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SPINGARN Professor of Comparative Literature, and Chairman of the Division of Modern Languages and Literatures, in Columbia University DURING THE ACADEMIC YEAR 1910-1911 WITH OTHER DOCUMENTS NEW YORK PRINTED FOR DISTRIBUTION AMONG THE ALUMNI 1911 \_\) , ºr \?-A-Q. . S'l Q. A QUESTION OF Arahentir 3reehunt BEING THE OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER President of Columbia University AND J. E. SPINGARN Professor of Comparative Literature, and Chairman of the Division of Modern Languages and Literatures, in Columbia University DURING THE ACADEMIC YEAR 1910-1911 WITH OTHER DOCUMENTS NEW YORK * * PRINTED FOR DISTRIBUTION AMONG THE ALUMNI 1911 “And how can a man teach with authority, which is the life of teaching, how can he be a doctor in his books, as he ought to be, or else had better be silent, when all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tuition, under the correction of a patriar- chal licenser, to blot or alter what precisely accords not with the hide-bound humour which he calls his judgment? Yet if these things be not resented seri- ously and timely by them who have the remedy in their power, the more sorrow will belong to that hapless race of men, whose misfortune it is to have understanding. Henceforth, let no man care to learn, or care to be more than worldly wise; for cer- tainly, in higher matters, to be ignorant and sloth- ful, to be a common steadfast dunce, will be the only pleasant life.”—Milton's Areopagitica. INTRODUCTION On March 6, 1911, without explanation of any kind, Professor J. E. Spingarn was “relieved from further academic service” at Columbia University. During the controversy which followed, both in academic circles and in the public press through- out the country, constant reference was made to the official records in the case, which appeared in the newspapers in imperfect fragments only. It has been felt by many that the time has now come when the ends of higher education would best be served by the publication of these records in full. Certainly, it is important that whatever publicity is attracted to the worst defects of our univer- sities should not only be based on trustworthy data, but be adequate and complete. In this pam- phlet all the official correspondence that passed between Professor Spingarn and President Nich- olas Murray Butler during the academic year 1910–1911, with a few other documents germane to the case, is now presented to the consideration of the alumni of Columbia, not because of any interest which these letters or documents possess in themselves, but in the hope that, by the very fact of publicity, and by the light which they shed on the administration of the University, they may serve to arouse attention to the cause of academic freedom. Columbia University, like many other Ameri- can institutions, but unlike the old universities of Europe, is governed by a self-perpetuating Board 3 4 INTRODUCTION of Trustees, consisting of financiers, lawyers, di- vines, and other men, not one of whom is a scholar by profession or familiar with the more intimate atmosphere of academic life. These Trustees con- trol the finances, appoint and promote Professors, determine educational policy, and no power of any kind is vested in any faculty of the University except as these powers are granted to the faculty by the Trustees. The President is the only officer of the University who sits on the Board of Trus- tees; no member of the teaching staff is connected with it in any way, or has any means of official communication with it except through the President. Communications of any kind which the faculties or individual teachers may wish to present to this Board must therefore pass through his hands. Obviously, this gives him great power. The pro- fessor who wishes to be promoted or to have his salary increased is dependent upon the good will of the President in having that official present his case as favorably as possible to the Trustees. Moreover, all the officers of the University hold their positions “at the pleasure of the Trustees.” This phrase has not as yet received final adjudica- tion by any court of highest resort, but it is inter- preted by the Trustees to mean that the tenure of professorial office is absolutely at their whim. No personal hearing is ever given by them to any mem- ber of the teaching staff, and a professor may learn of their intentions only after they have made their final decision of dismissal. This further increases the immense power of the President, since it is pos- sible for him to prejudice the minds of the Trustees against any officer toward whom his own feelings are unfriendly or of whom, for any reason, he en- tertains an unfavorable opinion. But even this does not adequately describe the conditions of university government at Columbia. INTRODUCTION 5 The real work of the Board of Trustees is confided to its five committees, on Finance, on Buildings and Grounds, on Honors, on the Library, and on Educa- tion. The last of these determines the educational policy of the university and the status of the teach- ing staff; it is therefore by far the most important in all that concerns the university as an institution of learning. Its recommendations are accepted without independent investigation and often even without discussion by the board as a whole. It is therefore in a sense the ultimate power in the life of the institution. Yet the meetings of this com- mittee, which consists of seven members, are seldom attended by more than three or four; and the desti- nies of Columbia, with its more than seven hundred teachers and more than seven thousand students, are settled at these secret conclaves between the President and three or four of his friends. Under such a system, it is small wonder that the President is surrounded by sycophants, since syco- phancy is a condition of official favor; small wonder that intellectual freedom and personal courage dwindle, explaining, if not justifying, the jibe of European scholars that there are three sexes in America, men, women and professors; Smålſ wonder that permission to give utterance to mild theories of parlor socialism is mistaken by American Uni- versities for superb freedom of action. But what- ever may be the defects or the virtues of this sys- tem, it fails utterly unless the President is, as it were, a transparent medium between the teaching corps and the Trustees. If he misrepresents the conditions of the University; if he distorts the com- munications entrusted to him for presentation to the Trustees; if he uses his position to serve the ends of spite or rancor or his own ambition, hapless in- deed (in Milton's words) is that race of men whose misfortune it is to have understanding. Much, too 6 INTRODUCTION much, depends on his good faith and honor. It is the purpose of this pamphlet to indicate the danger to academic freedom and to the higher aims of University life that at the present time, for this reason, confronts Columbia. The Department of Comparative Literature was organized by Professor George E. Woodberry in 1899, and for eleven years Professor Spingarn was connected with the Department in the successive grades of Assistant, Tutor, Adjunct Professor, and Professor. In 1910, against his earnest protests, this Department was amalgamated with the Eng- lish Department, and his work was placed under the authority of the Professors of English. While promising every friendly co-operation with his new colleagues, he informed them that he reserved the right to ignore their authority whenever it might be exerted over his own work in Comparative Lit- erature. Accordingly, on November 18, 1910, the Chairman of the new Department addressed a letter of complaint to the President of the Uni- versity. Professor Spingarn’s stand against an administrative move dictated solely by a deadly me- chanical routine, miscalled efficiency, no doubt alienated some of his English colleagues. Ulti- mately, however, these differences were amicably settled at a conference with the Chairman of the Department, but they became a weapon in the hands of the President, which he soon made to serve his own purpose. On December 9, 1910, Professor Spingarn intro- duced in the Faculty of Philosophy a brief resolu- tion testifying to the academic services of a well- known scholar who had recently been dismissed from the University, and who was then suing the President for libel. The dismissal of this professor was due to the newspaper notoriety resulting from a legal suit against him, a suit which had not yet INTRODUCTION 7 been tried and which the plaintiff has since failed to bring to trial; but the justice or injustice of his dismissal has no bearing on a resolution that re- ferred solely to the twenty-two years of his previous service to the University. Though this resolution was laid on the table, it was not Professor Spin- garn's intention to allow the matter to drop there, and he so informed the President in an interview on January 6, 1911. The President thereupon made the following threat: “If you don’t drop this mat- ter you will get into trouble.” Professor Spingarn answered: “I am not in the habit of altering my conduct because of the prospect of trouble, Mr. President.” President Butler was soon able to carry out this threat. Within ten days—on Janu- ary 16, 1911—he notified Professor Spingarn that the Committee on Education, a committee of the Trustees, had voted to abolish Professor Spingarn's chair at the end of the academic year. In an inter- view ten days later, he informed Professor Spingarn that this action had not as yet been ratified by the Board as a whole, and that it was his intention to recommend that the action be withdrawn. Since then Professor Spingarn has not seen the President or any of his English colleagues, and his commu- nications with the President have been limited to three letters; but on March 6, 1911, the Trustees voted not only to abolish his professorship, but to relieve him immediately from all further academic service. This colorless and impartial outline of the case takes no account of its more sordid details. Some of these, though by no means all, will be found in the CoRRESPONDENCE and in the CHRONOLOGY that follow. It would be disheartening to a proud son of Columbia to linger over all the details of official trickery and deception, of threat and in- sult, of manners even worse than morals; but it 8 INTRODUCTION would be unjust to those who love Columbia's honor to hide from them the fact that, in the course of this single incident, the President of their alma mater told at least five deliberate falsehoods, broke at least three deliberate promises, and denied his own statements whenever it served his purpose to do so. It is without rancor, and with deep regret, that Professor Spingarn feels obliged to state these facts, and to express his mature conviction that the word or promise of President Butler is absolutely worthless unless it is recorded in writing, and that even a written document offers no certain safeguard against evasion or distortion. It is to this executive, with this code of honor, that Columbia entrusts all avenues of communication between the subservient Faculties and the governing Trustees. This is not a history or an estimate of President Butler's administration of Columbia; it is merely the record of a single abuse. But the record would be incomplete if it were not clearly made known that the facts, so far from being exceptional, are typical of his executive career. It is not merely that Columbia’s greatest teachers, poets, mu- sicians, have been lost to the University from the very outset as a result of his methods and his pol- icies. The real