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RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 

Photo: Elliott & Fry. 
 
Richard Green Moulton, 
 
 LL.D. (Cantab.), Ph.D. (Penna.), 
 
 PROFESSOR OF LITERARY THEORY AND INTER¬ 
 PRETATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
 A MEMOIR 
 
 BY 
 
 HIS NEPHEW 
 
 W. FIDDIAN MOULTON 
 
 WITH A FOREWORD 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR MICHAEL E. SADLER, K.C.S.I., C.B., LL.D., Litt.D. 
 
 Master of University College, Oxford. 
 
 Jlrte fjark 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
Fust Edition, 192b. 
 
 Made and printed in Great Britain 
 by Mackays Ltd., Chatham 
 
°1 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chap 
 
 Introduction .... 
 
 Page 
 
 7 
 
 I. 
 
 Early Days .... 
 
 11 
 
 II. 
 
 University Extension . 
 
 . 19 
 
 III. 
 
 The Study of Literature 
 
 • 33 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Literary Study of the Bible 
 
 • 59 
 
 V. 
 
 First Contact with America 
 
 • 74 
 
 VI. 
 
 Chicago ...... 
 
 . 87 
 
 VII. 
 
 A Strenuous Ministry . 
 
 100 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Eventide. 
 
 . 123 
 
 Appendix I. ..... 
 
 • 131 
 
 Syllabus of Lecture at Belper on the 
 University Extension Movement 
 
 Appendix II.136 
 
 The Department of General Literature in 
 the University of Chicago 
 
 Appendix III. ....... 144 
 
 Titles of Other Courses given by Professor 
 Moulton in the University 
 
 Books by Richard Green Moulton . .146 
 
 4 
 
 it 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Richard Green Moulton was a missionary of culture, 
 an apostle of adult education. He spent his life in trying 
 to make a new background to the minds of men and 
 women whose lot in life had fallen at a time of emigration 
 from settled habits of thought to regions of unrest. 
 
 Behind him lay four generations of the Methodist 
 ministry. Itinerancy was in his blood. In the service of 
 Universities he did what his forbears had done in the 
 service of the Wesleyan Connexion. With unselfish ardour 
 and with cheerful courage he sowed seed which, both in 
 England and in the United States, has grown to harvest. 
 Like Wordsworth’s seafaring brother, Moulton was born 
 with a trust which he did not fail to comprehend. Hence 
 he settled down to a life of unsettlement. Nearly 
 fifty years ago we in the West Riding asked him whether 
 his life of almost incessant winter travel from town to town 
 was not wearying and distasteful. I remember the spirit 
 with which he answered us. ‘ When I have been for a few 
 hours in a new lodging, I feel that it is my home.' 
 
 Moulton gave much of his life to University Extension. He 
 served his cause with fire and faith. He sprang from a fine 
 stock. The quality of mind and character which one of his 
 brothers showed in the service of science and law, which 
 a second brother showed in Biblical study and in the 
 governance of a great school, which a third showed in 
 missionary statesmanship in the South Seas, Richard 
 Moulton displayed as a pioneer and upholder of the ideas 
 
 7 
 
 A q i g rz k 
 
 -*■ 'O JL O u "J 
 
8 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 of University Extension. What, we may ask, was there 
 in those ideas which gave momentum to the labours of 
 his life ? 
 
 Nearly sixty years ago a young Scot, James Stuart of 
 Balgonie, confided to his mother the plans which he 
 cherished for his career. He had taken his degree at 
 Cambridge a few months before. Ever afterwards this 
 talk stood out particularly in his memory and in hers. 
 
 ‘ I described to her the great difference that there seemed 
 to me to be between the education in England and in 
 Scotland. In the former place there were practically no 
 lectures of the kind given by the professors in St. Andrew’s, 
 and the opportunities for University Education were very 
 much less wide-spread than in Scotland. I told her that 
 I thought of staying at the University (at Cambridge, in 
 Trinity) and of endeavouring to accomplish two things : 
 first, to make the University lectures generally open to all 
 Colleges, and of a more interesting type ; second, to estab¬ 
 lish a sort of peripatetic University, the professors of 
 which would circulate among the big towns and thus give 
 a wider opportunity for receiving such teaching. ... It 
 took about ten years to accomplish these two objects, 
 but my mother often referred in after-years to the 
 general correctness of the anticipations of which I then 
 told her.’ 
 
 James Stuart was the father of the activities of 
 University Extension teaching. He invented, stumbled 
 on, its characteristic method—the lecture followed (or 
 prefaced) by the class and illustrated by a syllabus. His 
 animated leadership drew young men to his banner. The 
 first were V. H. Stanton, T. O. Harding, E. B. Birks. 
 Hard on their heels were W. Moore Ede, T. J. Lawrence, 
 W. Cunningham, J. E. Symes, R. D. Roberts, R. G. 
 Moulton. Thus in 1874 Moulton started his life’s work 
 by giving courses of University Extension lectures, under 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 9 
 
 the authority of the University of Cambridge, at Derby, 
 Leicester, and Nottingham. His itinerancy had begun. 
 It was a few years after that that we got to know him at 
 Barnsley in Yorkshire. Nearly half a century has passed, 
 but my memory of his influence has not faded. He was 
 like a gardener bringing water to a thirsty garden. His 
 pupils were but a handful. But he opened windows in 
 their minds. He made them love poetry more. He 
 shared their love of music. He showed them new stan¬ 
 dards of scholarship. He made an isolated group of book- 
 lovers feel companionship with groups elsewhere. More 
 than this, he made them grateful to Cambridge, conscious 
 of an ancient University tradition which had become 
 hospitable to them and friendly, though remote. 
 
 There came a time in the early history of University 
 Extension when the movement seemed in danger of 
 flagging. Moulton and Roberts upheld it. Their example 
 was not without influence in Oxford, where William Sewell 
 a generation earlier had seen, as had Lord Arthur Hervey 
 at Cambridge, what the extension of University teaching 
 might do for England. At Oxford, as at Cambridge, the 
 movement was strong in friends : at Cambridge, besides 
 James Stuart, there were Henry Sidgwick and G. F. 
 Browne : at Oxford, besides Benjamin Jowett, were T. H. 
 Green, Arnold Toynbee, and Arthur Acland. But more 
 men of Moulton’s mark were needed for the teaching front. 
 Stuart’s fervour, Browne’s business head, Jowett’s daring, 
 Acland’s insight rallied new recruits. What Cambridge 
 University Extension had found in Moulton and in 
 Roberts, Oxford found in Hudson Shaw, in Halford 
 Mackinder, in J. A. R. Marriott, in E. L. S. Horsburgh. 
 And at Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bristol, Nottingham, 
 Reading, and Exeter new University Colleges consolidated 
 what University Extension had helped to begin. 
 
 Sir Joshua Fitch used to tell a story about Dean Stanley 
 
10 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 and Dr. Arnold, of Rugby. Stanley was asked whether 
 he had learnt much from Arnold’s teaching in the Sixth. 
 He drew a notebook from his pocket and said : ‘ All I got 
 from Dr. Arnold in the way of direct instruction could be 
 written in this little book.’ But Arnold coloured Stanley’s 
 conscience and convictions. Moulton, without Arnold’s 
 fierce earnestness in theology and politics, had something 
 of his power to make a new atmosphere in his pupils’ 
 minds. He was infectious, radiant, magnetic. He was 
 part preacher, part actor, part troubadour. He glowed 
 with love of the English Bible, of Greek tragedy, of Shake¬ 
 speare, of Goethe, and we who heard him recite what he 
 loved, warmed ourselves at his fire. 
 
 M. E. SADLER. 
 
 University College, Oxford, 
 
 June, 1926. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Early Days. 
 
 It was on the fifth of May, 1849, that Richard Green 
 Moulton first saw the light, in the Wesleyan Methodist 
 manse just a few yards off Fishergate in Preston, where 
 his father, the Rev. James Egan Moulton, was Super¬ 
 intendent minister of the circuit. Richard was the 
 youngest of the six children of his parents, four boys and 
 two girls, a gap of fourteen years separating him from the 
 eldest, William Fiddian, the future Head Master of the 
 Leys School, Cambridge. The family history may be 
 said to begin with John Bake well, the writer of the well- 
 known hymn, the property of all the Churches over the 
 face of the earth, * Hail, Thou once despised Jesus !' 
 Starting as an evangelist in his native county of Derby¬ 
 shire, he afterwards opened a school in Greenwich, where 
 he had as one of his assistant masters Mr. James Egan of 
 Limerick, who subsequently received an LL.D. degree at 
 Dublin, and also the gold medal of a learned society for 
 a dissertation upon the best method of teaching Greek. 
 Association in educational work led to the awakening of a 
 strong attachment between Mr. Egan and Mr. Bakewell’s 
 clever daughter Maria, who possessed a remarkable 
 knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. On one of the 
 Rev. John Wesley’s frequent visits to his friend’s house, 
 he saw readily enough how things stood between these 
 brilliant young people, and he lost no time in urging upon 
 Mr. Bakewell certain plans for the furtherance of the 
 
12 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 Lord’s work—and, incidentally, of the interests of this 
 gifted couple. ' John,’ said Wesley, ' let the young 
 people marry, hand over the school to them ; and you go 
 and preach the gospel.’ That dominating personality 
 bore an almost unchallenged sway in that house. John 
 Bakewell assented ; and the young people, nothing loth, 
 assented too, Mr. Wesle3' himself performing the ceremony. 
 John Bakewell lived to the ripe age of ninety-eight, 
 retaining all his faculties to the very last. 
 
 The Egans had a large family, but only two of the 
 children call for mention here. One married the Rev. 
 William Moulton, the grandfather of the subject of this 
 memoir, who was a frequent visitor at the Egans’ house 
 by reason of the fact that it was in the ‘ London Circuit' 1 
 Another daughter, who remained unmarried, settled in 
 Worcester and opened there a preparatory school for 
 boys, whither, at a very early age, the eldest brother of 
 Richard Green Moulton went to receive his first initiation 
 into scholarship at the hands of his great-aunt. She was 
 a woman of great mental activity and width of reading, 
 and an excellent classical scholar, whilst her physical 
 vitality must have been extraordinary, for, after falling 
 downstairs and breaking her thigh at the age of over 
 eighty, she lived on into her hundredth year, crippled, 
 but retaining her faculties to the last, even as her grand¬ 
 father had done. 
 
 William Moulton’s family was a large one—fifteen in 
 all—though six died either in childhood or before they 
 had grown up. The eldest lad, William, was a boy of 
 great promise, and was head boy of Woodhouse Grove 
 School—then a school for the sons of Wesleyan ministers 
 —but died at sixteen. James Egan Moulton, the father 
 of the remarkable quartet of brothers, early showed the 
 attainments which had characterized those who came 
 before him. From eight to fifteen he was at Kingswood 
 
EARLY DAYS 
 
 13 
 
 School—also a school for sons of Wesleyan ministers— 
 and his name appears the first in the first prize list of the 
 school. From fifteen to twenty-two he remained there 
 as a master—a master at fifteen !—until he entered the 
 Wesleyan Methodist ministry. As a teacher he seems to 
 have had a singular gift for making his subjects interesting 
 —a gift which reappears in his sons, and notably in R. G. 
 Moulton. Moreover, he was remarkable both for the 
 thoroughness of his knowledge and for his breadth. He 
 was a mathematician above the average : he had an 
 extensive knowledge of Greek and Latin authors, and he 
 ' could read Hebrew like a Jew.’ 
 
 But no estimate of the formative influences in the life 
 of R. G. Moulton, as of his three brothers, would be 
 adequate without some tribute to his mother, Catherine 
 Fiddian, daughter of Mr. William Fiddian, a brass founder 
 in Birmingham. She and her husband formed a remark¬ 
 able pair; for, great as were his attainments and 
 intellectual powers, she was quite his equal, though her 
 gifts had the distinctive colouring of a woman’s nature. 
 She had a fine mind, and great powers of conversation 
 when she chose to use them, but she was a thorough 
 woman, according to the ideal of eighty years ago. She went 
 as near to worshipping her husband as so saintly a woman 
 could go, and her tender love for her children, her con¬ 
 siderateness, her strong, wise counsel, left an indelible 
 impression upon the minds and hearts of those who knew 
 her best. 
 
 It was from such a stock that R. G. Moulton sprang. 
 His mother died when he was only six years old, and in 
 1857 his father married, in Guernsey, Henriette Bysson 
 Taylor, a lady of Huguenot descent, who had been brought 
 up in France. That he owed a great deal to this lady 
 Richard always acknowledged, and the devotion to her of 
 the whole family up to her death at an advanced age in 
 
RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 *4 
 
 1890—almost twenty-five years after the death of her 
 husband—was very beautiful. Amid such conditions he 
 grew up; and if these things have been stressed, it is 
 because they bore so directly upon the foundation of his 
 character, his activities, and his tastes. 
 
 He was a frail child, and few would have ventured to 
 predict for him any future marked by distinction, or even 
 moderate success, on that very ground. One phase of his 
 childhood days may be noted here, because it is so inter¬ 
 esting an anticipation of what became afterwards his most 
 outstanding achievement in respect of the presentation of 
 literature. The frailty of his health resulted in his being 
 left much to himself when other boys would join in the 
 co-operative sport of the playground : but he had his own 
 games, into which he needed not to ask any to enter. 
 For hours he would lie on the floor in front of the fire, and 
 carry on a wonderful game of make-believe in which he 
 would welcome visitors, and conduct conversation in 
 character with them, adapting his voice, gestures, and 
 subject-matter to the visitor he was impersonating at 
 the time. Those who, thirty or forty years later, heard 
 him give his Interpretative Recitals, whether of Greek 
 Tragedy or of Bible story, will recognize that the child 
 was but the father of the man, and that the instinct for 
 dramatic impersonation manifested itself uncommonly 
 early. 
 
 As he grew older his health improved, and after a year 
 at Mr. Rush’s School (Clevedon College) at Northampton, 
 he went to New Kingswood School, Bath, where he was 
 conspicuously successful, and, like his brother John, 1 
 became head boy. Like him also, he did exceedingly well 
 in the Oxford Local Examinations. He commenced his 
 educational career when at the early age of sixteen and 
 a half he went—first as an ‘ usher ’—to Clevedon College 
 
 1 Afterwards the Right Hon. Lord Moulton of Bank. 
 
EARLY DAYS 
 
 15 
 
 again. While there, he went in for more examinations, 
 including the London Matriculation, in which his name 
 headed the honours list in 1867, and he obtained a £30 
 scholarship. From Clevedon College he went as an 
 assistant master to the private school of Mr. Frederick 
 Conquest at Biggleswade, preparing at the same time for 
 the London University B.A. Examination. In later life 
 R. G. Moulton used to relate his experiences in connexion 
 with that examination in 1869 as illustrating sopie of the 
 weaknesses of any system which relies solely upon such 
 tests. It was considered so certain that Moulton would 
 win the £30 scholarship that two candidates had with¬ 
 drawn in order to have a chance another year. He had 
 to take two examinations with an interval of a week 
 between the two. During that week a severe attack of 
 mumps developed, and when the time came for the 
 second examination he was in a very high fever ! The 
 results were interesting: (1) Having taken the first 
 
 examination, he was debarred from taking the second at 
 a later time; (2) He did not obtain the scholarship ; 
 (3) The scholarship was not awarded to anyone ; (4) R. G. 
 Moulton remained on the lists of the London University 
 as a pass B.A. ! 
 
 He remained with Mr. Conquest until he went up to 
 Cambridge with a Classical Scholarship to Christ’s College, 
 taking his degree in Classics in 1874. 
 
 In those years at Cambridge, which had been the family 
 home since 1864, his activities naturally included much 
 besides preparation for the Classical tripos. One thing 
 worth noting is connected with the wonderful power he 
 manifested later of taking in a dramatic work as a whole, 
 making it absolutely his own, and then presenting it as a 
 clear unity in an ' Interpretative Recital.’ In a period of 
 relaxation after five o’clock ‘ hall,’ he would read through 
 at a sitting an English drama. This gave him valuable 
 
16 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 training in grasping dramatic structure—not detailed 
 memory of plays, but a ' composite photograph ’ of 
 Elizabethan drama, which was of great assistance to him 
 during the earlier years of his lecturing career. 
 
 Reference also may fittingly be made here to his musical 
 tastes and gifts, for they not only afforded rich embellish¬ 
 ment to his life but unquestionably contributed to the 
 body of his literary thinking at a later stage. Anyone 
 who heard him give his Interpretative Recital, ‘ The 
 Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed,’ with the magnificent 
 Wagner illustration, would not need to be told that he 
 was a musician to his finger-tips. It was, moreover, a 
 period of notable musical awakening in Cambridge. 
 In succession to Dr. J. L. Hopkins in 1873 a young 
 undergraduate named Charles Villiers Stanford had been 
 appointed organist at Trinity College, the appointment 
 being coupled with the considerate concession that he 
 should be allowed to pursue his musical studies in Germany 
 during the next two years. It has seldom been granted 
 to a man to influence the artistic life of a great and 
 important centre as Villiers Stanford influenced Cambridge 
 in the succeeding period up to 1890. The University 
 Musical Society had been in existence since 1844, but it 
 was not until Stanford secured the admission of ladies as 
 performing members ’ that the society was enabled to 
 enter upon what was destined to be a career of great 
 distinction in the musical world. R. G. Moulton was 
 among the prominent members of the Society, being at 
 one time Secretary, and upon him those early years of the 
 Stanford regime left a deep impression. One musical 
 event was probably connected with some far-reaching 
 developments of his future career. In 1873 Stanford was 
 present at the Schumann Festival at Bonn, and the result 
 of the impact of that composer’s rich and picturesque 
 music upon the young enthusiast was speedily seen in the 
 
EARLY DAYS 
 
 17 
 
 programmes of the C.U.M.S. Among other notable 
 productions the Society had the credit of giving the first 
 English performance of the Faust music (1876). R. G. 
 Moulton was in the chorus of this work, and retained a 
 very high opinion of it, often in his earlier years singing 
 the superb bass solo ‘ Thou, O purest, holiest.’ When 
 we realize that within a few years he was making a 
 tremendous success with his Faust lectures, it is easy to 
 imagine that the rehearsing of that work in 1876 may 
 have been an important factor in awakening his sense of 
 the literary possibilities of the various presentations of 
 the Faust legend. In University Extension teaching if 
 the length of the course would permit, and always in 
 University classes, his treatment of this whole subject— 
 it was one of his ‘ Five Literary Bibles ’—included, along 
 with the four great literary versions, some consideration 
 of the outstanding musical works inspired by the Faust 
 story. He was interested in them all, from Spohr to 
 Mahler’s Eighth Symphony—‘ The Symphony of a 
 Thousand ’—three fine performances of which he heard 
 in Chicago within five days ! Like his brothers William 
 and Egan, he was an enthusiastic organist from a very 
 early age, and for some years he played the organ at 
 Hobson Street Chapel whenever he was in Cambridge. 
 It is not always safe to trust the validity of boyish 
 estimates and enthusiasms, but there remains with me a 
 vivid sense of how his music impressed us all at that time 
 as being most convincing and most potent in generating 
 enthusiasm among others. Of course, by the time when 
 I heard him most, his voice—although its essentially 
 musical quality remained—had begun to lose power and 
 flexibility; but his style, forcefulness, and dramatic 
 power were remarkable There stands out with me a 
 Sunday morning at Oban in 1885, when, after breakfast, 
 he sat down and sang a song which was almost equally 
 B 
 
r8 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 impressive for the movement of its melody and the colour 
 of its accompaniment. It thrilled us all, and after futile 
 guesses had been made as to the composer—Schumann 
 being the favourite—we were interested to learn that it 
 was a setting of John Ellerton’s ' O to love Thee more and 
 more ’ by Dr. John Naylor, afterwards organist of York 
 Minster, who had been among the most eager and helpful 
 supporters of University Extension work in Scarborough 
 when R. G. Moulton lectured there, 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 University Extension. 
 
 To so great a degree was R. G. Moulton's career identified 
 with the University Extension Movement that it would be 
 futile to launch out into any account of his life-work 
 without indicating in some degree the early history of 
 that enterprise, which, first in England and then America, 
 has done so much for the spread of education, enabling 
 the Universities to give to the outside world in some 
 measure the riches of culture which had hitherto been 
 accessible only to those within their walls. The initiation 
 of the movement synchronized with the close of R. G. 
 Moulton's three years at Cambridge, when naturally he 
 was on the look-out for a sphere of activity. Moreover, 
 the moving spirit in the project was, as we shall see directly, 
 James Stuart, afterwards Professor of Engineering at 
 Cambridge and for several years a Member of Parliament. 
 Stuart was an intimate friend of John Fletcher Moulton, 
 Richard's elder brother, who was Senior Wrangler in 1868 
 and was elected to a fellowship at Christ’s College shortly 
 after : and through that friendship Stuart must have 
 come into touch with the younger brother as well. But 
 reports reaching him of notable speeches at the ‘ Union,' 
 in which subjects had been powerfully presented, he was 
 led to consider more closely this young man, who was 
 destined to mean so much to the movement during the 
 next twenty-five years. 
 
