Part 12

“He is evidently unaware,” Father Campbell goes on to comment, “that the Society of Jesus is sufficiently known both in the Church and the world not to need a monument in the graveyard of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. Not the humblest Brother in the Order expected anything but calumny and abuse when he saw appended to the article the initials of the well-known assassins of the Society’s reputation. Not one was surprised, much less displeased, at the absence of eulogy, sufficient or otherwise; but, on the contrary, they were all amazed to find the loudly trumpeted commercial enterprise, which had been so persistently clamorous of its possession of the most recent results of research in every department of learning, endeavoring to palm off on the public such shopworn travesties of historical and religious truth. The editor is mistaken if he thinks they pouted. Old and scarred veterans are averse to being patted on the back by their enemies.

“It is not, however, the ill-judged gibe that compels us to revert to the Society, as much as the suspicion that the editor of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ seems to fancy that we had nothing to say beyond calling attention to his dilapidated bibliography, which he labels with the very offensive title of ‘the bibliography of _Jesuitism_’—a term which is as incorrect as it is insulting—or that we merely objected to the employment of two dead and discredited witnesses to tell the world what kind of an organization the Society is.

“It may be, moreover, that we misjudged a certain portion of the reading public in treating the subject so lightly, and as the Encyclopædia is continually reiterating the assertion that it has no ‘bias’ and that its statement of facts is purely ‘objective,’ a few concrete examples of the opposite kind of treatment—the one commonly employed—may not be out of place.

“We are told, for instance, that ‘the Jesuits had their share, direct or indirect, in the embroiling of States, in concocting conspiracies and in kindling wars. They were responsible by their theoretical teachings in theological schools for not a few assassinations’ (340). ‘They powerfully aided the revolution which placed the Duke of Braganza on the throne of Portugal, and their services were rewarded with the practical control of ecclesiastical and almost civil affairs in that kingdom for nearly one hundred years’ (344). ‘Their war against the Jansenists did not cease till the very walls of Port Royal were demolished in 1710, even to the very abbey church itself, and the bodies of the dead taken with every mark of insult from their graves and literally flung to the dogs to devour’ (345). ‘In Japan the Jesuits died with their converts bravely as martyrs to the Faith, yet it is impossible to acquit them of a large share of the causes of that overthrow’ (345). ‘It was about the same time that the grave scandal of the Chinese and Malabar rites began to attract attention in Europe and to make thinking men ask seriously whether the Jesuit missionaries in those parts taught anything which could fairly be called Christianity at all’ (348). ‘The political schemings of Parsons in England was an object lesson to the rest of Europe of a restless ambition and a lust of domination which were to find many imitators’ (348). ‘The General of the Order drove away six thousand exiled Jesuit priests from the coast of Italy, and made them pass several months of suffering on crowded vessels at sea to increase public sympathy, but the actual result was blame for the cruelty with which he had enhanced their misfortunes’ (346). ‘Clement XIV, who suppressed them, is said to have died of poison, but Tanucci and two others entirely acquit the Jesuits.’ ‘They are accountable in no small degree in France, as in England, for alienating the minds of men from the religion for which they professed to work’ (345).

“Very little of this can be characterized as ‘eulogistic,’ especially as interwoven in the story are malignant insinuations, incomplete and distorted statements, suppressions of truth, gross errors of fact, and a continual injection of personal venom which makes the argument not an ‘unbiased and objective presentment’ of the case, but the plea of a prejudiced prosecuting and persecuting attorney endeavoring by false testimony to convict before the bar of public opinion an alleged culprit, whose destruction he is trying to accomplish with an uncanny sort of delight.”

After having adduced a long list of instances which “reveal the rancor and ignorance of many of the writers hired by the Encyclopædia,” the article then points out “the fundamental untruthfulness” on which the _Britannica_ is built. In a letter written by the Encyclopædia’s editor appears the following specious explanation: “Extreme care was taken by the editors, and especially by the editor responsible for the theological side of the work, that every subject, either directly or indirectly concerned with religion, should as far as possible be objective and not subjective in _their_ presentation. The majority of the articles on the various Churches and their beliefs were written by members within the several communions, and, if not so written, were submitted to those most competent to judge, for criticism and, if need be, correction.”

Father Campbell in his answer to this letter says: “Without animadverting on the peculiar use of the English language by the learned English editor who tells us that ‘_every_ subject’ should be ‘objective’ in _their_ presentation, we do not hesitate to challenge absolutely the assertion that ‘the majority of the articles on the various Churches were written by members within the several communions, and if not so written were submitted to those most competent to judge, for criticism and, if need be, for correction.’ Such a pretence is simply amazing, and thoroughly perplexed, we asked: What are we supposed to understand when we are informed that ‘the _majority_ of the articles on the various Churches and their beliefs were written by members within the several communions’?

