.[3RARY
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MISINFORMING A NATION
BOOKS BY MR. WRIGHT
MISINFORMING A NATION
MODERN PAINTING: Its Tendency
and Meaning
WHAT NIETZSCHE TAUGHT
THE MAN OF PROMISE
THE CREATIVE WILL
IN PREPARATION
MODERN LITERATURE
PRINCIPLES OF ESTHETIC FORM
AND ORGANIZATION
Jylisinforming a iSation
by Willard Huntington Wright
New York B. W. Huebsch MCMXVII
COPYRIGHT, 1917. BY
B. W. HUEBSCH
FUIKTED IN THE UNITTD STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Colonizing America i
II The Novel 24
III The Drama 52
IV Poetry 68
V British Painting 85
VI Non-British Painting 102
VII Music 122
VIII Science 148
IX Inventions, Photography, ^Esthetics . 160
X Philosophy 174
XI Religion 195
XII Two Hundred Omissions 218
MISINFORMING A NATION
COLONIZING AMERICA
The intellectual colonization of America by Eng-
land has been going on for generations. Taking
advantage of her position of authority — a posi-
tion built on centuries of aesthetic tradition — Eng-
land 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 institu-
tions would give them, have been influenced by
the insular judgments of England, and, in an ef-
fort 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
2 MISINFORMING A NATION
with fuel ; and in our slavish imitation of England
— the only country in Europe of which we have
any intimate knowledge — we have de-American-
ized 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 bar-
rier exists between us and the Continental coun-
tries. But no such barrier exists between America
and England; and consequently there is a con-
stant 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 impedi-
ment of translation. Add to this lingual rap-
prochement 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
COLONIZING AMERICA 3
disquieting jealousy, which is tinctured not a lit-
tle by resentment, has resulted in an open con-
tempt for all things American. And it is not un-
natural 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 op-
portunity for foisting her own artists and artisans
on this country. She it is who sets the standard
which at once demolishes our individual expres-
sion and glorifies the efforts of Englishmen. Our
publishers, falling in line with this campaign, im-
port 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 distinc-
tion is that they assiduously play the parrot to
British opinion, fill their publications with the
4 MISINFORMING A NATION
work of English mediocrities and ignore the more
deserving contributions of their fellow-country-
men.
Even our educational institutions disseminate
the English superstition and neglect the great
men of ^\merica; for nowhere in the United States
will you find the spirit of narrow snobbery so
highly developed as in our colleges and universi-
ties. 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 shrewd-
ness. What is more, this cultural extension pol-
icy 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 high-
COLONIZING AMERICA ^
est English culture — that is, the genuinely signifi-
cant scholarship of the few great modem British
creators — which was forced upon America, there
would be no cause for complaint. But the gov-
erning influences in English criticism are aggres-
sively middle-class and chauvinistic, with the re-
sult 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 Amer-
ica has of French attainments. French genius
has always been depreciated and traduced by the
British; and no more subtle and disgraceful cam-
paign of derogation has been launched in modern
times than the consistent method pursued by the
English in misinterpreting French ideals and ac-
complishments to Americans. To England is due
largely, if not entirely, the uncomplimentary opin-
ion 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 periodi-
cals are looked upon as collections of prurient an-
ecdotes and licentious pictures. And the average
French painting is conceived as a realistic presen-
tation of feminine nakedness. So deeply rooted
are these conceptions that the very word "French"
6 MISINFORMING A NATION
has become, in the American's vocabulary, an ad-
jective signifying all manner of sexual abnormali-
ties, 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 litera-
ture ; 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 Con-
tinental nations that is the most serious result
of English misrepresentation; in time we will come
to realize how deceived we were in accepting Eng-
land's insinuations that France is indecent, Ger-
many stupid, Italy decadent, and Russia barbar-
ous. The great harm done by England's
contemptuous critics is in belittling American
achievement. Too long has bourgeois British cul-
ture been forced upon the United States; and we
have been too gullible in our acceptance of it with-
out question. English critics and English periodi-
cals have consistently attempted to discourage the
growth of any national individualism in America,
by ridiculing or ignoring our best aesthetic efforts
and by imposing upon us their own insular criteria.
To such an extent have they succeeded that an
COLONIZING AMERICA ^
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 coun-
try. Upon his arrival he is interviewed by the
newspapers; his picture appears in the "supple-
ments"; 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 com-
mercial, 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 prac-
tice, so they explain, is that the books may be
ready for an English edition without resetting.
The English, however, do not use American spell-
ing 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.
8 MISINFORMING A NATION
The evidences of the American's enforced be-
lief 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 cer-
tain 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 Eng-
lishmen. 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 Encyclopedia Brit-
annica which, by a colossal campaign of flamboy-
ant advertising, has been scattered broadcast over
every state in the union.
No more vicious and dangerous educational in-
fluence on America can readily be conceived than
the articles in this encyclopsedia. They distort
the truth and disseminate false standards. Amer-
COLONIZING AMERICA g
ica is now far enough behind the rest of the civ-
ilized world in its knowledge of art, without hav-
ing added to that ignorance the erroneous impres-
sions created by this partial and disproportioned
English work; for, in its treatment of the world's
progress, it possesses neither universality of out-
look 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 to-
ward the achievements of other nations, and es-
pecially toward those of America.
The distinguishing feature of the Encyclopdidia
Britannica is its petty national prejudice. This
prejudice appears constantly and in many dis-
guises through the Encyclopaedia's pages. It
manifests itself in the most wanton carelessness
in dealing with historical facts; in glaring inad-
equacies when discussing the accomplishments of
nations other than England; in a host of inex-
cusable omissions of great men who do not happen
to be blessed with English nationality; in venom
and denunciation of viewpoints which do not hap-
pen to coincide with "English ways of thinking";
and especially in neglect of American endeavor.
Furthermore, the Britannica shows unmistakable
lo MISINFORMING A NATION
signs of haste or carelessness in preparation. In-
formation 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 'Encyclopedia Britannica^ if accepted un-
questioningly 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 arc
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 eulogis-
tic attention paid English endeavor in general is
out of all proportion to its deserts. In the fol-
lowing chapters I shall show specifically how Brit-
ish 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 Encyclopaedia to fulfill its claim of being
a "universal" and "objective" reference library.
To the contrary, it will be seen that the Britannica
COLONIZING AMERICA ii
is a narrow, parochial, opinionated work of dubi-
ous scholarship and striking unreliability.
With the somewhat obscure history of the birth
of the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia
Bntannica^ or with the part played in that his-
tory by Cambridge University and the London
Times, I am not concerned. Nor shall I review
the unethical record of the two issues of the En-
cyclopgedia. To those interested in this side of
the question I suggest that they read the follow-
ing contributions in Reedy's Mirror: The Same
Old Slippery Trick (March 24, 1916). The
Encyclopedia Britannica Swindle (April 7,
1916). The Encyclopedia 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 for-
giveness if the contents of the Britannica were
what were claimed for them. But that which
does concern me is the palpable discrepancies be-
tween the statements contained in the advertising,
and the truth as revealed by a perusal of the arti-
cles 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
12 MISINFORMING A NATION
constantly, that Americans bought the work. The
truth is that the Encyclopedia 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 inde-
fensible methods in advertising as those adopted
by the Britannica's exploiters. The "copy" has
fairly screamed with extravagant and fabulous ex-
aggerations. The vocabulary of hyperbole has
been practically exhausted in setting forth the du-
bious 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 irrespec-
tive of any consideration save that of making a
sale ; for there is an abundance of evidence to show
that the Encyclopsedia was not what was claimed
for it.
With the true facts regarding this encyclo-
psedia it is difficult to reconcile the encomiums of
many eminent Americans who, by writing eulogis-
tic letters to the Britannica's editor concerning the
exalted merits of his enterprise, revealed either
their unfamiliarity with the books in question or
COLONIZING AMERICA 13
their ignorance of what constituted an educational
reference work. These letters were duly photo-
graphed 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 recom-
mended must have sufficiently mortified those of
the enthusiastic correspondents who were educated
and had consciences ; and the others would be un-
moved by any revelations of mine.
Mention, however, should be made of the re-
marks of the American Ambassador to Great Brit-
ain at the banquet given in London to celebrate
the Encyclopedia'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 Encyclopcsdia Britannica^
This is certainly an astonishing bit of eulog}'.
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
14 MISINFORMING A NATION
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 move-
ment 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 Dread-
nought building is hardly mentioned; the menace
of M. Delcasse'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 pub-
lication, criticising the article on Europe, says:
"There is nothing but a dry and summarized gen-
COLONIZING AMERICA i?
eral 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 char-
acter, which competently refutes the amazing an-
nouncement 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 man-
ner in which Carlyle is treated in the Encyclo-
paedia. "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 pane-
gyric 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 Encyclopedia Britannica can
blunder when handling such an approachable and
easy British subject as Carlyle, it can be reason-
i6 MISINFORMING A NATION
ably expected to do worse on other matters which
are not only absolutely foreign, but intensely dis-
tasteful to the uninformed and prejudiced scribes
to whom they seem to be so frequently, if not
systematically, assigned."
The expectation embodied in the above com-
ment is more fully realized perhaps than the
writer of those words imagined; and the purpose
of this book is to reveal the blundering and mis-
leading 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 "in-
tensely distasteful" to the "uninformed and
prejudiced" British critics as is American achieve-
ment. 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 coun-
try; for in their unconquerable arrogance, their
unveiled contempt for this nation — the outgrowth
of generations of assumed superiority — they sur-
pass even the London critical articles dealing
with our contemporary literary efforts.
Several of our more courageous and pro-Amer-
ican scholars have called attention to the inade-
quacies and insularities in the Britannica^ but
their voices have not been sufficiently far-reaching
COLONIZING AMERICA 17
to counteract either the mass or the unsavory
character of the advertising by which this un-
worthy and anti-American encyclopaedia was
foisted upon the United States. Conspicuous
among those publications which protested was
the Twentieth Century Magazine. That period-
ical, to refer to but one of its several criticisms,
pointed out that the article on Democracy is "con-
fined 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, Ore-
gon 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 Amer-
ican 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 in-
cludes reference to Mr. Chamberlain," although
i8 MISINFORMING A NATION
the names of Henry George, Karl Marx, Fried-
rich 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 con-
tributors to the Ninth Edition, and the con-
tributors 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 edi-
tor is inflexibly reactionary, provincial, and un-
just to an almost incredible degree.
The foregoing quotations are not isolated ob-
jections: there were others of similar nature.
And these few specimens are put down here
merely to show that there appeared sufficient evi-
dence, both in England and America, to establish
the purely imaginary nature of the Britannica's
claims of completeness and inerrancy, and to re-
veal the absurdity of the American Ambassador's
amazing pronouncement. Had the sale of the
Encyclopedia Britannica been confined to that
nation whose culture it so persistently and dog-
matically glorifies at the expense of the culture
COLONIZING AMERICA 19
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 astonish-
ing 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 in-
fluence as the present edition of the Encycloptzdia
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 mis-
fortune to possess; for they bid fair to remain,
in large measure, the source of America's informa-
tion for many years to come.
The regrettable part of England's intellectual
intrigues in the United States is the subservient
20 MISINFORMING A NATION
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 con-
tempt for Americans is due to our inordinate
capacity for taking insults. Year after year
English animus grows; and to-day it is the un-
common thing to find an English publication
which, in discussing the United States and its cul-
ture, does not contain some affront to our in-
telligence.
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 ignor-
ance is England herself. And the Encyclopedia
Britannica^ if accepted as authoritative, will go
far toward emphasizing and extending that ignor-
ance. 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 per-
sistently discriminated against all American en-
deavor, 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
COLONIZING AMERICA 21
it must be remembered that broad and unpreju-
diced bibliographies are essential to any worthy
encyclopaedia: 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 Britannic a! s attitude.
However, as I have said, America, if the prin-
cipal, is not the only country discriminated
against. France has fallen a victim to the En-
cyclopaedia's suburban patriotism, and scant jus-
tice is done her true greatness. Russia, perhaps
even more than France, is culturally neglected;
and modern Italy's aesthetic 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 ef-
forts of several other nations; but Germany, too,
suffers from neglect in the field of modern en-
deavor.
Even Ireland does not escape English preju-
dice. 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
22 MISINFORMING A NATION
those conspicuous, and in one or two instances
world-renowned, figures who do not receive bio-
graphies 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 vic-
timizing an Irishman and not an Englishman, is
perfectly in keeping with the deliberate omissions
of the Britannzca.)
Furthermore, there are many famous Irish
writers whose names are not so much as men-
tioned in the entire Encyclopaedia — for instance,
Standish O'Grady, James H. Cousins, John Tod-
hunter, Katherine Tynan, T. W. RoUeston, 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 liter-
ature is treated with a brevity and an injustice
which are nothing short of contemptible; and
what little there is concerning the new Irish re-
naissance is scattered here and there in the arti-
cles 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
COLONIZING AMERICA 23
of European art would form a sufficient basis for
protest, the really serious grounds for our indigna-
tion are those which have to do with the Britan-
nica's neglect of America. That is why I have
laid such emphasis on this phase of the Encyclo-
psedia. It is absolutely necessary that this coun-
try 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 Encyclopdsdia BritaU'
nka 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.
THE NOVEL
Let us inspect first the manner in which the
world's great modern novelists and story-tellers
are treated in the Encyclopedia Brztannica. No
better department could be selected for the pur-
pose; 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 inter-
preted and criticised in an encyclopaedia.
It is disappointing, therefore, to discover the
distorted and unjust viewpoint of the Brztannica.
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 in-
cluded in the Encyclopaedia far overweighs the
biographical material accorded the writers of
other nations. And superlatives of the most
24
THE NOVEL 2?
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 writ-
ers 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 en-
tirely.
In the Encyclopsedia'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 pro-
vincialism 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
encyclopedia adequate and unprejudiced informa-
tion 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 in-
formation 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
26 MISINFORMING A NATION
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 char-
acter, or if its standard of judgment was a purely
literary one. But the criteria of the Encyclo-
paedia's editors are, in the main, moral and puri-
tanical. 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 Encyclopsedia's critiques,
finds in literature a fertile field for operation.
Because of the limitations of space, I shall con-
fine myself in this chapter to modern literature.
I have, however, inspected the manner in which
the older literature is set forth in the Encyclo'
padia Britannica; and there, as elsewhere, is dis-
cernible the same provincialism, the same theolog-
ical point of view, the same flamboyant exag-
geration of English writers, the same neglect of
foreign genius. As a reference book the Britaw
nica is chauvinistic, distorted, inadequate, dispro-
THE NOVEL 27
portioned, and woefully behind the times. De-
spite the fact that the Eleventh Edition is sup-
posed 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 writ-
ers of France and Germany combined. Sir
Walter Scott is given no less than thirteen col-
umns, whereas Balzac has only seven columns,
Victor Hugo only a little over four columns, and
Turgueniev only a little over one column. Sam-
uel Richardson is given nearly four columns,
whereas Flaubert has only two columns, Dos-
toievsky less than two columns, and Daudet only
a column and a third I Mrs. Oliphant is given
over a column, more space than is allotted to Ana-
tole France, Coppee, or the Goncourts. George
Meredith is given six columns, more space than is
accorded Flaubert, de Maupassant and Zola put
together I Bulwer-Lytton has two columns, more
space than is given Dostoievsky. Dickens is
given two and a half times as much space as Vic-
tor Hugo; and George Eliot, Trollope, and Stev-
enson each has considerably more space than de
28 MISINFORMING A NATION
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 in-
justice 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
Cr an ford "is unanimously accepted as a classic" ;
and she is given an equal amount of space with
Dostoievsky and Flaubert I
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 speci-
men of criticism: No right estimate of her as
THE NOVEL 29
an artist or a philosopher "can be formed without
a steady recollection of her infinite capacity for
mental suffering, and her need of human sup-
port." Just what these conditions have to do
with an aesthetic or philosophic judgment of her
is not made clear; but the critic finally brings him-
self 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
Barres. Here we learn that Macdonald's "moral
enthusiasm exercised great influence upon thought-
ful 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 Barres;
and we are told that he wrote tales which, despite
all their shortcomings, were "invariably instruc-
tive, clean and manly." Mrs. Ewing, too,
profited by her pious proclivities, for her biogra-
phy takes up almost as much space as that of the
"moral" Macdonald and the "manly" Ainsworth.
Her stories are "sound and wholesome in mat-
30 MISINFORMING A NATION
ter," 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 com-
parison of James with Dumas, though it is
frankly admitted that as an artist James was in-
ferior. His plots were poor, his descriptions were
weak, and his dialogue was bad. Therefore "his
very best books fall far below Les Trois Mous-
quetairesT But, it is added, "James never re-
sorted to illegitimate methods to attract readers,
and deserves such credit as may be due to a pur-
veyor 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 I
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 tender-
THE NOVEL 31
ness and grace." Great, indeed, are the rewards
of virtue, if not in life, at least in the Encyclo-
padia Britannica.
On the other hand, several English authors are
condemned for their lack of nicety and respec-
tability. Trollope, for instance, lacked that ele-
gance and delicacy of sentiment so dear to the En-
cyclopaedia 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 in-
formed that "on grounds of morality of taste
Ouida's novels may be condemned" as they are
"frequently unwholesome."
32 MISINFORMING A NATION
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 nov-
elists, the greatest modem authors which England
has produced, are dismissed peremptorily. Con-
rad'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 super-
ficial 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 Encyclopedia which is supposed to have
been brought up to date and to be adequate for
purposes of reference I
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.
THE NOVEL 33
Wells; half of the space given to Anthony Hope;
and only a fourth of the space given to Mrs. Gas-
kell and to Mrs. Humphry Ward! A Mum-
trier'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
Encyclopedia 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 modem literature. To him it is
an anti-gambling tract I 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 im-
portant modems, 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 in-
tellectual English writer who has apparently been
34 MISINFORMING A NATION
sacrificed on the altar of Presbyterian respectabil-
ity. 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, an-
other highly enlightened English writer, is ac-
corded 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 Audlefs 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 Ma-
dame Bovary." Mrs. Braddon and Flaubert I
Truly a staggering alliance I
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
THE NOVEL 3^
over Julia Kavanagh. This latter lady, we dis-
cover, draws equal space with Marcel Prevost;
and she "handles her French themes with fidelity
and skill." Judging from this praise and the
fact that Prevost 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 Prevost.
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, pes-
36 MISINFORMING A NATION
sessed "high earnestness of purpose, a luxuriant
style and a genuinely spiritual quality." Though
lacking dramatic facility and a workmanlike con-
duct of narrative, "he had almost every other
quality of the bom novelist." After this remark
it is obviously necessary to revise our aesthetic
judgment in regard to the religious author of John
Ingle sunt.
Grant Allen, alas I lacked the benevolent qual-
ities 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 succes de scandale "on ac-
count 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 bio-
graphy, is praised for her "sympathetic touch";
and we learn furthermore that she was long and
"honorably" connected with the firm of Black-
wood. 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
THE NOVEL 37
praise in a biography almost as long as that of
Turgueniev I
In the treatment of Mrs. Humphry Ward,
however, we have the key to the literary attitude
of the Encyclopaedia. 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 sub-
urban culture which colors the Encyclopaedia'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 I
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 intel-
lectual 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
38 MISINFORMING A NATION
biography of Oscar Wilde. The latter is giveiv
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 contempor-
aries." (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 en-
counter such words and phrases as "masterpieces"
and "wonderful books." No books of his sur-
passed 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
THE NOVEL 39
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 cre-
ator of Lucien de Rubempre, Goriot, and Eugenie
Grander. ) 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 encyclopsedia, even Dickens's rival in in-
tensity 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, situ-
ations in literature." Alas, poor Balzac! — the
40 MISINFORMING A NATION
inferior of both Dickens and Thackeray — the
writer who, if the judgment of the Encyclopedia
Britannica is to be accepted, created no book,
scene, character or situation which is among the
greatest I Thus are the world's true geniuses dis-
paraged 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 man-
ner 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 "un-
fitted by its subject, and in parts by its treatment,
for general perusal."
Dumas pere is praised, largely we infer, be-
cause 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 content-
ment of mind, and Robert Louis Stevenson and
Andrew Lang have paid tribute to the band."
THE NOVEL 41
Pierre Loti, however, in a short biography, hardly
meets with British approval. "Many of his best
books are long sobs of remorseful memory, so per-
sonal, so intimate, that an English reader is
amazed to find such depth of feeling compatible
with the power of minutely and publicly record-
ing what is felt." Loti, like de Musset, lacked
that prudish restraint which is so admirable a vir-
tue 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.
2^1a is treated with greater unfairness than per-
haps any other French author. Zola has always
been disliked in England, and his English pub-
lisher 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 Encyclopaedia 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 be-
cause he did not idealize "the nobler elements in
human nature," although, it is said, "his later
books show improvement." Such scant treat-
ment of Zola reveals the unfairness of extreme
42 MISINFORMING A NATION
prejudice, for no matter what the nationality, re-
ligion, or taste of the critic, he must, in all fair-
ness, 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] su-
perior; her knowledge is more profound, and her
psychological analysis subtler and more scien-
tific." Almost nothing is said of Constant's writ-
ings; and in the mere half-column sketch of Huys-
mans there are only a few biographical facts with
a list of his books. Of Stendhal there is prac-
tically no criticism; and Coppee "exhibits all the
defects of his qualities." Rene Bazin draws only
seventeen lines — a bare record of facts; and
Edouard Rod is given a third of a column with no
criticism.
Despite the praise given Victor Hugo, his
biography, from a critical standpoint, is prac-
tically worthless. In it there is no sense of crit-
ical proportion : it is a mere panegyric which defi-
nitely states that Hugo was greater than Balzac.
This astonishing and incompetent praise is ac-
counted 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
THE NOVEL 43
valuation of Swinburne as critic: "The very
qualities which gave his poetr}^ 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 Encyclopsedia's own con-
demnation of some of its material — a personal
and frank confession of its own gross inadequacy
and bias I And Swinburne, let it be noted, con-
tributes no less than ten articles on some of the
most important literary men in history! If the
Encyclopedia Britannica was as nai'f 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 ref-
erence book on modern French letters can best be
judged by the fact that there appears no bio-
graphical mention whatever of Romain Rolland,
44 MISINFORMING A NATION
Pierre de Coulevain, Tinayre, Rene Boylesve,
Jean and Jerome 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 Coule-
vain 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 contempor-
ary 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 Encyclopaedia I
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
THE NOVEL 45
on the recent activities in French letters — activ-
ities of vital importance and including several of
the greatest names in contemporary literature —
you need not seek it in the Britannica^ that "su-
preme" 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 in-
flamed 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, how-
ever, is that of Turgueniev. Turgueniev, almost
universally conceded to be the greatest, and cer-
tainly the most artistic, of the Russian writers, is
accorded little over a column, less space than is
46 MISINFORMING A NATION
devoted to the biography of Thomas Love Pea-
cock, Kipling, or Thomas Hardy; and only a half
or a third of the space given to a dozen other in-
ferior English writers. And in this brief bio-
graphy 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 Encyclopcsdia 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, Artzybash-
eff, Korolenko, Veressayeff, NekrasofF, or Tchek-
hoff. And yet the work of nearly all these Rus-
sian writers had actually appeared in English
translation before the Eleventh Edition of the
Encyclopadia 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
THE NOVEL 47
lines; and Giovanni Verga, only twelve. Fogaz-
zaro draws twenty-six lines; and in the biography
we leam that his "deeply religious spirit" ani-
mates his literary productions, and that he con-
tributed to modem 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 re-
spectively; but there are no biographies of Emilio
de Marchi, the prominent historical novelist; En-
rico Butti, one of the foremost respresentatives of
the psychological novel in modem Italy; and
Grazia Deledda.
The neglect of modem German writers in the
Encyclopedia Britannica is more glaring than that
of any other European nation, not excluding Rus-
sia. So little information can one get from this
encyclopaedia concerning the really important
German authors that it would hardly repay one
to go to the Bntannica. Eckstein — five of whose
novels were issued in English before 1890 — is de-
nied a biography. So is Meinhold; so is Luise
Miihlbach; so is Wachenroder ; — all well known
in England long before the Britannica went to
press. Even Gabriele Reuter, whose far-reach-
ing success came as long ago as 1895, i^ with-
out a biography. And — what is less excusable —
48 MISINFORMING A NATION
Max Kretzer, the first of Germany's naturalistic
novelists, has no biographical mention in this
great English encyclopaedia I
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 Ger-
man 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 with-
out 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 de-
serving as these three Germans ; and yet numerous
comparatively insignificant English writers are
given long critical biographies in the Brztannica
while Viebig, Frenssen and Mann receive no
biographies whatever! Such unjust discrimina-
tion 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
THE NOVEL 49
space in an international encyclopedia than many
of the Englishmen who receive biographies in the
Britannica — for instance, Heinz Tovote, Her-
mann Hesse, Ricarda Huch, Helene Bohlau, and
Eduard von Keyserling — not one of whom is
given biographical consideration!
When we come to the American literary di-
vision of the Britannica^ however, prejudice and
neglect reach their highest point. Never have I
seen a better example of the contemptuous atti-
tude of England toward American literature than
in the Encyclopaedia'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 condescen-
sion. 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 I 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 Heam,
two-thirds of a column each ; H. C. Bunner, twen-
ty-one lines; and Thomas Nelson Page less than
half a column.
50 MISINFORMING A NATION
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 Encyclopaedia 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 'En-
cyclopedia: 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 men-
tion, 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.
THE NOVEL 51
C. Russell, and still others of less consequence than
many of the American authors omitted.
If the "Encyclopdidia 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 Brit-
ish prejudice and a narrow contempt for Ameri-
can culture scarcely become an encyclopaedia
whose chief profits are derived from the United
States. So inadequate is the treatment of Amer-
ican 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 re-
ceive no mention whatever.
As a reference book on modem fiction, the
Encyclopedia 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.
Ill
THE DRAMA
Particular importance attaches to the manner
in which the modern drama is treated in the En-
cyclopedia Britannica^ for to-day there exists a
deep and intimate interest in this branch of litera-
ture — an interest which is greater and more far-
reaching than during any other period of modem
times. Especially is this true in the United
States. During the past fifteen years study in
the history, art and technique of the stage has
spread into almost every quarter of the country.
