PREFACE

The method of teaching literature exclusively through a historical text-book has for many years been discredited. The substitution, however, of the study of a few selected "masterpieces" has also proved unsatisfactory, both because it leaves literature unrelated to history, and because it leaves the student without any sense of relations and proportion in literature itself. The remedy is sought in a compromise. None will attempt to teach literature to-day without requiring liberal reading in the works of important writers; but at the same time this reading will be regulated and the acquired knowledge set in order by the use of a critical history.

Careful organization, therefore, should characterize every such history. There should be adequate recognition both of the various phases of literature and of individual writers. The selection of a few names, however truly representative, will not answer; and no writer may be presented in isolation from the rest. Doubtless, for the purpose of elementary study, in which memory plays so great a part, some sharpness of outline is needed, and this calls for a partial detachment of authors. But relations must still be attended to, and proportion observed. The lesser men may be crowded down, but they should not be thrown out; they are needed to give the right perspective-to show that literature is not an affair of some half a dozen overtopping names, but that it is a wide activity, without definable metes and bounds. At the same time the wise teacher will avoid burdening his pupils' memories with the more colorless names and dates, which are to be seen rather than looked at,

like the minor features of a landscape that lie outside the focus of the eye.

In the matter of critical estimates the writer of a text-book finds himself in a position of uncomfortable responsibility. Immature students, unused to judgment, and unable to test the opinions delivered to them, often take those opinions without question, like so much gospel. At first thought, the only safe course would seem to lie in rigidly following "current estimates." But it should be possible to preserve independence of judgment without giving way to personal vagary, and at the worst a little heresy may serve to stimulate the student's critical faculty. After all, only time can determine where the heresy lies. Current criticism, for instance, tends perceptibly to depreciate our native literature. Possibly one who, like the writer of this book, has an honest admiration for our less academic writers, and ventures to set himself against this attitude, may find himself justified in the end.

Of course, the writer of a text-book in this field owes much to certain standard critical works. For the early period the books of Professor Tyler, unhappily now concluded, are indispensable. For the later period Mr. Stedman's Poets of America is a natural guide, though Mr. Stedman has such an easy way of winning assent that one who values his own independence will use him charily. Professor Richardson's American Literature is valuable for the whole field. Professor Wendell's Literary History of America has come too late to be of service to the present work, but it is included among the books of reference. All are commended to the student with the simple advice to make the usual allowance for personal and local influences. Mr. Stedman, for instance, though he never fails to do justice to the Cambridge men, is disposed to make more of the New York poets-Bayard Taylor and others-than their merit seems to warrant; while on the other

hand Professor Wendell of Harvard, though certainly never prejudiced in praise of New England genius, treats with scant courtesy the Muses of the Crotonian fount.

The list of late writers included in the appendix of this book is to be regarded chiefly as a directory. Upon many of these writers it is altogether too early to pass judgment, and many of the names have been admitted principally for the reason that they are likely to be sought for, or to make a more complete exhibition of the tendencies of a time or a locality. The somewhat full references and suggestions for study are intended for aids in the class room.

Thanks are due to Mr. Lindsay T. Damon, of the University of Chicago, for most helpful criticism both upon organization and upon details. Acknowledgment is also due to Messrs. D. Appleton and Co., of New York, the publishers of Bryant's works, and to Mr. David McKay, of Philadelphia, the publisher of Brown's and Whitman's works, for permission to make extracts from books of which they hold the exclusive copyright.

Stanford University, Cal.
May 18, 1901.

A. G. N.