 The University Extension Movement was the response 
 
 19 
 
20 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 to the demand which came from a generation vastly 
 different from our own ; but it may be claimed with justice 
 that in the achieving of the new order of things University 
 Extension played no small part. When we go back to 
 the early seventies of the nineteenth century we are going 
 into a period when the word ' University ’ meant for 
 England only Oxford and Cambridge, for London did not 
 then exist as a teaching University, and the provincial 
 universities had not as yet come into being. It must be 
 admitted that the two historic universities had lived very 
 much within their own confines; and although leavening 
 thought and opinion through the men they sent forth, 
 they cannot be said to have recognized any corporate 
 obligation to share with the world outside the many good 
 things that had come their way. But the years in the 
 middle of last century were so fully charged with the 
 spirit of change that the ancient seats of learning could 
 not have remained insensible to it even had they so 
 desired. Since the year 1845 efforts had been made at 
 intervals to make University advantages more widely 
 available. These included an attempt ‘ to make possible 
 the admission of poorer men to the University '; the 
 suggestion ‘ that University funds might justly and 
 serviceably be employed for the maintenance of Professors 
 in Manchester and Birmingham ! '; and a suggestion for 
 * supplying the literary, scientific, and Mechanics’ Institutes 
 of Great Britain and Ireland with lecturers from the 
 Universities.’ 
 
 Ample evidence is to be found that there was at that 
 period a growing desire for educational advantages moving 
 in the country, and an increasing sense of obligation in the 
 universities with reference to the meeting of those desires. 
 Out of these there comes the initiation of the movement 
 itself and the activities of Mr. James Stuart—well known as 
 Professor Stuart, M.P.—in the matter. For it was Mr. 
 
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION 
 
 21 
 
 Stuart more than anyone else who brought to fruition ideas 
 which had been expressed in one form or other by so 
 many. In his volume of reminiscences he tells of how, 
 just after taking his degree in 1865, he told his mother 
 that he wished to remain up at Cambridge so that he 
 might try to achieve two things: ‘first, to make the 
 University lectures generally open to all the Colleges ; 
 and second, to establish a sort of peripatetic University, 
 the professors of which would circulate among the big 
 towns, and thus give a wider opportunity for receiving 
 such teaching.’ Within a couple of years the occasion 
 presented itself for experimenting in regard to the second 
 object, for in the summer of 1867 he was approached by 
 an association known as the ‘ North of England Council 
 for promoting the Higher Education of Women,’ to give 
 lectures to women during the autumn in Manchester, 
 Liverpool, Sheffield, and Leeds. The Council was rich 
 in women of vision and high purpose, for the President 
 was Mrs. Josephine Butler, the Secretary Miss A. J. 
 Clough, afterwards Principal of Newnham, and on the 
 Council as consultative members were Mr. James Bryce 
 and Mr. Joshua Fitch, the Inspector of Schools. The 
 original proposal was that Mr. Stuart should lecture on 
 the theory and methods of education ; but he demurred 
 on the ground that he considered that something specific 
 would serve better than an abstract subject, and ulti¬ 
 mately it was arranged that he should give a course of 
 lectures in each place on the History of Astronomy. The 
 same winter his lecture courses at Crewe and Rochdale 
 enabled him still further to work out his experiment of a 
 peripatetic University, and it is most interesting to see 
 him initiating in those days of experiment the very 
 procedure which came to be most characteristic of Uni¬ 
 versity Extension in a few years’ time. ‘ I was anxious,’ he 
 says, ' to make the lectures as educational as possible, 
 
22 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 and, in consequence, at the first lecture I advised every 
 pupil to make notes after each lecture, in the form of a 
 syllabus or string of sentences, and I produced a syllabus 
 of the first lecture in print, which I distributed, indicating 
 the sort of thing which I thought they might expand. 
 This was given to them at the end of the lecture, but 
 subsequently I made it a good deal shorter, and gave it 
 at the beginning, as I found it assisted them to follow the 
 lecture.’ This was the origin of the syllabus which has 
 always accompanied every University Extension lecture. 
 It was with these classes for women that Mr. Stuart 
 initiated another element which has become so integral 
 an element in University Extension operations—the 
 paper work each week : and the measure of keenness is 
 witnessed by the fact that out of six hundred pupils, three 
 hundred responded to his invitation to send in answers 
 to his questions. And if the syllabus and the paper-work 
 originated with the women, the ‘ class ’ originated with 
 the men at Rochdale—and all by accident. ‘ One day 
 I was in some hurry to get away as soon as the lecture was 
 over, and I asked the hall-keeper to allow my diagrams 
 to remain hanging till my return next week. When I 
 came back he said to me, “ It was one of the best things 
 you ever did in leaving up those diagrams. We had a 
 meeting of our members (Co-operative Society) last week, 
 and a number of them who are attending your lectures 
 were discussing these diagrams, and they have a number 
 of questions they want to ask you, and they are coming 
 to-night a little before the lecture begins.” About twenty 
 or thirty intelligent artisans met me about half an hour 
 before the lecture began, and I found it so useful a half-hour 
 that during the remainder of the course I always had 
 such a meeting.’ 
 
 It will at once be recognized that not only were there 
 present in these tentative schemes all the germs of 
 
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION 
 
 23 
 
 University Extension, but also that it was all to the good 
 that they should have evolved naturally from the 
 exigencies of an actual situation, rather than being thought 
 and discussed in vacuo. After three or four years of further 
 experimenting steps were taken to approach the univer¬ 
 sities with a view to their taking up this type of work. 
 In November, 1871, on the initiative of Mr. Stuart, 
 memorials were sent up to Cambridge from the North of 
 England Council for promoting the Higher Education of 
 Women, the Crewe Mechanics’ Institute, the Rochdale 
 Equitable Pioneers’ Society, the Mayor and other inhabi¬ 
 tants of Leeds, and a little later from Birmingham, 
 Nottingham and other Midland towns, asking that the 
 University would take in hand the kind of lecturing work 
 in the provinces which had been done in a tentative, 
 individual way by Mr. Stuart; and the memorials were 
 followed up by a letter of his own, addressed to all resident 
 members of the Senate. 
 
 The response to the appeal was most encouraging, for 
 within a few months a Syndicate was formed to consider 
 and to report upon the issues raised by the memorialists : 
 and the appointment of Mr. Stuart as secretary to the 
 Syndicate was a sufficient guarantee that there was a 
 whole-hearted desire to approach the question sympa¬ 
 thetically. Questionnaires were issued to Mechanics’ 
 Institutes and other local bodies. This procedure soon 
 revealed that while in some centres there was an eager 
 demand for higher education along such lines, in the 
 majority of centres their first work would consist in 
 creating the demand for their own commodities. This 
 absence of a universal demand constituted no argument 
 against the project : quite the reverse, for it was their 
 duty and privilege to come to the aid of the select few, 
 the men and women of vision who are to be found to 
 some degree in every centre of population, and to help 
 
24 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 to form what Sir Michael Sadler aptly styles * an 
 educational garrison ’ in their own town. The Syndi¬ 
 cate presented their Report in 1873, and advocated 
 making an experiment by sending lecturers from the 
 University to certain towns, the Syndicate remaining 
 in existence for the purpose of watching the working of 
 the plan and reporting further in two or three years’ time. 
 In October of that year University Extension was inaugu¬ 
 rated by a great meeting at Nottingham, presided over 
 by Lord Carnarvon, and addressed by Mr. G. J. Goschen, 
 and the opening courses were given at Nottingham, 
 Derby, and Leicester by the Revs. V. H. Stanton and 
 E. B. Birks, and Mr. O. Harding, all three of them 
 Fellows of Trinity. In the following term further courses 
 were arranged, and among the new lecturers were R.^G. 
 Moulton and W. Moore Ede, now Dean of 4 Worcester>and 
 the only surviving member of the early band of|Extension 
 Lecturers. ‘ The sequel was that before the experimental 
 period was expired the Syndicate reported in favour of 
 making the scheme permanent; the University accepted 
 the Report, and handed the future conduct of the lectures 
 to the Local Examinations Syndicate by Grace of the 
 Senate.’ 1 Mr. Stuart remained an active member of the 
 Syndicate until he left Cambridge in 1889, having, how¬ 
 ever, relinquished the secretariat to the Rev. G. Forrest 
 Browne, afterwards Canon of St. Paul’s and Bishop of 
 Bristol. 
 
 Before passing on from the outline of the history of 
 the movement to the consideration of R. G. Moulton’s 
 share in it, note must be taken of the establishment of 
 University Colleges, which belongs to the same decade 
 The relation between the two enterprises is close, and 
 cannot be ignored. University Extension would never 
 
 1 University Extension, 1878-1923. W. H. Draper, Master of the 
 Temple. 
 
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION 
 
 25 
 
 claim the credit of having created those colleges and, by 
 implication, of having called into being the newer 
 universities ; but it had its share in giving impetus to the 
 new developments. Probably the truest statement of the 
 case would be to say that both were the products of the 
 same progressive spirit in education and the widening of 
 culture, and that University Extension—the first-born— 
 was in a position to afford some measure of assistance to 
 the younger offspring. Whether this be so or not, that 
 decade saw a phenomenal development in that direction. 
 Owen’s College, Manchester, had been founded in 1851. 
 During the period 1871 to 1881—largely owing to the 
 munificence of private donors—colleges were founded at 
 Newcastle, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Nottingham, 
 and Sheffield, the last two especially resulting directly 
 and confessedly out of the Extension Movement. Also 
 (in 1877) the Yorkshire College at Leeds took on the 
 preparation for degrees in Arts, having been originally 
 the Yorkshire College of Science. 
 
 In this chronicle of the beginnings of University 
 Extension the University of Cambridge has been chiefly 
 in evidence, because naturally Mr. Stuart approached his 
 own University when he thought out his projects; and 
 also because the subject of the present memoir was a 
 Cambridge man. But Cambridge was far from receiving, 
 or desiring to receive, a monopoly of the new openings for 
 service in this field. In June, 1876, at a meeting at the 
 Mansion House, Mr. Goschen, who was then Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, moved a resolution to the effect ‘ that 
 the principle of the Cambridge University Extension 
 scheme be applied to London, and that the various Educa¬ 
 tion Institutions of the Metropolis be requested to co¬ 
 operate in an endeavour to apply it.’ The following year 
 Mr. Jowett, afterwards Master of Balliol, gave some 
 very outspoken evidence before the Oxford University 
 
26 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 Commission, in which he called attention to the considerable 
 movement for secondary adult education then going on 
 in the large towns, and urged that the universities should 
 * take a little pains ' about it. Two practical suggestions 
 he made : (i) that there should be an office for University 
 Extension, and a secretary paid by the University : (2) 
 that the tenure of non-resident fellowships should be 
 capable of extension in the case of persons lecturing or 
 holding professorships in the large towns. Within twelve 
 months of Mr. Jowett’s evidence being given Oxford had 
 followed in the wake of Cambridge, with Mr. Arthur Acland 
 as secretary. To-day the more recent universities have 
 their systems of University Extension Lectures, and there 
 is no such institution which does not make the effort to 
 bring its activities to bear upon those who for some reason 
 or other are altogether unable to come within its more 
 immediate influence. 
 
 It was into a movement so rich in varied possibilities 
 that R. G. Moulton threw himself with all the enthusiasm 
 of a young man. It caught hold of him and he caught 
 hold of it. His place in the movement is the more remark¬ 
 able when it is borne in mind that he was only twenty-five 
 when he took up the work ; and also that the enterprise 
 itself w'as new, and therefore had no momentum already 
 generated. It was laid upon him and those associated with 
 him to create a living expression of the ideals which had 
 already moved the founders of the movement, for they 
 would have been the first to recognize that the scheme 
 would stand or fall with the ability of the lecturers to 
 translate it into palpitating realities. As it turned out, 
 this was to be in an especial sense the commission for 
 R. G. Moulton, he having no other public obligations, and 
 so being more at liberty to throw himself into the work 
 than were other lecturers of that early period. From 
 September to April each year his courses kept him closely 
 
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION 
 
 2 7 
 
 occupied ; and the amount of travelling entailed was 
 considerable. At that time Summer Meetings, Chautau- 
 quas and the like, were not so regular a part of educational 
 programmes for the year as they have since become, and 
 the so-called ‘ vacation ’ of about five months was 
 attractive both as a welcome relief from the strain of the 
 lecturing season, and as an excellent opportunity for the 
 formulation of plans and for literary study. Of the latter, 
 a large part was, in the earliest years, by way of prepara¬ 
 tion for the next winter’s lectures and classes ; but the 
 trend of it all for R. G. Moulton was ever along the lines 
 of that working for the scientific study of literature as a 
 whole, to which—as a life-object—he definitely dedicated 
 himself at the age of thirty. 
 
 If he joined us, as he very often did, for a six weeks’ 
 holiday in Scotland or elsewhere, he would blend strenuous 
 study with recreation ; and that blend was responsible 
 for many a treasured memory. My father would go to 
 Scotland for a holiday with at least three big boxes full 
 of books—he once paid ' excess ’ on fifteen hundred pounds 
 of luggage ; and his brother went off in the same spirit, 
 though with a much smaller measure of encumbrances. 
 Whole day excursions were not by any means frowned 
 upon, but I have a kind of idea that if proposals of that 
 order had come too frequently, there would have been 
 a mild protest from those members of the party to whom a 
 holiday consisted not in cessation of work but in change 
 of work ! Like all his brothers, my uncle Richard was a 
 great walker, and it was my privilege to be his companion 
 for tramps which during the period from 1885 to 1890 
 must have totalled up to a mileage of nearly four figures, 
 over ground as far apart as Orkney and Land’s End. On 
 one occasion we were together at Gairloch in Ross-shire, 
 intending to cross to Skye the next day. An accident to 
 the boat in the evening thwarted our project; so at 
 
28 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 seven-thirty the next morning we started to walk back to 
 Strathpeffer, where the family was staying—a distance of 
 fifty-three miles, which w r e covered in fifteen hours, in 
 spite of having to do the last sixteen on the sleepers of a 
 railroad track. For a young man in his early twenties, 
 constantly kept in good condition by various types of 
 sport, there was nothing very wonderful in such a pro¬ 
 longed effort; but for a man of forty, accustomed to a 
 somewhat sedentary life and in no sense prepared for a 
 lengthy tramp—it was our first long walk that summer— 
 it was surely a somewhat noteworthy achievement. 
 
 I have digressed thus to refer to his predilection for 
 long walks because it was on those walks that I first 
 learned concerning many of his literary projects, those 
 conceptions of literature which came to be so inseparably 
 associated with his name. Indeed, the long ascent from 
 Loch Long up through Glencroe is inseparably associated 
 in my mind with Deuteronomy and the Literary Study of 
 the Bible which then (1891) was occupying all his thoughts ; 
 and I think he was rather glad to have in me a corpus vile 
 on which to experiment, a ‘ trial audience ’ to which he 
 could rehearse. If that was so, then the advantage was 
 mutual, for I am more conscious now than I was at the 
 time of how much I got from him in that informal way 
 The departure to America left me very much the poorer, 
 but the recollections of those holiday seasons will always 
 remain. 
 
 Seeing that he gave himself with such unremitting zeal 
 to University Extension during those formative years of 
 the movement, it will be worth while to watch him at his 
 self-appointed task, both because of what it reveals 
 concerning him, and what it tells of the movement. We 
 find him beginning his lecturing career in the Potteries, 
 with Hanley and Stoke as his main centres of activity 
 We then find him at Lincoln and Chesterfield ; after that, 
 
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION 
 
 29 
 
 at Halifax, Leeds, Barnsley, and Sheffield. In the end 
 there were very few important centres of population where 
 he had not pleaded for a recognition of the worth-while¬ 
 ness of the study of literature. His syllabus in the earliest 
 courses is a very far remove from that which he sent forth 
 at a later period, but there is no doubt as to the width of 
 reading that lay behind it, and it is amazing to note the 
 increase of grip year by year, as manifested in the syllabus 
 for the course. He goes to Warrington in September, 
 1877, with an altogether different presentation of his 
 subject, and his syllabus for the course reveals the 
 characteristics which later become most noticeable in his 
 treatment of the study of literature. He is evidently 
 getting into his stride. One of the most piquant incidents 
 of his early work as a lecturer is that afforded by his first 
 visit to Sheffield in the autumn of 1875- He was giving 
 an Extension Course on ‘ Literature as a Reflection of 
 National History/ to which he drew an average attendance 
 of three hundred and fourteen. But alongside of that 
 course we find him running a subsidiary course on the 
 ' Analysis of Sentences,’ for which he managed to secure 
 an average attendance of three hundred and nine on a 
 Saturday afternoon ! This may fairly be claimed as a 
 notable achievement, for the subject is not one which 
 naturally lends itself to lecture treatment; and the fact 
 that at such an hour and on such a theme he gathered 
 such a company shows that, even in his earliest days as 
 a lecturer, he possessed a gift of presentation which 
 attracted students even where the subject under consider¬ 
 ation was not one which in itself could be regarded as 
 attractive. 
 
 While showing in his own work a brilliant exposition 
 in practice of what University Extension stood for, he 
 was always prepared to do his share in respect of advocacy 
 of the movement itself by the elucidation of its formative 
 
30 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 ideas. At the risk of echoing certain things which have 
 already been said with reference to the movement, 
 attention may be turned to the syllabus of a lecture which 
 he gave at Belper in March, 1885, on the subject of the 
 movement as a whole. A large portion of that syllabus is 
 reproduced practically verbatim in Appendix I., showing in 
 general the typographical variations upon which he laid such 
 stress. It will serve not only to present the movement as he 
 conceived it, but it will also show what there was in it to 
 make him ready and eager to devote so large a share of 
 his time and energy to it, and to give it a place in his 
 life-plans, second only to the work for ‘ literary study in 
 general, which,’ he writes, ‘ is my real interest in life.' 
 
 If that may be taken as embodying what he thought of 
 the movement, what the movement thought of him may 
 be gathered from a warm appreciation in the University 
 Extension Bulletin from the pen of Prof. A. J. Grant of 
 Leeds University in October, 1924 : 
 
 With R. G. Moulton there has passed away, I think, 
 the greatest figure in the University Extension world. 
 No one has believed in it more thoroughly : no one has 
 represented its ideas more worthily ; and I think no 
 one has done so much to recommend it to all classes of 
 people. ... I never knew Moulton intimately. When¬ 
 ever we met he was kindness itself, and he put at my 
 disposal his wide experience when I began my work as 
 lecturer; but I rarely met him. And yet what I 
 heard about him made him seem a kind of heroic figure. 
 There were many lecturers, but there was only one 
 Moulton. Was there a lecture-centre where he had 
 not the record for the largest audiences ? Fabulous 
 things were reported of his power of attracting. 
 Secretaries who traced a curve to show the fluctuation 
 in their audiences, pointed to the high peak which 
 indicated a visit from Moulton, as they showed in 
 Phaeacia the marks which proclaimed to what incredible 
 
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION 
 
 3i 
 
 distances the Gods and heroes of old had hurled the 
 quoit. Was a centre in financial difficulties ? A visit 
 from Moulton would save the situation. Was it desired 
 to widen the social classes to which the lectures made 
 an appeal ? The same specific was recommended. 
 His lectures, I believe, practically always took the 
 form of recitals of literature, and it was amazing to 
 note how he won in this way an interested and eager 
 audience for the masterpieces of Greek tragedy and 
 comedy, and for the books of the Bible, as well as for 
 the more popular works of dramatic literature. There 
 were, of course, some who were not sympathetic with 
 his methods, and who thought that the dramatic appeal 
 was too exclusively used. But his treatment was not 
 superficial or flashy. He carried his audience to the 
 heart of great literature, and made them eager to study 
 it for themselves. What a number of men and women 
 there are up and down the country—and I feel sure there 
 are an equal number in America—who trace the beginning 
 of a serious study of literature to the day when they 
 heard Moulton lecture on Faust, the Agamemnon, or 
 Job l He spoke, I believe, nearly always without 
 notes. His memory was prodigious; his voice clear 
 and penetrating. He recognized that lecturing was his 
 business in life, and he considered with wise care every 
 detail of gesture and voice management. There was 
 one small point in which, I think, his lectures had an 
 almost solitary pre-eminence. They always ended 
 exactly at the appointed moment. Audiences used 
 to cheer as his last words were mingled with the striking 
 of a neighbouring clock. . . . His lectures were unlike 
 those of anyone else. It is surely a real mark of genius 
 to do what many others do, better than anyone else, 
 and in a manner different from anyone else. There are 
 many popular lecturers on Literature, and there are 
 many learned lecturers on Literature. But who has 
 combined the two qualities as Moulton did ? Who, so 
 well as he, has used gesture, declamation, and rhetoric 
 
 1 
 
32 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 to promote real intellectual study ? I will end as I 
 began, by saying that there have been many lecturers, 
 but only one Moulton, and I hardly think there will be 
 another. The next generation will find it difficult to 
 realize the peculiar quality of his work ; perhaps difficult 
 to understand how splendidly successful it was. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Study of Literature. 
 
