Chapman, John J. 1862 1933 John Jay Chapman Page 1 of 4 Ask Jeeves Ask! Jeeves a question. www.ask.co.uk Free "Essays" Harvard Distance Ed Get George Orwell Product Free. Free Take Online Classes at Harvard Extension shipping. Sign up now. School Ads by Goooooogle John Jay A The National Archives Learning Curve Europe the national archives Chapman Anglic Spartacus, USA History, British History, Second World War, First World War, Germany, American Trade Unions, British Trade Unions, France, Author, Search Website, Email John Jay Chapman was born in New York City on 2nd March, 1862. His father, Henry Grafton Chapman, was a broker who eventually became president of the New York Stock Exchange. His grandmother, Maria Weston Chapman, was one of the leading campaigners against slavery and worked with William Lloyd Garrison on The Liberator. In 1839 Chapman, Lucretia Mott and Lydia Maria Child, became the first women to be elected to the executive committee of the Anti-Slavery Society. Chapman attended St, Paul's School, Concord and Harvard. After graduating in 1885, Chapman travelled around Europe before returning to study at the Harvard Law School. In 1887 Chapman assaulted a man for http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAchapmanJJ.htm 4/26/2005 John Jay Chapman Page 2 of 4 insulting his girlfriend, Minna Timmins. He punished himself for this act by putting his left hand into a fire. It was so badly burnt he had to have it amputated. In 1888 Chapman was admitted to the New York bar. He married Minna Timmins in 1889 but she died giving birth to their third child. Chapman later married Elizabeth Chanler. Chapman became involved in politics and joined the City Reform Club and the Citizens' Union. He lectured on the need for reform and edited the journal The Political Nursery (1897-1901). He also wrote two books about the need for political change: Causes and Consequences (1898) and Practical Agitation (1900). Chapman supported the political campaigns of Theodore Roosevelt and Seth Low but later criticized them for being less radical in power than they had been in opposition. Chapman argued that politicians tended to be influenced by the power of big business. Faced with the choice between "lucrative malpractice and thankless honesty," he claimed they usually opted for corruption. After ten years as a lawyer, Chapman became a full-time writer. A collection of articles on literature, Emerson and Other Essays, was published in 1898. Chapman was greatly influenced by the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and argued in his book that "he has pointed out for us in this country to what end our efforts must be bent." In 1911 Chapman became involved in the campaign to bring to justice the people who lynched Zach Walker in Coatsville, Pennsylvania. The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People investigated the case and discovered the names of the people responsible. However, the authorities were unwilling to bring the case to court. One of the speeches that Chapman made on the case was published as an article by Harper's Weekly in September, 1912. Chapman also wrote several plays including The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold (1910). Other books by Chapman included Learning and Other Essays (1910), a biography of William Lloyd Garrison (1913), Songs and Poems (1919), A Glance Toward Shakespeare (1922), Dante (1927) and Lucian, Plato and Greek Morals (1931). These books were highly praised and Edmund Wilson called him the "best writer on literature of his generation." Chapman's last book, New Horizons in American Life (1932), was an attack on the way that the United States education was being dominated by the needs of business. John Jay Chapman died on 4th November, 1933. tp://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAchapmanJJ.htm 4/26/2005 UNH LIBRARY 043/03) 3 4600 00036161 5 MEMORIES AND MILESTONES William James" BY JOHN JAY CHAPMAN X WILLIAM JAMES Essay Index Reprint Series, 1971. 