A Biography of Sidney Lanier Part 18

Chapter IX. Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University

The Peabody lectures led to the appointment of Lanier as lecturer in English literature at Johns Hopkins University.

As early as the fall of 1876, he had written to President Gilman, asking for a catalogue of the inst.i.tution. In answer to his first letter of inquiry, President Gilman, who had followed with interest his Centennial poem, and had been from the first an admirer of his poetry, requested an interview for the purpose of discussing with him the possibility of identifying him with the University.

Lanier had then talked with him about the advisability of establishing a chair of music and poetry, a plan which appealed to Dr. Gilman.

In a letter to his brother he writes of this interview: "He invited me to tea and gave up his whole evening to discussing ways and means for connecting me officially with the University."

He had been delayed in suggesting the matter to him before by his "ignorance as to whether I had pursued any special course of study in life." Dr. Gilman recommended to the trustees that Lanier be appointed to such a chair, and the latter looked forward to a "speedy termination of his wandering and a pleasant settlement for a long time." For some reason, however, the plan did not materialize, and we find Lanier a year later writing a letter applying for a fellowship: --

Washington, D.C., Sept. 26, 1877.

Dear Mr. Gilman, -- From a published report of your very interesting address I learn that there is now a vacant Fellowship. Would I be able to discharge the duties of such a position?

My course of study would be: first, constant research in the physics of musical tone; second, several years' devotion to the acquirement of a thoroughly scientific GENERAL view of Mineralogy, Botany, and Comparative Anatomy; third, French and German Literature.

I fear this may seem a nondescript and even flighty process; but it makes straight towards the final result of all my present thought, and I am tempted, by your great kindness, to believe that you would have confidence enough in me to await whatever development should come of it.

Sincerely yours, Sidney Lanier.

Such a plan of study did not fit in with the scheme of graduate courses, and so he was not awarded it. President Gilman had, however, heard with much satisfaction Lanier's lectures at Mrs. Bird's, and had cooperated with him in the series of lectures at the Peabody Inst.i.tute. Finally, the trustees, convinced of Lanier's scholarship, and conscious of his growing influence in Baltimore, agreed to his appointment as lecturer in English literature, and Dr. Gilman had the rare pleasure of announcing the fact on the poet's thirty-seventh birthday -- February 3, 1879.

Lanier responded in a letter, indicative at once of the spirit in which he received the appointment and of his high personal regard for the president of the University. No story of Lanier's life would be adequate that did not pay tribute to the uniform kindness and thoughtful consideration of the poet's welfare manifested by Dr. Gilman.

He has his place in that inner circle of Lanier's friends who meant much to him in opening up new fields of endeavor, and who after his death zealously promoted his fame.

Lanier occupies a place in the history of Johns Hopkins University that has perhaps not been fully appreciated. His appointment was not a merely nominal one, for he threw himself with zeal and energy into the life of the University. He breathed its atmosphere. He was a personal friend of the president, of nearly every member of the faculty, and of the university officers. He caught its spirit and grew with it into a real sense of the ideals of University work. While his poem written on the fourth anniversary of the opening of the University, is not one of his best, it indicates the great love that he had for the inst.i.tution: --

How tall among her sisters, and how fair, -- How grave beyond her youth, yet debonair As dawn! . . .

Has she, old Learning's latest daughter, won This grace, this stature, and this fruitful fame.

What the University meant to Lanier can be realized only by those who have noted the eager spirit with which he responded to every great influence brought into his life, and who realize what "those early days of unbounded enthusiasm and unfettered ideality,"

characteristic of the newly founded University, meant to the American educational system. Her sister inst.i.tutions have in later days gone far beyond Johns Hopkins in equipment and in opportunities for research, but students of American education can never forget the pioneer work of the University in the line of graduate study.

Fortunately its benefactor had left a board of trustees absolutely untrammeled by any condition or reservation, political, religious, or literary. A body of unusually strong men, they were fortunate in securing the services of Daniel Coit Gilman, whose experience in educational matters had commended itself to the judgment of the four leading university presidents of the country to such an extent that each of them without consulting with the others advised his election. The newly elected president and the trustees were accessible to ideas, and finally decided that the wisest thing that could be done was to make possible what had been previously wanting in American universities, a graduate school with high standards.

American professors had studied in German universities and distinguished European scholars had been called to chairs in American universities, but neither had succeeded in essentially modifying the type of higher education. Dr. Gilman himself had tried in vain to secure the opportunity for graduate work in this country.

Now, without any traditions to bind them, the organizers of the University had the opportunity "which marked the entrance of the higher education in America upon a new phase in its development." "The great work of Hopkins,"

said President Eliot at the twenty-fifth anniversary of its foundation, "is the creation of a school of graduate studies, which not only has been in itself a strong and potent school, but which has lifted every other university in the country in its departments of arts and sciences."