The printed play has come back into favor; and
there is scarcely a publisher of any note on whose
lists do not appear many works of dramatic litera-
ture. Dramatic and stage societies have been
formed everywhere, and there is an increasing de-
mand for productions of the better-class plays.
Perhaps no other one branch of letters holds so
conspicuous a place in our culture.
The drama itself during the last quarter of a
century has taken enormous strides. After a
period of stagnant mediocrity, a new vitality has
52
THE DRAMA 53
been fused into this art. In Germany, France,
England, and Russia many significant drama-
tists have sprung into existence. The literature
of the stage has taken a new lease on life, and in
its ranks are numbered many of the finest creative
minds of our day. Furthermore, a school of capa-
ble and serious critics has developed to meet the
demands of the new work; and already there is
a large and increasing library of books dealing
with the subject from almost every angle.
Therefore, because of this renaissance and the
widespread interest attaching to it, we should ex-
pect to find in the Encydop^zdia Britannica —
that "supreme book of knowledge," that "com-
plete library" of information — a full and com-
prehensive treatment of the modern drama. The
claims made in the advertising of the Britannica
would lead one immediately to assume that so
important and universally absorbing a subject
would be set forth adequately. The drama has
played, and will continue to play, a large part in
our modem intellectual life; and, in an educa-
tional work of the alleged scope and completeness
of this encyclopaedia, it should be accorded care-
ful and liberal consideration.
But in this department, as in others equally im-
portant, the Encyclopisdia Britannica fails inex-
cusably. I have carefully inspected its dramatic
54 MISINFORMING A NATION
information, and its inadequacy left me with a
feeling which fell little short of amazement. Not
only is the modern drama given scant considera-
tion, but those comparatively few articles which
deal with it are so inept and desultory that no cor-
rect idea of the development of modern dramatic
literature can be obtained. As in the Encyclo-
paedia's other departments of modern aesthetic cul-
ture, the work of Great Britain is accorded an
abnormally large amount of space, while the work
of other nations is — if mentioned at all — dis-
missed with comparatively few words. The Brit-
ish drama, like the British novel, is exaggerated,
both through implication and direct statement,
out of all proportion to its inherent significance.
Many of the truly great and important dramatists
of foreign countries are omitted entirely in order
to make way for minor and inconsequent English-
men; and the few towering figures from abroad
who are given space draw only a few lines of
biographical mention, whereas second-rate British
writers are accorded long and ninutely specific
articles.
Furthermore, the Encyclopaedia reveals the fact
that in a great many instances it has not been
brought up to date. As a result, even when an
alien dramatist has found his way into the ex-
clusive British circle whose activities dominate
THE DRAMA 5$
the assthetic departments of the Britannica, one
does not have a complete record of his work. This
failure to revise adequately old material and to
make the information as recent as the physical ex-
igencies of book-making would permit, results no
doubt in the fact that even the more recent and
important English dramatists have suffered the
fate of omission along with their less favored con-
freres from other countries. Consequently, the
dramatic material is not only biased but is in-
adequate from the British standpoint as well.
As a reference book on the modern drama, either
for students or the casual reader, the Encyclo-
p(zdia Britannica is practically worthless. Its in-
formation is old and prejudiced, besides being
flagrantly incomplete. I could name a dozen
books on the modern drama which do not pretend
to possess the comprehensiveness and authenticity
claimed by the Britannica^ and yet are far more
adequate, both in extent and modernity of sub-
ject-matter, and of vastly superior educational
value. The limited information which has actu-
ally found its way into this encyclopedia is marked
by incompetency, prejudice, and carelessness; and
its large number of indefensible omissions renders
it almost useless as a reference work on modern
dramatic literature.
In the general article on the Drama we have
56 MISINFORMING A NATION
a key to the entire treatment of the subject
throughout the Encyclopaedia's twenty-seven vol-
umes. The English drama is given forty-one col-
umns. The French drama is given fifteen col-
umns ; the German drama, nine ; the Scandinavian
drama one; and the Russian drama, one-third of
a column ! The American drama is not even given
a separate division but is included under the Eng-
lish drama, and occupies less than one column!
The Irish drama also is without a separate division,
and receives only twelve lines of exposition! In
the division on the Scandinavian drama, Strind-
berg's name is not mentioned; and the reader is
supplied with the antiquated, early- Victorian in-
formation that Ibsen's Ghosts is "repellent." In
the brief passage on the Russian drama almost
no idea is given of its subject; in fact, no drama-
tist born later than 1808 is mentioned! When
we consider the wealth of the modem Russian
drama and its influence on the theater of other
nations, even of England, we can only marvel at
such utter inadequacy and neglect.
In the sub-headings of "recent" drama under
Drama^ "Recent English Drama" is given over
twelve columns, while "Recent French Drama" is
given but a little over three. There is no sub-
division for recent German drama, but mention is
made of it in a short paragraph under "English
THE DRAMA 57
Drama" with the heading: "Influences of For-
eign Drama I"
Regard this distribution of space for a moment.
The obvious implication is that the more modem
English drama is four times as important as the
French; and yet for years the entire inspiration of
the English stage came from France, and certain
English ''dramatists" made their reputations by
adapting French plays. And what of the more
modern German drama*? It is of importance, evi-
dently, only as it had an influence on the English
drama. Could self-complacent insularity go fur-
ther? Even in its capacity as a mere contribu-
tion to British genius, the recent German drama,
it seems, is of little moment; and Sudermann
counts for naught. In the entire article on Dra?na
his name is not so much as mentioned I Such is
the transcendent and superlative culture of the
Encyclopedia Britannica!
Turning to the biographies, we find that British
dramatists, when mentioned at all, are treated
with cordial liberality. T. W. Robertson is given
nearly three-fourths of a column with the com-
ment that "his work is notable for its masterly
stage-craft, wholesome and generous humor, bright
and unstrained dialogue, and high dramatic sense
of human character in its theatrical aspects." H.
J. Byron is given over half a column. W. S.
58 MISINFORMING A NATION
Gilbert draws no less than a column and three-
fourths. G. R. Sims gets twenty-two lines.
Sydney Grundy is accorded half a column. James
M. Barrie is given a column and a half, and
George Bernard Shaw an equal amount of space.
Pinero is given two-thirds of a column; and
Henry Arthur Jones half a column. Jones, how-
ever, might have had more space had the Ency-
clopaedia's editor gone to the simple trouble of ex-
tending that playwright's biography beyond
1904; but on this date it ends, with the result
that there appears no mention of The Heroic
Stubbs^ The Hypocrites, The Evangelist, Dolly
Reforms Himself, or The Knife — all of which
were produced before this supreme, up-to-date
and informative encyclopaedia went to press.
Oscar Wilde, a man who revolutionized the
English drama and who was unquestionably one
of the important figures in modern English letters,
is given a little over a column, less space than
Shaw, Barrie, or Gilbert. In much of his writing
there was, we learn, "an undertone of rather nasty
suggestion"; and after leaving prison "he was
necessarily an outcast from decent circles."
Also, "it is still impossible to take a purely objec-
tive view of Oscar Wilde's work," — that is to say,
literary judgment cannot be passed without re-
course to morality!
THE DRAMA 59
Here is an actual confession by the editor him-
self (for he contributed the article on Wilde) of
the accusation I have made against the Britannica.
A great artist, according to this encyclopedia's
criterion, is a respectable artist, one who preaches
and practises an inoffensive suburbanism. But
when the day comes — if it ever does — when the
editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, along with
other less prudish and less delicate critics, can re-
gard Wilde's work apart from personal prejudice,
perhaps Wilde will be given the consideration he
deserves — a consideration far greater, we hope,
than that accorded Barrie and Gilbert.
Greater inadequacy than that revealed in
Wilde's biography is to be found in the fact that
Synge has no biography whatever in the Britan-
nica! Nor has Hankin. Nor Granville Barker.
Nor Lady Gregory. Nor Galsworthy. The bio-
graphical omission of such important names as
these can hardly be due to the editor^s opinion
that they are not deserving of mention, for lesser
English dramatic names of the preceding genera-
tion are given liberal space. The fact that these
writers do not appear can be attributed only to the
fact that the Encyclopedia Britannica has not been
properly brought up to date — a fact substantiated
by an abundance of evidence throughout the entire
work. Of what possible value to one interested
6o MISINFORMING A NATION
in the modem drama is a reference library which
contains no biographical mention of such sig-
nificant figures as these?
The French drama suffers even more from in-
completeness and scantiness of material. Becque
draws just eleven lines, exactly half the space
given to the British playwright whose reputation
largely depends on that piece of sentimental clap-
trap, Lights (?' London. Hervieu draws half a
column of biography, in which his two important
dramas, Modestie and Connais-Toi (both out be-
fore the Britannic a went to press), are not men-
tioned. Curel is given sixteen lines; Lavedan,
fourteen lines, in which not all of even his best
work is noted; Maurice Donnay, twenty lines,
with no mention of La Patronne ( 1908) ; Lemai-
tre, a third of a column; Rostand, half a column,
less space than is accorded the cheap, slap-stick
humorist from Manchester, H. J. Byron; Capus,
a third of a column; Porto-Riche, thirteen lines;
and Brieux twenty-six lines. In Brieux's very
brief biography there is no record of La Frangaise
(1807), Simone (1908), or Suzette (1909).
Henri Bernstein does not have even a biographical
mention.
Maeterlinck's biography runs only to a column
and a third, and the last work of his to be men-
tioned is dated 1903, since which time the article
THE DRAMA 61
has apparently not been revised I Therefore, if
you depend for information on this biography in
the Encyclopedia Britannica, you will find no
record of Sceur Beatrice, Ariane et Barbe-Bleu,
UOiseau Bleu, or Maria Magdalene.
The modern Italian drama also receives very
brief and inadequate treatment. Of the modern
Italian dramatists only two of importance have
biographies — Pietro Cossa and Paolo Ferrari.
Cossa is given twenty-four lines, and Ferrari only
seven lines! The two eminent comedy writers,
Gherardi del Testa and Ferdinando Martini, have
no biographies. Nor has either Giuseppe Gia-
cosa or Gerolamo Rovetta, the leaders of the new
school, any biographical mention. And in d'An-
nunzio's biography only seventeen lines are de-
voted to his dramas. What sort of an idea of
the modem Italian drama can one get from an
encyclopaedia which contains such indefensible
omissions and such scant accounts of prominent
writers? And why should the writer who is as
commonly known by the name of Stecchetti as
Samuel Clemens is by the name of Mark Twain
be listed under "Guerrini" without even a cross
reference under the only name by which the ma-
jority of readers know him*? Joseph Conrad
might almost as well be listed under "Korzeniow-
ski." There are few enough non-British writers
62 MISINFORMING A NATION
included in the Britannica without deliberately or
ignorantly hiding those who have been lucky
enough to be admitted.
Crossing over into Germany and Austria one
maj^ look in vain for any indication of the wealth
of dramatic material and the great number of im-
portant dramatic figures which have come from
these two countries. Of all the recent German
and Austrian dramatists of note, only two are so
much as given biographical mention, and these
two — Sudermann and Hauptmann — are treated
with a brevity and inadequacy which, to my
knowledge, are without a parallel in any modern
reference work on the subject. Hauptmann and
Sudermann receive just twenty-five lines each,
less space than is given to Sydney Grundy, Pinero,
Henry Arthur Jones, T. W. Robertson, H. J.
Byron; and less than a third of the space given
to Shaw and W. S. Gilbert ! Even Sims is given
nearly as much space !
In these comparisons alone is discernible a
chauvinism of almost incredible narrowness.
But the biographies themselves emphasize this
patriotic prejudice even more than does the brev-
ity of space. In Sudermann's biography, which
apparently ends in 1905, no mention whatever is
made of such important works as Das Blumen-
hoot^ Rosen, Strandkinder^ and Das Hoke Lied
THE DRAMA 63
{The Song of Songs) ^ all of which appeared be-
fore the Britannic a was printed.
And what of Hauptmann, perhaps the greatest
and most important figure in dramatic literature
of this and the last generation? After a brief
record of the facts in Hauptmann's life we read :
"Of Hauptmann's subsequent work mention may-
be made of" — and then the names of a few of his
plays are set down. In the phrase, "mention may
be made of," is summed up the critic's narrow
viewpoint. And in that list it was thought un-
necessary to mention Schluck und Jau, Michael
Kramer, Der Arme Heinrich, Elga, Die Jungfern
votn Bischofsberg^ Kaiser Karls Geisel, and Gri-
selda! Since all of these appeared in ample time
to be included, it would, I believe, have occurred
to an unprejudiced critic that mention might have
been made of them. In fact, all the circumstan-
tial evidence points to the supposition that had
Hauptmann been an Englishman, not only would
they have been mentioned, but they would have
been praised as well. As it is, there is no criticism
of Hauptmann's work and no indication of his
greatness, despite the fact that he is almost uni-
versally conceded to be a more important figure
than any of the modern English playwrights who
are given greater space and favorably criticised.
With such insufficient and glaringly prejudiced
64 MISINFORMING A NATION
treatment of giants like Sudermann and Haupt-
mann, it is not at all surprising that not one other
figure in German and Austrian recent dramatic
literature should have a biography. For in-
stance, there is no biography of Schnitzler, Arno
Holz, Max Halbe, Ludwig Fulda, O. E. Hartle-
ben, Max Dreyer, Ernst Hardt, Hirschfeld, Ernst
Rosmer, Karl Schdnherr, Hermann Bahr, Thoma,
Beer-Hoffmann, Johannes Schlaf, or Wedekindl
Although every one of these names should be in-
cluded in some informative manner in an encyclo-
paedia as large as the Brilannica, and one which
makes so lavish a claim for its educational com-
pleteness, the omission of several of them may be
excused on the grounds that, in the haste of the
Encyclopaedia's editors to commercialize their cul-
tural wares, they did not have sufficient time to
take cognizance of the more recent of these dra-
matists. Since the editors have overlooked men
like Galsworthy from their own country, we can
at least acquit them of the charge of snobbish
patriotism in several of the present instances of
wanton oversight.
In the cases of Schnitzler, Hartleben and
Wedekind, however, no excuse can be offered.
The work of these men, though recent, had gained
for itself so important a place in the modern
world before the Britannica went to press, that to
THE DRAMA 65
ignore them biographically was an act of either
wanton carelessness or extreme ignorance. The
former would appear to furnish the explanation,
for under Drama there is evidence that the editors
knew of Schnitzler's and Wedekind's existence.
But, since the Vberbrettl movement is given only-
seven lines, it would, under the circumstances,
hardly be worth one's while to consult the Ency-
clopczdia Britannica for information on the mod-
em drama in Germany and Austria.
Even so, one would learn more of the drama in
those countries than one could possibly learn of
the drama of the United States. To be sure, no
great significance attaches to our stage literature,
but since this encyclopaedia is being foisted upon
us and we are asked to buy it in preference to all
others, it would have been well within the prov-
ince of its editors to give the hundred of thou-
sands of American readers a little enlightenment
concerning their own drama.
The English, of course, have no interest in our
institutions — save only our banks — and consist-
ently refuse to attribute either competency or im-
portance to our writers. They would prefer that
we accept their provincial and mediocre culture
and ignore entirely our own aesthetic struggles
toward an individual expression. But all Amer-
icans do not find intellectual contentment in this
66 MISINFORMING A NATION
paternal and protecting British attitude; and
those who are interested in our native drama and
who have paid money for the Britannica on the
strength of its exorbitant and unsustainable
claims, have just cause for complaint in the scanty
and contemptuous way in which American letters
are treated.
As I have already noted, the American drama is
embodied in the article on the English Drama,
and is given less space than a column. Under
American Literature there is nothing concerning
the American stage and its writers; nor is there
a single biography in the entire Encyclopaedia of
an American dramatist! James A. Heme re-
ceives eight lines — a note so meagre that for pur-
poses of reference it might almost as well have
been omitted entirely. And Augustin Daly, the
most conspicuous figure in our theatrical history,
is dismissed with twenty lines, about half the
space given H. J. Byron! If you desire any in-
formation concerning the development of the
American theater, or wish to know any details
about David Belasco, Bronson Howard, Charles
Hoyt, Steele MacKaye, Augustus Thomas, Clyde
Fitch, or Charles Klein, you will have to go to a
source other than the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
By way of explaining this neglect of all Amer-
ican culture I will quote from a recent advertise-
THE DRAMA 67
ment of the Britannica. "We Americans," it
says, in a most intimate and condescending man-
ner, "have had a deep sense of self-sufficiency.
We haven't had time or inclination to know how
the rest of the world lived. But now we must
know." And let it be said for the Encyclopedia
Britannica that it has done all in its power to dis-
courage us in this self-sufficiency.
IV
POETRY
In the field of poetry the Encyclopedia Bntan-
nica comes nearer being a competent reference
library than in the field of painting, fiction, or
drama. This fact, however, is not due to a spirit
of fairness on the part of the Encyclopsedia*s edi-
tors so much as to the actual superiority of Eng-
lish poetry. In this field England has led the
world. It is the one branch of culture in which
modern England stands highest. France sur-
passes her in painting and in fiction, and Germany
in music and the drama. But Great Britain is
without a rival in poetry. Therefore, despite the
fact that the Encyclopaedia is just as biased in
dealing with this subject as it is in dealing with
other cultural subjects, England's pre-eminence
tends to reduce in this instance that insular prej-
udice which distorts the Britannica's treatment of
arts and letters.
But even granting this superiority, the En-
cyclopaedia is neglectful of the poets of other
nations; and while it comes nearer the truth in
68
POETRY 69
setting forth the glories of English prosody, it
fails here as elsewhere in being an international
reference book of any marked value. There is
considerable and unnecessary exaggeration of the
merits of British poets, even of second- and third-
rate British poets. Evangelical criticism pre-
dominates, and respectability is the measure of
merit. Furthermore, the true value of poetry in
France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the United
States is minimized, and many writers of these
countries who unquestionably should have a place
in an encyclopaedia as large as the Brilannica, are
omitted. Especially is this true in the case of the
United States, which stands second only to Great
Britain in the quantity and quality of its modern
poetry.
Let us first review briefly the complete and
eulogistic manner in which English poets are dealt
with. Then let us compare, while making all
allowances for alien inferiority, this treatment of
British poetry with the Encyclopaedia's treatment
of the poetry of other nations. To begin with,
I find but very few British poets of even minor
importance who are not given a biography more
than equal to their deserts. Coventry Patmore
receives a biography of a column and a half.
Sydney Dobell's runs to nearly a column. Wil-
fred Scawen Blunt is accorded half a column;
70 MISINFORMING A NATION
John Davidson, over a column of high praise;
Henley, more than an entire page; Stephen
Phillips, three-fourths of a column; Henry Clar-
ence Kendall, eighteen lines; Roden Noel, twenty-
eight lines; Alexander Smith, twenty-five lines;
Lawrence Binyon, nineteen lines ; Laurence Hous-
man, twenty- three lines; Ebenezer Jones, twenty-
four lines; Richard Le Gallienne, twenty lines;
Henry Newbolt, fifteen lines; and Arthur Wil-
liam Edgar O'Shaughnessy, twenty-nine lines.
These names, together with the amount of space
devoted to them, will give an indication of the
thoroughness and liberality accorded British
poets.
But these by no means complete the list.
Robert Bridges receives half a column, in which
we learn that "his work has had great influence
in a select circle, by its restraint, purity, precision,
and delicacy yet strength of expression." And
in his higher flights "he is always noble and some-
times sublime. . . . Spirituality informs his in-
spiration." Here we have an excellent example
of the Encyclopaedia's combination of the uplift
and hyperbole. More of the same moral encom-
ium is to be found in the biography of Christina
Rossetti, which is a column in length. Her
"sanctity" and "religious faith" are highly
praised; and the article ends with the words:
POETRY 71
"All that we really need to know about her, save
that she was a great saint, is that she was a great
poet." Ah, yes I Saintliness — that cardinal re-
quisite in British aesthetics.
An example of how the Britannica^s provincial
Puritanism of judgment works against a poet is
to be found in the nearly-two-page biography of
Swinburne, wherein we read that "it is impossible
to acquit his poetry of the charge of animalism
which wars against the higher issues of the spirit."
No, Swinburne was not a pious uplifter; he did
not use his art as a medium for evangelical ex-
hortation. Consequently his work does not com-
ply with the Britannica's parochial standard.
And although Swinburne was contemporary with
Francis Thompson, it is said in the latter's two-
thirds-of-a-column biography that "for glory of
inspiration and natural magnificence of utterance
he is unique among the poets of his time."
Watts-Dunton also, in his three-fourths-of-a-
column biography, is praised lavishly and set
down as a "unique figure in the world of letters."
William Watson receives over a column of
biography, and is eulogized for his classic tradi-
tions in an age of prosodic lawlessness. The
sentimental and inoffensive Austin Dobson ap-
parently is a high favorite with the editors of the
Encyclopsedia, for he is given a column and three-
72 MISINFORMING A NATION
fourths — more space than is given John David-
son, Francis Thompson, William Watson, Watts-
Dunton, or Oscar Wilde — an allowance out of all
proportion to his importance.
In closing this brief record of the Encyclopedia
Britannica' s prodigal generosity to British poets,
it might be well to mention that Thomas Chatter-
ton receives a biography of five and a half
columns — a space considerably longer than that
given to Heine. Since Thomas Chatterton died
at the age of eighteen and Heinrich Heine did not
die until he was fifty-nine, I leave it to statistic-
ians to figure out how much more space than
Heine Chatterton would have received had he
lived to the age of the German poet.
On turning to the French poets and bearing in
mind the long biographies accorded British poets,
one cannot help feeling amazed at the scant treat-
ment which the former receive. Baudelaire, for
instance, is given less space than Christina Ros-
setti, William Watson, Henley, Coventry Pat-
more, John Davidson, or Austin Dobson. Ca-
tulle Mendes receives considerably less space than
Stephen Phillips. Verlaine is given equal space
with Watts-Dunton, and less than half the space
given to Austin Dobson ! Stephane Mallarme re-
ceives only half the space given to John David-
son, Christina Rossetti, or William Watson.
POETRY 73
Jean Moreas receives only half the space given to
Sydney Dobell or Christina Rossetti. Viele-
Griffin draws a shorter biography than Kendall,
the Australian poet; and Regnier and Bouchor
arc dismissed in fewer words than is the Scotch
poet, Alexander Smith. Furthermore, these biog-
raphies are rarely critical, being in the majority
of instances a cursory record of incomplete data.
Here attention should be called to the fact that
only in the cases of the very inconsequent British
poets is criticism omitted : if the poet is even fairly
well known there is a discussion of his work and
an indication of the place he is supposed to hold
in his particular field. But with foreign writers —
even the very prominent ones — little or nothing
concerning them is vouchsafed save historical
facts, and these, as a general rule, fall far short
of completeness. The impression given is that
obscure Englishmen are more important than emi-
nent Frenchmen, Germans, or Americans. Evi-
dently the editors are of the opinion that if one
is cognizant of British culture one can easily dis-
pense with all other culture as inferior and un-
necessary. Otherwise how, except on the ground
of deliberate falsification, can one explain the lib-
eral treatment accorded English poets as com-
pared with the meagre treatment given French
poets?
74 MISINFORMING A NATION
Since the important French poets mentioned re-
ceive such niggardly and grudging treatment, it is
not to be wondered at that many other lesser poets
— yet poets who are of sufficient importance to be
included in an encyclopsedia — should receive no
biographical mention. If you wish information
concerning Adolphe Rette, Rene de Ghil, Stuart
Merrill, Emmanuel Signoret, Jehan Rictus, Al-
bert Samain, Paul Fort, who is the leading bal-
ladist of young France, Herold, Quillard, or
Francis Jammes, you will have to go to a source
even more "supreme" than the Encyclop(zdia
Britannica. These poets were famous in 1900, and
even in America there had appeared at that time
critical considerations of their work. Again, one
ought to find, in so "complete" a "library" as the
Britannica, information concerning the principal
poets of the Belgian Renaissance. But of the
eight leading modern poets of Belgium only three
have biographies — Lemonnier, Maeterlinck, and
Verhaeren. There are no biographies of Eek-
houd, Rodenbach, Elskamp, Severin and Cam-
maerts.
Turning to Italy we find even grosser injustice
and an even more woeful inadequacy in the treat-
ment accorded her modern poets. To be sure,
there are biographies of Carducci, Ferrari, Mar-
radi, Mazzoni, and Arturo Graf. But Alfredo
POETRY 7?
Baccelli, Domenico Gnoli, Giovanni Pascoli,
Mario Rapisardi, Chiarini, Panzacchi and Annie
Vivanti are omitted. There should be biographies
of these writers in an international encyclopffidia
one-fourth the size of the Britannica. Baccelli
and Rapisardi are perhaps the two most important
epic poets of modern Italy. Gnoli is one of the
leaders of the classical school. Chiarini is not
only a leading poet but is one of the first critics
of Italy as well. Panzacchi, the romantic, is sec-
ond only to the very greatest Italian poets of mod-
ern times, and as far back as 1898 British critics
were praising him and regretting that he was not
better known in England. Annie Vivanti, born
in London, is a poet known and esteemed all over
Italy. (It may be noted here that Vivanti wrote
a vehement denunciation and repudiation of Eng-
land in Ave Albion.)
But these names represent only part of the in-
justice and neglect accorded modem Italian poetry
by the Britannica. There is not even so much as
a mention in the entire twenty-nine volumes of the
names of Alinda Bonacchi, the most widely known
woman poet in Italy; Capuano, who, besides be-
ing a notable poet, is also a novelist, dramatist
and critic of distinction; Funcini (Tanfucio
Neri), a household word in Tuscany and one held
in high esteem all over Italy; "Countess Lara"
76 MISINFORMING A NATION
(Eveline Cattermole), whose Vers? gave her a
foremost place among the poets of her day ; Pitteri,
who was famous as long ago as 1890; and Nenci-
oni, not only a fine poet but one of Italy's great
critics. Nencioni has earned the reputation of
being the Sainte-Beuve of Italy, and it was he
who introduced Browning, Tennyson and Swin-
burne to his countrymen. Then there are such
poets as Fontana, Bicci and Arnaboldi, who should
at least be mentioned in connection with modem
Italian literature, but whose names do not appear
in "this complete library of information."
