How to Catalogue a Library Part 6

Mr. Cutter enters very fully into the points relating to corporate authors, some of which are of considerable difficulty. First among corporate authors are societies and inst.i.tutions who publish proceedings; but these will be treated in the sixth chapter, under the heading of Transactions. There are, however, many other publications of corporate bodies which do not come under this heading, such as Acts, Laws, Resolutions, Reports, etc. It is scarcely worth while to discuss this point very fully here, as this cla.s.s of book is only to be found in the largest libraries, where the rules are settled. Moreover, they will sometimes require to be treated differently, according to the cla.s.s of library in which they are included.

According to the rules of the Cambridge University Library, they are arranged under the general (or superior) heading of _Official Publications_.

Academical dissertations frequently offer considerable difficulties to the cataloguer, and as the recognized authorities are not so clear in their rules upon this subject as they might be, I venture here to introduce the substance of a paper which my brother, the late Mr. B. R.

Wheatley, read before the Library a.s.sociation in 1881:--

ON THE QUESTION OF AUTHORSHIP IN ACADEMICAL DISSERTATIONS.

In the "t.i.tle-taking" of these dissertations the difficulty is not in their "subjects," which are sometimes confined even to a single word, but it is in the choice of their authors' names: whether the praeses, the respondent, the proponent or defendant is to be chosen. It may perhaps be thought that I am fighting with a shadow, but when it is considered that the seventh of the _Rules for Cataloguing_ printed by the British Museum, copied afterwards into Cutter's Rules, and since, I find, adopted by the Library a.s.sociation, is that "The Respondent or Defendant of a Thesis is the Author, except when it unequivocally appears to be the work of the Praeses," and that nevertheless in some special catalogues, such as Pritzel's _Thesaurus_, Haller's _Bibliothecae_, etc., and in the catalogues of the Linnaean and some other Societies' libraries, the rule has been generally adopted that the praeses is the author, or at least that he takes that position from the dissertations being entered under his name--and that in a large number of collections of these dissertations, this latter rule has been frequently favoured--it will be allowed that this shadow puts on a substantial appearance, and has sufficient reality in it to bear a practical discussion. In placing before you some examples from t.i.tle-pages, in ill.u.s.tration of the question, I must apologize for taking them entirely from works connected with Medicine and its allied sciences, as being the cla.s.s more immediately ready to my hand for reference.

Before entering on the bibliographical part of our subject, you will allow me to quote, from Watts' _On the Improvement of the Mind_, a short summary of the method of scholastic disputation: "The tutor appoints a question in some of the sciences to be debated amongst his students; one of them undertakes to affirm or to deny the question and to defend his a.s.sertion or negation, and to answer all objections against it; he is called the _respondent_, and the rest of the students in the same cla.s.s or who pursue the same science are the _opponents_, who are appointed to dispute or raise objections against the proposition affirmed or denied.

It is the business of the respondent to write a thesis in Latin, or short discourse on the question proposed, and he either affirms or denies the question according to the opinion of the tutor, which is supposed to be the truth, and he reads it at the beginning of the dispute. The opponent, or opponents in succession, make objections in the form of a syllogism, the proposition in which is in reply argued against and denied by the respondent. During this time the tutor sits in the chair as President or Moderator to see that the rules of disputation and decency be observed on both sides. His work is also to ill.u.s.trate and explain the answer or distinction of the respondent where it is obscure, to strengthen it where it is weak, and to correct it where it is false, and when the respondent is pinched with a strong objection, and is at a loss for an answer, the Moderator a.s.sists him and suggests some answer to the objection of the opponent, in defence of the question, according to his own opinion or sentiment."

The latter part of the above quotation seems to be the only ground for attributing an authorship to the praeses, viz., that he has had so great a hand in correcting and moulding the form and argument of the essay as to be ent.i.tled to the appellation. I cannot understand the thesis being attributed to the praeses on any other supposition, but if that supposition be correct, and the praeses did give the candidate the information on which his dissertation is compiled, and the candidate had merely the superficial reality of the position as a defender of the statements given in his thesis, would not that circ.u.mstance be purely a literary question and a matter for a statement by foot-note? while, as the candidate for honours brings the thesis forward as his own, he must bibliographically be considered its author.

The questions also arise: is the published thesis the original thesis prepared for disputation, or is it in its printed form a combination of that thesis with such corrections and emendations as have been elicited in the discussion? Is it like a paper contributed to our societies, in which the _ipsissima verba_ of the author are retained if the paper is thought generally worthy of publication, in despite of some of its statements having been contravened in the discussion? Is it like a drafted Bill for Parliament, or as amended in committee or by a rival committee, with the chairman's notes of addition and correction? Might not the authorship, if conceded to the praeses on these grounds, be given also to a schoolmaster who suggested some of the princ.i.p.al points of the themes for his pupils on which they were to gain honour and distinction; or to a drawing-master, who

"In years gone by, when we were lads at school,"

put some last brilliant touches to our dull, spiritless attempts at imitation; rendering our pencillings liable, in their improved condition, to be declared by some cynical critic, much to our dissatisfaction, more our master's than our own?