 It is not claiming too much for R. G. Moulton to describe 
 him as a pioneer in the field of popularizing the study of 
 Literature. The University Extension Movement, as has 
 been seen, gave him his platform ; and there thronged 
 round it hundreds and thousands for whom existing 
 organizations had furnished no word of inspiration, unless 
 it might be through cold print. During his eighteen years 
 of University Extension work in England he found an 
 eager response to the kind of appeal he made ; and what 
 was true of England proved true also of America when he 
 turned thither for his sphere of activity. It is therefore 
 of primary importance for our purpose here to try to catch 
 his angle of approach to Literature ; for it was essentially 
 his own, and it certainly ‘ delivered the goods.’ If the 
 pioneer in civilization is reckoned great according to his 
 power to make two blades of grass grow where before there 
 had been only one, surely the same appreciation must be 
 awarded to the interpreter of Literature who calls into being 
 two intelligent readers where before there had been only 
 one. And this he achieved without a shadow of doubt. 
 There must have been something in his presentation of 
 his many-sided subject that captured the imagination of 
 his hearers, for he built up classes which, for size and 
 eagerness, have been some of the wonders of the movement. 
 He undoubtedly followed a line of approach which had his 
 own individuality stamped upon it; and ‘ it got there.’ 
 c 
 
 33 
 
34 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 What ‘ it ’ really was may be deduced from his writings, 
 and especially from two. The first is the Introduction 
 to his Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, published in 1885, 
 and embodying teaching which he had been giving in 
 University Extension centres up and down the country 
 for more than ten years. The second is a Convocation 
 address which he gave at the University of Chicago early 
 in 1917 on The Study of Literature and the Integration of 
 Knowledge. In these two utterances—at the ages of 
 thirty-six and sixty-eight—we have his ‘ profession of 
 faith ’ concerning those matters which were the objects 
 of his life’s study. The view-point and the setting were 
 somewhat different, but the attitude of mind was the 
 same. However much he developed in insight, in grasp, 
 in width of learning, he saw no reason to recede from 
 those leading propositions concerning Literature which 
 had shaped his presentation of the subject from the 
 first. 
 
 During the last decades of the nineteenth century 
 Matthew Arnold was preaching that Literature was, 
 before all things, a criticism of life : and that idea was, 
 consciously or unconsciously, the foundation of R. G. 
 Moulton’s conception of literary study. But if we are 
 to understand his work, we must follow him into his 
 inquiries into the implications of the three terms used— 
 Criticism, Literature, Life. First we turn to the predi¬ 
 cative term as delimiting all else. Few words have slipped 
 from their moorings more disastrously than ‘ criticism.’ 
 Among the majority of readers criticism has come to be 
 regarded as fault-finding and blame ; with the result that 
 ‘ Biblical Criticism ’—to single out one serious example— 
 is in many quarters regarded with horror and aversion as 
 being an indictment of God and a slight upon holy things. 
 It is needless here to stress the point that the word 
 ‘ criticism ’ does not rightly carry that signification ; and 
 
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 
 
 35 
 
 that Matthew Arnold does not use it in that sense, but 
 according to its rightful meaning—the ascertaining and 
 exposition of facts, in the interests of a true inter¬ 
 pretation of Life. But ‘ Life,' according to usage 
 and context, will also be found bearing a variety of 
 significations. 
 
 I mean ‘ Life ’ with a capital L. It is what we have in 
 mind when we say we are going out to ‘ see Life.’ It 
 is what the speaker in the Latin play meant when he 
 said that, human himself, he considered all humanity 
 his province. And when the modern poet lays down 
 that ‘ The proper study of mankind is Man,’ he does 
 not mean anthropology ; he means Life. What defines 
 this Life is its synthetic character, and for this reason it 
 is incompatible with specialization. Many sciences 
 touch Life, but by their constitution as sciences they can 
 deal with only one aspect of Life at a time. Etymo¬ 
 logically, biology should mean the science of life : what 
 it actually means is science of the physical basis of life. 
 Sociology can deal with life only in aggregations. 
 Ethics and psychology yield general principles of life; 
 but they need to be supplemented with a distributive 
 ethics and psychology before they can overtake the 
 personality which is such an element in synthetic Life. 
 Hence the medium for this study of Life reverts from 
 science to literature. The literature required is litera¬ 
 ture in the most general sense, including poetry and 
 fiction, including the floating literature of journalism. 
 It must extend to the most frivolous society paper : for 
 the instrument of reflection must not admit restrictions 
 foreign to the thing surveyed, as you cannot measure 
 spherical angles with plane rules. And all this is 
 precisely what Matthew Arnold means when, having 
 first laid down that criticism signifies the seeing things 
 as they really are, he defines literature as the ‘ criticism 
 of fife.’ It appears then that general literature, besides 
 being the natural organ for the integration of thought, 
 
36 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 has in this one case a specific function : it serves as the 
 only possible science and practical art of Life. 1 
 
 It is not too much to say that it was this belief which 
 not only shaped R. G. Moulton’s thinking on the whole 
 subject of Literature, but it was instrumental in creating 
 within him a sense, an overwhelming sense, of the supreme 
 ‘ worth-whileness ’ of the subject. The science of life, as 
 concerned with ‘ the thing living,’ is worthy of honour and 
 devotion ; no less so, in his opinion, is the science of life, 
 as concerned with ‘ the thing lived ’; and to the latter 
 he gave himself with all the enthusiasm and the meticulous 
 care which we associate with the physical scientist, only 
 to find that there were striking analogies between the study 
 of the life that lives and that of the life that is lived. 
 
 It could not but be that he should reiterate certain 
 fundamental propositions which were to him essential, 
 but which he felt to be in general intercourse ignored or 
 obscured, either by misconception or by misuse of terms. 
 These are so characteristic of his method that they call 
 for attention here, although in these few pages it is imposs¬ 
 ible to present more than the merest outline of his message. 
 It was significant of much that at first his chair at 
 the University of Chicago was that of ‘ Literature in 
 English,’ and that afterwards the title should have been 
 altered to ‘ Literary Theory and Interpretation.’ The 
 fusion of the two would furnish an adequate designation 
 of his work, for all the three ideas have their place in it. 
 Literary Interpretation was his mission ; and it was his 
 mission because to him Literature provided the outstand¬ 
 ing interpretation of Life. But he drew a very clear line 
 of distinction between Literature in English and English 
 Literature. 
 
 1 The Study of Literature and the Integration of Knowledge (University 
 of Chicago Record, April, 1912, p. 90). 
 
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 37 
 
 If the main function of Literature is to interpret Life, 
 then the obligation of studying a Greek play in the original 
 language may prove a serious obstacle in the way of 
 intelligent perception of the subject-matter; and he was 
 consequently a whole-hearted advocate of the study of 
 the Classics in translations. He had the body of existing 
 opinion against him, and he knew it. The idea was a 
 novel one, and academic thought and practice then tended 
 much more to conservatism than it does now. To propose 
 to dethrone Greek and Latin, and to admit the general 
 public to the treasure-houses of classical literature by a 
 back door seemed to many to be the acme of impiety. 
 But he stood his ground, and gradually wore down the 
 main body of the prejudice against the idea. Writing in 
 1911, when the idea had vindicated itself and the battle 
 for the wider view was won, he says : 
 
 There is a widespread feeling that the reading 
 of translated literature is a makeshift, and savours 
 of second-hand scholarship. But this idea is itself 
 a product of the departmental study of literature 
 which has prevailed hitherto, in which language and 
 literature have been so inextricably intertwined that it 
 has become difficult to think of the two separately. 
 The idea will not bear rational examination. If a man, 
 instead of reading Homer in Greek, reads him in 
 English, he has unquestionably lost something. But 
 the question arises. Is what he has lost literature ? 
 Clearly a great proportion of what goes to make liter¬ 
 ature has not been lost; presentation of antique life, 
 swing of epic narrative, conceptions of heroic character 
 and incident, skill of plot, poetical imagery—all these 
 elements of Homeric literature are open to the reader of 
 translations. But, it will be said, language itself is one 
 of the main factors in literature. This is true, but it 
 must be remembered that the term ‘ language ’ covers 
 two different things: a considerable proportion of 
 
38 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 linguistic phenomena is common to related languages 
 and will pass from one to the other, while other elements 
 of language are idiomatic and fixed. What the English 
 reader of Homer has lost is not language, but Greek. 
 And he has not lost the whole of Greek ; the skilled 
 translator can convey something of the ethos of idiomatic 
 Greek into his version, writing what may be correct 
 English, but not such English as an Englishman would 
 write. When, however, all abatement has been made, 
 the reader of the translation has suffered a distinct loss ; 
 and the classical scholar knows how great that loss is. 
 But the point at issue is not the comparative value of 
 literature and language, but the possibility of realizing 
 literature as a unity. One who accepts the use of 
 translations where necessary secures all factors of 
 literature except language, and a considerable part 
 even of that. One who refuses translations by that 
 fact cuts himself off from the major part of the literary 
 field ; his literary scholarship, however polished and 
 precise, can never rise above the provincial. 1 
 
 When, moreover, to such considerations there is added the 
 fact that so many great scholars have contributed to the 
 library of translations from the classics—men such as 
 Jebb, Jowett, Munro, Gilbert Murray, Way, and others— 
 it must be acknowledged that a very strong case has been 
 made out for the effective study of the classics in English. 
 To all these R. G. Moulton could add yet one more 
 argument more cogent than them all—that of experience. 
 The plan had worked : the idea had borne fruit: 
 
 Under the Cambridge University Extension scheme (he 
 writes in 1890) I have since 1880 conducted courses of 
 lectures on Ancient Drama in twenty-six different places, 
 addressed to adult audiences, representing all classes 
 of society, in which not one person in ten would know 
 a word of Greek or Latin. Taking my experience as 
 
 1 World Literature, p. 3. 
 
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 
 
 39 
 
 a whole, I should rank the Ancient Classics second only 
 to Shakespeare and Goethe as an attractive subject 
 for lectures ; and I may add that the largest audiences 
 I have ever myself had to deal with were in connexion 
 with a course on Ancient Tragedy at Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne, where they reached a weekly average of over 
 seven hundred. In all these cases a considerable 
 percentage of the audience did regular exercises in the 
 subject of the lectures, and were tested at the end of 
 the course in a formal examination, with results satis¬ 
 factory enough to assure the position of this study as 
 part of a general English education. 1 
 
 Within this field of literature in English he was wont to 
 form his own categories and distinctions : and the differ¬ 
 ence between his categories and those of other workers in 
 the same field lies mainly in his stress upon certain implica¬ 
 tions. Every one admits, for instance, that ‘ poetry ’ 
 and ‘ poem ’ are not conditioned by presentation in verse, 
 but that what is determinative is that poetry betokens 
 creative literature, as distinguished from what is concerned 
 with the exposition or discussion of that which actually 
 exists. But whereas others might often be disposed to 
 note the point, and pass on to use the term in its con¬ 
 ventional sense, with R. G. Moulton it determined his 
 whole attitude to the subject. ‘ The distinction of prose 
 and poetry,’ he contends, ‘ goes down to the essential 
 meaning and matter of literature ’ : and, referring to 
 Paul’s phrase in Eph. ii, io, ‘ We are God’s workmanship ’ 
 (lit. ‘ poem ’) he goes on to say : 
 
 As God is the supreme Maker and Creator of the 
 universe, and we are what God has created and made, 
 so the poet is the creator of an imaginary universe, 
 which he fills with imagined personages and incidents. 
 Shakespeare is a poet by virtue of the fact that he has 
 
 1 The Ancient Classical Drama. Preface to the first edition. 
 
40 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 created a Hamlet, a Julius Caesar, a Battle of Agincourt ; 
 the Homeric poems create an Achilles, a Trojan War. 
 There may have been an historical Achilles, as there 
 certainly was an historic Julius Caesar : but the Shake¬ 
 spearean Julius Caesar, the Homeric Achilles, are 
 independent creations, which may or may not agree 
 with the historic counterparts. Poetry thus adds to 
 the sum of existences ; the world is the richer by so 
 many personalities and incidents when the poets have 
 completed their work. In precisely the same way 
 Dickens creates a Micawber and a Pickwick; our 
 novels add to the sum of existences by the imagined life 
 they create. Modern novels, just as much as the Iliad 
 and the Odyssey, are in the fullest sense poetry. 1 
 
 This being the case, our current conception of ‘ fiction ’ 
 goes by the board. Instead of being the antithesis to 
 ‘ fact ’ and often a term of sheer reproach, it is really ‘ the 
 higher fact,’ because it is the more truly universal. Once 
 more, therefore, we are up against the prevailing unwilling¬ 
 ness to recognize the distinction between creative literature 
 and the literature of discussion. The false implication 
 centring in the current conceptions of' fiction ’ were often 
 dealt with by him, for they touched some of the principles 
 which were to him most vital; and the importance of the 
 issue in relation to his own literary conceptions may be 
 pleaded in justification of this somewhat prolonged insist¬ 
 ence on the point. It will be most satisfactory to state 
 the case in his own words : 
 
 Even in academic thinking (he wrote in 1917), much 
 more in the world outside, we hear a clamour for studies 
 ‘ founded on fact.’ I often wonder what is the exact 
 idea here attached to this word ‘ fact.’ The man in 
 the street has no difficulty about it : fact is truth. But 
 fact is not truth, if for no other reason, because facts 
 
 1 Modern Study of Literature, p. 15. 
 
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 
 
 4 * 
 
 are always particulars, and truth is general; facts are 
 raw material that can be manufactured into truth. 
 But they are also raw material that can be manufactured 
 into falsehood : witness the campaign literature of the 
 wrong political party, monstrously false, yet founded 
 on statistics, and statistics are facts. And particulars 
 which are not facts can have their place in the manu¬ 
 facture of truth or falsehood. The distinction between 
 the particulars we call facts and others is that facts are 
 particulars which happen to have happened : other 
 particulars might, would, must happen under the 
 proper conditions. The distinction is as old as Aristotle, 
 and ' foundation on fact ’ turns out to be ‘ foundation 
 on accident.’ By a most unfortunate confusion of 
 words the common antithesis to ‘ fact ’ is ' fiction.’ 
 The two words have no relation to each other : fact is 
 a term of science ; fiction is a term of literature. The 
 true antithesis to fiction is the studies that limit them¬ 
 selves by facts, whereas fiction admits all relevant 
 particulars. Biography is one of those studies that are 
 supposed to limit themselves by facts. Place side by 
 side a biography and a work of fiction in biographic 
 form, like Pendennis or Esmond. In the biography the 
 allegiance is to fact; though it contains much of general 
 truth, it also contains a number of unrelated particulars, 
 inserted because they happened to the hero of the story. 
 In the fiction there is no motive for introducing un¬ 
 related particulars ; it need admit nothing that is not 
 deemed relevant to general truth. The fiction comes 
 out truer than the biography in the sense of containing 
 proportionately more of truth. 
 
 But there is another point that is best brought out 
 by analogy. Fiction is the experimental side of the 
 science of life : creative literature is, in the humanities, 
 what experiments are in the natural sciences. For 
 what exactly is scientific experiment ? It is a particular 
 kind of observation : observation of material expressly 
 arranged for observation. How would the simplest 
 
42 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 chemical combination be brought home to this audience 
 if the chemist were denied the use of experiment ? He 
 must drag his audience away to some place where the 
 particular combination happened to be going on in 
 nature ; arrived at the place, he must wait until a 
 change of weather, or something of the kind, should 
 bring about the required atmospheric pressure and 
 electric shock. Instead of this, the expositor of 
 chemistry ‘ makes up ’ an experiment : getting what he 
 wants away from the rest of nature into his chemical 
 apparatus, and by an artificial manipulation of this 
 apparatus bringing about the further conditions. 
 Similarly, the poet or novelist may ignore the irrelevant, 
 and select what of life is calculated to reveal the truth. 
 The analogy is one to be pressed. In all things of the 
 kind there are two stages : the gathering together of 
 data and a reaction from these data. Alike the experi¬ 
 menter of science and the poet or novelist have arbitrary 
 freedom as to what data they may choose to bring 
 together : when the data are assembled, each is a helpless 
 reporter of the reaction that ensues. But, it may be 
 objected, the novelist may report the reaction wrongly. 
 So may the chemist. Controversies arise in science, 
 not from the facts of the experiments being misstated, 
 but because the reactions are wrongly interpreted. 
 The argument is not for any infallibility of fiction ; 
 error is a matter of individual performance ; but the 
 creative literature stands as a more powerful weapon of 
 research for human life. 1 
 
 I have quoted this passage at length, partly because of 
 its intrinsic value, and partly because it is so characteristic 
 of R. G. Moulton’s method of teaching. No one could 
 ever have been less under the tyranny of conventional ideas 
 and distinctions : and an argument of that order and 
 along such lines was calculated to arrest the attention of 
 
 1 The Study of Literature and the Integration of Knowledge. See pp. 34 
 and 36 n. 
 
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 
 
 43 
 
 any reasonably earnest audience ; and they would be 
 driven, in spite of themselves, to search into these things 
 to see if they were so. The aptness of the analogy could 
 not fail to commend yet further the thesis set forth, with 
 the result that a new germinating thought would have 
 been planted in the minds of the hearers. 
 
 This may be a suitable place for turning attention to 
 a very interesting by-product of University Extension for 
 which R. G. Moulton was very largely responsible—the 
 Backworth Classical Novel-Reading Union. Backworth 
 is one of a group of mining villages lying between Newcastle 
 and the Northumbrian coast at Monkseaton. When the 
 University Extension Movement came along, Backworth 
 proved one of those centres which maintained its adherence 
 the most consistently. In the spring of 1890 R. G. Moulton 
 gave a course of lectures there on the Study of Literature, 
 and among other lessons taught was the importance of 
 fiction as a wholesome and educational influence. The 
 course was an extremely successful one ; and when the 
 suggestion was thrown out that a society should be formed, 
 the object of which should be the study of classical fiction, 
 the idea was received with great warmth. The plan of 
 operation for the Union was embodied in a circular which 
 ran as follows : 
 
 Principle. 
 
 Literature is the science of Life ; and the great classical 
 novels are among the best text-books of Life. To study 
 these is the true antidote to trashy and poisonous fiction. 
 
 Purpose. 
 
 The purpose of the Union is to encourage a course of 
 systematic novel-reading, (1) at the rate of a novel a 
 month ; (2) to be taken up by ordinary readers and 
 students, the former reading and talking about the 
 novels, the latter meeting to discuss and do work. 
 
44 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 Plan of Operation. 
 
 (i) A postcard will be sent to every member at the 
 beginning of the month announcing {a) the novel chosen 
 for the month ; ( b ) a very brief suggestion from some 
 competent literary authority of some leading points 
 to be kept in view during the reading of the work ; 
 (c) the date and business of the first meeting. 
 
 (ii) All joining the Union undertake to read during the 
 month the novel selected, and from time to time to 
 endeavour to turn conversation upon it. 
 
 (iii) All members are invited to attend, and, if they 
 like, take part in the meetings of the Union. At the 
 same time it is fully recognized that many more will 
 undertake the reading than those able to attend the 
 meetings or do work. 
 
 (iv) The business of the meetings will be, (a) the reading 
 
 and discussion of papers (especially upon subjects 
 connected with the suggestions made by the literary 
 authority); (6) discussion of difficulties or queries 
 
 started by members ; (c) formal debates upon questions 
 arising out of the novel of the month. 
 
 Within six weeks the number of members had risen to 
 eighty-seven ; and although it was found necessary to 
 extend the time of consideration from one month to two, 
 and one or two other modifications were made in the 
 scheme, the record of the four years’ working, contained in 
 R. G. Moulton’s booklet on the subject 1 , is one of great 
 intrinsic interest and remarkable success. Among the 
 novels selected during those four years were Martin 
 Chuzzlewit, Anne of Geierstein, A Tale of Two Cities, 
 Westward Ho!, Vanity Fair, Put Yourself in His Place, 
 Silas Marner, Jane Eyre, Romola, Alton Locke, The 
 Wandering Jew, The Cloister and the Hearth, Ninety-Three, 
 
 1 Four Years of Novel-reading: an account of an experiment in 
 popularizing the study of fiction. Edited by R. G. Moulton, M.A., 
 Ph.D. (Isbister & Co., 1895). 
 
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 
 
 45 
 
 Esmond, The Egoist, David Copperfield, Persuasion, The 
 Shadow of the Sword, Lorna Doone, Monte Cristo. The 
 list of those who showed their interest in the enterprise 
 by contributing the ‘ suggestions ’ is in itself noteworthy, 
 for it included Mr. Justin McCarthy, M.P., the Earl of 
 Suffolk, Prof. A. J. Grant, Mr. (now Sir) Owen Seaman, 
 Mr. W. E. Norris, Mr. G. Lowes Dickenson, Mr. J. H. 
 Shorthouse, Sir Courtenay Boyle, and Mr. Stanley Wey- 
 man. That such an enterprise should spring up in such 
 a constituency affords a striking testimony to the 
 nature of the field in which University Extension has 
 worked. 
 
 When we turn to the nature of his work in this field of 
 creative literature in English, we find at once that his 
 demarcation between language and literature—already 
 referred to in connexion with the study of the Classics in 
 English translations—reappears under somewhat different 
 conditions. It has already been pointed out that in his 
 opinion the loss entailed was not in the sphere of literature 
 but of Greek—and only partial there. But in his method 
 of approach to the masterpieces of English Literature we 
 find that what is pre-eminently distinctive of his treatment 
 is that the subject-matter is so exclusively viewed from the 
 standpoint of literature rather than of language or history. 
 No one would desire to belittle the value of the normal 
 type of text-book on, for example, a Shakespeare play, 
 in that it carefully discusses the probable historical basis 
 of the play, its date, its relation to other works by the 
 same author, its vocabulary and idiosyncrasies. All such 
 treatment may contribute to the better understanding of 
 the work, and R. G. Moulton would have been ready to 
 accord full recognition to existing text-books in respect 
 of what they set out to do, although he would demur to 
 regard that type of study as being the study of literature, 
 in that it stopped short of the ‘ criticism of life.' More- 
 
46 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 over, from the first he stood out for the proposition that 
 there is an inductive science of literary criticism. 
 