But France, Belgium, and Italy, nevertheless,
have great cause for feeling honored when com-
parison is made between the way the Encyclo'
p<zdia Britannica deals with their modern poetry
and the way it deals with modern German and
Austrian poetry. Of all the important recent
lyricists of Germany and Austria only one is given
a biography, and that biography is so brief and
inadequate as to be practically worthless for pur-
poses of enlightenment. The one favored poet is
Detlev von Liliencron. Liliencron is perhaps the
most commanding lyrical figure in all recent Ger-
man literature, and he receives just twenty-seven
lines, or about one-fifth of the space given to Aus-
tin Dobson! But there are no biographies of
Richard Dehmel, Carl Busse, Stefan George, J. H.
POETRY 77
Mackay, Rainer Maria Rilke, Gustav Falke,
Ernst von Wolzogen, Kark Henckell, Dormann,
Otto Julius Bierbaum, and Hugo von Hofmann-
sthal.
There can be no excuse for many of these omis-
sions. Several of these names are of international
eminence. Their works have not been confined
to Germany, but have appeared in English trans-
lation. They stand in the foremost rank of mod-
ern literature, and both in England and America
there are critical books which accord them exten-
sive consideration. Without a knowledge of
them no one — not even a Britisher — can lay claim
to an understanding of modern letters. Yet the
Encyclopedia Britannica denies them space and
still poses as an adequate reference work.
One may hope to find some adequate treatment
of the German lyric to recent years with its "re-
markable variety of new tones and pregnant
ideas," in the article on German Literature. But
that hope will straightway be blasted when one
turns to the article in question. The entire new
renaissance in German poetry is dismissed in a
brief paragraph of thirty-one lines I It would
have been better to omit it altogether, for such a
cursory and inadequate survey of a significant sub-
ject can result only in disseminating a most un-
just and distorted impression. And the bibli-
78 MISINFORMING A NATION
ography at the end of this article on modern Ger-
man literature reveals nothing so much as the lack
of knowledge on the part of the critic who com-
piled it. Not only is the Britannica deficient in
its information, but it does not reveal the best
sources from which this omitted information might
be gained.
An even more absurdly inadequate treatment is
accorded the poets of modern Sweden. Despite
the fact that Swedish literature is little known to
Americans, the poetry of that country ranks very
high — higher (according to some eminent critics)
than the poetry of France or Germany. But the
Britannica makes no effort to disturb our ignor-
ance ; and so the great lyric poetry of Sweden since
1870 is barely touched upon. However, Mr. Ed-
mund Gosse, a copious contributor to the En-
cyclopaedia, has let the cat out of the bag. In one
of his books he has pronounced Eroding, Levertin
and Heidenstam "three very great lyrical artists,"
and has called Snoilsky a poet of "unquestioned
force and fire." Turning to the Britannica we
find that Snoilsky is dismissed with half the space
given Sydney Dobell and a third of the space given
Patmore. Levertin receives only a third of a col-
umn; and Eroding is denied any biography what-
ever. He is thrown in with a batch of minor
writers under Sweden. Heidenstam, the new
POETRY 79
Nobel prize-winner, a poet who, according to
Charles Wharton Stork, "stands head and shoul-
ders above any now writing in England," receives
only eight lines in the general notice I And Karl-
feldt, another important lyrist, who is the Sec-
retary of the Swedish Academy, is considered un-
worthy of even a word in the "supreme" En-
cyclop(zdia Britannica.
It would seem that unfair and scant treatment
of a country's poetry could go no further. But if
you will seek for information concerning American
poetry you will find a deficiency which is even
greater than that which marks the treatment of
modern Swedish poetry.
Here again it might be in place to call atten-
tion to the hyperbolical claims on which the En-
cydopczdia Britannica has been sold in America.
In the flamboyant and unsubstantiable advertis-
ing of this reference work you will no doubt re-
call the claim: "It will tell you more about
everything than you can get from any other
source." And perhaps you will also remember
the statement: "The Britannica is a complete
library of knowledge on every subject appealing
to intelligent persons." It may be, of course, that
the editors believe that the subject of American
literature does not, or at least should not, appeal
to any but ignorant persons, and that, in fact, only
8o MISINFORMING A NATION
middle-class English culture can possibly interest
the intelligent. But unless such a belief can be
proved to be correct, the American buyers of this
Encyclopaedia have a grave and legitimate com-
plaint against the editors for the manner in which
the books were foisted upon them. The Encyclo-
padia Britannica^ as I have pointed out, is not a
complete library of knowledge on the subject of
literature; and in the following pages I shall show
that its gross inadequacy extends to many other
very important fields of endeavor. Moreover, its
incompleteness is most glaringly obvious in the
field of American aesthetic effort — a field which,
under the circumstances, should be the last to be
neglected.
On the subject of American poetry it is deficient
almost to the extreme of worthlessness. In the
article, American Literature^ written by George
E. Woodberry, we discover that truly British spirit
and viewpoint which regards nothing as worth
while unless it is old or eminently respectable and
accepted. The result is that, in the paragraph on
our poetry, such men as Aldrich, Stedman, Rich-
ard Watson Gilder, Julia Ward Howe, H. H.
Brownell and Henry Van Dyke are mentioned;
but very few others. As a supreme surrender to
modernity the names of Walt Whitman, Eugene
Field, James Whitcomb Riley and Joaquin Miller
POETRY 81
are included. The great wealth of American
poetry, which is second only to that of England,
is not even suggested.
Turning to the biography of Edgar Allan Poe,
we find that this writer receives only a column
and a half, less space than is given Austin Dobson,
Coventry Patmore, or W. E. Henley I And the
biography itself is so inept that it is an affront to
American taste and an insult to American intel-
ligence. One is immediately interested in learn-
ing what critic the Encyclopaedia's editors chose
to represent this American who has long since be-
come a world figure in literature. Turning to the
index we discover that one David Hannay is the
authority — a gentleman who was formerly the
British Vice-Consul at Barcelona. Mr. Hannay
(apparently he holds no academic degree of any
kind) lays claim to fame chiefly, it seems, as the
author of Short History of the Royal Navy; but
in just what way his research in naval matters
qualifies him to write on Poe is not indicated.
This is not, however, the only intimation we had
that in the minds of the Encyclopedia's editors
there exists some esoteric and recondite relation-
ship between art and British sea-power. In the
Britannica's criticism of J. M. W. Turner's paint-
ings, that artist's work is said to be "like the Brit-
ish fleet among the navies of the world." In the
82 MISINFORMING A NATION
present instance, however, we can only trust that
the other articles in this encyclopaedia, by Mr.
Hannay — to-wit: Admiral Venn and Pirate and
Piracy — are more competent than his critique on
Poe.
Walt Whitman gets scarcely better treatment.
His biography is no longer than Poe's and con-
tains little criticism and no suggestion of his true
place in American letters. This is all the more
astonishing when we recall the high tribute paid
Whitman by eminent English critics. Surely the
Brilannica's editors are not ignorant of Whitman's
place in modern letters or of the generous man-
ner in which he had been received abroad. What-
ever one's opinion of him, he was a towering figure
in our literature — a pioneer who had more in-
fluence on our later writers than any other Ameri-
can. And yet his biography in this great British
cultural work is shorter than that of Mrs. Hum-
phry Ward I
With such obviously inadequate and contemptu-
ous treatment as that accorded Poe and Whitman,
it is not surprising that all other American poets
should be treated peremptorily or neglected en-
tirely. There are very short biographical notes
on Stedman, Louise Chandler Moulton, Sill, Gil-
der, Eugene Field, Sidney Lanier and Riley — but
they are scant records of facts and most insufR-
POETRY 83
cient when compared to the biographies of second-
rate poets of England.
But let us be grateful that the Encyclopedia
Britannica was generous enough to record them at
all; for one can look in vain through its entire
twenty-nine volumes, no matter under what head-
ing, for even a mention of Emily Dickinson, John
Bannister Tabb, Florence Earle Coates, Edwin
Markham, Lizette Woodworth Reese, Clinton
Scollard, Louise Imogen Guiney, Richard Hovey,
Madison Cawein, Edwin Arlington Robinson,
George Sylvester Viereck, Ridgeley Torrence,
Arthur Upson, Santayana, and many others who
hold an important place in our literature. And
the names of William Vaughn Moody, Percy
MacKaye and Bliss Carman are merely mentioned
casually, the first two under Drama and the last
under Canadian Literature.
The palpable injustice in the complete omission
of many of the above American names is rendered
all the more glaring by the fact that the Encyclo-
pczdia Britannica pays high tribute to such minor
British poets and versifiers as W. H. Davies,
Sturge Moore, Locker Lampson, C. M. Doughty,
Walter de la Mare, Alfred Noyes, Herbert
Trench, Ernest Dowson, Mrs. Meynell, A. E.
Housman and Owen Seaman.
This is the culture disseminated by the Encyclo-
84 MISINFORMING A NATION
padia Britannica^ which "is a complete library of
knowledge on every subject appealing to intel-
ligent persons," and which "will tell you more
about everything than you can get from any other
source!" This is the "supreme book of knowl-
edge" which Americans are asked to buy in prefer-
ence to all others. What pettier insult could one
nation offer to another*?
BRITISH PAINTING
If one hopes to find in the Eleventh Edition of the
Encyclopedia Britannica an unprejudiced critical
and biographical survey of the world's painters,
he will be sorely disappointed. Not only is the
Encyclopaedia not comprehensive and up-to-date,
but the manner in which British art and artists
are constantly forced to the front rank is so grossly
biased that a false impression of aesthetic history
and art values is almost an inevitable result, un-
less one is already equipped with a wide under-
standing of the subject. If one were to form an
opinion of art on the Britannica^s articles, the
opinion would be that English painting leads the
modem world in both amount and quality. The
Encyclopaedia raises English academicians to the
ranks of exalted greatness, and at the same time
tends to tear down the pedestals whereon rest the
truly towering geniuses of alien nationality.
So consistently does British bourgeois prejudice
and complacency characterize the material on
painting contained in this Encyclopaedia, that any
8s
86 MISINFORMING A NATION
attempt to get from it an aesthetic point of view
which would be judicious and universal, would
fail utterly. Certain French, German, and Amer-
ican artists of admitted importance are considered
unworthy of space, or, if indeed deserving of men-
tion, are unworthy of the amount of space, or the
praise, which is conferred on a large number of
lesser English painters. Both by implication and
direct statement the editors have belittled the
aesthetic endeavor of foreign nations, and have ex-
aggerated, to an almost unbelievable degree, the
art of their own country. The manner in which
the subject of painting is dealt with reveals the
full-blown flower of British insularity, and apo-
theosizes the narrow, aggressive culture of British
middle-class respectability. In the world's art
from 1700 on, comparatively little merit is recog-
nized beyond the English Channel.
The number of English painters whose biog-
raphies appear in the Britannica would, I be-
lieve, astonish even certain English art critics;
and the large amount of space devoted to them —
even to inconsequent and obscure academicians —
when compared with the brief notices given to
greater painters of other nations, leaves the un-
British searcher with a feeling of bewilderment.
But not only with the large number of English
painters mentioned or even with the obviousl}'- dis-
BRITISH PAINTING 87
proportionate amount of space devoted to them
does the Encyclopedia's chauvinistic campaign
for England's sesthetic supremacy cease. The
criticisms which accompany these biographies are
as a rule generously favorable ; and, in many cases,
the praise reaches a degree of extravagance which
borders on the absurd.
Did this optimism of outlook, this hot desire
to ferret out greatness where only mediocrity
exists, this ambition to drag the obscure and inept
into the glare of prominence, extend to all paint-
ers, regardless of nationality, one might forgive
the superlative eulogies heaped upon British art,
and attribute them to that mellow spirit of senti-
mental tolerance which sees good in everything.
But, alas I such impartiality does not exist. It
would seem that the moment the biographers of
the Britannica put foot on foreign ground, their
spirit of generosity deserts them. And if space
is any indication of importance, it must be noted
that English painters are, in the editors' estima-
tion, of considerably more importance than paint-
ers from abroad.
Of William Etty, to whom three-fourths of a
page is devoted, we are told that "in feeling and
skill as a colorist he has few equals.'* The im-
plication here that Etty, as a colorist, has never
been surpassed scarcely needs refutation. It is
88 MISINFORMING A NATION
unfortunate, however, that Mr. Etty is not with
us at present to read this exorbitant testimony to
his greatness, for it would astonish him, no doubt,
as much as it would those other few unnamed
painters who are regarded as his equals in color
sensibilite. J. S. Cotman, we discover, was "a re-
markable painter both in oil and water-color."
This criticism is characteristic, for, even when
there are no specific qualities to praise in an Eng-
lish painter's work, we find this type of vague
recommendation.
No points, though, it would seem, are over-
looked. Regard the manner in which J. D. Hard-
ing's questionable gifts are recorded. "Harding,"
you will find, "was noted for facility, sureness of
hand, nicety of touch, and the various qualities
which go to make up an elegant, highly-trained
and accomplished sketcher from nature, and com-
poser of picturesque landscape material; he was
particularly skillful in the treatment of foliage."
Turning from Mr. Harding, the "elegant" and
"accomplished" depicter of foliage, to Birket Fos-
ter, we find that his work "is memorable for its
delicacy and minute finish, and for its daintiness
and pleasantness of sentiment." Dainty and
pleasant sentiment is not without weight with the
art critics of this encyclopaedia. In one form or
BRITISH PAINTING 89
another it is mentioned very often in connection
with British painters.
Landseer offers an excellent example of the
middle-class attitude which the Britannica takes
toward art. To judge from the page-and-a-half
biography of this indifferent portraitist of ani-
mals one would imagine that Landseer was a
great painter, for we are told that his Fighting
Dogs Getting Wind is ''perfectly drawn, solidly
and minutely finished, and carefully composed."
Of what possible educational value is an art arti-
cle which would thus criticise a Landseer pic-
ture*?
An English painter who, were we to accept the
Encyclopaedia's valuation, combines the qualities
of several great painters is Charles Holroyd. "In
all his work," we learn, "Holroyd displays an im-
pressive sincerity, with a fine sense of composition,
and of style, allied to independent and modern
thinking." Truly a giant! It would be diffi-
cult to recall any other painter in history "all" of
whose work displayed a "fine sense of composi-
tion." Not even could this be said of Michel-
angelo. But when it comes to composition, Arthur
Melville apparently soars above his fellows. Be-
sides, "several striking portraits in oil," he did a
picture called The Return From the Crucifixion^
90 MISINFORMING A NATION
which, so we are told, is a "powerful, colossal com-
position." To have achieved only a "powerful"
composition should have been a sufficiently re-
markable feat for a painter of Mr. Melville's
standing; for only of a very few masters in the
world's history can it be said that their composi-
tions were both powerful and colossal. El Greco,
Giotto, Giorgione, Veronese, Titian, Michelangelo
and Rubens rarely soared to such heights.
But Melville, it appears, had a contemporary
who, if anything, was greater than he — to-wit:
W. Q. Orchardson, to whose glories nearly a page
is devoted. "By the time he was twenty," says
his biographer, "Orchardson had mastered the es-
sentials of his art." In short, at twenty he had
accomplished what few painters accomplished in
a lifetime. A truly staggering feat I We are not
therefore surprised to learn that "as a portrait
painter Orchardson must be placed in the first
class." Does this not imply that he ranked with
Titian, Velazquez, Rubens and Rembrandt?
What sort of an idea of the relative values in art
will the uninformed person get from such loose
and ill-considered rhetoric, especially when the
critic goes on to say that Master Baby is "a mas-
terpiece of design, color and broad execution'"?
There is much more eulogy of a similar careless
variety, but enough has been quoted here to show
BRITISH PAINTING 91
that the world must entirely revise its opinions
of art if the Encyclopedia Britannica' s statements
are to be accepted.
Even the pictures of Paul Wilson Steer are
criticised favorably: "His figure subjects and
landscapes show great originality and technical
skill." And John Pettie was "in his best days a
colorist of a high order and a brilliant executant."
George Reid, the Scottish artist, is accorded over
half a column with detailed criticism and praise.
Frederick Walker is given no less than an entire
column which ends with a paragraph of fulsome
eulogy. Even E. A. Waterlow painted land-
scapes which were "admirable" and "handled with
grace and distinction" — more gaudy generaliza-
tions. When the Encyclopaedia's critics can find
no specific point to praise in the work of their coun-
trymen, grace, distinction, elegance and sentiment
are turned into aesthetic virtues.
Turning to Hogarth, we find no less than three
and one-half pages devoted to him, more space
than is given to Rubens's biography, and three
times the space accorded Veronese! It was once
thought that Hogarth was only an "ingenious
humorist," but "time has reversed that unjust
sentence." We then read that Hogarth's com-
position leaves "little or nothing to be desired."
If such were the case, he would unquestionably
92 MISINFORMING A NATION
rank with Rubens, Michelangelo and Titian; for,
if indeed his composition leaves little or nothing
to be desired, he is as great as, or even greater
than, the masters of all time. But even with this
eulogy the Encyclopaedia's critic does not rest con-
tent. As a humorist and a satirist upon canvas,
"he has never been equalled." If we regard
Hogarth as an "author" rather than artist, "his
place is with the great masters of literature — with
the Thackerays and Fieldings, the Cervantes and
Molieres." (Note that of these four "great mas-
ters" two are English.)
Mastery in one form or another, if the Britari'
nica is to be believed, was common among Eng-
lish painters. The pictures of Richard Wilson
are "skilled and learned compositions . . . the
work of a painter who was thoroughly master of
his materials." In this latter respect Mr. Wilson
perhaps stands alone among the painters of the
world; and yet, through some conspiracy of silence
no doubt, the leading critics of other nations rarely
mention him when speaking of those artists who
thoroughly mastered their materials. In regard
to Raeburn, the Encyclopaedia is less fulsome, de-
spite the fact that over a page is allotted him. We
are distinctly given to understand that he had his
faults. Velazquez, however, constantly reminded
Wilkie of Raeburn; yet, after all, Raeburn was
BRITISH PAINTING 93
not quite so great as Velazquez. This is frankly-
admitted.
It was left to Reynolds to equal if not to sur-
pass Velazquez as well as Rubens and Rembrandt.
In a two-page glorification of this English painter
we come upon the following panegyric: "There
can be no question of placing him by the side of
the greatest Venetians or of the triumvirate of the
seventeenth century, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velaz-
quez." If by placing him beside these giants is
meant that he in any wise approached their stature,
there can be, and has been, outside of England,
a very great question of putting him in such com-
pany. In fact, his right to such a place has been
very definitely denied him. But the unprejudiced
opinion of the world matters not to the patriots
who edited the Encyclopedia Britannica. That
"supreme" English reference work goes on to say
that in portraits, such as Mrs. Siddons as the
Tragic Muse., Reynolds "holds the field. . . . No
portrait painter has been more happy in his poses
for single figures." Then, as if such enthusiasm
were not enough, we are told that "nature had
singled out Sir Joshua to endow him with certain
gifts in which he has hardly an equal."
Nature, it seems, in her singling out process,
was particularly partial to Englishmen, for among
those other painters who just barely equalled
94 MISINFORMING A NATION
Reynolds's transcendent genius was Gainsborough.
Says the Britannka: "Gainsborough and Rey-
nolds rank side by side. ... It is difficult to say
which stands the higher of the two." Con-
sequently hereafter we must place Gainsborough,
too, along with Michelangelo, Rubens, Rem-
brandt and Velazquez ! Such a complete revision
of aesthetic judgment will, no doubt, be difficult
at first, but, by living with the Encyclopedia Brit-
annica and absorbing its British culture, we may
in time be able to bracket Michelangelo, Rey-
nolds, Rubens, Gainsborough, Rembrandt, Ho-
garth and Velazquez without the slightest hesita-
tion.
It is difficult to conceive how, in an encyclo-
paedia with lofty educational pretences, extrav-
agance of statement could attain so high a point
as that reached in the biographies of Reynolds and
Gainsborough. So obviously indefensible are
these valuations that I would hesitate to accuse
the Britannica! s editors of deliberate falsification
— that is, of purposely distorting aesthetic values
for the benefit of English artists. Their total
lack of discretion indicates an honest, if blind, be-
lief in British aesthetic supremacy. But this fact
does not lessen the danger of such judgments to
the American public. As a nation we are ignor-
ant of painting and therefore are apt to accept
BRITISH PAINTING 95
statements of this kind which have the impact of
seeming authority behind them.
The same insular and extravagant point of view
is discoverable in the article on Turner. To this
painter nearly five pages are devoted — a space out
of all proportion to the biographies of the other
painters of the world. Titian has only three and
one-half pages; Rubens has only a little over three
pages ; and El Greco has less than two-thirds of a
page ! Of course, it is not altogether fair to base
a judgment on space alone; but such startling dis-
crepancies are the rule and not the exception.
In the case of Turner the discrepancy is not
only of space, however. In diction, as well, all
relative values are thrown to the winds. In the
criticism of Turner we find English patriotism at
its high-water mark. We read that "the range
of his powers was so vast that he covered the whole
field of nature and united in his own person the
classical and naturalistic schools." Even this pal-
pable overstatement could be forgiven, since it
has a basis of truth, if a little further we did not
discover that Turner's Crossing the Brook in the
London National Academy is "probably the most
perfect landscape in the world." In this final and
irrevocable judgment is manifest the supreme in-
sular egotism which characterizes nearly all the
art articles in the Encyclopcsdia Britannica, This
96 MISINFORMING A NATION
criticism, to take merely one example, means that
Crossing the Brook is more perfect than Rubens's
Landscape with Chateau de Stein! But the En-
cyclopaedia's summary of Turner's genius sur-
passes in flamboyant chauvinism anything which
I have yet seen in print. It is said that, despite
any exception we may take to his pictures, "there
will still remain a body of work which for ex-
tent, variety, truth and artistic taste is like the
British fleet among the navies of the world."
Here patriotic fervor has entirely swallowed all
restraint.
Over a page is devoted to Constable, in which
we are informed that his "vivid tones and fresh
color are grafted upon the formulae of Claude and
Rubens." This type of criticism is not rare. One
frequently finds second-rate English artists com-
pared not unfavorably with the great artists of
other nations; and it would seem that the English
painters add a little touch of their own, the impu-
tation being that they not seldom improve upon
their models. Thus Constable adds "vivid tones
and fresh colors" to Rubens's formula. Another
instance of this kind is to be found in the case of
Alfred Stevens, the British sculptor, not the Bel-
gian painter. (The latter, by the way, though
more important and better-known, receives less
space than the Englishman.)^ The vigorous
BRITISH PAINTING 97
strength of his groups "recalls the style of Mi-
chelangelo, but Stevens's work throughout is orig-
inal and has a character of its own." I do not
deny that Stevens imitated Michelangelo, but,
where English artists are concerned, these rela-
tionships are indicated in deceptive phraseology.
In the case of French artists, whose biographies are
sometimes written by unbiased critics, the truth is
not hidden in dictional suavities. Imitation is not
made a virtue.
Let us now turn to Watts. Over two pages
are accorded him, one page being devoted largely
to eulogy, a passage of which reads : *Tt was the
rare combination of supreme handicraft with a
great imaginative intellect which secured to Watts
his undisputed place in the public estimation of
his day." Furthermore, we hear of "the grandeur
and dignity of his style, the ease and purposeful-
ness of his brushwork, the richness and harmoni-
ousness of his coloring." But those "to whom his
exceptional artistic attainment is a sealed book
have gathered courage or consolation from the
grave moral purpose and deep human sympathy
of his teaching." Here we have a perfect exam-
ple of the parochial moral uplift which permeates
the Britannica's art criticism. The great Presby-
terian complex is found constantly in the judg-
ments of this encyclopaedia.
98 MISINFORMING A NATION
So important a consideration to the Britannica^s
critico-moralists is this puritan motif that the fact
is actually set down that Millais was devoted to
his family I One wonders how much influence
this domestic devotion had on the critic who spends
a page and a half to tell us of Millais, for not
only is this space far in excess of Millais' im-
portance, but the statement is made that he was
"one of the greatest painters of his time," and
that "he could paint what he saw with a force
which has seldom been excelled." Unfortu-
nately the few who excelled him are not men-
tioned. Perhaps he stood second only to Turner,
that super-dreadnought. Surely he was not ex-
celled by Renoir, or Courbet, or Pissarro, or
Monet, or Manet, or Cezanne; for these latter
are given very little space (the greatest of them
having no biography whatever in the Encyclo-
paedia !); and there is no evidence to show that
they are considered of more than minor im-
portance.
Perhaps it was Rossetti, a fellow Pre-Raphael-
ite, who excelled Millais in painting what he saw.
Rossetti's The Song of Solomon^ as regards bril-
liance, finish and the splendor of its lighting,
"occupies a great place in the highest grade of
modem art of all the world." Even Holman
Hunt, one of the lesser Pre-Raphaelites, is given
BRITISH PAINTING 99
over a full page,, and is spoken of in glowing
terms. "Perhaps no painter of the nineteenth
century," we read, "produced so great an im-
pression by a few pictures" as did Hunt ; and dur-
ing the course of the eulogy the critic speaks of
Hunt's "greatness." Can it be that the naif
gentleman who wrote Hunt's biography has never
heard of Courbet, or Manet, or of the Impression-
ists, or Cezanne? After so sweeping and un-
reasoned a statement as the one concerning the
great impression made by Hunt's pictures, such an
extreme conclusion is almost inevitable. Or is
this critic's patriotic vanity such that he considers
an impression made in England as representative
of the world? Even to intimate that the impres-
sion made by Hunt's pictures was comparable to
that made by L' Enterrement a Ornans or Le
Dejeuner sur FHerbe^ or that the Pre-Raphaelites
possessed even half the importance of Courbet and
Manet, is to carry undeserved laudation to pre-
posterous lengths.
Here as elsewhere, superlatives are used in such
a way in describing unimportant English painters
that no adequate adjectives are left for the truly
great men of other nationality. It would be dif-
ficult to find a better example of undeserving
eulogy as applied to an inconsequent British
painter than that furnished by Brangwyn, whose
loo xMISINFORMING A NATION
compositions, we are astonished to learn, have "a
nobly impressive and universal character." Such
a statement might justly sum up the greatness of
a Michelangelo statue; but here it is attached to
the works of a man who at best is no more than
a capable and clever illustrator.
