Whole book · 14 sections
MISINFORMING A NATION
BOOKS BY MR. WRIGHT
IN PREPARATION
Misinforming a Nation
by Willard Huntington Wright
New York B. W. Huebsch MCMXVII
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
B. W. HUEBSCH
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The intellectual colonization of America by England has been going on for generations. Taking advantage of her position of authority—a position built on centuries of æsthetic tradition—England has let pass few opportunities to ridicule and disparage our activities in all lines of creative effort, and to impress upon us her own assumed cultural superiority. Americans, lacking that sense of security which long-established institutions would give them, have been influenced by the insular judgments of England, and, in an effort to pose as au courant of the achievements of the older world, have adopted in large degree the viewpoint of Great Britain. The result has been that for decades the superstition of England’s pre-eminence in the world of art and letters has spread and gained power in this country. Our native snobbery, both social and intellectual, has kept the fires of this superstition well supplied with fuel; and in our slavish imitation of England—the only country in Europe of which we have any intimate knowledge—we have de-Americanized ourselves to such an extent that there has grown up in us a typical British contempt for our own native achievements.
One of the cardinal factors in this Briticization of our intellectual outlook is the common language of England and America. Of all the civilized nations of the world, we are most deficient as linguists. Because of our inability to speak fluently any language save our own, a great barrier exists between us and the Continental countries. But no such barrier exists between America and England; and consequently there is a constant exchange of ideas, beliefs, and opinions. English literature is at our command; English criticism is familiar to us; and English standards are disseminated among us without the impediment of translation. Add to this lingual rapprochement the traditional authority of Great Britain, together with the social aspirations of moneyed Americans, and you will have both the material and the psychological foundation on which the great edifice of English culture has been reared in this country.
The English themselves have made constant and liberal use of these conditions. An old and disquieting jealousy, which is tinctured not a little by resentment, has resulted in an open contempt for all things American. And it is not unnatural that this attitude should manifest itself in a condescending patronage which is far from being good-natured. Our literature is derided; our artists are ridiculed; and in nearly every field of our intellectual endeavor England has found grounds for disparagement. It is necessary only to look through British newspapers and critical journals to discover the contemptuous and not infrequently venomous tone which characterizes the discussion of American culture.
At the same time, England grasps every opportunity for foisting her own artists and artisans on this country. She it is who sets the standard which at once demolishes our individual expression and glorifies the efforts of Englishmen. Our publishers, falling in line with this campaign, import all manner of English authors, eulogize them with the aid of biased English critics, and neglect better writers of America simply because they have displeased those gentlemen in London who sit in judgment upon our creative accomplishments. Our magazines, edited for the most part by timid nobodies whose one claim to intellectual distinction is that they assiduously play the parrot to British opinion, fill their publications with the work of English mediocrities and ignore the more deserving contributions of their fellow-countrymen.
Even our educational institutions disseminate the English superstition and neglect the great men of America; for nowhere in the United States will you find the spirit of narrow snobbery so highly developed as in our colleges and universities. Recently an inferior British poet came here, and, for no other reason apparently save that he was English, he was made a professor in one of our large universities! Certainly his talents did not warrant this appointment, for there are at least a score of American poets who are undeniably superior to this young Englishman. Nor has he shown any evidences of scholarship which would justify the honor paid him. But an Englishman, if he seek favors, needs little more than proof of his nationality, whereas an American must give evidence of his worth.
England has shown the same ruthlessness and unscrupulousness in her intellectual colonization of America as in her territorial colonizations; and she has also exhibited the same persistent shrewdness. What is more, this cultural extension policy has paid her lavishly. English authors, to take but one example, regard the United States as their chief source of income. If it were the highest English culture—that is, the genuinely significant scholarship of the few great modern British creators—which was forced upon America, there would be no cause for complaint. But the governing influences in English criticism are aggressively middle-class and chauvinistic, with the result that it is the British bourgeois who has stifled our individual expression, and misinformed us on the subject of European culture.
No better instance of this fact can be pointed to than the utterly false impression which America has of French attainments. French genius has always been depreciated and traduced by the British; and no more subtle and disgraceful campaign of derogation has been launched in modern times than the consistent method pursued by the English in misinterpreting French ideals and accomplishments to Americans. To England is due largely, if not entirely, the uncomplimentary opinion that Americans have of France—an opinion at once distorted and indecent. To the average American a French novel is regarded merely as a salacious record of adulteries. French periodicals are looked upon as collections of prurient anecdotes and licentious pictures. And the average French painting is conceived as a realistic presentation of feminine nakedness. So deeply rooted are these conceptions that the very word “French” has become, in the American’s vocabulary, an adjective signifying all manner of sexual abnormalities, and when applied to a play, a story, or an illustration, it is synonymous with “dirty” and “immoral.” This country has yet to understand the true fineness of French life and character, or to appreciate the glories of French art and literature; and the reason for our distorted ideas is that French culture, in coming to America, has been filtered through the nasty minds of middle-class English critics.
But it is not our biased judgment of the Continental nations that is the most serious result of English misrepresentation; in time we will come to realize how deceived we were in accepting England’s insinuations that France is indecent, Germany stupid, Italy decadent, and Russia barbarous. The great harm done by England’s contemptuous critics is in belittling American achievement. Too long has bourgeois British culture been forced upon the United States; and we have been too gullible in our acceptance of it without question. English critics and English periodicals have consistently attempted to discourage the growth of any national individualism in America, by ridiculing or ignoring our best æsthetic efforts and by imposing upon us their own insular criteria. To such an extent have they succeeded that an American author often must go to England before he will be accepted by his own countrymen. Thus purified by contact with English culture, he finds a way into our appreciation.
But on the other hand, almost any English author—even one that England herself has little use for—can acquire fame by visiting this country. Upon his arrival he is interviewed by the newspapers; his picture appears in the “supplements”; his opinions emblazon the headlines and are discussed in editorials; and our publishers scramble for the distinction of bringing out his wares. In this the publishers, primarily commercial, reveal their business acumen, for they are not unaware of the fact that the “literary” sections of our newspapers are devoted largely to British authors and British letters. So firmly has the English superstition taken hold of our publishers that many of them print their books with English spelling. The reason for this un-American practice, so they explain, is that the books may be ready for an English edition without resetting. The English, however, do not use American spelling at all, though, as a rule, the American editions of English books are much larger than the English edition of American books. But the English do not like our spelling; therefore we gladly arrange matters to their complete satisfaction.
The evidences of the American’s enforced belief in English superiority are almost numberless. Apartment houses and suburban sub-divisions are named after English hotels and localities. The belief extends even to the manufacturers of certain brands of cigarettes which, for sale purposes, are advertised as English, although it would be difficult to find a box of them abroad. The American actor, in order to gain distinction, apes the dress, customs, intonation and accent of Englishmen. His great ambition is to be mistaken for a Londoner. This pose, however, is not all snobbery: it is the outcome of an earnest desire to appear superior; and so long has England insisted upon her superiority that many Americans have come to adopt it as a cultural fetish.
Hitherto this exalted intellectual guidance has been charitably given us: never before, as now, has a large fortune been spent to make America pay handsomely for the adoption of England’s provincialism. I refer to the Encyclopædia Britannica which, by a colossal campaign of flamboyant advertising, has been scattered broadcast over every state in the union.
No more vicious and dangerous educational influence on America can readily be conceived than the articles in this encyclopædia. They distort the truth and disseminate false standards. America is now far enough behind the rest of the civilized world in its knowledge of art, without having added to that ignorance the erroneous impressions created by this partial and disproportioned English work; for, in its treatment of the world’s progress, it possesses neither universality of outlook nor freedom from prejudice in its judgments—the two primary requisites for any work which lays claim to educational merit. Taken as a whole, the Britannica’s divisions on culture are little more than a brief for British art and science—a brief fraught with the rankest injustice toward the achievements of other nations, and especially toward those of America.
The distinguishing feature of the Encyclopædia Britannica is its petty national prejudice. This prejudice appears constantly and in many disguises through the Encyclopædia’s pages. It manifests itself in the most wanton carelessness in dealing with historical facts; in glaring inadequacies when discussing the accomplishments of nations other than England; in a host of inexcusable omissions of great men who do not happen to be blessed with English nationality; in venom and denunciation of viewpoints which do not happen to coincide with “English ways of thinking”; and especially in neglect of American endeavor. Furthermore, the Britannica shows unmistakable signs of haste or carelessness in preparation. Information is not always brought up to date. Common proper names are inexcusably misspelled. Old errors remain uncorrected. Inaccuracies abound. Important subjects are ignored. And only in the field of English activity does there seem to be even an attempt at completeness.
The Encyclopædia Britannica, if accepted unquestioningly throughout this country as an authoritative source of knowledge, would retard our intellectual development fully twenty years; for so one-sided is its information, so distorted are its opinions, so far removed is it from being an international and impartial reference work, that not only does it give inadequate advice on vital topics, but it positively creates false impressions. Second- and third-rate Englishmen are given space and praise much greater than that accorded truly great men of other nations; and the eulogistic attention paid English endeavor in general is out of all proportion to its deserts. In the following chapters I shall show specifically how British culture is glorified and exaggerated, and with what injustice the culture of other countries is treated. And I shall also show the utter failure of this Encyclopædia to fulfill its claim of being a “universal” and “objective” reference library. To the contrary, it will be seen that the Britannica is a narrow, parochial, opinionated work of dubious scholarship and striking unreliability.
With the somewhat obscure history of the birth of the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, or with the part played in that history by Cambridge University and the London Times, I am not concerned. Nor shall I review the unethical record of the two issues of the Encyclopædia. To those interested in this side of the question I suggest that they read the following contributions in Reedy’s Mirror: The Same Old Slippery Trick (March 24, 1916). The Encyclopædia Britannica Swindle (April 7, 1916). The Encyclopædia Britannica Fake (April 14, 1916); and also the article in the March 18 (1916) Bellman, Once More the Same Old Game.
Such matters might be within the range of forgiveness if the contents of the Britannica were what were claimed for them. But that which does concern me is the palpable discrepancies between the statements contained in the advertising, and the truth as revealed by a perusal of the articles and biographies contained in the work itself. The statements insisted that the Britannica was a supreme, unbiased, and international reference library—an impartial and objective review of the world; and it was on these statements, repeated constantly, that Americans bought the work. The truth is that the Encyclopædia Britannica, in its main departments of culture, is characterized by misstatements, inexcusable omissions, rabid and patriotic prejudices, personal animosities, blatant errors of fact, scholastic ignorance, gross neglect of non-British culture, an astounding egotism, and an undisguised contempt for American progress.
Rarely has this country witnessed such indefensible methods in advertising as those adopted by the Britannica’s exploiters. The “copy” has fairly screamed with extravagant and fabulous exaggerations. The vocabulary of hyperbole has been practically exhausted in setting forth the dubious merits of this reference work. The ethics and decencies of ordinary honest commerce have been thrown to the wind. The statements made day after day were apparently concocted irrespective of any consideration save that of making a sale; for there is an abundance of evidence to show that the Encyclopædia was not what was claimed for it.
With the true facts regarding this encyclopædia it is difficult to reconcile the encomiums of many eminent Americans who, by writing eulogistic letters to the Britannica’s editor concerning the exalted merits of his enterprise, revealed either their unfamiliarity with the books in question or their ignorance of what constituted an educational reference work. These letters were duly photographed and reproduced in the advertisements, and they now make interesting, if disconcerting, reading for the non-British student who put his faith in them and bought the Britannica. There is no need here to quote from these letters; for a subsequent inspection of the work thus recommended must have sufficiently mortified those of the enthusiastic correspondents who were educated and had consciences; and the others would be unmoved by any revelations of mine.
Mention, however, should be made of the remarks of the American Ambassador to Great Britain at the banquet given in London to celebrate the Encyclopædia’s birth. This gentleman, in an amazing burst of unrestrained laudation, said he believed that “it is the general judgment of the scholars and the investigators of the world that the one book to which they can go for the most complete, comprehensive, thorough, and absolutely precise statements of fact upon every subject of human interest is the Encyclopædia Britannica.” This is certainly an astonishing bit of eulogy. Its dogmatic positiveness and its assumption of infallibility caused one critic (who is also a great scholar) to write: “With all due respect for our illustrious fellow-countryman, the utterance is a most superlative absurdity, unless it was intended to be an exercise of that playful and elusive American humor which the apperceptions of our English cousins so often fail to seize, much less appreciate.” But there were other remarks of similar looseness at the banquet, and the dinner evidently was a greater success than the books under discussion.
Even the English critics themselves could not accept the Britannica as a source for “the most comprehensive, thorough and absolutely precise statements on every subject of human interest.” Many legitimate objections began appearing. There is space here to quote only a few. The London Nation complains that “the particularly interesting history of the French Socialist movement is hardly even sketched.” And again it says: “The naval question is handled on the basis of the assumption which prevailed during our recent scare; the challenge of our Dreadnought building is hardly mentioned; the menace of M. Delcassé’s policy of encirclement is ignored, and both in the article on Germany and in the articles on Europe, Mr. McKenna’s panic figures and charges of accelerated building are treated as the last word of historical fact.” The same publication, criticising the article on Europe, says: “There is nothing but a dry and summarized general history, ending with a paragraph or two on the Anglo-German struggle with the moral that ‘Might is Right.’ It is history of Europe which denies the idea of Europe.”
Again, we find evidence of a more direct character, which competently refutes the amazing announcement of our voluble Ambassador to Great Britain. In a letter to the London Times, an indignant representative of Thomas Carlyle’s family objects to the inaccurate and biased manner in which Carlyle is treated in the Encyclopædia. “The article,” he says, “was evidently written many years ago, before the comparatively recent publication of new and authentic material, and nothing has been done to bring it up to date.... As far as I know, none of the original errors have been corrected, and many others of a worse nature have been added. The list of authorities on Carlyle’s life affords evidence of ignorance or partisanship.”
“Evidently,” comments a shrewd critic who is not impressed either by the Ambassador’s panegyric or the photographed letters, “the great man’s family, and the public in general, have a reasonable cause of offense, and they may also conclude that if the Encyclopædia Britannica can blunder when handling such an approachable and easy British subject as Carlyle, it can be reasonably expected to do worse on other matters which are not only absolutely foreign, but intensely distasteful to the uninformed and prejudiced scribes to whom they seem to be so frequently, if not systematically, assigned.”
The expectation embodied in the above comment is more fully realized perhaps than the writer of those words imagined; and the purpose of this book is to reveal the blundering and misleading information which would appear to be the distinguishing quality of the Britannica’s articles on culture. Moreover, as I have said, and as I shall show later, few subjects are as “intensely distasteful” to the “uninformed and prejudiced” British critics as is American achievement. One finds it difficult to understand how any body of foreigners would dare offer America the brazen insult which is implied in the prodigal distribution of these books throughout the country; for in their unconquerable arrogance, their unveiled contempt for this nation—the outgrowth of generations of assumed superiority—they surpass even the London critical articles dealing with our contemporary literary efforts.
Several of our more courageous and pro-American scholars have called attention to the inadequacies and insularities in the Britannica, but their voices have not been sufficiently far-reaching to counteract either the mass or the unsavory character of the advertising by which this unworthy and anti-American encyclopædia was foisted upon the United States. Conspicuous among those publications which protested was the Twentieth Century Magazine. That periodical, to refer to but one of its several criticisms, pointed out that the article on Democracy is “confined to the alleged democracies of Greece and their distinguished, if some time dead, advocates. Walt Whitman, Mazzini, Abraham Lincoln, Edward Carpenter, Lyof Tolstoi, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Finland, Iceland, Oregon are unknown quantities to this anonymous classicist.”
It is also noted that the author of the articles on Sociology “is not very familiar with the American sociologists, still less with the German, and not at all with the French.” The article is “a curious evidence of editorial insulation,” and the one on Economics “betrays freshened British capitalistic insularity.” In this latter article, which was substituted for Professor Ingram’s masterly and superb history of political economy in the Britannica’s Ninth Edition, “instead of a catholic, scientific survey of economic thought, we have a ‘fair trade’ pamphlet, which actually includes reference to Mr. Chamberlain,” although the names of Henry George, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, John A. Hobson, and William Smart are omitted.
The Eleventh Edition, concludes the Twentieth Century, after recording many other specimens of ignorance and inefficiency, “is not only insular; it betrays its class-conscious limitation in being woefully defective in that prophetic instinct which guided Robertson Smith in his choice of contributors to the Ninth Edition, and the contributors themselves in their treatment of rapidly changing subjects.” Robertson Smith, let it be noted, stood for fairness, progressiveness, and modernity; whereas the Britannica’s present editor is inflexibly reactionary, provincial, and unjust to an almost incredible degree.
The foregoing quotations are not isolated objections: there were others of similar nature. And these few specimens are put down here merely to show that there appeared sufficient evidence, both in England and America, to establish the purely imaginary nature of the Britannica’s claims of completeness and inerrancy, and to reveal the absurdity of the American Ambassador’s amazing pronouncement. Had the sale of the Encyclopædia Britannica been confined to that nation whose culture it so persistently and dogmatically glorifies at the expense of the culture of other nations, its parochial egotism would not be America’s concern. But since this reference work has become an American institution and has forced its provincial mediocrity into over 100,000 American homes, schools and offices, the astonishing truth concerning its insulting ineptitude has become of vital importance to this country. Its menace to American educational progress can no longer be ignored.
England’s cultural campaign in the United States during past decades has been sufficiently insidious and pernicious to work havoc with our creative effort, and to retard us in the growth of that self-confidence and self-appreciation which alone make the highest achievement possible. But never before has there been so concentrated and virulently inimical a medium for British influence as the present edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. These books, taken in conjunction with the methods by which they have been foisted upon us, constitute one of the most subtle and malign dangers to our national enlightenment and development which it has yet been our misfortune to possess; for they bid fair to remain, in large measure, the source of America’s information for many years to come.
The regrettable part of England’s intellectual intrigues in the United States is the subservient and docile acquiescence of Americans themselves. Either they are impervious to England’s sneers and deaf to her insults, or else their snobbery is stronger than their self-respect. I have learned from Britishers themselves, during an extended residence in London, that not a little of their contempt for Americans is due to our inordinate capacity for taking insults. Year after year English animus grows; and to-day it is the uncommon thing to find an English publication which, in discussing the United States and its culture, does not contain some affront to our intelligence.
It is quite true, as the English insist, that we are painfully ignorant of Europe; but it must not be forgotten that the chief source of that ignorance is England herself. And the Encyclopædia Britannica, if accepted as authoritative, will go far toward emphasizing and extending that ignorance. Furthermore, it will lessen even the meagre esteem in which we now hold our own accomplishments and potentialities; for, as the following pages will show, the Britannica has persistently discriminated against all American endeavor, not only in the brevity of the articles and biographies relating to this country and in the omissions of many of our leading artists and scientists, but in the bibliographies as well. And it must be remembered that broad and unprejudiced bibliographies are essential to any worthy encyclopædia: they are the key to the entire tone of the work. The conspicuous absence of many high American authorities, and the inclusion of numerous reactionary and often dubious English authorities, sum up the Britannica’s attitude.
However, as I have said, America, if the principal, is not the only country discriminated against. France has fallen a victim to the Encyclopædia’s suburban patriotism, and scant justice is done her true greatness. Russia, perhaps even more than France, is culturally neglected; and modern Italy’s æsthetic achievements are given slight consideration. Germany’s science and her older culture fare much better at the hands of the Britannica’s editors than do the efforts of several other nations; but Germany, too, suffers from neglect in the field of modern endeavor.
Even Ireland does not escape English prejudice. In fact, it can be only on grounds of national, political, and personal animosity that one can account for the grossly biased manner in which Ireland, her history and her culture, is dealt with. To take but one example, regard the Britannica’s treatment of what has come to be known as the Irish Literary Revival. Among those conspicuous, and in one or two instances world-renowned, figures who do not receive biographies are J. M. Synge, Lady Gregory, Lionel Johnson, Douglas Hyde, and William Larminie. (Although Lionel Johnson’s name appears in the article on English literature, it does not appear in the Index—a careless omission which, in victimizing an Irishman and not an Englishman, is perfectly in keeping with the deliberate omissions of the Britannica.)
Furthermore, there are many famous Irish writers whose names are not so much as mentioned in the entire Encyclopædia—for instance, Standish O’Grady, James H. Cousins, John Todhunter, Katherine Tynan, T. W. Rolleston, Nora Hopper, Jane Barlow, Emily Lawless, “A. E.” (George W. Russell), John Eglinton, Charles Kickam, Dora Sigerson Shorter, Shan Bullock, and Seumas MacManus. Modern Irish literature is treated with a brevity and an injustice which are nothing short of contemptible; and what little there is concerning the new Irish renaissance is scattered here and there in the articles on English literature! Elsewhere I have indicated other signs of petty anti-Irish bias, especially in the niggardly and stupid treatment accorded George Moore.
Although such flagrant inadequacies in the case of European art would form a sufficient basis for protest, the really serious grounds for our indignation are those which have to do with the Britannica’s neglect of America. That is why I have laid such emphasis on this phase of the Encyclopædia. It is absolutely necessary that this country throw off the yoke of England’s intellectual despotism before it can have a free field for an individual and national cultural evolution. America has already accomplished much. She has contributed many great figures to the world’s progress. And she is teeming with tremendous and splendid possibilities. To-day she stands in need of no other nation’s paternal guidance. In view of her great powers, of her fine intellectual strength, of her wide imagination, of her already brilliant past, and of her boundless and exalted future, such a work as the Encyclopædia Britannica should be resented by every American to whom the welfare of his country is of foremost concern, and in whom there exists one atom of national pride.
Let us inspect first the manner in which the world’s great modern novelists and story-tellers are treated in the Encyclopædia Britannica. No better department could be selected for the purpose; for literature is the most universal and popular art. The world’s great figures in fiction are far more widely known than those in painting or music; and since it is largely through literature that a nation absorbs its cultural ideas, especial interest attaches to the way that writers are interpreted and criticised in an encyclopædia.
It is disappointing, therefore, to discover the distorted and unjust viewpoint of the Britannica. An aggressive insular spirit is shown in both the general literary articles and in the biographies. The importance of English writers is constantly exaggerated at the expense of foreign authors. The number of biographies of British writers included in the Encyclopædia far overweighs the biographical material accorded the writers of other nations. And superlatives of the most sweeping kind are commonly used in describing the genius of these British authors, whereas in the majority of cases outside of England, criticism, when offered at all, is cool and circumscribed and not seldom adverse. There are few British writers of any note whatever who are not taken into account; but many authors of very considerable importance belonging to France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the United States are omitted entirely.
In the Encyclopædia’s department of literature, as in other departments of the arts, the pious middle-class culture of England is carefully and consistently forced to the front. English provincialism and patriotism not only dominate the criticism of this department, but dictate the amount of space which is allotted the different nations. The result is that one seeking in this encyclopædia adequate and unprejudiced information concerning literature will fail completely in his quest. No mention whatever is made of many of the world’s great novelists (provided, of course, they do not happen to be British); and the information given concerning the foreign authors who are included is, on the whole, meagre and biased. If, as is natural, one should judge the relative importance of the world’s novelists by the space devoted to them, one could not escape the impression that the literary genius of the world resides almost exclusively in British writers.
This prejudiced and disproportionate treatment of literature would not be so regrettable if the Britannica’s criticisms were cosmopolitan in character, or if its standard of judgment was a purely literary one. But the criteria of the Encyclopædia’s editors are, in the main, moral and puritanical. Authors are judged not so much by their literary and artistic merits as by their bourgeois virtue, their respectability and inoffensiveness. Consequently it is not even the truly great writers of Great Britain who are recommended the most highly, but those middle-class literary idols who teach moral lessons and whose purpose it is to uplift mankind. The Presbyterian complex, so evident throughout the Encyclopædia’s critiques, finds in literature a fertile field for operation.
Because of the limitations of space, I shall confine myself in this chapter to modern literature. I have, however, inspected the manner in which the older literature is set forth in the Encyclopædia Britannica; and there, as elsewhere, is discernible the same provincialism, the same theological point of view, the same flamboyant exaggeration of English writers, the same neglect of foreign genius. As a reference book the Britannica is chauvinistic, distorted, inadequate, disproportioned, and woefully behind the times. Despite the fact that the Eleventh Edition is supposed to have been brought up to date, few recent writers are included, and those few are largely second-rate writers of Great Britain.
Let us first regard the gross discrepancies in space between the biographies of English authors and those of the authors of other nations. To begin with, the number of biographies of English writers is nearly as many as is given all the writers of France and Germany combined. Sir Walter Scott is given no less than thirteen columns, whereas Balzac has only seven columns, Victor Hugo only a little over four columns, and Turgueniev only a little over one column. Samuel Richardson is given nearly four columns, whereas Flaubert has only two columns, Dostoievsky less than two columns, and Daudet only a column and a third! Mrs. Oliphant is given over a column, more space than is allotted to Anatole France, Coppée, or the Goncourts. George Meredith is given six columns, more space than is accorded Flaubert, de Maupassant and Zola put together! Bulwer-Lytton has two columns, more space than is given Dostoievsky. Dickens is given two and a half times as much space as Victor Hugo; and George Eliot, Trollope, and Stevenson each has considerably more space than de Maupassant, and nearly twice as much space as Flaubert. Anthony Hope has almost an equal amount of space with Turgueniev, nearly twice as much as Gorky, and more than William Dean Howells. Kipling, Barrie, Mrs. Gaskell, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and Felicia Hemans are each accorded more space than either Zola or Mark Twain.... Many more similar examples of injustice could be given, but enough have been set down to indicate the manner in which British authors are accorded an importance far beyond their deserts.
Of Jane Austen, to whom is given more space than to either Daudet or Turgueniev, we read that “it is generally agreed by the best critics that Miss Austen has never been approached in her own domain.” What, one wonders, of Balzac’s stories of provincial life? Did he, after all, not even approach Miss Austen? Mrs. Gaskell’s Cranford “is unanimously accepted as a classic”; and she is given an equal amount of space with Dostoievsky and Flaubert!