 As botany deals inductively with the phenomena o* 
 vegetable life and traces the laws underlying them, as 
 economy reviews and systematizes on inductive princi¬ 
 ples the facts of commerce, so there is a criticism not less 
 inductive in character which has for its subject-matter 
 literature. 1 
 
 This was the determining factor in all his work, the 
 nerve-centre of his whole scheme of literary study and 
 exposition. This very fruitful line of study he pursued 
 into new fields, with the result that to thousands of 
 students, of all grades, he made literature a new thing 
 altogether with a new ‘ worth-whileness.’ It was in April, 
 1885, that he issued his Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, 
 with its highly characteristic introductory essay, entitled 
 4 A Plea for an Inductive Science of Literary Criticism.' 
 He had already been teaching along those lines for more 
 than ten years in University Extension centres throughout 
 England with very marked success : and he was constantly 
 verifying his hypotheses and finding them to be even more 
 widely true than he had imagined at the first. It was the 
 nature of this insistence on the inductive method and the 
 wide scope of its application that differentiated him from 
 other exponents of literature. Reference has already 
 been made to his earnest deprecation of all association of 
 praise and blame with the term ‘ criticism ’; and here he 
 makes abundantly clear the reasons for the faith that was 
 in him. 
 
 This 4 Introduction ’ to his first book may fairly be 
 regarded in the light of an 4 Introduction ’ to his life-work, 
 a manifesto as to the message he had to deliver, and did 
 deliver throughout his whole career : and it is worthy of 
 
 1 Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, p. 1. 
 
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 
 
 47 
 
 notice that the last sentence of his farewell oration to the 
 University of Chicago, when he laid down his office in 
 June, 1919, was a quotation from Bacon, the great pioneer 
 of the inductive method. It will therefore be profitable 
 to follow him in his argument in this ‘ Introduction ’ in 
 preference to setting forth any estimates of my own as to 
 his position in relation to what was to him so vital a matter 
 in the study of literature. 
 
 After beginning by entering his ‘ plea ’ in the words 
 quoted above, he calls attention to the two conceptions 
 of literary criticism, centring as they do in the difference 
 between the functions of the judge and the investigator : 
 
 The one is the inquiry into what ought to he, the 
 other the inquiry into what is. Judicial criticism 
 compares a new production with those already existing 
 in order to determine whether it is inferior to them or 
 surpasses them ; criticism of investigation makes the 
 same comparison for the purpose of identifying the 
 new product with some type in the past, or differentiat¬ 
 ing it and registering a new type. Judicial criticism has 
 a mission to watch against variations from received 
 canons; criticism of investigation watches for new 
 forms to increase its stock of species. The criticism of 
 taste analyses literary works for grounds of preference 
 or evidence on which to found judgements; inductive 
 criticism analyses them to get a closer acquaintance 
 with their phenomena. 
 
 The gist of the whole matter is there ; and no further 
 words are needed to enforce the distinction as a principle 
 of literary study ; but it would be easy to go further and 
 enforce its importance in the field of ethics also. Later 
 we shall see how essentially this conception of criticism is 
 bound up with the whole of R. G. Moulton’s disposition 
 and outlook on life. Which was cause and which was 
 effect : did the temperament give birth to the attitude to 
 
48 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 criticism, or did the attitude to literature project itself 
 into wider fields ? I do not know, and it would be futile 
 to speculate. All I do know is that the result was a 
 singularly harmonious whole ; and that on returning to 
 these early professions of his literary faith one is con¬ 
 stantly made to feel how much they are like him. 
 
 How this distinction works in actual experience he 
 shows by a concrete example. He takes the example of 
 Ben Jonson, who, according to certain judicial critics, 
 is responsible for the decay of the English drama : 
 
 Inductive criticism takes objection to the word 
 * decay ’ as suggesting condemnation, but recognizes 
 Ben Jonson as the beginner of a new tendency in our 
 dramatic history. 
 
 But, judicial criticism insists, the object of the Drama 
 is to portray human nature, whereas Ben Jonson has 
 painted not men but caricatures. 
 
 Induction sees that this formula cannot be a sufficient 
 definition of the Drama, for the simple reason that it 
 does not take in Ben Jonson ; its own mode of putting 
 the matter is that Ben Jonson has founded a school of 
 treatment of which the law is caricature. 
 
 But Ben Jonson’s caricatures are palpably impossible. 
 
 Induction soon satisfies itself that their point lies in 
 their impossibility ; they constitute a new mode of 
 portraying qualities of character, not by resemblance, 
 but by analysing and intensifying contrasts to make 
 them clearer. 
 
 Judicial criticism can see how the poet was led 
 astray ; the bent of his disposition induced him to 
 sacrifice dramatic propriety to his satiric purpose. 
 
 Induction has another way of putting the matter : 
 that the poet has utilized dramatic form for satiric 
 purpose ; thus by the ‘ cross-fertilization ’ of two 
 existing literary species he has added to literature a 
 third including features of both. 
 
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 
 
 49 
 
 At all events, judicial criticism will maintain, it must 
 be admitted that the Shakespearean mode of portraying 
 is infinitely the higher: a sign-painter, as Macaulay 
 points out, can imitate a deformity of feature, while it 
 takes a great artist to bring out delicate shades of 
 expression. 
 
 Inductive treatment knows nothing about higher or 
 lower, which lie outside the domain of science. Its 
 point is that science is indebted to Ben Jonson for a 
 new species ; if the new species be an easier form of art 
 it does not on that account lose its claim to be analysed. 
 
 The critic of merit can always fall back upon taste : 
 who would not prefer Shakespeare to Ben Jonson ? 
 
 But even from this point of view scientific treatment 
 can plead its own advantages. The inductive critic 
 reaps to the full the interest of Ben Jonson, to which 
 the other has been forcibly closing his eyes ; while, so 
 far from liking Shakespeare the less, he appreciates 
 all the more keenly Shakespeare’s method of treatment 
 from his familiarity with that which is its antithesis. 
 
 Even the most hardened adherent of the old order will 
 admit that this little bit of dialectical warfare succeeds 
 in establishing for inductive criticism not only a right to 
 exist but a very good case for itself. This is further 
 reinforced by the reminder that the judicial spirit is a 
 ‘ barrier to appreciation, as being opposed to that delicacy 
 of receptiveness which is a first condition of sensibility 
 to impressions of literature and art.’ If a passing mood, 
 or uncomfortable surroundings may—and do—induce 
 unfavourable estimates, just as the converse may induce 
 favourable ones, does it not stand to reason that a pre¬ 
 conceived idea of the inadmissibility of the work under 
 consideration precludes a true vision of that work ? 
 
 It is a foundation principle in art-culture, as well 
 as in human intercourse, that sympathy is the grand 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 interpreter : secrets of beauty will unfold themselves to 
 the sunshine of sympathy, while they will wrap them¬ 
 selves all the closer against the tempest of sceptical 
 questionings. 
 
 The whole history of criticism has been a triumph 
 of authors over critics, and this has been true alike with 
 reference to music and literature. It is needless to waste 
 time and space in vindicating a proposition which to-day 
 is recognized as beyond discussion : and, after all, the only 
 aspect of the matter which concerns us is that the dis¬ 
 comfiture of critics at the bar of experience is an over¬ 
 whelming proof that the criticism centring in taste— 
 which must be intensely subjective and therefore variable 
 —cannot be taken as fulfilling the function of literary 
 criticism in affording an insight into the interpretation of 
 life. 
 
 Having thus performed the negative portion of his task, 
 R. G. Moulton sets himself to demonstrate the adequacy 
 of inductive treatment for filling the place for which the 
 criticism of taste has been found wanting. He is ready to 
 admit at once that the difficulty of applying the inductive 
 method to literature lies in the fact that instead of 
 ascertained facts we have to face ' details which leave 
 conflicting impressions on different observers.’ But, as 
 he points out, in the first place this difficulty is by no means 
 peculiar to literature, and instances the case of psychology : 
 it may be noted that, in the forty years that have elapsed 
 since he wrote, the element of variability has in no sense 
 checked the development of an inductive science which 
 has perhaps made more remarkable advance than any 
 other in our time. In the second place, he contends that 
 
 Interpretation in literature is of the nature of a scientific 
 hypothesis , the truth of which is tested, by the degree of 
 completeness with which it explains the details of the 
 
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 
 
 5i 
 
 literary work as they actually stand. That will be the 
 true meaning of a passage, not which is the most worthy, 
 but which most nearly explains the words as they are ; 
 that will be the true reading of a character which, how¬ 
 ever involved in expression or tame in effect, accounts 
 for and reconciles all that is represented of the personage. 
 The inductive critic will interpret a complex situation, 
 not by fastening attention on its striking elements and 
 ignoring others as oversights and blemishes, but by 
 putting together with business-like exactitude all that 
 the author has given, weighing, balancing, and standing 
 by the product. He will not consider that he has solved 
 the action of a drama by some leading plot, or some 
 central idea powerfully suggested in different parts, 
 but will investigate patiently until he can find a scheme 
 which will give point to the inferior as well as to the 
 leading scenes, and in connexion with which all the 
 details are harmonized in their proper proportions. 
 
 Of course R. G. Moulton was well aware of the kind of 
 indictment which was bound to be brought against such 
 an attitude to creative literature, on the ground that it 
 credits the author with far more of purpose than he 
 dreamed of, and with complicated effects and recondite 
 designs which formed no part of his conscious plan. His 
 answer would be that ' in science the “ purpose ” of a 
 thing is the purpose it actually serves and is discoverable 
 only by analysis ’ : and that ' in this usage alone can the 
 words " purpose,” “ intention ” be properly applied to 
 literature and art: science knows no kind of evidence in 
 the matter of creative purpose so weighty as the thing it 
 has actually produced.’ One outcome of such a position 
 is that of necessity the ' order-of-merit criticism ’ is placed 
 out of court at once, for the conclusive reason that 
 ' inductive criticism is concerned with differences of kind 
 as distinguished from differences of degree,’ and has 
 therefore no concern with orders of merit but only with 
 
52 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 literary species ; and in that contention he had on his side 
 one no less than Wordsworth, who had maintained that 
 each fresh poet is to be tried by fresh canons of taste. The 
 traditional method of criticism had proceeded on the 
 assumption that there were definite laws of art, and that 
 acceptance or rejection was conditioned by conformity 
 with those laws. But ‘ law ’ is used in two perfectly 
 distinct senses, and the confusion between the two is 
 responsible for much of the misunderstanding as to the 
 function of criticism. In the moral and political 
 sense laws are conditioned by a ruler or legislative 
 authority : 
 
 In scientific laws the law-giver and the law-obeyer 
 are one and the same, and for the laws of vegetation 
 science looks no further than the facts of the vegetable 
 world. In literature and art the term ‘ law ’ applies only 
 in the scientific sense ; the laws of the Shakespearean 
 drama are not laws imposed by some external 
 authority upon Shakespeare, but laws of dramatic 
 practice derived from the analysis of his actual works. 
 
 Thus he contends that 
 
 In inductive criticism, as in the other inductive sciences, 
 the word ‘ fault ’ has no meaning. If an artist acts 
 contrary to the practice of all other artists, the result is 
 either that he produces no art-effect at all, in which 
 case there is nothing for criticism to register and analyse, 
 or else he produces a new effect, and is thus extending, 
 not breaking, the laws of art. 
 
 In the book w'hich was introduced by this plea for the 
 recognition of an inductive science of literary criticism he 
 exhibits the method in actual operation on the dramatic 
 analysis of certain plays. In a Table setting forth the 
 
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 53 
 
 leading topics of dramatic criticism the heads of the larger 
 groupings are given (in the first edition) as follows : 
 
 Character. 
 
 ’Single Character-Interest or Character- 
 Interpretation 
 Complex Character-Interest 
 Character Development 
 
 Passion. 
 
 Plot. 
 
 (Single Passion-Interest 
 ] Complex Passion-Interest or Passion-Tone 
 (.Movement (Motive Force) 
 
 ( Single Action 
 Complex Action 
 Movement (Motive Form) 
 
 In the light of this scheme of topics the titles of the twelve 
 studies which form the bulk of the book will evoke no 
 surprise. Take these by way of example : 
 
 I. The Two Stories Shakespeare borrows for his 
 ‘ Merchant of Venice.’ 
 
 A Study in the Raw Material of the Romantic Drama. 
 
 IV. ‘Richard III.’ : A Picture of Ideal Villainy. v ' 
 
 A Shidy in Character-Interpretation. 
 
 V. ‘ Richard III.’ : How Shakespeare weaves Nemesis 
 
 into History. 
 
 A Study in Plot. 
 
 IX. How the play of ‘ Julius Caesar ’ works up to a 
 climax at the centre. 
 
 A Study in Passion and Movement. 
 
 This is not the place for attempting to set forth R. G. 
 Moulton’s teaching in relation to any particular literary 
 masterpiece, but only to indicate the method of treatment 
 pursued and the topics which constituted, in his opinion, 
 
54 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 the subject-matter on which the inductive science of 
 literary criticism was employed. What has been said will 
 have been enough to serve this purpose, and also to prepare 
 the way for reference to the width of the field he covered. 
 If the exposition has been in terms of Shakespearean 
 drama, that is only because in his Shakespeare as a Dramatic 
 Artist he first enunciated the foundation principles of 
 those methods of study and interpretation which—thirty 
 years later—we find completely and categorically 
 expounded in The Modern Study of Literature. In the 
 meantime the same scientific treatment had been 
 followed in books dealing with certain groups of literary 
 masterpieces. These books— The Ancient Classical 
 Drama, The Literary Study of the Bible, Shakespeare as 
 a Dramatic Thinker, and World Literature —he describes 
 in 1915 as ‘ discussions of particular principles in applica¬ 
 tion to special literary fields.' 1 
 
 As has been already indicated, the field over which R. G. 
 Moulton pursued his method of literary study was extra¬ 
 ordinarily wide and varied ; and a mere catalogue of his 
 lecture-subjects affords material for thought and reflection. 
 But it will be conducive to definiteness of idea if the 
 survey is confined, to begin with at any rate, to what 
 he calls the ‘ Literary Bibles ’ of the world : 
 
 The great religions of the world rest each on its 
 sacred books ; it seems not improper to extend a word 
 familiar in this connexion to collections of works 
 holding a somewhat analogous position in the purely 
 literary field. In its full conception, the word ‘ bible' 
 combines wide range of literature with high significance 
 of matter and some sense of literary unity ; it further 
 suggests a process of selection already accomplished 
 by evolution, a survival of the spiritually fittest. View¬ 
 ing universal literature from our English standpoint, 
 
 1 Preface to The Modern Study of Literature, p. viii. 
 
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 
 
 55 
 
 it appears to me that five such Literary Bibles may be 
 recognized. The first is of course the Holy Bible: 
 this comprehends in its completeness one out of our 
 two ancestral literatures. For the other ancestral 
 literature, the Hellenic, we may, I think, make an 
 approach to such representation—but only an approach 
 —by a particular combination of Classical Epic and 
 Tragedy, a combination which will give us a unity, and 
 will include the Classical literature which has most 
 powerfully influenced the poetry of succeeding ages. 
 Again, from the English point of view, the unique 
 position held by Shakespeare suggests a third Literary 
 Bible. 1 We may attain a fourth if we place side by 
 side, as two elements of an antithesis, the Divine Comedy 
 of Dante and the Paradise Lost of Milton—the supreme 
 expression, respectively, of Mediaeval Catholicism and the 
 Renaissance Protestantism. Once more, it is interesting 
 to note how the Story of Faust, welling up from the 
 fountain of mediaeval legend, has attracted the highest 
 minds of the modem world, leading to successive literary 
 presentations of the same theme varied in their poetic 
 dress, and still more contrasted in the underlying 
 philosophy ; these Versions of the Faust Story will con¬ 
 stitute a fifth Literary Bible. 2 
 
 Such being his attitude towards these five fields of World 
 Literature, it is not surprising that they bulked exceed¬ 
 ingly large in his public work, both within the University 
 
 1 R. G. Moulton would have read with the deepest interest Dr. C. H. 
 Herford’s paper, in the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library for Jan., 
 1925, on the History of Shakespeare's Influence on the Continent. 
 Although written from a diflerent angle, it substantiates his contentions 
 as to World Literature, and of Shakespeare’s place in it. One can quite 
 imagine his saying of Shakespeare that the history of his influence was 
 * part of the history of Europe, of the history of civilization, of the history 
 of the process by which the entire complex of modern belief and ideals 
 were evolved ; processes in which the work of Shakespeare was not 
 merely an accompanying circumstance but a contributing factor.’ 
 (p. 20). 
 
 2 World Literature, p. 53. 
 
56 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 and in University Extension classes, in England and 
 America alike. They gave him the outstanding examples 
 of the points which he desired to make, although he found 
 in all the literatures of the world, and drew from all ages, 
 confirmation and illustration of the main principles. It 
 was on Shakespeare that he worked out his conception of 
 inductive science of criticism in the first instance, and to 
 Shakespeare he never tired of returning—and neither did his 
 audiences. His treatment of the Ancient Classical Drama as 
 a subject for lecture courses was completely vindicated by 
 its power to hold audiences of widely different types—in 
 University Extension courses ; in University classes and in 
 University lectures ‘ open to the public ’; in exclusive 
 Literary Clubs and important gatherings of teachers, &c. 
 Faust satisfied him best when he could give a whole course 
 of ten or twelve lectures to the subject, though he very 
 often would give an exceedingly effective single lecture on 
 it, in which case he confined his attention to Marlowe’s 
 Faustus. Perhaps the fourth of the Literary Bibles 
 occupied him less in his public work than the other four ; 
 and the reason may well have been that he felt very 
 strongly the supreme advantage of linking the two works 
 —which was not easy, unless time was no object ! 
 
 Dante’s great poem gains infinitely if it be read in 
 antithesis with the Paradise Lost of Milton. ... In 
 their two great works these poets are not treating 
 special themes ; each is giving his poetic construction 
 of the sum of things as seen by him. And each is 
 fully equipped for the task. The two poems then will 
 differ according to the two ages they are reflecting ; and 
 these two ages are ancestral periods in our own mental 
 history. What makes the combination of the Divine 
 Comedy and the Paradise Lost into a literary bible is 
 that they give us complete revelation in creative 
 poetry of supplementary stages through which our own 
 
THE STUDY OF LITERATURE 
 
 57 
 
 literary evolution has passed ; they enable us to think 
 the thoughts of the men of those times, to look upon 
 the universe with their mental attitudes, to live over 
 again for a moment their sympathies and antipathies, to 
 shape the appearances and impressions of things as 
 these seemed to eyes that at the time actually looked 
 upon them. 1 
 
 If Dante is the prophet of the Middle Ages, and his 
 poem the ‘ representation of Catholicism in high literature,’ 2 
 then it is equally true that Milton ‘ represents in himself 
 the whole range of the Renaissance ; he is the best type 
 of classical scholar, and he is the best type of Puritanism.’ 3 
 These propositions R. G. Moulton worked out with great 
 elaborateness, and succeeded in giving a new interest to 
 Paradise Lost. This gist of his argument is to be seen in 
 the fourth chapter of his World Literature. 
 
 It is not at all surprising that the Faust story should 
 have attracted one who had so keen a sense of the dramatic 
 as R. G. Moulton : and certainly few of his literary 
 interpretations have left so vivid an impression on the 
 minds of his hearers as his presentation of that story. As 
 one of his Faust audiences was passing out of the hall 
 after the lecture, two appreciations happened to be 
 uttered within five minutes in the hearing of one member 
 of the class. ‘ It’s the best sermon I ever heard.’ ‘ It’s 
 as good as going to the theatre ! ’ The two criticisms are 
 in no sense antithetic or mutually exclusive : they only 
 witness to an interpretation which was an arresting 
 ‘ criticism of life,’ in regard to an issue of transcendent 
 spiritual importance. How could it be otherwise ? 
 
 Reduced to its lowest terms, the Story of Faust is 
 an attempt to realize in concrete life one of the simplest 
 verses of Scripture : What shall it profit a man if he 
 
 1 World, Literature, p. 179. 2 Ibid., p. 180. 3 Ibid., p. 195. 
 
5 « 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 gain the whole world and lose his soul ? Familiarity 
 has dulled the edge of this biblical aphorism ; if we 
 press its language, the short verse is seen to involve 
 three ideas of colossal import, alike to the thinker and 
 the poetic interpreter of life. First : What is it to gain 
 the whole world ? The gain of a fortune or a kingdom 
 is enough for most stories; the gaining of the 
 whole world tasks the imagination to its depths to find 
 for it any visible form in which it can be intelligibly 
 embodied. Again, it is a sufficiently serious question, 
 What is it to lose the soul ? But a third stumbling- 
 block to the imagination lurks in the word ‘ profit ’ : 
 the conception of barter, gain and loss, the machinery 
 of the market, in association with such ideas as the world 
 and the soul. 1 
 
 The many-sidedness of the story, which, as R. G. 
 Moulton says, has come down to us from the floating 
 literature of the Middle Ages, when it was natural to men 
 to do their thinking in story form, is forcibly brought 
 home by his exposition of the different channels of 
 approach by Marlowe, Calderon, Goethe, and Bailey— 
 whose Festus he valued very highly, in which judgement he 
 stands supported by Tennyson. This is not the place for 
 even outlining his exposition of these various presentations 
 of the great central theme. My only concern is to outline 
 the subject-matter upon which he based, in the main, his 
 teaching as to Literature as a criticism of Life. 
 