scandal is worse than this. It is that in the conduct of its affairs a great University, so far from being above the commercialism of its in- dustrial environment, actually employs methods that would be spurned in the humblest of business un- dertakings. Even the decencies of ordinary busi- ness are not always observed; and the poor scholar, unfamiliar with methods such as these, falls an easy prey. No device, however unworthy, is re- garded as forbidden by custom or by honor. A professor may be asked to send in a purely formal resignation as a compliment to the prospective new head of his department and then be dumbfounded INTRODUCTION 9 to have his letter acted upon by the President imme- diately upon its receipt, and before the new head is actually appointed. A professor may be induced to come to Columbia by the assurance of the Presi- dent that the usual contract “for three years or during the pleasure of the Trustees” involves an actual obligation for three years on the part of the University, while another professor holding the same contract with the University may find his chair abolished, on the recommendation of the President, at the end of two years. These are actual cases. It would be unfair to particularize further at the risk of ruining the career of some scholar, who, by incurring the President’s displeasure, might easily find himself an academic outlaw; but it is only just to caution the newcomer at Columbia that every understanding with the President’s office should be stated in writing and then subjected to the scrutiny of a lawyer to eliminate the possibility of traps and loopholes. It would almost seem as if such devices as these have been the methods of his ambition from the outset of his career." But the exploitation of his personal fortunes by a small coterie will not forever blind the alumni to the bitter truth. The University should be the cradle and the home, not only of Reason, but of Honor; and a lover of Columbia cannot remain silent until her honor is once more secure. But aside from the defects of personal character, there is a larger aspect according to which his ad- ministration of the University must be judged. Armed with the power given him by the secrecy of Trustee action and the aloofness of this ac- tion from the life of the teaching staff, he has (so far as he could) stifled all manly inde- pendence and individuality whenever it has ex- 1 See, e. g., the New York Times, May 16, 1911. 10 INTRODUCTION hibited itself at Columbia. He has surrounded him- self with pliant and unscrupulous tools. All noble idealism, and all the graces of poetry and art, have been shrivelled by his brutal and triumphant power. He has made mechanical efficiency and administra- tive routine the goal of the University's endeavor. The nobler ends of academic life will never be served so long as this spokesman of materialism re- mains in power. NOTE The contents of this pamphlet are as follows: (1) The Official Correspondence between President Butler and Pro- fessor Spingarn leading up to the retirement of the latter from Columbia University; (2) A minute Chronology, printed in smaller type, for the benefit of the few who may care to have the full details, and giving an accurate record of Professor Spingarn's relations with the Uni- versity during the year 1910–11; (3) Appendix A, contain- ing a few of the letters received by Professor Spingarn from his former students during March and April, 1911, expressive of their opinion of his work as a teacher; and (4) Appendix B, containing a list of his chief publications, with a few reviews and letters in regard to his work as a scholar and man of letters. It is believed that these documents furnish adequate data for a full and impartial consideration of the case. 11 Official Correspondence Between President Butler and Professor Spingarn The following official correspondence includes all the let- ters that passed between President Butler and Professor Spingarn during the academic year 1910–1911, without omissions of any kind. - I. FROM PRESIDENT BUTLER, Columbia University in the City of New York, President's Room. November 21, 1910. PROF. J. E. SPINGARN, Columbia University. My dear Prof. Spingarn: I have received from the Chairman of the Department of English and Comparative Literature a memorandum, bearing date November 18, 1910, which sets out your relations to that Department as your colleagues see them and expresses the opinion that these relations are very unsatisfactory. The facts stated in this memorandum are such as, if unrefuted, to demand consideration by the President and the Committee of the Trustees on Educa- tion. I very much hope that you may be able, in response to this letter, to give me a written statement of your position that, when forwarded to the Chairman of the Department to which you belong, may open the way to the establishment of complete and hearty co-operation between you and your colleagues. It would be a great disappointment to me to find that there is any cause for friction between yourself and your colleagues which can- not be speedily removed. 12 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 13 The substance of the memorandum to which I refer above is contained in the following sentences, as to the correctness of which I should be glad to have an expres- sion of your views: “Professor Spingarn believes that the union of the De- partments of English and Comparative Literature is a sort of outrage to him, and he refuses to submit to it. He has only friendly feelings toward the other members of the Department and wishes to continue to give his usual courses of instruction and to take part in the gen- eral academic affairs of the University. He refuses, however, to submit to the authority of the President and Trustees to assign him to a Department, and his atti- tude is one of refusal to recognize the action of the Trustees. In consequence, he refuses to recognize the authority of the Department or to serve on its committees or to have anything to do with it officially. * * * * * * * Apart from any interest in Professor Spingarn's theories of college government, the practical result of his attitude very decidedly concerns us. The line which he draws between departmental and other duties is a difficult one to follow. * * * * * * Moreover, Professor Spingarn's attitude of opposition creates bad feeling among stu- dents, and we have no means of dealing with him or even of offering suggestions until the main issue is dis- posed of. It seems clear that it is an undesirable condi- tion and one detrimental to the efficiency of the Depart- ment for one member to regard himself as outside of its authority and co-operation.” Will you not give me a statement of your views in regard to these matters at your early convenience? Faithfully yours, (Signed) NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER." 1 The asterisks in this letter are President Butler's. 14 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE II. FROM PROFESSOR SPINGARN. Columbia University in the City of New York, Department of Comparative Literature. November 23, 1910. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, D. C. L., President of Columbia University. My dear President Butler: I have received your letter of the 21st, in which you ask for an expression of my opinion in regard to a brief passage which you quote from a memorandum of the Chairman of the Department of English and Com- parative Literature, dated November 18, 1910. It is true that I regard the amalgamation of the De- partments of English and Comparative Literature as an unwise step; and I see no reason why I should not express my opinion and protest in respect to it, until what is for the present a fait accompli shall have been altered for the right. But it is not true that I have ever refused to any of my colleagues, in the English Department or elsewhere, the benefit of such counsel and scholarship as it is in my power to offer them. It is certainly the duty of a teaching scholar to place his intel- lectual gifts (whatever they may be) at the service of his colleagues as well as of his students; and, so far as I know, I have never been unfaithful to this ideal. I confess that my heart sickens at the very thought of administrative tasks for which I have neither capacity ! nor inclination, and I do not propose to have the leisure for productive scholarship interfered with by any addi- tional burdens of this kind; but certainly every manly and high-minded scholar in the country would sympathize with my refusal to perform such tasks whenever they conflict with my knowledge of my own capacity or my devotion to my own scholarly ideals. I do not rate my personal counsel and advice very highly; but such as it is, it is at the service of my English and other col- OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 15 leagues whenever they may seek it, and shall always continue to be at their service so long as I remain an officer of the University. - I am sending a copy of this letter to the Chairman of the Department of English and Comparative Litera- ture, with the statement that it is your personal request that he and I arrange an interview for the discussion of this whole matter. Faithfully yours, (Signed) J. E. SPINGARN. III. FROM PRESIDENT BUTLER. Columbia University in the City of New York, President’s Room. January 16, 1911. PROFESSOR J. E. SPINGARN, Columbia University. My dear Professor Spingarn: The Committee of the Trustees on Education, having before them the letter of Professor Thorndike, dated November 18, 1910, and your comments thereon dated November 23, 1910, as well as a statement of subsequent conversations that I have had with both you and Pro- fessor Thorndike, and having particularly in mind the a financial condition of the University, have decided that it is inexpedient to attempt to maintain a second Profes- sorship of Comparative Literature. They are therefore recommending to the Trustees, in connection with the provisions of the Budget for 1911–12, that the Professor- ship of Comparative Literature now held by you be dis- continued from and after June 30 next. You will recall that at our last interview I intimated to you that action of this kind was quite within the range of possibility. If you prefer to withdraw from the Uni- versity of your own motion at the close of the present 16 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE academic year, you will of course take such action as will lead to this end. I shall hope that in any event you will continue your career as a productive scholar in the field of literary criticism in which you have already made so substantial a beginning. r Very truly yours, (Signed) NICHOLAS MURRAY. BUTLER. IV. FROM PROFESSOR SPINGARN. January 30, 1911. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, D. C. L., President, Columbia University. My dear President Butler: At our interview last Thursday you requested me to place before you in writing, as briefly as possible, the grounds of my dissatisfaction with your letter of January 16, in order that you might present a definite statement of my position to the Committee on Education of the Trus- tees. I shall try to be as brief as you request. I question the legal right of the Trustees to discontinue my professorship on June 30 next. They entered into a contract with me for three years from July 1, 1909, and I dispute their legal power to terminate this contract be- fore June 30, 1912, without cause. But wholly regard- less of this contention, I insist that a moral obligation rests upon them which they cannot honorably avoid— certainly not by pleading “the financial condition of the University.” Poverty is no excuse for attempting to ter- minate in two years a contract that does not expire for at least three. I am convinced that their obligation does not end even then, and that an academic tradition par- taking of the strength of law ensures to a full professor . absolute security of tenure in his professorship “during good behavior.” After five or ten years of apprenticeship as assistant, tutor, and instructor, the professor has a right OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 17. to feel that the University is under specific obligations to him which cannot be evaded by the mere plea of financial stringency, unless we are to assume that all obligations of service are on the professor and none whatever on the University. I cannot therefore regard the financial plea as vital to the issue. The letters and the conversations to which you refer seem to me to have no greater bearing on the case. The letter of Professor Thorndike, dated Novem- ber 18, refers to my relations with the members of the Department of English and Comparative Literature, who had become my colleagues some six weeks earlier. But the statements in this letter are no longer applicable to the present case, for on January 9 I had a conversation with Professor Thorndike in regard to my relations with the Department, and we agreed upon a modus vivendi which he assured me was perfectly satisfactory to him. Two days later he again told me that the Department was thoroughly satisfied with the co-operation arranged for, that it was unnecessary for me to communicate the result to you, as he was obliged to see you in a day or two, and that he would personally inform you of our satisfactory arrangement. As I heard nothing from him or from you until I received your letter of January 16, I certainly had the right to suppose that my relations with the Depart- ment were all that could be desired, and that Professor Thorndike's letter of November 18 had been practically (or perhaps even technically) withdrawn. At least three members of the Department, including Professor Thorn- dike, have stated that they had assumed the modus vivendi of January 9 (communicated to you later) had closed the whole matter, and that they were absolutely unprepared for the action of the Committee on Education the fol- lowing week. I do not see how the letter of November 18 can now be urged in any way as a ground for discon- tinuing my professorship. It is unnecessary to refer to the causes which led up to Professor Thorndike's letter, since the differences of . 18 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE literary and scholarly ideals between my colleagues and myself did not prevent the arrangement of a modus vivendi satisfactory to all the other members of the Department. The brief extract from Professor Thorndike's letter which you cited as giving the gist of the whole (I have not seen the rest of the letter) deals only with my personal and official relations with my immediate colleagues, and it is only fair to me to say that these colleagues of six weeks were not in a position to express an adequate judgment on any other matter concerning me. You will doubtless recall that when I saw you three or four days after you had received Professor Thorndike's letter of November 18, you told me that you did not wish to present it to the Committee on Education of the Trus- tees; that I should see Professor Thorndike; that you felt sure the matter could be settled between him and me, and that you would withhold his letter until the matter had been discussed in that way. A series of circumstances (including absence during the Christmas vacation) prevented me from seeing him for some time. Before I could do so the following in- cident occurred: On December 9, at a stated meeting of the Faculty of Philosophy, I introduced the following resolution, which was duly seconded, and then without debate laid upon the table: - “Resolved, That the Faculty of Philosophy desires to place on record its sense of the academic services of Harry Thurston Peck, who was connected with the University for twenty-two years, and was a member of this Faculty from the date of its organization.” I venture to call your attention to the fact that this reso- lution refers only to the academic services of Professor Peck. Concerning his personal or non-academic conduct I had no knowledge whatever before his dismissal from the University; I cannot recall more than three conversations with him, and these of the most perfunctory kind only. I could speak only of his literary and scholarly services OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 19 to the University, and these seemed to me sufficient to merit at least a modest resolution in the privacy of a faculty meeting among his own former colleagues. By no construction of the resolution, however strained, can it be supposed to reflect on any action taken by others, or to refer to anything save the literary and scholarly serv- ices which Professor Peck may be assumed to have ren- dered during his twenty-two years of connection with the University. I refuse to believe that this slight act of generous pity, however mistaken it may or may not have been, can have impaired my usefulness to the University, or justified serious official displeasure. And yet, shortly after the resolution was introduced, Professor Thorndike's letter went to the Committee on Education; upon my re- turn from my vacation you told me (January 6) that I would get into trouble if I did not drop the whole Peck matter; and despite Professor Thorndike's assurance on January 9 that everything had been satisfactorily arranged, I soon received your letter of January 16 announcing the prospective discontinuance of my professorship. As a graduate of the College, as well as a doctor of the University, I hold myself second to none in loyalty to my alma mater. It is a matter of pride to me that she was a pioneer in the work of comparative literature, and that I have had the honor to be connected with this pioneer work from the outset. My doctoral dissertation was the first in this field at Columbia, and it remains, I believe, the only contribution to the history of European literature by a living American scholar that has been translated into a foreign tongue. But it is unreasonable to regard com- parative literature as a highly technical and mysterious subject, and to speak of the inexpediency of maintaining two professorships devoted to it. Every professor of the history of literature in the University is a professor of com- parative literature; and conversely every professor of comparative literature must of necessity be a contributor to the literary fields of his colleagues. When I made a certain modest contribution to Italian literary history, the poet Car- 20 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE ducci thanked me “in the name of Italian literature” and not of comparative literature. It was simply as a competent literary scholar, I imagine, and not as the devotee of an esoteric science, that I was invited by the great sister uni- versities of England to join in their scholarly work, editing monuments of English criticism for the Clarendon Press of Oxford and contributing a chapter to the Cambridge History of English Literature. To abolish comparative literature (except as a mere name) is to abolish literary history; the terms are really synonymous. Instead of diminishing the number of professorships devoted to it, it would at least be more reasonable to suggest that one or more be added to every literary department in the Uni- versity, in order that one or two scholars in every de- partment should be able to see beyond its own national or parochial limits. I reassert my loyalty to my alma mater; but if security of tenure in the professorship, if fidelity to contract or a sense of obligation to the academic profession, if freedom of speech and conduct do not exist at Columbia, it is right that the academic world should know it. Believe me always, my dear Mr. President, Faithfully yours, (Signed) J. E. SPINGARN. V. FROM PRESIDENT BUTLER. Columbia University in the City of New York, President’s Room. February 3, 1911. PROFESSOR J. E. SPINGARN, . Columbia University. Dear Professor Spingarn: Your letter bearing date January 30, 1911, was received by me yesterday morning and laid before the Committee OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 21 of the Trustees on Education at their meeting held yes- terday afternoon. I am directed by the Committee to say that your letter made upon them a most unfavorable impression, both in tone and in content. It was particularly unfortunate, in view of the specific statement which I made to you dur- ing our conversation on January 26, that you should now endeavor to create the impression that the resolution in- troduced by you at the meeting of the Faculty of Phil- osophy, held on December 9, had any relation whatever to the present discussion of your University status and efficiency. As you were distinctly informed by me, neither the President nor any member of the Committee on Edu- cation was aware of the fact that you had introduced any resolution at the meeting of the Faculty of Philosophy at the time when consideration of your relation to the Department of English and Comparative Literature was begun. At no time has the fact that you introduced the resolution to which you refer had any bearing or influ- ence on the matter in any way whatsoever. The Com- mittee was unable, because of a long calendar of business, to conclude the consideration of the matters to which your letter relates, but the present intention of the Committee is not to recommend a continuance of your connection with the University. When the Committee's consideration of the matter is completed, I shall be glad to advise you of the result. I shall also take this opportunity to point out to you that the statements contained in your letter of January 30, so far as they relate to conversations with me, are inaccurate and misleading, and Professor Thorndike, to whom the letter has been shown, tells me that the same is true of your references to conversations with him. I observe, for example, that you say that I told you that you would get into trouble if you did not drop the whole Peck mat- ter. What I really told you was that you would get into trouble if you persisted in your intention to send to Pro- 22 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE fessor Russell the letter of which you read me a draft, which I regarded as very impertinent.” Yours truly, (Signed) NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 1 The letter to which President Butler refers was as follows: “Columbia University, January 4, 1911. PROFESSOR JAMEs E. RUSSELL, LL.D., Teachers College. My dear Sir: At a stated meeting of the Faculty of Philosophy, held Decem- per 9, 1910, I introduced the following resolution, which was duly seconded: “Resolved, That the Faculty of Philosophy place on record its sense of the academic services of Harry Thurston Peck, who was connected with the University for twenty-two years, and was a member of this Faculty from the date of its organization.” This resolution touched on no delicate or controversial issue, and was so framed as to embarrass no one. Certainly no one could possibly deny that in the long stretch between 1888 and 1910 Harry Thurston Peck did render “academic services” to the University. If he did not, why was he retained by the University for twenty-two years? And if he did, why should his own Faculty refuse to acknowledge it? But I was not permitted to make this brief explanation. As I was in the act of rising to my feet, you, Sir, ignored what I believe to be a vital tradition of this Faculty by moving to lay the resolution on the table, thus shutting off all debate. In the six years of my membership in this Faculty I recall no “motion to lay on the table”—certainly no attempt to prevent the mover of a reso- lution from explaining the purport of his own motion. Whatever your motive for this action, some reparation for this discourtesy is due me; you owe it to me to withdraw the resolution from the table, in order that I may have an opportunity to discuss it, even if it is your intention to lay it on the table immediately after I have closed my discussion. The President of the University (if my memory does not err) once ruled that a professor's motion does not even need a second; an opportunity for full discussion is guaranteed by academic tradition; and I am convinced that if the President had occupied the chair, he would have ruled your motion to lay on the table out of order, on the ground that no parliamentary device, whether legitimate or the reverse, should be permitted to curtail the full expression of opinion in the Faculty of Philosophy. Sincerely yours, J. E. SPINGARN.” The original draft of this letter was shown to President Butler as a matter of courtesy; but the letter was never sent to Professor Russell, because Professor Spingarn learnt later that, once before, a motion to lay on the table had been made and carried in the Faculty of Philosophy, and also that Professor Russell was likely to be absent from the University before another Faculty meeting could be held. OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 23 VI. FROM PROFESSOR SPINGARN. Department of Comparative Literature, Columbia University, New York. February 8, 1911. DR. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, President, Columbia University. My dear President Butler: I do not wish to mar a dozen years of dignified academic service by unseemly personal controversy; and I shall therefore ignore the offensive tone of your letter of Febru- ary 3. But in justice to myself I cannot permit some of its statements to remain uncorrected. Opinions and im- plications may always be reasonably disputed; but every statement of fact in my letter of January 30 was made with careful and deliberate accuracy. Professor Thorn- dike certainly will not dispute that on January 9 he told me that the agreement I made then in regard to my relation with his Department was “satisfactory” to him; he will not dispute that he allowed me to go away from that inter- view with the distinct impression that the question at issue had been amicably settled; he will not dispute that two days later, when promising to inform you of our under- standing, he said nothing that would lead me to change this impression. These are the essential facts, and I pos- itively refuse to believe that Professor Thorndike would call these misleading or inaccurate. I regret also that I cannot agree with your account of our penultimate interview on January 6, in so far as it relates to your threat of “trouble.” It is true that I pre- sented to you a draft of a letter to Professor Russell, who had made the motion to lay my Peck resolution on the table at the Faculty meeting on December 9. This letter (of which I shall be glad to furnish you a copy if you so desire) was a courteous request to Professor Russell to withdraw his motion to lay on the table at the next meeting of the Faculty, in order that I might reopen the ; 24 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE question of the Peck resolution. A threat that I should drop this letter was therefore in any case a threat that I should drop the Peck resolution. But as a matter of fact your words related, not to this letter, but to the whole Peck matter itself. Your exact words were: “If you don't drop this matter, you will get into trouble.” My ex- act answer was: “I am not in the habit of altering my conduct because of the prospect of trouble, Mr. Presi- dent.” In view of the fact that you made this threat on January 6 and that it was so speedily followed by the announcement (January 16) of the prospective discon- tinuance of the second professorship of comparative litera- ture, I regret that I cannot accept your statement that the Peck matter had nothing to do with the case. Nor am I alone among my colleagues in this belief; for example, Pro- fessor Thorndike himself told me and another professor of the University that he believed the Peck matter “had something to do” with the result. I am glad, however, to recall your assurance to me that the action of the Commit- tee on Education was merely an administrative move in the direction of economy and of concentration of effort, and was in no way a personal matter relating to me or my work. You had tried to get rid of the anthropologists for similar motives (so you assured me), and comparative literature seemed to you, I presume, as useless as anthropology. Sincerely yours, (Signed) J. E. SPINGARN. VII. FROM PRESIDENT BUTLER. Columbia University in the City of New York, - President’s Room. February 10, 1911. PROFESSOR J. E. SPINGARN, 9 West 73d Street, New York. Dear Professor Spingarn: To your letter of February 8, no reply appears to be appropriate other than an acknowledgment of its receipt OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 25 and a statement that it will be laid before the Committee on Education when they next meet. There are special reasons why that Committee will be very much interested in your statement that I assured you that I “had tried to get rid of the anthropologists.” **------ Yours truly, (Signed) NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. VIII. FROM PRESIDENT BUTLER, Columbia University in the City of New York, President’s Room. PROFESSOR J. E. SPINGARN, March 7, 1911. 9 West 73d Street, New York. Dear Sir: It becomes my duty to advise you that at a meeting of the Trustees of Columbia College in the City of New York held yesterday, at which time your letter addressed to me under date of February 8, 1911, was laid before the Board, the following resolutions presented by the Committee on Education were adopted: Resolved, That the Professorship of Comparative Literature held by Joel Elias Spingarn, be and the same hereby is, abolished and discontinued from and after June 30, 1911. Resolved, That Professor Spingarn be relieved from further academic service from and after March 6, 1911. . Professor A. H. Thorndike has been advised of this action, and will make arrangements for the carrying on during the remainder of the half-year of the courses of instruction which have heretofore been entrusted to you. - Respectfully, (Signed) NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, President. 26 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE IX. FROM PROFESSOR SPINGARN. - March 11, 1911. DR. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, President of Columbia University. Dear Sir: I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of March 7. I shall make no comment on your failure to observe the promise contained in your letter of February 3 that you would inform me of the recommendations of the Com- mittee on Education “when the Committee's consideration of the matter is completed.” I shall merely record my formal protest against the action taken by the Trustees on March 6 as morally and legally unwarranted and unjustifi- /able, and state my belief that they would not have taken ſ an action so obversive of academic freedom if all the facts in the case had been fully presented to them. . º- Very truly yours, (Signed) J. E. SPINGARN. CHRONOLOGY 1895. J. E. Spingarn graduated from Columbia College. 1895-1896. Graduate study at Harvard. 1896-1899. Graduate study at Columbia. 1899. Receives the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The De- partment of Comparative Literature organized by Professor George E. Woodberry, with Dr. Spingarn as his chief assistant. 1900. Promoted to Tutor in Comparative Literature. 1904. Professor Woodberry resigns, and Dr. Spingarn is pro- moted to be Adjunct Professor of Comparative Literature. 1909. Promoted to be Professor of Comparative Literature.— Designated by President Butler as the representative of Columbia at the Poe Centenary Celebration at New York University. 1910. Elected Chairman of the Division of Modern Languages and Literatures for the academic year 1910-11. The Trustees, de- spite the protests of Professor Spingarn, decide to amalgamate the Department of Comparative Literature and the Department of English into one department, of which Dr. A. H. Thorndike, Pro- fessor of English, was designated as Chairman. September 28, 1910. The University reopens. After eleven years of service in his own Department (the Department of Com- parative Literature) Professor Spingarn now for the first time becomes a member of the new Department of English and Com- parative Literature under the authority of the professors of Eng- lish. He protests against the right of the professors of English to exercise authority over his own work in comparative literature. November 11, 1910. Professors William P. Trent and Brander Matthews call at Professor Spingarn's office in order to learn his position. They assure him, in the most flattering terms, of their high regard for his work. In reply, he assures them of his willingness to co-operate with his English colleagues in every way, but reserves the right to ignore their authority if exerted in regard to his own teaching in comparative literature. November 18, 1910. Professor A. H. Thorndike, Chairman of the Department, writes a letter to President Butler, charging Professor Spingarn with refusing to admit the authority of the Department. November 21, 1910. President Butler writes to Professor Spingarn in regard to these charges, citing a portion of Professor Thorndike's letter of November 18, and asking for an expression of Professor Spingarn's views in regard to the whole matter (see page 12). President Butler writes that the portion cited contains the “substance” of Professor Thorndike's letter; Professor Spin- garn has no other knowledge of the contents of the letter. November 22, 1910. Professor Spingarn calls on the President, who urges him to see Professor Thorndike and settle this “tempest 27 28 CHRONOLOGY in a teapot,” and assures him that he will not take official notice of the matter until this interview has taken place. November 23, 1910. Professor Spingarn writes an acknowledg- ment of the President’s letter, pending the interview with Pro- fessor Thorndike (see page 14). December 9, 1910. Professor Spingarn introduces the PECK RESOLUTION in the Faculty of Philosophy (see his letter of Janu- ary 30, 1911); on motion of Professor Russell, this resolution is laid on the table. December 21, 1910, to January 3, 1911. Christmas vacation. Professor Spingarn was in poor health during the previous weeks, and the interview with Professor Thorndike was delayed. January 4, 1911. Professor Spingarn discusses the matter with Professor Thorndike. January 6, 1911. Professor Spingarn calls on the President. Incidentally he shows the President a letter intended for Professor Russell who had moved to lay the PECK REsolution on the table at the Faculty meeting of December 9; the purpose of the letter was to renew the PECK RESOLUTION (see page 22). The President deliberately states that he had never heard of the Peck resolution before. He says: “If you don’t drop this matter, you will get into trouble.” Professor Spingarn replies: “I am not in the habit of altering my conduct because of the prospect of trouble, Mr. President.” January 9, 1911. Professor Spingarn again sees Professor Thorndike, and arrives at an amicable settlement of the question at issue between him and the Department. Professor Thorndike states