George Eliot’s biography draws three and a half columns, twice as much space as Stendhal’s, and half again as much as de Maupassant’s. In it we encounter the following astonishing specimen of criticism: No right estimate of her as an artist or a philosopher “can be formed without a steady recollection of her infinite capacity for mental suffering, and her need of human support.” Just what these conditions have to do with an æsthetic or philosophic judgment of her is not made clear; but the critic finally brings himself to add that “one has only to compare Romola or Daniel Deronda with the compositions of any author except herself to realize the greatness of her designs and the astonishing gifts brought to their final accomplishment.”
The evangelical motif enters more strongly in the biography of George Macdonald, who draws about equal space with Gorky, Huysmans, and Barrès. Here we learn that Macdonald’s “moral enthusiasm exercised great influence upon thoughtful minds.” Ainsworth, the author of those shoddy historical melodramas, Jack Sheppard and Guy Fawkes, is also given a biography equal in length to that of Gorky, Huysmans, and Barrès; and we are told that he wrote tales which, despite all their shortcomings, were “invariably instructive, clean and manly.” Mrs. Ewing, too, profited by her pious proclivities, for her biography takes up almost as much space as that of the “moral” Macdonald and the “manly” Ainsworth. Her stories are “sound and wholesome in matter,” and besides, her best tales “have never been surpassed in the style of literature to which they belong.”
Respectability and moral refinement were qualities also possessed by G. P. R. James, whose biography is equal in length to that of William Dean Howells. In it there is quite a long comparison of James with Dumas, though it is frankly admitted that as an artist James was inferior. His plots were poor, his descriptions were weak, and his dialogue was bad. Therefore “his very best books fall far below Les Trois Mousquetaires.” But, it is added, “James never resorted to illegitimate methods to attract readers, and deserves such credit as may be due to a purveyor of amusement who never caters to the less creditable tastes of his guests.” In other words, say what you will about James’s technique, he was, at any rate, an upright and impeccable gentleman!
Even Mrs. Sarah Norton’s lofty moral nature is rewarded with biographical space greater than that of Huysmans or Gorky. Mrs. Norton, we learn, “was not a mere writer of elegant trifles, but was one of the priestesses of the ‘reforming’ spirit.” One of her books was “a most eloquent and rousing condemnation of child labor”; and her poems were “written with charming tenderness and grace.” Great, indeed, are the rewards of virtue, if not in life, at least in the Encyclopædia Britannica.
On the other hand, several English authors are condemned for their lack of nicety and respectability. Trollope, for instance, lacked that elegance and delicacy of sentiment so dear to the Encyclopædia editor’s heart. “He is,” we read, “sometimes absolutely vulgar—that is to say, he does not deal with low life, but shows, though always robust and pure in morality, a certain coarseness of taste.”
Turning from the vulgar but pure Trollope to Charles Reade, we find more of this same kind of criticism: “His view of human life, especially of the life of women, is almost brutal ... and he cannot, with all his skill as a story-teller, be numbered among the great artists who warm the heart and help to improve the conduct.” (Here we have the Britannica’s true attitude toward literature. That art, in order to be great, must warm the heart, improve the conduct, and show one the way to righteousness.) Nor is Ouida to be numbered among the great uplifters. In her derogatory half-column biography we are informed that “on grounds of morality of taste Ouida’s novels may be condemned” as they are “frequently unwholesome.”
Two typical examples of the manner in which truly great English writers, representative of the best English culture, are neglected in favor of those writers who epitomize England’s provincial piety, are to be found in the biographies of George Moore and Joseph Conrad, neither of whom is concerned with improving the readers’ conduct or even with warming their hearts. These two novelists, the greatest modern authors which England has produced, are dismissed peremptorily. Conrad’s biography draws but eighteen lines, about one-third of the space given to Marie Corelli; and the only praise accorded him is for his vigorous style and brilliant descriptions. In this superficial criticism we have an example of ineptitude, if not of downright stupidity, rarely equaled even by newspaper reviewers. Not half of Conrad’s books are mentioned, the last one to be recorded being dated 1906, nearly eleven years ago! Yet this is the Encyclopædia which is supposed to have been brought up to date and to be adequate for purposes of reference!
In the case of George Moore there is less excuse for such gross injustice (save that he is Irish), for Moore has long been recognized as one of the great moderns. Yet his biography draws less space than that of Jane Porter, Gilbert Parker, Maurice Hewlett, Rider Haggard, or H. G. Wells; half of the space given to Anthony Hope; and only a fourth of the space given to Mrs. Gaskell and to Mrs. Humphry Ward! A Mummer’s Wife, we learn, has “decidedly repulsive elements”; and the entire criticism of Esther Waters, admittedly one of the greatest of modern English novels, is that it is “a strong story with an anti-gambling motive.” It would seem almost incredible that even the tin-pot evangelism of the Encyclopædia Britannica would be stretched to such a length,—but there you have the criticism of Esther Waters set down word for word. The impelling art of this novel means nothing to the Encyclopedia’s critic; he cannot see the book’s significance; nor does he recognize its admitted importance to modern literature. To him it is an anti-gambling tract! And because, perhaps, he can find no uplift theme in A Mummer’s Wife, that book is repulsive to him. Such is the culture America is being fed on—at a price.
Thomas Hardy, another one of England’s important moderns, is condemned for his attitude toward women: his is a “man’s point of view” and “more French than English.” (We wonder if this accounts for the fact that the sentimental James M. Barrie is accorded more space and greater praise.) Samuel Butler is another intellectual English writer who has apparently been sacrificed on the altar of Presbyterian respectability. He is given less than a column, a little more than half the space given the patriotic, tub-thumping Kipling, and less than half the space given Felicia Hemans. Nor is there any criticism of his work. The Way of all Flesh is merely mentioned in the list of his books. Gissing, another highly enlightened English writer, is accorded less space than Jane Porter, only about half the space given Anthony Hope, and less space than is drawn by Marie Corelli! There is almost no criticism of his work—a mere record of facts.
Mrs. M. E. Braddon, however, author of The Trail of the Serpent and Lady Audley’s Secret, is criticised in flattering terms. The biography speaks of her “large and appreciative public,” and apology is made for her by the statement that her works give “the great body of readers of fiction exactly what they require.” But why an apology is necessary one is unable to say since Aurora Floyd is “a novel with a strong affinity to Madame Bovary.” Mrs. Braddon and Flaubert! Truly a staggering alliance!
Mrs. Henry Wood, the author of East Lynne, is given more space than Conrad; and her Johnny Ludlow tales are “the most artistic” of her works. But the “artistic” Mrs. Wood has no preference over Julia Kavanagh. This latter lady, we discover, draws equal space with Marcel Prévost; and she “handles her French themes with fidelity and skill.” Judging from this praise and the fact that Prévost gets no praise but is accused of having written an “exaggerated” and “revolting” book, we can only conclude that the English authoress handles her French themes better than does Prévost.
George Meredith is accorded almost as much biographical space as Balzac; and in the article there appears such qualifying words as “seer,” “greatness,” and “master.” The impression given is that he was greater than Balzac. In Jane Porter’s biography, which is longer than that of Huysmans, we read of her “picturesque power of narration.” Even of Samuel Warren, to whom three-fourths of a column is allotted (more space than is given to Bret Harte, Lafcadio Hearn, or Gorky), it is said that the interest in Ten Thousand a Year “is made to run with a powerful current.”
Power also is discovered in the works of Lucas Malet. The Wages of Sin was “a powerful story” which “attracted great attention”; and her next book “had an even greater success.” Joseph Henry Shorthouse, who is given more space than Frank Norris and Stephen Crane combined, possessed “high earnestness of purpose, a luxuriant style and a genuinely spiritual quality.” Though lacking dramatic facility and a workmanlike conduct of narrative, “he had almost every other quality of the born novelist.” After this remark it is obviously necessary to revise our æsthetic judgment in regard to the religious author of John Inglesant.
Grant Allen, alas! lacked the benevolent qualities of the “spiritual” Mr. Shorthouse, and—as a result, no doubt—he is given less space, and his work and vogue are spoken of disparagingly. One of his books was a succès de scandale “on account of its treatment of the sexual problem.” Mr. Allen apparently neither “warmed the heart” nor “improved the conduct” of his audience. On the other hand, Mrs. Oliphant, in a long biography, is praised for her “sympathetic touch”; and we learn furthermore that she was long and “honorably” connected with the firm of Blackwood. Maurice Hewlett has nearly a half-column biography full of praise. Conan Doyle, also, is spoken of highly. Kipling’s biography, longer than Mark Twain’s, Bourget’s, Daudet’s, or Gogol’s, also contains praise. In H. G. Wells’s biography, which is longer than that of George Moore, “his very high place” as a novelist is spoken of; and Anthony Hope draws abundant praise in a biography almost as long as that of Turgueniev!
In the treatment of Mrs. Humphry Ward, however, we have the key to the literary attitude of the Encyclopædia. Here is an author who epitomizes that middle-class respectability which forms the Britannica’s editors’ standard of artistic judgment, and who represents that virtuous suburban culture which colors the Encyclopædia’s art departments. It is not surprising therefore that, of all recent novelists, she should be given the place of honor. Her biography extends to a column and two-thirds, much longer than the biography of Turgueniev, Zola, Daudet, Mark Twain, or Henry James; and over twice the length of William Dean Howells’s biography. Even more space is devoted to her than is given to the biography of Poe!
Nor in this disproportionate amount of space alone is Mrs. Ward’s superiority indicated. The article contains the most fulsome praise, and we are told that her “eminence among latter-day women novelists arises from her high conception of the art of fiction and her strong grasp on intellectual and social problems, her descriptive power ... and her command of a broad and vigorous prose style.” (The same enthusiastic gentleman who wrote Mrs. Ward’s biography also wrote the biography of Oscar Wilde. The latter is given much less space, and the article on him is a petty, contemptible attack written from the standpoint of a self-conscious puritan.)
Thackeray is given equal space with Balzac, and in the course of his biography it is said that some have wanted to compare him with Dickens but that such a comparison would be unprofitable. “It is better to recognize simply that the two novelists stood, each in his own way, distinctly above even their most distinguished contemporaries.” (Both Balzac and Victor Hugo were their contemporaries, and to say that Thackeray stood “distinctly above” them is to butcher French genius to make an English holiday.)
In Dickens’s biography, which is nearly half again as long as that of Balzac and nearly two and a half times as long as that of Hugo, we encounter such words and phrases as “masterpieces” and “wonderful books.” No books of his surpassed the early chapters of Great Expectations in “perfection of technique or in the mastery of all the resources of the novelist’s art.” Here, as in many other places, patriotic license has obviously been permitted to run wild. Where, outside of provincial England, will you find another critic, no matter how appreciative of Dickens’s talent, who will agree that he possessed “perfection of technique” and a “mastery of all the resources of the novelist’s art”? But, as if this perfervid rhetoric were not sufficiently extreme, Swinburne is quoted as saying that to have created Abel Magwitch alone is to be a god indeed among the creators of deathless men. (This means that Dickens was a god beside the mere mundane creator of Lucien de Rubempré, Goriot, and Eugénie Grandet.) And, again, on top of this unreasoned enthusiasm, it is added that in “intensity and range of creative genius he can hardly be said to have any modern rival.”
Let us turn to Balzac who was not, according to this encyclopædia, even Dickens’s rival in intensity and range of creative genius. Here we find derogatory criticism which indeed bears out the contention of Dickens’s biographer that the author of David Copperfield was superior to the author of Lost Illusions. Balzac, we read, “is never quite real.” His style “lacks force and adequacy to his own purpose.” And then we are given this final bit of insular criticism: “It is idle to claim for Balzac an absolute supremacy in the novel, while it may be questioned whether any single book of his, or any scene of a book, or even any single character or situation, is among the very greatest books, scenes, characters, situations in literature.” Alas, poor Balzac!—the inferior of both Dickens and Thackeray—the writer who, if the judgment of the Encyclopædia Britannica is to be accepted, created no book, scene, character or situation which is among the greatest! Thus are the world’s true geniuses disparaged for the benefit of moral English culture.
De Vigny receives adverse criticism. He is compared unfavorably to Sir Walter Scott, and is attacked for his “pessimistic” philosophy. De Musset “had genius, though not genius of that strongest kind which its possessor can always keep in check”—after the elegant and repressed manner of English writers, no doubt. De Musset’s own character worked “against his success as a writer,” and his break with George Sand “brought out the weakest side of his moral character.” (Again the church-bell motif.) Gautier, that sensuous and un-English Frenchman, wrote a book called Mademoiselle de Maupin which was “unfitted by its subject, and in parts by its treatment, for general perusal.”
Dumas père is praised, largely we infer, because his work was sanctioned by Englishmen: “The three musketeers are as famous in England as in France. Thackeray could read about Athos from sunrise to sunset with the utmost contentment of mind, and Robert Louis Stevenson and Andrew Lang have paid tribute to the band.” Pierre Loti, however, in a short biography, hardly meets with British approval. “Many of his best books are long sobs of remorseful memory, so personal, so intimate, that an English reader is amazed to find such depth of feeling compatible with the power of minutely and publicly recording what is felt.” Loti, like de Musset, lacked that prudish restraint which is so admirable a virtue in English writers. Daudet, in a short and very inadequate biography, is written down as an imitator of Dickens; and in Anatole France’s biography, which is shorter than Marryat’s or Mrs. Oliphant’s, no adequate indication of his genius is given.
Zola is treated with greater unfairness than perhaps any other French author. Zola has always been disliked in England, and his English publisher was jailed by the guardians of British morals. But it is somewhat astonishing to find to what lengths this insular prejudice has gone in the Encyclopædia Britannica. Zola’s biography, which is shorter than Mrs. Humphry Ward’s, is written by a former Accountant General of the English army, and contains adverse comment because he did not idealize “the nobler elements in human nature,” although, it is said, “his later books show improvement.” Such scant treatment of Zola reveals the unfairness of extreme prejudice, for no matter what the nationality, religion, or taste of the critic, he must, in all fairness, admit that Zola is a more important and influential figure in modern letters than Mrs. Humphry Ward.
In the biography of George Sand we learn that “as a thinker, George Eliot is vastly [sic] superior; her knowledge is more profound, and her psychological analysis subtler and more scientific.” Almost nothing is said of Constant’s writings; and in the mere half-column sketch of Huysmans there are only a few biographical facts with a list of his books. Of Stendhal there is practically no criticism; and Coppée “exhibits all the defects of his qualities.” René Bazin draws only seventeen lines—a bare record of facts; and Édouard Rod is given a third of a column with no criticism.
Despite the praise given Victor Hugo, his biography, from a critical standpoint, is practically worthless. In it there is no sense of critical proportion: it is a mere panegyric which definitely states that Hugo was greater than Balzac. This astonishing and incompetent praise is accounted for when we discover that it was written by Swinburne who, as is generally admitted, was a better poet than critic. In fact, turning to Swinburne’s biography, we find the following valuation of Swinburne as critic: “The very qualities which gave his poetry its unique charm and character were antipathetic to his success as a critic. He had very little capacity for cool and reasoned judgment, and his criticism is often a tangled thicket of prejudices and predilections.... Not one of his studies is satisfactory as a whole; the faculty for the sustained exercise of the judgment was denied him, and even his best appreciations are disfigured by error in taste and proportion.”
Here we have the Encyclopædia’s own condemnation of some of its material—a personal and frank confession of its own gross inadequacy and bias! And Swinburne, let it be noted, contributes no less than ten articles on some of the most important literary men in history! If the Encyclopædia Britannica was as naïf and honest about revealing the incapacity of all of its critics as it is in the case of Swinburne, there would be no need for me to call attention to those other tangled thickets of prejudices and predilections which have enmeshed so many of the gentlemen who write for it.
But the inadequacy of the Britannica as a reference book on modern French letters can best be judged by the fact that there appears no biographical mention whatever of Romain Rolland, Pierre de Coulevain, Tinayre, René Boylesve, Jean and Jérôme Tharaud, Henry Bordeaux, or Pierre Mille. Rolland is the most gifted and conspicuous figure of the new school of writers in France to-day, and the chief representative of a new phase of French literature. Pierre de Coulevain stands at the head of the women novelists in modern France; and her books are widely known in both England and America. Madame Tinayre’s art, to quote an eminent English critic, “reflects the dawn of the new French spirit.” Boylesve stands for the classic revival in French letters, and ranks in the forefront of contemporary European writers. The Tharauds became famous as novelists as far back as 1902, and hold a high place among the writers of Young France. Bordeaux’s novels have long been familiar in translation even to American readers; and Pierre Mille holds very much the same place in France that Kipling does in England. Yet not only does not one of these noteworthy authors have a biography, but their names do not appear throughout the entire Encyclopædia!
In the article on French Literature the literary renaissance of Young France is not mentioned. There apparently has been no effort at making the account modern or up-to-date in either its critical or historical side; and if you desire information on the recent activities in French letters—activities of vital importance and including several of the greatest names in contemporary literature—you need not seek it in the Britannica, that “supreme” book of knowledge; for apparently only modern English achievement is judged worthy of consideration.
Modern Russian literature suffers even more from neglect. Dostoievsky has less than two columns, less space than Charles Reade, George Borrow, Mrs. Gaskell, or Charles Kingsley. Gogol has a column and a quarter, far less space than that given Felicia Hemans, James M. Barrie, of Mrs. Humphry Ward. Gorky is allotted little over half a column, one-third of the space given Kipling, and equal space with Ouida and Gilbert Parker. Tolstoi, however, seems to have inflamed the British imagination. His sentimental philosophy, his socialistic godliness, his capacity to “warm the heart” and “improve the conduct” has resulted in a biography which runs to nearly sixteen columns!
The most inept and inadequate biography in the whole Russian literature department, however, is that of Turgueniev. Turgueniev, almost universally conceded to be the greatest, and certainly the most artistic, of the Russian writers, is accorded little over a column, less space than is devoted to the biography of Thomas Love Peacock, Kipling, or Thomas Hardy; and only a half or a third of the space given to a dozen other inferior English writers. And in this brief biography we encounter the following valuation: “Undoubtedly Turgueniev may be considered one of the great novelists, worthy to be ranked with Thackeray, Dickens and George Eliot; with the genius of the last of these he has many affinities.” It will amuse, rather than amaze, the students of Slavonic literature to learn that Turgueniev was the George Eliot of Russia.
But those thousands of people who have bought the Encyclopædia Britannica, believing it to be an adequate literary reference work, should perhaps be thankful that Turgueniev is mentioned at all, for many other important modern Russians are without biographies. For instance, there is no biographical mention of Andreiev, Garshin, Kuprin, Tchernyshevsky, Grigorovich, Artzybasheff, Korolenko, Veressayeff, Nekrasoff, or Tchekhoff. And yet the work of nearly all these Russian writers had actually appeared in English translation before the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica went to press!
Italian fiction also suffers from neglect at the hands of the Britannica’s critics. Giulio Barrili receives only thirteen lines; Farina, only nine lines; and Giovanni Verga, only twelve. Fogazzaro draws twenty-six lines; and in the biography we learn that his “deeply religious spirit” animates his literary productions, and that he contributed to modern Italian literature “wholesome elements of which it would otherwise be nearly destitute.” He also was “Wordsworthian” in his simplicity and pathos. Amicis and Serao draw twenty-nine lines and half a column respectively; but there are no biographies of Emilio de Marchi, the prominent historical novelist; Enrico Butti, one of the foremost representatives of the psychological novel in modern Italy; and Grazia Deledda.
The neglect of modern German writers in the Encyclopædia Britannica is more glaring than that of any other European nation, not excluding Russia. So little information can one get from this encyclopædia concerning the really important German authors that it would hardly repay one to go to the Britannica. Eckstein—five of whose novels were issued in English before 1890—is denied a biography. So is Meinhold; so is Luise Mühlbach; so is Wachenroder;—all well known in England long before the Britannica went to press. Even Gabriele Reuter, whose far-reaching success came as long ago as 1895, is without a biography. And—what is less excusable—Max Kretzer, the first of Germany’s naturalistic novelists, has no biographical mention in this great English encyclopædia!
But the omission of even these important names do not represent the Britannica’s greatest injustice to Germany’s literature; for one will seek in vain for biographies of Wilhelm von Polenz and Ompteda, two of the foremost German novelists, whose work marked a distinct step in the development of their nation’s letters. Furthermore, Clara Viebig, Gustav Frenssen, and Thomas Mann, who are among the truly great figures in modern imaginative literature, are without biographies. These writers have carried the German novel to extraordinary heights. Mann’s Buddenbrooks (1901) represents the culmination of the naturalistic novel in Germany; and Viebig and Frenssen are of scarcely less importance. There are few modern English novelists as deserving as these three Germans; and yet numerous comparatively insignificant English writers are given long critical biographies in the Britannica while Viebig, Frenssen and Mann receive no biographies whatever! Such unjust discrimination against non-British authors would hardly be compatible with even the narrowest scholarship.
And there are other important and eminent German novelists who are far more deserving of space in an international encyclopædia than many of the Englishmen who receive biographies in the Britannica—for instance, Heinz Tovote, Hermann Hesse, Ricarda Huch, Helene Böhlau, and Eduard von Keyserling—not one of whom is given biographical consideration!
When we come to the American literary division of the Britannica, however, prejudice and neglect reach their highest point. Never have I seen a better example of the contemptuous attitude of England toward American literature than in the Encyclopædia’s treatment of the novelists of the United States. William Dean Howells, in a three-quarters-of-a-column biography, gets scant praise and is criticised with not a little condescension. F. Marion Crawford, in an even shorter biography, receives only lukewarm and apologetic praise. Frank Norris is accorded only twenty lines, less space than is given the English hack, G. A. Henty! McTeague is “a story of the San Francisco slums”; and The Octopus and The Pit are “powerful stories.” This is the extent of the criticism. Stephen Crane is given twelve lines; Bret Harte, half a column with little criticism; Charles Brockden Brown and Lafcadio Hearn, two-thirds of a column each; H. C. Bunner, twenty-one lines; and Thomas Nelson Page less than half a column.
What there is in Mark Twain’s biography is written by Brander Matthews and is fair as far as it goes. The one recent American novelist who is given adequate praise is Henry James; and this may be accounted for by the fact of James’s adoption of England as his home. The only other adequate biography of an American author is that of Nathaniel Hawthorne. But the few biographies of other United States writers who are included in the Encyclopædia are very brief and insufficient.
In the omissions of American writers, British prejudice has overstepped all bounds of common justice. In the following list of names only one (Churchill’s) is even mentioned in the entire Encyclopædia: Edith Wharton, David Graham Phillips, Gertrude Atherton, Winston Churchill, Owen Wister, Ambrose Bierce, Theodore Dreiser, Margaret Deland, Jack London, Robert Grant, Ellen Glasgow, Booth Tarkington, Alice Brown and Robert Herrick. And yet there is abundant space in the Britannica, not only for critical mention, but for detailed biographies, of such English writers as Hall Caine, Rider Haggard, Maurice Hewlett, Stanley Weyman, Flora Annie Steel, Edna Lyall, Elizabeth Charles, Annie Keary, Eliza Linton, Mrs. Henry Wood, Pett Ridge, W. C. Russell, and still others of less consequence than many of the American authors omitted.
If the Encyclopædia Britannica was a work whose sale was confined to England, there could be little complaint of the neglect of the writers of other nationalities. But unjust pandering to British prejudice and a narrow contempt for American culture scarcely become an encyclopædia whose chief profits are derived from the United States. So inadequate is the treatment of American fiction that almost any modern text-book on our literature is of more value; for, as I have shown, all manner of inferior and little-known English authors are given eulogistic biographies, while many of the foremost American authors receive no mention whatever.
As a reference book on modern fiction, the Encyclopædia Britannica is hopelessly inadequate and behind the times, filled with long eulogies of bourgeois English authors, lacking all sense of proportion, containing many glaring omissions, and compiled and written in a spirit of insular prejudice. And this is the kind of culture that America is exhorted, not merely to accept, but to pay a large price for.
Particular importance attaches to the manner in which the modern drama is treated in the Encyclopædia Britannica, for to-day there exists a deep and intimate interest in this branch of literature—an interest which is greater and more far-reaching than during any other period of modern times. Especially is this true in the United States. During the past fifteen years study in the history, art and technique of the stage has spread into almost every quarter of the country. The printed play has come back into favor; and there is scarcely a publisher of any note on whose lists do not appear many works of dramatic literature. Dramatic and stage societies have been formed everywhere, and there is an increasing demand for productions of the better-class plays. Perhaps no other one branch of letters holds so conspicuous a place in our culture.
The drama itself during the last quarter of a century has taken enormous strides. After a period of stagnant mediocrity, a new vitality has been fused into this art. In Germany, France, England, and Russia many significant dramatists have sprung into existence. The literature of the stage has taken a new lease on life, and in its ranks are numbered many of the finest creative minds of our day. Furthermore, a school of capable and serious critics has developed to meet the demands of the new work; and already there is a large and increasing library of books dealing with the subject from almost every angle.
Therefore, because of this renaissance and the widespread interest attaching to it, we should expect to find in the Encyclopædia Britannica—that “supreme book of knowledge,” that “complete library” of information—a full and comprehensive treatment of the modern drama. The claims made in the advertising of the Britannica would lead one immediately to assume that so important and universally absorbing a subject would be set forth adequately. The drama has played, and will continue to play, a large part in our modern intellectual life; and, in an educational work of the alleged scope and completeness of this encyclopædia, it should be accorded careful and liberal consideration.
But in this department, as in others equally important, the Encyclopædia Britannica fails inexcusably. I have carefully inspected its dramatic information, and its inadequacy left me with a feeling which fell little short of amazement. Not only is the modern drama given scant consideration, but those comparatively few articles which deal with it are so inept and desultory that no correct idea of the development of modern dramatic literature can be obtained. As in the Encyclopædia’s other departments of modern æsthetic culture, the work of Great Britain is accorded an abnormally large amount of space, while the work of other nations is—if mentioned at all—dismissed with comparatively few words. The British drama, like the British novel, is exaggerated, both through implication and direct statement, out of all proportion to its inherent significance. Many of the truly great and important dramatists of foreign countries are omitted entirely in order to make way for minor and inconsequent Englishmen; and the few towering figures from abroad who are given space draw only a few lines of biographical mention, whereas second-rate British writers are accorded long and minutely specific articles.