1915. copred Also gulus essa Dambat Word student BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS on & FREEPORT, NEW YORK II WILLIAM JAMES NONE of 11S will ever see a man like Wil- liam James again : there is no doubt about that. And yet it is hard to state what it was in him that gave him either his charm or his power, what it was that penetrated and influenced us, what it is that we lack and feel the need of, now that he has so un- expectedly and incredibly died. I always thought that William James would continue forever; and I relied upon his sanctity as if it were sunlight. I should not have been abashed at being discovered in some mean action by William James ; because I should have felt that he would understand and make allowances. The abstract and sublime quality of his na- ture was always enough for two ; and I confess to having always trespassed upon him and treated him with impertinence, without gloves, without reserve, without or- dinary, decent concern for the sentiments 19 MEMORIES AND MILESTONES WILLIAM JAMES and weaknesses of human character. mistake or defect of expression, when he Knowing nothing about philosophy, and came to see that he had not said quite what having the dimmest notions as to what he meant, he was the first to proclaim it, James's books might contain, I used occa- and to move on to a new position, a new sionally to write and speak to him about his misstatement of the same truth,- a new, specialties in a tone of fierce contempt; and debonair apperception, clothed in non- never failed to elicit from him in reply conclusive and suggestive figures of speech. the most spontaneous and celestial gayety. How many men have put their shoulders Certainly he was a wonderful man. out of joint in striking at the phantasms He was SO devoid of selfish aim or small which James projected upon the air ! James personal feeling that your shafts might was always in the right, because what he pierce, but could never wound him. You meant was true. The only article of his could not "diminish one dowle that's in his which I ever read with proper attention was plume." Where he walked, nothing could "The Will to Believe," a thing that exas- touch him; and he enjoyed the Emersonian perated me greatly until I began to see, or immunity of remaining triumphant even to think I saw, what James meant, and at after he had been vanquished. The reason the same time to acknowledge to myself was, as it seems to me, that what the man that he had said something quite different. really meant was always something inde- I hazard this idea about James as one might structible and persistent; and that he knew hazard an idea about astronomy, fully this inwardly. He had not the gift of ex- aware that it may be very foolish. pression, but rather the gift of suggestion. In private life and conversation there He said things which meant one thing to was the same radiation of thought about him and something else to the reader or him. The center and focus of his thought listener. His mind was never quite in fo- fell within his nature, but not within his cus, and there was always something left intellect. You were thus played upon by over after each discharge of the battery, a logic which was not the logic of intellect, something which now became the beginning but a far deeper thing, limpid and clear in of a new thought. When he found out his itself, confused and refractory only when 20 2I MEMORIES AND MILESTONES WILLIAM JAMES you tried to deal with it intellectually. You the old Puritanical impulse,- in his case must take any fragment of such a man by illumined, however, with a humor and gen- itself, for his whole meaning is in the frag- ius not at all of the Puritan type. He ment. If you try to piece the bits together, adopted philosophy as his lance and buck- you will endanger their meaning. In gen- ler,- psychology, it was called in his day, eral talk on life, literature, and politics - and it proved to be as good as the. next James was always throwing off sparks that thing,- as pliable as poetry or fiction or were cognate only in this, that they came politics or law would have been,-- or any- from the same central fire in him. It was thing else that he might have adopted as a easy to differ from him; it was easy to go vehicle through which his nature could work home thinking that James had talked the upon society. most arrant rubbish, and that no educated He, himself, was all perfected from the man had a right to be SO ignorant of the beginning, a selfless angel. It is this qual- first principles of thought and of the foun- ity of angelic unselfishness which gives the dations of human society. Yet it was im- power to his work. There may be some possible not to be morally elevated by the branches of human study - mechanics per- smallest contact with William James. A haps - where the personal spirit of the in- refining, purgatorial influence came out of vestigator does not affect the result; but him. philosophy is not one of them. Philosophy I believe that in his youth, James dedi- is a personal vehicle; and every man makes cated himself to the glory of God and