The foregoing examples by no means include
all the instances of how English painters, as a re-
sult of the liberal space allotted them and the
lavish encomiums heaped upon them by the Eri'
cyclopedia Britannica's editors, are unduly ex-
panded into great and important figures. A
score of other names could be mentioned. From
beginning to end, English art is emphasized and
lauded until it is out of all proportion to the rest
of the world.
Turn to the article on Painting and look at the
sub-title, "Recent Schools." Under "British"
you will find twelve columns, with inset headings.
Under "French" you will find only seven
columns, without insets. Practically all the ad-
vances made in modern art have come out of
France; and practically all important modern
painters have been Frenchmen. England has
contributed little or nothing to modem painting.
And yet, recent British schools are given nearly
twice the space that is devoted to recent French
schools I Again regard the article, Sculpture^
BRITISH PAINTING loi
Even a greater and more astonishing dispropor-
tionment exists here. Modern British sculpture is
given no less than thirteen and a half columns,
while modern French sculpture, of vastly greater
aesthetic importance, is given only seven and a
half columns I
VI
NON-BRITISH PAINTING
If the same kind of panegyrics which characterize
the biographies of the British painters in the
Encyclopedia Britannica were used in dealing
with the painters of all nationalities, there could
be made no charge of either unconscious or delib-
erate injustice. But once we leave Great Brit-
ain's shores, prodigal laudation ceases. As if
worn out by the effort of proving that English-
men are pre-eminent among the world's painters,
the editors devote comparatively little space to
those non-British artists who, we have always
believed and been taught, were the trul)^ signifi-
cant men in painting. Therefore, if the Britan-
nica's implications are to be believed, England
alone, among all modern countries, is the home of
genius. And it would be difficult for one not
well informed to escape the impression that not
only Turner, but English painting in general, is
"like the British fleet among the navies of the
world."
102
NON-BRITISH PAINTING 103
A comparison, for instance, between English
and French painters, as they are presented in this
encyclopsedia, would leave the neophyte with the
conviction that France was considerably inferior
in regard to graphic ability, as inferior, in fact —
if we may read the minds of the Britannkd' s
editors — as the French fleet is to the British fleet.
In its ignorant and un-English way the world for
years has been laboring under the superstition that
the glories of modem painting had been largely
the property of France. But such a notion is now
corrected.
For instance, we had always believed that
Chardin was one of the greatest of still-life
painters. We had thought him to be of exceed-
ing importance, a man with tremendous influence,
deserving of no little consideration. But when
we turn to his biography in the Encyclopczdia
Britannka we are, to say the least, astonished at
the extent of our over-valuation. He is dismissed
with six lines I And the only critical comment
concerning him is: "He became famous for his
still-life pictures and domestic interiors." And
yet Thomas Stothard, an English painter who for
twenty-five years was Chardin's contemporary, is
given over a column; James Northcote, another
English contemporary of Chardin's, is given half
a column ; and many other British painters, whose
104 MISINFORMING A NATION
names are little known outside of England, have
long biographies and favorable criticisms.
Watteau, one of the greatest of French
painters, has a biography of only a page and a
quarter; Largilliere, half a column; Rigaud, less
than half a column; Lancret, a third of a column;
and Boucher has only fifteen lines — a mere
note with no criticism. (Jonathan Boucher, an
English divine, whose name follows that of
Boucher, is accorded three times the space!) La
Tour and Nattier have half a column each.
Greuze, another one of France's great eighteenth-
century painters, is given only a column and a
half with unfavorable comment. Greuze's bril-
liant reputation seemed to have been due, "not to
his requirements as a painter" but to the subjects
of his pictures; and he is then adversely accused
of possessing that very quality which in an Eng-
lish painter, as we have seen, is a mark of supreme
glory — namely, ''bourgeois morality." Half a
column only is required to comment on Horace
Vernet and to tell us that his most representative
picture "begins and ends nowhere, and the com-
position is all to pieces; but it has good qualities
of faithful and exact representation."
Fragonard, another French painter whom we
had always thought possessed of at least a minor
NON-BRITISH PAINTING 105
greatness, is accorded no more than a column, less
than half the space given to B. R. Hay don, the
eighteenth-century English historical painter, and
only one-third of the space devoted to David
Wilkie, the Scotch painter. Fragonard's "scenes
of love and voluptuousness," comments that art
critic of the London Daily Mail, who has been
chosen to represent this French painter in the En-
cyclopsedia, "are only made acceptable by the
tender beauty of his color and the virtuosity of his
facile brushwork." Alas I that Fragonard did not
possess the "grave moral purpose" of Watts!
Had his work been less voluptuous he might have
been given more than a fourth of the space de-
voted to that moral Englishman, for surely
Fragonard was the greater painter.
Gericault, one of the very important innovators
of French realism, is given half a column, about
an equal amount of space with such English
painters as W. E. Frost, T. S. Cooper, Thomas
Creswick, Francis Danby and David Scott; only
about half the amount of space given to John Gil-
bert, C. L. Eastlake, and William Mulready ; and
only one-third of the space given to David Cox.
One or two such disparities in space m.ight be
overlooked, but when to almost any kind of an
English painter is imputed an importance equal
io6 MISINFORMING A NATION
to, if not greater than, truly significant painters
from France, bias, whether conscious or uncon-
scious, has been established.
Again regard Poussin. This artist, the most
representative painter of his epoch and a man
who marked a distinct step in the evolution of
graphic art, is given less than half a page, about
equal to the space devoted to W. P. Frith, J. W.
Gordon, Samuel Cousins, John Crome, William
Strang, and Thornhill; and only half the space
given to Holman Hunt, and only one-third the
space given to Millais I There is almost no criti-
cism of Poussin's art; merely a statement of the
type of work he did; and of Gericault there is no
criticism whatever. Herein lies another means
by which, through implication, a greater relative
significance is conferred on English art. Gen-
erally British painters — even minor ones — are
criticised favorably, from one standpoint or an-
other; but only now and then is a Frenchman
given specific complimentary criticism. And
often a Frenchman is condemned for the very
quality which is lauded in a British artist.
Of David it is written: "His style is severely
academic, his color lacking in richness and
warmth, his execution hard and uninteresting in
its very perfection," and more in the same dero-
gatory strain. Although this criticism may be
NON-BRITISH PAINTING 107
strictly accurate, the same qualities in certain
English painters of far less importance than
David are made the basis for praise. The se-
verely academic style in the case of Harding, for
instance, becomes an "elegant, highly-trained"
characteristic. And perfection of execution
makes Birket Foster's work "memorable for its
delicacy and minute finish," and becomes, in Paul
Wilson Steer's pictures, "great technical skill."
Ingres, truly one of the giants of his day, is
given little or no criticism and his biography
draws only a little over half the space which is
given to Watts (with his "grave, moral pur-
pose"), and only a trifle more space than is given
Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite who was "devoted to
his family." In Guerin's short biography we
read of his "strained and pompous dignity."
Girodet's biography contains very adverse crit-
icism: his style "harmonized ill" with his sub-
jects, and his work was full of "incongruity" even
to the point sometimes of being "ludicrous."
Gros, exasperated by criticism, "sought refuge in
the grosser pleasures of life." Flandrin also is
tagged with a moral criticism.
Coming down to the more modem painters we
find even less consideration given them by the
Britannica's editors. Delacroix, who ushered in
a new age of painting and brought composition
io8 MISINFORMING A NATION
back to art after a period of stagnation and
quiescence, is nailed to France as follows: "As
a colorist and a romantic painter he now ranks
among the greatest of French artists." Certainly
not among the greatest English painters, for Con-
stable is given more space than Delacroix; and
Turner, the other precursor of the new era, is "like
the British fleet among the navies of the world."
Courbet, the father of modern painting and the
artist who revolutionized aesthetics, is given half
a column, equal space with those contemporaries
of his from across the Channel, Francis Grant,
Thomas Creswick and George Harvey. Perhaps
this neglect of the great Frenchman is explained
by the following early-Victorian complaint:
"Sometimes, it must be owned, his realism is
rather coarse and brutal." And we learn that
"he died of a disease of the liver aggravated by
intemperance." Courbet, unable to benefit by
the pious and elegant esthetiqiie of the Encyclo-
padia Britannica, was never deeply impressed by
the artistic value of "daintiness and pleasantness
of sentiment," and as a result, perhaps, he is not
held in as high esteem as is Birket Foster, who
possessed those delicate and pleasing qualities.
The palpable, insular injustice dealt Courbet
in point of space finds another victim in Daumier
whose biography is almost as brief as that of Cour-
NON-BRITISH PAINTING 109
bet. Most of it, however, is devoted to Dau-
mier's caricature. Although this type of work
was but a phase of his development, the article
says that, despite his caricatures, "he found time
for flight in the higher sphere of painting." Not
only does this create a false impression of Dau-
mier's tremendous importance to modern paint-
ing, but it gives the erroneous idea that his
principal metier was caricature. The entire
criticism of his truly great work is summed up in
the sentence: "As a painter, Daumier, one of the
pioneers of naturalism, was before his time."
Likewise, the half-page biography of Manet is,
from the standpoint of space, inadequate, and
from the critical standpoint, incompetent. To
say that he is "regarded as the most important
master of Impressionism" is a false statement.
Manet, strictly speaking, was not an Impressionist
at all ; and the high place that he holds in modern
art is not even touched upon.
Such biographies as the foregoing are suf-
ficiently inept to disqualify the Encyclopaedia as
a source for accurate aesthetic information; but
when Renoir, who is indeed recognized as the
great master of Impressionism, is dismissed with
one-fifth of a page, the height of injustice has
been reached. Renoir, even in academic circles,
is admittedly one of the great painters of all time.
no MISINFORMING A NATION
Not only did he sum up the Impressionists, close
up an experimental cycle, and introduce com-
positional form into the realistic painting of his
day, but by his colossal vision and technical
mastery he placed himself in the very front rank
of all modern painters, if not of ancient painters
as well. Yet he is accorded just twenty -seven
lines and dismissed with this remark: ''Though
he is perhaps the most unequal of the great Im-
pressionists, his finest works rank among the
masterpieces of the modern French school."
Critical incompetency could scarcely go further.
We can only excuse such inadequacy and ignor-
ance on the ground that the Encyclopaedia's Eng-
lish critic has seen none of Renoir's greatest work;
and color is lent this theory when we note that in
the given list of his paintings no mention is made
of his truly masterful canvases.
Turning to the other lesser moderns in French
painting but those who surpass the contemporan-
eous British painters who are given liberal biog-
raphies, we find them very decidedly neglected
as to both space and comment. Such painters as
Cazin, Harpignies, Ziem, Cormon, Besnard, Cot-
tct and Bonnot are dismissed with brief mention,
whereas sometimes twice and three times the at-
tention is paid to English painters like Alfred
East, Harry Furniss (a caricaturist and illustra-
NON-BRITISH PAINTING in
tor), Francis Lathrop, E. J. Poynter, and W. B.
Richmond. Even Meissonier and Puvis de Cha-
vannes draw only three- fourths of a page.
Pissarro and Monet, surely important painters in
the modern evolution, are given short shrift. A
few brief facts concerning Pissarro extend to
twenty lines; and Monet gets a quarter of a page
without any criticism save that "he became a plein
air painter." Examples of this kind of incompe-
tent and insufficient comment could be multiplied.
The most astonishing omission, however, in the
entire art division of the Encyclopedia Britannica
is that of Cezanne. Here is a painter who,
whether one appreciates his work or not, has ad-
mittedly had more influence than any man of
modern times. Not only in France has his tre-
mendous power been felt, but in practically every
other civilized country. Yet the name of this
great Frenchman is not even given biographical
mention in the great English Encyclopsedia with
its twenty-nine volumes, its 30,000 pages, its
500,000 references, and its 44,000,000 words.
Deliberately to omit Cezanne's biography, in view
of his importance and (in the opinion of many)
his genuine greatness, is an act of almost unbe-
lievable narrow-mindedness. To omit his biog-
raphy unconsciously is an act of almost unbeliev-
able ignorance. Especially is this true when we
112 MISINFORMING A NATION
find biographies of such British contemporaries of
Cezanne as Edward John Gregory, James
Guthrie, Luke Fildes, H. W. B. Davis, John
Buxton Knight, George Reid, and J. W. Water-
house. Nor can the editors offer the excuse that
Cezanne was not known when the Encyclopaedia
was compiled. Not only was he known, but
books and criticisms had appeared on him in more
than one language, and his greatness had been
recognized. True, he had not reached England;
but is it not the duty of the editor of an "inter-
national" encyclopsedia to be aware of what
is going on outside of his own narrow prov-
ince?
Any encyclopaedia, no matter what the na-
tionality, prejudices or tastes of its editors, which
omits Cezanne has forfeited its claim to universal
educational value. But when in addition there
is no biographical mention of such conspicuous
French painters as Maurice Denis, Vollatton, Lu-
cien Simon, Vuillard, Louis Le Grand, Toulouse-
Lautrec, Steinlen, Jean Paul Laurens, Redon,
Rene Menard, Gauguin, and Carriere, although
a score of lesser painters of British birth are in-
cluded, petty national prejudice, whether through
conscious intent or lack of information, has been
carried to an extreme; and the editors of such a
biased work have something to answer for to those
NON-BRITISH PAINTING 113
readers who are not English, and who do not
therefore believe that British middle-class culture
should be exaggerated and glorified at the expense
of the genuine intellectual culture of other
nations.
Modern German painting fares even worse
than French painting in the pages of the Britau'
nica; and while it does not hold the high place
that French painting does, it is certainly deserv-
ing of far more liberal treatment than that which
is accorded it. The comparatively few biog-
raphies of German artists are inadequate; but it
is not in them that we find the greatest neglect of
German achievements in this branch of aesthetics :
it is in the long list of conspicuous painters who
are omitted entirely. The BritanniccC s meagre
information on German art is particularly regret-
table from the standpoint of American readers;
for the subject is little known in this country, and
as a nation we are woefully ignorant of the wealth
of nineteenth-century German painting. The
causes for this ignorance need not be gone into
here. Suffice it to say that the Encyclopedia
Britannica^ far from fulfilling its function as a
truly educational work, is calculated to perpetuate
and cement our lack of knowledge in this field.
It would appear that England also is unac-
quainted with the merits of German graphic ex-
114 MISINFORMING A NATION
pression; for the lapses in the Britannica would
seem even too great to be accounted for on the
grounds of British chauvinism. And they are
too obvious to have been deliberate.
Among the important German painters of
modern times who have failed to be given biog-
raphies are Wilhelm Leibl, the greatest German
painter since Holbein; Charles Schuch, one of
Germany's foremost still-life artists; Triibner,
who ranks directly in line with Leibl ; Karl Spitz-
weg, the forerunner and classic exponent of Ger-
man genre painting as well as the leading artist
in that field ; Heinrich von Ziigel, one of the fore-
most animal painters of modern times; and Lud-
wig Knaus who, though inferior, is a painter of
world-wide fame. Furthermore, there are no
biographies of Franz Kriiger, Miiller, Von
Marees, Habermann, and Louis Corinth. When
we recall the extensive list of inferior British
painters who are not only given biographies but
praised, we wonder on just what grounds the
Britannica was advertised and sold as an "inter-
national dictionary of biography."
It might be well to note here that Van Gogh,
the great Hollander, does not appear once in the
entire Encyclopaedia: there is not so much as a
passing reference to him I Nor has Zorn or Hod-
ler a biography. And Sorolla draws just twenty
NON-BRITISH PAINTING ii^
lines in his biography, and Zuloaga less than half
a column.
Despite, however, the curtailed and inferior
consideration given Continental art, it does not
suffer from prejudicial neglect nearly so much as
does American art. This is not wholly surprising
in view of the contempt in which England holds
the cultural achievements of this country — a con-
tempt which is constantly being encountered in
British critical journals. But in the case of an
encyclopaedia whose stated aim is to review im-
partially the world's activities, this contempt
should be suppressed temporarily at least, espe-
cially as it is from America that the Encyclopedia
Britannica is reaping its monetary harvest.
There is, though, no indication that England's
contemptuous attitude toward our art has even
been diminished. Our artists are either disposed
of with cursory mention or ignored completely;
and whenever it is possible for England to claim
any credit for the accomplishments of our artists,
the opportunity is immediately grasped.
It is true, of course, that the United States does
not rank sesthetically with certain of the older na-
tions of Europe, but, considering America's youth,
she has contributed many important names to the
history of painting, and among her artists there
are many who greatly surpass the inconsequent
ii6 MISINFORMING A NATION
English academicians who are accorded generous
treatment.
The editors of the Encyclopaedia may contend
that the work was compiled for England and that
therefore they were justified in placing emphasis
on a horde of obscure English painters and in neg-
lecting significant French and German artists.
But they can offer no such excuse in regard to
America. The recent Eleventh Edition of the
Encyclop(2dza Britannica was printed with the
very definite purpose of selling in the United
States; and the fact that they have sold many
thousand copies of it here precludes any reason
why American artists should be neglected or dis-
posed of in a brief and perfunctory fashion. An
American desiring adequate information concern-
ing the painters or sculptors of his own country
will seek through the Encyclopczdia Britannica in
vain. If he is entirely ignorant of sesthetic condi-
tions in America and depends on the Encyclo-
paedia for his knowledge, he will be led to inac-
curate conclusions. The ideas of relative values
established in his mind will be the reverse of the
truth, for he cannot fail but be affected by the
meagre and indifferent biographies of his native
painters, as compared with the lengthy and metic-
ulous concern with which British painters are
regarded.
NON-BRITISH PAINTING 117
And yet this is the encyclopsedia which has been
foisted upon the American people by means of a
P. T. Barnum advertising campaign almost un-
precedented in book histor)^ And this also is the
encyclopaedia which, in that campaign, called
itself "a history of all nations, an international
dictionary of biography, an exhaustive gazetteer
of the world, a hand-book to all the arts"; and
which announced that "every artist or sculptor
of note of any period, and of any land is the sub-
ject of an interesting biography." This last
statement is true only in the case of Great Britain.
It is, as we have seen, not true of France or Ger-
many; and especially is it not true of America.
Not only are many American artists and sculptors
of note omitted entirely, but many of those who
have been awarded mention are the victims of
English insular prejudice.
Looking up Benjamin West, who, by historians
and critics has always been regarded as an Amer-
ican artist, we find him designated as an "Eng-
lish" painter. The designation is indeed aston-
ishing, since not only does the world know him
as an American, but West himself thought that
he was an American. Perhaps the Encyclopedia
Britannica, by some obscure process of logic, con-
siders nationality from the standpoint of one's
sentimental adoption. This being the case.
ii8 MISINFORMING A NATION
Richard Le Gallienne would be an "American"
poet. But when we turn to Le Gallienne's biog-
raphy we discover that, after all, he is "English."
Apparently the rule does not work with English-
men. It is true that West went to London and
lived there; but he was born in the United States,
gained a reputation for painting here, and did not
go to England until he was twenty-five. It is
noteworthy that West, the "English" painter, is
accorded considerable space.
Whistler, who also chose England in preference
to America, is given nearly a page and a half with
not unfavorable criticism. We cannot refrain
from wondering what would have been Whistler's
fate at the hands of the Encyclopsedia's editors
had he remained in his native country. Sargent,
surely a painter of considerable importance and
one who is regarded in many enlightened quarters
as a great artist, is dismissed with less than half a
column! Even this comparatively long biogra-
phy for an American painter may be accounted
for by the following comment: "Though of the
French school, and American by birth, it is as a
British artist that he won fame." Again, Abbey
receives high praise and quite a long biography,
comparatively speaking. Once more we wonder
if this painter's adoption of England as his home
does not account for his liberal treatment.
NON-BRITISH PAINTING 119
Albert F. Bellows, too, gets fourteen lines, in
which it is noted that "he painted much in Eng-
land."
Compare the following record with the amounts
of space accorded British second-rate painters:
William Chase, sixteen lines; Vedder, a third of
a column; de Forest Brush, fifteen lines; T. W.
Dewing, twelve lines; A. H. Wyant, ten lines;
A. P. Ryder, eight lines; Tryon, fifteen lines;
John W. Alexander, sixteen lines; Gari Melchers,
eighteen lines; Childe Hassam, fifteen lines;
Blashiield, ten lines; J. Francis Murphy, fifteen
lines ; Blakelock, eight lines. Among these names
are painters of a high and important order —
painters who stand in the foremost rank of Amer-
ican art, and who unquestionably are greater than
a score of English painters who receive very
special critical biographies, some of which extend
over columns. And yet — apparently for no other
discernible reason than that they are Americans —
they are given the briefest mention with no spe-
cific criticism. Only the barest biographical de-
tails are set down.
But if many of the American painters who have
made our art history are dismissed peremptorily
in biographies which, I assure you, are not "in-
teresting," and which obviously are far from ade-
quate or even fair when compared with the con-
120 MISINFORMING A NATION
sideration given lesser English painters, what
answer have the editors of the Britannica to offer
their American customers when many of our note-
worthy and important artists are omitted alto-
gether? On what grounds is a biography of J.
Alden Weir omitted entirely? For what reason
does the name of Robert Henri not appear?
Henri is one of the very important figures in
modern American painting.
Furthermore, inspection reveals the fact that
among those American "painters of note" who, so
far as biographical mention in the Encyclopedia
Britannica is concerned, do not exist, are Mary
Cassatt, George Bellows, Twachtman, C. W.
Hawthorne, Glackens, Jerome Meyers, George
Luks, Sergeant Kendall, Paul Dougherty, Allen
Talcott, Thomas Doughty, Richard Miller and
Charles L. Elliott.
I could add more American painters to the
list of those who are omitted and who are of equal
importance with certain British painters who are
included; but enough have been mentioned to
prove the gross inadequacy of the Encyclop^zdia
Britannica as an educational record of American
art.
Outside of certain glaring omissions, what we
read in the Encyclopaedia concerning the painters
of France and Germany may be fair, from a
NON-BRITISH PAINTING 121
purely impartial standard, if taken alone : in some
instances, I believe, judicial critics of these other
nations have performed the service. But when
these unprejudiced accounts are interspersed with
the patriotic and enthusiastic glorifications of
British art, the only conclusion which the unin-
formed man can draw from the combination is
that the chief beauties of modern painting have
sprung from England — a conclusion which illy
accords both with the facts and with the judg-
ment of the world's impartial critics. But in the
case of American art, not even the strictly impar-
tial treatment occasionally accorded French and
German painters is to be found, with the result
that, for the most part, our art suffers more than
that of any other nation when compared, in the
pages of the Britannica^ with British art.
VII
MUSIC
There is one field of culture — namely, music —
in which Great Britain has played so small and
negligible a part that it would seem impossible,
even for the passionately patriotic editors of the
Encyclopedia Britannica^ to find any basis on
which an impressive monument to England could
be erected. Great Britain, admittedly, possesses
but slight musical significance when compared
with other nations. The organisms of her en-
vironment, the temper of her intellect, her very
intellectual fibre, are opposed to the creation of
musical composition.
This art in England, save during the Eliz-
abethan era, has been largely a by-product. No
great musical genius has come out of Great Brit-
ain; and in modem times she has not produced
even a great second-rate composer. So evident is
England's deficiency in this field, that any one
insisting upon it runs the risk of being set down a
platitudinarian. Even British critics of the bet-
ter class have not been backward in admitting the
122
MUSIC 123
musical poverty of their nation; and many good
histories of music have come out of England:
indeed, one of the very best encyclopsedias on this
subject was written by Sir George Grove.
To attempt to place England on an equal foot-
ing with other nations in the realm of music is to
alter obvious facts. Name all the truly great
composers since 1700, and not one of them will
be an Englishman. In fact, it is possible to write
an extensive history of music from that date to
the present time without once referring to Great
Britain. England, as the world knows, is not a
musical nation. Her temperament is not suited
to subtle complexities of plastic harmonic expres-
sion. Her modern composers are without im-
portance; and for every one of her foremost
musical creators there can be named a dozen from
other nations who are equally inspired, and yet
who hold no place in the world's musical evolu-
tion because of contemporary fellow-countrymen
who overshadow them.
As I have said, it would seem impossible, even
for so narrowly provincial and chauvinistic a
work as the Encyclopedia Britannica, to find any
plausible basis for the glorification of English
musical genius. But where others fail to achieve
the impossible, the Britannica succeeds. In the
present instance, however, the task has been dif-
124 MISINFORMING A NATION
ficult, for there is a certain limit to the undeserved
praise which even a blatant partisan can confer
on English composers; and there is such a paucity
of conspicuous names in the British musical field
that an encyclopaedia editor finds it difficult to
gather enough of them together to make an ex-
tensive patriotic showing. He can, however,
omit or neglect truly significant names of other
nations while giving undue prominence to second-
and third-rate English composers.
And this is exactly the method followed by the
editors of the Britannica. But the disproportion-
ments are so obvious, the omissions so glaring, and
the biographies and articles so distorted, both as
to space and comment, that almost any one with
a knowledge of music will be immediately struck
by their absurdity and injustice. Modern mu-
sical culture, as set forth in this encyclopaedia, is
more biased than any other branch of culture. In
this field the limits of the Britannica^s insularity
would seem to have been reached.
I have yet to see even a short history of modern
music which is not more informative and com-
plete, and from which a far better idea of musical
evolution could not be gained. And I know of
no recent book of composers, no matter how brief,
which does not give more comprehensive informa-
tion concerning musical writers than does that
MUSIC 125
"supreme book of knowledge," the Encyclopedia
Britannica. So deficient is it in its data, and so
many great and significant modern composers are
denied biographical mention in it, that one is led
to the conclusion that little or no effort was made
to bring it up-to-date.
It would be impossible in this short chapter to
set down anywhere near all the inadequacies,
omissions and disproportions which inform the
Britannica's treatment of music. Therefore I
shall confine myself largely to modern music,
since this subject is of foremost, vital concern at
present ; and I shall merely indicate the more glar-
ing instances of incompleteness and neglect.
Furthermore, I shall make only enough com-
parisons between the way in which British music
is treated and the way in which the music of other
nations is treated, to indicate the partisanship
which underlies the outlook of this self-styled "in-
ternational" and "universal" reference work.
Let us first regard the general article Music.