The trustees were very wise in choosing as the first faculty men who had the training and the aspiration to make this work possible: the "soaring-genius'd Sylvester", --

That, earlier, loosed the knot great Newton tied, And flung the door of Fame's locked temple wide;

Gildersleeve, who combined the best cla.s.sical traditions of the old South with recent methods of German scholarship; Morris, who came from Oxford, "devout, learned, enthusiastic;" accomplished Martin, who "brought to this country new methods of physiological inquiry;"

Rowland, "honored in every land, peer of the greatest physicists of our day;"

and Adams, "suggestive, industrious, inspiring, ductile, beneficent,"

who, though at first holding a subordinate position, built up a department of history and economics which has had a potent influence throughout the South, and indeed throughout the country.*

These men did much original work themselves, and put before the public in popular articles and scientific journals the ideals of their several departments. It is noteworthy that for every department a special scientific journal was established. The library, though small, was composed of special working collections and of foreign periodicals, which, when supplemented by the Peabody Library, gave an opportunity for the most diligent research. The students, who came from all parts of the country, were shown "how to discover the limits of the known; how to extend, even by minute accretions, the realm of knowledge; how to cooperate with other men in the prosecution of inquiry."

Reviewing the work done by the faculty and students of the University, the leading scientific journal of England said, July 12, 1883: "We should like to see such an account of original work done and to be done issuing each year from the laboratories of Oxford and Cambridge."

-- * The account of the first faculty is based largely on ex-President Gilman's article, "The Launching of a University", in 'Scribner's Magazine', March, 1902.

In addition to the regular courses offered by members of the faculty, the University provided for series of lectures to be given by distinguished scholars from both American and European universities.

These lectures, suggested by those given at the College de France, appealed at once to the University community and to the citizens of Baltimore.

In the course of the first five years they had the chance to hear Lord Kelvin, Freeman, Bryce, Von Holst, Edmund Gosse, William James, Hiram Corson, and shorter series of lectures by Phillips Brooks, Dean Stanley, and others.

The most notable of all were delivered in 1877 by Lowell and Child, while at the same time Charles Eliot Norton was lecturing at the Peabody Inst.i.tute, -- "the three wise men of the East."

From far the sages saw, from far they came And ministered to her.

Lowell lectured on Romance poetry, with Dante as the central theme, while Child had "a four weeks' triumph" in Chaucer, producing a corner on that poet's works in all the bookstores of the city.

Readers of Lowell's letters will remember the joy that he had in renewing his a.s.sociation with Child and in forming new acquaintances in the circles of Johns Hopkins and Baltimore. Unfortunately, Lanier was at that time in Florida, seeking the restoration of his health, and so missed the opportunity which he would have coveted, of hearing, and of being closely a.s.sociated with, these eminent scholars.

To what degree was Lanier a scholar, worthy to be named in connection with such men? There are some who would deny him such a rank; and indeed, when one finds in his books inaccuracies, conceits, and hasty generalizations, one is apt to grow impatient with him.

But there are points which connect him with the modern English scholar.

In the first place, he was a very hard and systematic student.

He had none of the slipshod methods of many men of his type.

He had respect for the most recent investigations in his special line of work, -- he knew the value of scholarship. The Peabody Library enabled him to have at hand the most recent publications of the learned societies, and there is no question that he steadfastly endeavored to keep in touch with the authorities in any special field of investigation in which he happened to be interested. The footnotes in the "Science of English Verse" and in the Shakespeare lectures indicate that he had a knowledge of the bibliography of any subject he touched.

Furthermore, he consulted with men who were living in Baltimore and had the special information that he desired. While writing the "Science of English Verse", he often talked with Professor Gildersleeve as to Greek metrics. "We never became intimate," says the latter, "and yet we were good friends and there was much common ground.

Our talks usually turned on matters of literary form. He was eager, receptive, reaching out to all the knowable, trans.m.u.ting all that he learned. He would have me read Greek poetry aloud to him for the sake of the rhythm and the musical effect."* When the book was finished, he wrote to Mr. Scribner: "I have had no opportunity whatever to submit this book to any expert friend and have often wished that I might do so before it goes finally forth, in order that I might avail myself of any suggestions which would be likely to occur to another mind, approaching the book from another direction.

This being impossible, it has occurred to me that perhaps you have sent the ma.n.u.script to be read by some specialist in these matters, and that possibly some such suggestions might be offered by him.

Pray let me know if you think this worth while." On questions of Anglo-Saxon he conferred with Professor A. S. Cook, at that time instructor in the University, and on matters of scientific interest, such as he pursued in his investigation into the physics of sound, he sought advice from the scientists of the University, even taking courses with them.

-- * Letter to the author.

For Child, Furnivall, Hales, Grosart, and other workers in the field of English literature he had the greatest reverence.