the his own, and through it he says what he has advancement of Truth, in the same spirit to say. It is all personal: it is all human: that a young knight goes to seek the Grail, it is all non-reducible to science, and incapa- or a young military hero dreams of laying ble of being either repeated or continued by down his life for his country. What his another man. early leanings towards philosophy or his Now James was an illuminating ray, a natural talent for it may have been, I do dissolvent force. He looked freshly at life, not know ; but I feel as if he had first taken and read books freshly. What he had to up philosophy out of a sense of duty,- say about them was not entirely articulated, 22 23 MEMORIES AND MILESTONES WILLIAM JAMES but was always spontaneous. He seemed ical, and therefore divine. He was forever to me to have too high an opinion of every- hovering, and never could alight; and this thing. The last book he had read was al- is a quality of truth and a quality of genius. ways a great book": the last person he The great religious impulse at the back had talked with, a wonderful being. If I of all his work, and which pierces through may judge from my own standpoint, I at every point, never became expressed in should say that James saw too much good conclusive literary form, or in dogmatic ut- in everything, and felt towards everything terance. It never became formulated in a too indiscriminating approval. He was his own mind into a stateable belief. And always classing things up into places they yet it controlled his whole life and mind, didn't belong and couldn't remain in. and accomplished a great work in the world. Of course, we know that Criticism is The spirit of a priest was in him,- in his proverbially an odious thing; it seems to books and in his private conversation. He deal only in shadows,- it acknowledges was a sage, and a holy man; and everybody only varying shades of badness in every- put off his shoes before him. And yet in thing. And we know, too, that Truth is spite of this,- in conjunction with this, he light; Truth cannot be expressed in shadow, was a sportive, wayward, Gothic sort of except by some subtle art which proclaims spirit, who was apt, on meeting a friend, the shadow-part to be the lie, and the non- to burst into foolery, and whose wit was al- expressed part to be the truth. And it is ways three parts poetry. Indeed his humor easy to look upon the whole realm of Crit- was as penetrating as his seriousness. Both icism and see in it nothing but a science of these two sides of James's nature - the which concerns itself with the accurate side that made a direct religious appeal, and statement of lies. Such, in effect, it is in the side that made a veiled religious appeal the hands of most of its adepts. Now - became rapidly intensified during his lat- James's weakness as a critic was somehow ter years; SO that, had the process continued connected with the peculiar nature of his much longer, the mere sight of him must mind, which lived in a consciousness of have moved beholders to amend their lives. light. The fact is that James was non-crit- I happened to be at Oxford at one of his 24 25 MEMORIES AND MILESTONES WILLIAM JAMES lectures in 1908; and it was remarkable to agents in the spread of truth and happiness, see the reverence which that very un-re- - such people are often sad. It has some- vering class of men - the University dons times crossed my mind that James wanted - evinced towards James, largely on ac- to be a poet and an artist, and that there lay count of his appearance and personality. in him, beneath the ocean of metaphysics, The fame of him went abroad, and the San- a lost Atlantis of the fine arts; that he really hedrim attended. A quite distinguished, hated philosophy and all its works, and pur- and very fussy scholar, a member of the old sued them only as Hercules might spin, or guard of Nil-admirari Cultivation,- who as a prince in a fairy tale might sort seeds would have sniffed nervously if he had met for an evil dragon, or as anyone might pa- Moses - told me that he had gone to a lec- tiently do some careful work for which he ture of James's, "though the place was so had no aptitude. It would seem most nat- crowded, and stank SO that he had to come ural, if this were the case between James away immediately.' But," he added, and the metaphysical sciences; for what is "he certainly has the face of a sage." there in these studies that can drench and There was in spite of his playfulness, a satisfy a tingling mercurial being who loves deep sadness