Some one has said that the modern university is the finest fruition of the spirituality of America, and if this be true the House of Harper has also borne its part as laborers in the vineyard, with its contributions, undertaken for the most part upon the initiative of the House by the most eminent classicists the land has produced, to the literature of education. What might Sydney Smith not have thought had he lived to see the imprint of the Clarendon Press of Oxford, England, upon the masterly productions of American scholars first issuing from the presses of four New York printers, who, perceiving the need of such productions, had procured the men who were capable of producing them, and themselves undertaken the possibly perilous enterprise of giving them material being that future generations of students might profit thereby?

In respect to its public service, the House of Harper has stood always for what the conscience of its guiding spirits has prompted, irrespective of its effect upon its own fortunes. It is easy to be extreme in the reckless use of similes, and perhaps to refer to the Nast-Harper warfare upon the iniquitous hosts of Tammany at the risk of its fortunes, and at the peril of life, as another case of St. George and the Dragon would be so. Nevertheless, Tammany was a very real dragon, stopping at nothing to save its tigerish skin, threatening punishment of all kinds from financial ruin to nothing short of assassination, and tempting with satanic power those who endeavored to block its career of crime, and the St. Georges confronting it were mere human creatures with no demigod-like attributes, armed only with the weapons of the studio and the study, and protected against the

subtle wiles of the tempter only by a simple sense of civic and personal duty. They fought the fight undismayed by threats and unafraid of ruin, in full confidence that when the critical moment of the battle came the flaming sword of American justice and righteousness would not permit the victory to pass into the hands of iniquity, and would not be sheathed until the festering wrong was righted, whatever fate might befall themselves. They knew that to such a fight there could be but one sort of a finish in such a world as they believed this world to be, and they went into the work in hand like civic knights. Even so they labored also in the larger affairs of the nation, often at variance with their friends and their interests, but none the less earnestly and effectively for that. In respect to these matters, the House has been more than fortunate in the human instruments at its disposal, and, beginning with Curtis and Nast as the captainsgeneral of its forces down to the present hour with the potent and brilliant pen of Harvey as its weapon of offence and defence, its laurels in things political have been and still remain imperishably fresh and green.

As a School of Letters and Art, the work of the House has been progressive and effective. Its art department was the first and only training school in which some of our most famous illustrators and painters served their apprenticeship, while the exigencies of the Harper periodicals furnished an incentive to the writers of England and America to enter into new fields of creative work, in which the kindly counsel and friendly suggestions of the four Brothers and their associates were formative factors. Could one but present for public perusal the letters of the House to literary aspirants, young and old, the illuminating and forcefully suggestive writings of Curtis, under cover of private correspondence, and the marvelousty constructive periods of Alden in his correspondence with authors of all grades of talent or genius, from the highest to the most humble, we should have a vademecum of literary craftsmanship that would stand hardly second to any collegiate or university course in letters.

Fortunate in its friends, to whom it has owed much, and to whom it gratefully acknowledges its indebtedness, having few enemies, and those only whose enmity is an honor, the humble little establishment started by the Long Island carpenter's sons on Cliff Street has waxed stronger ancl stronger, until finally it has become not so much the expression of the individual hopes and aspirations of its founders as a representative American institution. It has been referred to by a writer on the fortunes of the House in the following terms:

Harper & Brothers have made every department of literature their own, from spelling-books to encyclopaedias, from "cheap libraries" to editions de luxe, from Bibles to fashion-plates. No wonder that the House of Harper has become an institution ia New York.

May the writer of this book, one of the third generation ef the House, not in pride, but with due appreciation of the noble work of hfe forebears, ask for an extension of the limitation here imposed, so that the House of Harper may be included not among the institutions of New York, but of America, a representative example of what honorable purpose, sturdy integrity, inflexible courage, and hard work coupled with high ideals may accomplish in these United States of America in less than the years of a completed century?

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