tellectual equipment on the part of the readers co-operating in the experiment was considered necessary in order to obtain valid results. The books were graded by all ranks of librarians, from junior assistants to head librarians, so that the homogeneity was apparent in quality of intellectual equipment rather than in quantity. It would not have been a fair test, for instance, if fifteen factory hands, twenty department store clerks, and twenty-five librarians had graded one book, and five farm laborers, ten college students, and forty-five authors had graded the next one. The results achieved, then, will hold true only for people whose intellectual equipment is qualitatively similar to that of librarians of all ranks, but that probably means the rank and file of all college-educated people and of self-educated people who have learned to practice literary discrimination. For the purposes of experiment, twelve books were selected, representing various types and periods of literature. These books were all listed on one ballot and each one graded separately, according to the standard explained previously. The results have been tabulated in groups of twenty-five each, or a fraction thereof where not enough ballots were received to make a third group of twenty-five. In the first column the average for the first twenty-five ballots received is given, then the average for the first fifty received, then the average for the whole number received. According to the theory pursued, the difference in averages between the successive groups should grow correspondingly smaller until finally it would disappear, or nearly so, when the point of stabilization is reached. Probably there would still be a small variation from new returns coming in, something less than 1 per cent. Table I shows the results, arranged with the highest averages at the top of the list. The titles are so well known that the authors' names are not given. Summing up these results, we find that in ten cases out of twelve the difference in averages between successive groups grows smaller and smaller, and would presumably disappear altogether if a sufficient number of ballots was received. In the other two cases there is such a small total variation between the averages of the first and last groups that the point of stabilization can be said to have been practically reached already. This point would presumably remain invariable, no matter how many additional ballots were received, provided that the ballots came from the same class of graders. The opinion of individual graders varied greatly, in some cases from 20 to 100, but the averages tend to become stabilized, and in measurement of this kind it is with averages that we deal. It would therefore seem to be proved that literary merit can be definitely measured on a comparative scale of this kind. Readers of this article will no doubt disagree individually with the final averages as indicated in the table, but there can hardly be any great amount of fault found collectively with the results, unless perchance we may feel sorry for the fate of Babbitt, forced to endure the company of William Baxter and Sherlock Holmes. It would be thoroughly understood that the experiment is not an attempt to standardize opinion in regard to the literary merit of any particular book. Measurement and standardization are entirely different processes. Measurement merely points out quantitative facts that already exist. Partisans of standardization may or may not make use of those facts in their propaganda. It is not within the province of this article to discuss in detail the relative merits of the different ratings. Critics may wage war over the justice or injustice of placing Hawthorne's masterpiece several points higher on the scale than Dickens' best-known book. Professors of comparative literature may rail at the lack of discrimination that places Don Quixote below both of these, and connoisseurs of style may consider that Diana has been shamelessly slighted. Those who believe that personal enjoyment is after all the main test of literary merit will undoubtedly wish to raise Seventeen several points in the scale, and lovers of the classics may want to drop The Little French Girl below Tom Sawyer and Ramona. There will always be plenty of discussion on these topics whenever any two literary-minded individuals get together. If these statistics add more fuel to the flame of discussion through their apparent tendency to end all discussion by definitely fixing the status of individual books, the author will not regret the result. Said Seneca: Tota hujus mundi concordia ex discordibus constat (the whole concord of this world consists in discords). HUMBOLDT STATE TEACHERS' COLLEGE ARCATA, CALIFORNIA C. EDWARD GRAVES READ IT AND WEEP! Research is too much with us; late till dawn, Glimpse foamy seas of faery lands forlorn, Look off my book, see Venus rising from the sea, CARRIE BELLE PARKS STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE INDIANA, PENNSYLVANIA A BROCHURE APPROACH TO MODERN BIOGRAPHY A LATE LIST OF INTIMATE SKETCHES Our own generation is discovering anew that the only proper study of man is man. The "new" biography vies with popular fiction in our best-seller list. Trader Horn and Disraeli are popular heroes and there is a perennial interest in the lives of our two great leaders, Washington and Lincoln. Alert teachers of English are actively turning this current of popular interest to account in their classes. They are emphasizing biography in literature courses-biography for itself when it is literature and biography as an introduction and as an activator producing keen interest in literature. We know well enough that if we can interest our pupils in the man, his writings are much more likely to get a favorable hearing; often in the simplest anecdote there are keys to the character of the man that unlock his writing. Biographies on the famous dead multiply, but where can we find biographical information on our contemporary artists and thinkers? Histories of literature have not yet taken them up. In large part biographies are either non-existent or not available in sufficient numbers. A partial answer to the problem is found in the following list of brochures issued by publishers. They may be obtained upon application to the advertising offices of the firms noted, either free or for a small charge. Often these pamphlet biographies are reprints of splendid articles by front-rank men of letters and will be consulted by future biographers as source material. In practically all cases the writing is free and vivid and the information authoritative. |