“Was the article on _The Roman Catholic Church_ written by a Catholic? Was the individual who accumulated and put into print all those vile aspersions on the Popes, the saints, the sacraments, the doctrines of the Church, a Catholic? Were the other articles on _Casuistry_, _Celibacy_, _St. Catherine of Siena_, and _Mary_, the mother of Jesus, written by a Catholic? The supposition is simply inconceivable, and it calls for more than the unlimited assurance of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ to compel us to accept it.

“But ‘they were submitted to the most competent judge for criticism and, if need be, correction.’ Were they submitted to any judge at all, or to any man of sense, before they were sent off to be printed and scattered throughout the English speaking world? Is it permissible to imagine for a moment that any Catholic could have read some of those pages and not have been filled with horror at the multiplied and studied insults to everything he holds most sacred in his religion? Or did ‘the editor responsible for the theological side of the work’ reserve for himself the right to reject or accept whatever recommended itself to his superior judgment?”

The article then points out that “far from being just to Catholics, the _Britannica_ pointedly and persistently discriminated against them.” The article on the Episcopalians was assigned to the Rev. Dr. D. D. Addison, Rector of All Saints, Brookline, Mass.; that on Methodists to the Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckley, Editor of the _Christian Advocate_, New York; that on the Baptists to the Rev. Newton Herbert Marshall, Baptist Church, Hampstead, England; that on the Jews to Israel Abrahams, formerly President of the Jewish Historical Society and now Reader on Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature in Cambridge, and so on for the Presbyterians, Unitarians, Lutherans, etc. But in the case of the Catholic Church not only its history but its theology was given to a critic who was neither a theologian, nor a cleric, nor even a Catholic, and who, as Father Campbell notes, is not known outside of his little London coterie.

The _Britannica’s_ editor also apologized for his encyclopædia by stating that “Father Braun, S. J., has _assisted_ us in our article on _Vestments_, and that Father Delehaye, S. J., has contributed, among other articles, those on _The Bollandists and Canonization_. Abbé Boudinhon and Mgr. Duchesne, and Luchaire and Ludwig von Pastor and Dr. Kraus have also contributed, and Abbot Butler, O. S. B., has written on the Augustinians, Benedictines, Carthusians, Cistercians, Dominicans and Franciscans”; and, finally: “The new _Britannica_ has had the honor of having as a contributor His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, who has written of the Roman Catholic Church in America.”

“But, after all,” answers Father Campbell, “it was not a very generous concession to let Father Joseph Braun, S. J., _Staatsexamen als Religionsoberlehren für Gymnasien_, University of Bonn, _assist_ the editors in the very safe article on _Vestments_, nor to let the Bollandists write a column on their publication, which has been going on for three or four hundred years. The list of those who wrote on the _Papacy_ is no doubt respectable in ability if not in number, but we note that the editor is careful to say that the writers of that article were ‘_principally_’ Roman Catholics.

“Again we are moved to ask why should a Benedictine, distinguished though he be, have assigned to him the history of the Augustinians, Franciscans, Dominicans, etc.? Were there no men in those great and learned orders to tell what they must have known better than even the erudite Benedictine? Nor will it avail to tell us that His Eminence of Baltimore wrote _The History of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States_, when that article comprises only a column of statistics, preceded by two paragraphs, one on the early missions, and the other on the settlement of Lord Baltimore. No one more than the illustrious and learned churchman would have resented calling such a mere compilation of figures a _History of the Catholic Church in the United States_, and no one would be more shocked than he by the propinquity of his restricted article to the prolix and shameless one to which it is annexed.”

Here in brief is an account of the “impartial” manner in which Catholicism is recorded and described in that “supreme” book of knowledge, the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. And I set down this record here not because it is exceptional but, to the contrary, because it is representative of the way in which the world’s culture (outside of England), and especially the culture of America, is treated.

The intellectual prejudice and contempt of England for America is even greater if anything than England’s religious prejudice and contempt for Catholicism; and this fact should be borne in mind when you consult the _Britannica_ for knowledge. It will not give you even scholarly or objective information: it will advise you, by constant insinuation and intimation, as well as by direct statement, that English culture and achievement represent the transcendent glories of the world, and that the great men and great accomplishments of other nations are of minor importance. No more fatal intellectual danger to America can be readily conceived than this distorted, insular, incomplete, and aggressively British reference work.

