George. Yet these two elements, alien to any
properly-planned work of fiction, make up a consid-


402
[May 16,
THE DIAL
erable part of “Resurrection.” The story is briefly
this: The hero, a Russian nobleman, has in his
youth betrayed a young woman of humble rank, a
dependent upon his family. When the story opens,
ten years have elapsed. She has been driven to a
life of shame; he has had the reckless career of the
average officer and man of the world. One day he
finds himself summoned to serve upon a jury, and
there he meets once more the woman whom he has
wronged. She is accused of poisoning, and her case
is one of those which he is required to consider.
She is not guilty, yet she is convicted, partly through
her own ignorance of the forms of law, and sen-
tenced to exile. His nature is profoundly stirred
by these happenings, for he is now old enough to
take a serious view of life, and the predisposition
so to do is not lacking. As he reviews his career,
his better self is awakened, and this is the “resur-
rection” to which the title has reference. In mak-
ing us understand the workings of this man's mind,
at this particular juncture, the author displays his
highest powers, and gives us a piece of psycholog-
ical analysis which has rarely been equalled. The
upshot of it is that he determines as far as possible
to atone for his crime by making the convict his
wife and sharing her banishment to Siberia. But
he pleads his cause with her in vain, for her soul
also is experiencing a sort of “resurrection,” and
she will not accept what she cannot consider to be
other than a sacrifice. He persists, however, in
making the journey to Siberia, and in doing what
he can to ameliorate her condition. Eventually, his
efforts secure a commutation of her sentence, and
she marries a fellow-prisoner. All this constitutes
a story of which the author might have made ar-
tistic use within the limits of perhaps two hundred
pages; in stretching it to five hundred he has made
of the book a tract, a study in applied Christianity,
rather than a novel. That it is not absolutely dull
and wearisome is the highest tribute we can pay
to the author's art. His sincerity is so absolute,
his conviction of the faults and follies of the social
organization so intense, his belief in the sanctity of
human life so impressive in its statement, that he
holds our attention in spite of our repudiation of
his social ideals and his theories of art. The present
translation has been made by a competent hand,
and there is no indication that it is not complete.
Count Tolstoy uses plain language at times, but the
fact that a popular magazine was unwilling to con-
tinue the publication of the work for fear of offend-
ing the susceptibilities of its constituency affords a
striking commentary upon the namby-pambyism of
our purveyors of literature for the masses. If the
masses received less coddling, and were given more
of the strong meat of literature in their favorite
miscellanies, there might be some hope of raising
the moral tone of our society. No public can be
in a healthy frame of mind when its dovecotes are
fluttered by such a work as “Resurrection.” A few
unnecessarily blunt phrases may well be forgiven a
writer who brings so fundamentally inspiring a mes-
sage to mankind.
Next in importance among these translations is
“The Knights of the Cross,” the new historical
romance by Mr. Henryk Sienkiewicz. Only half
of this work is now presented to the English public,
and we are told that it is still in process of serial
publication in a Polish periodical, but the remaining
half is promised for an early date. Mr. Curtin is,
as heretofore, the authorized translator. Admirers
of the Polish novelist will learn with much satisfac-
tion that he has returned, figuratively speaking, to
his own soil and to the historical records of his own
people. There are few cases in the literature of
fiction in which a racial type has been portrayed with
such insight and convincing art as have gone to the
portrayal of Polish character in the great romantic
trilogy of Mr. Sienkiewicz, and in the almost equally
remarkable delineation of modern society given by
“The Children of the Soil.” These are his real
works, and, however such a book as “Quo Vadis”
may for the time being appeal to the public, it can-
not have the permanent value of such books as
“The Deluge” and “Pan Michael.” The former
is a brilliant exercise of the scholarly imagination;
the latter are creations in a very high artistic sense.
“The Knights of the Cross” is also a creation in
this sense, and, although the story is not thus far
sufficiently developed to permit of judgment upon
it as a whole, it may at least be said that in matters
of detail the old mastery is again exhibited. We
have the same strong types of character, the same
union of fierce passion and tender sentiment, the
same raciness of diction, the same blending of re-
ligion with patriotism, and the same fine historical
perspective that so enthralled us in the series of ro-
mances to which “With Fire and Sword ” first
introduced us. Of the general setting of the work
it suffices to say that it takes us back to the Poland
of the fourteenth century, and that the order of
Teutonic Knights, then grown corrupt and arrogant,
is the foe against whose power the sympathies of
the reader are invoked. There is not much fight-
ing as yet, but the conflict is clearly foreshadowed,
and we await the second half of the work with con-
fidence that it will bring fulfilment of the vow taken
by the hero, and all sorts of destruction for the ene-
mies of the Commonwealth. It is not easy to wait,
either, for matters are reaching a very critical point
as the present volume closes, and we trust that the
suspense will not be of long duration.
