vote money for its support properly expect that their sons and daughters shall be taught the 'practical' matters which would be required in making an average living. No other college does this work so well. As most of these universities are in states predominantly agricultural, the rudest details of farming appear on their programmes side by side with literature, philosophy, and history. This is as it should be. I merely adduce it to show that there is no analogy between our state university and the state university of Europe. When our Junior Colleges attain their goal it will be nothing of this widely beneficial sort. It will remove learning from the common people. It will not bring it to their doors. A European university can keep up the number of its students by prescribing a degree as a condition for political appointment.

I hope the purpose and limitations of this paper will be clearly seen. One must not turn to it for instruction on conditions of study in Europe. I have not been there since the war. The enjoyment and profit of my sixteen previous visits were so great that I have not been willing to go back and look on desolation. About as great changes must have come in the intellectual scenery as in the physical. What I have stated, therefore, as facts cannot be minutely trusted. All that I would insist upon is that between the higher education of Europe and of America there is a substantial and important

difference which the Junior Colleges, if unchecked, will break down. I write merely to start inquiry. The more fully I am proved in error, the more pleased I shall be. I cannot myself detect that error. The steps through which my argument has passed are tolerably simple and the conclusion is for me inevitable. Wherever Junior Colleges are strong, colleges will drop their first two years and will add two graduate years, chiefly of professional study. The unique intermediate culture college of America will disappear, and with it the great troop of men and women who, having had contact with scholarship, have become leaders in idealism and centres of civilization for our waste places. The financial backing of these persons, the main support of our colleges hitherto, now ceasing, we must, like the universities of Europe, come into dependence on the State and let our politicians refuse money if we teach such science as they do not like. I do not detect the flaw in this argument. Will someone point it out?

My only desire is to awaken thought. This paper is an impassioned cry to superintendents to mind what they are doing, to regard ultimate consequences rather than attractive immediate issues. Whoever will show that I am unduly alarmed and that it is wise to break down the distinction between American and European education will earn my gratitude. I don't want to think as I do, but I can't help it.

WE are apt to think of this great book as the work of a pious, not overclean old scholar, much given to talk and tea, and somewhat too fond of abusing people. It will come, therefore, as a surprise to some to learn that the Dictionary was the work of 'an obscure young man' (I am quoting Dr. Burney, Fanny's father), who, 'single-handed' and alone, began it when he was little more than thirty-six years of age; that he had completed it before he had received any degree from any university; that he kept back the title-page until the authorities at Oxford had time to confer upon him a small degree, that of Master of Arts; that it was many years later that finally and forever he became 'Dr. Johnson.'

It was Robert Dodsley, the publisher, who first made the suggestion that Johnson should undertake the work, but Johnson told Boswell that he had long thought of it himself; and it was another publisher, Andrew Millar, who, associated with Dodsley and others, carried on the negotiations which led to Johnson's receiving fifteen hundred and seventy-five pounds for the complete work, out of which he was to pay the expenses of his six amanuenses while the book was in progress. It was not much, but Johnson never complained: he said he hated a complainer, and years later, when Boswell remarked that he was sorry he had not received more for his work, his reply was,

'I am sorry, too, but it was very well; the booksellers are generous, liberalminded men; they are the true patrons of literature.'

Johnson, when he made his bargain with the booksellers, expected that he would be able to complete the work in about three years, and, when a friend pointed out that it took the French Academy, which consisted of forty members, forty years to compile its Dictionary, replied, "This, then, is the proportion: forty times forty is sixteen hundred; as three is to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.' But it took him, in fact, seven years: when he first began his labors he was living in Holborn, but he soon took a large house (still standing) at 17 Gough Square, just off Fleet Street, in the garret of which, fitted up like a rude countinghouse, he carried to completion his work.