about James. You felt that he to live on the surface, as well as in the had just stepped out of this sadness in order depths of life? Thus we reason, forget- to meet you, and was to go back into it the ting that the mysteries of temperament are moment you left him. It may be that sad- deeper than the mysteries of occupation. If ness inheres in some kinds of profoundly James had had the career of Molière, he religious characters,-in dedicated persons would still have been sad. He was a vic- who have renounced all, and are constantly tim of divine visitation: the Searching hoping, thinking, acting, and (in the typ- Spirit would have winnowed him in the ical case) praying for humanity. Lincoln same manner, no matter what avocation he was sad, and Tolstoi was sad, and many might have followed. sensitive people, who view the world as it The world watched James as he pur- is, and desire nothing for themselves except sued through life his search for religious to become of use to others, and to become truth; the world watched him, and often 26 27 MEMORIES AND MILESTONES gently laughed at him, asking, "When will James arise and fly ? When will he take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea'?" And in the meantime, James was there already. Those were the very places that he was living in. Through all the difficulties of polyglot met- aphysics and of modern psychology he waded for years, lecturing and writing and existing, and creating for himself a pub- lic which came to see in him only the saint SHAW AND THI and the sage, which felt only the religious DRAM. truth which James was in search of, yet could never quite grasp in his hand. This very truth constantly shone out through him, - shone, as it were, straight through his waistcoat,- and distributed itself to everyone in the drawing-room, or in the lec- ture-hall where he sat. Here was the fa- miliar paradox, the old parable, the psycho- logical puzzle of the world. "But what went ye out for to see?" In the very mo- ment that the world is deciding that a man was no prophet and had nothing to say, in that very moment perhaps is his work per- fected, and he himself is gathered to his fathers, after having been a lamp to his own generation, and an inspiration to those who come after. 28 HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - Full View of Record Page 1 of 1 7 Help Full Catalog Journals Reserves Digital Resources Your Account TAST Comments HOLLIS CATALOG Search Expanded Search Command Search Start Over HARVARD UNIVERSITY Previous searches Results list Display options Full View of Record : FULL CATALOG Print/Save/Send Add to List View List Last Browse Choose format: Full view I Short view I MARC Record 1 out of 1 Previous Record Next Record Author : Hovey, Richard B. (Richard Bennett), 1917- Title : John Jay Chapman, an American mind. Published : New York, Columbia University Press, 1959. Locations/Orders : Availability Location : Law School i Rare Biography (Chapman) [Consult Special Collections] Holdings Availability Location : Widener i AL 1036.8.010 Holdings Availability Description : 391 p. 24 cm. Notes : Includes bibliography. Subject : Chapman, John Jay, 1862-1933. HOLLIS Number : 005326854 Previous Record Next Record SEARCH: FULL CATALOG Browse an Alphabetical List: Browse for: Author (last name first) Browse Clear Keywords from: Search for: Keywords anywhere Search Clear About the HOLLIS Catalog HARVARD LIBRARIES HOME OTHER CATALOGS E-RESOURCES CONDUCTING RESEARCH LIBRARY INFORMATION HARVARD HOME Copyright © 2004 President and Fellows of Harvard College http://lms01.harvard.edu/F/5J7QNS548G6BH9RQCIDJ8E2GJVTCH7573NLB6Y3IUNJYSVYF... 4/26/2005 HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - Full View of Record Page 1 of 2 ? Help VE RI Full Catalog Journals Reserves Digital Resources Your Account TASI Comments HOLLIS CATALOG Search Expanded Search Command Search Start Over HARVARD UNIVERSITY Previous searches Results list Display options Full View of Record : FULL CATALOG Print/Save/Send Add to List View List Last Browse Choose format: Full view Short view I MARC Record 1 out of 1 Previous Record Next Record Author : Chapman, John Jay, 1862-1933. Title : John Jay Chapman and his letters. Published : Boston : Houghton Mifflin company, 1937. Locations/Orders : Availability Location : Biblioteca Berenson i House PS1292.C3 Z53 1937 [Accession no.: 17,847.] [L.R.II.4.] [Accession no.: 17,847.] [L.R.II.4.] Holdings Availability Location : Hilles i 811 C23 6.1 Holdings Availability Location : Houghton i *AC9 C3668 937 [Original dark orange cloth.] [Inscribed by Howe to Henry James jr.] Holdings Availability Location : Robbins Philosophy i Bechtel PS1292.C3 Z53 Holdings Availability Location : Widener i AL 1036.8.015 Holdings Availability Location : Widener I Harvard Depository AL 1036.8.015 [Consult Circ. Desk for Copy B=HW3JBV, Copy C=HW3JBW] Holdings Availability Description : 6 p., I., 498, [1] p. front., ports., facsim. 