Two more volumes have been added to the now
considerable number of translations from the most
brilliant of Hungarian novelists. “The Poor Pluto-
crats” is the title of one of them, and Mr. R. Nisbet
Bain is the translator. This book is a semi-barbaric
romance of the wild Transylvanian region, a
nineteenth-century tale which might be fitted into
the sixteenth, were it not for certain incongruous
accessories borrowed from modern science. We
cannot speak very highly of this work from the


1900.] THE
DIAL 403
standpoint of serious criticism; it is like most of
Mr. Jokai's productions in its violation of the most
elementary principles of verisimilitude, whether in
arrangement of situation or in delineation of char-
acter, and the author's determination to be startling
at any cost must lose him the suffrages of the dis-
cerning, although these may be made up to him ten
times over by the applause of those who are satisfied
with daring invention and vivid entertainment. The
other book by this author is entitled “Debts of
Honor,” and is translated by Mr. Arthur B. Yol-
land. The translator says that many of the author's
countrymen consider the work his masterpiece, but
this statement has been made concerning so many
of the other romances of Mr. Jokai that our suspi-
cions are aroused. Unless all of his works are
masterpieces, we can hardly account for the fre-
quent recurrence of the statement. “Debts of
Honor” is a story that appeals more directly to the
tastes of English-speaking readers than do most of
the romances of this writer. The bizarre effects
and romantic exaggerations which we expect from
Mr. Jokai are not lacking in this book, but he places
less reliance than usual upon invention, and more
upon the delineation of credible characters and
upon the portrayal of scenes which have a strong
human interest. There are passages in this novel
which stir the deeper emotions, and which display
an unexpected mastery of the psychological problems
involved. The plot is based upon what European
novelists who do not know much about America are
in the habit of calling “an American duel”—that
is, an agreement to decide by lot which of the two
opponents shall take his own life within a stated
time. In this case, the time is ten years, and the
hero is made the victim of a trick. He draws the
fatal lot, supposing the arrangement to be made in
good faith, and not knowing that his name is writ-
ten upon both the papers. When the ten years are
up, his enemy appears upon the scene, gloating with
fiendish malignity over the impending tragedy.
Amid highly dramatic circumstances, the trick is
exposed just in time to avert the disaster, and the
hero learns that his debt of honor has never existed.
The character of the hero, of the eccentric relative
with whom the ten years are spent, and of the gypsy
maiden who loves him, and who saves his life at the
sacrifice of her own, are all delineated with skill
and penetration. The book has a great deal of
subsidiary incident, quaint domestic custom, Hun-
garian folk-lore, and the like, all of which is subor-
dinated to the main narrative, exhibiting a degree of
restraint to which this writer has not accustomed us.
On the whole, “Debts of Honor” must be accounted
one of Mr. Jokai's best books, and we take pleasure
in commending it.
“The White Terror,” by M. Félix Gras, offers
the conclusion of the story begun with “The Reds
of the Midi " and continued with “The Terror.”
Like its predecessors, it is translated from the
Provençal original by Mrs. Catharine Janvier. The
fortunes of the little Comtessine, of the group of
friends leagued to protect her, and of the villain
who seeks to compass her destruction, are all car-
ried out to an artistic, if not a humanly satisfactory
ending. At least, it is rather distressing to think
that a convent should have proved the only possible
refuge for the heroine, and that the hero, on his
return from the wars, should have found that her
vows had made any earthly union, other than that
of souls, impossible for two lovers so faithful in
their devotion. But such is the outcome of the
whole history, and we must make the best of it.
The White Terror, it seems, is the name given to
the royalist reaction which, the first fury of the
Revolution being spent, took possession of the prov-
inces, and vied with the Revolution itself in its
frenzies and its crimes. None of these after-
disturbances were more violent than those that took
place in and about Avignon, and here the scene of
the story is placed. Few writers of fiction have
handled this period of French history with the
mastery displayed by M. Gras in the remarkable
realistic trilogy which is now completed; his knowl-
edge is so intimate, his animation so unbounded, and
the net expression of his sympathies so just—ac-
cepting the Revolution, despite its excesses, as in
some sort a divine event—that he has provided a
really remarkable aid to our comprehension of the
times concerned, besides telling a story that for
mere narrative interest is deserving of cordial praise.