Furthermore, the Encyclopædia reveals the fact that in a great many instances it has not been brought up to date. As a result, even when an alien dramatist has found his way into the exclusive British circle whose activities dominate the æsthetic departments of the Britannica, one does not have a complete record of his work. This failure to revise adequately old material and to make the information as recent as the physical exigencies of book-making would permit, results no doubt in the fact that even the more recent and important English dramatists have suffered the fate of omission along with their less favored confrères from other countries. Consequently, the dramatic material is not only biased but is inadequate from the British standpoint as well.
As a reference book on the modern drama, either for students or the casual reader, the Encyclopædia Britannica is practically worthless. Its information is old and prejudiced, besides being flagrantly incomplete. I could name a dozen books on the modern drama which do not pretend to possess the comprehensiveness and authenticity claimed by the Britannica, and yet are far more adequate, both in extent and modernity of subject-matter, and of vastly superior educational value. The limited information which has actually found its way into this encyclopædia is marked by incompetency, prejudice, and carelessness; and its large number of indefensible omissions renders it almost useless as a reference work on modern dramatic literature.
In the general article on the Drama we have a key to the entire treatment of the subject throughout the Encyclopædia’s twenty-seven volumes. The English drama is given forty-one columns. The French drama is given fifteen columns; the German drama, nine; the Scandinavian drama one; and the Russian drama, one-third of a column! The American drama is not even given a separate division but is included under the English drama, and occupies less than one column! The Irish drama also is without a separate division, and receives only twelve lines of exposition! In the division on the Scandinavian drama, Strindberg’s name is not mentioned; and the reader is supplied with the antiquated, early-Victorian information that Ibsen’s Ghosts is “repellent.” In the brief passage on the Russian drama almost no idea is given of its subject; in fact, no dramatist born later than 1808 is mentioned! When we consider the wealth of the modern Russian drama and its influence on the theater of other nations, even of England, we can only marvel at such utter inadequacy and neglect.
In the sub-headings of “recent” drama under Drama, “Recent English Drama” is given over twelve columns, while “Recent French Drama” is given but a little over three. There is no sub-division for recent German drama, but mention is made of it in a short paragraph under “English Drama” with the heading: “Influences of Foreign Drama!”
Regard this distribution of space for a moment. The obvious implication is that the more modern English drama is four times as important as the French; and yet for years the entire inspiration of the English stage came from France, and certain English “dramatists” made their reputations by adapting French plays. And what of the more modern German drama? It is of importance, evidently, only as it had an influence on the English drama. Could self-complacent insularity go further? Even in its capacity as a mere contribution to British genius, the recent German drama, it seems, is of little moment; and Sudermann counts for naught. In the entire article on Drama his name is not so much as mentioned! Such is the transcendent and superlative culture of the Encyclopædia Britannica!
Turning to the biographies, we find that British dramatists, when mentioned at all, are treated with cordial liberality. T. W. Robertson is given nearly three-fourths of a column with the comment that “his work is notable for its masterly stage-craft, wholesome and generous humor, bright and unstrained dialogue, and high dramatic sense of human character in its theatrical aspects.” H. J. Byron is given over half a column. W. S. Gilbert draws no less than a column and three-fourths. G. R. Sims gets twenty-two lines. Sydney Grundy is accorded half a column. James M. Barrie is given a column and a half, and George Bernard Shaw an equal amount of space. Pinero is given two-thirds of a column; and Henry Arthur Jones half a column. Jones, however, might have had more space had the Encyclopædia’s editor gone to the simple trouble of extending that playwright’s biography beyond 1904; but on this date it ends, with the result that there appears no mention of The Heroic Stubbs, The Hypocrites, The Evangelist, Dolly Reforms Himself, or The Knife—all of which were produced before this supreme, up-to-date and informative encyclopædia went to press.
Oscar Wilde, a man who revolutionized the English drama and who was unquestionably one of the important figures in modern English letters, is given a little over a column, less space than Shaw, Barrie, or Gilbert. In much of his writing there was, we learn, “an undertone of rather nasty suggestion”; and after leaving prison “he was necessarily an outcast from decent circles.” Also, “it is still impossible to take a purely objective view of Oscar Wilde’s work,”—that is to say, literary judgment cannot be passed without recourse to morality!
Here is an actual confession by the editor himself (for he contributed the article on Wilde) of the accusation I have made against the Britannica. A great artist, according to this encyclopædia’s criterion, is a respectable artist, one who preaches and practises an inoffensive suburbanism. But when the day comes—if it ever does—when the editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica, along with other less prudish and less delicate critics, can regard Wilde’s work apart from personal prejudice, perhaps Wilde will be given the consideration he deserves—a consideration far greater, we hope, than that accorded Barrie and Gilbert.
Greater inadequacy than that revealed in Wilde’s biography is to be found in the fact that Synge has no biography whatever in the Britannica! Nor has Hankin. Nor Granville Barker. Nor Lady Gregory. Nor Galsworthy. The biographical omission of such important names as these can hardly be due to the editor’s opinion that they are not deserving of mention, for lesser English dramatic names of the preceding generation are given liberal space. The fact that these writers do not appear can be attributed only to the fact that the Encyclopædia Britannica has not been properly brought up to date—a fact substantiated by an abundance of evidence throughout the entire work. Of what possible value to one interested in the modern drama is a reference library which contains no biographical mention of such significant figures as these?
The French drama suffers even more from incompleteness and scantiness of material. Becque draws just eleven lines, exactly half the space given to the British playwright whose reputation largely depends on that piece of sentimental claptrap, Lights o’ London. Hervieu draws half a column of biography, in which his two important dramas, Modestie and Connais-Toi (both out before the Britannica went to press), are not mentioned. Curel is given sixteen lines; Lavedan, fourteen lines, in which not all of even his best work is noted; Maurice Donnay, twenty lines, with no mention of La Patronne (1908); Lemaître, a third of a column; Rostand, half a column, less space than is accorded the cheap, slap-stick humorist from Manchester, H. J. Byron; Capus, a third of a column; Porto-Riche, thirteen lines; and Brieux twenty-six lines. In Brieux’s very brief biography there is no record of La Française (1807), Simone (1908), or Suzette (1909). Henri Bernstein does not have even a biographical mention.
Maeterlinck’s biography runs only to a column and a third, and the last work of his to be mentioned is dated 1903, since which time the article has apparently not been revised! Therefore, if you depend for information on this biography in the Encyclopædia Britannica, you will find no record of Sœur Béatrice, Ariane et Barbe-Bleu, L’Oiseau Bleu, or Maria Magdaléne.
The modern Italian drama also receives very brief and inadequate treatment. Of the modern Italian dramatists only two of importance have biographies—Pietro Cossa and Paolo Ferrari. Cossa is given twenty-four lines, and Ferrari only seven lines! The two eminent comedy writers, Gherardi del Testa and Ferdinando Martini, have no biographies. Nor has either Giuseppe Giacosa or Gerolamo Rovetta, the leaders of the new school, any biographical mention. And in d’Annunzio’s biography only seventeen lines are devoted to his dramas. What sort of an idea of the modern Italian drama can one get from an encyclopædia which contains such indefensible omissions and such scant accounts of prominent writers? And why should the writer who is as commonly known by the name of Stecchetti as Samuel Clemens is by the name of Mark Twain be listed under “Guerrini” without even a cross reference under the only name by which the majority of readers know him? Joseph Conrad might almost as well be listed under “Korzeniowski.” There are few enough non-British writers included in the Britannica without deliberately or ignorantly hiding those who have been lucky enough to be admitted.
Crossing over into Germany and Austria one may look in vain for any indication of the wealth of dramatic material and the great number of important dramatic figures which have come from these two countries. Of all the recent German and Austrian dramatists of note, only two are so much as given biographical mention, and these two—Sudermann and Hauptmann—are treated with a brevity and inadequacy which, to my knowledge, are without a parallel in any modern reference work on the subject. Hauptmann and Sudermann receive just twenty-five lines each, less space than is given to Sydney Grundy, Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones, T. W. Robertson, H. J. Byron; and less than a third of the space given to Shaw and W. S. Gilbert! Even Sims is given nearly as much space!
In these comparisons alone is discernible a chauvinism of almost incredible narrowness. But the biographies themselves emphasize this patriotic prejudice even more than does the brevity of space. In Sudermann’s biography, which apparently ends in 1905, no mention whatever is made of such important works as Das Blumenboot, Rosen, Strandkinder, and Das Hohe Lied (The Song of Songs), all of which appeared before the Britannica was printed.
And what of Hauptmann, perhaps the greatest and most important figure in dramatic literature of this and the last generation? After a brief record of the facts in Hauptmann’s life we read: “Of Hauptmann’s subsequent work mention may be made of”—and then the names of a few of his plays are set down. In the phrase, “mention may be made of,” is summed up the critic’s narrow viewpoint. And in that list it was thought unnecessary to mention Schluck und Jau, Michael Kramer, Der Arme Heinrich, Elga, Die Jungfern vom Bischofsberg, Kaiser Karls Geisel, and Griselda! Since all of these appeared in ample time to be included, it would, I believe, have occurred to an unprejudiced critic that mention might have been made of them. In fact, all the circumstantial evidence points to the supposition that had Hauptmann been an Englishman, not only would they have been mentioned, but they would have been praised as well. As it is, there is no criticism of Hauptmann’s work and no indication of his greatness, despite the fact that he is almost universally conceded to be a more important figure than any of the modern English playwrights who are given greater space and favorably criticised.
With such insufficient and glaringly prejudiced treatment of giants like Sudermann and Hauptmann, it is not at all surprising that not one other figure in German and Austrian recent dramatic literature should have a biography. For instance, there is no biography of Schnitzler, Arno Holz, Max Halbe, Ludwig Fulda, O. E. Hartleben, Max Dreyer, Ernst Hardt, Hirschfeld, Ernst Rosmer, Karl Schönherr, Hermann Bahr, Thoma, Beer-Hoffmann, Johannes Schlaf, or Wedekind! Although every one of these names should be included in some informative manner in an encyclopædia as large as the Britannica, and one which makes so lavish a claim for its educational completeness, the omission of several of them may be excused on the grounds that, in the haste of the Encyclopædia’s editors to commercialize their cultural wares, they did not have sufficient time to take cognizance of the more recent of these dramatists. Since the editors have overlooked men like Galsworthy from their own country, we can at least acquit them of the charge of snobbish patriotism in several of the present instances of wanton oversight.
In the cases of Schnitzler, Hartleben and Wedekind, however, no excuse can be offered. The work of these men, though recent, had gained for itself so important a place in the modern world before the Britannica went to press, that to ignore them biographically was an act of either wanton carelessness or extreme ignorance. The former would appear to furnish the explanation, for under Drama there is evidence that the editors knew of Schnitzler’s and Wedekind’s existence. But, since the Überbrettl movement is given only seven lines, it would, under the circumstances, hardly be worth one’s while to consult the Encyclopædia Britannica for information on the modern drama in Germany and Austria.
Even so, one would learn more of the drama in those countries than one could possibly learn of the drama of the United States. To be sure, no great significance attaches to our stage literature, but since this encyclopædia is being foisted upon us and we are asked to buy it in preference to all others, it would have been well within the province of its editors to give the hundred of thousands of American readers a little enlightenment concerning their own drama.
The English, of course, have no interest in our institutions—save only our banks—and consistently refuse to attribute either competency or importance to our writers. They would prefer that we accept their provincial and mediocre culture and ignore entirely our own æsthetic struggles toward an individual expression. But all Americans do not find intellectual contentment in this paternal and protecting British attitude; and those who are interested in our native drama and who have paid money for the Britannica on the strength of its exorbitant and unsustainable claims, have just cause for complaint in the scanty and contemptuous way in which American letters are treated.
As I have already noted, the American drama is embodied in the article on the English Drama, and is given less space than a column. Under American Literature there is nothing concerning the American stage and its writers; nor is there a single biography in the entire Encyclopædia of an American dramatist! James A. Herne receives eight lines—a note so meagre that for purposes of reference it might almost as well have been omitted entirely. And Augustin Daly, the most conspicuous figure in our theatrical history, is dismissed with twenty lines, about half the space given H. J. Byron! If you desire any information concerning the development of the American theater, or wish to know any details about David Belasco, Bronson Howard, Charles Hoyt, Steele MacKaye, Augustus Thomas, Clyde Fitch, or Charles Klein, you will have to go to a source other than the Encyclopædia Britannica.
By way of explaining this neglect of all American culture I will quote from a recent advertisement of the Britannica. “We Americans,” it says, in a most intimate and condescending manner, “have had a deep sense of self-sufficiency. We haven’t had time or inclination to know how the rest of the world lived. But now we must know.” And let it be said for the Encyclopædia Britannica that it has done all in its power to discourage us in this self-sufficiency.
In the field of poetry the Encyclopædia Britannica comes nearer being a competent reference library than in the field of painting, fiction, or drama. This fact, however, is not due to a spirit of fairness on the part of the Encyclopædia’s editors so much as to the actual superiority of English poetry. In this field England has led the world. It is the one branch of culture in which modern England stands highest. France surpasses her in painting and in fiction, and Germany in music and the drama. But Great Britain is without a rival in poetry. Therefore, despite the fact that the Encyclopædia is just as biased in dealing with this subject as it is in dealing with other cultural subjects, England’s pre-eminence tends to reduce in this instance that insular prejudice which distorts the Britannica’s treatment of arts and letters.
But even granting this superiority, the Encyclopædia is neglectful of the poets of other nations; and while it comes nearer the truth in setting forth the glories of English prosody, it fails here as elsewhere in being an international reference book of any marked value. There is considerable and unnecessary exaggeration of the merits of British poets, even of second- and third-rate British poets. Evangelical criticism predominates, and respectability is the measure of merit. Furthermore, the true value of poetry in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the United States is minimized, and many writers of these countries who unquestionably should have a place in an encyclopædia as large as the Britannica, are omitted. Especially is this true in the case of the United States, which stands second only to Great Britain in the quantity and quality of its modern poetry.
Let us first review briefly the complete and eulogistic manner in which English poets are dealt with. Then let us compare, while making all allowances for alien inferiority, this treatment of British poetry with the Encyclopædia’s treatment of the poetry of other nations. To begin with, I find but very few British poets of even minor importance who are not given a biography more than equal to their deserts. Coventry Patmore receives a biography of a column and a half. Sydney Dobell’s runs to nearly a column. Wilfred Scawen Blunt is accorded half a column; John Davidson, over a column of high praise; Henley, more than an entire page; Stephen Phillips, three-fourths of a column; Henry Clarence Kendall, eighteen lines; Roden Noel, twenty-eight lines; Alexander Smith, twenty-five lines; Lawrence Binyon, nineteen lines; Laurence Housman, twenty-three lines; Ebenezer Jones, twenty-four lines; Richard Le Gallienne, twenty lines; Henry Newbolt, fifteen lines; and Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy, twenty-nine lines. These names, together with the amount of space devoted to them, will give an indication of the thoroughness and liberality accorded British poets.
But these by no means complete the list. Robert Bridges receives half a column, in which we learn that “his work has had great influence in a select circle, by its restraint, purity, precision, and delicacy yet strength of expression.” And in his higher flights “he is always noble and sometimes sublime.... Spirituality informs his inspiration.” Here we have an excellent example of the Encyclopædia’s combination of the uplift and hyperbole. More of the same moral encomium is to be found in the biography of Christina Rossetti, which is a column in length. Her “sanctity” and “religious faith” are highly praised; and the article ends with the words: “All that we really need to know about her, save that she was a great saint, is that she was a great poet.” Ah, yes! Saintliness—that cardinal requisite in British æsthetics.
An example of how the Britannica’s provincial puritanism of judgment works against a poet is to be found in the nearly-two-page biography of Swinburne, wherein we read that “it is impossible to acquit his poetry of the charge of animalism which wars against the higher issues of the spirit.” No, Swinburne was not a pious uplifter; he did not use his art as a medium for evangelical exhortation. Consequently his work does not comply with the Britannica’s parochial standard. And although Swinburne was contemporary with Francis Thompson, it is said in the latter’s two-thirds-of-a-column biography that “for glory of inspiration and natural magnificence of utterance he is unique among the poets of his time.” Watts-Dunton also, in his three-fourths-of-a-column biography, is praised lavishly and set down as a “unique figure in the world of letters.”
William Watson receives over a column of biography, and is eulogized for his classic traditions in an age of prosodic lawlessness. The sentimental and inoffensive Austin Dobson apparently is a high favorite with the editors of the Encyclopædia, for he is given a column and three-fourths—more space than is given John Davidson, Francis Thompson, William Watson, Watts-Dunton, or Oscar Wilde—an allowance out of all proportion to his importance.
In closing this brief record of the Encyclopædia Britannica’s prodigal generosity to British poets, it might be well to mention that Thomas Chatterton receives a biography of five and a half columns—a space considerably longer than that given to Heine. Since Thomas Chatterton died at the age of eighteen and Heinrich Heine did not die until he was fifty-nine, I leave it to statisticians to figure out how much more space than Heine Chatterton would have received had he lived to the age of the German poet.
On turning to the French poets and bearing in mind the long biographies accorded British poets, one cannot help feeling amazed at the scant treatment which the former receive. Baudelaire, for instance, is given less space than Christina Rossetti, William Watson, Henley, Coventry Patmore, John Davidson, or Austin Dobson. Catulle Mendès receives considerably less space than Stephen Phillips. Verlaine is given equal space with Watts-Dunton, and less than half the space given to Austin Dobson! Stéphane Mallarmé receives only half the space given to John Davidson, Christina Rossetti, or William Watson. Jean Moréas receives only half the space given to Sydney Dobell or Christina Rossetti. Viélé-Griffin draws a shorter biography than Kendall, the Australian poet; and Régnier and Bouchor are dismissed in fewer words than is the Scotch poet, Alexander Smith. Furthermore, these biographies are rarely critical, being in the majority of instances a cursory record of incomplete data.
Here attention should be called to the fact that only in the cases of the very inconsequent British poets is criticism omitted: if the poet is even fairly well known there is a discussion of his work and an indication of the place he is supposed to hold in his particular field. But with foreign writers—even the very prominent ones—little or nothing concerning them is vouchsafed save historical facts, and these, as a general rule, fall far short of completeness. The impression given is that obscure Englishmen are more important than eminent Frenchmen, Germans, or Americans. Evidently the editors are of the opinion that if one is cognizant of British culture one can easily dispense with all other culture as inferior and unnecessary. Otherwise how, except on the ground of deliberate falsification, can one explain the liberal treatment accorded English poets as compared with the meagre treatment given French poets?
Since the important French poets mentioned receive such niggardly and grudging treatment, it is not to be wondered at that many other lesser poets—yet poets who are of sufficient importance to be included in an encyclopædia—should receive no biographical mention. If you wish information concerning Adolphe Retté, René de Ghil, Stuart Merrill, Emmanuel Signoret, Jehan Rictus, Albert Samain, Paul Fort, who is the leading balladist of young France, Hérold, Quillard, or Francis Jammes, you will have to go to a source even more “supreme” than the Encyclopædia Britannica. These poets were famous in 1900, and even in America there had appeared at that time critical considerations of their work. Again, one ought to find, in so “complete” a “library” as the Britannica, information concerning the principal poets of the Belgian Renaissance. But of the eight leading modern poets of Belgium only three have biographies—Lemonnier, Maeterlinck, and Verhaeren. There are no biographies of Eekhoud, Rodenbach, Elskamp, Severin and Cammaerts.
Turning to Italy we find even grosser injustice and an even more woeful inadequacy in the treatment accorded her modern poets. To be sure, there are biographies of Carducci, Ferrari, Marradi, Mazzoni, and Arturo Graf. But Alfredo Baccelli, Domenico Gnoli, Giovanni Pascoli, Mario Rapisardi, Chiarini, Panzacchi and Annie Vivanti are omitted. There should be biographies of these writers in an international encyclopædia one-fourth the size of the Britannica. Baccelli and Rapisardi are perhaps the two most important epic poets of modern Italy. Gnoli is one of the leaders of the classical school. Chiarini is not only a leading poet but is one of the first critics of Italy as well. Panzacchi, the romantic, is second only to the very greatest Italian poets of modern times, and as far back as 1898 British critics were praising him and regretting that he was not better known in England. Annie Vivanti, born in London, is a poet known and esteemed all over Italy. (It may be noted here that Vivanti wrote a vehement denunciation and repudiation of England in Ave Albion.)
But these names represent only part of the injustice and neglect accorded modern Italian poetry by the Britannica. There is not even so much as a mention in the entire twenty-nine volumes of the names of Alinda Bonacchi, the most widely known woman poet in Italy; Capuano, who, besides being a notable poet, is also a novelist, dramatist and critic of distinction; Funcini (Tanfucio Neri), a household word in Tuscany and one held in high esteem all over Italy; “Countess Lara” (Eveline Cattermole), whose Versi gave her a foremost place among the poets of her day; Pitteri, who was famous as long ago as 1890; and Nencioni, not only a fine poet but one of Italy’s great critics. Nencioni has earned the reputation of being the Sainte-Beuve of Italy, and it was he who introduced Browning, Tennyson and Swinburne to his countrymen. Then there are such poets as Fontana, Bicci and Arnaboldi, who should at least be mentioned in connection with modern Italian literature, but whose names do not appear in “this complete library of information.”
But France, Belgium, and Italy, nevertheless, have great cause for feeling honored when comparison is made between the way the Encyclopædia Britannica deals with their modern poetry and the way it deals with modern German and Austrian poetry. Of all the important recent lyricists of Germany and Austria only one is given a biography, and that biography is so brief and inadequate as to be practically worthless for purposes of enlightenment. The one favored poet is Detlev von Liliencron. Liliencron is perhaps the most commanding lyrical figure in all recent German literature, and he receives just twenty-seven lines, or about one-fifth of the space given to Austin Dobson! But there are no biographies of Richard Dehmel, Carl Busse, Stefan George, J. H. Mackay, Rainer Maria Rilke, Gustav Falke, Ernst von Wolzogen, Karl Henckell, Dörmann, Otto Julius Bierbaum, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
There can be no excuse for many of these omissions. Several of these names are of international eminence. Their works have not been confined to Germany, but have appeared in English translation. They stand in the foremost rank of modern literature, and both in England and America there are critical books which accord them extensive consideration. Without a knowledge of them no one—not even a Britisher—can lay claim to an understanding of modern letters. Yet the Encyclopædia Britannica denies them space and still poses as an adequate reference work.
One may hope to find some adequate treatment of the German lyric to recent years with its “remarkable variety of new tones and pregnant ideas,” in the article on German Literature. But that hope will straightway be blasted when one turns to the article in question. The entire new renaissance in German poetry is dismissed in a brief paragraph of thirty-one lines! It would have been better to omit it altogether, for such a cursory and inadequate survey of a significant subject can result only in disseminating a most unjust and distorted impression. And the bibliography at the end of this article on modern German literature reveals nothing so much as the lack of knowledge on the part of the critic who compiled it. Not only is the Britannica deficient in its information, but it does not reveal the best sources from which this omitted information might be gained.
An even more absurdly inadequate treatment is accorded the poets of modern Sweden. Despite the fact that Swedish literature is little known to Americans, the poetry of that country ranks very high—higher (according to some eminent critics) than the poetry of France or Germany. But the Britannica makes no effort to disturb our ignorance; and so the great lyric poetry of Sweden since 1870 is barely touched upon. However, Mr. Edmund Gosse, a copious contributor to the Encyclopædia, has let the cat out of the bag. In one of his books he has pronounced Fröding, Levertin and Heidenstam “three very great lyrical artists,” and has called Snoilsky a poet of “unquestioned force and fire.” Turning to the Britannica we find that Snoilsky is dismissed with half the space given Sydney Dobell and a third of the space given Patmore. Levertin receives only a third of a column; and Fröding is denied any biography whatever. He is thrown in with a batch of minor writers under Sweden. Heidenstam, the new Nobel prize-winner, a poet who, according to Charles Wharton Stork, “stands head and shoulders above any now writing in England,” receives only eight lines in the general notice! And Karlfeldt, another important lyrist, who is the Secretary of the Swedish Academy, is considered unworthy of even a word in the “supreme” Encyclopædia Britannica.
It would seem that unfair and scant treatment of a country’s poetry could go no further. But if you will seek for information concerning American poetry you will find a deficiency which is even greater than that which marks the treatment of modern Swedish poetry.
Here again it might be in place to call attention to the hyperbolical claims on which the Encyclopædia Britannica has been sold in America. In the flamboyant and unsubstantiable advertising of this reference work you will no doubt recall the claim: “It will tell you more about everything than you can get from any other source.” And perhaps you will also remember the statement: “The Britannica is a complete library of knowledge on every subject appealing to intelligent persons.” It may be, of course, that the editors believe that the subject of American literature does not, or at least should not, appeal to any but ignorant persons, and that, in fact, only middle-class English culture can possibly interest the intelligent. But unless such a belief can be proved to be correct, the American buyers of this Encyclopædia have a grave and legitimate complaint against the editors for the manner in which the books were foisted upon them. The Encyclopædia Britannica, as I have pointed out, is not a complete library of knowledge on the subject of literature; and in the following pages I shall show that its gross inadequacy extends to many other very important fields of endeavor. Moreover, its incompleteness is most glaringly obvious in the field of American æsthetic effort—a field which, under the circumstances, should be the last to be neglected.
On the subject of American poetry it is deficient almost to the extreme of worthlessness. In the article, American Literature, written by George E. Woodberry, we discover that truly British spirit and viewpoint which regards nothing as worth while unless it is old or eminently respectable and accepted. The result is that, in the paragraph on our poetry, such men as Aldrich, Stedman, Richard Watson Gilder, Julia Ward Howe, H. H. Brownell and Henry Van Dyke are mentioned; but very few others. As a supreme surrender to modernity the names of Walt Whitman, Eugene Field, James Whitcomb Riley and Joaquin Miller are included. The great wealth of American poetry, which is second only to that of England, is not even suggested.
