Franklin

From The Autobiography. 1. In the first selection, Franklin tells how he learned to write. Be prepared to point out to the class the steps in this training and what he learned from each. What advice did his father give? What advantage did he gain from his study of the Spectator? The Junto was one of the earliest literary societies formed in America; how was it conducted? What excellent idea about the purpose of such discussions does Franklin express?

2. In what ways did the Junto become a means for general community service? Note

the combination of idealism with practical service that Franklin's public life shows. Does the story of the Junto suggest any ways in which your literary society may increase its service to its members and to the community?

3. On page 424 you read that Franklin had "keen, practical common-sense." How does his reason for not patenting his stove (page 434) accord with this?

Dialogue with the Gout. What was Franklin's purpose in writing this dialogue? What other method might he have taken? Why is his method effective?

Jefferson

What have you learned from this selection about the following topics: (a) the rights of man; (b) the sources of government; (c) the powers and duties of government?

Washington

1. What is the subject of the first paragraph? Why does Washington not mention the victories won by the army? What "astonishing events" did he have in mind?

2. The second paragraph points out the occupations open to the soldiers; why did Washington do this? To what more serious subject does this paragraph lead? The years intervening between the end of the War and the adoption of the Constitution are sometimes called "The Critical Period"; does Washington show that he anticipated some of the dangers of this period?

Hamilton

In connection with this selection from The Federalist, read again what is said on page 426 about The Federalist, and about the dangers that confronted America in "The Critical Period" (page 448). The selection may be divided into two parts; find names for these parts, and determine where the first part ends and the second begins. On what general proposition does the author base the entire argument?

Freneau

To the Memory of the Brave Americans. Find in a history some details of General Greene's campaign in the South in 1781. This poem shows how Freneau was moved by the story of Eutaw Springs. The poem is an elegy-not a ballad. Show why this is so. What difference in treatment would have been necessary if the poet had planned to write a ballad?

The Indian Burying Ground. What conception of the after-life did the Indians hold? Explain "Not so," in line 5. Explain lines 31-32. Two lines in this poem have been very much admired; see if you can determine which they

are.

To a Katydid. Do you find any humor in this poem? What thought of sadness is also present?

The Wild Honeysuckle. 1. This poem may be compared with other poems about flowers that you know. Do any of these express also the idea of the passing of life and beauty? Is this thought found in Freneau's other poems?

2. Commit to memory several lines or a stanza from this poem, or from one of the other poems by Freneau. Find illustrations in this group of poems of the characteristics of Freneau mentioned in the sketch of him given in the first part of this chapter (page 428).

Theme Topics. 1. Make a report on "Franklin as a Good Citizen," or "Franklin as a Humorist," using the selections in the text, and others if possible. 2. Write in dialogue form an argument in favor of some sport you like, or in favor of participation in a literary society, or on some other subject in which you may be interested. Before you write, study the methods by which Franklin made his dialogue interesting, and use some of these methods yourself. 3. Make a report on some ways in which debating in your school might be improved. 4. Relate some incident of the World War which might inspire a poet of the present time as Freneau was inspired by an incident of the Revolution.

Library Reading. A mass of material for reading in our colonial literature is to be found in Stedman and Hutchinson's Library of American Literature. The histories of American literature by M. C. Tyler and by C. F. Richardson contain many biographical details and also liberal extracts from the writings of early authors. A convenient and interesting collection of the writings, with biographical notes, is to be found in the three small volumes entitled Colonial Prose and Poetry, edited by W. P. Trent. Most of the authors mentioned in the text are represented in Newcomer and Andrews' Three Centuries of American Literature. For the historical background any good histories of the period may be used. Of particular interest are the several volumes written by John Fiske; these are themselves literature, not mere chronicles, and they tell a fascinating story in simple language.

If the pupil has not done so earlier, this should be the time for a complete reading of Franklin's Autobiography, and extracts from Poor Richard's Almanac.