that he is satisfied with the arrangement. January 11, 1911. Professor Spingarn asks Professor Thorndike whether he should communicate the result of the discussion to the President. Professor Thorndike says that he will do so himself. January 16, 1911. President Butler notifies Professor Spingarn that the Committee on Education (a committee of the Board of Trustees) has decided to discontinue his professorship at the end of the academic year, i. e., June 30, 1911 (see page 15). Dr. Butler writes that “it is inexpedient to maintain a second professorship of comparative literature”; neither in this letter nor at any other time did the President express to Professor Spingarn any dissatisfaction with his work. (Note that Professor Spingarn’s present contract with the University reads “for three wears from July 1, 1909, or during the pleasure of the Trustees”; that the President later acknowledged that this constituted a moral if not a legal obligation on the part of the University, and that at least one professor has come to Columbia on the written statement of the President that this contract constituted an actual obligation for three years.) January 21-22, 1911. The members of the English Department learn of the action of the Committee on Education for the first time, with great surprise. From this time, however, Professor Thorndike acts in such a manner that it becomes a duty to warn his colleagues and others to be wary in all their dealings with him. January 26, 1911. Professor Spingarn sees the President, who assures him that the action of the Committee was an administra- tive move not reflecting on him or his work; that he (the Presi- dent) would urge the Committee to rescind its action, and that Professor Spingarn’s chair would not be abolished at the end of CHRONOLOGY 29 the academic year. He advises Professor Spingarn to write a formal answer to the letter of January 16, and suggests the sub- stance of such a reply, which Professor Spingarn disregards in his letter of January 30. At three o’clock on the same day, Pro- fessor Spingarn sees Professor Thorndike, who states that he (Professor Thorndike) and one or two English colleagues had been called to the President’s office and had been informed that Professor Spingarn’s professorship would not be discontinued. (Professor Spingarn has not held any conversation with the Pres- ident or any member of the English Department since this date.) January 30, 1911. Professor Spingarn writes his reply to the President, reviewing the whole case (see page 16). February 3, 1911. The President replies (see page 20). Note the offensive tone of the letter (“inaccurate,” “misleading,” “impertinent,” etc.). February 8. Professor Spingarn replies, denying the allegations of the President (see page 23). February 10, 1911. The President writes a brief acknowledg- ment (see page 24). * March 7, 1911. The President announces that the Trustees on March 6 had “relieved” Professor Spingarn “from further academic service,” to take effect immediately, as well as voted to discontinue his professorship at the end of the academic year (see page 25). March 11, 1911. Professor Spingarn sends a formal protest (see page 26). (Note the President's breach of faith in not notifying him of the action of the Committee on Education until their ºmnium had been acted upon by the Trustees as a whole. April 6, 1911. In this and subsequent issues of the Columbia Alumnia News, the managing editor, Dr. Robert Arrowsmith, knowingly publishes false and libellous articles in regard to Pro- fessor Spingarn, but in the issue of May 18 is obliged to publish the following editorial retraction: “Nothing was further from the intention of the News than to injure Professor Spingarn or to reflect upon him personally or as a scholar, and we should regret to appear to have done so.” A PP E N DIX NOTE It is with great reluctance that Professor Spingarn, at the urgent request of the Columbia alumni whose advice is responsible for the publication of this pamphlet, has de- cided to include the following Appendix. Their arguments have for the main part taken this form: “There have ap- peared in the Columbia Alumni News and in one or two daily papers, no doubt at the instigation of the University authorities, anonymous attacks reflecting upon the character of your work. To us it seems essential that these attacks be squarely met, not as a matter of personal defence, but simply that the body of alumni may have all the evidence at their disposal. To many disinterested outsiders the value of your work as teacher and scholar will have a vital con- sequence in deciding the question at issue. A full state- ment of the case must include at least some testimony along these lines; without such testimony the record is not complete. You may of course shield yourself behind the claims of modesty or pride or personal dignity; but if you really intend to give whole-hearted service to a great issue, it is your duty to forget your own reluctance, to disregard the possibility of misrepresentation or misunderstanding on the part of others, and to serve the cause of Columbia and of academic freedom as well as you can.” 30 APPENDIX A. LETTERS FROM STUDENTS AND ALUMNI. The following letters have been selected from those re- ceived by Professor Spingarn from his former students shortly after his separation from the University. To these a few other letters have been added, as indicative of the attitude of Columbia alumni in general. FROM GRADUATE STUDENTS. “I was informed this afternoon that your connection with the University was severed, and I cannot tell you how sorry I was to hear it. It was, in my mind, a great privi- lege for me to be able to attend one of your courses, and in a few months I had learnt much that I could not have learnt from books in years. * * * Your departure means a great loss to me, as well as to many students present and to come in Columbia University.” “It was my intention to write you last week directly after I heard of the break in your connections with Colum- bia. But the feeling of my personal loss was so immediate that I hesitated lest I be too selfish in my expression of concern. But time has served only to deepen the impres- sion that the loss is particularly Ours, and that this change only gives you free play for your activities. Although I cannot hope to be any less grieved for myself than I was a week ago, I trust you will understand and pardon the delay. If during my course at Columbia my critical atti- tude toward literature has been vastly changed, and, as I believe, made broader and more rational, that is the result 31 32 LETTERS FROM STUDENTS of the work I have done with you, and I should like you to know it. Neither can I let this occasion pass of expressing my appreciation of your ideas and my admiration for them. I believe them to be, as they have seemed to me, compre- hensive, true, above the whims of a race or an age. In contrast with so much that is bizarre and one-sided, they have particularly appealed to me.” “I am very sorry to learn that you have left the Uni- versity. You have inspired me in my work, and I feel that I have greatly profited by your wide knowledge and thor- ough scholarship; even more than the latter have your keen criticism and suggestive ideas aided me in my work.” “May one of your former students express her great regret that Columbia is to lose the prestige she derived from your teaching and distinguished reputation ? I must be one of many who feel the same.” - “In expressing hereby the full measure of my regret on your resignation from Columbia, I am afraid I shall violate the strict rules of formality, nevertheless I venture to hope that you will excuse me in case this should become a long and tedious letter. First I must confess that after hearing and reading so much about the cause I am still in the dark, nor are my fellow-students more enlightened on that score. One thing, however, is evident—their sincere regret, in which they are joined by the students of the other classes. As for me, my regret is still more profound. * * * This very freedom is what I most admired in your lectures while I profited by them, and this is why I regret partic- ularly your resignation.” “* * * At all events, the Faculty of Columbia Uni- versity is certainly a greater loser than you, as a result of their action. Judging by my own personal experience, which has been confirmed by conversation with more than APPENDIX A 33 one graduate student of Columbia, your lectures were of stimulating and suggestive character, which were conspicu- ous for their rarity. ” “I have just read your splendid and courageous state- ment in the Times. I am thankful that there is one man in the university world with the courage of his convictions. You are paying the penalty of asserting your manhood; but ‘what is banished but set free from things I daily loath.’ It is partly our conscience, but mostly our pockets which make cowards of us all; but we are cowards, none the less. I wish that Columbia's loss might be University’s gain. We need Sorely men of your type and scholars of your ability.” “Nothing has pleased me so much, in a long time, as the account in the paper of your differences with Columbia University as represented by Dr. Butler. It is such a satisfaction to know that there really is a member of the faculty bold enough to speak his mind ‘in meeting.” Natu- rally, former students of the Comparative Literature department have resented Dr. Butler's attitude toward that department.” FROM UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS. “I want to express to you my keen personal regret at your leaving us. I confess that rarely was I so disap- pointed. * * * You will pardon my strong words in this matter when you understand that I am concerned person- ally in it, as is every man at Columbia so fortunate as to have had you as a teacher. I don't mind telling you that your going meant that the choicest flavor of my college work has vanished—really the only course that I took an interest in that was personal and spontaneous; now what is mainly left of my academic work here is to turn over a few dusty dry bones in courses, some of which have proved a sad disappointment. I don't think I shall ever forget the precious few months spent under your guidance.” 