In the _Dissertationes Inaugurales_ of the Edinburgh, Leipzig, Goettingen, Berlin, Paris, and other universities, there is little or no difficulty, where the author, A. B. _eruditorum examini subjicit, ex auctoritate Rectoris vel Praefecti_, as, if we take, for instance, the case of the Edinburgh Dissertations, no one could suppose the hundreds of dissertations submitted for examination by aspirants for academic honours could all be attributed, either to the learned Praefects Drs.

Wishart or Wm. Robertson of the last century, or to Dr. Georgius Baird of the first quarter of the present; and one of the difficulties connected with the question is, how far the usual praeses in thesis with a respondent, is or is not in almost the same relative position as the rector of the above dissertations, and in fact whether the hundred and one different forms and variations of words on t.i.tle-pages used in the various cases of rector and candidate for honours, praeses and proponent, praeses and defendant, defendant alone, praeses and respondent, respondent alone, etc., are not all slightly varying representations of much the same condition of things, modified perhaps by some variety of usages, as in Sweden, for instance, which may have been more favourable to the claims of the praeses than in other countries; a condition, however, which is a veritable Proteus in its many changes of shape.

Presidents, we allow to be absolute in their decisions, but in the case of these dissertations they are in an "ablative absolute" position, and therefore, I suggest, should, with few exceptions, be removed from the status of author, which belongs grammatically as well as bibliographically to the proponent, defendant, or respondent, who in the nominative case dominates the entire construction of the t.i.tle-page.

The British Museum rule, as adopted by Mr. Cutter in his _Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue_ and by our a.s.sociation since, viz., "_Consider the Respondent or Defendant of a Thesis as its Author except when it unequivocally appears to be the work of the Praeses_," does not comprehend cases where both the words respondent and defendant occur together.

The respondent is the author when words like _auctor respondens_ are attached to his name, or when the praeses is the only other name mentioned on the t.i.tle, but not when there is a proponent or defendant, as in the following out of many instances I could produce:--

"_De Mangano_: Dissertatio quam publice _defendere_ studebit G. Forchhammer, _respondente_ Tho. G. Repp;" Hafniae, 1820, 4to.

"Dissertatio Medica quam auspiciis Rectoris Friderici Ha.s.siae Landgravii _defendet_ P. J. Borellus, _respondente_ H. G.

Sibeckero."

I should like, therefore, to have added to that rule, "the Defendant or Respondent is the Author when either occurs separately on the t.i.tle-page, but when together, the Defendant must be so considered."

In Cutter's rules for cross-referencing, he considers that one should be made from the praeses to the respondent or defendant of a thesis, which I cannot but consider supererogatory; the contrary one, from respondent to praeses, where the praeses can be proved to be the author, has more reason in its favour.

This latter case is, however, of comparatively rare occurrence, the following being examples of those few cases in which the authorship must be given to him:--

"_Dissertatio quam sist.i.t praeses G. F. Francus de Frankenau, respondente Daniel Wagnero;_" Hafniae, 1704, the dedication being also signed by Francus. "_De Humoribus disputatio, auth.o.r.e ac praeside D._ _C. Lucio et respondente M. Rotmundo_,"

Ingolstadii, 1588.

In what way, favourable or unfavourable to the praeses-author hypothesis, shall we take such t.i.tles as--

Deo triuno praeside ex decreto gratiosi Med. Ordinis.

Quam deo ter optimo maximo Praeside ex auctoritate D. Rectoris exam.

subjicit J. G. W.

Quam praeside summo numine ex auctoritate D. Rectoris subjicit J. G. W.

When the praeses is the author he is usually called author, defendant, or proponent, never respondent, but the opposing respondent is sometimes a partic.i.p.ating author.

The following case is one of our difficulties, and shows the necessity of looking further than the t.i.tle:--

"_Dissertatio de Haemorrhoidibus, praeses Geo. Francus, respondens J. G. Carisius_, Heidelb. 1672."

The dedication to this is signed by Francus, with this remark, "_Dissertationem Medicam primitias nempe meas offerre debui_," proving him to be the author.

And in numerous cases where the names of a praeses and respondent occur on the t.i.tle without the word author being attached to either, the preface or dedication is signed sometimes by one and sometimes by the other, and the authorship must be attributed accordingly.

But with regard to those Disputations in which only the names of praeses and respondent occur on the t.i.tle, we must recollect that the ant.i.thesis is not always between _them_, but between the _opponents_, whether mentioned or not, and the _author_ who responds to their strictures, the praeses being only the arbiter between them.