Turning to the biography of Edgar Allan Poe, we find that this writer receives only a column and a half, less space than is given Austin Dobson, Coventry Patmore, or W. E. Henley! And the biography itself is so inept that it is an affront to American taste and an insult to American intelligence. One is immediately interested in learning what critic the Encyclopædia’s editors chose to represent this American who has long since become a world figure in literature. Turning to the index we discover that one David Hannay is the authority—a gentleman who was formerly the British Vice-Consul at Barcelona. Mr. Hannay (apparently he holds no academic degree of any kind) lays claim to fame chiefly, it seems, as the author of Short History of the Royal Navy; but in just what way his research in naval matters qualifies him to write on Poe is not indicated. This is not, however, the only intimation we had that in the minds of the Encyclopædia’s editors there exists some esoteric and recondite relationship between art and British sea-power. In the Britannica’s criticism of J. M. W. Turner’s paintings, that artist’s work is said to be “like the British fleet among the navies of the world.” In the present instance, however, we can only trust that the other articles in this encyclopædia, by Mr. Hannay—to-wit: Admiral Penn and Pirate and Piracy—are more competent than his critique on Poe.
Walt Whitman gets scarcely better treatment. His biography is no longer than Poe’s and contains little criticism and no suggestion of his true place in American letters. This is all the more astonishing when we recall the high tribute paid Whitman by eminent English critics. Surely the Britannica’s editors are not ignorant of Whitman’s place in modern letters or of the generous manner in which he had been received abroad. Whatever one’s opinion of him, he was a towering figure in our literature—a pioneer who had more influence on our later writers than any other American. And yet his biography in this great British cultural work is shorter than that of Mrs. Humphry Ward!
With such obviously inadequate and contemptuous treatment as that accorded Poe and Whitman, it is not surprising that all other American poets should be treated peremptorily or neglected entirely. There are very short biographical notes on Stedman, Louise Chandler Moulton, Sill, Gilder, Eugene Field, Sidney Lanier and Riley—but they are scant records of facts and most insufficient when compared to the biographies of second-rate poets of England.
But let us be grateful that the Encyclopædia Britannica was generous enough to record them at all; for one can look in vain through its entire twenty-nine volumes, no matter under what heading, for even a mention of Emily Dickinson, John Bannister Tabb, Florence Earle Coates, Edwin Markham, Lizette Woodworth Reese, Clinton Scollard, Louise Imogen Guiney, Richard Hovey, Madison Cawein, Edwin Arlington Robinson, George Sylvester Viereck, Ridgeley Torrence, Arthur Upson, Santayana, and many others who hold an important place in our literature. And the names of William Vaughn Moody, Percy MacKaye and Bliss Carman are merely mentioned casually, the first two under Drama and the last under Canadian Literature.
The palpable injustice in the complete omission of many of the above American names is rendered all the more glaring by the fact that the Encyclopædia Britannica pays high tribute to such minor British poets and versifiers as W. H. Davies, Sturge Moore, Locker Lampson, C. M. Doughty, Walter de la Mare, Alfred Noyes, Herbert Trench, Ernest Dowson, Mrs. Meynell, A. E. Housman and Owen Seaman.
This is the culture disseminated by the Encyclopædia Britannica, which “is a complete library of knowledge on every subject appealing to intelligent persons,” and which “will tell you more about everything than you can get from any other source!” This is the “supreme book of knowledge” which Americans are asked to buy in preference to all others. What pettier insult could one nation offer to another?
If one hopes to find in the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica an unprejudiced critical and biographical survey of the world’s painters, he will be sorely disappointed. Not only is the Encyclopædia not comprehensive and up-to-date, but the manner in which British art and artists are constantly forced to the front rank is so grossly biased that a false impression of æsthetic history and art values is almost an inevitable result, unless one is already equipped with a wide understanding of the subject. If one were to form an opinion of art on the Britannica’s articles, the opinion would be that English painting leads the modern world in both amount and quality. The Encyclopædia raises English academicians to the ranks of exalted greatness, and at the same time tends to tear down the pedestals whereon rest the truly towering geniuses of alien nationality.
So consistently does British bourgeois prejudice and complacency characterize the material on painting contained in this Encyclopædia, that any attempt to get from it an æsthetic point of view which would be judicious and universal, would fail utterly. Certain French, German, and American artists of admitted importance are considered unworthy of space, or, if indeed deserving of mention, are unworthy of the amount of space, or the praise, which is conferred on a large number of lesser English painters. Both by implication and direct statement the editors have belittled the æsthetic endeavor of foreign nations, and have exaggerated, to an almost unbelievable degree, the art of their own country. The manner in which the subject of painting is dealt with reveals the full-blown flower of British insularity, and apotheosizes the narrow, aggressive culture of British middle-class respectability. In the world’s art from 1700 on, comparatively little merit is recognized beyond the English Channel.
The number of English painters whose biographies appear in the Britannica would, I believe, astonish even certain English art critics; and the large amount of space devoted to them—even to inconsequent and obscure academicians—when compared with the brief notices given to greater painters of other nations, leaves the un-British searcher with a feeling of bewilderment. But not only with the large number of English painters mentioned or even with the obviously disproportionate amount of space devoted to them does the Encyclopædia’s chauvinistic campaign for England’s æsthetic supremacy cease. The criticisms which accompany these biographies are as a rule generously favorable; and, in many cases, the praise reaches a degree of extravagance which borders on the absurd.
Did this optimism of outlook, this hot desire to ferret out greatness where only mediocrity exists, this ambition to drag the obscure and inept into the glare of prominence, extend to all painters, regardless of nationality, one might forgive the superlative eulogies heaped upon British art, and attribute them to that mellow spirit of sentimental tolerance which sees good in everything. But, alas! such impartiality does not exist. It would seem that the moment the biographers of the Britannica put foot on foreign ground, their spirit of generosity deserts them. And if space is any indication of importance, it must be noted that English painters are, in the editors’ estimation, of considerably more importance than painters from abroad.
Of William Etty, to whom three-fourths of a page is devoted, we are told that “in feeling and skill as a colorist he has few equals.” The implication here that Etty, as a colorist, has never been surpassed scarcely needs refutation. It is unfortunate, however, that Mr. Etty is not with us at present to read this exorbitant testimony to his greatness, for it would astonish him, no doubt, as much as it would those other few unnamed painters who are regarded as his equals in color sensibilité. J. S. Cotman, we discover, was “a remarkable painter both in oil and water-color.” This criticism is characteristic, for, even when there are no specific qualities to praise in an English painter’s work, we find this type of vague recommendation.
No points, though, it would seem, are overlooked. Regard the manner in which J. D. Harding’s questionable gifts are recorded. “Harding,” you will find, “was noted for facility, sureness of hand, nicety of touch, and the various qualities which go to make up an elegant, highly-trained and accomplished sketcher from nature, and composer of picturesque landscape material; he was particularly skillful in the treatment of foliage.” Turning from Mr. Harding, the “elegant” and “accomplished” depicter of foliage, to Birket Foster, we find that his work “is memorable for its delicacy and minute finish, and for its daintiness and pleasantness of sentiment.” Dainty and pleasant sentiment is not without weight with the art critics of this encyclopædia. In one form or another it is mentioned very often in connection with British painters.
Landseer offers an excellent example of the middle-class attitude which the Britannica takes toward art. To judge from the page-and-a-half biography of this indifferent portraitist of animals one would imagine that Landseer was a great painter, for we are told that his Fighting Dogs Getting Wind is “perfectly drawn, solidly and minutely finished, and carefully composed.” Of what possible educational value is an art article which would thus criticise a Landseer picture?
An English painter who, were we to accept the Encyclopædia’s valuation, combines the qualities of several great painters is Charles Holroyd. “In all his work,” we learn, “Holroyd displays an impressive sincerity, with a fine sense of composition, and of style, allied to independent and modern thinking.” Truly a giant! It would be difficult to recall any other painter in history “all” of whose work displayed a “fine sense of composition.” Not even could this be said of Michelangelo. But when it comes to composition, Arthur Melville apparently soars above his fellows. Besides, “several striking portraits in oil,” he did a picture called The Return From the Crucifixion, which, so we are told, is a “powerful, colossal composition.” To have achieved only a “powerful” composition should have been a sufficiently remarkable feat for a painter of Mr. Melville’s standing; for only of a very few masters in the world’s history can it be said that their compositions were both powerful and colossal. El Greco, Giotto, Giorgione, Veronese, Titian, Michelangelo and Rubens rarely soared to such heights.
But Melville, it appears, had a contemporary who, if anything, was greater than he—to-wit: W. Q. Orchardson, to whose glories nearly a page is devoted. “By the time he was twenty,” says his biographer, “Orchardson had mastered the essentials of his art.” In short, at twenty he had accomplished what few painters accomplished in a lifetime. A truly staggering feat! We are not therefore surprised to learn that “as a portrait painter Orchardson must be placed in the first class.” Does this not imply that he ranked with Titian, Velazquez, Rubens and Rembrandt? What sort of an idea of the relative values in art will the uninformed person get from such loose and ill-considered rhetoric, especially when the critic goes on to say that Master Baby is “a masterpiece of design, color and broad execution”? There is much more eulogy of a similar careless variety, but enough has been quoted here to show that the world must entirely revise its opinions of art if the Encyclopædia Britannica’s statements are to be accepted.
Even the pictures of Paul Wilson Steer are criticised favorably: “His figure subjects and landscapes show great originality and technical skill.” And John Pettie was “in his best days a colorist of a high order and a brilliant executant.” George Reid, the Scottish artist, is accorded over half a column with detailed criticism and praise. Frederick Walker is given no less than an entire column which ends with a paragraph of fulsome eulogy. Even E. A. Waterlow painted landscapes which were “admirable” and “handled with grace and distinction”—more gaudy generalizations. When the Encyclopædia’s critics can find no specific point to praise in the work of their countrymen, grace, distinction, elegance and sentiment are turned into æsthetic virtues.
Turning to Hogarth, we find no less than three and one-half pages devoted to him, more space than is given to Rubens’s biography, and three times the space accorded Veronese! It was once thought that Hogarth was only an “ingenious humorist,” but “time has reversed that unjust sentence.” We then read that Hogarth’s composition leaves “little or nothing to be desired.” If such were the case, he would unquestionably rank with Rubens, Michelangelo and Titian; for, if indeed his composition leaves little or nothing to be desired, he is as great as, or even greater than, the masters of all time. But even with this eulogy the Encyclopædia’s critic does not rest content. As a humorist and a satirist upon canvas, “he has never been equalled.” If we regard Hogarth as an “author” rather than artist, “his place is with the great masters of literature—with the Thackerays and Fieldings, the Cervantes and Molières.” (Note that of these four “great masters” two are English.)
Mastery in one form or another, if the Britannica is to be believed, was common among English painters. The pictures of Richard Wilson are “skilled and learned compositions ... the work of a painter who was thoroughly master of his materials.” In this latter respect Mr. Wilson perhaps stands alone among the painters of the world; and yet, through some conspiracy of silence no doubt, the leading critics of other nations rarely mention him when speaking of those artists who thoroughly mastered their materials. In regard to Raeburn, the Encyclopædia is less fulsome, despite the fact that over a page is allotted him. We are distinctly given to understand that he had his faults. Velazquez, however, constantly reminded Wilkie of Raeburn; yet, after all, Raeburn was not quite so great as Velazquez. This is frankly admitted.
It was left to Reynolds to equal if not to surpass Velazquez as well as Rubens and Rembrandt. In a two-page glorification of this English painter we come upon the following panegyric: “There can be no question of placing him by the side of the greatest Venetians or of the triumvirate of the seventeenth century, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velazquez.” If by placing him beside these giants is meant that he in any wise approached their stature, there can be, and has been, outside of England, a very great question of putting him in such company. In fact, his right to such a place has been very definitely denied him. But the unprejudiced opinion of the world matters not to the patriots who edited the Encyclopædia Britannica. That “supreme” English reference work goes on to say that in portraits, such as Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, Reynolds “holds the field.... No portrait painter has been more happy in his poses for single figures.” Then, as if such enthusiasm were not enough, we are told that “nature had singled out Sir Joshua to endow him with certain gifts in which he has hardly an equal.”
Nature, it seems, in her singling out process, was particularly partial to Englishmen, for among those other painters who just barely equalled Reynolds’s transcendent genius was Gainsborough. Says the Britannica: “Gainsborough and Reynolds rank side by side.... It is difficult to say which stands the higher of the two.” Consequently hereafter we must place Gainsborough, too, along with Michelangelo, Rubens, Rembrandt and Velazquez! Such a complete revision of æsthetic judgment will, no doubt, be difficult at first, but, by living with the Encyclopædia Britannica and absorbing its British culture, we may in time be able to bracket Michelangelo, Reynolds, Rubens, Gainsborough, Rembrandt, Hogarth and Velazquez without the slightest hesitation.
It is difficult to conceive how, in an encyclopædia with lofty educational pretences, extravagance of statement could attain so high a point as that reached in the biographies of Reynolds and Gainsborough. So obviously indefensible are these valuations that I would hesitate to accuse the Britannica’s editors of deliberate falsification—that is, of purposely distorting æsthetic values for the benefit of English artists. Their total lack of discretion indicates an honest, if blind, belief in British æsthetic supremacy. But this fact does not lessen the danger of such judgments to the American public. As a nation we are ignorant of painting and therefore are apt to accept statements of this kind which have the impact of seeming authority behind them.
The same insular and extravagant point of view is discoverable in the article on Turner. To this painter nearly five pages are devoted—a space out of all proportion to the biographies of the other painters of the world. Titian has only three and one-half pages; Rubens has only a little over three pages; and El Greco has less than two-thirds of a page! Of course, it is not altogether fair to base a judgment on space alone; but such startling discrepancies are the rule and not the exception.
In the case of Turner the discrepancy is not only of space, however. In diction, as well, all relative values are thrown to the winds. In the criticism of Turner we find English patriotism at its high-water mark. We read that “the range of his powers was so vast that he covered the whole field of nature and united in his own person the classical and naturalistic schools.” Even this palpable overstatement could be forgiven, since it has a basis of truth, if a little further we did not discover that Turner’s Crossing the Brook in the London National Academy is “probably the most perfect landscape in the world.” In this final and irrevocable judgment is manifest the supreme insular egotism which characterizes nearly all the art articles in the Encyclopædia Britannica. This criticism, to take merely one example, means that Crossing the Brook is more perfect than Rubens’s Landscape with Château de Stein! But the Encyclopædia’s summary of Turner’s genius surpasses in flamboyant chauvinism anything which I have yet seen in print. It is said that, despite any exception we may take to his pictures, “there will still remain a body of work which for extent, variety, truth and artistic taste is like the British fleet among the navies of the world.” Here patriotic fervor has entirely swallowed all restraint.
Over a page is devoted to Constable, in which we are informed that his “vivid tones and fresh color are grafted upon the formulæ of Claude and Rubens.” This type of criticism is not rare. One frequently finds second-rate English artists compared not unfavorably with the great artists of other nations; and it would seem that the English painters add a little touch of their own, the imputation being that they not seldom improve upon their models. Thus Constable adds “vivid tones and fresh colors” to Rubens’s formula. Another instance of this kind is to be found in the case of Alfred Stevens, the British sculptor, not the Belgian painter. (The latter, by the way, though more important and better-known, receives less space than the Englishman.) The vigorous strength of his groups “recalls the style of Michelangelo, but Stevens’s work throughout is original and has a character of its own.” I do not deny that Stevens imitated Michelangelo, but, where English artists are concerned, these relationships are indicated in deceptive phraseology. In the case of French artists, whose biographies are sometimes written by unbiased critics, the truth is not hidden in dictional suavities. Imitation is not made a virtue.
Let us now turn to Watts. Over two pages are accorded him, one page being devoted largely to eulogy, a passage of which reads: “It was the rare combination of supreme handicraft with a great imaginative intellect which secured to Watts his undisputed place in the public estimation of his day.” Furthermore, we hear of “the grandeur and dignity of his style, the ease and purposefulness of his brushwork, the richness and harmoniousness of his coloring.” But those “to whom his exceptional artistic attainment is a sealed book have gathered courage or consolation from the grave moral purpose and deep human sympathy of his teaching.” Here we have a perfect example of the parochial moral uplift which permeates the Britannica’s art criticism. The great Presbyterian complex is found constantly in the judgments of this encyclopædia.
So important a consideration to the Britannica’s critico-moralists is this puritan motif that the fact is actually set down that Millais was devoted to his family! One wonders how much influence this domestic devotion had on the critic who spends a page and a half to tell us of Millais, for not only is this space far in excess of Millais’ importance, but the statement is made that he was “one of the greatest painters of his time,” and that “he could paint what he saw with a force which has seldom been excelled.” Unfortunately the few who excelled him are not mentioned. Perhaps he stood second only to Turner, that super-dreadnought. Surely he was not excelled by Renoir, or Courbet, or Pissarro, or Monet, or Manet, or Cézanne; for these latter are given very little space (the greatest of them having no biography whatever in the Encyclopædia!); and there is no evidence to show that they are considered of more than minor importance.
Perhaps it was Rossetti, a fellow Pre-Raphaelite, who excelled Millais in painting what he saw. Rossetti’s The Song of Solomon, as regards brilliance, finish and the splendor of its lighting, “occupies a great place in the highest grade of modern art of all the world.” Even Holman Hunt, one of the lesser Pre-Raphaelites, is given over a full page, and is spoken of in glowing terms. “Perhaps no painter of the nineteenth century,” we read, “produced so great an impression by a few pictures” as did Hunt; and during the course of the eulogy the critic speaks of Hunt’s “greatness.” Can it be that the naïf gentleman who wrote Hunt’s biography has never heard of Courbet, or Manet, or of the Impressionists, or Cézanne? After so sweeping and unreasoned a statement as the one concerning the great impression made by Hunt’s pictures, such an extreme conclusion is almost inevitable. Or is this critic’s patriotic vanity such that he considers an impression made in England as representative of the world? Even to intimate that the impression made by Hunt’s pictures was comparable to that made by L’Enterrement à Ornans or Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe, or that the Pre-Raphaelites possessed even half the importance of Courbet and Manet, is to carry undeserved laudation to preposterous lengths.
Here as elsewhere, superlatives are used in such a way in describing unimportant English painters that no adequate adjectives are left for the truly great men of other nationality. It would be difficult to find a better example of undeserving eulogy as applied to an inconsequent British painter than that furnished by Brangwyn, whose compositions, we are astonished to learn, have “a nobly impressive and universal character.” Such a statement might justly sum up the greatness of a Michelangelo statue; but here it is attached to the works of a man who at best is no more than a capable and clever illustrator.
The foregoing examples by no means include all the instances of how English painters, as a result of the liberal space allotted them and the lavish encomiums heaped upon them by the Encyclopædia Britannica’s editors, are unduly expanded into great and important figures. A score of other names could be mentioned. From beginning to end, English art is emphasized and lauded until it is out of all proportion to the rest of the world.
Turn to the article on Painting and look at the sub-title, “Recent Schools.” Under “British” you will find twelve columns, with inset headings. Under “French” you will find only seven columns, without insets. Practically all the advances made in modern art have come out of France; and practically all important modern painters have been Frenchmen. England has contributed little or nothing to modern painting. And yet, recent British schools are given nearly twice the space that is devoted to recent French schools! Again regard the article, Sculpture. Even a greater and more astonishing disproportionment exists here. Modern British sculpture is given no less than thirteen and a half columns, while modern French sculpture, of vastly greater æsthetic importance, is given only seven and a half columns!
If the same kind of panegyrics which characterize the biographies of the British painters in the Encyclopædia Britannica were used in dealing with the painters of all nationalities, there could be made no charge of either unconscious or deliberate injustice. But once we leave Great Britain’s shores, prodigal laudation ceases. As if worn out by the effort of proving that Englishmen are pre-eminent among the world’s painters, the editors devote comparatively little space to those non-British artists who, we have always believed and been taught, were the truly significant men in painting. Therefore, if the Britannica’s implications are to be believed, England alone, among all modern countries, is the home of genius. And it would be difficult for one not well informed to escape the impression that not only Turner, but English painting in general, is “like the British fleet among the navies of the world.”
A comparison, for instance, between English and French painters, as they are presented in this encyclopædia, would leave the neophyte with the conviction that France was considerably inferior in regard to graphic ability, as inferior, in fact—if we may read the minds of the Britannica’s editors—as the French fleet is to the British fleet. In its ignorant and un-English way the world for years has been laboring under the superstition that the glories of modern painting had been largely the property of France. But such a notion is now corrected.
For instance, we had always believed that Chardin was one of the greatest of still-life painters. We had thought him to be of exceeding importance, a man with tremendous influence, deserving of no little consideration. But when we turn to his biography in the Encyclopædia Britannica we are, to say the least, astonished at the extent of our over-valuation. He is dismissed with six lines! And the only critical comment concerning him is: “He became famous for his still-life pictures and domestic interiors.” And yet Thomas Stothard, an English painter who for twenty-five years was Chardin’s contemporary, is given over a column; James Northcote, another English contemporary of Chardin’s, is given half a column; and many other British painters, whose names are little known outside of England, have long biographies and favorable criticisms.
Watteau, one of the greatest of French painters, has a biography of only a page and a quarter; Largillière, half a column; Rigaud, less than half a column; Lancret, a third of a column; and Boucher has only fifteen lines—a mere note with no criticism. (Jonathan Boucher, an English divine, whose name follows that of Boucher, is accorded three times the space!) La Tour and Nattier have half a column each. Greuze, another one of France’s great eighteenth-century painters, is given only a column and a half with unfavorable comment. Greuze’s brilliant reputation seemed to have been due, “not to his requirements as a painter” but to the subjects of his pictures; and he is then adversely accused of possessing that very quality which in an English painter, as we have seen, is a mark of supreme glory—namely, “bourgeois morality.” Half a column only is required to comment on Horace Vernet and to tell us that his most representative picture “begins and ends nowhere, and the composition is all to pieces; but it has good qualities of faithful and exact representation.”
Fragonard, another French painter whom we had always thought possessed of at least a minor greatness, is accorded no more than a column, less than half the space given to B. R. Haydon, the eighteenth-century English historical painter, and only one-third of the space devoted to David Wilkie, the Scotch painter. Fragonard’s “scenes of love and voluptuousness,” comments that art critic of the London Daily Mail, who has been chosen to represent this French painter in the Encyclopædia, “are only made acceptable by the tender beauty of his color and the virtuosity of his facile brushwork.” Alas! that Fragonard did not possess the “grave moral purpose” of Watts! Had his work been less voluptuous he might have been given more than a fourth of the space devoted to that moral Englishman, for surely Fragonard was the greater painter.
Géricault, one of the very important innovators of French realism, is given half a column, about an equal amount of space with such English painters as W. E. Frost, T. S. Cooper, Thomas Creswick, Francis Danby and David Scott; only about half the amount of space given to John Gilbert, C. L. Eastlake, and William Mulready; and only one-third of the space given to David Cox. One or two such disparities in space might be overlooked, but when to almost any kind of an English painter is imputed an importance equal to, if not greater than, truly significant painters from France, bias, whether conscious or unconscious, has been established.
Again regard Poussin. This artist, the most representative painter of his epoch and a man who marked a distinct step in the evolution of graphic art, is given less than half a page, about equal to the space devoted to W. P. Frith, J. W. Gordon, Samuel Cousins, John Crome, William Strang, and Thornhill; and only half the space given to Holman Hunt, and only one-third the space given to Millais! There is almost no criticism of Poussin’s art; merely a statement of the type of work he did; and of Géricault there is no criticism whatever. Herein lies another means by which, through implication, a greater relative significance is conferred on English art. Generally British painters—even minor ones—are criticised favorably, from one standpoint or another; but only now and then is a Frenchman given specific complimentary criticism. And often a Frenchman is condemned for the very quality which is lauded in a British artist.
Of David it is written: “His style is severely academic, his color lacking in richness and warmth, his execution hard and uninteresting in its very perfection,” and more in the same derogatory strain. Although this criticism may be strictly accurate, the same qualities in certain English painters of far less importance than David are made the basis for praise. The severely academic style in the case of Harding, for instance, becomes an “elegant, highly-trained” characteristic. And perfection of execution makes Birket Foster’s work “memorable for its delicacy and minute finish,” and becomes, in Paul Wilson Steer’s pictures, “great technical skill.”
Ingres, truly one of the giants of his day, is given little or no criticism and his biography draws only a little over half the space which is given to Watts (with his “grave, moral purpose”), and only a trifle more space than is given Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite who was “devoted to his family.” In Guerin’s short biography we read of his “strained and pompous dignity.” Girodet’s biography contains very adverse criticism: his style “harmonized ill” with his subjects, and his work was full of “incongruity” even to the point sometimes of being “ludicrous.” Gros, exasperated by criticism, “sought refuge in the grosser pleasures of life.” Flandrin also is tagged with a moral criticism.
Coming down to the more modern painters we find even less consideration given them by the Britannica’s editors. Delacroix, who ushered in a new age of painting and brought composition back to art after a period of stagnation and quiescence, is nailed to France as follows: “As a colorist and a romantic painter he now ranks among the greatest of French artists.” Certainly not among the greatest English painters, for Constable is given more space than Delacroix; and Turner, the other precursor of the new era, is “like the British fleet among the navies of the world.”
Courbet, the father of modern painting and the artist who revolutionized æsthetics, is given half a column, equal space with those contemporaries of his from across the Channel, Francis Grant, Thomas Creswick and George Harvey. Perhaps this neglect of the great Frenchman is explained by the following early-Victorian complaint: “Sometimes, it must be owned, his realism is rather coarse and brutal.” And we learn that “he died of a disease of the liver aggravated by intemperance.” Courbet, unable to benefit by the pious and elegant esthétique of the Encyclopædia Britannica, was never deeply impressed by the artistic value of “daintiness and pleasantness of sentiment,” and as a result, perhaps, he is not held in as high esteem as is Birket Foster, who possessed those delicate and pleasing qualities.