22 cm. Notes : At head of title: M. A. De Wolfe Howe. Notes : Bibliography: p. 477-[481] Authors : Howe, M. A. De Wolfe (Mark Antony De Wolfe), 1864-1960. HOLLIS Number : 001148065 Previous Record Next Record SEARCH: FULL CATALOG Browse an Alphabetical List: Browse for: Author (last name first) Browse Clear Keywords from: Search for: Keywords anywhere Search Clear http://lms01.harvard.edu/F/5J7QNS548G6BH9RQCIDJ8E2GJVTCH7573NLB6Y3IUNJYSVYF 4/26/2005 HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - Full View of Record Page 1 of 1 Your Account Start Over Help Comments Full Catalog Journals Reserves E-Resources HOLLIS CATALOG Previous Searches I Results List Display Options Harvard University Search Expanded Search I Command Search Harvard Libraries Full View of Record : FULL CATALOG Save/Mail Add to List I View List Last Browse Choose format: Full view I Short view MARC Record 88 out of 107 Previous Record Next Record Author : Chapman, John Jay, 1862-1933. Title : Two philosophers : a quaint sad comedy. Published : Boston : J. G. Cupples Co., 1892. All Locations : Availability Location : Harvard Archives 0 Harvard Depository HUG 1101.58 Holdings Availability Location : Houghton i *AC9 C3668 892t [On verso of t.-p.: Copyright, 1892 ...] [In verse.] [Original printed green wrappers; in cloth case.] [Laid in at front is an A.N.s. (J.J. C[hapman]): [New York?] May 24, 1929; 1s. (1 (.); "I found 2 or 3 copies of this in a trunk, probably the only ones in existence I must read it sometime."] Holdings Availability Location : Widener i Harvard Depository AL 1036.8.50 F [Photoreproduction of Harvard College Library copy.] [Consult Circ. Desk for HNQML4] Holdings Availability Description : 37 p. 24 cm. Notes : Occasioned by the discussion between Prof. Royce and Francis E. Abbot. HOLLIS Number : 002870865 Previous Record Next Record SEARCH: FULL CATALOG Browse an Alphabetical List: Browse for: Author (last name first) Browse Clear Keywords from: Search for: Keywords anywhere Search Clear Copyright as 2002 President and Fellows of Harvard College V58VYXUJSKB5KGHQF2GAD9KSY4AE12SH6J9QM86NYG7CCPXPA96-29899?func=full-set-set&set_numb HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - Full View of Record Page 1 of 2 P Your Account I Start Over Help Comments Full Catalog I Journals Reserves E-Resources HOLLIS CATALOG Previous Searches I Results List Display Options Harvard University Search I Expanded Search I Command Search Harvard Libraries Full View of Record : FULL CATALOG Save/Mail Add to List I View List Last Browse Choose format: Full view I Short view I MARC Record 93 out of 107 Previous Record Next Record Author : Chapman, John Jay, 1862-1933. Title : Additional papers, 1888-1959. All Locations : Availability Location : Houghton i b MS Am 1854.8 Holdings Availability Description : 3 boxes (1.2 linear ft.) Description : Arranged alphabetically. History notes : Chapman was an American essayist, poet, and reformer. Summary : Includes clippings, correspondence, holograph manuscripts by Chapman and others, materials relating to Chapman's 1912 Coatesville speech, notebooks, photographs, printed materials by and about Chapman, and a scrapbook. Correspondents include: Nicholas Murray Butler, Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler Chapman, Oswald Garrison Villard, Sarah Wyman Whitman, and others. Cite as : John Jay Chapman Additional Papers (bMS Am 1854.8). Houghton Library, Harvard University. Indexes : Unpublished printed finding aid available in Houghton Accessions Records, 1987-1988, under *87M-33. Finding aids : Electronic finding aid available http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.Hough:hou00318 Subject : Chapman, John Jay, 1862-1933. Chapman, Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler, 1866-1937. Subject : American literature -- 19th century. American literature -- 20th century. American poetry. Authors, American -- 20th century. Reformers. Form/Genre : Correspondence. Notebooks. Photographs. /58VYXUJSKB5KGHQF2GAD9KSY4AE12SH6J9QM86NYG7CCPXPA96-29916?func=full-set-set&set_numbe1/2/2003 HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - Full View of Record