The princ.i.p.al cause of our troubles in these matters is not, however, to be found so much in the separate dissertations in their original publication, as in the collected editions of them by Haller and others.

In these collections the name of the praeses is constantly given as author of the thesis in the heading lines of the text, even when the t.i.tle, in agreement with its original publication, attaches the word _auctor_ to the name of the defendant or respondent; are we in these cases to suppose that these heading lines have really been left to the caprice of the printer, who has adopted the name of the praeses as occurring first on the t.i.tle, on the principle of first come first served?

In Haller's Collection of _Disputationes Chirurgicae_ contrarieties constantly occur, the exact sameness of construction in the t.i.tles being followed sometimes by the name of the praeses and sometimes by that of the defendant, on the heading lines of the text; as, for instance, in one where, though the fly-t.i.tle mentions Orth as the "_respondens auctor_," the dissertation is in the heading placed under the name of Salzmann, the praeses.

Other instances of this difficulty occur in Gruner's _Delectus Dissertationum Medicarum Jenensium_, in which a large number are attributed to the praeses Baldinger, in a t.i.tle-construction which mentions the names of the proponents as authors. In Haller's _Disputationes ad Morborum historiam_, the regular t.i.tles are omitted, and the two names, sometimes praeses and respondent, sometimes respondent and opponent, or defendant and respondent, are given coupled by an _et_ as the authors of the dissertation, the first name, however, gaining the honour of the heading line. I give one or two instances exhibiting the confusion involved in the question.

_J. V. Scheid et Marci Mappi Disputatio de duobus ossiculis in cerebro humano mulieris, 1687._ Scheid's name appears as the author in the heading line, but on turning to the original edition I find _pro disputatione proposita, praeside J. V. Scheid, respondente Marco Mappo_, and in the dedication signed by Mappus it is stated by him to be his first specimen of his medical studies.

In another instance of the same kind, _Joh. Saltzmann et E. C. Honold de Verme naribus excusso_, the heading line has Saltzmann as the author, while in the original edition the dedication to the magistracy of his native town is signed by Honold, as dedicating to them _primitias hasce academicas_, and at the end are several letters and sets of congratulatory verses on his performance. How in a bibliographical sense can Scheid or Saltzmann be the authors of these theses? The information they may have contributed as teachers does not const.i.tute them authors.

Cases of the same kind occur in _Richteri Opuscula Medica, studio J. C.

G. Ackermann, 1780_; in _Trilleri Opuscula_, and in _J. G. Roedereri Opuscula Medica_, in which latter are included dissertations which are said to be _totae ab illo factae_, which yet on their t.i.tles have _quam publico eruditorum examini submitt.i.t_--Dietz, Winiker, Hirschfeld, Stein, Schael, Chuden, Zeis, and some with the word _auctor_ prefixed to the proponent, and without the name of Roederer on the t.i.tle at all, which yet are said in the table of contents to be _illo non plane auctore sed suasore et moderatore enatae_.

There is a series of thirteen _Disputationes de recta ratione Purgandi, a Melchiore Sebizio_, 1621, which are printed as by Sebizius, but in each of the disputations the dedication is signed by the respondent, and the respondents speak of the theses as the firstfruits of their studies.

There are, indeed, so many of these dissertations in which the construction of the t.i.tle is the same whether a praeses is mentioned or not, and with the word auctor sometimes following the name of the defendant, sometimes that of the respondent, that there can be little doubt that one of the latter must be considered the author, in all cases where auctor does not follow the name of the praeses.

When a collection of theses or dissertations is published under the name of a praeses as his _opera_, such as in the case of Sebizius, Richter, Roederer, and others, it is merely in a secondary sense from his having contributed opinions and corrections to them; and may there not also, in this publication of sets of theses under the name of the praeses as his works, be some little display of bibliopolic art, as insuring a better sale if the name of an important professor of the place be attached to them than with those of yet obscure students bringing forth their first displays of knowledge before the academic world?

And though I feel great objections to their being considered as authors bibliographically speaking, yet with regard to Linnaeus, Thunberg, and some other Swedish authors, they really seem to have had so very much to do with the composition of the theses, at the disputations on which they sat as presidents, that I feel great difficulty in comprehending them in the previous category.

From these collections of dissertations it seems impossible to form any bibliographical conclusions as a basis for certainty of arrangement, but I will add from the previous statements a few suggestions which may tend towards that end:--

That the proponent is always the author of a dissertation.

That the defendant is always the author of a dissertation when it occurs with another name as respondent.

That the term defendant is, when alone, synonymous with respondent.

That when the respondent's name occurs with a praeses only, the respondent is the author except words are attached to the president's name affirming him to be the proponent, defendant, or author, or there is evidence in the preface or dedication that he claims the authorship.

That the respondent when he is the author is frequently described as auctor respondens.