In that division of the article entitled, Recent
Music — that is, music during the last sixty or
seventy-five years — we find the following aston-
ishing division of space : recent German music re-
ceives just eleven lines; recent French music,
thirty-eight lines, or less than half a column; re-
cent Italian music, nineteen lines; recent Russian
126 MISINFORMING A NATION
music, thirteen lines; and recent British music,
nearly four columns^ or two full pages I
Regard these figures a moment. That period
of German musical composition which embraced
such men as Humperdinck, Richard Strauss,
Karl Goldmark, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler,
Bruch, Reinecke, and von Biilow, is allotted only
eleven lines, and only two of the above names are
even mentioned I And yet modern British music,
which is of vastly lesser importance, is given
thirty-five times as much space as modem German
music, and ten times as much space as modem
French music I In these figures we have an ex-
ample of prejudice and discrimination which it
would be hard to match in any other book or
music in existence. It is unnecessary to criticise
such bias: the figures themselves are more elo-
quently condemning than any comment could
possibly be. And it is to this article on recent
music, with its almost unbelievable distortions of
relative importance, that thousands of Americans
will apply for information. Furthermore, in the
article Opera there is no discussion of modern
realistic developments, and the names of Puccini
and Charpentier are not even included !
In the biographies of English composers is to be
encountered the same sort of prejudice and exag-
geration. Stemdale Bennett, the inferior British
MUSIC 127
Mendelssohn, is given nearly a column, and in the
criticism of him we read: "The principal charm
of Bennett's compositions (not to mention his ab-
solute mastery of the musical form) consists in
the tenderness of their conception, rising oc-
casionally to sweetest musical intensity." Turn-
ing from Bennett, the absolute master of form, to
William Thomas Best, the English organist, we
find nearly a half-column biography of fulsome
praise, in which Best is written down as an "all-
round musician." Henry Bishop receives two-
thirds of a column. "His melodies are clear,
flowing, appropriate and often charming; and his
harmony is always pure, simple and sweet."
Alfred Cellier is accorded nearly half a column,
in which we are told that his music was "invar-
iably distinguished by elegance and refinement."
Frederick Cowen also wrote music which was "re-
fined"; and in his three-fourths-of-a-column
biography it is stated that "he succeeds wonder-
fully in finding graceful expression for the poet-
ical idea." John Field infused "elegance" into
his music. His biography is over half a column
in length, and we learn that his nocturnes "remain
all but unrivaled for their tenderness and dream-
iness of conception, combined with a continuous
flow of beautiful melody."
Edward Elgar receives no less than two-thirds
128 MISINFORMING A NATION
of a column, in which are such phrases as "fine
work," "important compositions," and "stirring
melody." Furthermore, his first orchestral sym-
phony was "a work of marked power and beauty,
developing the symphonic form with the original-
ity of a real master of his art." The world out-
side of England will be somewhat astonished to
know that Elgar took part in the development of
the symphonic form and that he was a real master
of music. John Hatton, in a two-thirds-of-a-
column biography, is praised, but not without
reservation. He might, says the article, have
gained a place of higher distinction among Eng-
lish composers "had it not been for his irresistible
animal spirits and a want of artistic reverence."
He was, no doubt, without the "elegance" and
"refinement" which seem to characterize so many
English composers.
But Charles Parry evidently had no shortcom-
ings to detract from his colossal and heaven-
kissing genius. He is given a biography of
nearly a column, and it is packed with praise. In
some of his compositions to sacred words "are
revealed the highest qualities of music." He has
"skill in piling up climax after climax, and com-
mand of every choral resource." But this is not
all. In some of his works "he shows himself
master of the orchestra"; and his "exquisite"
MUSIC 129
chamber music and part-songs "maintain the high
standard of his greater works." Not even here
does his genius expire. Agamemnon "is among
the most impressive compositions of the kind."
Furthermore, The Frogs is a "striking example of
humor in music." All this would seem to be
enough glory for any man, but Parry has not only
piled Pelion on Ossa but has scaled Olympus.
Outside his creative music, "his work for music
was of the greatest importance" ; his Arl of Music
is a "splendid monument of musical literature."
. . . There is even more of this kind of eulogy
— too much of it to quote here ; but, once you read
it, you cannot help feeling that the famous tri-
umvirate, Brahms, Bach and Beethoven, has now
become the quartet, Brahms, Bach, Beethoven,
and Parry.
The vein of William Shield's melody "was
conceived in the purest and most delicate taste" ;
and his biography is half a column in length.
Groring Thomas is accorded two-thirds of a
column; and it is stated that not only does his
music reveal "a great talent for dramatic com-
position and a real gift of refined and beautiful
melody," but that he was "personally the most
admirable of men." Michael Costa, on the other
hand, was evidently not personally admirable,
for in his half-column biography we read: "He
130 MISINFORMING A NATION
was the great conductor of his day, but both his
musical and his human sympathies were some-
what limited." (Costa was a Spaniard by birth.)
Samuel Wesley, Jr.'s, anthems are "masterly in
design, fine in inspiration and expression, and
noble in character." His biography runs to half
a column. Even Wesley, Sr., has a third of a
column biography.
The most amazing biography from the stand-
point of length, however, is that of Sir Arthur
Sullivan. It runs to three and a third columns
(being much longer than Haydn's!) and is full
of high praise of a narrowly provincial character.
Thomas Attwood receives a half-column biog-
raphy; Balfe, the composer of The Bohemian
Girl^ receives nearly a column; Julius Benedict,
two-thirds of a column; William Jackson, nearly
two-thirds of a column; Mackenzie, over three-
fourths of a column; John Stainer, two-thirds of
a column; Charles Stanford, nearly a column;
Macfarren, over half a column; Henry Hugo
Pierson, half a column; John Hullah, consider-
ably over half a column; William Crotch, over
half a column; Joseph Barnby, nearly half a
column; John Braham, two-thirds of a column.
And many others of no greater importance receive
liberal biographies — for instance, Frederic Clay,
John Barnett, George Elvey, John Goss, Mac-
MUSIC ;i3i
Cunn, James Turle, and William Vincent Wal-
lace.
Bearing all this in mind, we will now glance at
the biographies of modern German composers in
the 'Encyclopczdia Britannic a. Johann Strauss,
perhaps the greatest of all waltz writers, is given
only half a column, less space than that given to
John Field or William Crotch ; and the only crit-
icism of his music is contained in the sentence:
*'In Paris he associated himself with Musard,
whose quadrilles became not much less popular
than his own waltzes; but his greatest successes
were achieved in London." Hummel, the most
brilliant virtuoso of his day, whose concertos and
masses are still popular, receives less space than
John Hatton.
But what of Brahms, one of the three great
composers of the world? Incredible as it may
seem, he is given a biography even shorter than
that of Sir Arthur Sullivan I And Robert Franz,
perhaps the greatest lyrical writer since Schubert,
receives considerably less space than William
Jackson. Richard Strauss is allotted only a
column and two-thirds, about equal space with
Charles Burney, the musical historian, and Wil-
liam Byrd; and in it we are given little idea of his
greatness. In fact, the critic definitely says that
it remains to be seen for what Strauss's name will
132 MISINFORMING A NATION
live I When one thinks of the tremendous in-
fluence which Strauss has had, and of the way in
which he has altered the musical conceptions of
the world, one can only wonder, astounded, why,
in an encyclopaedia as lengthy as the Britannka^
he should be dismissed with so inadequate and
inept a biography.
After such injustice in the case of Strauss, it
does not astonish one to find that Max Bruch, one
of the most noteworthy figures in modern German
music, and Reinecke, an important composer and
long a professor at the Leipsic Conservatory,
should receive only thirty lines each. But the
neglect of Strauss hardly prepared us for the brief
and incomplete record which passes for Humper-
dinck's biography — a biography shorter than that
of Cramer, William Hawes, Henry Lazarus, the
English clarinettist, and Henry Smart!
Mendelssohn, the great English idol, receives a
biography out of all proportion to his importance
— a biography twice as long as that of Brahms,
and considerably longer than either Schumann's
or Schubert's ! And it is full of effulgent praise
and more than intimates that Mendelssohn's
counterpoint was like Bach's, that his sonata-form
resembled Beethoven's, and that he invented a
new style no less original than Schubert's! Re-
membering the parochial criterion by which the
MUSIC 133
Encyclopsedia's editors judge art, we may per-
haps account for this amazing partiality to Men-
delssohn by the following ludicrous quotation
from his biography : "His earnestness as a Chris-
tian needs no stronger testimony than that af-
forded by his own delineation of the character of
St. Paul; but it is not too much to say that his
heart and life were pure as those of a little child."
Although Hugo Wolf's biography is a column
and a half in length, Konradin Kreutzer gets only
eighteen lines; Nicolai, who wrote The Merry
Wives of Windsor, only ten lines; Suppe, only
fifteen; Nessler, only twelve; Franz Abt, only
ten; Henselt, only twenty-six; Heller, only
twenty-two; Lortzing, only twenty; and Thal-
berg, only twenty-eight. In order to realize how
much prejudice, either conscious or unconscious,
entered into these biographies, compare the
amounts of space with those given to the English
composers above mentioned. Even Raff receives
a shorter biography than Mackenzie; and von
Billow's and Goldmark's biographies are briefer
than Cowen's.
But where the Encyclop<2dia Britannica shows
its utter inadequacy as a guide to modern music is
in the long list of omission. For instance, there
is no biography of Marschner, whose Hans Heil-
ing still survives in Germany; of Friedrich Sil-
134 MISINFORMING A NATION
cher, who wrote most of the famous German
"folk-songs"; of Gustav Mahler, one of the truly-
important symphonists of modern tim.es; of the
Scharwenka brothers; or of Georg Alfred Schu-
mann — all sufficiently important to have a place
in an encyclopaedia like the Britannica.
But — what is even more inexcusable — Max
Reger, one of the most famous German composers
of the day, has no biography. Nor has Eugen
d' Albert, renowned for both his chamber music
and operas. (D' Albert repudiated his English
antecedents and settled in Germany.) Kreisler
also is omitted, although Kubelik, five years
Kreisler's junior, draws a biography. In view
of the obvious contempt which the Encyclopaedia
Britannica has for America, it may be noted in
this connection that Kreisler's first great success
was achieved in America, whereas Kubelik made
his success in London before coming to this coun-
try.
Among the German and Austrian composers
who are without biographical mention in the
Britannica, are several of the most significant
musical creators of modem times — men who are
world figures and whose music is known on every
concert stage in the civilized world. On what
possible grounds are Mahler, Reger and Eugen
d' Albert denied biographies in an encyclopsedia
MUSIC 135
which dares advertise itself as a "complete
library of knowledge" and as an "international
dictionary of biography'"? And how is it pos-
sible for one to get any adequate idea of the
wealth or importance of modern German music
from so biased and incomplete a source*? Would
the Encyclopsedia's editors dare state that such a
subject would not appeal to "intelligent" per-
sons'? And how will the Encyclopedia's editors
explain away the omission of Hanslick, the most
influential musical critic that ever lived, when
liberal biographies are given to several English
critics?
Despite the incomplete and unjust treatment
accorded German and Austrian music in the
Encyclopedia Britannica^ modern French music
receives scarcely better consideration. Chopin is
given space only equal to that of Purcell. Ber-
lioz and Gounod, who are allotted longer biog-
raphies than any other modern French com-
posers, receive, nevertheless, considerably less
space than Sir Arthur Sullivan. Saint-Saens and
Debussy receive less than half the space given to
Sullivan, while Auber and Cesar Franck are given
only about equal space with Samuel Arnold,
Balfe, Sterndale Bennett, and Charles Stanford!
Massenet has less space than William Thomas
Best or Joseph Bamby, and three-fourths of it is
136 MISINFORMING A NATION
taken up with a list of his works. The remainder
of the biographies are proportionately brief.
There is not one of them of such length that you
cannot find several longer biographies of much
less important English composers.
Furthermore, one finds unexplainable errors
and omissions in them. For instance, although
Ernest Reyer died January 15, 1909, there is no
mention of it in his biography; but there is, how-
ever, the statement that his Quarante Ans de
Musique "was published in 1909." This care-
less oversight in not noting Reyer's death while
at the same time recording a still later biographi-
cal fact is without any excuse, especially as the
death of Dudley Buck, who died much later than
Reyer, is included. Furthermore, the biography
omits stating that Reyer became Inspector Gen-
eral of the Paris Conservatoire in 1908. Nor is
his full name given, nor the fact recorded that
his correct name was Rey.
Again, although Theodore Dubois relinquished
his Directorship of the Conservatory in 1905, his
biography in the Britannica merely mentions that
he began his Directorship in 1896, showing that
apparently no effort was made to complete the
material. Still again, although Faure was made
Director of the Conservatory in 1905, the fact is
not set down in his biography. And once more,
MUSIC 137
although d'Indy visited America in 1905 and
conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the
fact is omitted from his biography. . . . These
are only a few of the many indications to be found
throughout the Britannzca that this encyclopaedia
is untrustworthy and that its editors have not, as
they claim, taken pains to bring it up to date.
Among the important French composers who
should have biographies, but who are omitted
from the 'Encyclopedia Britannica^ are Guilmant,
perhaps the greatest modem organist and an im-
portant classico-modern composer; Charpentier,
who with Puccini, stands at the head of the mod-
em realistic opera, and whose Louise is to-day in
every standard operatic repertoire ; and Ravel, the
elaborate harmonist of the moderns.
Even greater inadequacy — an inadequacy
which could not be reconciled with an encyclo-
paedia one-fourth the size of the Britannica —
exists in the treatment of modern Russian music.
So brief, so inept, so negligent is the material on
this subject that, as a reference book, the Britari'
nica is practically worthless. The most char-
itable way of explaining this woeful deficiency is
to attribute it to wanton carelessness. Anton
Rubinstein, for instance, is given a biography
about equal with Balfe and Charles Stanford;
while his brother Nikolaus, one of the greatest
138 MISINFORMING A NATION
pianists and music teachers of his day, and the
founder of the Conservatorium of Music at Mos-
cow, has no biography whatever! Glinka, one
of the greatest of Russian composers and the
founder of a new school of music, is dismissed
with a biography no longer than those of John
Braham, the English singer, John Hatton, the
Liverpool genius with the "irresistible animal
spirits," and William Jackson; and shorter than
that of Charles Dibdin, the British song-writer I
Tschaikowsky receives less than two columns,
a little over half the space given to Sullivan.
The criticism of his work is brief and inadequate,
and in it there is no mention of his liberal use of
folk-songs which form the basis of so many of
his important compositions, such as the second
movement of his Fourth and the first movement
of his First Symphonies. Borodin, another of
the important musical leaders of modern Russia,
has a biography which is no longer than that of
Frederic Clay, the English light-opera writer
and whist expert; and which is considerably
shorter than the biography of Alfred Cellier.
Balakirev, the leader of the "New Russian"
school, has even a shorter biography, shorter in
fact than the biography of Henry Hugo Pierson,
the weak English oratorio writer.
The biography of Moussorgsky — a composer
MUSIC 139
whose importance needs no indication here — is
only fifteen lines in length, shorter even than Wil-
liam Hawes's, Henry Lazarus's, George Elvey's,
or Henry Smart's! And yet Moussorgsky was
"one of the finest creative composers in the ranks
of the modem Russian school." Rimsky-Korsa-
kov, another of the famous modern Russians,
whose work has long been familiar both in Eng-
land and America, draws less space than Michael
Costa, the English conductor of Spanish origin,
or than Joseph Barnby, the English composer-
conductor of Sweet and Low fame.
Glazunov is given a biography only equal in
length to that of John Goss, the unimportant
English writer of church music. And although
the biography tells us that he became Professor of
the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1900, it fails
to mention that he was made Director in 1908 —
a bit of inexcusable carelessness which, though
of no great importance, reveals the slip-shod in-
completeness of the Britannica's Eleventh Edi-
tion. Furthermore, many important works of
Glazunov are not noted at all.
Here ends the Encyclopedia's record of modern
Russian composers! Cesar Cui, one of the very
important modem Russians, has no biography
whatever in this great English cultural work, al-
though we find liberal accounts of such British
140 MISINFORMING A NATION
composers as Turle, Walmisley, Potter, Richards
(whose one bid to fame is having written God
Bless the Prince of Wales) and George Alexander
Lee, the song-writer whose great popular success
was Come Where the Aspens Quiver. Nor will
you find any biographical information of Arensky,
another of the leading Russian composers of the
new school ; nor of Taneiev or Grechaninov — ^both
of whom have acquired national and international
fame. Even Scriabine, a significant Russian com-
poser who has exploited new theories of scales
and harmonies of far-reaching influence, is not con-
sidered of sufficient importance to be given a place
(along with insignificant Englishmen like Lacy
and Smart) in the Encyclopczdia Britannica,
The most astonishing omission, however, is that
of Rachmaninov. Next to omitting Cesar Cui,
the complete ignoring of so important and uni-
versally accepted a composer as Rachmaninov,
whose symphonic poem. The Island of the Dead^
is one of the greatest Russian works since Tschai-
kowsky, is the most indefensible of all. On what
possible grounds can the Encyclopaedia Britannica
defend its extravagant claims to completeness
when the name of so significant and well-known
a composer as Rachmaninov does not appear in
the entire twenty-nine volumes'?
In the list of the important modern Italian
MUSIC .141
musicians included in the Britannka one will seek
in vain for information of Busoni, who has not
only written much fine instrumental music, but
who is held by many to be the greatest living vir-
tuoso of the piano; or of Wolf- Ferrari, one of the
important leaders of the new Italian school. And
though Tosti, whose name is also omitted, is of
slight significance, he is of far greater popular
importance than several English song-writers who
are accorded biographies.
Even Puccini, who has revolutionized the mod-
em opera and who stands at the head of living
operatic composers, is given only eleven lines of
biography, less space than is given to George Alex-
ander Lee or John Barnett, and only equal space
with Lacy, the Irish actor with musical inclina-
tions, and Walmisley, the anthem writer and
organist at Trinity College. It is needless to say
that no biography of eleven lines, even if written
in shorthand, would be adequate as a source of in-
formation for such a composer as Puccini. The
fact that he visited America in 1907 is not even
mentioned, and although at that time he selected
his theme for The Girl of the Golden West and
began work on it in 1908, you will have to go to
some other work more "supreme" than the En-
cyclopczdia Britannica for this knowledge.
Leoncavallo's biography is of the same brevity
142 MISINFORMING A NATION
as Puccini's; and the last work of his that is men-
tioned is dated 1904. His opera, Songe d'Une
Nu^t d'Etc, his symphonic poem, Serafihi, and his
ballet, La Vita d'Una Marionetta — though all
completed before 1908 — are not recorded in this
revised and up-to-date libran,- of culture. Mas-
cagni, apparently, is something of a favorite with
the editors of the Britannica^ for his biography
runs to twenty-three lines, nearly as long as that
of the English operatic composer, William \'in-
cent Wallace, and of Alfred Cellier, the infra-
Stillivan. But even with this great partiality
shown him there is no record of his return from
America to Italy in 1903 or of the honor of Com-
mander of the Crown of Italy which was con-
ferred upon him.
Of important Northern composers there are not
many, but the Britannica has succeeded in mini-
mizing even their small importance. Gade has
a biography only as long as Pierson's; and
Kjerulf, who did so much for Norwegian music, is
given less space than William Hawes, with no
critical indication of his importance. Even Grieg
receives but a little more space than Charles Stan-
ford or Stemdale Bennett! Nordraak, who was
Grieg's chief co-worker in the development of a
national school of music, has no biography what-
ever. Nor has Sinding, whose fine orchestral and
MUSIC 143
chamber music is heard everywhere. Not even
Sibelius, whose very notable compositions brought
Finland into musical prominence, is considered
worthy of biographical mention.
But the most astonishing omission is that of
Buxtehude, one of the great and important figures
in the early development of music. Not only was
he the greatest organist of his age, but he was a
great teacher as well. He made Liibeck famous
for its music, and established the "Abendmusiken"
which Bach walked fifty miles to hear. To the
Britannicd's editor, however, he is of less im-
portance than Henry Smart, the English or-
ganist I
In Dvorak's biography we learn that English
sympathy was entirely won by the Stabat Mater;
but no special mention is made of his famous
E-minor (American) Symphony. Smetana, the
first great Bohemian musician, receives less space
than Henry Bishop, who is remembered princi-
pally as the composer of Home, Szveet Home.
But when we pass over into Poland we find in-
adequacy and omissions of even graver character.
Moszkowski receives just eight lines of biography,
the same amount that is given to God-Bless-ike'
Prince-of -Wales Richards. Paderewski is ac-
corded equal space with the English pianist, Cipri-
ani Potter; and no mention is made of his famous
144 MISINFORMING A NATION
$10,000 fund for the best American compositions.
This is a characteristic omission, however, for, as
I have pointed out before, a composer's activities
in America are apparently considered too trivial to
mention, whereas, if it is at all possible to connect
England, even in a remote and far-fetched way,
with the genius of the world, it is done. Josef
Hofmann, the other noted Polish pianist, is too
insignificant to be given even passing mention in
the Britannica. But such an inclusion could
hardly be expected of a reference work which
contains no biography of Leschetizky, the greatest
and most famous piano teacher the world has ever
known.
We come now to the most prejudiced and in-
excusably inadequate musical section in the whole
Britannica — namely, to American composers.
Again we find that narrow patronage, that provin-
cial condescension and that contemptuous neglect
which so conspicuously characterize the Encyclo-
paedia Britannica's treatment of all American in-
stitutions and culture. We have already beheld
how this neglect and contempt have worked
against our painters, our novelists, our poets and
our dramatists; we have seen what rank injustice
has been dealt our artists and writers; we have
reviewed the record of omissions contained in
this Encyclopaedia's account of our intellectual
MUSIC 14?
activities. But in no other instance has British
scorn allowed itself so extreme and indefensible
an expression as in the peremptory manner in
which our musical composers are dismissed. The
negligence with which American musical com-
positions and composers are reviewed is greater
than in the case of any other nation.
As I have said before, if the Encyclopedia
Britannica had been compiled to sell only in
suburban England, we would have no complaint
against the petty contempt shown our artists ; but
when an encyclopaedia is put together largely for
the purpose of American distribution, the sweep-
ing neglect of our native creative effort resolves
itself into an insult which every American should
hotly resent. And especially should such neglect
be resented when the advertising campaign with
which the Britannica was foisted upon the public
claimed for that work an exalted supremacy as a
library of international education, and definitely
stated that it contained an adequate discussion of
every subject which would appeal to intelligent
persons. As I write this the Britannica adver-
tises itself as containing "an exhaustive account
of all human achievement." But I think I have
shown with pretty fair conclusiveness that it does
not contain anywhere near an exhaustive account
of American achievement ; and yet I doubt if even
146 MISINFORMING A NATION
an Englishman would deny that we were "hu-
man."
Let us see how "exhaustive" the Britannica is
in its record of American musical achievement.
To begin with, there are just thirty-seven lines in
the article on American composers; and for our
other information we must depend on the bio-
graphies. But what do we find? Dudley Buck
is given an incomplete biography of fourteen lines;
and MacDowell draws thirty lines of inadequate
data. Gottschalk, the most celebrated of Ameri-
can piano virtuosi, who toured Europe with great
success and wrote much music which survives even
to-day, is surely of enough historical importance
to be given a biography; but his name does not so
much as appear in the Britani2ica. John Knowles
Paine has no biography; nor has William Mason;
nor Arthur Foote; nor Chadwick; nor Edgar Still-
man Kelly; nor Ethelbert Nevin; nor Charles
Loeffler; nor Mrs. Beach; nor Henry K. Hadley;
nor Cadman; nor Horatio Parker; nor Frederick
Converse.
To be sure, these composers do not rank among
the great world figures; but they do stand for the
highest achievement in American music, and it is
quite probable that many "intelligent" Americans
would be interested in knowing about them. In
fact, from the standpoint of intelligent interest.
MUSIC 147
they are of far more importance than many lesser
English composers who are given biographies.
And although Sousa has had the greatest popular
success of any composer since Johann Strauss, you
will hunt the Britannica through in vain for even
so much as a mention of him. And while I do not
demand the inclusion of Victor Herbert, never-
theless if Alfred Cellier is given a place, Herbert,
who is Cellier's superior in the same field, should
not be discriminated against simply because he is
not an Englishman.
It will be seen that there is practically no record
whatever of the makers of American music; and
while, to the world at large, our musical accom-
plishments may not be of vital importance, yet to
Americans themselves — even "intelligent" Amer-
icans (if the English will admit that such an
adjective may occasionally be applied to us) —
they are not only of importance but of signifi-
cance. It is not as if second-rate and greatly in-
ferior composers of Great Britain were omitted
also; but when Ethelbert Nevin is given no bio-
graphy while many lesser British composers are not
only given biographies but praised as well, Amer-
icans have a complaint which the Britannica^ s ex-
ploiters (who chummily advertise themselves as
"we Americans") will find it difficult to meet.
VIII
SCIENCE
In the field of medicine and biology the Encyclo'
padia Britannica reveals so narrow and obvious
a partisanship that there has already been no lit-
tle resentment on the part of American scientists.
This country is surpassed by none in biological
chemistry; and our fame in surgery and medical
experimentation is world-wide. Among the
ranks of our scientists stand men of such great
importance and high achievement that no ad-
equate history of biology or medicine could be
written without giving vital consideration to
them. Yet the Britannica fails almost com-
pletely in revealing their significance. Many of
our great experimenters — men who have made
important original contributions to science and
who have pushed forward the boundaries of hu-
man knowledge — receive no mention whatever;
and many of our surgeons and physicians whose
researches have marked epochs in the history of
medicine meet with a similar fate. On the other
hand you will find scores of biographies of com-
148
SCIENCE 149
paratively little known and unimportant English
scientists, some of whom have contributed noth-
ing to medical and biological advancement.
It is not my intention to go into any great de-
tail in this matter. I shall not attempt to make
a complete list of the glaring omissions of our
scientists or to set down anywhere near all of the
lesser British scientists who are discussed liberally
and con amore in the Britannica. Such a record
were unnecessary. But I shall indicate a suffi-
cient number of discrepancies between the treat-
ment of American scientists and the treatment of
English scientists, to reveal the utter inadequacy
of the Britannica as a guide to the history and
development of our science. If America did not
stand so high in this field the Encyclopedia's edi-
tors would have some basis on which to explain
away their wanton discrimination against our
scientific activities. But when, as I say, America
stands foremost among the nations of the world
in biological chemistry and also holds high rank
in surgery and medicine, there can be no excuse
for such wilful neglect, especially as minor British
scientists are accorded liberal space and generous
consideration.