The palpable, insular injustice dealt Courbet in point of space finds another victim in Daumier whose biography is almost as brief as that of Courbet. Most of it, however, is devoted to Daumier’s caricature. Although this type of work was but a phase of his development, the article says that, despite his caricatures, “he found time for flight in the higher sphere of painting.” Not only does this create a false impression of Daumier’s tremendous importance to modern painting, but it gives the erroneous idea that his principal métier was caricature. The entire criticism of his truly great work is summed up in the sentence: “As a painter, Daumier, one of the pioneers of naturalism, was before his time.” Likewise, the half-page biography of Manet is, from the standpoint of space, inadequate, and from the critical standpoint, incompetent. To say that he is “regarded as the most important master of Impressionism” is a false statement. Manet, strictly speaking, was not an Impressionist at all; and the high place that he holds in modern art is not even touched upon.
Such biographies as the foregoing are sufficiently inept to disqualify the Encyclopædia as a source for accurate æsthetic information; but when Renoir, who is indeed recognized as the great master of Impressionism, is dismissed with one-fifth of a page, the height of injustice has been reached. Renoir, even in academic circles, is admittedly one of the great painters of all time. Not only did he sum up the Impressionists, close up an experimental cycle, and introduce compositional form into the realistic painting of his day, but by his colossal vision and technical mastery he placed himself in the very front rank of all modern painters, if not of ancient painters as well. Yet he is accorded just twenty-seven lines and dismissed with this remark: “Though he is perhaps the most unequal of the great Impressionists, his finest works rank among the masterpieces of the modern French school.” Critical incompetency could scarcely go further. We can only excuse such inadequacy and ignorance on the ground that the Encyclopædia’s English critic has seen none of Renoir’s greatest work; and color is lent this theory when we note that in the given list of his paintings no mention is made of his truly masterful canvases.
Turning to the other lesser moderns in French painting but those who surpass the contemporaneous British painters who are given liberal biographies, we find them very decidedly neglected as to both space and comment. Such painters as Cazin, Harpignies, Ziem, Cormon, Bésnard, Cottet and Bonnot are dismissed with brief mention, whereas sometimes twice and three times the attention is paid to English painters like Alfred East, Harry Furniss (a caricaturist and illustrator), Francis Lathrop, E. J. Poynter, and W. B. Richmond. Even Meissonier and Puvis de Chavannes draw only three-fourths of a page. Pissarro and Monet, surely important painters in the modern evolution, are given short shrift. A few brief facts concerning Pissarro extend to twenty lines; and Monet gets a quarter of a page without any criticism save that “he became a plein air painter.” Examples of this kind of incompetent and insufficient comment could be multiplied.
The most astonishing omission, however, in the entire art division of the Encyclopædia Britannica is that of Cézanne. Here is a painter who, whether one appreciates his work or not, has admittedly had more influence than any man of modern times. Not only in France has his tremendous power been felt, but in practically every other civilized country. Yet the name of this great Frenchman is not even given biographical mention in the great English Encyclopædia with its twenty-nine volumes, its 30,000 pages, its 500,000 references, and its 44,000,000 words. Deliberately to omit Cézanne’s biography, in view of his importance and (in the opinion of many) his genuine greatness, is an act of almost unbelievable narrow-mindedness. To omit his biography unconsciously is an act of almost unbelievable ignorance. Especially is this true when we find biographies of such British contemporaries of Cézanne as Edward John Gregory, James Guthrie, Luke Fildes, H. W. B. Davis, John Buxton Knight, George Reid, and J. W. Waterhouse. Nor can the editors offer the excuse that Cézanne was not known when the Encyclopædia was compiled. Not only was he known, but books and criticisms had appeared on him in more than one language, and his greatness had been recognized. True, he had not reached England; but is it not the duty of the editor of an “international” encyclopædia to be aware of what is going on outside of his own narrow province?
Any encyclopædia, no matter what the nationality, prejudices or tastes of its editors, which omits Cézanne has forfeited its claim to universal educational value. But when in addition there is no biographical mention of such conspicuous French painters as Maurice Denis, Vollatton, Lucien Simon, Vuillard, Louis Le Grand, Toulouse-Lautrec, Steinlen, Jean Paul Laurens, Redon, René Ménard, Gauguin, and Carrière, although a score of lesser painters of British birth are included, petty national prejudice, whether through conscious intent or lack of information, has been carried to an extreme; and the editors of such a biased work have something to answer for to those readers who are not English, and who do not therefore believe that British middle-class culture should be exaggerated and glorified at the expense of the genuine intellectual culture of other nations.
Modern German painting fares even worse than French painting in the pages of the Britannica; and while it does not hold the high place that French painting does, it is certainly deserving of far more liberal treatment than that which is accorded it. The comparatively few biographies of German artists are inadequate; but it is not in them that we find the greatest neglect of German achievements in this branch of æsthetics: it is in the long list of conspicuous painters who are omitted entirely. The Britannica’s meagre information on German art is particularly regrettable from the standpoint of American readers; for the subject is little known in this country, and as a nation we are woefully ignorant of the wealth of nineteenth-century German painting. The causes for this ignorance need not be gone into here. Suffice it to say that the Encyclopædia Britannica, far from fulfilling its function as a truly educational work, is calculated to perpetuate and cement our lack of knowledge in this field. It would appear that England also is unacquainted with the merits of German graphic expression; for the lapses in the Britannica would seem even too great to be accounted for on the grounds of British chauvinism. And they are too obvious to have been deliberate.
Among the important German painters of modern times who have failed to be given biographies are Wilhelm Leibl, the greatest German painter since Holbein; Charles Schuch, one of Germany’s foremost still-life artists; Trübner, who ranks directly in line with Leibl; Karl Spitzweg, the forerunner and classic exponent of German genre painting as well as the leading artist in that field; Heinrich von Zügel, one of the foremost animal painters of modern times; and Ludwig Knaus who, though inferior, is a painter of world-wide fame. Furthermore, there are no biographies of Franz Krüger, Müller, Von Marées, Habermann, and Louis Corinth. When we recall the extensive list of inferior British painters who are not only given biographies but praised, we wonder on just what grounds the Britannica was advertised and sold as an “international dictionary of biography.”
It might be well to note here that Van Gogh, the great Hollander, does not appear once in the entire Encyclopædia: there is not so much as a passing reference to him! Nor has Zorn or Hodler a biography. And Sorolla draws just twenty lines in his biography, and Zuloaga less than half a column.
Despite, however, the curtailed and inferior consideration given Continental art, it does not suffer from prejudicial neglect nearly so much as does American art. This is not wholly surprising in view of the contempt in which England holds the cultural achievements of this country—a contempt which is constantly being encountered in British critical journals. But in the case of an encyclopædia whose stated aim is to review impartially the world’s activities, this contempt should be suppressed temporarily at least, especially as it is from America that the Encyclopædia Britannica is reaping its monetary harvest. There is, though, no indication that England’s contemptuous attitude toward our art has even been diminished. Our artists are either disposed of with cursory mention or ignored completely; and whenever it is possible for England to claim any credit for the accomplishments of our artists, the opportunity is immediately grasped.
It is true, of course, that the United States does not rank æsthetically with certain of the older nations of Europe, but, considering America’s youth, she has contributed many important names to the history of painting, and among her artists there are many who greatly surpass the inconsequent English academicians who are accorded generous treatment.
The editors of the Encyclopædia may contend that the work was compiled for England and that therefore they were justified in placing emphasis on a horde of obscure English painters and in neglecting significant French and German artists. But they can offer no such excuse in regard to America. The recent Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was printed with the very definite purpose of selling in the United States; and the fact that they have sold many thousand copies of it here precludes any reason why American artists should be neglected or disposed of in a brief and perfunctory fashion. An American desiring adequate information concerning the painters or sculptors of his own country will seek through the Encyclopædia Britannica in vain. If he is entirely ignorant of æsthetic conditions in America and depends on the Encyclopædia for his knowledge, he will be led to inaccurate conclusions. The ideas of relative values established in his mind will be the reverse of the truth, for he cannot fail but be affected by the meagre and indifferent biographies of his native painters, as compared with the lengthy and meticulous concern with which British painters are regarded.
And yet this is the encyclopædia which has been foisted upon the American people by means of a P. T. Barnum advertising campaign almost unprecedented in book history. And this also is the encyclopædia which, in that campaign, called itself “a history of all nations, an international dictionary of biography, an exhaustive gazetteer of the world, a hand-book to all the arts”; and which announced that “every artist or sculptor of note of any period, and of any land is the subject of an interesting biography.” This last statement is true only in the case of Great Britain. It is, as we have seen, not true of France or Germany; and especially is it not true of America. Not only are many American artists and sculptors of note omitted entirely, but many of those who have been awarded mention are the victims of English insular prejudice.
Looking up Benjamin West, who, by historians and critics has always been regarded as an American artist, we find him designated as an “English” painter. The designation is indeed astonishing, since not only does the world know him as an American, but West himself thought that he was an American. Perhaps the Encyclopædia Britannica, by some obscure process of logic, considers nationality from the standpoint of one’s sentimental adoption. This being the case, Richard Le Gallienne would be an “American” poet. But when we turn to Le Gallienne’s biography we discover that, after all, he is “English.” Apparently the rule does not work with Englishmen. It is true that West went to London and lived there; but he was born in the United States, gained a reputation for painting here, and did not go to England until he was twenty-five. It is noteworthy that West, the “English” painter, is accorded considerable space.
Whistler, who also chose England in preference to America, is given nearly a page and a half with not unfavorable criticism. We cannot refrain from wondering what would have been Whistler’s fate at the hands of the Encyclopædia’s editors had he remained in his native country. Sargent, surely a painter of considerable importance and one who is regarded in many enlightened quarters as a great artist, is dismissed with less than half a column! Even this comparatively long biography for an American painter may be accounted for by the following comment: “Though of the French school, and American by birth, it is as a British artist that he won fame.” Again, Abbey receives high praise and quite a long biography, comparatively speaking. Once more we wonder if this painter’s adoption of England as his home does not account for his liberal treatment. Albert F. Bellows, too, gets fourteen lines, in which it is noted that “he painted much in England.”
Compare the following record with the amounts of space accorded British second-rate painters: William Chase, sixteen lines; Vedder, a third of a column; de Forest Brush, fifteen lines; T. W. Dewing, twelve lines; A. H. Wyant, ten lines; A. P. Ryder, eight lines; Tryon, fifteen lines; John W. Alexander, sixteen lines; Gari Melchers, eighteen lines; Childe Hassam, fifteen lines; Blashfield, ten lines; J. Francis Murphy, fifteen lines; Blakelock, eight lines. Among these names are painters of a high and important order—painters who stand in the foremost rank of American art, and who unquestionably are greater than a score of English painters who receive very special critical biographies, some of which extend over columns. And yet—apparently for no other discernible reason than that they are Americans—they are given the briefest mention with no specific criticism. Only the barest biographical details are set down.
But if many of the American painters who have made our art history are dismissed peremptorily in biographies which, I assure you, are not “interesting,” and which obviously are far from adequate or even fair when compared with the consideration given lesser English painters, what answer have the editors of the Britannica to offer their American customers when many of our noteworthy and important artists are omitted altogether? On what grounds is a biography of J. Alden Weir omitted entirely? For what reason does the name of Robert Henri not appear? Henri is one of the very important figures in modern American painting.
Furthermore, inspection reveals the fact that among those American “painters of note” who, so far as biographical mention in the Encyclopædia Britannica is concerned, do not exist, are Mary Cassatt, George Bellows, Twachtman, C. W. Hawthorne, Glackens, Jerome Meyers, George Luks, Sergeant Kendall, Paul Dougherty, Allen Talcott, Thomas Doughty, Richard Miller and Charles L. Elliott.
I could add more American painters to the list of those who are omitted and who are of equal importance with certain British painters who are included; but enough have been mentioned to prove the gross inadequacy of the Encyclopædia Britannica as an educational record of American art.
Outside of certain glaring omissions, what we read in the Encyclopædia concerning the painters of France and Germany may be fair, from a purely impartial standard, if taken alone: in some instances, I believe, judicial critics of these other nations have performed the service. But when these unprejudiced accounts are interspersed with the patriotic and enthusiastic glorifications of British art, the only conclusion which the uninformed man can draw from the combination is that the chief beauties of modern painting have sprung from England—a conclusion which illy accords both with the facts and with the judgment of the world’s impartial critics. But in the case of American art, not even the strictly impartial treatment occasionally accorded French and German painters is to be found, with the result that, for the most part, our art suffers more than that of any other nation when compared, in the pages of the Britannica, with British art.
There is one field of culture—namely, music—in which Great Britain has played so small and negligible a part that it would seem impossible, even for the passionately patriotic editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica, to find any basis on which an impressive monument to England could be erected. Great Britain, admittedly, possesses but slight musical significance when compared with other nations. The organisms of her environment, the temper of her intellect, her very intellectual fibre, are opposed to the creation of musical composition.
This art in England, save during the Elizabethan era, has been largely a by-product. No great musical genius has come out of Great Britain; and in modern times she has not produced even a great second-rate composer. So evident is England’s deficiency in this field, that any one insisting upon it runs the risk of being set down a platitudinarian. Even British critics of the better class have not been backward in admitting the musical poverty of their nation; and many good histories of music have come out of England: indeed, one of the very best encyclopædias on this subject was written by Sir George Grove.
To attempt to place England on an equal footing with other nations in the realm of music is to alter obvious facts. Name all the truly great composers since 1700, and not one of them will be an Englishman. In fact, it is possible to write an extensive history of music from that date to the present time without once referring to Great Britain. England, as the world knows, is not a musical nation. Her temperament is not suited to subtle complexities of plastic harmonic expression. Her modern composers are without importance; and for every one of her foremost musical creators there can be named a dozen from other nations who are equally inspired, and yet who hold no place in the world’s musical evolution because of contemporary fellow-countrymen who overshadow them.
As I have said, it would seem impossible, even for so narrowly provincial and chauvinistic a work as the Encyclopædia Britannica, to find any plausible basis for the glorification of English musical genius. But where others fail to achieve the impossible, the Britannica succeeds. In the present instance, however, the task has been difficult, for there is a certain limit to the undeserved praise which even a blatant partisan can confer on English composers; and there is such a paucity of conspicuous names in the British musical field that an encyclopædia editor finds it difficult to gather enough of them together to make an extensive patriotic showing. He can, however, omit or neglect truly significant names of other nations while giving undue prominence to second- and third-rate English composers.
And this is exactly the method followed by the editors of the Britannica. But the disproportionments are so obvious, the omissions so glaring, and the biographies and articles so distorted, both as to space and comment, that almost any one with a knowledge of music will be immediately struck by their absurdity and injustice. Modern musical culture, as set forth in this encyclopædia, is more biased than any other branch of culture. In this field the limits of the Britannica’s insularity would seem to have been reached.
I have yet to see even a short history of modern music which is not more informative and complete, and from which a far better idea of musical evolution could not be gained. And I know of no recent book of composers, no matter how brief, which does not give more comprehensive information concerning musical writers than does that “supreme book of knowledge,” the Encyclopædia Britannica. So deficient is it in its data, and so many great and significant modern composers are denied biographical mention in it, that one is led to the conclusion that little or no effort was made to bring it up-to-date.
It would be impossible in this short chapter to set down anywhere near all the inadequacies, omissions and disproportions which inform the Britannica’s treatment of music. Therefore I shall confine myself largely to modern music, since this subject is of foremost, vital concern at present; and I shall merely indicate the more glaring instances of incompleteness and neglect. Furthermore, I shall make only enough comparisons between the way in which British music is treated and the way in which the music of other nations is treated, to indicate the partisanship which underlies the outlook of this self-styled “international” and “universal” reference work.
Let us first regard the general article Music. In that division of the article entitled, Recent Music—that is, music during the last sixty or seventy-five years—we find the following astonishing division of space: recent German music receives just eleven lines; recent French music, thirty-eight lines, or less than half a column; recent Italian music, nineteen lines; recent Russian music, thirteen lines; and recent British music, nearly four columns, or two full pages!
Regard these figures a moment. That period of German musical composition which embraced such men as Humperdinck, Richard Strauss, Karl Goldmark, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler, Bruch, Reinecke, and von Bülow, is allotted only eleven lines, and only two of the above names are even mentioned! And yet modern British music, which is of vastly lesser importance, is given thirty-five times as much space as modern German music, and ten times as much space as modern French music! In these figures we have an example of prejudice and discrimination which it would be hard to match in any other book or music in existence. It is unnecessary to criticise such bias: the figures themselves are more eloquently condemning than any comment could possibly be. And it is to this article on recent music, with its almost unbelievable distortions of relative importance, that thousands of Americans will apply for information. Furthermore, in the article Opera there is no discussion of modern realistic developments, and the names of Puccini and Charpentier are not even included!
In the biographies of English composers is to be encountered the same sort of prejudice and exaggeration. Sterndale Bennett, the inferior British Mendelssohn, is given nearly a column, and in the criticism of him we read: “The principal charm of Bennett’s compositions (not to mention his absolute mastery of the musical form) consists in the tenderness of their conception, rising occasionally to sweetest musical intensity.” Turning from Bennett, the absolute master of form, to William Thomas Best, the English organist, we find nearly a half-column biography of fulsome praise, in which Best is written down as an “all-round musician.” Henry Bishop receives two-thirds of a column. “His melodies are clear, flowing, appropriate and often charming; and his harmony is always pure, simple and sweet.”
Alfred Cellier is accorded nearly half a column, in which we are told that his music was “invariably distinguished by elegance and refinement.” Frederick Cowen also wrote music which was “refined”; and in his three-fourths-of-a-column biography it is stated that “he succeeds wonderfully in finding graceful expression for the poetical idea.” John Field infused “elegance” into his music. His biography is over half a column in length, and we learn that his nocturnes “remain all but unrivaled for their tenderness and dreaminess of conception, combined with a continuous flow of beautiful melody.”
Edward Elgar receives no less than two-thirds of a column, in which are such phrases as “fine work,” “important compositions,” and “stirring melody.” Furthermore, his first orchestral symphony was “a work of marked power and beauty, developing the symphonic form with the originality of a real master of his art.” The world outside of England will be somewhat astonished to know that Elgar took part in the development of the symphonic form and that he was a real master of music. John Hatton, in a two-thirds-of-a-column biography, is praised, but not without reservation. He might, says the article, have gained a place of higher distinction among English composers “had it not been for his irresistible animal spirits and a want of artistic reverence.” He was, no doubt, without the “elegance” and “refinement” which seem to characterize so many English composers.
But Charles Parry evidently had no shortcomings to detract from his colossal and heaven-kissing genius. He is given a biography of nearly a column, and it is packed with praise. In some of his compositions to sacred words “are revealed the highest qualities of music.” He has “skill in piling up climax after climax, and command of every choral resource.” But this is not all. In some of his works “he shows himself master of the orchestra”; and his “exquisite” chamber music and part-songs “maintain the high standard of his greater works.” Not even here does his genius expire. Agamemnon “is among the most impressive compositions of the kind.” Furthermore, The Frogs is a “striking example of humor in music.” All this would seem to be enough glory for any man, but Parry has not only piled Pelion on Ossa but has scaled Olympus. Outside his creative music, “his work for music was of the greatest importance”; his Art of Music is a “splendid monument of musical literature.” ... There is even more of this kind of eulogy—too much of it to quote here; but, once you read it, you cannot help feeling that the famous triumvirate, Brahms, Bach and Beethoven, has now become the quartet, Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, and Parry.
The vein of William Shield’s melody “was conceived in the purest and most delicate taste”; and his biography is half a column in length. Goring Thomas is accorded two-thirds of a column; and it is stated that not only does his music reveal “a great talent for dramatic composition and a real gift of refined and beautiful melody,” but that he was “personally the most admirable of men.” Michael Costa, on the other hand, was evidently not personally admirable, for in his half-column biography we read: “He was the great conductor of his day, but both his musical and his human sympathies were somewhat limited.” (Costa was a Spaniard by birth.) Samuel Wesley, Jr.’s, anthems are “masterly in design, fine in inspiration and expression, and noble in character.” His biography runs to half a column. Even Wesley, Sr., has a third of a column biography.
The most amazing biography from the standpoint of length, however, is that of Sir Arthur Sullivan. It runs to three and a third columns (being much longer than Haydn’s!) and is full of high praise of a narrowly provincial character. Thomas Attwood receives a half-column biography; Balfe, the composer of The Bohemian Girl, receives nearly a column; Julius Benedict, two-thirds of a column; William Jackson, nearly two-thirds of a column; Mackenzie, over three-fourths of a column; John Stainer, two-thirds of a column; Charles Stanford, nearly a column; Macfarren, over half a column; Henry Hugo Pierson, half a column; John Hullah, considerably over half a column; William Crotch, over half a column; Joseph Barnby, nearly half a column; John Braham, two-thirds of a column. And many others of no greater importance receive liberal biographies—for instance, Frederic Clay, John Barnett, George Elvey, John Goss, MacCunn, James Turle, and William Vincent Wallace.
Bearing all this in mind, we will now glance at the biographies of modern German composers in the Encyclopædia Britannica. Johann Strauss, perhaps the greatest of all waltz writers, is given only half a column, less space than that given to John Field or William Crotch; and the only criticism of his music is contained in the sentence: “In Paris he associated himself with Musard, whose quadrilles became not much less popular than his own waltzes; but his greatest successes were achieved in London.” Hummel, the most brilliant virtuoso of his day, whose concertos and masses are still popular, receives less space than John Hatton.
But what of Brahms, one of the three great composers of the world? Incredible as it may seem, he is given a biography even shorter than that of Sir Arthur Sullivan! And Robert Franz, perhaps the greatest lyrical writer since Schubert, receives considerably less space than William Jackson. Richard Strauss is allotted only a column and two-thirds, about equal space with Charles Burney, the musical historian, and William Byrd; and in it we are given little idea of his greatness. In fact, the critic definitely says that it remains to be seen for what Strauss’s name will live! When one thinks of the tremendous influence which Strauss has had, and of the way in which he has altered the musical conceptions of the world, one can only wonder, astounded, why, in an encyclopædia as lengthy as the Britannica, he should be dismissed with so inadequate and inept a biography.
After such injustice in the case of Strauss, it does not astonish one to find that Max Bruch, one of the most noteworthy figures in modern German music, and Reinecke, an important composer and long a professor at the Leipsic Conservatory, should receive only thirty lines each. But the neglect of Strauss hardly prepared us for the brief and incomplete record which passes for Humperdinck’s biography—a biography shorter than that of Cramer, William Hawes, Henry Lazarus, the English clarinettist, and Henry Smart!
Mendelssohn, the great English idol, receives a biography out of all proportion to his importance—a biography twice as long as that of Brahms, and considerably longer than either Schumann’s or Schubert’s! And it is full of effulgent praise and more than intimates that Mendelssohn’s counterpoint was like Bach’s, that his sonata-form resembled Beethoven’s, and that he invented a new style no less original than Schubert’s! Remembering the parochial criterion by which the Encyclopædia’s editors judge art, we may perhaps account for this amazing partiality to Mendelssohn by the following ludicrous quotation from his biography: “His earnestness as a Christian needs no stronger testimony than that afforded by his own delineation of the character of St. Paul; but it is not too much to say that his heart and life were pure as those of a little child.”
Although Hugo Wolf’s biography is a column and a half in length, Konradin Kreutzer gets only eighteen lines; Nicolai, who wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor, only ten lines; Suppé, only fifteen; Nessler, only twelve; Franz Abt, only ten; Henselt, only twenty-six; Heller, only twenty-two; Lortzing, only twenty; and Thalberg, only twenty-eight. In order to realize how much prejudice, either conscious or unconscious, entered into these biographies, compare the amounts of space with those given to the English composers above mentioned. Even Raff receives a shorter biography than Mackenzie; and von Bülow’s and Goldmark’s biographies are briefer than Cowen’s.
But where the Encyclopædia Britannica shows its utter inadequacy as a guide to modern music is in the long list of omission. For instance, there is no biography of Marschner, whose Hans Heiling still survives in Germany; of Friedrich Silcher, who wrote most of the famous German “folk-songs”; of Gustav Mahler, one of the truly important symphonists of modern times; of the Scharwenka brothers; or of Georg Alfred Schumann—all sufficiently important to have a place in an encyclopædia like the Britannica.
But—what is even more inexcusable—Max Reger, one of the most famous German composers of the day, has no biography. Nor has Eugen d’Albert, renowned for both his chamber music and operas. (D’Albert repudiated his English antecedents and settled in Germany.) Kreisler also is omitted, although Kubelik, five years Kreisler’s junior, draws a biography. In view of the obvious contempt which the Encyclopædia Britannica has for America, it may be noted in this connection that Kreisler’s first great success was achieved in America, whereas Kubelik made his success in London before coming to this country.
Among the German and Austrian composers who are without biographical mention in the Britannica, are several of the most significant musical creators of modern times—men who are world figures and whose music is known on every concert stage in the civilized world. On what possible grounds are Mahler, Reger and Eugen d’Albert denied biographies in an encyclopædia which dares advertise itself as a “complete library of knowledge” and as an “international dictionary of biography”? And how is it possible for one to get any adequate idea of the wealth or importance of modern German music from so biased and incomplete a source? Would the Encyclopædia’s editors dare state that such a subject would not appeal to “intelligent” persons? And how will the Encyclopædia’s editors explain away the omission of Hanslick, the most influential musical critic that ever lived, when liberal biographies are given to several English critics?
Despite the incomplete and unjust treatment accorded German and Austrian music in the Encyclopædia Britannica, modern French music receives scarcely better consideration. Chopin is given space only equal to that of Purcell. Berlioz and Gounod, who are allotted longer biographies than any other modern French composers, receive, nevertheless, considerably less space than Sir Arthur Sullivan. Saint-Saëns and Debussy receive less than half the space given to Sullivan, while Auber and César Franck are given only about equal space with Samuel Arnold, Balfe, Sterndale Bennett, and Charles Stanford! Massenet has less space than William Thomas Best or Joseph Barnby, and three-fourths of it is taken up with a list of his works. The remainder of the biographies are proportionately brief. There is not one of them of such length that you cannot find several longer biographies of much less important English composers.
Furthermore, one finds unexplainable errors and omissions in them. For instance, although Ernest Reyer died January 15, 1909, there is no mention of it in his biography; but there is, however, the statement that his Quarante Ans de Musique “was published in 1909.” This careless oversight in not noting Reyer’s death while at the same time recording a still later biographical fact is without any excuse, especially as the death of Dudley Buck, who died much later than Reyer, is included. Furthermore, the biography omits stating that Reyer became Inspector General of the Paris Conservatoire in 1908. Nor is his full name given, nor the fact recorded that his correct name was Rey.
