Hart, John S., LL.D. A Manual of American Literature: A Text-Book for Schools and Colleges. Philadelphia: Eldredge & Brother, 1875.

PREFACE

The systematic study of English Literature, as part of the course of ordinary English education, has been introduced almost entirely within the last thirty years.

The reader who will take the trouble to look over the old catalogues of our Colleges and Schools, will find no vestige of such a study prior to 1844. The Class Book of Poetry and the Class Book of Prose, issued in 1844, by the author of the present volume, were a feeble beginning in this line. Though intended primarily for reading-books, they were to some extent studies in literature. The selections from the various authors were in each case prefixed by a brief critical and biographical notice of the author, and were arranged in chronological order, so as to furnish the teacher and the scholar with something like an outline of the general course of English Literature.

In the works of Prof. Cleveland which followed, a few years later (1848-1858), this feature became more marked. The books were still in the main reading-books, but the space allotted to literary history and criticism was considerable enlarged.

Other works have followed, from time to time, approaching more and more to the character of a simple text-book on the subject, until now, when selections are for the most part remanded to the reading-book, and the text-book is occupied almost exclusively with criticism and literary history.

Any one who will compare the Class Book of Poetry and Prose of 1844, already referred to, with the present volumes on English and American Literature, by the same author, will have a means of measuring the growth of this study in a single generation. A comparison of the School catalogues of 1844 and 1872 will show a like result. Hardly a school of any standing is now to be found that does not include the systematic study of English Literature in its ordinary curriculum. The study has come to be considered almost as necessary as that of History. The study of Literature is in fact a part of the study of History. The latest step in this onward movement is that which recognizes the propriety of giving a full and adequate treatment to the literature of our own country. The volume now in the hands of the reader furnishes ample proof, if any were needed, that American Literature is abundant in materials, and that it is growing with unexampled rapidity.

In preparing this work the author has been indebted, at every step, to those who have gone before him. No one can write intelligently on the subject, without a feeling of thankfulness for the labors of Dr. Allibone, Dr. Griswold, and the brothers Duyckinck. Besides these general sources of information, the author acknowledges with pleasure his obligations to “Southland Writers,” by Mrs. Mary T. Tardy (“Ida Raymond”) of Mobile, Ala., and to “Living Writers of the South,” by Prof. James Wood Davidson of Washington.

The work, however, is not a mere compilation. It is not only original in its conception, form, and structure, but it has, in its materials also, to a much greater extent than is usual of such works, the character of originality. Fully one-third of the matter here presented has been gathered by the author himself, and is an original contribution to the subject of which he has undertaken to treat.

College of New Jersey, Princeton, August 1872 J.S.H.

Table of Contents (13 pages; jpg files)