 1 World Literature, p. 221. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Literary Study of the Bible. 
 
 I have, of set purpose, abstained so far from any reference 
 to R. G. Moulton’s work on the literary study of the 
 Bible, which bulked so large in the last thirty years of 
 his teaching career, and by which he came to be known 
 perhaps more widely than by anything else. Even in his 
 undergraduate days he had a great interest in the literary 
 side of the Bible, and in the eighties certain very pro¬ 
 nounced ideas began to take shape in his mind concerning 
 Bible literature viewed solely from the point of view of 
 literary considerations, as distinct from the devotional or 
 theological. It was not that he sat loosely to these things 
 or belittled the spiritual significance of Holy Scripture. 
 Far from it; but he felt strongly that there was another 
 angle of approach which had been strangely neglected, and 
 which had its own contribution to bring to the under¬ 
 standing of the Books ; and that the)' were of a character 
 to respond to inductive methods of literary criticism as 
 were other masterpieces. Moreover, through a wide 
 acceptance and use of the inductive literary method of 
 interpretation he could see the ultimate removal of many 
 causes of dissension. It was with such convictions as 
 these that he threw himself into the great piece of work 
 involved in the investigation of Biblical literary forms, 
 and the incorporation of his results in The Literary Study 
 of the Bible and The Modern Reader’s Bible. Of course 
 scholars had long realized that the Bible is made up of 
 
 59 
 
6o 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 works in various literary forms, and the reflection of certain 
 discoveries in successive versions of the whole or of 
 particular parts had brought nearer the time when an 
 attempt might be made at a full presentation of the Books 
 with due regard to literary structure. The event, however, 
 of largest importance in this connexion was the com¬ 
 pletion of the work of the English revisers, which thus 
 made generally available a version of the Bible and the 
 Apocrypha in which—among many important changes— 
 the distinction between verse and prose is recognized, and 
 continuity of thought is restored in parts where it had been 
 obscured in the earlier versions. But it was left for R. G. 
 Moulton to carry these ideas to altogether new and far- 
 reaching conclusions : and having done so, he ‘ brought 
 them down from the study to the street'—to borrow the 
 expressive phrase of Bacon. 
 
 Three main convictions dominated him in relation to 
 this Bible literature: (i) That the Bible is the peer of 
 
 the classics of Greece and Rome as literature, quite inde¬ 
 pendently of all questions as to the admission of its 
 supernatural character and authority, (ii) That the 
 traditional presentation of the Bible is fatal to any adequate 
 appreciation of its literary character, (iii) That a due 
 recognition of literary forms in Bible literature is in the 
 highest degree conducive to the fuller understanding of 
 its message. 
 
 To him it was self-evident that the literatures inspired 
 by the Hellenic and Hebraic spirits were ‘ the ancestral 
 literatures of our modern English culture,’ and that ‘ he 
 who is content to leave the Bible unstudied stands con¬ 
 victed as a half-educated man.’ 1 He was prepared, 
 moreover, to maintain this position quite without reference 
 to historical criticism on the one hand or religious 
 scepticism on the other. Literary appreciation is 
 
 1 World Literature, pp. 26, 98. 
 
THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE 6r 
 
 concerned with the ‘ what ’ and not with the ‘ how ’ of 
 literature ; and for the purpose which he had immediately 
 in hand, no questions of inspiration, revelation, or critical 
 analysis of sources came under consideration. But he 
 felt more strongly than most how hopeless it was to expect 
 any recognition of this outstanding excellence of Bible 
 literature until it was presented with some adequate regard 
 to literary form. This twin sense, so to speak, of the 
 supreme literary qualities of the Bible, and of the mis¬ 
 leading character of its presentation, grew upon him and 
 became one of the great determining influences of his career. 
 In 1917, after about thirty years of close application to 
 the literary study of the Bible, and having seen the subject 
 at work in the minds of vastly varied audiences on both 
 sides of the Atlantic, he writes : 
 
 Literature necessarily involves specific literary forms 
 —epic, lyric, drama, essay, history, oratory, and the 
 like : these literary forms are the key to literary inter¬ 
 pretation. In the case of the Bible, these literary forms 
 were swept out of existence in the centuries which 
 separate us from the original authors of biblical literature. 
 The story is a simple one, yet seems to be little known. 
 We live in an age in which the printed page reflects so 
 exactly variations of form that we need to give as little 
 attention to form as to the attraction of gravitation. 
 We are likely to forget that manuscripts of all languages 
 prior to about the first or second century of the Christian 
 era were wholly destitute of form : pages covered with 
 alphabetical letters not divided into words, still less 
 into sentences, with no divisions of speeches in dialogue 
 or names of speakers, or differences of verse and prose. 
 In manuscripts of this kind all literary forms, from 
 straightforward narrative to brilliant dialogue, would 
 look exactly alike. But a difference arises. Greek or 
 Indian manuscripts were in the hands of literary men, 
 who in spite of the manuscripts were keenly sensitive to 
 
62 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 niceties of form : when the advance came in the art of 
 writing that made the written page vary with the 
 form, the form these men gave to their literature was 
 its proper form, Homer coming out as epic, Sophocles 
 as drama. But at the corresponding period the Bible 
 was in the custody of men who were anything but 
 literary: scribes and rabbis to whom the Bible was 
 material for commentary, each clause a subject for 
 disquisition, as we know that the shortest text may 
 begin the longest sermon. Accordingly, when the 
 advance in the art of writing reached them, the form 
 they gave to their Bible was that of numbered texts 
 for comment, and in this form of texts for comment it 
 has come down to us. Thus modem Bibles are a mis¬ 
 representation of the real Bible ; a double misrepre¬ 
 sentation, at once lacking the literary forms of song or 
 dialogue essential for interpretation, and stamping the 
 whole with the appearance of numbered texts and 
 chapters which does not belong to the original literature, 
 but was the creation of mediaeval commentators. . . . 
 
 Scholars, it will be said, know better. They do ; but 
 here arises the second of the revolutionary accidents. 
 The modem vivification of method struck the study of 
 history a full generation before it struck the study of 
 literature. Hence, in the case of the Bible, the historic 
 analysis which goes below the literary surface of Scrip¬ 
 ture to the earlier documents from which much of it 
 was compiled. This ‘ higher criticism ’ has achieved 
 great results in its proper province, which is Semitic 
 history : its effect on literature has been unfortunate, 
 as diverting general culture from literature to history, 
 and favouring what is a besetting temptation of the 
 study of literature at all times—the temptation to 
 substitute the study of literary origins, which is one 
 thing, for the study of the literature itself, which is 
 another thing altogether. 
 
 Of course, the matter of this Bible has always engrossed 
 the general mind; it has worked wonders and laid the 
 
THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE 
 
 63 
 
 foundations of our modern spiritual life. Unfortunately, 
 it has gone farther than this : it has also laid the founda¬ 
 tion of the theological and ecclesiastical systems that 
 confront each other in intrenched camps. And the 
 effect of this—if we may interpret men’s minds by their 
 actions—is as if it were said : ‘ Rather than let biblical 
 literature be taught by followers of the wrong orthodoxy, 
 let us leave it out of higher education altogether ! ’ 
 This is the third of the external obstructions in the 
 
 way of literary study. 
 
 In view of all this it becomes necessary to insist at 
 every opportunity that there can be no true study of 
 literature in the foundation of which biblical does not 
 stand on equal terms with classical literature. The 
 culture of our modern world, notwithstanding its self- 
 complacency, needs reminding that it is in truth only a 
 half-baked culture, affecting the language of breadth 
 and completeness when all the while a major factor in 
 its evolution has been altogether ignored. 1 
 
 He gives a striking illustration of this in his Preface to his 
 Modern Reader’s Bible. He presents Hosea xiv, 5-8 in 
 three different forms : (i) after the fashion of the ancient 
 manuscript; (ii) after the fashion of the Authorized 
 Version ; (iii) in accordance with literary form : 
 
 (i) 
 
 I 
 
 W 
 
 I 
 
 L 
 
 L 
 
 B 
 
 E 
 
 A 
 
 S 
 
 T 
 
 H 
 
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 D 
 
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 s 
 
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 F 
 
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 Study of Literature and 
 
 the 
 
 Intel 
 
 ’ration of Knowledge. 
 
 See p. 42. 
 
 
64 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 ALLBEAST 
 H R A I MS HA 
 OANYMORE 
 WE R E D A N D 
 I K E A G R E E 
 HYFRUI TF 
 
 H E W I N E O F 
 LLSAYWHA 
 WI T H I D O L 
 W I L L R E G A 
 N F I R T R E E 
 O U N D 
 
 LEBANONEP 
 THAVEI TOD 
 SI HAVEANS 
 R D H I MI AML 
 FROMMEI ST 
 
 (ii) 
 
 5. I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall blossom 
 as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. 
 
 6. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be 
 as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon. 
 
 7. They that dwell under his shadow shall return ; 
 they shall revive as the com, and blossom as the vine : 
 the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. 
 
 8. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more 
 with idols ? I have answered, and will regard him : 
 I am like a green fir tree ; from me is thy fruit found. 
 
 (Hi) 
 
 A Dramatic Dialogue between Jehovah and 
 
 Ephraim. 
 
 The Lord. 
 
 I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall blossom as 
 the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His 
 branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the 
 olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell 
 under his shadow shall return ; they shall revive as the 
 com, and blossom as the vine : the scent thereof shall 
 be as the wine of Lebanon. 
 
 Ephraim. 
 
 What have I to do any more with idols ? 
 
 The Lord. 
 
 I have answered, and will regard him. 
 
THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE 65 
 
 Ephraim. 
 
 I am like a green fir tree. 
 
 The Lord. 
 
 From me is thy fruit found. 
 
 The recognition and presentation of the various literary 
 forms in the Bible enabled him to impart a new vividness 
 and reality to familiar tracts of Scripture. Take, for 
 example, his exposition of the dramatic element in the 
 Old Testament. Drama is not looked for in Hebrew 
 literature because the Hebrew people had no theatre. 
 But that simply means that the dramatic instinct, common 
 to humanity, found a different channel of expression ; 
 and, indeed, succeeded in permeating all forms of literature. 
 He was able to show how, especially in the rhapsodic 
 outbursts of the prophets, 
 
 the workings of Divine Providence are made to pass 
 before the mental eye with all the intensity of dramatic 
 movement. The actors of these spiritual scenes include 
 God, the Celestial Hosts, the Nations of the earth, Israel 
 or Zion personified, the Watchmen of Jerusalem bearing 
 tidings from abroad ; with less of personality Voices 
 carry on the dialogue, Voices of the Saved or the 
 Doomed, Voices from the East and the West, Cries from 
 the Hills of Ephraim or from outside the Holy Land ; 
 impersonal songs break in at intervals, like chorales in 
 modem oratorio, to spiritually celebrate the action 
 that is passing. The changing scenes are beheld in 
 vision, or described by the prophetic spectator. The 
 movement may be successive stages of advancing doom, 
 changing, as in Joel, into equally regular stages of 
 salvation. Or it may be sudden : the sight of the 
 Chaldeans stalking triumphant through the earth gives 
 place to the sound from the distant future of the victims 
 triumphing over Chaldea’s fall; the pall of destruction 
 is rent to display the mountain of salvation bright with 
 E 
 
66 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 sunshine and song. Of course such spiritual scenes 
 are less easy to follow than the drama of ordinary life 
 that can realize itself upon a visible stage. But what 
 is lost in simplicity is less than what is gained in the 
 wide reaches of spiritual movement and solemnity of 
 import. Perhaps the dramatic masterpiece of universal 
 literature is the ' Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed,’ which 
 makes the latter half of our book of Isaiah . 1 
 
 These conceptions of the Bible he was wont to set forth 
 in lectures and in what he st)ded ‘ interpretative recitals '; 
 and there was no shadow of doubt as to whether there was 
 a demand for that kind of treatment. From the very 
 moment that he began to offer courses of lectures along 
 those lines there was an eager and increasing interest 
 manifested in the subject. Reference has already been 
 made to his practice of blending the lecture and the recital 
 for the purpose of interpreting a Greek play, even 
 presenting the whole of the Trilogy of ^Eschylus in a two 
 hours’ lecture-recital. He now applied the same method 
 of treatment to portions of the Bible, and probably no 
 single achievement of his awakened more widespread 
 admiration than his presentation of the Book of Job. 
 Mingled narration, interpretation, and recitation brought 
 the whole book within the compass of an hour’s lecture, 
 without the loss of anything essential to its understanding : 
 and Dr. Holland Rose does not use extravagant language 
 of eulogy when he speaks of ‘ audiences enthralled and 
 uplifted by this literary magician.’ The same was true of 
 his presentation of the ‘ Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed ’ 
 and of Deuteronomy. 
 
 But it was on his Modern Readers Bible that R. G. 
 Moulton mainly relied for the furtherance of these views 
 concerning the presentation of the Bible. His lectures in 
 the early nineties and the publication of The Literary 
 1 World. Literature, pp. 66, 67. 
 
THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE 67 
 
 Study of the Bible in 1895 had increased interest in the 
 subject; and how this led to the working out in detail 
 of the principles then laid down is told in his How to Read 
 the Bible : the various extensions of the plan made to 
 meet the needs and wishes of teachers and particular 
 classes of students are also indicated : 
 
 The initiation of what subsequently became The 
 Modern Reader’s Bible was in a letter from the President 
 of the Macmillan Co. of New York (Hon. George P. Brett) 
 to the present Editor, who in a recent work of his had 
 discussed the question of presenting Scripture to the eye 
 in conformity with the printed page of modern books. . . . 
 
 The Macmillan Company, by way of experiment, 
 published in succession four small volumes, representing 
 the Books of Wisdom in the Bible (and Apocrypha). 
 Literary Introductions and Notes were furnished by 
 the Editor. The reception was so far encouraging that 
 the series of small volumes was gradually extended to 
 take in the whole of the Bible—twenty-one volumes in 
 all. The series, which had commenced in 1895, was 
 completed in 1898. Later (in 1907) the contents of the 
 twenty-one volumes were put together in the one- 
 volume edition of the Modern Reader’s Bible. Adapta¬ 
 tion of the material for young people furnished three 
 more of the small volumes. ... It may be added that, 
 recently, an important variation of the main work has 
 appeared in The Modern Reader’s Bible for Schools, in 
 two volumes of New Testament (1920) and Old Testa¬ 
 ment (1922). The term ‘ schools ’ must be understood 
 to include educational institutions, elementary or 
 advanced ; and in what was put forward as an educa¬ 
 tional work it has seemed legitimate to employ, with 
 caution, the expository device of abridgement. This 
 Modern Reader’s Bible for Schools is an ‘ Abridged 
 Bible.’ 1 
 
 1 How to read the Bible, pp. 23-25 
 
68 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 The nature of this work will have been inferred from 
 what has already been said about the misrepresentation 
 of the Books of the Bible in our traditional versions. 
 Without making an attempt in the matter of altered 
 translations it 
 
 presents to the eye each part of the Bible in its proper 
 literary form and detailed structure ; doing thus for the 
 sacred Scriptures what, as a matter of course, is done 
 for all other literature, ancient and modern, by the 
 arrangement of the printed page. 1 
 
 While there are only slight deviations from the Revised 
 Version, and no attempt at exegesis, there is a degree of 
 modification in respect of the order in which the books are 
 placed, the purpose being to make more clear to the reader 
 the spiritual unity of the Bible as ‘ the autobiography of 
 our holy religion.’ This he expressed in a single sentence 
 when he described the Bible as ‘ A Drama in two Acts, 
 •with an Interlude.’ 
 
 Act I. The Old Testament : A Covenant between God 
 and a Chosen People. A National Theocracy. 
 
 Interlude. The Wisdom Literature : 
 
 Devout Meditation on Human Life. 
 
 Act II. The New Testament : A Covenant between God 
 and Individual Hearts. The Kingdom of God 
 within us. 
 
 It is not surprising that, with such a conception of 
 Biblical literature, he should stress the importance of 
 reading a book at a sitting. No one would dream of under¬ 
 rating the value of exegesis for the appreciation of the 
 Bible, particularly in respect of its presentation of doctrinal 
 truth : but it must always be remembered that the exe- 
 getical method, with its constant pauses over details and 
 
 1 How to read the Bible, p 21. 
 
THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE 69 
 
 its dependence upon annotations and the like, is fatal to 
 the acquisition of a sense of perspective. As he puts it 
 himself: 
 
 Two different modes of exegesis invite the student : 
 one studies the whole in the light of the details, the 
 other the details in the light of the whole. The first 
 is the method of commentators : they seek to come to 
 close quarters with each successive clause, and con¬ 
 centrate upon it light from all departments of investiga¬ 
 tion, confident that to master the details is to know 
 the whole. . . The interpreter of the other kind takes 
 his stand at such a distance that the whole work can be 
 surveyed at once : he sweeps over the whole ground again 
 and again, and yet again ; at first with imperfect grasp 
 and a sense of much that is passed over unexplained, 
 yet with each repetition finding more and more resolve 
 into the common unity, while from first to last he has 
 been keeping firm hold of that foundation element of 
 true thoroughness which we call perspective. Undoubt¬ 
 edly the best scholarship will keep side by side the 
 exegesis of perspective and the exegesis of detail: but 
 in the present condition of biblical study, in which 
 concentration on ‘ verses ' has almost smothered per¬ 
 ception of literary ' works,’ there is no question that it 
 is the rapid survey of whole books that needs emphasiz¬ 
 ing. 1 
 
 The very high place which he assigned to ‘ The Rhapsody 
 of Zion Redeemed,’ - which was his designation for Isaiah 
 xl-lxvi, calls for a measure of attention to be given to it 
 here as a literary type, and his treatment of it as character¬ 
 istic of his method of inductive analysis. The importance 
 of it lies partly in the fact that it is wrapped up with his 
 whole conception of the dramatic in literature. He 
 frequently stressed the point that whereas Hebrew 
 
 1 The Modern Reader's Bible, p 1507 
 
 2 Literary Study of the Bible, p. 435 ; World Literature, pp. 66, 82-4. 
 
70 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 literature has not developed a separate and distinct 
 drama ; yet 
 
 as if to compensate for this, the dramatic impulse is 
 found in Hebrew to invade other regions of literature, 
 including such departments as might have seemed most 
 impervious to it. The current finding no channel has 
 spread and diffused itself. The reader of the Bible 
 knows that he will find in it no acted play like the plays 
 of Shakespeare. But on the other hand he will find 
 lyric poems specially dramatic in tone, and in Solomon’s 
 Song a lyric idyll that impresses some of its readers as a 
 complete drama. He will find, again, philosophy taking 
 a dramatic shape. In the Book of Job the dramatic 
 form reaches an intensity not exceeded in any literature ; 
 yet even here there is no independent drama, but the 
 dramatized discussion is made to rest on a basis of epic 
 story. What is still more surprising, the discourses 
 of prophecy are found to be leavened by the dramatic 
 spirit, and that most concentrated form of Hebrew 
 prophecy which will in this work be called the Rhapsody 
 is pre-eminent in the closeness with which it approaches 
 to drama. 1 
 
 We are therefore challenged to reconsider our conception 
 of drama as being of necessity conditioned by presentation 
 on the stage. True, it is a literary form in which action 
 predominates ; but, as R. G. Moulton was fond of saying, 
 the dramatic movement of the Bible has for its stage the 
 whole universe, for its period all time ; God is the Hero of 
 this drama, and its plot is Divine Providence. It may be 
 claimed, perhaps, that nowhere does his treatment of 
 Bible literature make a richer contribution to interpreta¬ 
 tion than here ; for although his presentation of the 
 Book of Job aroused most attention and called forth most 
 admiration, yet his presentation of Isaiah xl-lxvi may be 
 
 1 The Literary Study of the Bihle, pp. 108-9. 
 
THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE 71 
 
 said to have been more characteristic, more far-reaching, 
 more effective—because more necessary—as a vindication 
 of the value of the study of literary form. The greater 
 necessity arises from the difficulty of arriving at a concep¬ 
 tion of unity for the whole work, while no one can be 
 insensible to the wondrous charm and power of its several 
 parts. The Rhapsody, which, while partaking of the 
 nature of all literary forms, is tied down to none of them, 
 has therefore peculiar advantages of its own for the 
 presentation of a theme which marks an advance, but one 
 in which the movement is not steady or uniform, there 
 being oft-recurrent alternation of the motifs of judgement 
 and salvation. The advance presents itself in seven 
 Visions, not successive entirely, but partly concurrent and 
 partly successive, but each one needing to be exhibited 
 before the action is consummated. The seven ‘ visions 
 he differentiates are as follows : 
 
 i. 
 
 The Servant of Jehovah Delivered from Bondage. 
 
 ii. 
 
 The Servant of Jehovah Awakened. 
 
 iii. 
 
 Zion Awakened. 
 
 iv. 
 
 The Servant of Jehovah Exalted. 
 
 v. 
 
 Zion Exalted. 
 
 vi. 
 
 Redemption at Work in Zion. 
 
 vii. 
 
 The Day of Judgement. 
 
72 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 Note that the sixth (for example) cannot be set down 
 categorically as either preceding or following those stand¬ 
 ing before it, but it embraces the whole action looked at 
 from a particular point of view. 
 