Again, although Théodore Dubois relinquished his Directorship of the Conservatory in 1905, his biography in the Britannica merely mentions that he began his Directorship in 1896, showing that apparently no effort was made to complete the material. Still again, although Fauré was made Director of the Conservatory in 1905, the fact is not set down in his biography. And once more, although d’Indy visited America in 1905 and conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the fact is omitted from his biography.... These are only a few of the many indications to be found throughout the Britannica that this encyclopædia is untrustworthy and that its editors have not, as they claim, taken pains to bring it up to date.
Among the important French composers who should have biographies, but who are omitted from the Encyclopædia Britannica, are Guilmant, perhaps the greatest modern organist and an important classico-modern composer; Charpentier, who with Puccini, stands at the head of the modern realistic opera, and whose Louise is to-day in every standard operatic repertoire; and Ravel, the elaborate harmonist of the moderns.
Even greater inadequacy—an inadequacy which could not be reconciled with an encyclopædia one-fourth the size of the Britannica—exists in the treatment of modern Russian music. So brief, so inept, so negligent is the material on this subject that, as a reference book, the Britannica is practically worthless. The most charitable way of explaining this woeful deficiency is to attribute it to wanton carelessness. Anton Rubinstein, for instance, is given a biography about equal with Balfe and Charles Stanford; while his brother Nikolaus, one of the greatest pianists and music teachers of his day, and the founder of the Conservatorium of Music at Moscow, has no biography whatever! Glinka, one of the greatest of Russian composers and the founder of a new school of music, is dismissed with a biography no longer than those of John Braham, the English singer, John Hatton, the Liverpool genius with the “irresistible animal spirits,” and William Jackson; and shorter than that of Charles Dibdin, the British song-writer!
Tschaikowsky receives less than two columns, a little over half the space given to Sullivan. The criticism of his work is brief and inadequate, and in it there is no mention of his liberal use of folk-songs which form the basis of so many of his important compositions, such as the second movement of his Fourth and the first movement of his First Symphonies. Borodin, another of the important musical leaders of modern Russia, has a biography which is no longer than that of Frederic Clay, the English light-opera writer and whist expert; and which is considerably shorter than the biography of Alfred Cellier. Balakirev, the leader of the “New Russian” school, has even a shorter biography, shorter in fact than the biography of Henry Hugo Pierson, the weak English oratorio writer.
The biography of Moussorgsky—a composer whose importance needs no indication here—is only fifteen lines in length, shorter even than William Hawes’s, Henry Lazarus’s, George Elvey’s, or Henry Smart’s! And yet Moussorgsky was “one of the finest creative composers in the ranks of the modern Russian school.” Rimsky-Korsakov, another of the famous modern Russians, whose work has long been familiar both in England and America, draws less space than Michael Costa, the English conductor of Spanish origin, or than Joseph Barnby, the English composer-conductor of Sweet and Low fame.
Glazunov is given a biography only equal in length to that of John Goss, the unimportant English writer of church music. And although the biography tells us that he became Professor of the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1900, it fails to mention that he was made Director in 1908—a bit of inexcusable carelessness which, though of no great importance, reveals the slip-shod incompleteness of the Britannica’s Eleventh Edition. Furthermore, many important works of Glazunov are not noted at all.
Here ends the Encyclopædia’s record of modern Russian composers! César Cui, one of the very important modern Russians, has no biography whatever in this great English cultural work, although we find liberal accounts of such British composers as Turle, Walmisley, Potter, Richards (whose one bid to fame is having written God Bless the Prince of Wales) and George Alexander Lee, the song-writer whose great popular success was Come Where the Aspens Quiver. Nor will you find any biographical information of Arensky, another of the leading Russian composers of the new school; nor of Taneiev or Grechaninov—both of whom have acquired national and international fame. Even Scriabine, a significant Russian composer who has exploited new theories of scales and harmonies of far-reaching influence, is not considered of sufficient importance to be given a place (along with insignificant Englishmen like Lacy and Smart) in the Encyclopædia Britannica.
The most astonishing omission, however, is that of Rachmaninov. Next to omitting César Cui, the complete ignoring of so important and universally accepted a composer as Rachmaninov, whose symphonic poem, The Island of the Dead, is one of the greatest Russian works since Tschaikowsky, is the most indefensible of all. On what possible grounds can the Encyclopædia Britannica defend its extravagant claims to completeness when the name of so significant and well-known a composer as Rachmaninov does not appear in the entire twenty-nine volumes?
In the list of the important modern Italian musicians included in the Britannica one will seek in vain for information of Busoni, who has not only written much fine instrumental music, but who is held by many to be the greatest living virtuoso of the piano; or of Wolf-Ferrari, one of the important leaders of the new Italian school. And though Tosti, whose name is also omitted, is of slight significance, he is of far greater popular importance than several English song-writers who are accorded biographies.
Even Puccini, who has revolutionized the modern opera and who stands at the head of living operatic composers, is given only eleven lines of biography, less space than is given to George Alexander Lee or John Barnett, and only equal space with Lacy, the Irish actor with musical inclinations, and Walmisley, the anthem writer and organist at Trinity College. It is needless to say that no biography of eleven lines, even if written in shorthand, would be adequate as a source of information for such a composer as Puccini. The fact that he visited America in 1907 is not even mentioned, and although at that time he selected his theme for The Girl of the Golden West and began work on it in 1908, you will have to go to some other work more “supreme” than the Encyclopædia Britannica for this knowledge.
Leoncavallo’s biography is of the same brevity as Puccini’s; and the last work of his that is mentioned is dated 1904. His opera, Songe d’Une Nuit d’Été, his symphonic poem, Serafita, and his ballet, La Vita d’Una Marionetta—though all completed before 1908—are not recorded in this revised and up-to-date library of culture. Mascagni, apparently, is something of a favorite with the editors of the Britannica, for his biography runs to twenty-three lines, nearly as long as that of the English operatic composer, William Vincent Wallace, and of Alfred Cellier, the infra-Sullivan. But even with this great partiality shown him there is no record of his return from America to Italy in 1903 or of the honor of Commander of the Crown of Italy which was conferred upon him.
Of important Northern composers there are not many, but the Britannica has succeeded in minimizing even their small importance. Gade has a biography only as long as Pierson’s; and Kjerulf, who did so much for Norwegian music, is given less space than William Hawes, with no critical indication of his importance. Even Grieg receives but a little more space than Charles Stanford or Sterndale Bennett! Nordraak, who was Grieg’s chief co-worker in the development of a national school of music, has no biography whatever. Nor has Sinding, whose fine orchestral and chamber music is heard everywhere. Not even Sibelius, whose very notable compositions brought Finland into musical prominence, is considered worthy of biographical mention.
But the most astonishing omission is that of Buxtehude, one of the great and important figures in the early development of music. Not only was he the greatest organist of his age, but he was a great teacher as well. He made Lübeck famous for its music, and established the “Abendmusiken” which Bach walked fifty miles to hear. To the Britannica’s editor, however, he is of less importance than Henry Smart, the English organist!
In Dvorák’s biography we learn that English sympathy was entirely won by the Stabat Mater; but no special mention is made of his famous E-minor (American) Symphony. Smetana, the first great Bohemian musician, receives less space than Henry Bishop, who is remembered principally as the composer of Home, Sweet Home.
But when we pass over into Poland we find inadequacy and omissions of even graver character. Moszkowski receives just eight lines of biography, the same amount that is given to God-Bless-the-Prince-of-Wales Richards. Paderewski is accorded equal space with the English pianist, Cipriani Potter; and no mention is made of his famous $10,000 fund for the best American compositions. This is a characteristic omission, however, for, as I have pointed out before, a composer’s activities in America are apparently considered too trivial to mention, whereas, if it is at all possible to connect England, even in a remote and far-fetched way, with the genius of the world, it is done. Josef Hofmann, the other noted Polish pianist, is too insignificant to be given even passing mention in the Britannica. But such an inclusion could hardly be expected of a reference work which contains no biography of Leschetizky, the greatest and most famous piano teacher the world has ever known.
We come now to the most prejudiced and inexcusably inadequate musical section in the whole Britannica—namely, to American composers. Again we find that narrow patronage, that provincial condescension and that contemptuous neglect which so conspicuously characterize the Encyclopædia Britannica’s treatment of all American institutions and culture. We have already beheld how this neglect and contempt have worked against our painters, our novelists, our poets and our dramatists; we have seen what rank injustice has been dealt our artists and writers; we have reviewed the record of omissions contained in this Encyclopædia’s account of our intellectual activities. But in no other instance has British scorn allowed itself so extreme and indefensible an expression as in the peremptory manner in which our musical composers are dismissed. The negligence with which American musical compositions and composers are reviewed is greater than in the case of any other nation.
As I have said before, if the Encyclopædia Britannica had been compiled to sell only in suburban England, we would have no complaint against the petty contempt shown our artists; but when an encyclopædia is put together largely for the purpose of American distribution, the sweeping neglect of our native creative effort resolves itself into an insult which every American should hotly resent. And especially should such neglect be resented when the advertising campaign with which the Britannica was foisted upon the public claimed for that work an exalted supremacy as a library of international education, and definitely stated that it contained an adequate discussion of every subject which would appeal to intelligent persons. As I write this the Britannica advertises itself as containing “an exhaustive account of all human achievement.” But I think I have shown with pretty fair conclusiveness that it does not contain anywhere near an exhaustive account of American achievement; and yet I doubt if even an Englishman would deny that we were “human.”
Let us see how “exhaustive” the Britannica is in its record of American musical achievement. To begin with, there are just thirty-seven lines in the article on American composers; and for our other information we must depend on the biographies. But what do we find? Dudley Buck is given an incomplete biography of fourteen lines; and MacDowell draws thirty lines of inadequate data. Gottschalk, the most celebrated of American piano virtuosi, who toured Europe with great success and wrote much music which survives even to-day, is surely of enough historical importance to be given a biography; but his name does not so much as appear in the Britannica. John Knowles Paine has no biography; nor has William Mason; nor Arthur Foote; nor Chadwick; nor Edgar Stillman Kelly; nor Ethelbert Nevin; nor Charles Loeffler; nor Mrs. Beach; nor Henry K. Hadley; nor Cadman; nor Horatio Parker; nor Frederick Converse.
To be sure, these composers do not rank among the great world figures; but they do stand for the highest achievement in American music, and it is quite probable that many “intelligent” Americans would be interested in knowing about them. In fact, from the standpoint of intelligent interest, they are of far more importance than many lesser English composers who are given biographies. And although Sousa has had the greatest popular success of any composer since Johann Strauss, you will hunt the Britannica through in vain for even so much as a mention of him. And while I do not demand the inclusion of Victor Herbert, nevertheless if Alfred Cellier is given a place, Herbert, who is Cellier’s superior in the same field, should not be discriminated against simply because he is not an Englishman.
It will be seen that there is practically no record whatever of the makers of American music; and while, to the world at large, our musical accomplishments may not be of vital importance, yet to Americans themselves—even “intelligent” Americans (if the English will admit that such an adjective may occasionally be applied to us)—they are not only of importance but of significance. It is not as if second-rate and greatly inferior composers of Great Britain were omitted also; but when Ethelbert Nevin is given no biography while many lesser British composers are not only given biographies but praised as well, Americans have a complaint which the Britannica’s exploiters (who chummily advertise themselves as “we Americans”) will find it difficult to meet.
In the field of medicine and biology the Encyclopædia Britannica reveals so narrow and obvious a partisanship that there has already been no little resentment on the part of American scientists. This country is surpassed by none in biological chemistry; and our fame in surgery and medical experimentation is world-wide. Among the ranks of our scientists stand men of such great importance and high achievement that no adequate history of biology or medicine could be written without giving vital consideration to them. Yet the Britannica fails almost completely in revealing their significance. Many of our great experimenters—men who have made important original contributions to science and who have pushed forward the boundaries of human knowledge—receive no mention whatever; and many of our surgeons and physicians whose researches have marked epochs in the history of medicine meet with a similar fate. On the other hand you will find scores of biographies of comparatively little known and unimportant English scientists, some of whom have contributed nothing to medical and biological advancement.
It is not my intention to go into any great detail in this matter. I shall not attempt to make a complete list of the glaring omissions of our scientists or to set down anywhere near all of the lesser British scientists who are discussed liberally and con amore in the Britannica. Such a record were unnecessary. But I shall indicate a sufficient number of discrepancies between the treatment of American scientists and the treatment of English scientists, to reveal the utter inadequacy of the Britannica as a guide to the history and development of our science. If America did not stand so high in this field the Encyclopædia’s editors would have some basis on which to explain away their wanton discrimination against our scientific activities. But when, as I say, America stands foremost among the nations of the world in biological chemistry and also holds high rank in surgery and medicine, there can be no excuse for such wilful neglect, especially as minor British scientists are accorded liberal space and generous consideration.
First we shall set down those three earlier pathfinders in American medicine whose names do not so much as appear in the Britannica’s Index:—John Morgan, who in 1765, published his Discourse Upon the Institution of Medical Schools in America, thus becoming the father of medical education in the United States; William Shippen, Jr., who aided John Morgan in founding our first medical school, the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, and gave the first public lectures in obstetrics in this country, and who may be regarded as the father of American obstetrics; and Thomas Cadwalader, the first Philadelphian (at this time Philadelphia was the medical center of America) to teach anatomy by dissections, and the author of one of the best pamphlets on lead poisoning.
Among the somewhat later important American medical scientists who are denied any mention in the Britannica are; John Conrad Otto, the first who described hemophilia (an abnormal tendency to bleeding); James Jackson, author of one of the first accounts of alcoholic neuritis; James Jackson, Jr., who left his mark in physical diagnosis; Elisha North, who as early as 1811 advocated the use of the clinical thermometer in his original description of cerebrospinal meningitis (the first book on the subject); John Ware, who wrote one of the chief accounts of delirium tremens; Jacob Bigelow, one of the very great names in American medicine, whose essay, On Self-Limited Diseases, according to Holmes, “did more than any other work or essay in our language to rescue the practice of medicine from the slavery to the drugging system which was a part of the inheritance of the profession”; W. W. Gerhard, who distinguished between typhoid and typhus; Daniel Drake, known as the greatest physician of the West, who as the result of thirty years of labor wrote the masterpiece, Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America; Caspar Wistar, who wrote the first American treatise on anatomy; and William Edmonds Horner, who discovered the tensor tarsi muscle, known as Horner’s muscle.... Not only are these men not accorded biographies in the “universal” and “complete” Encyclopædia Britannica, but their names do not appear!
The father of American surgery was Philip Syng Physick, who invented the tonsillotome and introduced various surgical operations; but you must look elsewhere than in the Britannica for so much as a mention of him. And although the history of American surgery is especially glorious and includes such great names as: the Warrens; Wright Post; J. C. Nott, who excised the coccyx and was the first who suggested the mosquito theory of yellow fever; Henry J. Bigelow, the first to describe the Y-ligament; Samuel David Gross, one of the chief surgeons of the nineteenth century; Nicholas Senn, one of the masters of modern surgery; Harvey Cushing, perhaps the greatest brain surgeon in the world to-day; George Crile, whose revolutionary work in surgical shock was made long before the Britannica went to press; and William S. Halsted, among the greatest surgeons of the world,—as I have said, although America has produced these important men, the Encyclopædia Britannica ignores the fact entirely, and does not so much as record one of their names!
Were all the rest of American medical scientists given liberal consideration in the Britannica, it would not compensate for the above omissions. But these omissions are by no means all: they are merely the beginning. The chief names in modern operative gynecology are American. But of the nine men who are the leaders in this field, only one (Emmet) has a biography, and only one (McDowell) receives casual mention. Marion Sims who invented his speculum and introduced the operation for vesicovaginal fistula, Nathan Bozeman, J. C. Nott (previously mentioned), Theodore Gaillard Thomas, Robert Battey, E. C. Dudley, and Howard A. Kelly do not exist for the Britannica.
Furthermore, of the four chief pioneers in anæsthesia—the practical discovery and use of which was an American achievement—only two are mentioned. The other two—C. W. Long, of Georgia, and the chemist, Charles T. Jackson—are apparently unknown to the British editors of this encyclopædia. And although in the history of pediatrics there is no more memorable name than that of Joseph O’Dwyer, of Ohio, whose work in intubation has saved countless numbers of infants, you will fail to find any reference to him in this “unbiased” English reference work.
One must not imagine that even here ends the Britannica’s almost unbelievable injustice to American scientists. John J. Abel is not mentioned either, yet Professor Abel is among the greatest pharmacologists of the world. His researches in animal tissues and fluids have definitely set forward the science of medicine; and it was Abel who, besides his great work with the artificial kidney, first discovered the uses of epinephrin. R. G. Harrison, one of the greatest biologists of history, whose researches in the growth of tissue were epoch-making, and on whose investigations other scientists also have made international reputations, is omitted entirely from the Britannica. S. J. Meltzer, the physiologist, who has been the head of the department of physiology and pharmacology at Rockefeller Institute since 1906, is not in the Britannica. T. H. Morgan, the zoölogist, whose many books on the subject have long been standard works, is without a biography. E. B. Wilson, one of the great pathfinders in zoölogy and a man who stands in the front rank of that science, is also without a biography. And Abraham Jacobi, who is the father of pediatrics in America, is not mentioned.
The list of wanton omissions is not yet complete! C. S. Minot, the great American embryologist, is ignored. Theobald Smith, the pathologist, is also thought unworthy of note. And among those renowned American scientists who, though mentioned, failed to impress the Encyclopædia’s English editor sufficiently to be given biographies are: John Kerasley Mitchell, who was the first to describe certain neurological conditions, and was one of the advocates of the germ theory of disease before bacteriology; William Beaumont, the first to study digestion in situ; Jacques Loeb, whose works on heliotropism, morphology, psychology, etc., have placed him among the world’s foremost imaginative researchers; H. S. Jennings, another great American biologist; W. H. Welch, one of the greatest of modern pathologists and bacteriologists; and Simon Flexner, whose work is too well known to the world to need any description here. These men unquestionably deserve biographies in any encyclopædia which makes even a slight pretence of completeness, and to have omitted them from the Britannica was an indefensible oversight—or worse.
The editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica cannot explain away these amazing omissions on the ground that the men mentioned are not of sufficient importance to have come within the range of their consideration; for, when we look down the list of British medical scientists who are given biographies, we can find at least a score of far less important ones. For instance, Elizabeth G. Anderson, whose claim to glory lies in her advocacy of admitting women into the medical profession, is given considerably over half a column. Gilbert Blane, the introducer of lime-juice into the English navy, also has a biography. So has Richard Brocklesby, an eighteenth-century army physician; and Andrew Clark, a fashionable London practitioner; and T. B. Curling; and John Elliotson, the English mesmerist; and Joseph Fayrer, known chiefly for his studies in the poisonous snakes of India; and J. C. Forster; and James Clark, an army surgeon and physician in ordinary to Queen Victoria; and P. G. Hewett, another surgeon to Queen Victoria; and many others of no more prominence or importance.
In order to realize the astounding lengths of injustice to which the Britannica has gone in its petty neglect of America, compare these English names which are given detailed biographical consideration, with the American names which are left out. The editors of this encyclopædia must either plead guilty to the most flagrant kind of prejudicial discrimination against this country, or else confess to an abysmal ignorance of the history and achievements of modern science.
It might be well to note here that Luther Burbank’s name is mentioned only once in the Britannica, under Santa Rosa, the comment being that Santa Rosa was his home. Not to have given Burbank a biography containing an account of his important work is nothing short of preposterous. Is it possible that Americans are not supposed to be interested in this great scientist? And are we to assume that Marianne North, the English naturalist and flower painter—who is given a detailed biography—is of more importance than Burbank? The list of English naturalists and botanists who receive biographies in the Britannica includes such names as William Aiton, Charles Alston, James Anderson, W. J. Broderip, and Robert Fortune; and yet there is no biography or even discussion of Luther Burbank, the American!
Thus far in this chapter I have called attention only to the neglect of American scientists. It must not be implied, however, that America alone suffers from the Britannica’s insular prejudice. No nation, save England, is treated with that justice and comprehensiveness upon which the Encyclopædia’s advertising has so constantly insisted. For instance, although Jonathan Hutchinson, the English authority on syphilis, receives (and rightly so) nearly half a column biography, Ehrlich, the world’s truly great figure in that field, is not considered of sufficient importance to be given biographical mention. It is true that Ehrlich’s salvarsan did not become known until 1910, but he had done much immortal work before then. Even Metchnikoff, surely one of the world’s greatest modern scientists, has no biography! And although British biologists of even minor importance receive biographical consideration, Lyonet, the Hollander, who did the first structural work after Swammerdam, is without a biography.
Nor are there biographies of Franz Leydig, through whose extensive investigations all structural studies upon insects assumed a new aspect; Rudolph Leuckart, another conspicuous figure in zoölogical progress; Meckel, who stands at the beginning of the school of comparative anatomy in Germany; Rathke, who made a significant advance in comparative anatomy; Ramón y Cajal, whose histological research is of world-wide renown; Kowalevsky, whose work in embryology had enormous influence on all subsequent investigations; Wilhelm His, whose embryological investigations, especially in the development of the nervous system and the origin of nerve fibres, are of very marked importance; Dujardin, the discoverer of sarcode; Lacaze-Duthiers, one of France’s foremost zoölogical researchers; and Pouchet, who created a sensation with his experimentations in spontaneous generation.
Even suppose the Britannica’s editor should argue that the foregoing biologists are not of the very highest significance and therefore are not deserving of separate biographies, how then can he explain the fact that such British biologists as Alfred Newton, William Yarrell, John G. Wood, G. J. Allman, F. T. Buckland, and T. S. Cobbold, are given individual biographies with a detailed discussion of their work? What becomes of that universality of outlook on which he so prides himself? Or does he consider Great Britain as the universe?
As I have said, the foregoing notes do not aim at being exhaustive. To set down, even from an American point of view, a complete record of the inadequacies which are to be found in the Britannica’s account of modern science would require much more space than I can devote to it here. I have tried merely to indicate, by a few names and a few comparisons, the insular nature of this Encyclopædia’s expositions, and thereby to call attention to the very obvious fact that the Britannica is not “an international dictionary of biography,” but a prejudiced work in which English endeavor, through undue emphasis and exaggeration, is given the first consideration. Should this Encyclopædia be depended upon for information, one would get but the meagrest idea of the splendid advances which America has made in modern science. And, although I have here touched only on medicine and biology, the same narrow and provincial British viewpoint can be found in the Britannica’s treatment of the other sciences as well.
In the matter of American inventions the Encyclopædia Britannica would appear to have said as little as possible, and to have minimized our importance in that field as much as it dared. And yet American inventors, to quote H. Addington Bruce, “have not simply astonished mankind; they have enhanced the prestige, power, and prosperity of their country.” The Britannica’s editors apparently do not agree with this; and when we think of the wonderful romance of American inventions, and the possibilities in the subject for full and interesting writing, and then read the brief, and not infrequently disdainful, accounts that are presented, we are conscious at once not only of an inadequacy in the matter of facts, but of a niggardliness of spirit.
Let us regard the Encyclopædia’s treatment of steam navigation. Under Steamboat we read: “The first practical steamboat was the tug ‘Charlotte Dundas,’ built by William Symington (Scotch), and tried in the Forth and Clyde Canal in 1802.... The trial was successful, but steam towing was abandoned for fear of injuring the banks of the canal. Ten years later Henry Bell built the ‘Comet,’ with side-paddle wheels, which ran as a passenger steamer on the Clyde; but an earlier inventor to follow up Symington’s success was the American, Robert Fulton....”
This practically sums up the history of that notable achievement. Note the method of presentation, with the mention of Fulton as a kind of afterthought. While the data may technically come within the truth, the impression given is a false one, or at least a British one. Even English authorities admit that Fulton established definitely the value of the steamboat as a medium for passenger and freight traffic; but here the credit, through implication, is given to Symington and Bell. And yet, if Symington is to be given so much credit for pioneer work, why are not William Henry, of Pennsylvania, John Stevens, of New Jersey, Nathan Read, of Massachusetts, and John Fitch, of Connecticut, mentioned also? Surely each of these other Americans was important in the development of the idea of steam as motive power in water.
Eli Whitney receives a biography of only two-thirds of a column; Morse, less than a column; and Elias Howe, only a little over half a column. Even Thomas Edison receives only thirty-three lines of biography—a mere statement of facts. Such a biography is an obvious injustice; and the American buyers of the Encyclopædia Britannica have just cause for complaining against such inadequacy. Edison admittedly is a towering figure in modern science, and an encyclopædia the size of the Britannica should have a full and interesting account of his life, especially since obscure English scientists are accorded far more liberal biographies.
Alexander Graham Bell, however, receives the scantiest biography of all. It runs to just fifteen lines! And the name of Daniel Drawbaugh is not mentioned. He and Bell filed their papers for a telephone on the same day; and it was only after eight years’ litigation that the Supreme Court decided in Bell’s favor—four judges favoring him and three favoring Drawbaugh. No reference is made of this interesting fact. Would the omission have occurred had Drawbaugh been an Englishman instead of a Pennsylvanian, or had not Bell been a native Scotchman?
The name of Charles Tellier, the Frenchman, does not appear in the Britannica. Not even under Refrigerating and Ice Making is he mentioned. And yet back in 1868 he began experiments which culminated in the refrigerating plant as used on ocean vessels to-day. Tellier, more than any other man, can be called the inventor of cold storage, one of the most important of modern discoveries, for it has revolutionized the food question and had far-reaching effects on commerce. Again we are prompted to ask if his name would have been omitted from the Britannica had he been an Englishman.
Another unaccountable omission occurs in the case of Rudolph Diesel. Diesel, the inventor of the Diesel engine, is comparable only to Watts in the development of power; but he is not considered of sufficient importance by the editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica to be given a biography. And under Oil Engine we read: “Mr. Diesel has produced a very interesting engine which departs considerably from other types.” Then follows a brief technical description of it. This is the entire consideration given to Diesel, with his “interesting” engine, despite the fact that the British Government sent to Germany for him in order to investigate his invention!