First we shall set down those three earlier path-
finders in American medicine whose names do not
so much as appear in the Britannica^ s Index: —
150 MISINFORMING A NATION
John Morgan, who in 1765, published his Dis-
course Upon the Institution of Medical Schools
in America, thus becoming the father of medical
education in the United States; William Shippen,
Jr., who aided John Morgan in founding our first
medical school, the medical department of the
University of Pennsylvania, and gave the first
public lectures in obstetrics in this country, and
who may be regarded as the father of American
obstetrics; and Thomas Cadwalader, the first
Philadelphian (at this time Philadelphia was the
medical center of America) to teach anatomy by
dissections, and the author of one of the best
pamphlets on lead poisoning.
Among the somewhat later important American
medical scientists who are denied any mention in
the Britannica are: John Conrad Otto, the first
who described hemophilia (an abnormal tendency
to bleeding) ; James Jackson, author of one of
the first accounts of alcoholic neuritis ; James Jack-
son, Jr., who left his mark in physical diagnosis;
Elisha North, who as early as 1811 advocated
the use of the clinical thermometer in his original
description of cerebrospinal meningitis (the first
book on the subject) ; John Ware, who wrote one
of the chief accounts of delirium tremens; Jacob
Bigelow, one of the very great names in American
medicine, whose essay. On Self-Limited Diseases,
SCIENCE 151
according to Holmes, "did more than any other
work or essay in our language to rescue the prac-
tice of medicine from the slavery to the drugging
system which was a part of the inheritance of the
profession"; W. W. Gerhard, who distinguished
between typhoid and typhus; Daniel Drake,
known as the greatest physician of the West, who
as the result of thirty years of labor wrote the
masterpiece. Diseases of the Interior Valley of
North America; Caspar Wistar, who wrote the
first American treatise on anatomy; and William
Edmonds Horner, who discovered the tensor tarsi
muscle, known as Horner's muscle. . . . Not
only are these men not accorded biographies in
the "universal" and "complete" Encyclopcsdia
Britannica, but their names do not appear I
The father of American surgery was Philip
Syng Physick, who invented the tonsillotome and
introduced various surgical operations; but you
must look elsewhere than in the Britannica for so
much as a mention of him. And although the his-
tory of American surgery is especially glorious
and includes such great names as: the Warrens;
Wright Post; J. C. Nott, who excised the coccyx
and was the first who suggested the mosquito
theory of yellow fever; Henry J. Bigelow, the
first to describe the Y-ligament; Samuel David
Gross, one of the chief surgeons of the nineteenth
ii:2 MISINFORiMING A NATION
century; Nicholas Senn, one of the masters of
modern surgery; Harvey Gushing, perhaps the
greatest brain surgeon in the world to-day;
George Crile, whose revolutionary work in surgi-
cal shock was made long before the Britannka
went to press; and William S. Halsted, among the
greatest surgeons of the world, — as I have said, al-
though America has produced these important
men, the Encyclopdsdia Britannica ignores the fact
entirely, and does not so much as record one of
their names !
Were all the rest of American medical scientists
given liberal consideration in the Britannica, it
would not compensate for the above omissions.
But these omissions are by no means all : they are
merely the beginning. The chief names in mod-
ern operative gynecology are American. But of
the nine men who are the leaders in this field, only
one (Emmet) has a biography, and only one
(McDowell) receives casual mention. Marion
Sims who invented his speculum and introduced
the operation for vesicovaginal fistula, Nathan
Bozeman, J. C. Nott (previously mentioned),
Theodore Gaillard Thomas, Robert Battey, E.
C. Dudley, and Howard A. Kelly do not exist for
the Britannica.
Furthermore, of the four chief pioneers in an-
aesthesia — the practical discovery and use of which
SCIENCE 1 93
was an American achievement — only two are
mentioned. The other two — C. W. Long, of
Georgia, and the chemist, Charles T. Jackson —
are apparently unknown to the British editors of
this encyclopsedia. And although in the history
of pediatrics there is no more memorable name
than that of Joseph O'Dwyer, of Ohio, whose
work in intubation has saved countless numbers
of infants, you will fail to find any reference to
him in this ^'unbiased" English reference work.
One must not imagine that even here ends the
Britannica^s almost unbelievable injustice to
American scientists. John J. Abel is not men-
tioned either, yet Professor Abel is among the
greatest pharmacologists of the world. His re-
searches in animal tissues and fluids have definitely
set forward the science of medicine; and it was
Abel who, besides his great work with the artifi-
cial kidney, first discovered the uses of epinephrin.
R. G. Harrison, one of the greatest biologists of
history, whose researches in the growth of tissue
were epoch-making, and on whose investigations
other scientists also have made international repu-
tations, is omitted entirely from the Britannica.
S. J. Meltzer, the physiologist, who has been the
head of the department of physiology and phar-
macology at Rockefeller Institute since 1906, is
not in the Britannica. T. H. Morgan, the zo-
154 MISINFORMING A NATION
ologist, whose many books on the subject have
long been standard works, is without a biography.
E. B. Wilson, one of the great pathfinders in
zoology and a man who stands in the front rank
of that science, is also without a biography. And
Abraham Jacobi, who is the father of pediatrics in
America, is not mentioned.
The list of wanton omissions is not yet com-
plete! C. S. Minot, the great American embry-
ologist, is ignored. Theobald Smith, the pathol-
ogist, is also thought unworthy of note. And
among those renowned American scientists who,
though mentioned, failed to impress the Encyclo-
paedia's English editor sufficiently to be given
biographies are : John Kerasley Mitchell, who was
the first to describe certain neurological conditions,
and was one of the advocates of the germ theory
of disease before bacteriology; William Beau-
mont, the first to study digestion in situ; Jacques
Loeb, whose works on heliotropism, morphology,
psychology, etc., have placed him among the
world's foremost imaginative researchers; H. S.
Jennings, another great American biologist; W.
H. Welch, one of the greatest of modem patho-
logists and bacteriologists; and Simon Flexner,
whose work is too well known to the world to
need any description here. These men unques-
tionably deserve biographies in any encyclo-
SCIENCE 15:^
paedia which makes even a slight pretence of com-
pleteness, and to have omitted them from the
Britannica was an indefensible oversight — or
worse.
The editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica
cannot explain away these amazing omissions on
the ground that the men mentioned are not of
sufficient importance to have come within the
range of their consideration; for, when we look
down the list of British medical scientists who are
given biographies, we can find at least a score of
far less important ones. For instance, Elizabeth
G. Anderson, whose claim to glory lies in her ad-
vocacy of admitting women into the medical pro-
fession, is given considerably over half a column.
Gilbert Blane, the introducer of lime-juice into
the English navy, also has a biography. So has
Richard Brocklesby, an eighteenth-century army
physician; and Andrew Clark, a fashionable Lon-
don practitioner; and T. B. Curling; and John
EUiotson, the English mesmerist; and Joseph
Fayrer, known chiefly for his studies in the poison-
ous snakes of India; and J. C. Forster; and James
Clark, an army surgeon and physician in ordinary
to Queen Victoria; and P. G. Hewett, another
surgeon to Queen Victoria; and many others of
no more prominence or importance.
In order to realize the astounding lengths of in-
156 MISINFORMING A NATION
justice to which the Britannica has gone in its
petty neglect of America, compare these English
names which are given detailed biographical con-
sideration, with the American names which are
left out. The editors of this encyclopaedia must
either plead guilty to the most flagrant kind of
prejudicial discrimination against this country, or
else confess to an abysmal ignorance of the his-
tory and achievements of modern science.
It might be well to note here that Luther Bur-
bank's name is mentioned only once in the Britan-
nica^ under Santa Rosa, the comment being that
Santa Rosa was his home. Not to have given
Burbank a biography containing an account of his
important work is nothing short of preposterous.
Is it possible that Americans are not supposed to
be interested in this great scientist? And are we
to assume that Marianne North, the English nat-
uralist and flower painter — who is given a de-
tailed biography — is of more importance than
Burbank? The list of English naturalists and
botanists who receive biographies in the Britannica
includes such names as William Alton, Charles
Alston, James Anderson, W. J. Broderip, and
Robert Fortune ; and yet there is no biography or
even discussion of Luther Burbank, the Ameri-
can!
Thus far in this chapter I have called attention
SCIENCE 1^7
only to the neglect of American scientists. It
must not be implied, however, that America alone
suffers from the Britannica's insular prejudice.
No nation, save England, is treated with that
justice and comprehensiveness upon which the
Encyclopaedia's advertising has so constantly in-
sisted. For instance, although Jonathan Hutch-
inson, the English authority on syphilis, receives
(and rightly so) nearly half a column biography,
Ehrlich, the world's truly great figure in that
field, is not considered of sufficient importance
to be given biographical mention. It is true that
Ehrlich's salvarsan did not become known until
1910, but he had done much immortal work be-
fore then. Even Metchnikoff, surely one of the
world's greatest modern scientists, has no biog-
raphy! And although British biologists of even
minor importance receive biographical considera-
tion, Lyonet, the Hollander, who did the first
structural work after Swammerdam, is without a
biography.
Nor are there biographies of Franz Leydig,
through whose extensive investigations all struct-
ural studies upon insects assumed a new aspect;
Rudolph Leuckart, another conspicuous figure in
zoological progress; Meckel, who stands at the
beginning of the school of comparative anatomy
in Germany; Rathke, who made a significant ad-
158 MISINFORMING A NATION
vance in comparative anatomy; Ramon y Cajal,
whose histological research is of world-wide re-
nown; Kowalevsky, whose work in embryology
had enormous influence on all subsequent investi-
gations; Wilhelm His, whose embryological in-
vestigations, especially in the development of the
nervous system and the origin of nerve fibres, are
of very marked importance; Dujardin, the dis-
coverer of sarcode; Lacaze-Duthiers, one of
France's foremost zoological researchers; and
Pouchet, who created a sensation with his experi-
mentations in spontaneous generation.
Even suppose the Britannica's editor should
argue that the foregoing biologists are not of the
very highest significance and therefore are not
deserving of separate biographies, how then can
he explain the fact that such British biologists as
Alfred Newton, William Yarrell, John G. Wood,
G. J. Allman, F. T. Buckland, and T. S. Cobbold,
are given individual biographies with a detailed
discussion of their work? What becomes of that
universality of outlook on which he so prides him-
self? Or does he consider Great Britain as the
universe?
As I have said, the foregoing notes do not aim
at being exhaustive. To set down, even from an
American point of view, a complete record of the
inadequacies which are to be found in the Britan-
SCIENCE 1S9
nica's account of modern science would require
much more space than I can devote to it here. I
have tried merely to indicate, by a few names and
a few comparisons, the insular nature of this En-
cyclopaedia's expositions, and thereby to call at-
tention to the very obvious fact that the Britau'
nica is not "an international dictionary of bio-
graphy," but a prejudiced work in which English
endeavor, through undue emphasis and exaggera-
tion, is given the first consideration. Should this
Encyclopaedia be depended upon for information,
one would get but the meagrest idea of the splen-
did advances which America has made in modem
science. And, although I have here touched only
on medicine and biology, the same narrow and
provincial British viewpoint can be found in the
B ri tannic a' s treatment of the other sciences as
well.
IX
INVENTIONS, PHOTOGRAPHY, /ESTHETICS
In the matter of American inventions the Encyclo'
padia Britannica would appear to have said as lit-
tle as possible, and to have minimized our im-
portance in that field as much as it dared. And
yet American inventors, to quote H. Addington
Bruce, "have not simply astonished mankind;
they have enhanced the prestige, power, and pros-
perity of their country." The Britannica^s edi-
tors apparently do not agree with this; and when
we think of the wonderful romance of American
inventions, and the possibilities in the subject for
full and interesting writing, and then read the
brief, and not infrequently disdainful, accounts
that are presented, we are conscious at once not
only of an inadequacy in the matter of facts, but
of a niggardliness of spirit.
Let us regard the Encyclopaedia's treatment of
steam navigation. Under Steamboat we read:
"The first practical steamboat was the tug 'Char-
lotte Dundas,' built by William Symington
(Scotch), and tried in the Forth and Clyde Canal
i6o
INVENTIONS 161
in 1802. . . . The trial was successful, but steam
towing was abandoned for fear of injuring the
banks of the canal. Ten years later Henry Bell
built the 'Comet,' with side-paddle wheels, which
ran as a passenger steamer on the Clyde; but an
earlier inventor to follow up Symington's success
was the American, Robert Fulton. . . ."
This practically sums up the history of that
notable achievement. Note the method of presen-
tation, with the mention of Fulton as a kind of
afterthought. While the data may technically
come within the truth, the impression given is a
false one, or at least a British one. Even Eng-
lish authorities admit that Fulton established de-
finitely the value of the steamboat as a medium
for passenger and freight traffic; but here the
credit, through implication, is given to Symington
and Bell. And yet, if Symington is to be given
so much credit for pioneer work, why are not Wil-
liam Henry, of Pennsylvania, John Stevens, of
New Jersey, Nathan Read, of Massachusetts, and
John Fitch, of Connecticut, mentioned also?
Surely each of these other Americans was im-
portant in the development of the idea of steam
as motive power in water.
Eli Whitney receives a biography of only two-
thirds of a column; Morse, less than a column;
and Elias Howe, only a little over half a column.
i62 MISINFORMING A NATION
Even Thomas Edison receives only thirty-three
lines of biography — a mere statement of facts.
Such a biography is an obvious injustice; and the
American buyers of the Encyclopedia Britannica
have just cause for complaining against such in-
adequacy. Edison admittedly is a towering fig-
ure in modern science, and an encyclopaedia the
size of the Britannica should have a full and in-
teresting account of his life, especially since ob-
scure English scientists are accorded far more
liberal biographies.
Alexander Graham Bell, however, receives the
scantiest biography of all. It runs to just fifteen
lines I And the name of Daniel Drawbaugh is
not mentioned. He and Bell filed their papers
for a telephone on the same day; and it was only
after eight years' litigation that the Supreme
Court decided in Bell's favor — four judges favor-
ing him and three favoring Drawbaugh. No
reference is made of this interesting fact. Would
the omission have occurred had Drawbaugh been
an Englishman instead of a Pennsylvanian, or
had not Bell been a native Scotchman*?
The name of Charles Tellier, the Frenchman,
does not appear in the Britannica. Not even
under Refrigerating and Ice Making is he men-
tioned. And yet back in 1868 he began experi-
ments which culminated in the refrigerating
INVENTIONS 163
plant as used on ocean vessels to-day. Tellier,
more than any other man, can be called the in-
ventor of cold storage, one of the most important
of modern discoveries, for it has revolutionized
the food question and had far-reaching effects on
commerce. Again we are prompted to ask if his
name would have been omitted from the Britan-
nica had he been an Englishman .
Another unaccountable omission occurs in the
case of Rudolph Diesel. Diesel, the inventor of
the Diesel engine, is comparable only to Watts in
the development of power; but he is not consid-
ered of sufficient importance by the editors of the
Encyclopedia Britannzca to be given a biography.
And under Oil Engine we read: "Mr. Diesel has
produced a very interesting engine which departs
considerably from other types." Then follows a
brief technical description of it. This is the en-
tire consideration given to Diesel, with his "in-
teresting" engine, despite the fact that the Brit-
ish Government sent to Germany for him in order
to investigate his invention!
Few names in the history of modem invention
stand as high as Wilbur and Orville Wright. To
them can be attributed the birth of the airplane.
In 1908, to use the words of an eminent author-
ity, "the Wrights brought out their biplanes and
practically taught the world to fly." The story
i64 MISINFORMING A NATION
of how these two brothers developed aviation is,
according to the same critic, "one of the most in-
spiring chronicles of the age." The Britannzcd!s
editors, if we are to judge their viewpoint by the
treatment accorded the Wright brothers in this
encyclopaedia, held no such opinion. Not only
is neither of these men given a biography, but
under Flight and Flying — the only place in the
whole twenty-nine volumes where their names ap-
pear — they are accorded much less consideration
than they deserv^e. Sir Hiram S. Maxim's flying
adventures receive more space.
A subject which unfortunately is too little
known in this country and yet one in the develop-
ment of which America has played a very im-
portant part, is pictorial photography. A double
interest therefore attaches to the manner in which
this subject is treated in the Britannica. Since
the writer of the article was thoroughly familiar
with the true conditions, an adequate record might
have been looked for. But no such record was
forthcoming. In the discussion of photography
in this Encyclopsedia the same bias is displayed as
in other departments — the same petty insularity,
the same discrimination against America, the
same suppression of vital truth, and the same ex-
aggerated glorification of England. In this in-
PHOTOGRAPHY 16^
stance, however, there is documentary proof show-
ing deliberate misrepresentation, and therefore
we need not attribute the shortcomings to chau-
vinistic stupidity, as we have so charitably done in
similar causes.
In the article on Pictorial Photography in this
aggressibly British reference work we find the
following: "It is interesting to note that as a
distinct movement pictorial photography is es-
sentially of British origin, and this is shown by
the manner in which organized photographic
bodies in Vienna, Brussels, Paris, St. Petersburg,
Florence, and other European cities, as well as in
Philadelphia, Chicago, etc., following the exam-
ple of London, held exhibitions on exactly similar
lines to those of the London Photographic Salon,
and invited known British exhibitors to contrib-
ute." Then it is noted that the interchange of
works between British and foreign exhibitors led,
in the year 1900, "to a very remarkable cult call-
ing itself 'The New American School,' which had
a powerful influence on contemporaries in Great
Britain."
The foregoing brief and inadequate statements
contain all the credit that is given America in
this field. New York, where much of the fore-
most and important work was done, is not men-
tioned; and the name of Alfred Stieglitz, who is
i66 MISINFORMING A NATION
undeniably the towering figure in American pho-
tography as well as one of the foremost figures in
the world's photography, is omitted entirely.
Furthermore, slight indication is given of the
"powerful influence" which America has had; and
the significant part she has played in photography,
together with the names of the American leaders,
is completely ignored, although there is quite a
lengthy discussion concerning English photo-
graphic history, including credit to those who par-
ticipated in it.
For instance, the American, Steichen, a world
figure in photography and, of a type, perhaps the
greatest who ever lived, is not mentioned. Nor
arc Gertrude Kasebier and Frank Eugene, both of
whom especially the former, has had an enormous
international influence in pictorial photography.
And although there is a history of the formation
of the "Linked Ring" in London, no credit is
given to Stieglitz whose work, during twenty-
five years in Germany and Vienna, was one of the
prime influences in the crystallization of this
brotherhood. Nor is there so much as a passing
reference to Camera Work (published in New
York) which stands at the head of photographic
publications.
As I have said, there exists documentary evi-
dence which proves the deliberate unfairness of
PHOTOGRAPHY 167
this article. It is therefore not necessary to ac-
cept my judgment on the importance of Stieglitz
and the work done in America. A. Horsley
Hinton, who is responsible for the prejudiced
article in the Encyclopsedia, was the editor of The
Amateur Photographer, a London publication;
and in that magazine, as long ago as 1904, we
have, in Mr. Hinton's own words, a refutation of
what he wrote for the Britannica. In the May
19 (1904) issue he writes: "We believe every
one who is interested in the advance of photog-
raphy generally, will learn with pleasure that
Mr. Alfred Stieglitz, whose life-long and wholly
disinterested devotion to pictorial photography
should secure him a unique position, will be pres-
ent at the opening of the next Exhibition of the
Photographic Salon in London. Mr. Stieglitz
was zealous in all good photographic causes long
before the Salon, and indeed long before pictorial
photography was discussed — with Dr. Vogel in
Germany, for instance, twenty-five years ago."
Elsewhere in this same magazine we read:
"American photography is going to be the ruling
note throughout the world unless others bestir
themselves; indeed, the Photo-Secession (Ameri-
can) pictures have already captured the highest
places in the esteem of the civilized world.
Hardly an exhibition of first importance is any-
i68 MISINFORMING A NATION
where held without a striking collection of Amer-
ican work, brought together and sent by Mr. Al-
fred Stieglitz. For the last two or three years in
the European exhibitions these collections have
secured the premier awards, or distinctions." And
again we find high praise of Steichen, "than whom
America possesses no more brilliant genius among
her sons who have taken up photography."
These quotations — and many similar ones ap-
peared over a decade ago in Mr. Hinton's maga-
zine — ^give evidence that Mr. Hinton was not
unaware of the extreme importance of American
photographic work or of the eminent men who
took part in it; and yet in writing his article for
the Britannica he has apparently carefully for-
gotten what he himself had previously written.
But this is not the only evidence we have of
deliberate injustice in the Encyclopsedia's dis-
graceful neglect of our efforts in this line. In
1913, in the same English magazine, we find not
only an indirect confession of the Britannica's
bias, but also the personal reason for that bias.
Speaking of Stieglitz's connection with that phase
of photographic history to which Mr. Hinton was
most intimately connected, this publication says:
'*At that era, and for long afterwards, Stieglitz
was, in fact, a thorn in our sides, 'Who's Boss
of the Show^' inquires a poster, now placarded
PHOTOGRAPHY i6g
in London. Had that question been asked of
the (London) Salon, an irritated whisper of
honesty would have replied 'Stieglitz.' And
... we didn't like it. We couldn't do without
him ; but these torrential doctrines of his were, to
be candid, a nuisance. . . . He is an influence;
an influence for which, even if photography were
not concerned, we should be grateful, but which,
as it is, we photographers can never perhaps justly
estimate." After this frank admission the maga-
zine adds: "Stieglitz — too big a man to need
any 'defense' — -has been considerably misunder-
stood and misrepresented, and, in so far as this is
so, photographers and photography itself are the
losers."
What better direct evidence could one desire
than this naif confession? Yes, Stieglitz, who,
according to Mr. Hinton's own former publica-
tion, was a thorn in that critic's side, has indeed
been "misrepresented"; but nowhere has he been
neglected with so little excuse as in Mr. Hinton's
own article in the Britannica. And though —
again according to this magazine — Stieglitz is
"too big a man to need any 'defense,' " I cannot
resist defending him here; for the whole petty,
personal and degrading affair is characteristic of
the Encyclopedia Britannica's contemptible treat-
ment of America and Americans.
170 MISINFORMING A NATION
Such flagrant political intriguing, such an ob-
vious attempt to use the Encyclopffidia to destroy
America's high place in the world of modem
achievement, can only arouse disgust in the un-
prejudiced reader. The great light-bearer in the
photographic field, Camera Work, if generally
known and appreciated, would have put Hr. Hin-
ton's own inferior magazine out of existence as a
power; and his omitting to mention it in his arti-
cle and even in his bibliography, is a flagrant ex-
ample of the Britantiica's refusal to tell the whole
truth whenever that truth would harm England
or benefit America.
In view of the wide and growing interest in
aesthetics and of the immense progress which has
been made recently in aesthetic research, one would
expect to find an adequate and comprehensive
treatment of that subject in a work like the Britan-
nica. But here again one will be disappointed.
The article on aesthetics reveals a parti pris which
illy becomes a work which should be, as it claims
to be, objective and purely informative. The
author of the article is critical and not seldom
argumentative; and, as a result, full justice is not
done the theories and research of many eminent
modern aestheticians. Twenty-two lines are all
that are occupied in setting forth the aesthetic
ESTHETICS 171
writers in Germany since Goethe and Schiller, and
in this brief paragraph, many of the most signifi-
cant contributors to the subject are not even given
passing mention. And, incredible as it may
seem, that division of the article which deals with
the German writers is shorter than the division
dealing with English writers!
One might forgive scantiness of material in this
general article if it were possible to find the lead-
ing modern esthetic theories set forth in the
biographies of the men who conceived them. But
— what is even more astonishing in the Encyclo-
paedia's treatment of aesthetics — there are no bi-
ographies of many of the scientists whose names
and discoveries are familiar to any one even
superficially interested in the subject. Several of
these men, whose contributions have marked a new
epoch in psychological and aesthetic research, are
not even mentioned in the text of the Encyclo-
paedia; and the only indication we have that they
lived and worked is in an occasional foot-note.
Their names do not so much as appear in the
Index !
Kiilpe, one of the foremost psychologists and
aestheticians, has no biography, and he is merely
mentioned in a foot-note as being an advocate of
the principle of association. Lipps, who laid the
foundation of the new philosophy of aesthetics and
172 MISINFORMING A NATION
formulated the hypothesis of Einfiihlung, has no
biography. His name appears once — under
/Esthetics — and his theory is actually disputed by
the critic who wrote the article. Groos, another
important aesthetic leader, is also without a bi-
ography; and his name is not in the Britannica's
Index. Nor is Hildebrand, whose solutions to
the problem of form are of grave importance,
thought worthy of mention.
There is no excuse for such inadequacy, es-
pecially as England possesses in Vernon Lee a
most capable interpreter of sesthetics — a writer
thoroughly familiar with the subject, and one
whose articles and books along this line of re-
search have long been conspicuous for their bril-
liancy and thoroughness.
Furthermore, in this article we have another
example of the Britannica's contempt for Ameri-
can achievement. This country has made impor-
tant contributions to sesthetics; and only an Eng-
lishman could have written a modern exposition
of the subject without referring to the researches
of William James and Hugo Miinsterberg. The
Lange-James hypothesis has had an important in-
fluence on aesthetic theory; and Miinsterberg's ob-
servations on sesthetic preference, form-perception
and projection of feelings, play a vital role in the
history of modem aesthetic science; but you will
ESTHETICS 173
look in vain for any mention of these Ameri-
cans' work. Miinsterberg's Principles of Art
Education is not even included in the bibliog-
raphy.
X
PHILOSOPHY
One going to the Encyclopdidia Britannica for
critical information concerning philosophy will
encounter the very essence of that spirit which is
merely reflected in the other departments of the
Encyclopaedia's culture. In this field the Eng-
lish editors and contributors of the Britannica are
dealing with the sources of thought, and as a re-
sult British prejudice finds a direct outlet.