Señor Galdos is best known to American readers
as the author of “Doña Perfecta,” but in his own
country he is famous rather as the historical nov-
elist of the Napoleonic period and the Peninsular
War. His “Saragossa” is one of a series of many
works dealing with this period, and Miss Minna
Caroline Smith has done us a real service by trans-
lating it into English. While we cannot allow her
claim that it deserves to be ranked with “War and
Peace,” or even with “La Débâcle,” we are bound
to admit that it is a fine example of the “dramatic
war novel,” and that its description of the famous
second siege of the Aragon stronghold (1808–9) is
both vivid and impressive. The heroic defence of
Saragossa against the overwhelming power of the
invader is one of the finest things in history, for it
revealed the modern Spaniard as an undegenerate
descendant of the ancient Numantian. We read in
these stirring pages how the fighting was carried on
from outwork to outwork, then from section to sec-
tion of the city, and finally from house to house, or
even from room to room. Valor could do no more
than was done by the Aragonese in this heroic
struggle, and the honors of the siege remained after
all with the vanquished. An impassioned love story
is interwoven with this web of historical happenings,
but its interest is subordinate to that of the main
issue of the romance, which makes the fate of any
individual seem unimportant in comparison with
the tragedy of a whole people.
WILLIAM MoRTON PAYNE.


404 THE INIAL
[May 16,
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.
Mr. Charles Moore's “The North-
west Under Three Flags” (Harper)
is a valuable contribution to an inter-
esting division of history. It covers the Old North-
west for the period of 161 years, or from 1635 to
1796. It was in 1634 that Nicolet, the intrepid
French explorer, discovered and passed through the
Straits of Mackinac, making his way to Green Bay
and the region beyond, and the next year that he
returned to Quebec; and it is not clear why the
author should have selected the second rather than
the first of these dates for his point of departure.
For the other date the best of reasons can be given.
That is the year when Great Britain finally relaxed
her hold upon the Northwest, surrendering the
posts that she had so long held wrongfully, and with
them the control of the territory. Although be-
longing, in law, to the United States since 1783, it
was not until 1796 that the Northwest came prac-
tically into their possession, and that the last one of
the three flags was raised over it as a token of ab-
solute jurisdiction. Mr. Moore's book has many
good features. It is marked by conscientious study;
in some particulars it corrects earlier errors and
adds to our knowledge; while the material is well
handled and is presented to the reader in an attract-
ive style. The author's strength lies in his gifts of
careful study and pleasant narration. He has a
quick eye for the picturesque and romantic features
of his subject, and it may safely be said that his
story, as a whole, has never been so well told be-
fore, — that is, as a story. But when we come to
the deeper questions that the story involves, and its
more serious meaning, not so much can be said.
Several instances can be pointed out where the au-
thor has not risen to the height of the argument,
but has failed to appreciate, or at least to set forth,
the tremendous import of the matters with which
he deals. Still, this defect, as the historical scholar
will regard it, may be an excellence in the eyes of
those readers whom the author apparently has had
particularly in view. Probably a majority of readers
of history look upon it as narrative, or story-telling;
and much can be said for this view of the matter.
To those who take this view, if they are interested
in the particular subject, this book may be recom-
mended almost without reservation. We wish,
however, that Mr. Moore had found a title a little
less sensational, and that the publisher had put up
the book in a more convenient and attractive form.
It is well illustrated.
Of the life of Thomas Campbell, in
the “Famous Scots Series” (im-
ported by Scribner), Mr. J. Cuthbert
Hadden has made an amusing book. Perhaps the
life of a man of letters is naturally more amusing
to people who read a good deal than the life of a
soldier or a reformer. Be this as it may, we have
here an entertaining sketch. Mr. Hadden had one
A new book
on the Old
Northwest.
A Scottish
literary shadow.
point in his favor, he was not forced to undue
admiration of his subject. Campbell's is one of
those reputations which may endure for a long time,
if it be carefully transmitted in the histories; but
hardly otherwise. Mr. Hadden is quite frank in
the matter. Of “The Pleasures of Hope” he says:
“The poem was at least a credit to his years”; of
“Gertrude of Wyoming,” that it is “a third-rate
poem containing a few first-rate lines.” After such
frankness, one feels safe. Campbell was a figure
in an interesting literary period; he was, indeed,
in the eye of contemporaries, one of the chief fig-
ures. His life, then, is interesting to anyone who
likes literary history. For himself, his genius was
apparently not great, nor his character extraordinary.