34 LETTERS FROM STUDENTS “I wish to express in partial measure my very sincere regret that you have severed your connection with Colum- bia University. Though in full realization of the loss to the University, which those who have been permitted to study under you feel to be very great, my regret is pri- marily a selfish one. My courses through college have been persistently ‘practical'—in fact, I am now studying law, and took your course in Comparative Literature merely inci- dentally. But far from being a mere incident in my study, it has proved to be what I deem the most valued course of all my college work. The justification of this statement is based not so much on what I have already acquired, for I have as yet but a scanty knowledge or appreciation of Lit- erature, but rather on the promise for the future. Your keen and discriminating insight into the world movements in literature, your wealth of acquaintance with the great writers of all time, and your intensely interesting exposition of your impressions thus gleaned, have given rise to a desire, a determination, to gain for myself as wide and appreciative a knowledge of literature as my faculties will permit. Thus my regret is based on a feeling of personal loss. I do not extend sympathy because I know that no man needs sympathy when he is in the right. I do extend a word, wholly inadequate, of deep appreciation of your work in so far as I have been permitted to enjoy the benefits thereof. I am sure that my work under you, though of brief duration, will have a permanent place in my memory, and will leave a permanent impress on my life.” “I was very much surprised this morning to hear that you had dropped your work with us for the rest of Compar- ative Literature. When I say that this was a keen disap- pointment I think I am speaking for the class; certainly for myself. In fact, we have even spoken of asking you to complete the lectures somewhere outside the University. Were you to act on that suggestion I am sure we would be pleased. * * * The work to which you introduced us was new for me; you interested me in it and I have you APPENDIX A 35 to thank for this discovery of at least a new field for intel- lectual enjoyment.” “I am looking forward with pleasure to hearing the rest of your lectures; I am fairly sure that most of the class will seize the opportunity you offer us, at once. Like a great many people, we failed to realize until you were gone, just what you and your course meant to us. That realization has now hit home, and hit hard.” “I heartily regret that you are to be with us no longer at Columbia. My sympathy I am quite sure you do not want; I am equally certain that Columbia and its honored head need it more than you.” “Might I ask you—on behalf of the rest of the class— whether you have yet decided the matter of continuing your lectures? We are all much interested in knowing, and the desire that you do so seems quite as keen as ever.” “I trust that you will pardon the liberty which I take in writing you; but I feel that I should like to add my voice to those who hold you in high esteem. I would not presume to offer you sympathy, for it is not you, but the University which is in sore need of it. Your lectures have been a true source of delight, and a fund of knowledge; and the depri- vation of them, if it must be so, shall be keenly felt. The standpoint which you have taken fills me with admiration, and I know that you will be truly honored by those who have any manhood, any self-assertiveness, any love of free- dom in their constitution. This action which you have taken, in living and speaking what you feel to be just and true, shall always be a living example to me of one who has refused to retract, or succumb to the abuse of authority. No words I could think of could truly characterize the contempt which I have for the President and Trustees of this University. But I did not wish to launch into any invective, I merely wished to tell you, in a feeble manner, 36 LETTERS FROM STUDENTS how much I appreciate the value of your work, how it has broadened my intellectual horizon, given me a deeper insight and keener appreciation of literature in general, and the periods which you covered in particular. I look eagerly forward to the results of the request of our class to have you meet us privately, however much I feel that we are infringing on your valuable time.” “I was extremely sorry to learn—and I believe that the same may be said of the whole class—that you will not conduct the remainder of the course. I hope that I may say without impertinence that I always found your lectures interesting and stimulating. I am sure that all of us would appreciate it very much if you would find it convenient to continue the course as an extra-curricular activity, for which, of course, the College Forum would be ready to grant us academic credit.” “I hesitate to add any poor word of mine to the many letters of sympathetic regret which you must be receiving. Still, I thought you might be interested to know that the prevalent campus feeling at this latest performance of the authorities is something close to indignation. * * * It is a matter of grief to those of us who love Columbia and look up to Butler, to see him exhibit such startling limita- tions that he would crush out independence of thought and freedom of expression in a University, where of all places it should be nourished. I can only wish that your unjust removal will arouse the professors to assert a little more individuality, and extend to you no merely conven- tional sympathy in this unfortunate affair.” “Jester tenders you its sincerest best wishes, and regrets that you are no longer connected with the University. I have been instructed by a vote of the Board to send you, with your permission, the Jester during the next college year, free of cost.” APPENDIX A 37 UNDERGRADUATE TESTIMONIAL. The students in Professor Spingarn's undergraduate course at the time of his retirement called at his house in a body, for the purpose of requesting him to continue his lectures for the remainder of the year outside of the Uni- versity, and presented to him the following signed testi- monial engrossed on parchment: “We, the members of Joel Elias Spingarn's last class in Comparative Literature at Columbia College, do tender to him, upon the cessation of his academic duties, this testi- monial of our gratitude to the teacher and of our regard and esteem for the man.” FROM THE FATHER OF AN UNDERGRADUATE. “I want to tell you how much I personally regret your retirement from the University. * * * I shall never forget your very sympathetic attitude toward my son, and just at the time, too, when he was most in need of encourage- ment. I shall remember that you were in reality the only one in the whole corps of instruction in the University who really took an interest in him and his affairs. It is a fact that whatever the boy succeeded in doing at Columbia along the lines of his predilection in writing, was done in spite of the conditions that surrounded him and not as a conse- quence of any helpfulness or incentive they gave him. These are perhaps rather hard things to say, but they are my con- viction, and in expressing them I feel again actively my indebtedness to you.” - . FROM ALUMNI. “I was passing through New York “** when the paper told me of your situation at Columbia. The whole thing would be unbelievable had I not seen the same forces at work elsewhere, with similar results. So it all reinforces my double feeling—my personal loyalty to you in your gen- 38 LETTERS FROM STUDENTS erous, self-sacrificing stand, and my humiliation that a great university—and my own, too—could stoop so unworthily from the ideals we expect of her. I have seen enough of the sacrifices one makes, in coming before the public as a critic of the administration, to know how much may be the personal loss, in misunderstanding and bitter feeling, from taking such a position as you have taken. Yet I think that those whose judgment you really care for will not be blinded by the obscuring personalities that always cloud such a controversy, and will recognize that there is a large issue lying behind, which our universities, following public opinion if they can't lead it, will one day have to face squarely and solve rightly.” “I saw the Herald's account this morning, and I congratu- late you from the bottom of my heart. You are well out of Columbia—a cauldron seething with all the baser pas- sions, as far as I can detect—cowardice, self-seeking, dis- loyalty, and so on. You are fortunate, too, I feel, in having your exit publicly associated with an act of courage and conviction. Slowly, but surely, the new Columbia is being built out of the ruin of the old by just such acts on the part of a few, and your friends are proud of you for the calm and fearless way in which you have performed your duty.” “You will believe that it was with regret and concern that I learned yesterday of the severing of your relationship with Columbia; but this regret and concern are far deeper on behalf of Columbia than on yours. You, at least, have exercised that rare privilege, of which so few of us avail ourselves in these days of compromise, by being courageous and sincere at all costs, and though you will miss Columbia, far more must the University miss a man like you. * * * I wonder whether the time has not come when some of our Alumni will have to take a definite stand against the high- handedness of President Butler. Quo usque tandem abutere patientia nostra?” APPENDIX A 39 “The newspaper account of President Butler's treatment of you has just reached me. Doubtless you will be flooded by a multitude of comments from your friends—but one more from me can't do harm; and it may interest you to know how high-handed and unwarranted Mr. Butler's action seems to one who stands quite impartially on the outside of academic circles. * * * Mr. Butler's latest action is obviously neither well-pondered nor sane. That he should supplement it by disappearing is not very remark- able, and his secretary’s statement that he will not be back until April Fool's Day also seems appropriate. I sincerely hope the consequences of Mr. Butler's action will not check, even temporarily, a career as brilliant as yours has been. Probably you yourself will not regret having to continue it in another atmosphere, since, whatever post you may now accept, it is likely to be more congenial than a professorship under Mr. Butler.” “I note by the papers that you have been made the latest burnt offering. My feelings are rather mingled. Unlike you, I used to cut certain classes occasionally and attend others in which I was not registered. In this way I attended some of Butler's philosophy (save the mark 1) and some of Harry Peck's. As an outsider I am of course ignorant of the politics involved in recent occurrences, but I am pretty well convinced of the gross unfitness of Butler for the presidency of Columbia.” APPENDIX B-BIBLIOGRAPHY. The following Bibliography includes the testimony of a few scholars and reviewers (especially foreign) in re- gard to Professor Spingarn's publications, exclusive of his contributions to periodicals: 1. A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance. New York: Columbia University Press, 1899. Second edition, revised, 1908. Translated into Italian by Antonio Fusco, with a commendatory preface by Benedetto Croce, Bari, 1905. - LETTER FROM THE ITALIAN POET AND ScHOLAR CARDUCCI, AUGUST 30, 1899: “Caro Signore: La ringrazio del suo veramente pregiatis- simo dono. Da tempo io invocavo una storia della critica in Italia. Il suo libro viene a compiere a superare ogni mia speranza; così profondamente sono scrutati i concetti, così finamente svolte le teoriche e studiato lo spirito traverso il Cinquecento, così bene analizzati gli elementi; in opere che nessuno in Italia si dà la pena di leggere, tanto sono difficili, confuse, e (diciamolo pure) inamabili. Credo che egual lode meriti la trattazione francese e inglese. Certo in Italia non abbiamo libro in proposito che si approssimi pur con lungo intervallo al libro suo. Di che Lo ringrazio anche per la letteratura italiana. La saluto cordialmente e me Le affermo obbligatissimo GIOSUÈ CARDUCCI.” 1 (TRANSLATION.) “Dear Sir: I thank you for your truly precious gift. For some time I have called for a history of criticism in Italy. Your book now comes to surpass all my hopes-so profoundly have you examined the ideas, so finely unfolded the theories and 40 APPENDIX B 41 “This book comes from an American university, and we wonder why our own scholars cannot give us work of the same kind. * * * Of his learning, his grasp of general prin- ciples, his tact, lucidity, and good sense, it is only just to speak in high terms of praise.”—London Daily Chronicle, September 15, 1899. “Mr. Spingarn shows in every page of his work the almost enormous extent of his erudition. But he writes lucidly and simply; his learning never appears tedious. His volume is the handbook of the subject of which it treats.”