To be sure, it is difBcult for a critic possessing
the mental characteristics and the ethical and re-
ligious predispositions of his nation, to reveal the
entire field of philosophy without bias. He has
certain temperamental affinities which will draw
him toward his own country's philosophical sys-
tems, and certain antipathies which will turn him
against contrary systems of other nations. But
in the higher realms of criticism it is possible to
find that intellectual detachment which can re-
view impersonally the development of thought,
no matter what tangential directions it may take.
There have been several adequate histories of phi-
174
PHILOSOPHY 175
losophy written by British critics, proving that
it is not necessary for an Englishman to regard
the evolution of thinking only through distorted
and prejudiced eyes.
The Encyclopczdia Britannica^ however, evi-
dently holds to no such just ideal in its exposi-
tion of philosophical research. Only in a very
few of the biographies do we find evidences of
an attempt to set forth this difficult subject with
impartiality. As in its other departments, the
Encyclopaedia places undue stress on British
thinkers : it accords them space out of all propor-
tion to their relative importance, and includes
obscure and inconsequent British moralists while
omitting biographies of far more important
thinkers of other nations.
This obvious discrepancy in space might be
overlooked did the actual material of the biog-
raphies indicate the comparative importance of
the thinkers dealt with. But when British critics
consider the entire history of thought from the
postulates of their own writers, and emphasize
only those philosophers of foreign nationality
who appeal to "English ways of thinking," then
it is impossible to gain any adequate idea of the
philosophical teachings of the world as a whole.
And this is precisely the method pursued by the
Britannica in dealing with the history and de-
176 MISINFORMING A NATION
velopment of modern thought. In nearly every
instance, and in every important instance, it has
been an English didactician who has interpreted
for this Encyclopaedia the teachings of the world's
leading philosophers; and there are few biogra-
phies which do not reveal British prejudice.
The modem English critical mind, being in the
main both insular and middle-class, is dominated
by a suburban moral instinct. And even among
the few more scholarly critics there is a residue
of Puritanism which tinctures the syllogisms and
dictates the deductions. In bringing their minds
to bear on creative works these critics are filled
with a sense of moral disquietude. At bottom
they are Churchmen. They mistake the tastes
and antipathies which have been bred in them by
a narrow religious and ethical culture, for pure
critical criteria. They regard the great men of
other nations through the miasma of their tribal
taboos.
This rigid and self-satisfied provincialism of
outlook, as applied to philosophers in the Ency-
clopedia Britannica, is not, I am inclined to be-
lieve, the result of a deliberate attempt to exag-
gerate the importance of British thinkers and to
underrate the importance of non-British thinkers.
To the contrary, it is, I believe, the result of an
unconscious ethical prejudice coupled with a blind
PHILOSOPHY 177
and self -contented patriotism. But whatever the
cause, the result is the same. Consequently, any-
one who wishes an unbiased exposition of philo-
sophical history must go to a source less insular,
and less distorted than the Britannica. Only a
British moralist, or one encrusted with British
morality, will be wholly satisfied with the manner
in which philosophy is here treated; and since
there are a great many Americans who have not,
as yet, succumbed to English bourgeois theology
and who do not believe, for instance, that Isaac
Newton is of greater philosophic importance than
Kant, this Encyclopaedia will be of far
more value to an Englishman than to an Ameri-
can.
The first distortion which will impress one who
seeks information in the Britannica is to be found
in the treatment of English empirical philos-
ophers — that is, of John Locke, Isaac Newton,
George Berkeley, Shaftesbury, Francis Hutch-
eson, Joseph Butler, Mandeville, Hume, Adam
Smith and David Hartley. Locke receives fif-
teen columns of detailed exposition, with inset
headings. "He was," we are told, "typically
English in his reverence for facts" and "a signal
example in the Anglo-Saxon world of the love of
attainable truth for the sake of truth and good-
ness." Then we are given the quotation: "If
178 MISINFORMING A NATION
Locke made few discoveries, Socrates made none."
Furthermore, he was "memorable in the record
of human progress."
Isaac Newton receives no less than nineteen col-
umns filled with specific and unstinted praise;
and in the three-and-a-half column biography of
George Berkeley we learn that Berkeley's "new
conception marks a distinct stage of progress in
human thought" ; that "he once for all lifted the
problem of metaphysics to a higher level," and,
with Hume, "determined the form into which
later metaphysical questions have been thrown."
Shaftesbury, whose main philosophical import-
ance was due to his ethical and moral speculations
in refutation of Hobbes' egoism, is represented
by a biography of four and a half columns I
Hume receives over fourteen columns, with
inset headings ; Adam Smith, nearly nine columns,
five and a half of which are devoted to a detailed
consideration of his Wealth of Nations. Hutch-
eson, the ethical moralist who drew the analogy
between beauty and virtue — the doctrinaire of the
moral sense and the benevolent feelings — is given
no less than five columns; while Joseph Butler,
the philosophic divine who, we are told, is a
"typical instance of the English philosophical
mind" and whose two basic premises were the ex-
istence of a theological god and the limitation of
PHILOSOPHY 179
human knowledge, is given six and a half
columns I
On the other hand, Mandeville receives only a
column and two- thirds. To begin with, he was
of French parentage, and his philosophy (accord-
ing to the Britannica) "has always been stigma-
tized as false, cynical and degrading." He did
not believe in the higher Presbyterian virtues, and
read hypocrisy into the vaunted goodness of the
English. Although in a history of modern phi-
losophy he is deserving of nearly equal space with
Butler, in the Britannica he is given only a little
over one-fifth of the space I Even David Hart-
ley, the English physician who supplemented
Hume's theory of knowledge, is given nearly as
much consideration as the "degrading" Mande-
ville. And Joseph Priestley, who merely popu-
larized these theories, is given no less than two
columns.
Let us turn now to what has been called the
"philosophy of the enlightenment" in France and
Germany, and we shall see the exquisite workings
of British moral prejudice in all its purity. Vol-
taire, we learn, "was one of the most astonishing,
if not exactly one of the more admirable, figures
of letters." He had "cleverness," but not
"genius"; and his great fault was an "inveterate
superficiality." Again: "Not the most elabor-
i8o MISINFORMING A NATION
ate work of Voltaire is of much value for matter."
(The biography, a derogatory and condescending
one, is written by the eminent moralist, George
Saintsbury.)
Condillac, who is given far less space than
either Berkeley or Shaftesbury, only half of the
space given Hutcheson, and only a little over one-
third of the space given Joseph Butler, is set down
as important for "having established systemat-
ically in France the principles of Locke." But
his "genius was not of the highest order" ; and in
his analysis of the mind "he missed out the active
and spiritual side of human experience." James
Mill did not like him, and his method of imag-
inative reconstruction "was by no means suited
to English ways of thinking." This latter short-
coming no doubt accounts for the meagre and un-
complimentary treatment Condillac receives in
the great British reference work which is devoted
so earnestly to "English ways of thinking."
Helvetius, whose theory of equality is closely
related to Condillac's doctrine of psychic pas-
sivity, is given even shorter shrift, receiving only
a column and a third; and it is noted that "there
is no doubt that his thinking was unsystematic."
Diderot, however, fares much better, receiving
five columns of biography. But then, more and
more "did Diderot turn for the hope of the race
PHILOSOPHY 181
to virtue; in other words, to such a regulation of
conduct and motive as shall make us tender, piti-
ful, simple, contented," — an attitude eminently
fitted to "English ways of thinking" I And Di-
derot's one great literary passion, we learn, was
Richardson, the English novelist.
La Mettrie, the atheist, who held no brief for
the pious virtues or for the theological soul so be-
loved by the British, receives just half a column
of biography in which the facts of his doctrine
are set down more in sorrow than in anger. Von
Holbach, the German-Parisian prophet of earthly
happiness, who denied the existence of a deity and
believed that the soul became extinct at physical
death, receives only a little more space than La
Mettrie — less than a column. But then, the up-
rightness of Von Holbach's character "won the
friendship of many to whom his philosophy was
repugnant."
Montesquieu, however, is given five columns
with liberal praise — both space and eulogy being
beyond his deserts. Perhaps an explanation of
such generosity lies in this sentence which we
quote from his biography: "It is not only that
he is an Anglo-maniac, but that he is rather Eng-
lish than French in style and thought."
Rousseau, on the other hand, possessed no such
exalted qualities; and the biography of this great
i82 MISINFORMING A NATION
Frenchman is shorter than Adam Smith's and only
a little longer than that of the English divine,
Joseph Butler I The Britannica informs us that
Rousseau's moral character was weak and that he
did not stand very high as a man. Furthermore,
he was not a philosopher; the essence of his re-
ligion was sentimentalism ; and during the last ten
or fifteen years of his life he was not sane. If
you wish to see how unjust and biased is this
moral denunciation of Rousseau, turn to any un-
prejudiced history of philosophy, and compare the
serious and lengthy consideration given him, with
the consideration given the English moral think-
ers who prove such great favorites with the Bri-
tannica's editors.
The German "philosophers of the enlighten-
ment" are given even less consideration. Chris-
tian Wolff, whose philosophy admittedly held
almost undisputed sway in Germany till eclipsed
by Kantianism, receives only a column-and-a-half
biography, only half the space given to Samuel
Clarke, the English theological writer, and equal
space with John Norris, the English philosophical
divine, and with Arthur Collier, the English High
Church theologian. Even Anthony Collins, the
English deist, receives nearly as long a biography.
Moses Mendelssohn draws only two and a half
columns; Crusius, only half a column; Lambert,
PHILOSOPHY 183
only a little over three-fourths of a column ; Rei-
marus, only a column and a third, in which he is
considered from the standpoint of the English
deists; and Edelmann and Tetens have no biog-
raphies whatever I
Kant, as I have noted, receives less biographical
space than Isaac Newton, and only about a fifth
more space than does either John Locke or Hume.
It is unnecessary to indicate here the prejudice
shown by these comparisons. Every one is cog-
nizant of Kant's tremendous importance in the
history of thought, and knows what relative con-
sideration should be given him in a work like the
Britannica. Hamann, "the wise man of the
North," who was the foremost of Kant's oppo-
nents, receives only a column-and-a-quarter biog-
raphy, in which he is denounced. His writings,
to one not acquainted with the man, must be
"entirely unintelligible and, from their peculiar,
pietistic tone and scriptural jargon, probably of-
fensive." And he expressed himself in "uncouth,
barbarous fashion." Herder, however, another
and lesser opponent of Kantianism, receives four
and a half columns. Jacobi receives three ; Rein-
hold, half a column; Maimon, two-thirds of a
column; and Schiller, four and a half columns.
Compare these allotments of space with: Thomas
Hill Green, the English neo-Kantian, two and
i84 MISINFORMING A NATION
two-thirds columns; Richard Price, a column and
three-fourths; Martineau, the English philosophic
divine, five columns; Ralph Cudworth, two col-
umns ; and Joseph Butler, six and a half columns I
In the treatment of German philosophic ro-
manticism the Encyclop(zdia Britannica is curi-
ously prejudiced. The particular philosophers of
this school — especially the ones with specula-
tive systems — who had a deep and wide influence
on English thought, are treated with adequate
liberality. But the later idealistic thinkers, who
substituted criticism for speculation, receive scant
attention, and in several instances are omitted en-
tirely. For English readers such a dispropor-
tioned and purely national attitude may be ade-
quate, since England's intellectualism is, in the
main, insular. But, it must be remembered, the
Britannica has assumed the character of an Amer-
ican institution ; and, to date, this country has not
quite reached that state of British complacency
where it chooses to ignore all information save
that which is narrowly relative to English culture.
Some of us are still un-British enough to want an
encyclopaedia of universal information. The
Britannica is not such a reference work, and the
manner in which it deals with the romantic
philosophers furnishes ample substantiation of
this fact.
PHILOSOPHY 185
Fichte, for instance, whose philosophy em-
bodies a moral idealism eminently acceptable to
"English ways of thinking," receives seven col-
umns of biography. Schelling, whose ideas were
tainted with mythical mysticism, but who was not
an evolutionist in the modern sense of the word,
receives five columns. Hegel, who was, in a
sense, the great English philosophical idol and
whose doctrines had a greater influence in Great
Britain than those of any other thinker, is given
no less than fifteen columns, twice the space that
is given to Rousseau, and five-sixths of the space
that is given to Kant! Even Schleiermacher is
given almost equal space with Rousseau, and his
philosophy is interpreted as an effort "to reconcile
science and philosophy with religion and theology,
and the modern world with the Christian church."
Also, the focus of his thought, culture and life,
we are told, "was religion and theology."
Schopenhauer is one of the few foreign philos-
ophers who receive adequate treatment in the
Encyclopcsdia Britannica. But Bostrom, in
whose works the romantic school attained its sys-
tematic culmination, receives just twenty-four
lines, less space than is devoted to Abraham
Tucker, the English moralist, or to Garth Wilkin-
son, the English Swedenborgian ; and about the
same amount of space as is given to John Morel 1,
i86 MISINFORMING A NATION
the English Congregational ist minister who
turned philosopher. And Frederick Christian
Sibbern receives no biography whatever I
Kierkegaard, whose influence in the North has
been profound, receives only half a column, equal
space with Andrew Baxter, the feeble Scottish
metaphysician; and only half the space given to
Thomas Brown, another Scotch "philosopher."
Fries who, with Herbart, was the forerunner of
modern psychology' and one of the leading repre-
sentatives of the critical philosophy, is given just
one column ; but Beneke, a follower of Fries, who
approached more closely to the English school,
is allotted twice the amount of space that Fries
receives.
The four men who marked the dissolution of
the Hegelian school — Krause, Weisse, I. H.
Fichte and Feuerbach — receive as the sum total
of all their biographies less space than is given to
the English divin*?, James Martineau, or to
Francis Hutcheson. (In combating Hegelian-
ism these four thinkers invaded the precincts of
British admiration.) In the one-column biog-
raphy of Krause we are told that the spirit of his
thought is difficult to follow and that his term-
inology is artificial. Weisse receives only twen-
ty-three lines; and I. H. Fichte, the son of J. G.
Fichte, receives only two-thirds of a column.
PHILOSOPHY 187
Feuerbach, who marked the transition between
romanticism and positivism and who accordingly
holds an important position in the evolution of
modem thought, is accorded a biography of a
column and a half, shorter than that of Richard
Price. Feuerbach, however, unlike Price, was an
anti-theological philosopher, and is severely crit-
icised for his spiritual shortcomings.
Let us glance quickly at the important phi-
losophers of positivism as represented in the En-
cyclo-p(zdia Britannica. At the end of the seven-
teenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth
centuries the principal French philosophers repre-
sentative of schools were de Maistre, Maine de
Biran, Ampere, Saint-Simon and Victor Cousin.
De Maistre, the most important philosopher of
the principle of authority, is given a biography of
a column and a third, is highly praised for his
ecclesiasticism, and is permitted to be ranked with
Hobbes. Maine de Biran receives a little over
a column ; Ampere, less than a column ; and Saint-
Simon, two and a third columns.
Victor Cousin is given the astonishing amount
of space of eleven columns; but just why he
should have been treated in this extravagant man-
ner is not clear, for we are told that his search for
principles was not profound and that he "left no
distinctive, permanent principles of philosophy."
i88 MISINFORMING A NATION
Nor does it seem possible that he should draw
nearly as much space as Rousseau and Montes-
quieu combined simply because he left behind
interesting analyses and expositions of the work
of Locke and the Scottish philosophers. Even
Comte is given only four and a half columns
more.
The English philosophers of the nineteenth
century before John Stuart Mill are awarded
space far in excess of their importance, compara-
tively speaking. For instance, James Mill re-
ceives two columns of biography; Coleridge, who
**did much to deepen and liberalize Christian
thought in England," five and three-fourths col-
umns; Carlyle, nine and two-thirds columns;
William Hamilton, two and three-fourths col-
umns; Henry Mansel, a disciple of Hamilton's,
two-thirds of a column ; Whewell, over a column ;
and Bentham, over three and a half columns.
Bentham's doctrines "have become so far part
of the common thought of the time, that there is
hardly an educated man who does not accept as
too clear for argument truths which were invis-
ible till Bentham pointed them out. . . . The
services rendered by Bentham to the world would
not, however, be exhausted even by the practical
adoption of every one of his recommendations.
There are no limits to the good results of his intro-
PHILOSOPHY 189
duction of a true method of reasoning into the
moral and political sciences." John Stuart Mill,
whose philosophy is "generally spoken of as being
typically English," receives nine and a half
columns; Charles Darwin, seven columns; and
Herbert Spencer, over five.
Positivism in Germany is represented by Diihr-
ing In a biography which is only three-fourths of
a column in length — an article which is merely an
attack, both personal and general. "His pa-
triotism," we learn, "is fervent, but narrow and
exclusive." (Diihring idolized Frederick the
Great.) Ardigo, the important Italian positivist,
receives no mention whatever in the Encyclo-
paedia, although in almost any adequate history
of modern philosophy, even a brief one, you will
find a discussion of his work.
With the exception of Lotze, the philosophers
of the new idealism receive scant treatment in the
Britannica. Hartmann and Fechner are ac-
corded only one column each; and Wilhelm
Wundt, whose eesthetic and psychological re-
searches outstrip even his significant philosophical
work, is accorded only half a column I Francis
Herbert Bradley has no biography — a curious
oversight, since he is English; and Fouillee re-
ceives only a little over half a column.
The most inadequate and prejudiced treatment
igo MISINFORMING A NATION
in the Britannica of any modern philosopher is to
be found in the biography of Nietzsche, which is
briefer than Mrs. Humphry Ward's I Not only
is Nietzsche accorded less space than is given to
such British philosophical writers as Dugald
Stewart, Henry Sidgwick, Richard Price, John
Norris, Thomas Hill Green, James Frederick
Ferrier, Adam Ferguson, Ralph Cudworth, An-
thony Collins, Arthur Collier, Samuel Clarke and
Alexander Bain — an absurd and stupid piece of
narrow provincial prejudice — but the biography
itself is superficial and inaccurate. The sup-
posed doctrine of Nietzsche is here used to expose
the personal opinions of the tutor of Corpus
Christi College who was assigned the task of in-
terpreting Nietzsche to the readers of the Bri-
tannica. It would be impossible to gather any
clear or adequate idea of Nietzsche and his work
from this biased and moral source. Here middle-
class British insularity reaches its high-water
mark.
Other important modern thinkers, however, are
given but little better treatment. Lange receives
only three-fourths of a column ; Paulsen, less than
half a column; Ernst Mach, only seventeen lines;
Eucken, only twenty-eight lines, with a list of his
works; and Renouvier, two-thirds of a column.
J. C. Maxwell, though, the Cambridge professor,
PHILOSOPHY 191
gets two columns — twice the space given
Nietzsche I
In the biography of WilHam James we discern
once more the contempt which England has for
this country. Here is a man whose importance
is unquestioned even in Europe, and who stands
out as one of the significant figures in modern
thought; yet the Encyclopedia Britannica^ that
"supreme book of knowledge," gives him a biog-
raphy of just twenty-eight lines I And it is
Americans who are furnishing the profits for this
English reference work!
Perhaps the British editors of this encyclopaedia
think that we should feel greatly complimented
at having William James admitted at all when
so many other important modems of Germany
and France and America are excluded. But so
long as unimportant English philosophical writers
are given biographies, we have a right to expect,
in a work which calls itself an "international dic-
tionary of biography," the adequate inclusion of
the more deserving philosophers of other nations.
But what do we actually find^ You may hunt
the Encyclopedia Britannica through, yet you
will not see the names of John Dewey and Stan-
ley Hall mentioned! John Dewey, an Amer-
ican, is perhaps the world's leading authority on
the philosophy of education; but the British edi-
192 MISINFORMING A NATION
tors of the Encyclopsedia do not consider him
worth noting, even in a casual way. Further-
more, Stanley Hall, another American, who
stands in the front rank of tlie world's genetic
psychologists, is not so much as mentioned. And
yet Hall's great work, Adolescence^ appeared five
years before the Britannica went to press! Nor
has Josiah Royce a biography, despite the fact
that he was one of the leaders in the philosophical
thought of America, and was even made an LL.D.
by Aberdeen University in 1900. These omis-
sions furnish excellent examples of the kind of
broad and universal culture which is supposed to
be embodied in the Britannica.
But these are by no means all the omissions of
the world's important modem thinkers. Incred-
ible as it may seem, there is no biography of Her-
mann Cohen, who elaborated the rationalistic
elements in Kant's philosophy; of Alois Riehl,
the positivist neo-Kantian; of Windelband and
Rickert, whose contributions to the theory of
eternal values in criticism are of decided sig-
nificance to-day; of Freud, a man who has revo-
lutionized modern psychology and philosophic
determinism; of Amiel Boutroux, the modem
French philosopher of discontinuity; of Henri
Bergson, whose influence and popularity need no
exposition here; of Guyau, one of the most ef-
PHILOSOPHY 193
fective critics of English utilitarianism and evo-
lutionism; or of Jung.
When we add Roberto Ardigo, Weininger,
Edelmann, Tetans, and Sibbern to this list of
philosophic and psychologic writers who are not
considered of sufficient importance to receive
biographical mention in the Encyclopedia Britan-
nica^ we have, at a glance, the prejudicial inade-
quacy and incompleteness of this "great" English
reference work. Nor can any excuse be offered
that the works of these men appeared after the
Britannica was printed. At the time it went to
press even the most modem of these writers held
a position of sufficient significance or note to have
been included.
In closing, and by way of contrast, let me set
down some of the modern British philosophical
writers who are given liberal biographies: Rob-
ert Adamson, the Scottish critical historian of
philosophy; Alexander Bain; Edward and John
Caird, Scottish philosophic divines; Harry Cald-
erwood, whose work was based on the contention
that fate implies knowledge and on the doctrine
of divine sanction; David George Ritchie, an un-
important Scotch thinker; Henry Sidgwick, an
orthodox religionist and one of the founders of
the Society for Psychical Research; James H.
Stirling, an expounder of Hegel and Kant; Wil-
194 MISINFORMING A NATION
liam Wallace, an interpreter of Hegel ; and Garth
Wilkinson, the Swedenborgian homeopath.
Such is the brief record of the manner in which
the world's modem philosophers are treated in the
'Encyclopizdia Britannica. From this work hun-
dreds of thousands of Americans are garnering
their educational ideas.
XI
RELIGION
Throughout several of the foregoing chapters
I have laid considerable emphasis on the narrow
parochial attitude of the Bntanmca's editors and
on the constant intrusion of England's middle-
class Presbyterianism into nearly every branch of
aesthetics. The Britanmca, far from being the
objective and unbiased work it claims to be, as-
sumes a personal and prejudiced attitude, and the
culture of the world is colored and tinctured by
that viewpoint. It would appear self-obvious to
say that the subject of religion in any encyclo-
psedia whose aim is to be universal, should be
limited to the articles on religious matters. But
in the Encyclopedia Britannica this is not the
case. As I have shown, those great artists and
thinkers who do not fall within the range of
bourgeois England's suburban morality, are neg-
lected, disparaged, or omitted entirely.
Not only patriotic prejudice, but evangelical
prejudice as well, characterizes this encyclo-
psedia's treatment of the world's great achieve-
195
igG MISINFORMING A NATION
merits; and nowhere does this latter bias exhibit
itself more unmistakably than in the articles re-
lating to Catholicism. The trickery, the mani-
fest ignorance, the contemptuous arrogance, the
inaccuracies, the venom, and the half-truths which
are encountered in the discussion of the Catholic
Church and its history almost pass the bounds of
credibility. The wanton prejudice exhibited in
this department of the Britannzca cannot fail to
iind resentment even in non-Catholics, like my-
self; and for scholars, either in or out of the
Church, this encyclopasdia, as a source of infor-
mation, is not only worthless but grossly mis-
leading.
The true facts relating to the inclusion of this
encyclopaedia's article on Catholicism, as showing
the arrogant and unscholarly attitude of the edi-
tors, are as interesting to those outside of the
Church as to Catholics themselves. And it is for
the reason that these articles are typical of a great
many of the Encyclopsedia's discussions of cul-
ture in general that I call attention both to the
misinformation contained in them and to the
amazing refusal of the Britannica^s editors to cor-
rect the errors when called to their attention at a
time when correction was possible. The treat-
ment of the Catholic Church by the Britannica
is quite in keeping with its treatment of other im-
RELIGION 197
portant subjects, and it emphasizes, perhaps bet-
ter than any other topic, not only the Encyclo-
psedia's petty bias and incompleteness, but the
indefensible and mendacious advertising by which
this set of books was foisted upon the American
public. And it also gives direct and irrefutable
substantiation to my accusation that the spirit of
the EncydopcEdia Britannica is closely allied to
the provincial religious doctrines of the British
bourgeoisie; and that therefore it is a work of the
most questionable value.
Over five years ago T. J. Campbell, S. J., in
The Catholic Mind, wrote an article entitled The
Truth About the Encyclopedia Britannica — an
article which, from the standpoint of an author-
ity, exposed the utter unreliability of this En-
cyclopaedia's discussion of Catholicism. The
article is too long to quote here, but enough of it
will be given to reveal the inadequacy of the
Britannica as a source of accurate information.
"The Encyclopedia Britannica,'' the article be-
gins, "has taken an unfair advantage of the
public. By issuing all its volumes simultan-
eously it prevented any protests against misstate-
ments until the whole harm was done. Hence-
forth prudent people will be less eager to put
faith in prospectuses and promises. The volumes
were delivered in two installments a couple of
igS MISINFORMING A NATION
months apart. The article Catholic Churchy in
which the animus of the Encyclopaedia might have
been detected, should naturally have been in the
first set. It was adroitly relegated to the end
of the second set, under the caption Roman Cath-
olic Church.
"It had been intimated to us that the Encyclo-
paedia's account of the Jesuits was particularly
offensive. That is our excuse for considering it
first. Turning to it we found that the same old
battered scarecrow had been set up. The article
covers ten and a half large, double-columned,
closely-printed pages, and requires more than an
hour in its perusal. After reading it two or three
times we closed the book with amazement, not
at the calumnies with which the article teems and
to which custom has made us callous, but at the
lack of good judgment, of accurate scholarship,
of common information, and business tact which
it reveals in those who are responsible for its
publication.