William Strahan, the printer of the Dictionary, had his printing establishment not far off, and it was to be near him that Johnson indulged himself with the most commodious residence he ever had; and, moreover, had he not just been promised fifteen hundred and seventy-five pounds? - which he may have thought a magnificent sum. Poor fellow! He little thought that after the completion of his great undertaking he would be arrested for a debt of five pounds, eighteen shillings, which

amount he was to borrow from Samuel Richardson, the author of Pamela, and thus free himself from the bailiffs. I have always thought it curious that Samuel Johnson never met Benjamin Franklin: both were living in London at the same time, and both were intimate friends of Strahan's, to whom, it may be remembered, Franklin addressed one of his cleverest letters. One is permitted to wonder what would have happened at a meeting of the wisest and wittiest American that ever lived with the wisest and wittiest Englishman of his time. I believe it has not yet been decided what takes place when an irresistible force meets an immovable body.

It is rather curious too that, although Johnson affected to dislike Scotchmen, practically all who were concerned with the Dictionary were Scotch: five out of six of his amanuenses were, as were also Millar, his publisher-in-chief, and Strahan. Millar must have been sorely tried by Johnson's lack of punctuality, for we are told that when the work was finally done, and the last sheet brought to him, he exclaimed, "Thank God I have done with him.' Johnson, on being told this, replied with a smile, 'I am glad that he thanks God for anything.'

Eight years before the Dictionary was published, Johnson had printed what he called The Plan of a Dictionary, addressed to the Earl of Chesterfield. It was an elaborate outline of what he hoped to accomplish by his work, but the noble lord paid no attention to it until, on the eve of publication, Dodsley informed him that, after many years of toil, the book was about to make its appearance, and no doubt reminded him that the Plan had been addressed to him, and perhaps suggested that if he expected the work to be dedicated to him it was time for him to make some sign of his approval.

Chesterfield took the hint and wrote two letters to the World, which were fulsome in their flattery. In one he said, "In times of confusion we must chuse a Dictator.. I give my vote for

Mr. Johnson . . . and I hereby declare that I make a total surrender of all my rights and privileges in the English language as a free born British subject, to the said Mr. Johnson during the term of his dictatorship. Nay, more, I will not only obey him, like an old Roman, as my Dictator, but like a modern Roman, I will implicitly believe in him as my Pope, and hold him to be infallible.' This, it will be admitted, was very handsomely said, but in between the time when the Plan was published and the Dictionary completed, something had happened: Chesterfield had totally neglected the Lexicographer, who was, indeed, the proudest man in England. 'Ay, sir,' said Johnson, when Boswell taxed him with it, ‘but mine was defensive pride.' 'And,' continued Johnson, ‘after making great professions he had, for many years, taken no notice of me, but when my Dictionary was coming out he fell to scribbling in the World about it.' But Johnson - although he defined himself as a lexicographer, and a lexicographer as a 'harmless drudge' was not to be beguiled, and, seizing his pen, he wrote what is probably the most smashing letter in all literature:

Seven years, my Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward room or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour... The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors had it been early, had been kind, but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it.

have crushed, utterly, a man less vain and complacent than the man to whom it was addressed. Carlyle called it a 'blast of doom, proclaiming into the ears of Lord Chesterfield, and through him to the listening world, that patronage should be no more.' It was indeed a Declaration of Independence.

The book appeared in two large folio volumes, on February 20, 1755. It was a time of profound depression for Johnson: he had, as he said, 'devoted the labor of years, to the honor of my country that we may no longer yield the palm of philology without a contest to the nations of the continent,' but, as he also said, 'I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss the book with frigid tranquillity having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.'

II

In this brief paper I shall not attempt to conceal the fact that I regard the present great esteem which the world.

our world, that is has for Dr. Johnson, his Life, and his works, with some amusement. It may be that I am to some extent responsible for it: at any rate, if you enter any good bookshop in England and ask for any book by Dr. Johnson in first edition you will almost certainly be met with a sad shake of the head and the remark that Johnson, in first editions, is almost impossible except at prohibitive prices, and that this advance is due to the American demand. And then you may be told as I have been, more than once that 'a man in Philadelphia is largely responsible for Johnson's being collected; before he began to write

about him, Boswell's Life, a big ugly book in two volumes, was hard to sell at three guineas; there was no more demand for Johnson's Dictionary than there was for Fox's Martyrs, and now you can't get them fast enough.'