— London Spectator, December 30, 1899. LETTER FROM THE LATE PROFESSOR S. H. BUTCHER, M. P., PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY, July 23, 1899: “Dear Mr. Spingarn: Allow me to offer you my hearty thanks for your book, which is one of the most valuable and interesting pieces of literary history I have read for a long time. I myself have learnt much that was new to me, and I was hardly aware that so great and so rich a field had hitherto remained unworked. * * * I hope that we may some day make one another's personal acquaintance, per- haps in London. If you are ever likely to visit England or Scotland, do not fail to let me know beforehand. I am Yours truly and gratefully, S. H. BUTCHER.” LETTER FROM PROFESSOR MARCELINO MENENDEz Y PELAYO, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SPAIN, January 6, 1900: “Ho tenido mucho gusto en recibir y mucho provecho en leer la bella History of Literary Criticism in the Renais- studied the spirit of the 16th Century, so well analyzed the ele- ments—in works which are so difficult, so confused, and (let us admit also) so tedious, that no one in Italy has ever taken the trouble to read them. I believe that the French and English sec- tions of your book merit equal praise. Certainly in Italy we have no work on the subject which in any way approaches your book. Therefore I thank you in the name of Italian literature. I salute you cordially and subscribe myself. Gratefully yours, Giosuè Carbucci.” 42 BIBLIOGRAPH V sance que Vd. me hizo el honor de enviarme. Creo que ha acertado Vd. mejor que ninguno de los que en análogas tareas nos habiamos ocupado, a trazar la genealogia de las ideas criticas en la època del Renacimiento, y â determinar con exactitud el influjo de la cultura italiana en los precep- tistas de toda Europa. Cuando reimprima mi EIistoria de las ideas estéticas, tendré ocasión de mencionar el libro de Vd. y aprovecharme de su enseñanza.” “Voici-et c'est le fait récent le plus considérable-que les États-Unis, avec l'admirable outillage de leurs Univer- sités neuves, entrent en ligne: ils nous ont envoyé l'an dernier, un essai richement documenté sur les origines de la doctrine classique (J. E. Spingarn, History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance). Il faudra, désormais, comp- ter avec l'érudition du Nouveau-Monde.”–Gustave Lanson, in Revue de Synthèse Historique, Paris, August, 1900. “Thorough in execution, good in method and style, and an excellent example of what a monograph in literary his- tory should be.”–The Nation, New York, December 28, 1899. “Certo il suo saggio con sobrio disegno, con netta preci- sione d'idee, con larga e ben digesta erudizione, segua sicuramente le linee principali della storia d'uno de più complessi e rilevanti fatti dello spirito moderno; e º * * come elaborazione di criteri direttivi per intendere lo svol- gimento della critica letteraria e la formazione del classic- ismo dovrà essere ricercato e sarà letto di tutti con soddisfa- zione.”–Prof. Giovanni Gentile, in Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, Turin, 1900, vol. Xxxvi., p. 415 sq. “No venturer in this subject dare reckon without the learned author of the History of Criticism, or the American scholar who broke fresh ground in the remarkable volume on Literary Criticism in the Renaissance. To the thanks which I owe to them for my share of these public gifts, I add my hearty acknowledgment of not a few happy suggestions which our friendship has made possible.” APPENDIX B 43 —G. Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, Oxford, 1904, preface. “Il libro dello Spingarn, fin da quando vide la luce nel testo inglese, ebbe lodi meritate ed autorevoli. * * * Il libro fa onore a lui ed alla critica americana.”—Prof. Francesco Flamini, in Rassegna Bibliografica della Letteratura Italiana, anno xiv., 1906. “Professor Spingarn's History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance, which has now been issued in a revised edition, augmented by a chapter embodying the results of the author's more recent researches, was originally published nine years ago. The German phrase ‘epoch-making' is now often applied to books which do not deserve it, but it might be justly applied to this enquiry of Professor Spin- garn’s.”—Prof. Brander Matthews, in the Forum, New York, August, 1908. “Diese bahnbrechende Studie.”—Prof. Alois Brandl, in Herrig's Archiv, 1908, vol. cxxi., p. 213. “Dr. Spingarn’s learned and skillful account of the rise of Aristotelian canons of criticism.”—Ferris Greenslet, in Atlantic Monthly, July, 1902. “All English-reading students, whether of criticism or of the Renaissance, owe to Mr. Joel Elias Spingarn the heart- iest thanks for his very useful History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance, a book which most courageously and carefully explores and maps out a region of literature hith- erto far more talked of than known. There are, naturally enough, points on which I disagree with Mr. Spingarn. * * * But no differences can prevent my acknowledging the help he has given me here, and still more elsewhere.”—George Saintsbury, The Earlier Renaissance, London, 1901, p. 376, n. “I have cheerfully to acknowledge the forerunnership and help of Mr. Joel Elias Spingarn, whose History of Literary Criticism appeared in 1899. I shall have occasion to differ 44 BIBLIOGRAPHY with Mr. Spingarn here and there; and his conception of a History of Criticism is not mine, just as, no doubt, mine is not his. But the obligations of the second treader of a previously untrodden path to the first are perhaps the great- est that fall to be acknowledged in any literary work; and I acknowledge them in Mr. Spingarn's case to the fullest extent possible.”—George Saintsbury, History of Criticism, London, 1902, vol. ii., p. 3, n. “The most luminous account yet given of a field of lit- erary history which teems with obscure problems.”—Prof. C. H. Herford, in Manchester Guardian, January 15, 1900. “Zum Schluss wollen wir Herrn Dr. Spingarn’s Buch bestens empfehlen, denn es ist eine gediegene Arbeit, die gewissenhafte und scharfsichtige Forschung mit klarer und anschaulicher Darstellung verbindet, und dem Verfasser sowie der Columbia-Universität zur Ehre gereicht.”—Prof. E. P. Evans, in Die Nation, Berlin, April 21, 1900. “Beiden Werken hat die Kritik hiben und driiben reiches Lob gespendet. Die nicht nur inhaltlich, wissenschaftlich tüchtigen, Sondern auch ausserst anregenden und gut geschriebenen Bücher, die wir jedem englischkundigen Gebildeten empfehlen, ehren die Columbia University in New York und insbesondere deren litteraturvergleichende Sektion, aus denen sie hervorgegangen sind.”—Prof. L. P. Betz, in Das litterarische Echo, Berlin, July, 1901. “Eine tibersichtliche, gedrångte und treffende Darstellung die überall das Wesentliche heraushebt und sich nie in Detail verliert, ermöglicht es dem Verfasser das grosse Gebiet in einem kleinen und ansprechenden Buch zu bewäl- tigen.”—Prof. Karl Vossler, in Literturblatt für germanische und romanische Philologie, September, 1900. “L'objet de ce livre est de la plus haute importance.* * * La synthèse de M. Spingarn, on le voit, a le mérite d'être aussi neuve que solide.”—Eugène Bouvy, in the Bulletin Italien, Bordeaux, 1901, t. i., no. 2. - APPENDIX B 45 “Die empfehlenden Worte, mit der wir die erste, englische Ausgabe begrüsst haben, bleiben in vollstem Masse zu recht bestehen. Die gründliche Information, die klare Sachlich- keit und die Reichhaltigkeit des Inhalts sichern dem Buche einen dauerdnen Platz unterden grundlegenden Nachschlage- werken, und die geschickte Verwebung der zahllosen Details in eine wohldurchdachte, einheitliche Darstellung machen es auch zur ersten Einführung geeignet.”-Prof. Ph. Aug. Becker, in the Deutsche Litteraturgeitung, Berlin, January 20, 1906. “E il nostro torto apparisce più grave se poi si pensi che non pochi fra gli americani più cospicui per ingegno e per dottrina ci sono amici fervidi, sinceri, operosi, che studiano noi e le cose nostre e s'adoprano a farci conoscere seria- mente dai loro connazionali. A modo suo, F. Marion Crawford non ci voleva meno bene di Willard Fiske, di Charles Eliot Norton, di J. E. Spingarn.”-G. Sacconi, in Corriere d'Italia, Rome, November 29, 1909. 2. American Scholarship; Les Belles-Lettres et L'Eru- dition en Amérique au point de vue académique: Mém- oire lu au Congrès d'Histoire Comparée. Macon, 1901 (re- printed from the Proceedings of the Congress of Com- parative History, Paris, 1900). “Tot de geschiedenis der studie van de vergelijkende let- terkunde leverde de jonge Amerikaansche geleerde J. E. Spingarn een korte bijdrage. * * * “Ons land, zei de jeug- dige, sympathieke geleerde, is ontdekt geworden door Ger- manen en Latijnen; wij wenschen ons aandeel te hebben in beider beschaving.” * * * Een zeer gunstig bekend werk van den heer Spingarn is zijne History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance.”-Prof. A. G. van Hamel, in De Gids, Amsterdam, July, 1901. “If Dr. Spingarn is as good a prophet as he promises to be a comparative critic, we shall have to look to America 46 BIBLIOGRAPHY for guidance in these matters. * * * The institution of such curricula as are now offered by the School of Comparative Literature in the Columbia University of New York will do much to effect this general purpose, as well as to cure American scholarship of that philological dulness which is already commented upon in the West.”—Blackwood’s Mag- agine, January, 1901. 3. Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century: Ed- ited by J. E. Spingarn, 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Vols. i., ii, 1908; vol. iii, 1909. “Mr. Spingarn's volumes are excellent examples of the best results of American scholarship applied to English literature. They suggest Teutonic thoroughness and width of reading, for references to French, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian criticism are frequent in the introduction; and they suggest that untiring industry in the accumulation of facts and ideas has been accompanied by hard original thinking.” —Birmingham (England) Post, May 5, 1908. “One of the most solid and erudite prefaces one has ever encountered, even in a treatise on aesthetics.”—Ibid., April 15, 1911. “Here our editor, with his perhaps unique familiarity with this literature, comes valiantly to the rescue. His Introduction is * * * a highly valuable piece of work, show- ing in a single page more real grasp of the subject than Saintsbury's History of Criticism displays in a chapter.”— New York Nation, June 18, 1908. “In dealing with the first two volumes of Prof. Spingarn's Critical Essays of the Sev- enteenth Century, we called attention to the excellence of the editing and solid erudition of the Introduction. The third volume, now before us, gives no occasion to withdraw any word of that commendation.”—Ibid., November 11, 1909. “Professor Spingarn's Introduction is an illuminating piece of work, laying down the main lines of his subject APPENDIX B 47 with admirable clarity and following them up with real force and insight and that rare kind of erudition which never grows pedantic.”—London Spectator, May 2, 1908. “Der ausgezeichnete Kenner der Renaissancepoetik biekt hier, was an Kunst Kritik des 17. Jahrhunderts neben den Essays von Dryden, besonders zu beachten ist.”— Prof. Alois Brandl, in Herrig's Archiv, 1909, vol. cxxi., p. 477. “Viele Anmerkungen zeugen von der Gelehrsamkeit und eindringend vergleichenden Methode des Heraus- gebers.”—Ibid., 1910, vol. cxxii., p. 487. “Lo Spingarn * * * mostra con acume le origini di certe idee nuove, il lento trasformarsi di una teoria in un’ altra, 1’azione della filosofia sulla critica; * * * e in ciascun para- grafo non mancano le idee ingegnose, audaci, paradossali qualche volta.”