With the inauguration of Washington, in 1789, the first phase in the history of our nation was complete, although the thirteenth colony did not ratify the covenant until 1790. The interval between the end of the war with England and the actual institution of the new government has been called "The Critical Period," because although the colonies were free and had a form of government (the Articles of Confederation) it was many times doubtful whether a truly national organization could be secured. Jealousies among the states, the conflicting claims of some of the large states to the immense territory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, a widespread disbelief in popular government-these were some of the difficulties in the way of changing a loose confederation into a united nation. Even after the Ordinance of 1787 had settled the territorial question, and the ratification of the Constitution and the election of the first president had set up the new government, much remained to be done.

was

The population in 1800 was a little over five millions. Nine-tenths of the people lived east of the Alleghanies, and most of these lived not far from the sea-coast. Even the land east of the mountains was sparsely settled. Communication difficult. Three days were required for the journey from Boston to New York, and if the traveler wished to go on to Philadelphia, then the largest city in the country, two more days were required. The westward movement across the mountains to the Ohio Valley began in 1787. In 1803 the vast Louisiana Territory was added to the national domain, and the great stage of the American continent, still dark except for glimmers of light from a few pioneer settlements, was gradually emerging into view, ready for the millions of actors who were to come, and for the great story of American progress that was to be presented.

The half century that followed the drafting of the Constitution in 1787 may be called the period of DEFINING THE NATION. The sources of authority; the great territory which the nation was to occupy, with the problems of communication and government involved in such a stupendous development; the relations of the United States to foreign powers, such as France and England, with the new and complex problems that resulted; the rise of party government and the conflicting claims of sectional and state feeling-these are a few of the many problems the settlement of which gave maturity to the nation and clear-cut definition of its meaning and destiny. Such papers as The Federalist and the messages and addresses of Washington which have already been cited helped define the nation. Such orations as those delivered by Webster at Bunker Hill in 1825 and at the Washington Centennial in 1832 were also significant definitions of the meaning of America.

Most of these matters belong mainly to our political and social history, and you will study them, in greater detail, in some other book. What is important here is for you to think of them as steps in a great process that was going on in many forms, and as a means for understanding the significance of the new literature that was born with the new nation. Our immediate problem, here, is to see how this literature helped to define the nation.

In the colonial and revolutionary periods, as we have seen, conditions were not favorable to the writing of pure literature. The institution of the settled government, the increasing confidence that the great experiment would succeed, brought about a change. The lives of the famous writers whose work we are to study in this chapter do not fall entirely within the half century from 1787 to 1837, but most of their distinctive work was written in that period.

They were the first to give us a truly national literature; to make the influence of this literature felt across the sea; and to write about America's past, about the legends and traditions of America, and about the romantic beauty of American scenes in such a way as to help their readers realize the nation as something more than a novel form of government.

How this was done the following pages will help you to see. Leisure to cultivate and enjoy the arts, to establish intellectual contacts with the older civilizations of Europe, to interpret life in terms neither theological nor political but in terms of beauty, was now at hand. But these arts, these intellectual contacts, this interpretation, had to be American, not imitations

of Europe. It was a long process, this securing of intellectual independence. One cannot set a date for its completion, as one learns the date of the Declaration of Independence, but Emerson's address, "The American Scholar," delivered in 1837, set forth the duty of self-reliance in thinking, the necessity for America to produce her own'philosophy, her own scholarship, her own literature, and the invitation to press on to new discoveries and inventions as the pioneers were pushing the frontiers of our territory daily farther west. Thus we should become a nation of men.

Let us now trace the operation of these impulses in the work of a group of writers of whom the greatest were Irving, Cooper, and Bryant.

In 1820 a celebrated Englishman asked, "Who reads an American book?" A few years later such an ironical question would have been impossible, because American literature had impressed not only England but continental Europe as well. Sir Walter Scott was glad to recommend the manuscripts of Washington Irving to publishers, and French and Russians were reveling in the American Indian romances of James Fenimore Cooper.

Irving was born in New York in 1783. Named for the patriot soldier, he was shown by his nurse to the great man, who gravely stroked his head. Irving picked up about as much as most boys do in school until he was sixteen. Delicate health prevented his attending college, and the resultant leisure allowed him to wander about the fascinating district of the lower Hudson River, to cultivate all sorts of water-front acquaintances, to patronize the theater in spite of parental disapproval, and to explore the romantic scenery of the Highlands near New York. Law, which he studied, bored him. He associated himself with his brothers in their inherited cutlery business. So tangled did the affairs of the firm become

by the War of 1812 that he went to England to try to straighten them out. He remained abroad for seventeen years.