Forty years ago my friends used to say, by way of disconcerting me, 'Eddie, tell us something about Dr. Johnson,' and usually I did so, for I had just fallen under the spell of Boswell and was by way as far as a man with a treacherous memory could be of knowing him by heart. It is a happy possession and affords one an apt quotation in every conceivable discussion and upon every possible occasion. Have you a difficult business matter to discuss? Do it after a good dinner and not before: remember what Dr. Johnson says: 'Sir, a good dinner lubricates business.'

Since then I have met many Johnsonians, and have come to believe that all Johnsonians are good fellows, 'clubable' men, as Dr. Johnson would say, and as the years passed and I came to know wiser and better Johnsonians than myself this suspicion became conviction. Finally came the desire to own, and in some measure to know, the books of the Great Lexicographer himself.

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But I remember that my copy of the first edition of Boswell's Life was purchased for twenty dollars, -a good copy cannot now be had for less than three hundred, and the first Rasselas I ever bought cost me but ten, and the last, two hundred. And as for the Dictionary-well, Mrs. ThralePiozzi's copy, probably given her by Johnson, with her inscription and a fine holograph letter from the Lexicographer, cost me only sixty dollars; and a fine copy in boards, uncut, thirty-five! Taking a census of the Johnson Dictionaries now in my library, I find

I have in all five copies of the first edition, besides a copy which was once Charles Dickens's, with his notes therein, and an excellent - shall I say common or garden copy?-a reprint from the author's last folio edition, in one volume, for ready reference, which was once E. Coppee Mitchell's

Why so many?

Let me explain. One copy I bought to show people to whom one copy is as good as another: this saves wear and tear on the copies I highly value. Two came in this way. On the fifteenth of February, last year, my great friend and fellow Johnsonian, Mr. R. B. Adam of Buffalo, had a sale at the Anderson Galleries in New York of a portion of his library not of his wonderful Johnson collection, but of books of which he had tired or which did not fit into the period which he has made peculiarly his own. With the idea of paying him homage, I gave a little dinner in New York, the first night of the sale, to a small group of friends and booksellers (friends also). It was a speedy affair: including speeches, we were at the table just one hour and fifteen minutes, and it may be remembered by those present that Mr. Owen D. Young- that accomplished gentleman who, in company with General Dawes, brought order out of chaos in Germany - signally failed to secure a hearing at our little dinner party; whereupon the meeting adjourned to the auction room.

The sale had just begun, and as we took our seats my wife joined my friend Mr. William Jay Turner, who had been one of my party, and I took a seat in the back part of the room next to Walter Hill, the Chicago bookseller, and immediately bought a book I did n't want just to prevent him from getting it. (He did n't want it either.) We were in just the form that brings

joy to the heart of an auctioneer. The books were fine and the sale went merrily.

After a time a copy of the Dictionary, first edition, two volumes, old calf, was put up, and I saw at once that it was not Adam's best copy: it was what might be called 'a spare.' The bidding started at fifty dollars, went to one hundred and fifty, — the then proper price for the book, — then more slowly to three hundred; and finally it was knocked down at three hundred and twenty dollars to - of all people in the world-my wife, who wanted it as a souvenir of a pleasant evening. Whereupon, discovering that my friend Turner was the runner-up,he wanted the book for the same reason my wife did, and would have paid any amount had he not discovered that he was in competition with Mrs. Newton, - I rose and assured all present that there was, obviously, no 'knock-out' in the room- and the sale went on.

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Subsequently, in talking over the events of the evening, which is one of the delights of a good auction, Jay Turner asked me to watch my chance and pick up for him a good copy of the Dictionary, which I promised to do. Several months later, in the catalogue of an English bookseller, I noticed a copy- Mrs. Vesey's copy-priced at forty pounds, and I at once cabled for it. Mr. Vesey was a member of 'the Club' founded by Dr. Johnson, was elected through the influence of Edmund Burke; and it was Mrs. Vesey who gave the famous bluestocking parties. She did n't wear blue stockings herself a man by the name of Stillingfleet wore them; Mrs. Vesey's what they were; certainly not the skin-colored kind so much in evidence to-day. Her copy of the Dictionary, then, was one which Dr. Johnson might have seen in the library

were