—A. Galletti, in La Cultura, July 15, 1909. “To Professor Saintsbury we are indebted for immense industry and a wealth of knowledge, agreeably displayed; to Professor Spingarn we are grateful for the philosophic synthesis that can illumine and interpret facts.”—Prof. Frank W. Chandler, in the Educational Review, New York, November, 1909. “A word of praise must be added for Mr. Spingarn's learned and interesting and useful notes. He has selected his material with judgment and illustrated it with knowl- edge and care, and his book has a high value.”—London Academy, May 2, 1908. “Mr. Spingarn’s long and learned introduction discusses with brilliancy the tendencies and characteristics of the lit- erature of the time. His texts * * * are selected with judg- ment, and edited with a minimum of interference between us and the original.”—London Outlook, April, 1908. “The catholic range and value of Mr. Spingarn's illumi- nating notes (always shaking themselves vitally free from 48 BIBLIOGRAPHY mere philological and antiquarian detail), and of his vivid and comprehensive prefatory essay.”—Liverpool Courier, August 7, 1908. “Compiled with that clean intimacy and power which made Mr. Spingarn's introduction to the first volume of the set one of the most notable pieces of criticism America has lately proffered us.”—Ibid., November 18, 1909. “Professor Spingarn has done good service to the history of literary criticism. His notes are models of what such notes should be.”—London Morning Post, June 11, 1908. LETTER FROM NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, PRESIDENT OF CoLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, May 7, 1908: “Dear Professor Spingarn: I thank you most heartily for your kindness in sending me a copy of the new edition of your former book and the first two volumes of your Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century. I spent last evening in going through these vol- umes with great satisfaction and delight. It is a matter of no small importance to Columbia and to American schol- arship to have so thorough a piece of work as this go out from the Oxford University Press by one of our own fam- ily. I congratulate you most sincerely upon what you have accomplished. Faithfully yours, NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER.” 4. Sir William Temple's Essays on Ancient and Mod- ern Learning and on Poetry: Edited by J. E. Spingarn. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909. “As regards the editing of these two essays, it is hardly necessary to say more than that they are reprinted from the third volume of a book known and valued by most students of English literature, Professor Spingarn's Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century.”—The Isis, Oxford, May 7, 1910. APPENDIX B 49 “Professor Spingarn has done good service by extracting Temple's essays from his admirable series of Critical Es- says of the Seventeenth Century, and reprinting them in one small volume.”—Birmingham (England) Post, Novem- ber 26, 1909. “This scholarly edition is an addition of the greatest value to our educational literature.”—London Bookman, March, 1910. 5. The New Criticism: A Lecture delivered at Columbia University, March 10, 1910. New York: Co- lumbia University Press, 1911 (reprinted from the Colum- bia University Lectures on Literature). This lecture has aroused considerable controversy in England; A. B. Walkley in the London Times of March 20, 1911; William Archer in the Morning Leader of August 5 and 12, 1911; the Manchester Guardian of March 20; the Birmingham Post of April 15, and numerous other papers have devoted columns to answering its arguments. “Professor Spingarn drops a shell into the critical camp by his essay, The New Criticism. * * * It is the most sweepingly iconoclastic utterance of its kind that I have ever seen and will drive the conservatives to their guns. * * * The writer handles his theme with a stimulating brilliance.”—Professor Richard Burton, in the Bellman, March 25, 1911. “Nous avons souvent eu l'occasion de parler du Pro- fesseur Spingarn, l’un des plus brillants historiens de la critique littéraire.”—Ch. Bastide, in the Revue Critique d’Histoire et de Littérature, Paris, August 19, 1911. “A very striking lecture.”—Oxford Magazine, England, June 8, 1911. “A little thinking after the close of this blood-stirring lecture leads one to suspect that what our critical apparatus 50 BIBLIOGRAPHY needs is readaptation rather than destruction. But it is a good thing to have it all challenged. Some of it cannot survive; let such of it as can, justify itself. Such wood- chopping is a refreshing sign of vigorous intellectual life in an American university “ ” * and one may hope that it is only a coincidence that he is no longer a college pro- fessor.”—Chicago Evening Post, September 8, 1911. “J. E. Spingarn, autore del ben noto libro, La Critica letteraria nel Rinascimento, ha pubblicato una sua con- ferenza dal titolo, The New Criticism. * * * Una mirabile chiarezza a un gran calore d'espozione.”—La Cultura, edited by De Lollis, Rome, 1911, nos. 13-14. “He discusses the subject upon a basis of broad historical knowledge, and in a highly suggestive and stimulating fashion.”—The Dial, Chicago, April 1, 1911. “A stimulating and thoughtful lecture.”—Edinburgh Scotsman, April 3, 1911. “Once in a while there appears a message that is of real value to all lovers of good books and noble litera- ture; a message that is sincere, plain spoken, and vital. Such a message is Professor Spingarn's booklet, The New Criticism.”—Los Angeles Herald, March 26, 1911. “Carissimo Amico: Grazie di cuore del bellissimo libretto, nel quale avete voluto parlare cosi benevolmente di me, e, qual ch' é più, farvi propugnatore d’idee che a me sem- brano vere.”—Benedetto Croce, Naples, March 19, 1911. LETTER FROM J. W. MACKAIL, PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OxFORD, MARCH 7, 1911. “I have to thank you very warmly for having sent me your lecture on the New Criticism; I have read it with great interest and admiration. * * * Indeed, I have seldom had the pleasure of reading so much important truth brought together into so compact a form as in this lecture.” APPENDIX B * 51 6. The New Hesperides and Other Poems. New York: Sturgis & Walton Company, 1911. * LETTER FROM JOHN HAY, U. S. SECRETARY OF STATE, SEPTEMBER 25, 1901. “Dear Mr. Spingarn: I thank you very much for your poem, which I have read with great interest and enjoyment. I am old and tired, but I still take pleasure in the dreams of other men, when they treat of noble things—and are well told. Lines like ‘For Spring finds Summer trembling in the root, And the March mists are melting into flowers,’ and ‘Only the seeker worthy of the quest Shall find the perfect land’ remind me of the days when I, too, dwelt in Arcadia. Yours faithfully, JoHN HAY.” “The author of The New Hesperides * * * has al- ready proved himself a critic of a very high order in a lecture on The New Criticism, recently reviewed in these columns. * * * We very gladly recognize the many fine qualities which proclaim him to be a true poet.”— London Academy, September 9, 1911. “American pride takes many forms of expression, and sometimes the vaunting of the glories of the Spread Eagle is distasteful to the sensibilities of European culture. But Mr. Spingarn's poems idealize the self-confidence of Uncle Sam with so lofty an imaginative ardor and with so admir- able a grace of poetic art, that it is impossible not to admire the spirit of the poems. The old Hesperides, as readers of Grecian learning do not need to be reminded, were the happy * The title-poem of this volume was read before the Society of Phi Beta Kappa at Columbia University in June, 1901, and privately printed by the Society for distribution among its members. 52 BIBLIOGRAPHY islands of antiquity, where human nature reached its best. The new Hesperides celebrated in the chief piece in this charming book seem at first as if they, the modern Happy Islands, where progress is to reach its ultimate pitch, are going to be somewhere in the West of the United States, perhaps in California. But it turns out that they are an ideal land to which all humanity is more or less closely to approximate, however ahead in that direction the United States may be. The remaining poems in the book, an elegant Prothalamion, a “dream of rose gardens,’ and some pieces about love and gardens and the spring, are, each in its own way, no less eloquent and impassioned.”—Edinburgh Scots- man, May 25, 1911. “The prospective reader who opens this slender volume expecting to find in it only such mediocre verses as is most of our present-day poetry, has in store for him a delightful surprise. For these are true poems—of a minor singer to be sure, but one to whom has indeed been vouchsafed some portion of the divine afflatus. Finished workman- ship, melody, aptness of phrase, depth of passion and of thought—all are here. * * * But the best poems in the book are the simpler verses gathered under the general title “Young Love.’ In these, three characteristics are chiefly apparent: a passion that is genuine, deep, and pure; a discerning love of nature, and a use of words that com- bines precision with music and pleasing imagery.”—The Sewanee Review, October, 1911. “He has at all events a spirit, a touch, and especially an intonation, distinctly recalling the English poet [Matthew Arnold]. We observe with pleasure, too, his possession of that virtue of which Arnold made so much, both in pre- cept and in practice—the virtue of clarity. His emotion, again, is of a restrained and purified kind, and in the poem which gives this thin volume its title he expresses patriotic ardor in just that note of exaltation which moves us the more through its freedom alike from sentimentality and coldness. * * * It is especially for a certain delicate APPENDIX B 53 earnestness that his work is to be very cordially com- mended.”—New York Tribune, June 17, 1911. “Nobody can read the little volume of poems just issued from the pen of Joel Elias Spingarn without realizing that he is a true poet.”—Rochester Post-Earpress, May 17, 1911. “He has the sense of beauty conjoined with the gift of subtle and refined expression. * * * He rarely fails to strike a high note with pure intonation.”—William Mor- ton Payne, in the Dial, Chicago, August 16, 1911. “His poems are not all dreams, however, of ‘Italian Pop- pies’ and “Rose Gardens’ and ‘New Hesperides' lapped in tideless summer seas. “The New Palace of Art' surges with a social passion that can see no beauty in a beauty reared on groans; no justice in those conditions we call modern civilization, which force a hundred to sweat and starve in order that one may play jack-stones with dia- monds. This poem may well be quoted in its entirety.” —Denver News, May 29, 1911. “A charming little book that contains some real poetry, which, in its absence of strain and eccentricity, it is a plea- sure to read. These lyrics possess a quality of imagina- tion based upon personal dignity that yet is not afraid to let itself go when the impulse of song comes. There is no gainsaying the loveliness of such things as ‘A Dedica- tion,’ ‘Spring Passion,’ and ‘Italian Poppies.' * * * It is the work of a genuine poet.”—Richard Burton, in the Bellman, October 28, 1911. 7. Jacobean and Caroline Criticism: A chapter con- tributed to the Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. vii. Cambridge (England): Cambridge University Press, 1911. “The only American contribution to the present volume is by Prof. J. E. Spingarn, from whose authoritative pen we have the chapter on Jacobean and Caroline criticism.” —New York Evening Post, October 21, 1911. 3 9015 O48452299 ||||||||||| № ;-->---