 After a Prelude in which Voices alike of Good Tidings 
 and of Despondency are heard, the first of the Visions 
 comes on the scene : 
 
 The nations are summoned to appear before the bar 
 of God, who challenges the idols ‘ to declare former 
 things, to show things to come ’ ; in other words, to 
 put an intei pretation upon the whole course of events 
 from first to last. Clearly it is a Divine philosophy of 
 history that we are receiving in dramatic form. When 
 the idols are dumb, Jehovah’s interpretation is given. 
 He proclaims Israel as His servant : the service is to 
 bring the nations under His law. But not by 
 violence : the bruised reed he shall not break, the 
 smoking flax he shall not quench, yet he must be 
 preserved until he has brought light to the Gentiles. 
 When the interrupting outburst of exultation has died 
 away, the proclamation continues : this servant is 
 blind and deaf, has for his sins fallen into the prison- 
 house of the nations ; the conquering career of Cyrus 
 has brought deliverance, and there comes forth a blind 
 servant that hath eyes, a deaf servant that hath ears. 
 1 wo ideas are thus presented. One is simple : the 
 restoration to Israel of its sense of its Divine mission ; 
 a subsequent scene makes this Israel a witness to the 
 nations, inviting the peoples of the world to enter into 
 the commonwealth of Israel. The other is an idea 
 that we read with ever increasing wonder : in this 
 ancient biblical book is enshrined, with most powerful 
 poetic setting, the thought which twenty following 
 centuries of religious war and persecution failed to grasp, 
 the idea that in the spiritual world physical force is 
 powerless ; by agencies gentle as the light may a world 
 be conquered for God. As the drama continues, a 
 
THE LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE 73 
 
 change seems to come over the central figure : the 
 servant of Jehovah from a nation becomes a personality 
 that can suffer martyrdom ; yet again it becomes a 
 mystic personality whose sufferings are at last recognized 
 by the nations as vicarious. Another scene pictures a 
 moral chaos : at the point of extremity Jehovah himself 
 resolves to bring salvation. As the strains of the hymn 
 to Redeemed Zion die away, the Redeemer seems to 
 make His entry, announcing His glorious mission (ch. lxi). 
 ‘ The spirit of the Lord God is upon me ; because the 
 Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the 
 meek ; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, 
 to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening 
 of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the 
 acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of 
 our God ; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto 
 them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them a 
 garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, 
 the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.’ 
 From this ministry of healing the drama proceeds 
 on its course to its climax in the Day of Judgement. 
 Thus in this poem the whole spirit of the Old Testament 
 is dramatically gathered up. The nation that was to 
 bring the other nations to its God has, in the course of 
 history, broken down. Its divine mission has risen in a 
 glorified form : the Servant of Jehovah that is to be 
 shall gather in the nations, not by war and conquest, 
 but by the gentle agencies of healing and redemption. 1 
 
 1 World Literature, p. 82 ; cf. The Literary Study of the Bible, p. 435 seq. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 First Contact with America. 
 
 For one who gave himself for the greater part of each 
 year so unreservedly to University Extension as 
 R. G. Moulton did, life was bound to be most strenuous and 
 exacting. Travelling, which even in England sometimes 
 ran into four figures for a week ; three hundred and fifty 
 papers to be marked and commented upon, and six lectures 
 —sometimes nine—to be delivered, each followed by a 
 discussion class : such was his normal weekly programme 
 for two terms of twelve weeks each year from 1874 to 1892, 
 with the exception of the winter of 1891-1892, when he 
 was in America. Take, for instance, his weekly pro¬ 
 gramme during the period from September to December, 
 1891—his last winter’s work in England, as it turned out. 
 On Monday he lectured at Newcastle on ‘ The Literary 
 Study of the Bible,’ and on Tuesday at Middlesbrough on 
 the same subject. On Wednesday morning he travelled 
 to London and lectured at Paddington in the afternoon 
 and Hackney at night on ‘ Stories as a Mode of Thinking ’ ; 
 on Thursday afternoon on ‘ Stories ’ again at the Holloway 
 College, Egham, and on ‘ The Ancient Classical Drama ’ 
 at the Gresham Institute in the City. On Friday he 
 lectured on ‘ The Literary Study of the Bible ’ at the 
 University Hall, Russell Square, in the afternoon, and 
 on the ‘ Stories ’ at Lewisham in the evening; and 
 finished at Cheltenham on Saturday afternoon with the 
 ‘ Bible,’ travelling back to Newcastle in the evening. This 
 
 74 
 
FIRST CONTACT WITH AMERICA 
 
 75 
 
 is a record of remarkable endurance on his part, and of a 
 remarkable demand for his courses ; and it affords an 
 interesting side-light on Prof. Grant’s appreciation. 1 All 
 the time he was engaged on literary work. As has already 
 been pointed out, his books were not the reproductions 
 of his lectures, but his lectures the expression of the book- 
 framework already thought out. In every case, I think 
 I am right in saying, the book form was carefully planned 
 out before the lectures were given—the ‘ lecture test' 
 suggesting only modification of some details. He had 
 already published, through the Oxford Press, his Shake¬ 
 speare as a Dramatic Artist (1885), and the second edition 
 was issued in 1889. In January, 1890, the same publishers 
 issued his Ancient Classical Drama, upon which we find 
 him working most assiduously during the spring of the 
 previous year (1889). A letter indicates that he was bound 
 to deliver the whole by July 31, and he responded by 
 completing the work on July 27. The summer found him, 
 as in some other years, at Oxford for the University 
 Extension Summer Meeting, where he gave nine lectures 
 on ‘ The Ancient Classical Drama.’ Nothing is more 
 noticeable in his lecturing career than the increasing 
 demand for that subject. It was slow in arresting the 
 Extension audiences, but when it did ‘ catch on ’ its 
 success was phenomenal. To sustain an average audience 
 of 700 on such a subject, as he did at Newcastle, was an 
 amazing achievement, and a notable tribute both to him 
 and to them. 
 
 The pressure of work attaching to the production of 
 that work inevitably postponed until the following year 
 the Continental tour which he desired to make a mid-life 
 holiday. Having concluded, as he was wont to express 
 it, one chapter of his life-object, he felt it was desirable 
 before determining the work of the future to think out the 
 
 1 P 3°- 
 
7 6 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 whole question of the life-object again. For that end he 
 considered that nothing was likely to serve his purpose so 
 well as foreign travel, during which his ordinary mental 
 processes would be suspended, while other faculties— e.g., 
 of artistic appreciation, &c.—would receive a new stimulus. 
 He purposed to give a year to foreign travel: he actually 
 gave four months to the Continent of Europe, which he had 
 not visited for some years ; but his tour in America, which 
 he planned ‘ in order to make acquaintance with the other 
 side of the English-reading public,’ developed into a real 
 ‘ campaign ’ of public speaking and lecturing, so that one 
 condition he had laid down for this mid-life holiday— 
 ‘ work dropped ’—was certainly not fulfilled ! His 
 Continental tour was a fairly varied one, embracing 
 Antwerp, Cologne, Dresden, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, 
 Buda-Pesth, Munich, Innsbruck, Florence, Rome, Venice, 
 Milan, Como, Lucerne, Bale, Paris. As might be expected, 
 he got a great deal out of such an experience, and he 
 profited from the fact of being away from work in perfect 
 air and being free to think without any sense of urgency. 
 He revelled in the musical education afforded by opera, 
 and he declared that he had experienced no such sensation 
 of mental growth since his undergraduate days, and the 
 same was true in respect of pictorial art, although in a less 
 degree. 
 
 Up to this time there had been one very serious practical 
 difficulty which seemed to preclude the prospect of a visit 
 to America. An illness in childhood had left the seeds of 
 an affection of the ear labyrinths, which had made sea 
 travel always a very painful experience, and which during 
 the early eighties developed for a time into a serious 
 disability. More than forty years ago, of course, much less 
 was known about this kind of trouble ; and several 
 eminent physicians—and even specialists—although 
 having suspicions aroused by the nature of the symptoms. 
 
FIRST CONTACT WITH AMERICA 
 
 77 
 
 were unable to make an accurate diagnosis. But at last 
 the late Dr. Edward Woakes, of Harley Street, was found 
 able to get to the root of the trouble, and after three or 
 four years there seemed to be every reason to believe that 
 a cure had been accomplished. But whether that was so 
 or not could only be tested by experience ; and it was for 
 this purpose that he and I paid a flying visit to the Orkney 
 Isles. The test was a fairly strenuous one, for the boat 
 on which we had to cross from Thurso was small, and both 
 going and returning we encountered a sea which was very 
 choppy, though not absolutely rough. He stood the test 
 perfectly well, and I remember distinctly how great a 
 relief it was to him in view of his future plans. 
 
 There is no doubt that among the considerations leading 
 up to this visit to America was the desire to give as well 
 as to get. As we have seen, the original plan for the 
 American section of the mid-life holiday included more 
 than the ordinary interests of travelling ; there was the 
 intention to come into living touch, if possible, with that 
 other great portion of the English-speaking world, which 
 also shares that priceless inheritance of literature which 
 had been the subject-matter of R. G. Moulton’s teaching 
 Moreover, the impulse did not come only from his side. 
 His work was not altogether unknown in the United States 
 and Canada, and opportunities of meeting American 
 visitors interested in educational matters were afforded 
 by such gatherings as the meetings of the New Shakspere 
 Society 1 and the Oxford Summer Meetings. Those 
 Oxford meetings, attractive partly because it was Oxford, 
 and partly because of the distinguished lecturers included 
 in the programme, were at this period specially interesting 
 to such visitors from the other side, as they were thus 
 enabled to look more closely into the working of University 
 Extension, which had achieved such conspicuous success 
 
 1 Where R. G. Moulton read annual papers in the period 1885-90. 
 
RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 78 
 
 in England, and which—after scattered experiments in 
 various places in America—was just being organized in 
 certain centres on a more important scale. I remember 
 during one Summer Meeting at Oxford when I was his 
 guest, meeting at breakfast one such moving spirit in 
 American education, who certainly put pressure on him 
 to go over and give encouragement and inspiration to 
 those engaged in similar work in the United States, and 
 to make known there his special views on the study of 
 literature. Thus, while he undoubtedly went for the 
 purpose of getting —further insight into the needs, the 
 possibilities, and the characteristics of the English-speaking 
 races—it is equally true that he went for the purpose of 
 giving. He had the missionary spirit, and University 
 Extension was to him much more than a means of 
 livelihood and a chosen career. It was a mission ; and 
 in like manner Literature was to him much more than one 
 of the garnishings and adornments of a cultivated life. 
 His vision of its high function as the medium for the study 
 (‘ criticism ’) of Life—this was to him a gospel, and a 
 gospel for all. 
 
 One thing is very clear with reference to the visit. 
 He went with no purpose of settling on the other side of 
 the Atlantic ; and although he received offers of various 
 attractive positions of educational influence, this remained 
 a fixed determination with him until in the course of his 
 second visit it was borne in upon him that America was 
 the best sphere for the working out of his ideas. But more 
 wall be said about that later. 
 
 He went to America armed with a large number of 
 personal introductions to people of distinction and of 
 leading, as well as some remarkable tributes from out¬ 
 standing men who had attended his lectures, and knew his 
 gifts. Prof. James Stuart, M.P., to whom reference has 
 already been made in these pages as being the initiator of 
 
FIRST CONTACT WITH AMERICA 
 
 79 
 
 the Cambridge University Extension Movement, gave a 
 warm appreciation of his power to hold and interest while 
 instructing his audience, and bears testimony to his 
 exceptional value to the Movement. But two of these 
 appreciations are worthy of being quoted in full, partly 
 because of the distinction of the names they bear, and 
 partly because they amply explain the standing which he 
 had obtained in his fifteen years of Extension lecturing 
 in England, and also the standing which he so rapidly 
 obtained in America. The first was from Dr. Percival, 
 Head Master of Rugby and afterwards Bishop of Hereford. 
 He writes : ‘ As Mr. R. G. Moulton is about to go to 
 America with the intention of lecturing there, I desire to 
 say that I had the advantage of hearing his lectures on 
 Faust, at the Oxford Summer Meeting of University 
 Extension students in 1888, and I can honestly say that 
 I never in my life listened to a more admirable and 
 enjoyable course of lectures. I knew before hearing 
 Mr. Moulton that he was the most eminent and successful 
 of all the University lecturers, but I was not prepared for 
 the wonderful skill with which he held his large audience 
 entranced day after day. I am glad to think that our 
 English teachers are about to be represented in the States 
 by Mr. Moulton ; and I am using no exaggeration when I 
 say that there is a rare intellectual treat in store for every 
 society which may have the good fortune to secure 
 Mr. Moulton as a lecturer.’ The second was from the great 
 Shakespeare expert, Dr. F. J. Furnivall, Director of the 
 ‘ New Shakspere Society.’ 1 He writes : ‘ The originality 
 and ability of your book, Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, 
 struck me so strongly that I asked you, though a stranger 
 to me, to come on the Committee of the New Shakspere 
 
 1 R. G. Moulton always adhered to the spelling ' Shakespeare ’ ; but 
 this did not seem to render him in the least degree suspect among those 
 who formed the ' New Shakspere Society,’ and who held as tenaciously 
 to the other spelling. 
 
8 o 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 Society and read us some papers. You kindly did come, 
 and when you read your first paper we were all charmed 
 with it and of course printed it. Your admirable delivery 
 of it—that of a trained and eloquent lecturer, with the 
 earnestness and conviction of an enthusiast and a master 
 of his subject—was something new at our meetings ; and 
 your January paper has yearly since been the treat of the 
 season. The reports of friends of mine who have attended 
 your lectures in the provinces more than confirm my own 
 experience of you. They speak with enthusiasm of your 
 influence on them and of how you have stirred them to 
 study. The like testimony reaches me from Oxford. 
 Were I to search all England through I could not pick a 
 better man than you to represent the old country as a 
 lecturer on English Literature in America. Your earnest¬ 
 ness and breadth, combined as they are with your power 
 of delicate analysis, especially fit you for United States 
 audiences.’ 
 
 The schedule of engagements belonging to this visit is 
 an interesting study from many points of view. During 
 his first four weeks in the country he seems to have given 
 only nine lectures, three at Boston University, one at 
 Philadelphia, and five at Baltimore. In the second four 
 weeks he appears to have given twenty-two lectures over 
 an increasing field of influence ; and before he finished the 
 tour—in the third week of April, 1891—he was lecturing 
 two and three times a day, and even then was unable to 
 meet all the demands made upon him. 
 
 It is interesting to note that just at first he had to 
 contend with the Englishman’s not uncommon difficulty 
 in being heard in America, while at the same time there 
 was strong testimony as to his clearness of enunciation. 
 This was no doubt partly due to the difference between 
 the English and American intonation and pronunciation, 
 although a prominent Bostonian told him ‘ Your English 
 
FIRST CONTACT WITH AMERICA 
 
 81 
 
 brogue is not offensively strong.’ But most of his lectures 
 were on subjects of a dramatic character, and at that 
 time general audiences were unaccustomed to the rapid 
 changes of intonation required in the ‘ Interpretative 
 Recital,’ which he had worked out for himself as a most 
 effective medium for the presentation of a whole dramatic 
 work in one view. But this difficulty, once realized, was 
 speedily surmounted, and from many records of this 
 period it is evident that as a public speaker he was par¬ 
 ticularly acceptable to American audiences. 
 
 In order fully to explain the uniqueness of the oppor¬ 
 tunity opened to this visiting English lecturer, it is 
 necessary to say something as to the stage of development 
 at which the University Extension idea had arrived in the 
 United States. As in England before the scheme of Prof. 
 Stuart took shape in 1873, so in various parts of the United 
 States there are recorded isolated experiments in extending 
 the field of University teaching. But during 1890 most 
 important steps towards organization were being taken, 
 Dr. William Pepper, distinguished Provost of the 
 University of Pennsylvania from 1881 to 1894, being the 
 moving spirit. Some years earlier he had inaugurated 
 ‘ The University Lecture Association ... to bring the 
 University and the Community into closer sympathy.’ In 
 the wider idea of University Extension he saw also 
 ' an opportunity for co-operation among academic insti¬ 
 tutions. ’ 1 Under his leadership was formed inPhiladelphia 
 the Society under whose auspices a meeting was held on 
 November 19, 1890, to arouse interest in the movement. 
 ' Among the notable speeches . . . were those by him ’ 
 (Dr. Pepper), ‘ by the President of Princeton University, 
 and by Dr. Moulton, who at that time was about to 
 inaugurate in Philadelphia his first lectures on Literature. 
 
 1 From the Life of William Pepper, M.D., LL.D., by Francis Newton 
 Thorpe. (Lippincott, 1904.) 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 The effect of Dr. Moulton’s speech was immediate. Many 
 joined the Society, and its purpose was more widely and 
 correctly understood.’ 1 The Society thus formed became 
 in December, 1890, ‘ The American Society for the 
 Extension of University Teaching,’ the presidents of many 
 leading institutions of learning being members of its 
 Governing Council from the first. By June, 1891, nearly 
 eighty of the most important universities and colleges in 
 the United States—from east to west and north to 
 south—had ' signified a willingness to co-operate with 
 the American Society,’ which was an important step in 
 advance. 
 
 It will be seen that R. G. Moulton reached the Eastern 
 United States just when the field was prepared for the 
 use of exactly such talents and experience as his, and he 
 often spoke of the deep satisfaction it had been to him to 
 be able to take the great opportunity which opened before 
 him. In November, 1890, Provost Pepper proposed that 
 he should get rid of sporadic lecturing and give all his 
 time to the Society for the remainder of the season. 
 Engagements already made in Boston, Baltimore, Wash¬ 
 ington and other places had to be fitted in, but by arrange¬ 
 ment a period of ten weeks, beginning with January 26, 
 1891, was practically cleared and placed at the disposal of 
 the Society. Most of the courses given were of six 
 lectures, some of four ; while, as a means of introducing 
 the University Extension idea, short ‘ campaigns,’ each 
 consisting of one explanatory address and one or two 
 lectures illustrating the method, were found most effective, 
 and these were arranged in many places. 
 
 There was immediate recognition of the value of all 
 this work, the clear and artistic presentation of the 
 subject-matter being especially appreciated. As an English 
 
 1 From the Life of William Pepper, M.D., LL.D., by Francis Newton 
 Thorpe. (Lippincott, 1904.) 
 
FIRST CONTACT WITH AMERICA 
 
 83 
 
 exponent of literature he was placed in the highest rank, 
 and it was declared by educational authorities, and in 
 the press, that no Englishman had ever rendered such 
 services to education in America. Discriminating testi¬ 
 mony, as well to the personal impression as to the effect 
 produced by the ‘ missionary ’ character of the work, 
 abounds in educational and literary journals of the period. 
 An article in Book News (Philadelphia) for May, 1891, 
 contains the following : 
 
 In the constant practice of the lecture stand he has 
 acquired the dramatic and declamatory powers which 
 have amazed those unaware of all that can be done to 
 render scholarship interesting by enlisting in the service 
 arts usually devoted to amusing, and neglected in 
 instructing audiences. He has added to these brilliant 
 accomplishments a scholarship, broad, catholic, and 
 embracing. He has shown that it is possible to read 
 extracts from a play better than they are given on the 
 stage, and at the same time comment on them with a 
 penetrating criticism equal to all the efforts of the 
 study. From our American audiences, whose superior 
 penetration of the subtler phases of acting every English 
 actor—from Mr. Irving down—has noted, Mr. Moulton 
 has received appreciation as complimentary to his 
 audiences as to himself. In Boston and in Philadelphia 
 —in one city as much as the other—he has drawn 
 audiences at hours when halls are usually empty, and 
 won approval from newspapers which devote but little 
 attention to the lecture platform. . . . Literary per¬ 
 ception, dramatic presentation, and the enthusiasm of 
 the itinerant, have made Mr. Moulton's work successful 
 in England and notable in this country. 
 
 From the University Extension point of view the following 
 extracts are interesting—taken from an account of the 
 movement and the early days of the American Society, 
 
84 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 published in the Philadelphia Public Ledger of March 28, 
 1891 : 
 
 This rapid growth was due in great part to the visit 
 to this country of Mr. Richard G. Moulton, of the 
 University of Cambridge. This remarkable man, who 
 has served as a true apostle to the movement in this 
 country, . . . threw himself into the work with a zeal and 
 energy which overcame all obstacles. ... He began at 
 once the work of lecturing and teaching with a devotion 
 that seemed almost incredible. His audiences steadily 
 grew, not only in size but in interest, as the weeks 
 passed by. Lecturing and teaching twice and even 
 three times a day, his time was given up almost wholly 
 to the work, yet somehow he managed to find oppor¬ 
 tunity to encourage educational work in other places 
 and in other directions, and to counsel and warn the 
 local committees and the central body as to their best 
 course. His strength and energy seemed exhaustless, 
 yet his large audiences always found him ready for the 
 two hours’ hard work of lecturing and of answering 
 questions, and those who furnished written answers 
 found them surveyed with a more critical eye and 
 annotated with far more care than the average college 
 student finds his tutor gives to such work. . . . But 
 he was imbued with the true missionary spirit, and 
 difficulties and trials only seemed to stimulate him to 
 further exertions. 
 