XII

TWO HUNDRED OMISSIONS

The following list contains two hundred of the many hundreds of writers, painters, musicians and scientists who are denied biographies in the _Britannica_. There is not a name here which should not be in an encyclopædia which claims for itself the completeness which the _Britannica_ claims. Many of the names stand in the forefront of modern culture. Their omission is nothing short of preposterous, and can be accounted for only on the grounds of ignorance or prejudice. In either case, they render the encyclopædia inadequate as an up-to-date and comprehensive reference work.

It will be noted that not one of these names is English, and that America has suffered from neglect in a most outrageous fashion. After reading the flamboyant statements made in the _Encyclopædia Britannica’s_ advertising, glance down this list. Then decide for yourself whether or not the statements are accurate.

Objection may be raised to some of the following names on the ground that they are not of sufficient importance to be included in an encyclopædia, and that their omission cannot be held to the discredit of the _Britannica_. In answer let me state that for every name listed here as being denied a biography, there are one or two, and, in the majority of cases, many, Englishmen in the same field who are admittedly inferior and yet who are given detailed and generally laudatory biographies.

LITERATURE

“A. E.” (George W. Russell) Andreiev Artzibashef Hermann Bahr Henri Bernstein Otto Julius Bierbaum Ambrose Bierce Helene Böhlau Henry Bordeaux René Boylesve Enrico Butti Cammaerts Capuana Bliss Carman Winston Churchill Pierre de Coulevain Richard Dehmel Margaret Deland Grazia Deledda Theodore Dreiser Eekhoud Clyde Fitch Paul Fort Gustav Frenssen Fröding Fucini (Tanfucio Neri) Garshin Stefan George René de Ghil Giacosa Ellen Glasgow Rémy de Gourmont Robert Grant Lady Gregory Grigorovich Hartleben Heidenstam Hirschfeld Hugo von Hofmannsthal Arno Holz Richard Hovey Bronson Howard Ricarda Huch James Huneker Douglas Hyde Lionel Johnson Karlfeldt Charles Klein Korolenko Kuprin Percy MacKaye Emilio de Marchi Ferdinando Martini Stuart Merrill William Vaughn Moody Nencioni Standish O’Grady Ompteda Panzacchi Giovanni Pascoli David Graham Phillips Wilhelm von Polenz Rapisardi Edwin Arlington Robinson Romain Rolland T. W. Rolleston Rovetta Albert Samain George Santayana Johannes Schlaf Schnitzler Severin Signoret Synge John Bannister Tabb Tchekhoff Gherardi del Testa Jérôme and Jean Tharaud Ludwig Thoma Augustus Thomas Tinayre Katherine Tynan Veressayeff Clara Viebig Annie Vivanti Wackenroder Wedekind Edith Wharton Owen Wister Ernst von Wolzogen

PAINTING

George Bellows Carrière Mary Cassatt Cézanne Louis Corinth Maurice Denis Gauguin Habermann C. W. Hawthorne Robert Henri Hodler Sergeant Kendall Ludwig Knaus Krüger Jean Paul Laurens Leibl Von Marées René Ménard Redon Charles Shuch Lucien Simon Steinlen Toulouse-Lautrec Trübner Twachtman Van Gogh Vallotton Zorn

MUSIC

d’Albert Arensky Mrs. Beach Busoni Buxtehude Charpentier Frederick Converse Cui Arthur Foote Grechaninov Guilmant Henry K. Hadley Josef Hofmann Edgar Stillman Kelly Kreisler Leschetitzky Gustav Mahler Marschner Nevin Nordraak John Knowles Paine Horatio Parker Rachmaninov Ravel Max Reger Nikolaus Rubinstein Scharwenka brothers Georg Alfred Schumann Scriabine Sibelius Friedrich Silcher Sinding Taneiev Wolf-Ferrari

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

William Beaumont John Shaw Billings Luther Burbank George W. Crile Harvey Cushing Rudolph Diesel Daniel Drake Ehrlich Simon Flexner W. W. Gerhard Samuel David Gross William S. Halsted Wilhelm His Abraham Jacobi Rudolph Leuckart Franz Leydig Jacques Loeb Percival Lowell Lyonet (Lyonnet) S. J. Meltzer Metchnikoff T. H. Morgan Joseph O’Dwyer Ramón y Cajal Nicholas Senn Marion Sims Theobald Smith W. H. Welch Orville Wright Wilbur Wright

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

Ardigò Bergson Boutroux Hermann Cohen John Dewey Edelmann Freud Guyau G. Stanley Hall Hildebrand Jung Külpe Lipps Josiah Royce Alois Riehl Sibbern Soloviov Tetans Windelband

End of Project Gutenberg's Misinforming a Nation, by Willard Huntington Wright