Page 1 of 2 S Your Account Start Over Help Comments Full Catalog I Journals Reserves E-Resources HOLLIS CATALOG Previous Searches I Results List Display Options Harvard University Search I Expanded Search I Command Search Harvard Libraries Full View of Record : FULL CATALOG Save/Mail Add to List I View List Last Browse Choose format: Full view I Short view I MARC Record 100 out of 107 Previous Record Next Record Author : Howe, M. A. De Wolfe (Mark Antony De Wolfe), 1864-1960. Title : Papers, 1849-1959 (inclusive), 1878-1959 (bulk). All Locations Availability Location : Houghton i b MS Am 1524-1524.2 Holdings Availability Description : 35 boxes (9 linear ft.). History notes : Howe was a biographer, editor, historian, and poet. He held editorial positions on the Youth's Companion (1888-1893, 1899-1913), The Atlantic Monthly (1893-1895), Harvard Alumni Bulletin (1913-1919), and Harvard Graduates' Magazine (1917-1918). Howe was also vice-president of The Atlantic Monthly Company (1911-1929). Summary Correspondence of Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe, together with two boxes of pamphlets and four boxes of notebooks, scrapbooks of Howe's publications in newspapers and magazines, diaries, 1928-1951, and other printed material. The correspondence consists chiefly of incoming letters with carbon copies of some of Howe's replies. There are also 278 letters, 1878-1904, from Howe to his mother which document his student years at Lehigh and Harvard and his early years in Boston. In general the correspondence relates to Howe's editorial and biographical work and includes letters from writers for the Youth's Companion and from authors of volumes published in the series of Beacon Biographies of Eminent Americans, edited by Howe. in addition there are 17 letters, 1870-1891, from Bishop William Hobart Hare to Howe's father and a few scattered earlier letters and documents of James Buchanan, Josiah Quincy, and Daniel Webster. The Richard Malcolm Johnston material includes 5 letters from Johnston to Howe, 1888- 1893. Cite as : Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe Papers (bMS AM 1524-1524.2). Houghton Library, Harvard University. Finding aids : Unpublished finding aids available in repository. Accessions nos.: *57M-206, *58M-21, *59M-47. For access to related M. A. De Wolfe Howe material, consult manuscript card catalogue in the Houghton Library or Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Houghton Library, Harvard University, published by Chadwyck-Healey, 1986. Subject : Howe, M. A. De Wolfe (Mark Antony De Wolfe), 1864-1960. Subject : The Atlantic monthly. /58VYXUJSKB5KGHQF2GAD9KSY4AE12SH6J9QM86NYG7CCPXPA96-29940?func=full-set-set&set_numbe1/2/2003 HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - Full View of Record Page 1 of 2 7 Help RIN Full Catalog Journals Reserves Digital Resources Your Account TASI Comments HOLLIS CATALOG Search Expanded Search Command Search Start Over HARVARD UNIVERSITY Previous searches Results list Display options Full View of Record : FULL CATALOG Print/Save/Send Add to List View List Last Browse Choose format: Full view I Short view I MARC Record 1 out of 1 Previous Record Next Record Author : Chapman, John Jay, 1862-1933. Title : Additional papers, 1888-1959. trel Locations/Orders : Availability Location : Houghton i b MS Am 1854.8 Holdings Availability Letter 7/7/05. Description : 3 boxes (1.2 linear ft.) Description : Arranged alphabetically. History notes : Chapman was an American essayist, poet, and reformer. Summary : Includes clippings, correspondence, holograph manuscripts by Chapman and others, materials relating to Chapman's 1912 Coatesville speech, notebooks, photographs, printed materials by and about Chapman, and a scrapbook. Correspondents include: Nicholas Murray Butler, Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler Chapman, Oswald Garrison Villard, Sarah Wyman Whitman, and others. Provenance : At least one location has provenance information. Click on the holdings link(s) for specific information. Cite as : John Jay Chapman Additional Papers (bMS Am 1854.8). Houghton Library, Harvard University. Finding aids : Electronic finding aid available http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.Hough:hou00318 Unpublished printed finding aid available in Houghton Accessions Records, 1987-1988, under *87M- 33. Subject : Chapman, John Jay, 1862-1933. Chapman, Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler, 1866-1937. Subject : American literature -- 19th century. American literature -- 20th century. American poetry. Authors, American -- 20th century. Reformers. Form/Genre : Correspondence. Notebooks. Photographs. Scrapbooks. Authors : Butler, Nicholas Murray, 1862-1947. http://lms01.harvard.edu/F/9IIPFY4TT6AHYCEFSLRTPCDRQG5EVC45SJ72VL7CQLEYYC1.. 