In his preface to the "Boy's Percy", in commenting on the accuracy of modern scholarship, he speaks of the "clear advance in men's conscience as to literary relations of this sort . . .

the perfect delicacy which is now the rule among men of letters, the scrupulous fidelity of the editor to his text. . . .

I think there can be no doubt that we owe this inestimable uplifting of exact statement and pure truth in men's esteem to the same vigorous growth in the general spirit of man which has flowed forth, among other directions, into the wondrous modern development of physical science.

Here the minutest accuracy in observing and the utmost faithfulness in reporting have been found in the outset to be absolutely essential, have created habits and requirements of conscience which extend themselves into all other relations." It may be seen from such quotations that Lanier had respect for the most minute investigations; he had no tirades to make against the peeping and botanizing spirit that many men of his type have found in the modern scholar.

Speaking of the monumental work of Ellis on the p.r.o.nunciation of English in the time of Shakespeare, he pays tribute to his "wonderful skill, patience, industry, keenness, fairness, and learning."

Furthermore, Lanier himself had the spirit of research and original work which we have seen was characteristic of Johns Hopkins University.

He not only had the desire to investigate, but he also gave form and shape to his investigations. In this he was in striking contrast with many Southern scholars. Joseph Le Conte, in his recent autobiography, tells of a friend of his who had the making of a great scientist.

He met him at Flat Rock in 1858, and heard him talk most intelligently on the origin of species. At that early date this South Carolina planter had Darwin's idea. "Why didn't he publish it?" asks Le Conte, the answer to which question leads him to comment on the lack of productive scholars in the South. "Nothing could be more remarkable than the wide reading, the deep reflection, the refined culture, and the originality of thought and observation characteristic of them, and yet the idea of publication never even enters their minds. What right has any one to publish unless it is something of the greatest importance, something that would revolutionize thought?" Now Lanier was filled with the spirit of making contributions, however insignificant, to the development of scholarship in some one direction.

He restates, for instance, with remarkable insight and conciseness, the investigations of Fleay, Edward Dowden, and other members of the New Shakespeare Society, as to the metrical development seen in Shakespeare's plays. But he adds to their investigations a suggestion as to the greater freedom with which Shakespeare shifted the accent in his later plays: "Several reasons may be urged for the belief that this might prove one of the most valuable of all metrical tests.

In fact, when we consider that the matter of rhythmic accent is one which affects every bar of each line, while the four tests just now applied affect only the LAST bar of each line; and when we consider further that the real result of this freedom in using the rhythmic accent is to vary the monotonous regularity of the regular system with the charm of those subtle rhythms which we employ in familiar discourse, so that the habit of such freedom might grow with the greatest uniformity upon a poet, and might thus present us with a test of such uniform development as to be reliable for nicer discrimination than any of the more regular tests can be pushed to, -- it would seem fair to expect confirmation of great importance from a properly constructed Table of Abnormal Rhythmic Accents in Shakspere."

Lanier not only made these investigations himself, but incited his students to do so, especially those in the smaller cla.s.ses of the University.

A good ill.u.s.tration is in the suggestion he made to a cla.s.s that they might together work out some interesting etymological and dialectical points.

"Why should not some of the intelligent ladies of this cla.s.s," he asks, "go to work and arrange the facts -- as I have called them -- so that scholars might have before them a comprehensive view of all the word-changes which have occurred since the earliest Anglo-Saxon works were written?

The other day a young lady -- one of the very brightest young women I have ever met -- asked me to give her a vocation. She said she had studied a good many things, of one sort or another; that she was merely going over ground which thousands of others had trodden; that she wanted some original work, some method by which she could contribute substantially to the world's stock of knowledge: having this kind of outlet she felt sure she had a genuine desire, a working desire, to go forward. Well, of the numerous plans which I can imagine for women to pursue, I have suggested to you one which would combine pleasure with profitable work in a most charming manner.

Suppose that some lady -- or better a club of ladies -- should set out to note down the changes in spelling -- and if possible in p.r.o.nunciation -- which have occurred in every word now remaining to us from the Anglo-Saxon tongue. The task would not be a difficult one.

All that would be required would be to portion out to each member of the club a specific set of books to be read, each set consisting of some books in Anglo-Saxon, some in Middle English, and some in Modern English.

Each member would take her books and fall to reading.

As she would come to each word she would write it down; and whenever she would happen on the same word in a book of a later century she would write it down under the first one; if she came upon the same word in a book of a still later century she would write it down under the other two, and so on. As each member of the club would rapidly acc.u.mulate material, the whole body might meet once a month to collate and arrange the results. In this way a pursuit which would soon become perfectly fascinating would in no long time collect material for a thorough and systematic view of the growth of English words for the last thousand years. The most interesting questions concerning the wonderful and subtle laws of word-change might then be solved."*

-- * 'Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 134.