Few names in the history of modern invention stand as high as Wilbur and Orville Wright. To them can be attributed the birth of the airplane. In 1908, to use the words of an eminent authority, “the Wrights brought out their biplanes and practically taught the world to fly.” The story of how these two brothers developed aviation is, according to the same critic, “one of the most inspiring chronicles of the age.” The Britannica’s editors, if we are to judge their viewpoint by the treatment accorded the Wright brothers in this encyclopædia, held no such opinion. Not only is neither of these men given a biography, but under Flight and Flying—the only place in the whole twenty-nine volumes where their names appear—they are accorded much less consideration than they deserve. Sir Hiram S. Maxim’s flying adventures receive more space.
A subject which unfortunately is too little known in this country and yet one in the development of which America has played a very important part, is pictorial photography. A double interest therefore attaches to the manner in which this subject is treated in the Britannica. Since the writer of the article was thoroughly familiar with the true conditions, an adequate record might have been looked for. But no such record was forthcoming. In the discussion of photography in this Encyclopædia the same bias is displayed as in other departments—the same petty insularity, the same discrimination against America, the same suppression of vital truth, and the same exaggerated glorification of England. In this instance, however, there is documentary proof showing deliberate misrepresentation, and therefore we need not attribute the shortcomings to chauvinistic stupidity, as we have so charitably done in similar causes.
In the article on Pictorial Photography in this aggressibly British reference work we find the following: “It is interesting to note that as a distinct movement pictorial photography is essentially of British origin, and this is shown by the manner in which organized photographic bodies in Vienna, Brussels, Paris, St. Petersburg, Florence, and other European cities, as well as in Philadelphia, Chicago, etc., following the example of London, held exhibitions on exactly similar lines to those of the London Photographic Salon, and invited known British exhibitors to contribute.” Then it is noted that the interchange of works between British and foreign exhibitors led, in the year 1900, “to a very remarkable cult calling itself ‘The New American School,’ which had a powerful influence on contemporaries in Great Britain.”
The foregoing brief and inadequate statements contain all the credit that is given America in this field. New York, where much of the foremost and important work was done, is not mentioned; and the name of Alfred Stieglitz, who is undeniably the towering figure in American photography as well as one of the foremost figures in the world’s photography, is omitted entirely. Furthermore, slight indication is given of the “powerful influence” which America has had; and the significant part she has played in photography, together with the names of the American leaders, is completely ignored, although there is quite a lengthy discussion concerning English photographic history, including credit to those who participated in it.
For instance, the American, Steichen, a world figure in photography and, of a type, perhaps the greatest who ever lived, is not mentioned. Nor are Gertrude Käsebier and Frank Eugene, both of whom especially the former, has had an enormous international influence in pictorial photography. And although there is a history of the formation of the “Linked Ring” in London, no credit is given to Stieglitz whose work, during twenty-five years in Germany and Vienna, was one of the prime influences in the crystallization of this brotherhood. Nor is there so much as a passing reference to Camera Work (published in New York) which stands at the head of photographic publications.
As I have said, there exists documentary evidence which proves the deliberate unfairness of this article. It is therefore not necessary to accept my judgment on the importance of Stieglitz and the work done in America. A. Horsley Hinton, who is responsible for the prejudiced article in the Encyclopædia, was the editor of The Amateur Photographer, a London publication; and in that magazine, as long ago as 1904, we have, in Mr. Hinton’s own words, a refutation of what he wrote for the Britannica. In the May 19 (1904) issue he writes: “We believe every one who is interested in the advance of photography generally, will learn with pleasure that Mr. Alfred Stieglitz, whose life-long and wholly disinterested devotion to pictorial photography should secure him a unique position, will be present at the opening of the next Exhibition of the Photographic Salon in London. Mr. Stieglitz was zealous in all good photographic causes long before the Salon, and indeed long before pictorial photography was discussed—with Dr. Vogel in Germany, for instance, twenty-five years ago.”
Elsewhere in this same magazine we read: “American photography is going to be the ruling note throughout the world unless others bestir themselves; indeed, the Photo-Secession (American) pictures have already captured the highest places in the esteem of the civilized world. Hardly an exhibition of first importance is anywhere held without a striking collection of American work, brought together and sent by Mr. Alfred Stieglitz. For the last two or three years in the European exhibitions these collections have secured the premier awards, or distinctions.” And again we find high praise of Steichen, “than whom America possesses no more brilliant genius among her sons who have taken up photography.”
These quotations—and many similar ones appeared over a decade ago in Mr. Hinton’s magazine—give evidence that Mr. Hinton was not unaware of the extreme importance of American photographic work or of the eminent men who took part in it; and yet in writing his article for the Britannica he has apparently carefully forgotten what he himself had previously written.
But this is not the only evidence we have of deliberate injustice in the Encyclopædia’s disgraceful neglect of our efforts in this line. In 1913, in the same English magazine, we find not only an indirect confession of the Britannica’s bias, but also the personal reason for that bias. Speaking of Stieglitz’s connection with that phase of photographic history to which Mr. Hinton was most intimately connected, this publication says: “At that era, and for long afterwards, Stieglitz was, in fact, a thorn in our sides. ‘Who’s Boss of the Show?’ inquires a poster, now placarded in London. Had that question been asked of the (London) Salon, an irritated whisper of honesty would have replied ‘Stieglitz.’ And ... we didn’t like it. We couldn’t do without him; but these torrential doctrines of his were, to be candid, a nuisance.... He is an influence; an influence for which, even if photography were not concerned, we should be grateful, but which, as it is, we photographers can never perhaps justly estimate.” After this frank admission the magazine adds: “Stieglitz—too big a man to need any ‘defense’—has been considerably misunderstood and misrepresented, and, in so far as this is so, photographers and photography itself are the losers.”
What better direct evidence could one desire than this naïf confession? Yes, Stieglitz, who, according to Mr. Hinton’s own former publication, was a thorn in that critic’s side, has indeed been “misrepresented”; but nowhere has he been neglected with so little excuse as in Mr. Hinton’s own article in the Britannica. And though—again according to this magazine—Stieglitz is “too big a man to need any ‘defense,’” I cannot resist defending him here; for the whole, petty, personal and degrading affair is characteristic of the Encyclopædia Britannica’s contemptible treatment of America and Americans.
Such flagrant political intriguing, such an obvious attempt to use the Encyclopædia to destroy America’s high place in the world of modern achievement, can only arouse disgust in the unprejudiced reader. The great light-bearer in the photographic field, Camera Work, if generally known and appreciated, would have put Mr. Hinton’s own inferior magazine out of existence as a power; and his omitting to mention it in his article and even in his bibliography, is a flagrant example of the Britannica’s refusal to tell the whole truth whenever that truth would harm England or benefit America.
In view of the wide and growing interest in æsthetics and of the immense progress which has been made recently in æsthetic research, one would expect to find an adequate and comprehensive treatment of that subject in a work like the Britannica. But here again one will be disappointed. The article on æsthetics reveals a parti pris which illy becomes a work which should be, as it claims to be, objective and purely informative. The author of the article is critical and not seldom argumentative; and, as a result, full justice is not done the theories and research of many eminent modern æstheticians. Twenty-two lines are all that are occupied in setting forth the æsthetic writers in Germany since Goethe and Schiller, and in this brief paragraph, many of the most significant contributors to the subject are not even given passing mention. And, incredible as it may seem, that division of the article which deals with the German writers is shorter than the division dealing with English writers!
One might forgive scantiness of material in this general article if it were possible to find the leading modern æsthetic theories set forth in the biographies of the men who conceived them. But—what is even more astonishing in the Encyclopædia’s treatment of æsthetics—there are no biographies of many of the scientists whose names and discoveries are familiar to any one even superficially interested in the subject. Several of these men, whose contributions have marked a new epoch in psychological and æsthetic research, are not even mentioned in the text of the Encyclopædia; and the only indication we have that they lived and worked is in an occasional foot-note. Their names do not so much as appear in the Index!
Külpe, one of the foremost psychologists and æstheticians, has no biography, and he is merely mentioned in a foot-note as being an advocate of the principle of association. Lipps, who laid the foundation of the new philosophy of æsthetics and formulated the hypothesis of Einfühlung, has no biography. His name appears once—under Æsthetics—and his theory is actually disputed by the critic who wrote the article. Groos, another important æsthetic leader, is also without a biography; and his name is not in the Britannica’s Index. Nor is Hildebrand, whose solutions to the problem of form are of grave importance, thought worthy of mention.
There is no excuse for such inadequacy, especially as England possesses in Vernon Lee a most capable interpreter of æsthetics—a writer thoroughly familiar with the subject, and one whose articles and books along this line of research have long been conspicuous for their brilliancy and thoroughness.
Furthermore, in this article we have another example of the Britannica’s contempt for American achievement. This country has made important contributions to æsthetics; and only an Englishman could have written a modern exposition of the subject without referring to the researches of William James and Hugo Münsterberg. The Lange-James hypothesis has had an important influence on æsthetic theory; and Münsterberg’s observations on æsthetic preference, form-perception and projection of feelings, play a vital rôle in the history of modern æsthetic science; but you will look in vain for any mention of these Americans’ work. Münsterberg’s Principles of Art Education is not even included in the bibliography.
One going to the Encyclopædia Britannica for critical information concerning philosophy will encounter the very essence of that spirit which is merely reflected in the other departments of the Encyclopædia’s culture. In this field the English editors and contributors of the Britannica are dealing with the sources of thought, and as a result British prejudice finds a direct outlet.
To be sure, it is difficult for a critic possessing the mental characteristics and the ethical and religious predispositions of his nation, to reveal the entire field of philosophy without bias. He has certain temperamental affinities which will draw him toward his own country’s philosophical systems, and certain antipathies which will turn him against contrary systems of other nations. But in the higher realms of criticism it is possible to find that intellectual detachment which can review impersonally the development of thought, no matter what tangential directions it may take. There have been several adequate histories of philosophy written by British critics, proving that it is not necessary for an Englishman to regard the evolution of thinking only through distorted and prejudiced eyes.
The Encyclopædia Britannica, however, evidently holds to no such just ideal in its exposition of philosophical research. Only in a very few of the biographies do we find evidences of an attempt to set forth this difficult subject with impartiality. As in its other departments, the Encyclopædia places undue stress on British thinkers: it accords them space out of all proportion to their relative importance, and includes obscure and inconsequent British moralists while omitting biographies of far more important thinkers of other nations.
This obvious discrepancy in space might be overlooked did the actual material of the biographies indicate the comparative importance of the thinkers dealt with. But when British critics consider the entire history of thought from the postulates of their own writers, and emphasize only those philosophers of foreign nationality who appeal to “English ways of thinking,” then it is impossible to gain any adequate idea of the philosophical teachings of the world as a whole. And this is precisely the method pursued by the Britannica in dealing with the history and development of modern thought. In nearly every instance, and in every important instance, it has been an English didactician who has interpreted for this Encyclopædia the teachings of the world’s leading philosophers; and there are few biographies which do not reveal British prejudice.
The modern English critical mind, being in the main both insular and middle-class, is dominated by a suburban moral instinct. And even among the few more scholarly critics there is a residue of puritanism which tinctures the syllogisms and dictates the deductions. In bringing their minds to bear on creative works these critics are filled with a sense of moral disquietude. At bottom they are Churchmen. They mistake the tastes and antipathies which have been bred in them by a narrow religious and ethical culture, for pure critical criteria. They regard the great men of other nations through the miasma of their tribal taboos.
This rigid and self-satisfied provincialism of outlook, as applied to philosophers in the Encyclopædia Britannica, is not, I am inclined to believe, the result of a deliberate attempt to exaggerate the importance of British thinkers and to underrate the importance of non-British thinkers. To the contrary, it is, I believe, the result of an unconscious ethical prejudice coupled with a blind and self-contented patriotism. But whatever the cause, the result is the same. Consequently, any one who wishes an unbiased exposition of philosophical history must go to a source less insular, and less distorted than the Britannica. Only a British moralist, or one encrusted with British morality, will be wholly satisfied with the manner in which philosophy is here treated; and since there are a great many Americans who have not, as yet, succumbed to English bourgeois theology and who do not believe, for instance, that Isaac Newton is of greater philosophic importance than Kant, this Encyclopædia will be of far more value to an Englishman than to an American.
The first distortion which will impress one who seeks information in the Britannica is to be found in the treatment of English empirical philosophers—that is, of John Locke, Isaac Newton, George Berkeley, Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson, Joseph Butler, Mandeville, Hume, Adam Smith and David Hartley. Locke receives fifteen columns of detailed exposition, with inset headings. “He was,” we are told, “typically English in his reverence for facts” and “a signal example in the Anglo-Saxon world of the love of attainable truth for the sake of truth and goodness.” Then we are given the quotation: “If Locke made few discoveries, Socrates made none.” Furthermore, he was “memorable in the record of human progress.”
Isaac Newton receives no less than nineteen columns filled with specific and unstinted praise; and in the three-and-a-half column biography of George Berkeley we learn that Berkeley’s “new conception marks a distinct stage of progress in human thought”; that “he once for all lifted the problem of metaphysics to a higher level,” and, with Hume, “determined the form into which later metaphysical questions have been thrown.” Shaftesbury, whose main philosophical importance was due to his ethical and moral speculations in refutation of Hobbes’ egoism, is represented by a biography of four and a half columns!
Hume receives over fourteen columns, with inset headings; Adam Smith, nearly nine columns, five and a half of which are devoted to a detailed consideration of his Wealth of Nations. Hutcheson, the ethical moralist who drew the analogy between beauty and virtue—the doctrinaire of the moral sense and the benevolent feelings—is given no less than five columns; while Joseph Butler, the philosophic divine who, we are told, is a “typical instance of the English philosophical mind” and whose two basic premises were the existence of a theological god and the limitation of human knowledge, is given six and a half columns!
On the other hand, Mandeville receives only a column and two-thirds. To begin with, he was of French parentage, and his philosophy (according to the Britannica) “has always been stigmatized as false, cynical and degrading.” He did not believe in the higher Presbyterian virtues, and read hypocrisy into the vaunted goodness of the English. Although in a history of modern philosophy he is deserving of nearly equal space with Butler, in the Britannica he is given only a little over one-fifth of the space! Even David Hartley, the English physician who supplemented Hume’s theory of knowledge, is given nearly as much consideration as the “degrading” Mandeville. And Joseph Priestley, who merely popularized these theories, is given no less than two columns.
Let us turn now to what has been called the “philosophy of the enlightenment” in France and Germany, and we shall see the exquisite workings of British moral prejudice in all its purity. Voltaire, we learn, “was one of the most astonishing, if not exactly one of the more admirable, figures of letters.” He had “cleverness,” but not “genius”; and his great fault was an “inveterate superficiality.” Again: “Not the most elaborate work of Voltaire is of much value for matter.” (The biography, a derogatory and condescending one, is written by the eminent moralist, George Saintsbury.)
Condillac, who is given far less space than either Berkeley or Shaftesbury, only half of the space given Hutcheson, and only a little over one-third of the space given Joseph Butler, is set down as important for “having established systematically in France the principles of Locke.” But his “genius was not of the highest order”; and in his analysis of the mind “he missed out the active and spiritual side of human experience.” James Mill did not like him, and his method of imaginative reconstruction “was by no means suited to English ways of thinking.” This latter shortcoming no doubt accounts for the meagre and uncomplimentary treatment Condillac receives in the great British reference work which is devoted so earnestly to “English ways of thinking.”
Helvétius, whose theory of equality is closely related to Condillac’s doctrine of psychic passivity, is given even shorter shrift, receiving only a column and a third; and it is noted that “there is no doubt that his thinking was unsystematic.” Diderot, however, fares much better, receiving five columns of biography. But then, more and more “did Diderot turn for the hope of the race to virtue; in other words, to such a regulation of conduct and motive as shall make us tender, pitiful, simple, contented,”—an attitude eminently fitted to “English ways of thinking”! And Diderot’s one great literary passion, we learn, was Richardson, the English novelist.
La Mettrie, the atheist, who held no brief for the pious virtues or for the theological soul so beloved by the British, receives just half a column of biography in which the facts of his doctrine are set down more in sorrow than in anger. Von Holbach, the German-Parisian prophet of earthly happiness, who denied the existence of a deity and believed that the soul became extinct at physical death, receives only a little more space than La Mettrie—less than a column. But then, the uprightness of Von Holbach’s character “won the friendship of many to whom his philosophy was repugnant.”
Montesquieu, however, is given five columns with liberal praise—both space and eulogy being beyond his deserts. Perhaps an explanation of such generosity lies in this sentence which we quote from his biography: “It is not only that he is an Anglo-maniac, but that he is rather English than French in style and thought.”
Rousseau, on the other hand, possessed no such exalted qualities; and the biography of this great Frenchman is shorter than Adam Smith’s and only a little longer than that of the English divine, Joseph Butler! The Britannica informs us that Rousseau’s moral character was weak and that he did not stand very high as a man. Furthermore, he was not a philosopher; the essence of his religion was sentimentalism; and during the last ten or fifteen years of his life he was not sane. If you wish to see how unjust and biased is this moral denunciation of Rousseau, turn to any unprejudiced history of philosophy, and compare the serious and lengthy consideration given him, with the consideration given the English moral thinkers who prove such great favorites with the Britannica’s editors.
The German “philosophers of the enlightenment” are given even less consideration. Christian Wolff, whose philosophy admittedly held almost undisputed sway in Germany till eclipsed by Kantianism, receives only a column-and-a-half biography, only half the space given to Samuel Clarke, the English theological writer, and equal space with John Norris, the English philosophical divine, and with Arthur Collier, the English High Church theologian. Even Anthony Collins, the English deist, receives nearly as long a biography. Moses Mendelssohn draws only two and a half columns; Crusius, only half a column; Lambert, only a little over three-fourths of a column; Reimarus, only a column and a third, in which he is considered from the standpoint of the English deists; and Edelmann and Tetens have no biographies whatever!
Kant, as I have noted, receives less biographical space than Isaac Newton, and only about a fifth more space than does either John Locke or Hume. It is unnecessary to indicate here the prejudice shown by these comparisons. Every one is cognizant of Kant’s tremendous importance in the history of thought, and knows what relative consideration should be given him in a work like the Britannica. Hamann, “the wise man of the North,” who was the foremost of Kant’s opponents, receives only a column-and-a-quarter biography, in which he is denounced. His writings, to one not acquainted with the man, must be “entirely unintelligible and, from their peculiar, pietistic tone and scriptural jargon, probably offensive.” And he expressed himself in “uncouth, barbarous fashion.” Herder, however, another and lesser opponent of Kantianism, receives four and a half columns. Jacobi receives three; Reinhold, half a column; Maimon, two-thirds of a column; and Schiller, four and a half columns. Compare these allotments of space with: Thomas Hill Green, the English neo-Kantian, two and two-thirds columns; Richard Price, a column and three-fourths; Martineau, the English philosophic divine, five columns; Ralph Cudworth, two columns; and Joseph Butler, six and a half columns!
In the treatment of German philosophic romanticism the Encyclopædia Britannica is curiously prejudiced. The particular philosophers of this school—especially the ones with speculative systems—who had a deep and wide influence on English thought, are treated with adequate liberality. But the later idealistic thinkers, who substituted criticism for speculation, receive scant attention, and in several instances are omitted entirely. For English readers such a disproportioned and purely national attitude may be adequate, since England’s intellectualism is, in the main, insular. But, it must be remembered, the Britannica has assumed the character of an American institution; and, to date, this country has not quite reached that state of British complacency where it chooses to ignore all information save that which is narrowly relative to English culture. Some of us are still un-British enough to want an encyclopædia of universal information. The Britannica is not such a reference work, and the manner in which it deals with the romantic philosophers furnishes ample substantiation of this fact.
Fichte, for instance, whose philosophy embodies a moral idealism eminently acceptable to “English ways of thinking,” receives seven columns of biography. Schelling, whose ideas were tainted with mythical mysticism, but who was not an evolutionist in the modern sense of the word, receives five columns. Hegel, who was, in a sense, the great English philosophical idol and whose doctrines had a greater influence in Great Britain than those of any other thinker, is given no less than fifteen columns, twice the space that is given to Rousseau, and five-sixths of the space that is given to Kant! Even Schleiermacher is given almost equal space with Rousseau, and his philosophy is interpreted as an effort “to reconcile science and philosophy with religion and theology, and the modern world with the Christian church.” Also, the focus of his thought, culture and life, we are told, “was religion and theology.”
Schopenhauer is one of the few foreign philosophers who receive adequate treatment in the Encyclopædia Britannica. But Boström, in whose works the romantic school attained its systematic culmination, receives just twenty-four lines, less space than is devoted to Abraham Tucker, the English moralist, or to Garth Wilkinson, the English Swedenborgian; and about the same amount of space as is given to John Morell, the English Congregationalist minister who turned philosopher. And Frederick Christian Sibbern receives no biography whatever!
Kierkegaard, whose influence in the North has been profound, receives only half a column, equal space with Andrew Baxter, the feeble Scottish metaphysician; and only half the space given to Thomas Brown, another Scotch “philosopher.” Fries who, with Herbart, was the forerunner of modern psychology and one of the leading representatives of the critical philosophy, is given just one column; but Beneke, a follower of Fries, who approached more closely to the English school, is allotted twice the amount of space that Fries receives.
The four men who marked the dissolution of the Hegelian school—Krause, Weisse, I. H. Fichte and Feuerbach—receive as the sum total of all their biographies less space than is given to the English divine, James Martineau, or to Francis Hutcheson. (In combating Hegelianism these four thinkers invaded the precincts of British admiration.) In the one-column biography of Krause we are told that the spirit of his thought is difficult to follow and that his terminology is artificial. Weisse receives only twenty-three lines; and I. H. Fichte, the son of J. G. Fichte, receives only two-thirds of a column. Feuerbach, who marked the transition between romanticism and positivism and who accordingly holds an important position in the evolution of modern thought, is accorded a biography of a column and a half, shorter than that of Richard Price. Feuerbach, however, unlike Price, was an anti-theological philosopher, and is severely criticised for his spiritual shortcomings.
Let us glance quickly at the important philosophers of positivism as represented in the Encyclopædia Britannica. At the end of the seventeenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth centuries the principal French philosophers representative of schools were de Maistre, Maine de Biran, Ampère, Saint-Simon and Victor Cousin. De Maistre, the most important philosopher of the principle of authority, is given a biography of a column and a third, is highly praised for his ecclesiasticism, and is permitted to be ranked with Hobbes. Maine de Biran receives a little over a column; Ampère, less than a column; and Saint-Simon, two and a third columns.
Victor Cousin is given the astonishing amount of space of eleven columns; but just why he should have been treated in this extravagant manner is not clear, for we are told that his search for principles was not profound and that he “left no distinctive, permanent principles of philosophy.” Nor does it seem possible that he should draw nearly as much space as Rousseau and Montesquieu combined simply because he left behind interesting analyses and expositions of the work of Locke and the Scottish philosophers. Even Comte is given only four and a half columns more.
The English philosophers of the nineteenth century before John Stuart Mill are awarded space far in excess of their importance, comparatively speaking. For instance, James Mill receives two columns of biography; Coleridge, who “did much to deepen and liberalize Christian thought in England,” five and three-fourths columns; Carlyle, nine and two-thirds columns; William Hamilton, two and three-fourths columns; Henry Mansel, a disciple of Hamilton’s, two-thirds of a column; Whewell, over a column; and Bentham, over three and a half columns.
Bentham’s doctrines “have become so far part of the common thought of the time, that there is hardly an educated man who does not accept as too clear for argument truths which were invisible till Bentham pointed them out.... The services rendered by Bentham to the world would not, however, be exhausted even by the practical adoption of every one of his recommendations. There are no limits to the good results of his introduction of a true method of reasoning into the moral and political sciences.” John Stuart Mill, whose philosophy is “generally spoken of as being typically English,” receives nine and a half columns; Charles Darwin, seven columns; and Herbert Spencer, over five.
Positivism in Germany is represented by Dühring in a biography which is only three-fourths of a column in length—an article which is merely an attack, both personal and general. “His patriotism,” we learn, “is fervent, but narrow and exclusive.” (Dühring idolized Frederick the Great.) Ardigò, the important Italian positivist, receives no mention whatever in the Encyclopædia, although in almost any adequate history of modern philosophy, even a brief one, you will find a discussion of his work.
With the exception of Lotze, the philosophers of the new idealism receive scant treatment in the Britannica. Hartmann and Fechner are accorded only one column each; and Wilhelm Wundt, whose æsthetic and psychological researches outstrip even his significant philosophical work, is accorded only half a column! Francis Herbert Bradley has no biography—a curious oversight, since he is English; and Fouillée receives only a little over half a column.
The most inadequate and prejudiced treatment in the Britannica of any modern philosopher is to be found in the biography of Nietzsche, which is briefer than Mrs. Humphry Ward’s! Not only is Nietzsche accorded less space than is given to such British philosophical writers as Dugald Stewart, Henry Sidgwick, Richard Price, John Norris, Thomas Hill Green, James Frederick Ferrier, Adam Ferguson, Ralph Cudworth, Anthony Collins, Arthur Collier, Samuel Clarke and Alexander Bain—an absurd and stupid piece of narrow provincial prejudice—but the biography itself is superficial and inaccurate. The supposed doctrine of Nietzsche is here used to expose the personal opinions of the tutor of Corpus Christi College who was assigned the task of interpreting Nietzsche to the readers of the Britannica. It would be impossible to gather any clear or adequate idea of Nietzsche and his work from this biased and moral source. Here middle-class British insularity reaches its high-water mark.
Other important modern thinkers, however, are given but little better treatment. Lange receives only three-fourths of a column; Paulsen, less than half a column; Ernst Mach, only seventeen lines; Eucken, only twenty-eight lines, with a list of his works; and Renouvier, two-thirds of a column. J. C. Maxwell, though, the Cambridge professor, gets two columns—twice the space given Nietzsche!
In the biography of William James we discern once more the contempt which England has for this country. Here is a man whose importance is unquestioned even in Europe, and who stands out as one of the significant figures in modern thought; yet the Encyclopædia Britannica, that “supreme book of knowledge,” gives him a biography of just twenty-eight lines! And it is Americans who are furnishing the profits for this English reference work!