 The Philadelphia engagement ended early in April, 
 1891, and the fourteen remaining days in the United States 
 were occupied in fulfilling promises to speak in several 
 universities and colleges, and in giving another important 
 series of lectures in Boston, where he was greatly appre¬ 
 ciated as an exponent both of literature and of the 
 University Extension idea. One leading writer, in a 
 laudatory letter to the editor of the Boston Evening 
 Transcript, says : ‘ If “ University Extension ” means 
 
FIRST CONTACT WITH AMERICA 
 
 85 
 
 lectures such as these, would that " University Extension ” 
 were as compulsory as common school education ! ’ 
 
 On April 18, 1891, he sailed for England. Viewing the 
 whole visit in the light of his original purpose, he had 
 every reason to be more than satisfied, although geo¬ 
 graphically the tour had of necessity been restricted to the 
 Eastern States—many places that had been in the original 
 plan being left unvisited. In the few months he had, 
 however, come in contact with many of the great leaders 
 in education, and gained much by the exchange of ideas. 
 Also the originality of his own special ideas on the study 
 and method of teaching literature had been recognized to 
 an extent that must have been very gratifying. Moreover, 
 it had been a joy to him to have so great a part in the 
 launching in America of University Extension. He had 
 also made an important departure with reference to the 
 presentation of the Bible as Literature ; and the response 
 had been immediate and astonishing. One expression of 
 the high value set upon his services in the educational 
 field gave him peculiar pleasure, because it was expressly 
 stated to be in recognition of ‘ work done ’ during the 
 period, and because of its appropriateness to the bent of 
 his mind. After the close of the academic year of the 
 University of Pennsylvania he received a letter from 
 Provost Pepper, from which the following is an extract: 
 
 ‘ It affords me great pleasure to inform you that at the 
 last Commencement Exercises of the University of 
 Pennsylvania I was authorized to confer upon you, in 
 absentia, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, causa 
 honoris.’ 
 
 A propos of various opportunities to remain permanently 
 in America, which were known to have been offered to 
 R. G. Moulton, one ‘ interviewer ’ records in February, 
 1891, this remark : ' Mr. Moulton has said that he thinks 
 that his life-work is in England.’ And yet in his own 
 
86 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 memoranda, under the date of January 26, 1891, appears 
 the following : ‘ Concluded contract with University of 
 
 Chicago to give the academic year 1892-3 to assisting start, 
 including University Extension—they to control all 
 lecturing engagements for the year—to be followed in 
 summer by Chautauqua work—either party to back out 
 on unforeseen contingencies.’ This momentous decision, 
 which shaped the rest of his life, was an undertaking given 
 to a body which did not exist, to help a department of 
 work which had not been created, on the earnest solicitation 
 of a President who had not been appointed ! He might 
 have had a dozen posts in the educational life of America 
 not only for the asking but for just saying ‘ Yes,’ and yet 
 he accepted this invitation in respect of something that 
 seemed to be altogether in the air. What was behind it ? 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Chicago 
 
 It was Chicago which was to be for the next twenty-five 
 years and more the centre at which R. G. Moulton was 
 located. From there he was to carry on unceasingly his 
 missionary activities in connexion with the cause of 
 education in general and the advancement of the study 
 of Literature in particular. There too he was to have the 
 opportunity in some measure to put into organized practical 
 operation his special theories. 
 
 For the very reason that the University of Chicago 
 bulked so large in his career—and in his affections—a 
 passing glance must be cast at the fortunes and mis¬ 
 fortunes of this great metropolis of the Western States, 
 especially in so far as they bear upon the matter under 
 consideration. In 1837 the population of Chicago was 
 only that of a small market town—just over four thousand. 
 Within the next forty years it passed through the agony 
 of the Civil War ; encountered at least two periods of 
 widespread financial panic, in 1857 an d 1873 I was wrecked 
 by two devastating fires in 1871 and 1874 ; and yet 
 before the close of the century it could point to a University 
 second to none in the intellectual distinction of its teachers 
 and the far-reaching character of its manifold activities, 
 and equipped with buildings and plant representing 
 benefactions running into many millions of dollars. The 
 impression left by The Story of the University of Chicago, 
 as told by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed, is one of amazing 
 
 87 
 
88 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 recuperative power and of astonishing public spirit on the 
 part of Chicago’s leading citizens. 1 
 
 It was in 1856 that .Senator S. A. Douglas donated a 
 valuable site of about ten acres for the establishment of a 
 university in Chicago. The story of its chequered career 
 cannot be set forth here. Suffice it to say that the period 
 of its existence synchronized with that of the fivefold 
 disasters referred to above. However great the ability 
 and worth of those who stood sponsor for the enterprise, 
 it had not a fighting chance against such odds, and it was 
 soon heavily encumbered with debt. In a painfully 
 literal sense it ' began to build and was not able to finish,’ 
 and in 1886 it closed down ; not, however, before it had, 
 to use Dr. Goodspeed’s phrase, ‘ produced a profound con¬ 
 viction that Chicago was the predestined seat of a great 
 institution of learning, and the inextinguishable desire and 
 unalterable purpose that a new University, built on more 
 secure foundations, and offering greater and better 
 facilities, should succeed the old one.’ 
 
 Equally inseparable from the story of the genesis of the 
 present University of Chicago were the institution of the 
 Baptist Theological .Seminary, and, later, the activities 
 of the American Baptist Education Society. It should 
 not be forgotten that, although it has been from the first 
 catholic in the truest and richest sense, the University of 
 Chicago owes its inception to Baptist initiative, and was 
 in the first instance made possible by Baptist munificence, 
 and was settled upon trust-deeds which provided for two- 
 thirds of the Trustees and also the President being Baptists. ! 
 
 1 The Story of the University of Chicago, 1890—1925. By T. W. 
 Goodspeed. (Cambridge University Press.) 
 
 1 In 1923 an amendment of the Articles of Incorporation was made 
 in respect to this matter. President Burton, in his Convocation 
 Statement on June 12, 1923, made the following announcement: 
 ' At the request of the University, the Board of Education of the 
 Northern Baptist Convention, the corporation which in 1889-90 founded 
 the University, at its meeting in Atlantic City, May 26, gave its consent 
 
CHICAGO 
 
 8 g 
 
 The Seminary had suffered during its early years in much 
 the same way as the old University, and possibly from the 
 same causes, and it was only after its removal to Morgan 
 Park in 1877 that it threw off its embarrassments. 
 
 Two names will always stand by themselves among those 
 who made this enterprise into what it is ; and both of 
 them came in along the lines hinted at in the last para¬ 
 graph. One was John D. Rockefeller, who was a generous 
 patron of Morgan Park, and for nine years Vice-President 
 of the Baptist Theological Union. Mr. Rockefeller is too 
 familiar a figure to the world to need any general introduc¬ 
 tion to any readers. But his relations to those matters 
 touching the projected University reveal a side of him 
 which calls for special notice. He was much more than a 
 lavish donor to a scheme which he made his hobby. The 
 detailed records as presented in the pages of Dr. Good- 
 speed’s book reveal a man acting on deep conviction, and 
 full of an intelligent, and what the old Puritans would 
 call a ' painful,’ interest in the prospect for its own sake. 
 His position among American Baptists made it natural and 
 inevitable that he should be approached as the one man 
 who was most able to serve the denomination in its 
 educational schemes. But the story of that approach 
 leaves the impression of a man who is not to be argued 
 into a decision, but who listens, gathers information, 
 masters the facts—and makes no definite response other 
 than that of courteous appreciation until his mind has 
 grasped the whole situation and has presented a conclusive 
 case to his affections, his conscience and his will. When 
 
 to the revision of one of the original Articles of Incorporation of the 
 University. This original article provided that “ at all times two-thirds 
 of the Trustees and also the President of the University shall be members 
 of regular Baptist churches.” By the action of the Board all restrictions 
 on the choice of President will be removed, and the proportion of 
 Trustees required to be Baptists will be changed from two-thirds to 
 three-fifths, the total number being at the same time raised to twenty- 
 five.’ 
 
go 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 once that was achieved he gave his help with a lavish hand, 
 and the University is a lasting monument to the fact. 
 ‘ When,’ to quote from the same source, ‘ in November, 
 1892, the Board of Trustees “ voted unanimously that in 
 recognition of the fact that the University owes its 
 existence and its endowment to Mr. Rockefeller, the words 
 Founded by John D. Rockefeller be printed in all official 
 publications and letter-heads under the name of the 
 University, and be put upon the Seal,” it expressed far 
 less than the full truth. Other institutions have been 
 founded by some particular man. They might have been 
 founded by some other man just as well. But there was 
 no other man to do for the University of Chicago what 
 Mr. Rockefeller did for it. Without him an educational 
 institution of some kind might have been established, but 
 nothing resembling the University of Chicago. For 
 bringing that institution into existence he was the one 
 essential man.’ 
 
 But while that is wholly true on the one side, on the 
 other there stands out as equally essential, in an utterly 
 different way, William Rainey Harper, first President of 
 the University. His was an amazing story of a life cut 
 short before he reached his fiftieth birthday, but crammed 
 full of rich and varied service, and of noble and lasting 
 achievements. Born in July, 1856, he was at college 
 when only ten, and graduated with special distinction in 
 Hebrew at fourteen. In his nineteenth year he took his 
 doctorate in Philosophy at Yale, married the daughter of 
 his college president at Muskingum, Ohio, and was 
 appointed Principal of the Masonic College, Macon, 
 Tennessee. At twenty-three he was elected Hebrew 
 Professor at Morgan Park, after spending three fruitful 
 years under Dr. E. B. Andrews at Denison University, 
 Granville, Ohio. After seven years at Morgan Park he 
 went to Yale as Professor of Semitic Languages, and there 
 
CHICAGO 
 
 9 i 
 
 he stayed until he was called in 1891 to the presidency of a 
 University which as yet had no buildings and no students, 
 but which he lived to see thronged with thousands of 
 students and equipped with several million dollars’ worth 
 of plant, extending on all sides each year. It is not quite 
 easy to discern the degree to which Mr. Rockefeller and 
 Dr. Harper influenced each other’s decision in respect 
 of the University that was to be, but there are suggestions 
 that as early as 1888 Mr. Rockefeller’s own share in the 
 matter seemed to be in some degree conditioned by Dr. 
 Harper’s being in it too. At the same period Dr. Harper 
 seems to have scouted all suggestions from his friends that 
 he would be the first President if the Chicago scheme 
 materialized : but in July, 1889, he writes : ‘You may be 
 sure I am thinking and dreaming and doing nothing but 
 this Chicago matter.’ With him at that stage it was 
 largely a matter of the financial possibilities of the scheme. 
 His enthusiasm for instruction in Hebrew being the out¬ 
 standing feature of his teaching career from first to last, 
 and, having the struggles and troubles of the old University 
 fresh in his mind, he shrank from the prospect of turning 
 aside from his life-work to serving tables and tackling 
 debts ; and his feeling was natural and justifiable. How¬ 
 ever, after much consideration and negotiation, a satis¬ 
 factory answer was found to the fundamental question— 
 ' How could Dr. Harper become President of a University 
 in Chicago, and at the same time not practically renounce 
 his chosen life-work of Old Testament research, criticism 
 and instruction ? ’ Gradually a plan was evolved which 
 provided (a) for the Theological Seminary to become an 
 organic part of the new University and eventually to be 
 removed to the campus ; ( b ) for instruction in Hebrew 
 and Old Testament Criticism to be transferred to 
 University chairs, with Dr. Harper as Head Professor, 
 with full authority over that department; (c) for a new 
 
92 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 unconditional gift of one million dollars to aid this and 
 other parts of the programme. On September 18, 1890, 
 the Board of Trustees had formally invited Dr. Harper 
 to accept the presidency, but it was not until February 28, 
 1891, that he intimated his formal acceptance of the post. 
 It is interesting to note that this latter date is more than 
 a month after the date on which R. G. Moulton had, in an 
 interview with Dr. Harper at Washington, entered into 
 the arrangement conditional on both sides—by which he 
 was to give an academic year to assisting the new Univer¬ 
 sity of Chicago ! Moreover, the date for the commencement 
 of Dr. Harper’s duties was fixed as July 1, 1891, and the 
 University was not to open its doors to students until 
 October 1, 1892. It is evident that during his period of 
 indecision Dr. Harper had already taken some steps 
 towards ascertaining what assistance in his great under¬ 
 taking might be available. 
 
 Before passing on to see Dr. Harper’s mind at work in 
 framing the University, a glance should be cast on those 
 who, in addition to Mr. Rockefeller, stood by him in the 
 project I mean the Board of Trustees. They were mostly 
 men who occupied responsible positions in Chicago, and 
 some lived as far away as New \ ork : while during the 
 most crucial years of organization five of them were at 
 the same time serving as Directors of the World’s Colum¬ 
 bian Exposition. Yet in spite of all these claims on their 
 time and energy, such was their devotion that during a 
 period of ten years two hundred and fifty meetings showed 
 an average attendance of twelve or thirteen out of a 
 possible total of twenty-one. Every imaginable subject 
 of both an educational and business character was 
 presented to the Board for its consideration, and the 
 magnitude of their task is indicated by the fact that the 
 sums which passed through their hands for investment and 
 re-investment amounted to about fifteen million dollars 
 
CHICAGO 
 
 93 
 
 during the ten years, while the expenditure which they had 
 to supervise over that period amounted to five million 
 dollars. Further, it is to be remembered that 1893 was 
 a year of financial panic : ‘ and it was not altogether 
 certain that the new institution could meet the heavy 
 demands made upon it in view of the generous scale on 
 which it had been started. In these times of crisis the 
 strength and courage of the Trustees individually and 
 collectively appeared at its best.’ 1 The benefactions up 
 to June 30, 1902, amounted to seventeen and a half 
 million dollars, of which nearly six millions were given 
 by others than Mr. Rockefeller, mostly by citizens of 
 Chicago. At one time a considerable measure of doubt 
 was felt as to ‘ whether the citizens of Chicago would 
 rally to the support of an institution established so closely 
 in connexion with a single denomination and assisted so 
 generously by one man. The history of other institutions 
 organized wholly or in part along the same lines was not 
 encouraging, and the very fact that Mr. Rockefeller was 
 understood to be able to furnish all the money that might 
 be needed was a source of difficulty; but the people of 
 Chicago exhibited in this matter great breadth of mind 
 and intelligence. Moved by the example of a few men 
 known throughout the country for their large and generous 
 consideration of important questions, the public at 
 large soon came into friendly relationship with the 
 University.’ 
 
 In connexion with this matter of benefactions it is 
 interesting to note President Harper’s exposition, in this 
 same document, of what may be called the ethical basis of 
 benefactions, and the status of benefactors: 
 
 1 From The President's Report issued in connexion with the Decennial 
 Celebrations, 1902. Much that is written concerning the ‘genius' of 
 the University in the following pages is more or less based upon what 
 Dr. Harper wrote in that illuminating production—which deserved 
 some kindlier designation than ' Report ’ ! 
 
94 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 It is my opinion that no donor of money to a univers¬ 
 ity, whether that donor be an individual or the state, 
 has any right before God or man to interfere with the 
 teaching of officers appointed to give instruction in a 
 university. When for any reason, in a university on 
 private foundation, or in a university supported by 
 public money, the administration of the institution or 
 the instruction in any one of its departments is changed 
 by an influence from without ; when an effort is made 
 to dislodge an officer or a professor because the political 
 sentiment or the religious sentiment of the majority has 
 undergone a change, at that moment the institution 
 has ceased to be a university, and it cannot again take 
 its place in the rank of universities so long as there 
 continues to exist, to any appreciable extent, the factor 
 of coercion. Neither an individual, nor the state, nor 
 the church has the right to interfere with the search 
 for truth, or with its promulgation when found. 
 Individuals, or the state, or the church may found 
 schools for propagating certain kinds of instruction, 
 but such schools are not universities, and may not be 
 so denominated. A donor has the privilege of ceasing 
 to make his gifts to an institution if, in his opinion, for 
 any reason, the work of the institution is not satisfactory; 
 but as donor he has no right to interfere with the 
 administration or the instruction of the university. . . . 
 In order to be specific, and in order not to be misunder¬ 
 stood, I wish to say that no donor of funds to the 
 University—and I include among the donors the founder 
 of the University, Mr. Rockefeller—has ever by a single 
 word or act indicated his dissatisfaction with the 
 instruction given to students in the University, or with 
 the public expression of opinion made by an officer of 
 the University. 
 
 This is a pronouncement of considerable importance, 
 not merely because it embodies Dr. Harper’s conception 
 of a University but also because the first plan was for the 
 
CHICAGO 
 
 95 
 
 establishment of a College, not a University. But what 
 about the use and abuse of the right of free expression by 
 officers of the University staff—which is another aspect 
 of the same question ? A companion pronouncement to 
 the above, on this subject of general interest, throws one 
 more sidelight on the mind of Dr. Harper. After laying 
 down the absolute right of the University instructor to 
 express his opinion ; and the equally absolute right of 
 the University, in the case of an instructor engaged for a 
 term of years, to allow the appointment to lapse when the 
 period has expired, if it thinks fit, he goes on to say : 
 
 If an officer on permanent appointment abuses his 
 privilege as a professor, the University must suffer, and 
 it is proper that it should suffer. This is only the 
 direct and inevitable consequence of the lack of proper 
 foresight and wisdom involved in the original appoint¬ 
 ment. The injury thus accruing to the University is, 
 moreover, far less serious than would follow if, for an 
 expression of opinion differing from that of the majority 
 of the faculty, or from that of the Board of Trustees, 
 or from that of the President of the University, a 
 permanent officer were asked to present his resignation. 
 The greatest single element necessary for the cultivation 
 of the academic spirit is the feeling of security from 
 interference. It is only those who have this feeling 
 who are able to do work which in the highest sense will 
 be beneficial to humanity. Freedom of expression must 
 be given the members of a university faculty, even 
 though it be abused ; for, as has been said, the abuse 
 of it is not so great an evil as the restriction of such 
 liberty. But it may be asked : In what way may the 
 professor abuse his privilege of freedom of expression ? 
 Or, to put the question more largely, In what way does 
 a professor bring reproach and injury to himself and to 
 his institution ? I answer : A professor is guilty of an 
 abuse of his privilege who promulgates as truth ideas or 
 
96 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 opinions which have not been tested scientifically by 
 his colleagues in the same department of research or 
 investigation. ... A professor abuses his privilege 
 who takes advantage of a classroom exercise to propagate 
 the partisan views of one or another of the political 
 parties. ... A professor abuses his privilege of expres¬ 
 sion of opinion when, although a student and perhaps 
 an authority in one department or group of departments, 
 he undertakes to speak authoritatively on subjects 
 which have no relationship to the department in which 
 he was appointed to give instruction. ... A professor 
 abuses his privilege of freedom of expression when he 
 fails to exercise that quality ordinarily called common 
 sense, which, it must be confessed, in some cases the 
 professor lacks. A professor ought not to make such 
 an exhibition of his weakness, or to make such an 
 exhibition of his weakness so many times, that the 
 attention of the public at large is called to the fact. 
 In this respect he has no larger liberty than other 
 men. 
 
 As we have seen, the first million-dollar fund was raised 
 for the establishment of a college. But, as Dr. Goodspeed 
 puts it, ‘ For the first and only time in Dr. Harper’s life, 
 his prolific mind seemed to be barren of ideas ... he 
 found himself unable to think in terms of a college—for 
 undergraduate students only. No sooner, however, had 
 Mr. Rockefeller added a million dollars to the funds for 
 the purpose of making the college a true University than 
 Dr. Harper’s mind became very busy.’ Before the 
 University actually came into operation he had thought it 
 all out in terms of (i) The University proper; (2) The 
 University Extension ; (3) The University Press ; (4) The 
 University Libraries, Laboratories, and Museums ; (5) The 
 University affiliations. It will be seen at once how this 
 fivefold formation expressed what was so vital a considera¬ 
 tion to him—the obligation of a university to the outsider. 
 
CHICAGO 
 
 97 
 
 Se|f-centredness is always the snare of such an institution 
 —the absorption in its own life and work ; and against 
 this he resolutely set himself. 
 
 The same attitude is manifest with reference to the 
 distribution of the Academic Year, which was divided into 
 four quarters, eventually arranged to consist of rather more 
 than eleven weeks each. Members of the faculties are 
 only expected to lecture, and students to attend, in three 
 of these quarters, but Dr. Harper felt strongly the advan¬ 
 tages of so elastic a system. 
 
 After pointing out that in the climate of Chicago there 
 is no season more suitable for work than the summer, he 
 proceeds : 
 
 This plan of a continuous session secures certain 
 advantages which are denied in institutions open only 
 three-fourths of the year. It will permit the admission 
 of students to the University at several times during 
 the year, rather than at one time only, the arrangement 
 of courses having already been made with this object 
 in view. It will enable students who have lost time 
 because of illness to make up the lost work, without 
 further injury to their health or detriment to the subject 
 studied. ... It will permit students to be absent from 
 the University during those portions of the year in which 
 they can to best advantage occupy themselves in 
 procuring means with which to continue the course. . . . 
 It will provide an opportunity for professors in smaller 
 institutions, teachers in academies and high schools, 
 ministers and others, who under the existing system 
 cannot attend a college or a university, to avail them¬ 
 selves of the opportunity of University residence. 
 
 Much more might be said with reference to President 
 Harper’s originality in framing his plans for getting the 
 most out of the University ; but enough has been said to 
 indicate how far-sighted and full of promise they were for 
 
 G 
 
RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 98 
 
 what Professor T. C. Chamberlin calls ' the evolution of a 
 true University in the largest sense, with scholastic 
 sympathies as broad as the limits of inquiry, with altruistic 
 devotion as broad as humanity.’ 
 