5/21/2005 440 SCIENCE [N. VOL. XXX. No. 770 (1909). neering; E. C. Cheswell, instructor in engi- It required a very peculiar juncture of influ- 440-443 D neering laboratories; P. L. Bean, B.S. ences between our educational world and our (Maine), promoted to associate professor of commercial world to produce "the Harvard civil engineering; A. L. Grover, B.S. (Maine), Classics." promoted to assistant professor of drawing. For the last thirty years Harvard has been DR. OTTO GROSSNER, of Vienna, has been struggling to keep the lead among American elected professor of anatomy at the University colleges; and Harvard has been content to of Prague. take its definition of leadership-to adopt its ideal of leadership from the commercial John DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE world. We see in this the atmospheric pres- Jay THE HARVARD CLASSICS AND HARVARD sure of industrial ways of thinking upon an I. The Harvard Classics educational institution. The men who stand SOME one quotes to me a remark of William for education and scholarship have the ideals James's, "That no body of men can be of business men. They are, in truth, business counted on to tell the truth under fire." Per- men. The men who control Harvard to-day haps "firing" is, after all, not a very effective are very little else than business men, run- method of searching for truth; and perhaps ning a large department store which dis- those who do the firing are more bent on penses education to the million. Their en- making points than on getting to the root of deavor is to make it the largest establishment of the kind in America. the matter. Two letters which I wrote during the sum- Now, in devising new means of expansion, mer to Harvard officials, on the "Harvard new cash registers, new stub systems and Classics" illustrate, aptly enough, the weak- credit systems-systems for increasing their ness of controversial methods as a means of capital and the volume of their trade-these securing assent to anything. In one of these business men have unconsciously (and I public letters I asked Dr. Eliot, and in the think consciously also) adopted any method other I asked Mr. Henry L. Higginson, trus- that would give results. A few years ago tee of Harvard, whether Harvard College had their attention was focused upon increasing indeed granted the use of its name to the their capital (new buildings and endow- famous five-foot-shelf publication to which ment) to-day it is focused upon increasing the public is now being invited to subscribe. their trade (numbers of students). The No public answer was given to the letters; whole body of graduates is being organized but the fact remains that the university did, into a kind of "service" to employ Harvard by formal vote, lend its name to this book men, to advertise Harvard, to make converts, enterprise. to raise money, to assist in a general Harvard At this time I can realize, in re-reading forward movement. these letters, that there was in them a good Henry Higginson and Charles W. Eliot and deal of desire to give pain, to see the worst, Dr. Walcott and Dr. Arthur Cabot, and the to nail the claws of the offenders to the various organized agencies under them, feel ground, to state facts in such a way that the that Harvard should be kept in the front; Harvard officials could not answer without and they are willing to appeal to self-interest making humiliating confessions and without, in the youth of the country in order to get in effect, acknowledging that I was more that youth to come to Harvard. It is given virtuous than they. out that Harvard means help for life; Har- At the bottom of the whole situation, how- vard is for mutual assistance; Harvard ever, and behind the conditions which pro- means cheap clubs and many friends on duced the "Harvard Classics" there are cer- graduation. The wonderful ability of the tain facts about American culture to-day American business man for organization is that ought to be considered dispassionately. now at work consolidating the Harvard DorrTimiline M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE 102 the John Jay Chapman and His Letters s (1862-1933) 133 Illustrated Date 7th Note: Very deportent ! Criticism t House OF throughnt is most usefull. ) BOSTON HOUGHTON The MIFFLIN COMPANY Riberside Press Cambridge 1937