Perhaps the British editors of this encyclopædia think that we should feel greatly complimented at having William James admitted at all when so many other important moderns of Germany and France and America are excluded. But so long as unimportant English philosophical writers are given biographies, we have a right to expect, in a work which calls itself an “international dictionary of biography,” the adequate inclusion of the more deserving philosophers of other nations.
But what do we actually find? You may hunt the Encyclopædia Britannica through, yet you will not see the names of John Dewey and Stanley Hall mentioned! John Dewey, an American, is perhaps the world’s leading authority on the philosophy of education; but the British editors of the Encyclopædia do not consider him worth noting, even in a casual way. Furthermore, Stanley Hall, another American, who stands in the front rank of the world’s genetic psychologists, is not so much as mentioned. And yet Hall’s great work, Adolescence, appeared five years before the Britannica went to press! Nor has Josiah Royce a biography, despite the fact that he was one of the leaders in the philosophical thought of America, and was even made an LL.D. by Aberdeen University in 1900. These omissions furnish excellent examples of the kind of broad and universal culture which is supposed to be embodied in the Britannica.
But these are by no means all the omissions of the world’s important modern thinkers. Incredible as it may seem, there is no biography of Hermann Cohen, who elaborated the rationalistic elements in Kant’s philosophy; of Alois Riehl, the positivist neo-Kantian; of Windelband and Rickert, whose contributions to the theory of eternal values in criticism are of decided significance to-day; of Freud, a man who has revolutionized modern psychology and philosophic determinism; of Amiel Boutroux, the modern French philosopher of discontinuity; of Henri Bergson, whose influence and popularity need no exposition here; of Guyau, one of the most effective critics of English utilitarianism and evolutionism; or of Jung.
When we add Roberto Ardigò, Weininger, Edelmann, Tetans, and Sibbern to this list of philosophic and psychologic writers who are not considered of sufficient importance to receive biographical mention in the Encyclopædia Britannica, we have, at a glance, the prejudicial inadequacy and incompleteness of this “great” English reference work. Nor can any excuse be offered that the works of these men appeared after the Britannica was printed. At the time it went to press even the most modern of these writers held a position of sufficient significance or note to have been included.
In closing, and by way of contrast, let me set down some of the modern British philosophical writers who are given liberal biographies; Robert Adamson, the Scottish critical historian of philosophy; Alexander Bain; Edward and John Caird, Scottish philosophic divines; Harry Calderwood, whose work was based on the contention that fate implies knowledge and on the doctrine of divine sanction; David George Ritchie, an unimportant Scotch thinker; Henry Sidgwick, an orthodox religionist and one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research; James H. Stirling, an expounder of Hegel and Kant; William Wallace, an interpreter of Hegel; and Garth Wilkinson, the Swedenborgian homeopath.
Such is the brief record of the manner in which the world’s modern philosophers are treated in the Encyclopædia Britannica. From this work hundreds of thousands of Americans are garnering their educational ideas.
Throughout several of the foregoing chapters I have laid considerable emphasis on the narrow parochial attitude of the Britannica’s editors and on the constant intrusion of England’s middle-class Presbyterianism into nearly every branch of æsthetics. The Britannica, far from being the objective and unbiased work it claims to be, assumes a personal and prejudiced attitude, and the culture of the world is colored and tinctured by that viewpoint. It would appear self-obvious to say that the subject of religion in any encyclopædia whose aim is to be universal, should be limited to the articles on religious matters. But in the Encyclopædia Britannica this is not the case. As I have shown, those great artists and thinkers who do not fall within the range of bourgeois England’s suburban morality, are neglected, disparaged, or omitted entirely.
Not only patriotic prejudice, but evangelical prejudice as well, characterizes this encyclopædia’s treatment of the world’s great achievements; and nowhere does this latter bias exhibit itself more unmistakably than in the articles relating to Catholicism. The trickery, the manifest ignorance, the contemptuous arrogance, the inaccuracies, the venom, and the half-truths which are encountered in the discussion of the Catholic Church and its history almost pass the bounds of credibility. The wanton prejudice exhibited in this department of the Britannica cannot fail to find resentment even in non-Catholics, like myself; and for scholars, either in or out of the Church, this encyclopædia, as a source of information, is not only worthless but grossly misleading.
The true facts relating to the inclusion of this encyclopædia’s article on Catholicism, as showing the arrogant and unscholarly attitude of the editors, are as interesting to those outside of the Church as to Catholics themselves. And it is for the reason that these articles are typical of a great many of the Encyclopædia’s discussions of culture in general that I call attention both to the misinformation contained in them and to the amazing refusal of the Britannica’s editors to correct the errors when called to their attention at a time when correction was possible. The treatment of the Catholic Church by the Britannica is quite in keeping with its treatment of other important subjects, and it emphasizes, perhaps better than any other topic, not only the Encyclopædia’s petty bias and incompleteness, but the indefensible and mendacious advertising by which this set of books was foisted upon the American public. And it also gives direct and irrefutable substantiation to my accusation that the spirit of the Encyclopædia Britannica is closely allied to the provincial religious doctrines of the British bourgeoisie; and that therefore it is a work of the most questionable value.
Over five years ago T. J. Campbell, S. J., in The Catholic Mind, wrote an article entitled The Truth About the Encyclopædia Britannica—an article which, from the standpoint of an authority, exposed the utter unreliability of this Encyclopædia’s discussion of Catholicism. The article is too long to quote here, but enough of it will be given to reveal the inadequacy of the Britannica as a source of accurate information. “The Encyclopædia Britannica,” the article begins, “has taken an unfair advantage of the public. By issuing all its volumes simultaneously it prevented any protests against misstatements until the whole harm was done. Henceforth prudent people will be less eager to put faith in prospectuses and promises. The volumes were delivered in two installments a couple of months apart. The article Catholic Church, in which the animus of the Encyclopædia might have been detected, should naturally have been in the first set. It was adroitly relegated to the end of the second set, under the caption Roman Catholic Church.
“It had been intimated to us that the Encyclopædia’s account of the Jesuits was particularly offensive. That is our excuse for considering it first. Turning to it we found that the same old battered scarecrow had been set up. The article covers ten and a half large, double-columned, closely-printed pages, and requires more than an hour in its perusal. After reading it two or three times we closed the book with amazement, not at the calumnies with which the article teems and to which custom has made us callous, but at the lack of good judgment, of accurate scholarship, of common information, and business tact which it reveals in those who are responsible for its publication.
“It ought to be supposed that the subscribers to this costly encyclopædia had a right to expect in the discussion of all the questions presented an absolute or quasi-absolute freedom from partisan bias, a sincere and genuine presentation of all the results of the most modern research, a positive exclusion of all second-hand and discredited matter, and a scrupulous adherence to historical truth. In the article in question all these essential conditions are woefully lacking.
“Encyclopædias of any pretence take especial pride in the perfection and completeness of their bibliographies. It is a stamp of scholarship and a guarantee of the thoroughness and reliability of the article, which is supposed to be an extract and a digest of all that has been said or written on the subject. The bibliography annexed to the article on the Jesuits, is not only deplorably meagre, but hopelessly antiquated. Thus, for instance, only three works of the present century are quoted; one of them apparently for no reason whatever, viz.: The History of the Jesuits of North America, in three volumes, by Thomas Hughes, S. J., for, as far as we are able to see, the Encyclopædia article makes no mention of their being with Lord Baltimore in Maryland, or of the preceding troubles of the Jesuits in England, which were considered important enough for a monumental work, but evidently not for a compiler of the Encyclopædia. Again, the nine words, ‘laboring amongst the Hurons and Iroquois of North America,’ form the sum total of all the information vouchsafed us about the great missions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though we are referred to the seventy-three volumes of Thwaites’ edition of the Jesuits Relations. Had the author or editor even glanced at these books he might have seen that besides the Huron and Iroquois missions, which were very brief in point of time and very restricted in their territorial limitations, the Jesuit missions with the Algonquins extended from Newfoundland to Alaska, and are still continued; he would have found that most of the ethnological, religious, linguistic and geographical knowledge we have of aboriginal North America comes from those Jesuit Relations; and possibly without much research the sluggish reader would have met with a certain inconspicuous Marquette; but as Englishmen, up to the Civil War, are said to have imagined that the Mississippi was the dividing line between the North and South, the value of the epoch-making discovery of the great river never entered this slow foreigner’s mind. Nor is there any reference to the gigantic labors of the Jesuits in Mexico; but perhaps Mexico is not considered to be in North America.
“Nor is there in this bibliography any mention of the Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu, nor of the Monumenta Pædagogica, nor is there any allusion to the great and learned works of Duhr, Tacchi-Venturi, Fouqueray, and Kroes, which have just been published and are mines of information on the history of the Society in Spain, Germany, Italy and France; and although we are told of the Historia Societatis Jesu by Orlandini, which bears the very remote imprint of 1620, is very difficult to obtain, and covers a very restricted period, there is apparently no knowledge of the classic work of Jouvency, nor is Sacchini cited, nor Polanco. The Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, by De Backer, not ‘Backer,’ as the Encyclopædia has it, is listed; but it is simply shocking to find that there was no knowledge of Sommervogel, who is the continuator of De Backer, and who has left us a most scholarly and splendid work which is brought down to our own times, and for which De Backer’s, notable though it be, was only a preparation. In brief, the bibliography is absolutely worthless, not only for a scholar, but even for the average reader.
“On the other hand it is quite in keeping with the character of the writers who were chosen for the article. The New York Evening Post informs us that before 1880, when a search for a suitable scribe for the Jesuit article was instituted, some one started on a hunt for Cardinal Newman, but the great man had no time. Then he thought of Manning, who, of course, declined, and finally knowing no other ‘Jesuit’ he gave the work to Littledale. Littledale, as everyone knows, was an Anglican minister, notorious not only for his antagonism to the Jesuits, but also to the Catholic Church. He gladly addressed himself to the task, and forthwith informed the world that ‘the Jesuits controlled the policy of Spain’; that ‘it was a matter of common knowledge that they kindled the Franco-Prussian war of 1870’; that ‘Pope Julius II dispensed the Father General from his vow of poverty,’ though that warrior Pope expired eight years before Ignatius sought the solitude of Manresa, and had as yet no idea of a Society of Jesus; again, that ‘the Jesuits from the beginning never obeyed the Pope’; that ‘in their moral teaching they can attenuate and even defend any kind of sin’; and, finally, not to be too prolix in this list of absurdities, that, prior to the Vatican Council, ‘they had filled up all the sees of Latin Christendom with bishops of their own selection.’
“It is true that only the last mentioned charge appears in the present edition, and it is a fortunate concession for Littledale’s suffering victims; for if ‘there are no great intellects among the Jesuits,’ and if they are only a set of ‘respectable mediocrities,’ as this ‘revised’ article tells us, they can point with pride to this feat which makes a dozen Franco-Prussian wars pale into insignificance alongside it. We doubt, however, if the 700 prelates who sat in the Vatican Council would accept that explanation of their promotion in the prelacy; and we feel certain that Cardinal Manning, who was one of the great figures in that assembly, would resent it, at least if it be true, as the Encyclopædia assures us, that he considered the suppression of the Society in 1773 to be the work of God, and was sure that another 1773 was coming.
“The wonder is that a writer who can be guilty of such absurdities should, after twenty years, be summoned from the dead as a witness to anything at all. But on the other hand it is not surprising when we see that the Rev. Ethelred Taunton, who is also dead and buried, should be made his yoke-fellow in ploughing over this old field, to sow again these poisonous weeds. There are many post-mortems in the Encyclopædia. Had the careless editors of the Encyclopædia consulted Usher’s Reconstruction of the English Church, they would have found Taunton described as an author ‘who makes considerable parade of the amount of his research, but has not gone very far and has added little, if anything, to what we knew before. As a whole, his book on The History of the Jesuits in England is uncritical and prejudiced.’
“Such is the authority the Encyclopædia appeals to for information. That is bad enough, but in the list of authors Taunton is actually described as a ‘Jesuit.’ Possibly it is one of the punishments the Almighty has meted out to him for his misuse of the pen while on earth. But he never did half the harm to the Jesuits by his ill-natured assaults as he has to the Encyclopædia in being mistaken for an ‘S. J.’; for although there are some people who will believe anything an encyclopædia tells them, there are others who are not so meek and who will be moved to inquire how, if the editor of this publication is so lamentably ignorant of the personality and antecedents of his contributors, he can vouch for the reliability of what newspaper men very properly call the stuff that comes into the office. We are not told who revised the writings of those two dead men, one of whom departed this life twenty, the other four years ago; and we have to be satisfied with a posthumous and prejudiced and partly anonymous account of a great Order, about which many important books have been written since the demise of the original calumniators, and with which apparently the unknown reviser is unacquainted.
“It may interest the public to know that many of these errors were pointed out to the managers of the Encyclopædia at their New York office when the matter was still in page proof and could have been corrected. Evidently it was not thought worth while to pay any attention to the protest.
“It is true that in the minds of some of their enemies, especially in certain parts of the habitable globe, Catholics have no right to resent anything that is said of their practices and beliefs, no matter how false or grotesque such statements may be; and, consequently, we are not surprised at the assumption by the Encyclopædia Britannica of its usual contemptuous attitude. Thus, for instance, on turning to the articles Casuistry and Roman Catholic Church we find them signed ‘St. C.’ Naturally and supernaturally to be under the guidance of a Saint C. or a Saint D. always inspires confidence in a Catholic; but this ‘St. C.’ turns out to be only the Viscount St. Cyres, a scion of the noble house of Sir Stafford Northcote, the one time leader of the House of Commons, who died in 1887. In the Viscount’s ancestral tree we notice that Sir Henry Stafford Northcote, first Baronet, has appended to his name the title ‘Prov. Master of Devonshire Freemasons.’ What ‘Prov.’ means we do not know, but we are satisfied with the remaining part of the description. The Viscount was educated at Eton, and Merton College, Oxford. He is a layman and a clubman, and as far as we know is not suspected of being a Catholic. A search in the ‘Who’s Who?’ failed to reveal anything on that point, though a glance at the articles over his name will dispense us from any worry about his religious status.
“We naturally ask why he should have been chosen to enlighten the world on Catholic topics? ‘Because,’ says the editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica, ‘the Viscount St. Cyres has probably more knowledge of the development of theology in the Roman Catholic Church than any other person in that Church.’
“The Church was unaware that it had at its disposal such a source of information. It will be news to many, but we are inclined to ask how the Viscount acquired that marvelous knowledge. It would require a life-long absorption in the study of divinity quite incompatible with the social duties of one of his station. Furthermore, we should like to know whence comes the competency of the editor to decide on the ability of the Viscount, and to pass judgment on the correctness of his contribution? That also supposes an adequate knowledge of all that the dogmatic, moral and mystic theologians ever wrote, a life-long training in the language and methods of the science, and a special intellectual aptitude to comprehend the sublime speculations of the Church’s divines.
“It will not be unkind to deny him such qualifications, especially now, for did he not tell his friends at the London banquet: ‘During all these (seven) years I have been busy in the blacksmith’s shop (of the editor’s room) and I do not hear the noise that is made by the hammers all around me’—nor, it might be added, does he hear what is going on outside the Britannica’s forge.
“Meantime, we bespeak the attention of all the Catholic theologians in every part of the world to the preposterous invitation to come to hear the last word about ‘the development of theology’ in the Catholic Church from a scholar whose claim to theological distinction is that ‘he has written about Fénélon and Pascal.’ The Britannica shows scant respect to Catholic scholarship and Catholic intelligence.”
Father Campbell then devotes several pages to a specific indictment of the misstatements and the glaring errors to be found in several of the articles relating to the Catholic Church. He quotes eight instances of St. Cyres’ inaccurate and personal accusations, and also many passages from the articles on Papacy, Celibacy and St. Catherine of Siena—passages which show the low and biased standard of scholarship by which they were written. The injustice contained in them is obvious even to a superficial student of history. At the close of these quotations he accuses the Britannica of being neither up-to-date, fair, nor well-informed. “It repeats old calumnies that have been a thousand times refuted, and it persistently selects the Church’s enemies who hold her up to ridicule and contempt. We are sorry for those who have been lavish in their praises of a book which is so defective, so prejudiced, so misleading and so insulting.”
It seems that while the Britannica’s contributions to the general misinformation of the world were being discussed, the editor wrote to one of his subscribers saying that the Catholics were very much vexed because the article on the Jesuits was not “sufficiently eulogistic.”
“He is evidently unaware,” Father Campbell goes on to comment, “that the Society of Jesus is sufficiently known both in the Church and the world not to need a monument in the graveyard of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Not the humblest Brother in the Order expected anything but calumny and abuse when he saw appended to the article the initials of the well-known assassins of the Society’s reputation. Not one was surprised, much less displeased, at the absence of eulogy, sufficient or otherwise; but, on the contrary, they were all amazed to find the loudly trumpeted commercial enterprise, which had been so persistently clamorous of its possession of the most recent results of research in every department of learning, endeavoring to palm off on the public such shopworn travesties of historical and religious truth. The editor is mistaken if he thinks they pouted. Old and scarred veterans are averse to being patted on the back by their enemies.
“It is not, however, the ill-judged gibe that compels us to revert to the Society, as much as the suspicion that the editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica seems to fancy that we had nothing to say beyond calling attention to his dilapidated bibliography, which he labels with the very offensive title of ‘the bibliography of Jesuitism’—a term which is as incorrect as it is insulting—or that we merely objected to the employment of two dead and discredited witnesses to tell the world what kind of an organization the Society is.
“It may be, moreover, that we misjudged a certain portion of the reading public in treating the subject so lightly, and as the Encyclopædia is continually reiterating the assertion that it has no ‘bias’ and that its statement of facts is purely ‘objective,’ a few concrete examples of the opposite kind of treatment—the one commonly employed—may not be out of place.
“We are told, for instance, that ‘the Jesuits had their share, direct or indirect, in the embroiling of States, in concocting conspiracies and in kindling wars. They were responsible by their theoretical teachings in theological schools for not a few assassinations’ (340). ‘They powerfully aided the revolution which placed the Duke of Braganza on the throne of Portugal, and their services were rewarded with the practical control of ecclesiastical and almost civil affairs in that kingdom for nearly one hundred years’ (344). ‘Their war against the Jansenists did not cease till the very walls of Port Royal were demolished in 1710, even to the very abbey church itself, and the bodies of the dead taken with every mark of insult from their graves and literally flung to the dogs to devour’ (345). ‘In Japan the Jesuits died with their converts bravely as martyrs to the Faith, yet it is impossible to acquit them of a large share of the causes of that overthrow’ (345). ‘It was about the same time that the grave scandal of the Chinese and Malabar rites began to attract attention in Europe and to make thinking men ask seriously whether the Jesuit missionaries in those parts taught anything which could fairly be called Christianity at all’ (348). ‘The political schemings of Parsons in England was an object lesson to the rest of Europe of a restless ambition and a lust of domination which were to find many imitators’ (348). ‘The General of the Order drove away six thousand exiled Jesuit priests from the coast of Italy, and made them pass several months of suffering on crowded vessels at sea to increase public sympathy, but the actual result was blame for the cruelty with which he had enhanced their misfortunes’ (346). ‘Clement XIV, who suppressed them, is said to have died of poison, but Tanucci and two others entirely acquit the Jesuits.’ ‘They are accountable in no small degree in France, as in England, for alienating the minds of men from the religion for which they professed to work’ (345).
“Very little of this can be characterized as ‘eulogistic,’ especially as interwoven in the story are malignant insinuations, incomplete and distorted statements, suppressions of truth, gross errors of fact, and a continual injection of personal venom which makes the argument not an ‘unbiased and objective presentment’ of the case, but the plea of a prejudiced prosecuting and persecuting attorney endeavoring by false testimony to convict before the bar of public opinion an alleged culprit, whose destruction he is trying to accomplish with an uncanny sort of delight.”
After having adduced a long list of instances which “reveal the rancor and ignorance of many of the writers hired by the Encyclopædia,” the article then points out “the fundamental untruthfulness” on which the Britannica is built. In a letter written by the Encyclopædia’s editor appears the following specious explanation: “Extreme care was taken by the editors, and especially by the editor responsible for the theological side of the work, that every subject, either directly or indirectly concerned with religion, should as far as possible be objective and not subjective in their presentation. The majority of the articles on the various Churches and their beliefs were written by members within the several communions, and, if not so written, were submitted to those most competent to judge, for criticism and, if need be, correction.”
Father Campbell in his answer to this letter says: “Without animadverting on the peculiar use of the English language by the learned English editor who tells us that ‘every subject’ should be ‘objective’ in their presentation, we do not hesitate to challenge absolutely the assertion that ‘the majority of the articles on the various Churches were written by members within the several communions, and if not so written were submitted to those most competent to judge, for criticism and, if need be, for correction.’ Such a pretence is simply amazing, and thoroughly perplexed, we asked: What are we supposed to understand when we are informed that ‘the majority of the articles on the various Churches and their beliefs were written by members within the several communions’?
“Was the article on The Roman Catholic Church written by a Catholic? Was the individual who accumulated and put into print all those vile aspersions on the Popes, the saints, the sacraments, the doctrines of the Church, a Catholic? Were the other articles on Casuistry, Celibacy, St. Catherine of Siena, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, written by a Catholic? The supposition is simply inconceivable, and it calls for more than the unlimited assurance of the Encyclopædia Britannica to compel us to accept it.
“But ‘they were submitted to the most competent judge for criticism and, if need be, correction.’ Were they submitted to any judge at all, or to any man of sense, before they were sent off to be printed and scattered throughout the English speaking world? Is it permissible to imagine for a moment that any Catholic could have read some of those pages and not have been filled with horror at the multiplied and studied insults to everything he holds most sacred in his religion? Or did ‘the editor responsible for the theological side of the work’ reserve for himself the right to reject or accept whatever recommended itself to his superior judgment?”
The article then points out that “far from being just to Catholics, the Britannica pointedly and persistently discriminated against them.” The article on the Episcopalians was assigned to the Rev. Dr. D. D. Addison, Rector of All Saints, Brookline, Mass.; that on Methodists to the Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckley, Editor of the Christian Advocate, New York; that on the Baptists to the Rev. Newton Herbert Marshall, Baptist Church, Hampstead, England; that on the Jews to Israel Abrahams, formerly President of the Jewish Historical Society and now Reader on Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature in Cambridge, and so on for the Presbyterians, Unitarians, Lutherans, etc. But in the case of the Catholic Church not only its history but its theology was given to a critic who was neither a theologian, nor a cleric, nor even a Catholic, and who, as Father Campbell notes, is not known outside of his little London coterie.
The Britannica’s editor also apologized for his encyclopædia by stating that “Father Braun, S. J., has assisted us in our article on Vestments, and that Father Delehaye, S. J., has contributed, among other articles, those on The Bollandists and Canonization. Abbé Boudinhon and Mgr. Duchesne, and Luchaire and Ludwig von Pastor and Dr. Kraus have also contributed, and Abbot Butler, O. S. B., has written on the Augustinians, Benedictines, Carthusians, Cistercians, Dominicans and Franciscans”; and, finally: “The new Britannica has had the honor of having as a contributor His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, who has written of the Roman Catholic Church in America.”
“But, after all,” answers Father Campbell, “it was not a very generous concession to let Father Joseph Braun, S. J., Staatsexamen als Religionsoberlehren für Gymnasien, University of Bonn, assist the editors in the very safe article on Vestments, nor to let the Bollandists write a column on their publication, which has been going on for three or four hundred years. The list of those who wrote on the Papacy is no doubt respectable in ability if not in number, but we note that the editor is careful to say that the writers of that article were ‘principally’ Roman Catholics.
“Again we are moved to ask why should a Benedictine, distinguished though he be, have assigned to him the history of the Augustinians, Franciscans, Dominicans, etc.? Were there no men in those great and learned orders to tell what they must have known better than even the erudite Benedictine? Nor will it avail to tell us that His Eminence of Baltimore wrote The History of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, when that article comprises only a column of statistics, preceded by two paragraphs, one on the early missions, and the other on the settlement of Lord Baltimore. No one more than the illustrious and learned churchman would have resented calling such a mere compilation of figures a History of the Catholic Church in the United States, and no one would be more shocked than he by the propinquity of his restricted article to the prolix and shameless one to which it is annexed.”
Here in brief is an account of the “impartial” manner in which Catholicism is recorded and described in that “supreme” book of knowledge, the Encyclopædia Britannica. And I set down this record here not because it is exceptional but, to the contrary, because it is representative of the way in which the world’s culture (outside of England), and especially the culture of America, is treated.
The intellectual prejudice and contempt of England for America is even greater if anything than England’s religious prejudice and contempt for Catholicism; and this fact should be borne in mind when you consult the Britannica for knowledge. It will not give you even scholarly or objective information: it will advise you, by constant insinuation and intimation, as well as by direct statement, that English culture and achievement represent the transcendent glories of the world, and that the great men and great accomplishments of other nations are of minor importance. No more fatal intellectual danger to America can be readily conceived than this distorted, insular, incomplete, and aggressively British reference work.
The following list contains two hundred of the many hundreds of writers, painters, musicians and scientists who are denied biographies in the Britannica. There is not a name here which should not be in an encyclopædia which claims for itself the completeness which the Britannica claims. Many of the names stand in the forefront of modern culture. Their omission is nothing short of preposterous, and can be accounted for only on the grounds of ignorance or prejudice. In either case, they render the encyclopædia inadequate as an up-to-date and comprehensive reference work.
It will be noted that not one of these names is English, and that America has suffered from neglect in a most outrageous fashion. After reading the flamboyant statements made in the Encyclopædia Britannica’s advertising, glance down this list. Then decide for yourself whether or not the statements are accurate.
Objection may be raised to some of the following names on the ground that they are not of sufficient importance to be included in an encyclopædia, and that their omission cannot be held to the discredit of the Britannica. In answer let me state that for every name listed here as being denied a biography, there are one or two, and, in the majority of cases, many, Englishmen in the same field who are admittedly inferior and yet who are given detailed and generally laudatory biographies.