But for a time he occupied a chief place. It must
be added that although Mr. Hadden cannot assign
to Campbell many literary virtues, he does bring
to light or recollection some things about Campbell
which are not generally remembered. Thus, he was
sincerely and devotedly a friend to Glasgow Uni-
versity, where he had been himself educated; and
he was one of the most zealous promoters of London
University. There was more unaffected goodheart-
edness in his active discharge of the duties of Lord
Rector, and in his earnest effort to find the best
principles of European education, than in all his
poetry and hackwork. There were also other non-
literary elements in his life more creditable than
the literary elements, his absorption in the cause
of Poland, for instance, and his invariable kindness
and generosity to relations and others as well. We
may thank Mr. Hadden for rounding out the char-
acter of Campbell the man; his great poems will
probably never be read again, but it will be some-
thing of a pleasure to realize that the author of
“Hohenlinden” and “Lord Ullin's Daughter” was
once something more than the thin literary shadow
he has become.
Wildflowers What we understand to have been
and their insect the first publication of the new firm
*** of Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co.
is the very attractive volume entitled “Nature's
Garden,” by “Neltje Blanchan,” whose recent
books about birds have deserved and won so large
a measure of popular favor. It is, we believe, an
open secret that Mrs. Doubleday is the one to whom
we are really indebted for these delightful books
of popular natural history. “Nature's Garden” is
described as “an aid to knowledge of our wild
flowers and their insect visitors.” The latter part
of this phrase shows how the work is differentiated
from the other books about wild flowers of which
so many have been published during the past few
years. The writer explains her purpose when she
says: “Inasmuch as science has proved that almost
every blossom in the world is everything it is be-
cause of its necessity to attract insect friends or to
repel its foes . . . it seems fully time that the
vitally important and interesting relationship exist-
ing between our common wild flowers and their


1900.] THE
DIAL 405
winged benefactors should be presented in a popu-
lar book.” The writer has described, with special
reference to their fertilization by means of insects,
over five hundred species of our wild flowers. The
descriptions are pleasantly written, avoiding sci-
entific technicalities, yet not made offensive, as so
much of popular scientific writing is, by assuming
that the reader has no education worth taking into
account. The scientific names, as authorized by
the International Botanical Congress, are freely
given. The species chosen are arranged according
to the colors of their flowers. The chief attraction
of the work, however, is provided by its illustrations.
These are photographed directly from nature, and
upwards of a hundred species are pictured, about
half in black and white, the rest in colors. These
plates, and especially the colored ones, give the
book a unique place among publications of its class,
and amply justify its existence. They are beauti-
ful to look at, and are of great practical assistance
in the identification of the species which they rep-
resent. The book should be found upon the library
table of every country house.
In the preface to his “Brief History
A brief
Mistory. of Austria” (Putnam), Mr. Sidney
of Austria. Whitman states that two alternatives
presented themselves: “either to treat of the prin-
cipal historical events in proportion to their relative
importance, or to give a succinct but unbroken
record of the history of Austria as connected with
the Imperial House. The former would have been
a far more grateful task. On the other hand, the
partly didactic character of this series, and the
almost incredible fact that no consecutive history of
Austria, such as this is, exists in any language, led
me to forego the idea.” It is to be regretted that
Mr. Whitman's ambition made him proof against
the temptation to take up “the more grateful task,”
for the writing of a “succinct but unbroken record.”
presents such difficulties as to deter any but a most
resolute or a most courageous historian. The his-
tory of Austria, to a greater degree than that of
any other important European state, is to be woven
from disjointed facts, impossible of correlation, and
defying the best efforts at condensation. The uni-
fying principle which everywhere exists in the his-
tory of other states, and serves to cement apparently
detached facts, nowhere presents itself in the history
of Austria, unless indeed it be the principle of race
hatred, the principle of disunion itself. It is not
surprising, then, that the result of Mr. Whitman's
labors should be disappointing, and that his story of
Austria should be lacking in the essentials of a
popular instructive history. That really entertain-
ing historical writing is possible with the author, his
“Realm of the Habsburgs” and other less ambitious
and comprehensive works amply testify. The book
is filled with facts, generously illustrated, fairly
well indexed, and reasonably accurate. But that
the writer has entered into “the real life of the
people—as they lived, labored, struggled—as they
studied and wrote, – and as they amused them-
selves,”—that cannot be said. The story of Aus-
tria which shall instruct and entertain, which shall
make its people flesh and blood, which shall live as
history, has yet to be written.
valuable addition, The fame of Brook Farm, that New
England experiment toward the dis-
covery of a better social life, is rap-
idly becoming world-wide; yet the list of related
books published as an appendix to Mr. Lindsay
Swift's volume describing the community (Mac-
millan) surprises the reader by the number of its
titles. Mr. Swift's treatise is the first attempt to
gather between a single pair of covers the gist of wha