Before this he had made successful ventures into the world of literature. A fondness for "the good old days and the good old things" marks these early efforts. He signed some of his earliest papers "Jonathan Oldstyle" and imitated in them and in others, qualities of famous English essayists of exactly a century before.

Irving's fund of humor had an element of practical joking in it which he utilized in launching his first real book. In 1809 a newspaper printed an account of the disappearance of one Diedrich Knickerbocker from his boarding house. Later the landlord printed an advertisement to the effect that unless the lodger returned by a certain date to pay his bill, a manuscript he had left behind would be printed to cover his arrears. The book then appeared— The History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker. It purports to be a veracious account of the Dutch control of New Amsterdam from the time of Hendrick Hudson to the capture by the English under the Duke of York in 1664.

Upon the slenderest thread of history Irving strings the most delightful humor, exaggerating the petty virtues and faults of the peculiar settlers until the result is laughable caricature. In reality, it is not history, but burlesque romance, written in the style of the famous Don Quixote. It is one of the masterpieces of American humor.

The next period of Irving's productiveness is no less native American in all qualities, although he wrote in England. Three books of a single kind belong to this period: The Sketch Book, Bracebridge Hall, and Tales of a Traveler.

In the first, Irving drew upon both English and American life for his themes. The old-world atmosphere of his surroundings entranced him. Such titles as "Little Britain," "Christmas Eve," "Westminster Abbey," still charm readers. Much more significant are legends that he attached to the Hudson River Country-"Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," two compositions which for originality of conception and quaintness of treatment have never been surpassed. He deeply loved the romantic scenery of Westchester, the Hudson Highlands, and the Catskills. This region of surpassing natural beauty seemed to him to match the region of the Rhine, the quiet English countryside, and the romantic beauty of the English lakes. But about these regions in the old world hung an atmosphere of tradition that the newer America could not supply. Even in city life he felt the same lack. London he saw was rich in the tradition of centuries; New York lacked tradition. So in such legends as those of Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane he took a slender thread of local story, enriched it by drawing on his wide knowledge of European legend and folklore, and gave the region he loved a tradition to match its natural beauty, just as in his story of the Dutch founding of New York he had given vitality and interest to the old chronicles by imagining such delightful stories that they became as true as tradition itself.

The immediate success of The Sketch Book on both sides of the Atlantic encouraged Irving to follow at once with Brace

bridge Hall, in which the same double interest is maintained. The third, Tales of a Traveler, is divided into four sections, each containing a group of stories linked by common themes or by a party of story tellers. The French, English, and Italian parts are followed by one dealing with old New York -Irving was still drawing upon his lucrative mine. Readers who compare diligently will be conscious in the last book of a drop below the high level of the first. At this time, fortunately, a new influence aroused Irving's creative power to embody the romantic past of Spain, where he went in 1826. If you have read the introductory remarks to Quentin Durward you know that Spain has at all times provided the essentials of romance. Invited to translate some documents for the American embassy, Irving became fascinated by the past history and the colorfulness of the land. In several volumes, three of which are especially important, he treated Spanish subjects from the past or the life about him. The Life of Columbus, while not a severely accurate historical study, is a carefully verified, attractively written, serviceable biography. The Conquest of Granada recounts the struggle of the Spaniards against the Moors, who, having surged across from northern Africa, almost succeeded in conquering the entire peninsula of Spain. The deeds of valor, the gorgeous costumes, the pomp, the processions, the knights, were the kind of details which elicited what would have proved the best writing of the author, had he told the story in his own person. But he too ingeniously put his narrative into the form of a chronicle written by an old monk. This substitution of a fictitious author worked very well in The History of New York, but in the present instance weakened the effect of reality in the book. Spanish influence on Irving produced a signal success in The Alhambra, named after the Moorish palace, which remains for all time the mark of the oriental invasion of western Europe. Love of the locality and residence within the palace walls steeped Irving in the legends, the history, the picturesqueness of the place. Linked by common material, the descriptions, sketches, and tales produce impressions of similarity in variety. Often