MISINFORMING A NATION

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
B. W. HUEBSCH

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

MISINFORMING A NATION

I
COLONIZING 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.

II
THE NOVEL

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.