"It ought to be supposed that the subscribers
to this costly encyclopaedia had a right to expect
in the discussion of all the questions presented an
absolute or quasi-absolute freedom from partisan
bias, a sincere and genuine presentation of all the
results of the most modem research, a positive
exclusion of all second-hand and discredited mat-
RELIGION 199
ter, and a scrupulous adherence to historical truth.
In the article in question all these essential con-
ditions are woefully lacking.
"Encyclopsedias of any pretence take especial
pride in the perfection and completeness of their
bibliographies. It is a stamp of scholarship and
a guarantee of the thoroughness and reliability of
the article, which is supposed to be an extract
and a digest of all that has been said or written on
the subject. The bibliography annexed to the
article on the Jesuits, is not only deplorably
meagre, but hopelessly antiquated. Thus, for in-
stance, only three works of the present century
are quoted; one of them apparently for no reason
whatever, viz.: The History of the Jesuits of
North America, in three volumes, by Thomas
Hughes, S. J., for, as far as we are able to see,
the Encyclopaedia article makes no mention of
their being with Lord Baltimore in Maryland, or
of the preceding troubles of the Jesuits in Eng-
land, which were considered important enough
for a monumental work, but evidently not for a
compiler of the Encyclopaedia. Again, the nine
words, 'laboring amongst the Hurons and Iro-
quois of North America,' form the sum total of
all the information vouchsafed us about the great
missions of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies, though we are referred to the seventy-three
200 MISINFORMING A NATION
volumes of Thwaites' edition of the Jesuits Re-
lations. Had the author or editor even glanced
at these books he might have seen that besides the
Huron and Iroquois missions, which were very
brief in point of time and very restricted in their
territorial limitations, the Jesuit missions with the
Algonquins extended from Newfoundland to
Alaska, and are still continued; he would have
found that most of the ethnological, religious,
linguistic and geographical knowledge we have of
aboriginal North America comes from those Jesuit
Relations; and possibly without much research
the sluggish reader would have met with a certain
inconspicuous Marquette; but as Englishmen, up
to the Civil War, are said to have imagined that
the Mississippi was the dividing line between the
North and South, the value of the epoch-making
discover)^ of the great river never entered this
slow foreigner's mind. Nor is there any refer-
ence to the gigantic labors of the Jesuits in Mex-
ico; but perhaps Mexico is not considered to be
in North America.
"Nor is there in this bibliography any mention
of the Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu, nor
of the Monumenta Padagogica, nor is there any
allusion to the great and learned works of Duhr,
Tacchi-Venturi, Fouqueray, and Kroes, which
have just been published and are mines of in-
RELIGION 201
formation on the history of the Society in Spain,
Germany, Italy and France; and although we are
told of the Historia S octet atis Jesu by Orlandini,
which bears the very remote imprint of 1620, is
very difficult to obtain, and covers a very re-
stricted period, there is apparently no knowledge
of the classic work of Jouvency, nor is Sacchini
cited, nor Polanco. The Bibliotheque des ecri'
vains de la Compagnie de Jesus^ by De Backer,
not 'Backer,' as the Encyclopaedia has it, is listed;
but it is simply shocking to find that there was no
knowledge of Sommervogel, who is the continu-
ator of De Backer, and who has left us a most
scholarly and splendid work which is brought
down to our own times, and for which De Back-
er's, notable though it be, was only a preparation.
In brief, the bibliography is absolutely worthless,
not only for a scholar, but even for the average
reader.
"On the other hand it is quite in keeping with
the character of the writers who were chosen for
the article. The New York Evening Post in-
forms us that before 1880, when a search for a
suitable scribe for the Jesuit article was instituted,
some one started on a hunt for Cardinal Newman,
but the great man had no time. Then he thought
of Manning, who, of course, declined, and finally
knowing no other 'Jesuit' he gave the work to
202 MISINFORMING A NATION
Littledale. Littledale, as everyone knows, was
an Anglican minister, notorious not only for his
antagonism to the Jesuits, but also to the Cath-
olic Church. He gladly addressed himself to the
task, and forthwith informed the world that 'the
Jesuits controlled the policy of Spain'; that 'it
was a matter of common knowledge that they
kindled the Franco-Prussian war of 1870'; that
'Pope Julius II dispensed the Father General
from his vow of poverty,' though that warrior
Pope expired eight years before Ignatius sought
the solitude of Manresa, and had as yet no idea
of a Society of Jesus; again, that 'the Jesuits
from the beginning never obeyed the Pope' ; that
'in their moral teaching they can attenuate and
even defend any kind of sin' ; and, finally, not to
be too prolix in this list of absurdities, that, prior
to the Vatican Council, 'they had filled up all the
sees of Latin Christendom with bishops of their
own selection.'
"It is true that only the last mentioned charge
appears in the present edition, and it is a fortu-
nate concession for Littledale's suffering victims;
for if 'there are no great intellects among the
Jesuits,' and if they are only a set of 'respectable
mediocrities,' as this 'revised' article tells us, they
can point with pride to this feat which makes a
dozen Franco-Prussian wars pale into insig-
RELIGION 203
nificance alongside it. We doubt, however, if the
700 prelates who sat in the Vatican Council
would accept that explanation of their promotion
in the prelacy; and we feel certain that Cardinal
Manning, who was one of the great figures in that
assembly, would resent it, at least if it be true,
as the Encyclopaedia assures us, that he consid-
ered the suppression of the Society in 1773 ^^ ^^
the work of God, and was sure that another 1773
was coming.
"The wonder is that a writer who can be guilty
of such absurdities should, after twenty years, be
summoned from the dead as a witness to anything
at all. But on the other hand it is not surprising
when we see that the Rev. Ethelred Taunton,
who is also dead and buried, should be made his
yoke-fellow in ploughing over this old field, to
sow again these poisonous weeds. There are
many post-mortems in the Encyclopaedia. Had
the careless editors of the Encyclopaedia consulted
Usher's Reconstruction of the English Churchy
they would have found Taunton described as an
author 'who makes considerable parade of the
amount of his research, but has not gone very far
and has added little, if anything, to what we
knew before. As a whole, his book on The His-
tory of the Jesuits in England is uncritical and
prejudiced.'
204 MISINFORMING A NATION
"Such is the authority the Encyclopsedia ap-
peals to for information. That is bad enough,
but in the list of authors Taunton is actually de-
scribed as a 'Jesuit.' Possibly it is one of the
punishments the Almighty has meted out to him
for his misuse of the pen while on earth. But
he never did half the harm to the Jesuits by his
ill-natured assaults as he has to the Encyclopaedia
in being mistaken for an 'S. J.'; for although
there are some people who will believe anything
an encyclopsedia tells them, there are others who
are not so meek and who will be moved to inquire
how, if the editor of this publication is so lament-
ably ignorant of the personality and antecedents
of his contributors, he can vouch for the reliabil-
ity of what newspaper men very properly call the
stuff that comes into the office. We are not told
who revised the writings of those two dead men,
one of whom departed this life twenty, the other
four years ago; and we have to be satisfied with
a posthumous and prejudiced and partly anon-
ymous account of a great Order, about which
many important books have been written since
the demise of the original calumniators, and with
which apparently the unknown reviser is unac-
quainted.
"It may interest the public to know that many
of these errors were pointed out to the managers
RELIGION 20?
of the Encyclopsedia at their New York office
when the matter was still in page proof and could
have been corrected. Evidently it was not
thought worth while to pay any attention to the
protest.
"It is true that in the minds of some of their
enemies, especially in certain parts of the habit-
able globe, Catholics have no right to resent any-
thing that is said of their practices and beliefs,
no matter how false or grotesque such statements
may be; and, consequently, we are not surprised
at the assumption by the Encyclopcsdza Britannica
of its usual contemptuous attitude. Thus, for
instance, on turning to the articles Casuistry and
Roman Catholic Church we find them signed
'St. C Naturally and supernaturally to be
under the guidance of a Saint C. or a Saint D.
always inspires confidence in a Catholic; but this
'St. C turns out to be only the Viscount St.
Cyres, a scion of the noble house of Sir Stafford
Northcote, the one time leader of the House of
Commons, who died in 1887. In the Viscount's
ancestral tree we notice that Sir Henry Stafford
Northcote, first Baronet, has appended to his
name the title 'Prov. Master of Devonshire Free-
masons.' What 'Prov.' means we do not know,
but we are satisfied with the remaining part of
the description. The Viscount was educated at
2o6 MISINFORMING A NATION
Eton, and Merton College, Oxford. He is a lay-
man and a clubman, and as far as we know is
not suspected of being a Catholic. A search in
the 'Who's Who?' failed to reveal anything on
that point, though a glance at the articles over
his name will dispense us from any worry about
his religious status.
"We naturally ask why he should have been
chosen to enlighten the world on Catholic topics?
'Because,' says the editor of the Encyclopedia
Britannica^ 'the Viscount St. Cyres has probably
more knowledge of the development of theology
in the Roman Catholic Church than any other
person in that Church.'
"The Church was unaware that it had at its
disposal such a source of information. It will
be news to many, but we are inclined to ask how
the Viscount acquired that marvelous knowledge.
It would require a life-long absorption in the
study of divinity quite incompatible with the
social duties of one of his station. Furthermore,
we should like to know whence comes the com-
petency of the editor to decide on the ability of
the Viscount, and to pass judgment on the cor-
rectness of his contribution? That also supposes
an adequate knowledge of all that the dogmatic,
moral and mystic theologians ever wrote, a life-
long training in the language and methods of the
RELIGION 207
science, and a special intellectual aptitude to com-
prehend the sublime speculations of the Church's
divines.
"It will not be unkind to deny him such quali-
fications, especially now, for did he not tell his
friends at the London banquet: 'During all
these (seven) years I have been busy in the black-
smith's shop (of the editor's room) and I do not
hear the noise that is made by the hammers all
around me' — nor, it might be added, does he hear
what is going on outside the Britannica's forge.
"Meantime, we bespeak the attention of all the
Catholic theologians in every part of the world
to the preposterous invitation to come to hear the
last word about 'the development of theology' in
the Catholic Church from a scholar whose claim
to theological distinction is that 'he has written
about Fenelon and Pascal.' The Britannica
shows scant respect to Catholic scholarship and
Catholic intelligence."
Father Campbell then devotes several pages to
a specific indictment of the misstatements and the
glaring errors to be found in several of the articles
relating to the Catholic Church. He quotes eight
instances of St. Cyres' inaccurate and personal
accusations, and also many passages from the arti-
cles on Papacy^ Celibacy and St. Catherine of
Siena — passages which show the low and biased
2o8 MISINFORMING A NATION
standard of scholarship by which they were writ-
ten. The injustice contained in them is obvious
even to a superficial student of history. At the
close of these quotations he accuses the Britannica
of being neither up-to-date, fair, nor well-in-
formed. "It repeats old calumnies that have
been a thousand times refuted, and it persistently
selects the Church's enemies who hold her up to
ridicule and contempt. We are sorry for those
who have been lavish in their praises of a book
which is so defective, so prejudiced, so misleading
and so insulting."
It seems that while the Britannica's contribu-
tions to the general misinformation of the world
were being discussed, the editor wrote to one of
his subscribers saying that the Catholics were very
much vexed because the article on the Jesuits was
not "sufficiently eulogistic."
"He is evidently unaware," Father Campbell
goes on to comment, "that the Society of Jesus
is sufficiently known both in the Church and the
world not to need a monument in the graveyard
of the Encyclopizdia Britannica. Not the hum-
blest Brother in the Order expected anything but
calumny and abuse when he saw appended to
the article the initials of the well-known assassins
of the Society's reputation. Not one was sur-
prised, much less displeased, at the absence of
RELIGION 209
eulogy, sufficient or otherwise; but, on the con-
trary, they were all amazed to find the loudly
trumpeted commercial enterprise, which had been
so persistently clamorous of its possession of the
most recent results of research in every depart-
ment of learning, endeavoring to palm off on the
public such shopworn travesties of historical and
religious truth. The editor is mistaken if he
thinks they pouted. Old and scarred veterans are
averse to being patted on the back by their
enemies.
"It is not, however, the ill-judged gibe that
compels us to revert to the Society, as much as
the suspicion that the editor of the 'Encyclopedia
Britannica seems to fancy that we had nothing
to say beyond calling attention to his dilapidated
bibliography, which he labels with the very of-
fensive title of 'the bibliography of Jesuitism^ — •
a term which is as incorrect as it is insulting —
or that we merely objected to the employment of
two dead and discredited witnesses to tell the
world what kind of an organization the Society is.
"It may be, moreover, that we misjudged a cer-
tain portion of the reading public in treating the
subject so lightly, and as the Encyclopaedia is con-
tinually reiterating the assertion that it has no
'bias' and that its statement of facts is purely 'ob-
jective/ a few concrete examples of the opposite
210 MISINFORMING A NATION
kind of treatment — the one commonly employed
— may not be out of place.
*'We are told, for instance, that 'the Jesuits had
their share, direct or indirect, in the embroiling
of States, in concocting conspiracies and in kind-
ling wars. They were responsible by their
theoretical teachings in theological schools for
not a few assassinations' (340). 'They power-
fully aided the revolution which placed the Duke
of Braganza on the throne of Portugal, and their
services were rewarded with the practical control
of ecclesiastical and almost civil affairs in that
kingdom for nearly one hundred years' (344).
'Their war against the Jansenists did not cease
till the very walls of Port Royal were demolished
in 1710, even to the very abbey church itself, and
the bodies of the dead taken with every mark of
insult from their graves and literally flung to the
dogs to devour' (345). Tn Japan the Jesuits
died with their converts bravely as martyrs to
the Faith, yet it is impossible to acquit them of
a large share of the causes of that overthrow'
(345). Tt was about the same time that the
grave scandal of the Chinese and Malabar rites
began to attract attention in Europe and to make
thinking men ask seriously whether the Jesuit
missionaries in those parts taught anything which
could fairly be called Christianity at all'
RELIGION 211
(348). 'The political schemings of Parsons in
England was an object lesson to the rest of Eu-
rope of a restless ambition and a lust of domina-
tion which were to find many imitators' (348).
'The General of the Order drove away six thou-
sand exiled Jesuit priests from the coast of Italy,
and made them pass several months of suffering
on crowded vessels at sea to increase public sym-
pathy, but the actual result was blame for the
cruelty with which he had enhanced their mis-
fortunes' (346). 'Clement XIV, who suppressed
them, is said to have died of poison, but Tanucci
and two others entirely acquit the Jesuits.'
'They are accountable in no small degree in
France, as in England, for alienating the minds
of men from the religion for which they professed
to work' (345).
"Very little of this can be characterized as
'eulogistic,' especially as interwoven in the story
are malignant insinuations, incomplete and dis-
torted statements, suppressions of truth, gross
errors of fact, and a continual injection of per-
sonal venom which makes the argument not an
'unbiased and objective presentment' of the case,
but the plea of a prejudiced prosecuting and
persecuting attorney endeavoring by false testi-
mony to convict before the bar of public opinion
an alleged culprit, whose destruction he is trying
212 MISINFORMING A NATION
to accomplish with an uncanny sort of delight."
After having adduced a long list of instances
which "reveal the rancor and ignorance of many
of the writers hired by the Encyclopaedia," the
article then points out "the fundamental untruth-
fulness'* on which the Britannica is built. In a
letter written by the Encyclopedia's editor ap-
pears the following specious explanation: "Ex-
treme care was taken by the editors, and especially
by the editor responsible for the theological side
of the work, that every subject, either directly or
indirectly concerned with religion, should as far
as possible be objective and not subjective in their
presentation. The majority of the articles on the
various Churches and their beliefs were written
by members within the several communions, and,
if not so written, were submitted to those most
competent to judge, for criticism and, if need be,
correction."
Father Campbell in his answer to this letter
says: "Without animadverting on the peculiar
use of the English language by the learned Eng-
lish editor who tells us that 'every subject' should
be 'objective' in their presentation, we do not
hesitate to challenge absolutely the assertion that
*the majority of the articles on the various
Churches were written by members within the sev-
eral communions, and if not so written were sub-
RELIGION 213
mitted to those most competent to judge, for
criticism and, if need be, for correction.' Such a
pretence is simply amazing, and thoroughly per-
plexed, we asked: What are we supposed to
understand when we are informed that 'the ma-.
jority of the articles on the various Churches and
their beliefs were written by members within the
several communions'^
"Was the article on The Roman Catholic
Church written by a Catholic"? Was the indi-
vidual who accumulated and put into print all
those vile aspersions on the Popes, the saints, the
sacraments, the doctrines of the Church, a Cath-
olic? Were the other articles on Casuistry^ Celi-
bacy, St. Catherine of Siena, and Mary, the
mother of Jesus, written by a Catholic? The
supposition is simply inconceivable, and it calls
for more than the unlimited assurance of the En-
cyclopczdia Britannica to compel us to accept it.
"But 'they were submitted to the most compe-
tent judge for criticism and, if need be, correc-
tion.' Were they submitted to any judge at all,
or to any man of sense, before they were sent off
to be printed and scattered throughout the Eng-
lish speaking world*? Is it permissible to imagine
for a moment that any Catholic could have read
some of those pages and not have been filled with
horror at the multiplied and studied insults to
214 MISINFORMING A NATION
everything he holds most sacred in his religion?
Or did 'the editor responsible for the theological
side of the work' reserve for himself the right to
reject or accept whatever recommended itself to
his superior judgment*?"
The article then points out that "far from
being just to Catholics, the Britamiica pointedly
and persistently discriminated against them."
The article on the Episcopalians was assigned to'
the Rev. Dr. D. D. Addison, Rector of All Saints,
Brookline, Mass. ; that on Methodists to the Rev.
Dr. J. M. Buckley, Editor of the Christian Ad-
vocate, New York; that on the Baptists to the
Rev. Newton Herbert Marshall, Baptist Church,
Hampstead, England; that on the Jews to Israel
Abrahams, formerly President of the Jewish His-
torical Society and now Reader on Talmudic and
Rabbinic Literature in Cambridge, and so on for
the Presbyterians, Unitarians, Lutherans, etc.
But in the case of the Catholic Church not only its
history but its theology was given to a critic who
was neither a theologian, nor a cleric, nor even
a Catholic, and who, as Father Campbell notes,
is not known outside of his little London coterie.
The Britannica's editor also apologized for his
encyclopaedia by stating that "Father Braun,
S. J., has assisted us in our article on Vestments,
and that Father Delehaye, S. J., has contributed,
RELIGION 215
among other articles, those on The Bollandists
and Canonization. Abbe Boudinhon and Mgr.
Duchesne, and Luchaire and Ludwig von Pastor
and Dr. Kraus have also contributed, and Abbot
Butler, O. S. B., has written on the Augustinians,
Benedictines, Carthusians, Cistercians, Domin-
icans and Franciscans" ; and, finally : "The new
Britannica has had the honor of having as a con-
tributor His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons,
Archbishop of Baltimore, who has written of the
Roman Catholic Church in America."
"But, after all," answers Father Campbell, "it
was not a very generous concession to let Father
Joseph Braun, S. J., Staatsexamen ah Religions-
oberlehren fur Gymnasien^ University of Bonn,
assist the editors in the very safe article on Vest-
ments^ nor to let the Bollandists write a column
on their publication, which has been going on for
three or four hundred years. The list of those
who wrote on the Papacy is no doubt respectable
in ability if not in number, but we note that the
editor is careful to say that the writers of that
article were 'principally' Roman Catholics.
"Again we are moved to ask why should a
Benedictine, distinguished though he be, have as-
signed to him the history of the Augustinians,
Franciscans, Dominicans, etc.? Were there no
men in those great and learned orders to tell what
2i6 MISINFORMING A NATION
they must have known better than even the eru-
dite Benedictine? Nor will it avail to tell us
that His Eminence of Baltimore wrote The His-
tory of the Roman Catholic Church in the United
States^ when that article comprises only a column
of statistics, preceded by two paragraphs, one on
the early missions, and the other on the settlement
of Lord Baltimore. No one more than the illus-
trious and learned churchman would have re-
sented calling such a mere compilation of figures
a History of the Catholic Church in the United
States, and no one would be more shocked than he
by the propinquity of his restricted article to the
prolix and shameless one to which it is annexed."
Here in brief is an account of the "impartial"
manner in which Catholicism is recorded and de-
scribed in that "supreme" book of knowledge, the
'Encyclopczdia Britannica. And I set down this
record here not because it is exceptional but, to
the contrary, because it is representative of the
way in which the world's culture (outside of Eng-
land), and especially the culture of America, is
treated.
The intellectual prejudice and contempt of
England for America is even greater if anything
than England's religious prejudice and contempt
for Catholicism; and this fact should be borne in
mind when you consult the Britannica for knowl-
RELIGION 217
edge. It will not give you even scholarly or ob-
jective information: it will advise you, by con-
stant insinuation and intimation, as well as by
direct statement, that English culture and achieve-
ment represent the transcendent glories of the
world, and that the great men and great accom-
plishments of other nations are of minor im-
portance. No more fatal intellectual danger to
America can be readily conceived than this dis-
torted, insular, incomplete, and aggressively Brit-
ish reference work.
XII
TWO HUNDRED OMISSIONS
The following list contains two hundred of
the many hundreds of writers, painters, musicians
and scientists who are denied biographies in the
Britannica. There is not a name here which
should not be in an encyclopaedia which claims
for itself the completeness which the Britannica
claims. Many of the names stand in the fore-
front of modern culture. Their omission is noth-
ing short of preposterous, and can be accounted
for only on the grounds of ignorance or prejudice.
In either case, they render the encyclopaedia in-
adequate as an up-to-date and comprehensive ref-
erence work.
It will be noted that not one of these names is
English, and that America has suffered from neg-
lect in a most outrageous fashion. After reading
the flamboyant statements made in the Encyclo-
pedia Britannica's advertising, glance down this
list. Then decide for yourself whether or not the
statements are accurate.
Objection may be raised to some of the foUow-
218
TWO HUNDRED OMISSIONS 219
ing names on the ground that they are not of suf-
ficient importance to be included in an encyclo-
paedia, and that their omission cannot be held to
the discredit of the Britannica. In answer let me
state that for every name listed here as being de-
nied a biography, there are one or two, and, in
the majority of cases, many. Englishmen in the
same field who are admittedly inferior and yet
who are given detailed and generally laudatory
biographies.
LITERATURE
"A. E." (George W. Rus-
sell)
Andreiev
Artzibashef
Hermann Bahr
Henri Bernstein
Otto Julius Bierbaum
Ambrose Bierce
Helene Bohlau
Henry Bordeaux
Rene Boylesve
Enrico Butti
Cammaerts
Capuana
Bliss Carman
Winston Churchill
Pierre de Coulevain
Richard Dehmel
Margaret Deland
Grazia Deledda
Theodore Dreiser
Eekhoud
Clyde Fitch
Paul Fort
Gustav Frenssen
Froding
Fucini (Tanfucio Neri)
Garshin
Stefan George
Rene de Ghil
Giacosa
Ellen Glasgow
Remy de Gourmont
Robert Grant
Lady Gregory
Grigorovich
Hartleben
Heidenstam
Hirschfeld
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Arno Holz
Richard Hovey
220 MISINFORMING A NATION
Bronson Howard
Ricarda Huch
James Huneker
Douglas Hyde
Lionel Johnson
Karlfeldt
Charles Klein
Korolenko
Kuprin
Percy MacKaye
Emilio de Marchi
Ferdinando Martini
Stuart Merrill
William Vaughn Moody
Nencioni
Standish O'Grady
Ompteda
Panzacchi
Giovanni Pascoli
David Graham Phillips
Wilhelm von Polenz
Rapisardi
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Romain Rolland
T. W. Rolleston
Rovetta
Albert Samain
George Santayana
Johannes Schlaf
Schnitzler
Severin
Signoret
Synge
John Bannister Tabb
Tchekhoff
Gherardi del Testa
Jerome and Jean Tharaud
Ludwig Thoma
Augustus Thomas
Tinayre
Katherine Tynan
Veressayeff
Clara Viebig
Annie Vivanti
Wackenroder
Wedekind
Edith Wharton
Owen Wister
Ernst von Wolzogen
PAINTING
George Bellows
Carriere
Mary Cassatt
Cezanne
Louis Corinth
Maurice Denis
Gauguin
Habermann
C. W. Hawthorne
Robert Henri
Hodler
Sergeant Kendall
Ludwig Knaus
Kriiger
Jean Paul Laurens
Leibl
TWO HUNDRED OMISSIONS 221
Von Marees
Toulouse-Lautrec
Rene Menard
Triibner
Redon
Twachtman
Charles Shuch
Van Gogh
Lucien Simon
Vallotton
Steinlen
Zorn
MUSIC
d'Albert
Marschner
Arensky
Nevin
Mrs. Beach
Nordraak
Busoni
John Knowles Paine
Buxtehude
Horatio Parker
Charpentier
Rachmaninov
Frederick Converse
Ravel
Cui
Max Reger
Arthur Foote
Nikolaus Rubinstein
Grechaninov
Scharwenka brothers
Guilmant
Georg Alfred Schumann
Henry K. Hadley
Scriabine
Josef Hofmann
Sibelius
Edgar Stillman Kelly
Friedrich Silcher
Kreisler
Sinding
Leschetitzky
Taneiev
Gustav Mahler
Wolf-Ferrari
SCIENCE AND INVENTION
V^illiam Beaumont
Simon Flexner
John Shaw Billings
W. W. Gerhard
Luther Burbank
Samuel David Gross
George W. Crile
William S. Halsted
Harvey Cushing
Wilhelm His
Rudolph Diesel
Abraham Jacobi
Daniel Drake
Rudolph Leuckart
Ehrlich
Franz Leydig
222 MISINFORMING A NATION
Jacques Loeb
Ramon y Cajal
Percival Lowell
Nicholas Senn
Lyonet (Lyonnet)
Marion Sims
S. J. Meltzer
Theobald Smith
Metchnikoff
W. H. Welch
T. H. Morgan
Orville Wright
Joseph O'Dwyer
Wilbur Wright
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPI
Ardigo
Jung
Bergson
Kulpe
Boutroux
Lipps
Hermann Cohen
Josiah Royce
John Dewey
Alois Riehl
Edelmann
Sibbern
Freud
Soloviov
Guyau
Tetans
G. Stanley Hall
Windelband
Hildebrand
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