 And it is not the least conspicuous element in a story of 
 this University that it affords the spectacle of a great 
 institution built up from nothing into a richly-equipped 
 University thronged by thousands of students ; and all 
 the main lines worked out according to the scheme of one 
 man, and, subject to continual expansion which probably 
 will never cease, realized or set in train during the fifteen 
 years in which he occupied the post of President. 
 
 Before passing on to R. G. Moulton’s special part in this 
 great undertaking, something should be said about the 
 band of men whom President Harper persuaded to join 
 him in the great adventure. In the address from which 
 quotation has been made, Professor Chamberlin said : 
 
 To the task of organizing the new University the 
 Faculty came together from the four quarters of the 
 earth. Rarely, if ever, at the inauguration of an 
 institution of learning, have there gathered from so 
 many lands men of such varied academic experiences 
 and such diverse points of view. Not only from the 
 east and west, the north and the south, of our own conti¬ 
 nent, but from the Old World and from far-away lands, 
 men and women, rich in experience, serious in purpose, 
 came together to counsel and to construct. There 
 were indeed antagonistic views and sharp challenges of 
 the educational worth of both the old and the new. 
 With apologies to Kipling, the East was East, and the 
 West was West, but the twain did meet and fuse into 
 an alloy strong and fit. 
 
 Our great first President, like a skilled metallurgist, 
 summoned each and all to cast into the melting-pot his 
 contribution to the issues in hand. With masterly skill 
 he stirred the heterogeneous ingredients and watched 
 
CHICAGO 
 
 99 
 
 with obvious delight the fusing process as the fires grew 
 hot. There were seethings and vaporings, but when 
 these had passed off there remained the goodly residue 
 sought. Tried thus in the crucible of conflict, the 
 seasoned product was cast into the moulds which were 
 to give shape to the policies and practices, the statutes 
 and regulations, of the young institution. 
 
 Not infrequently the first castings ill fitted the places 
 for which they were devised, but they were promptly 
 thrown again into the furnace and recast in better moulds. 
 And so the mechanism of the young University, planned 
 in the main by our great leader, but bearing, in large 
 degree, the impress of each and all, grew rapidly into an 
 organization of unusual efficiency. 
 
 Such was the fellowship of inspiration and sphere of 
 service into which R. G. Moulton was led to enter. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A Strenuous Ministry. 
 
 It is not surprising that President Harper should have 
 been attracted to R. G. Moulton. Here was a man who 
 had undoubtedly made good in England under conditions 
 which had effectively demonstrated his power to interest 
 and illuminate audiences along a line essentially his own. 
 That this was not a merely English achievement had been 
 shown b\ T the fact that his first lecturing tour in the States 
 had proved a growing success, manifest even in the early 
 weeks which preceded the fateful interview with Dr. 
 Harper in the Christmas vacation, 1890-91. But there 
 was beyond this something eminently personal which 
 commended the English lecturer to the great American 
 educationalist. Over and over again in Dr. Edgar J. 
 Goodspeed’s bibliography in the William Rainey Harper 
 memorial number of the Biblical World occurs the word 
 * inductive ’ in the title of a book. There are, e.g.. An 
 Inductive Latin Method, An Inductive Greek Method, 
 Inductive Bible Stories, Inductive Studies in English. The 
 point may be a small one, but it is impossible not to find 
 in it a meeting ground between President Harper and the 
 champion of the Inductive Stud}? of Literature. As we 
 have seen, it is probable that in the course of about two 
 years before the opening of the University of Chicago the 
 President had been seeking out those who would be most 
 likely to achieve the educational purposes upon which his 
 mind was set ; and here was one after his own heart. 
 
 IOO 
 
A STRENUOUS MINISTRY 
 
 xor 
 
 He found him on the held common to them both—that of 
 University Extension, which we have already seen to be 
 part of Dr. Harper's cherished projects for the University 
 which was to be. 
 
 It is equally certain that R. G. Moulton was immediately 
 impressed and attracted by Dr. Harper, for whom his 
 admiration continued to grow throughout the whole of 
 their association. Because of his determination at that 
 time 1 1890—91’ not to settle permanently away from 
 England, he declined to consider the offer of a chair in the 
 proposed new University of Chicago, but allowed himself 
 to enter into the conditional agreement to rive one rear's 
 help at the start. He used to relate how, in the course of a 
 night railway journey after the interview, he began to 
 regret hawing committed himself even so far. and decided 
 to write at once asking to be allowed to withdraw from ins 
 undertaking. However, in the momiug came the redac¬ 
 tion : 1 After all, it is only for a year ! ’ Had that letter 
 been written, how cmerent the rest of the life-storv might 
 have been ! For it needed only a few months of the 
 atmosphere or the Middle West—literallv and metaphoric¬ 
 ally stimulating—to produce the absolute comiction that 
 in America he would find the best field for his work. From 
 Philadelphia in 1891 he had written : ‘ People are open to 
 ideas as to literary study in general, which is my real 
 interest in life, even L mversity Extension being secondary 
 to this. In nearly all the positions odered to him during 
 these two or three years opportunities would have been 
 afforded for earning out, at least in some measure, his 
 ideas along both these hues. But growth was more likely 
 to be achieved where all the planting was new than ^ 
 ground where the space was ahead}- occupied. This was 
 one reason, therefore, why proposals made bv President 
 Harper attracted him more than those made bv any other 
 of the six universities from which he received definite 
 
102 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 offers at this time. He was, however, bound by promises 
 made in 1891 to give full consideration to two others 
 before definitely settling with Chicago. Owing to this 
 fact, and to the tremendous pressure of work amid entirely 
 new conditions, progress was slow in regard to final settle¬ 
 ment of the terms of the engagement. Opportunities for 
 discussion with the President were few : ‘ We are both so 
 busy that we can seldom get a chance to talk matters over.' 
 
 Time being so very fully occupied, it is interesting to see 
 how he used the very small amount available for relaxa¬ 
 tion. In reply to a question about the buildings in course 
 of erection for the great World’s Fair of 1893, he writes 
 (December, 1892) : ‘ I have not yet been in the grounds, 
 though the gate is not a quarter of a mile away, and I go 
 close up to it every time I take the train : I am rapidly 
 becoming a machine with two tunes, work and music.' 
 The music ‘ tune ' is referred to later as ‘ the delight of the 
 week, and my only relaxation : Friday afternoon and 
 Saturday night, the Thomas Concerts.’ As to the World’s 
 Fair : ‘ I am informed that I have been made one of the 
 “ Advisory Council ” on the matter of Religious Congresses, 
 but I fear my part will be limited to making a single 
 suggestion, which has been acknowledged as “ accept¬ 
 able ”—that is, I presume, the phrase for shelving.' 
 Beyond this, for reasons that appear below, his enjoyment 
 of the great Exposition was limited to appreciation of 
 some of the architecture after the doors were closed—the 
 tout ensemble for a short time, and afterwards especially 
 the Field Museum, which remained in stately beauty amid 
 its setting of park and lake for many years. 
 
 With external work crowding his time in such a way, it 
 is not surprising that he sought and obtained release from 
 such Spring Quarter and Chautauqua engagements as 
 had been under consideration, so as to have time for the 
 section of his life-work which was definitely in hand. 
 
A STRENUOUS MINISTRY 
 
 103 
 
 With characteristic devotion to the magnum opus of the 
 moment, he arranged with President Harper for postpone¬ 
 ment of the negotiations concerning his proposed position 
 in the University until he should return from England in 
 December, 1893. He then fulfilled some engagements in 
 the East, among them being—in Philadelphia—a special 
 course of three lectures given in response to an invitation 
 signed by several college and university Presidents and 
 other prominent ‘ educators,’ to explain his ‘ own method 
 of literary study, criticism, and interpretation.’ 
 
 The eight months in England thus secured were devoted 
 to his book on The Literary Study of the Bible , 1 the 
 importance of which subject in all schemes of education 
 had been pressing upon him more and more. Interpreta¬ 
 tive recitals and lectures during his first visit to the 
 United States had been very successful. On his return to 
 England in 1891, finding the University Extension 
 authorities at Cambridge not at that time able to include 
 in their lists such courses by a layman, he had made 
 independent arrangements for the season 1891-92, describ¬ 
 ing himself as ‘ Late Lecturer to Cambridge University 
 Extension,’ although he did not really resign until three 
 years later, on accepting the permanent position in 
 Chicago. A total of about one hundred and fifty Bible 
 lectures were given—over twenty courses of six lectures 
 or more, including (1892) the London University Extension 
 Summer Course in Literature, and courses on the same 
 subject at the Summer Meetings of Oxford and Edinburgh. 
 He had, therefore, been able to apply a thorough and most 
 satisfactory ‘ lecture-test' to the results of his investiga¬ 
 tion of Biblical literary forms, and the eight months’ work 
 in 1893 was all that was necessary to complete this text¬ 
 book on the subject, publication of which had already been 
 undertaken by Messrs. D. C. Heath & Co., of Boston. 
 
 Thus, when R. G. Moulton reached Chicago again, in 
 
104 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 December, 1893, it was with a mind free to throw himself 
 fully into organizing within University walls that depart¬ 
 ment of a complete education which he felt to be so 
 unsatisfactorily represented or entirely lacking in existing 
 schemes. But the year 1893 had been a year of financial 
 panic, the effects of which continued for some years ; and 
 when negotiations were resumed it was found not only 
 that the sum previously assumed as financial basis was 
 outside the strict limits now insisted upon by the Trustees, 
 but also that they were naturally somewhat chary of 
 launching out with a new department on the scale which 
 both the President and the Professor-to-be considered to 
 be demanded by the nature and importance of the subject. 
 Ultimately, before R. G. Moulton sailed for England in 
 August, 1894, the matter was practically settled, and he 
 resigned his connexion with Christ’s College, Cambridge, 
 and with the Cambridge University Extension Movement. 
 Thus 1894 marks the end of one epoch and the initiation 
 of another. Henceforth, although he never became a 
 naturalized citizen of the United States, Chicago became 
 his working base, and any work in England was purely 
 subsidiary; and it remained so until 1919, when he laid 
 down his work and returned home. 
 
 A career such as his cannot easily be reduced to 
 biographical requirements, and a mere chronicle would be 
 a weariness both to write and to read. But it is desirable 
 to deal in some detail with the decade 1890-1900, not only 
 because it occupies almost the exact centre of his most 
 active working life, but because it was so markedly a 
 period of transition from the theoretical development of 
 ideas to their realization to some extent in practice. 
 
 One effect of the commercial depression dating from 
 1893, which has been mentioned, was serious delay in the 
 formation of the new Literature department for which he 
 was to be responsible; and it was as ‘ Professor of 
 
A STRENUOUS MINISTRY 
 
 105 
 
 Literature (in English) ’ that he commenced his con¬ 
 nexion with the University of Chicago, his time being 
 divided between University lectures and classes and 
 University Extension work. In 1901 the title of his chair 
 was changed to the more truly descriptive ‘ Professor of 
 Literary Theory and Interpretation.’ Meanwhile in 1898 
 the ‘ Department of Literature (in English) ’ had come 
 into being, this title also undergoing alteration in 1901, 
 to ‘ The Department of General Literature.’ 
 
 To those interested neither of these titles was quite 
 satisfactory. Literature—freed from linguistic limita¬ 
 tions, and thus made universally accessible—was to be 
 scientifically studied. Therefore ‘ The Department of 
 Literature ’—without any qualifying addition—seemed 
 to be the logical title. But there existed already Depart¬ 
 ments of ‘ English Language and Literature,’ ‘ Romance 
 Languages and Literature,’ ‘ Greek Language and Litera¬ 
 ture,’ &c.—all organized in accordance with the 
 traditional linking of the study of any particular literature 
 with the study of the language in which it was originally 
 produced. In consideration of this fact and of the newness 
 of the study of Literature as a whole, it was decided that the 
 department must be launched with some title perhaps less 
 likely to be misunderstood. ‘ Comparative Literature,’ 
 of course recognized as an important division of study, 
 was at that time rejected as a title for the department, on 
 account of the implied limitation of method. The 
 following extract from the Annual Register of the University 
 of Chicago gives the best idea of the purposes for which it 
 was founded. 
 
 The Department of General Literature, formerly 
 known as the Department of Literature (in English), 
 has for its theoretic basis the unity of all literature. 
 The purpose of the department is, by its own courses 
 and by co-operation with Departments VIII-XV, 
 
io6 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 to afford facilities for the study of literature not limited 
 by the divisions between particular languages and 
 peoples. 
 
 The courses of the department are open to students 
 of the Senior Colleges, and to the Graduate School of 
 Arts and Literature. They are designed for two 
 different classes of students : (i) those whose main work 
 is remote from literature, but who may desire some 
 literary culture as an element of liberal education ; 
 (2) those who, whether in their Senior College or their 
 graduate work, desire to specialize in Literature. 
 (Particular courses in Biblical Literature, where it is so 
 specified, but no others, are open to students of the 
 Junior Colleges who have completed twelve majors.) 
 
 The work of the department falls into three sections : 
 1. General Literature (irrespective of divisions between 
 particular languages), treated as a part of general culture 
 rather than specialized study. In this section no 
 knowledge will be assumed of any language other than 
 English. 2. The Theory of Literature, including 
 Literary Interpretation and Literary Criticism. For 
 purposes of practical education it is believed to be 
 impossible without the use of literature in translation 
 to obtain a sufficiently wide induction from literary 
 phenomena to make studies like these scientific. In 
 this section knowledge of the original languages of the 
 literatures concerned may or may not be assumed. 
 3. Comparative Literature, as the term is generally 
 understood. The work of this section will assume 
 knowledge of the original languages of the principal 
 literatures concerned. 
 
 Senior College Courses. 
 
 For Senior College courses no knowledge is assumed 
 of any language other than English. They are designed 
 for students who may desire, at this stage of their educa¬ 
 tion, to gain an intelligent appreciation of the great 
 landmarks of world literature, acquaintance with which 
 
A STRENUOUS MINISTRY 
 
 107 
 
 is an essential of liberal education alike for those whose 
 main interests are, and those whose main interests are 
 not, literary. 
 
 The department being so largely dependent upon others, 
 it was not always possible to secure adequate representa¬ 
 tion of all three sections in the curriculum. Of course, a 
 department organized along such new lines cannot easily 
 command the funds necessary for its development, how¬ 
 ever great may be the proved educational value of its 
 training. Many students feel obliged—very regretfully— 
 to forgo what is exceedingly attractive to them, and 
 concentrate their work in those departments where the 
 courses offered fit in more exactly with the requirements for 
 existing positions in the academic world. Nevertheless, 
 in ‘ Department XVI although the necessary ‘ full-time ’ 
 staff could not be obtained, excellent sequences were 
 arranged and, during the twenty-one years that R. G. 
 Moulton was the active head, large numbers came under 
 its influence—greatly valuing the larger view and grasp of 
 literature thus gained. 
 
 Although he saw the realization of only a small part of 
 his vision, this was for R. G. Moulton a very happy side 
 of his life-work. With the true sympathy of the born 
 teacher, he was always interested in his students and— 
 here as everywhere—happy in his relations with them, 
 the chief regret being the shortness of the time during 
 which he could influence them. Another cause for regret 
 was that so little intercourse with colleagues in the 
 University was possible, since nothing gave him more 
 pleasure than hearing friends ‘ talk shop ’—if they would ! 
 But in his first and tentative session there had been that 
 blend of the academic and the extra-mural work which is 
 not at all favourable to social life, and it continued to 
 characterize his work until, in 1910, the return of an 
 
io8 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 old trouble—a type of vertigo—necessitated the drastic 
 diminution of outside activities, especially where incessant 
 travelling was involved. The schedules of the activities 
 of his first fifteen years at Chicago are amazing records of 
 work and endurance. In the early years of the new 
 century we find him ranging over the States of Illinois, 
 Iowa, Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Dela¬ 
 ware, Michigan, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, 
 Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Louisiana, 
 California, Missouri, Kansas, to say nothing of lecturing 
 expeditions to Montreal, Toronto and other cities in 
 Ontario, Ottawa, &c. It was no uncommon thing for 
 him to travel thirty or forty hours a week while putting in 
 at least two lectures a day in different towns. In several 
 seasons we find him taking as many as ten courses in a 
 fortnightly circuit of ten different cities, ranging from 
 five hundred miles east to five hundred miles west of 
 Chicago. In the winter of 1910 the courses were planned 
 in the five cities of Wheeling, West Virginia ; Cincinnati, 
 Ohio ; Louisville, Kentucky; East St. Louis, Illinois ; 
 and Peoria, Illinois. This circuit necessitated the spending 
 of four nights a week in trains. No wonder that there 
 followed the record of the ‘ revolutionizing incident ' 1 
 referred to above, involving the laying aside of all travel 
 for the remaining five months of that season, only his 
 usual work in the University being continued. This 
 particular health trouble, however, again yielded to expert 
 treatment, but arrangements for the completion of the 
 interrupted University Extension courses could not be 
 made. It may be mentioned in passing how small was the 
 total number of engagements missed—through illness or 
 other cause—throughout a lecturing career of fifty 
 years ! It is wonderful to note how quickly he got back 
 to a number of his fields of service ; and he sums up the 
 
 1 See pp. 76, 107. 
 
A STRENUOUS MINISTRY 
 
 109 
 
 situation in a sentence, under the date June, 1911 : ' Last 
 year’s disturbance continues as redistribution of energy— 
 with question of making permanent.’ There we have a 
 tireless, undaunted worker forced to face a modification 
 of his working life, but defining it in terms not of repose 
 but of redistribution of energy ! His indeed was the dis¬ 
 position of which Charles Wesley sings when he prays to be 
 allowed ‘ to cease at once to work and live ! ’ 
 
 A redistribution of time also became necessary. Work 
 within the University walls was concentrated in two 
 quarters, Autumn and Winter, and longer visits to England 
 became possible. Regular University Extension work in 
 America henceforth disappears from his programme, and 
 with it a great body of conspicuous opportunities for 
 spreading his ideas; which opportunities he surrendered 
 with very keen regret. 
 
 During those years of intense activity the University 
 class-rooms and the Extension centres do not by any means 
 represent the fulness of his operations. Many ‘ extras ’ 
 are to be found in every annual record, and a very varied 
 assortment they are. Single lectures, addresses and short 
 ‘ campaigns ’ at colleges, universities, schools, literary 
 clubs, churches, ministers’ meetings, or at various con¬ 
 ventions, chautauquas, gatherings of Teachers’ Associa¬ 
 tions, &c.—after reading these lists one is left with a 
 sense of very keen demand for his services on the part of 
 educational institutions great or small, afar off and near 
 at hand; and to such requests he was very responsive. 
 The ‘ missionary ’ instinct within him led him to see in 
 such fields the most fruitful opportunities for the sowing of 
 his seed. 
 
 Some of the more important engagements at a distance 
 from Chicago were only made possible by special arrange¬ 
 ment for absence from the University. Thus in 1902 ‘ The 
 American Society for the Extension of University 
 
no 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 Teaching,’ referred to in Chapter II, arranged to have his 
 services for six weeks, and the University of Chicago 
 allowed him to have a further six weeks free in order to 
 accept long-standing invitations to deliver courses in New 
 York, Boston, and elsewhere. The chief course in New 
 York was the first of two notable courses on the Literature 
 of the Bible given in St. Bartholomew’s Church. These 
 lectures were arranged for the Lenten seasons of 1902 and 
 1904, by invitation of Dr. David H. Greer, then Rector of 
 St. Bartholomew’s, who became in 1903 Bishop Coadjutor 
 and in 1908 Bishop of New York. Another experience 
 which R. G. Moulton found most interesting was when he 
 was borrowed from the University of Chicago by the 
 Dioceses of California and Los Angeles jointly for a month 
 of Bible lecturing from church and cathedral pulpits and 
 in university halls, the lectures being arranged under the 
 auspices of the Sunday-School Commission of the Diocese 
 of California. 
 
 His message concerning the literary study of the Bible 
 brought him everywhere into contact with those who were 
 most experienced in such subjects, as well as with those 
 who were in a position to spread in their turn the ideas 
 which he gave them. This work being in a field common 
 to all Churches inspired by the teaching embodied in the 
 Bible, it is not surprising that there is a delightful catholic¬ 
 ity about his visits for the purpose of expounding it. 
 One half year finds him addressing one ministers’ meeting 
 (Inter-denominational) at Lowell, Mass., and another 
 (Presbyterian) at New York ; delivering a Lenten course 
 of eight lectures in St. Bartholomew’s Church, New York, 
 speaking on Ecclesiastes in a Jewish synagogue at Phila¬ 
 delphia, while he also gave two lectures at Union 
 Theological Seminary in New York and during the same 
 period was heard on Biblical subjects in various churches 
 —Protestant Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian 
 
A STRENUOUS MINISTRY 
 
 hi 
 
 —in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and 
 other places. The impression made by him on Jewish 
 communities is noticeable, and his correspondence shows 
 evidence of deep appreciation of his presentation of the 
 Old Testament. Over and over again there came to hand 
 evidence of how men of different types had been led from 
 indifference to Biblical literature into earnest and intelli¬ 
 gent study by being brought face to face with the Modern 
 Reader’s Bible. Two such letters lie before me as I write. 
 One of them is over a signature well known even on this 
 side of the Atlantic as that of a leading captain of American 
 finance ; and it begins : ‘ As a business man who rather 
 late in life has been greatly interested in Bible reading as 
 a result of seeing the Modern Reader’s Bible . . . ’ The 
 other was from a secretary of an institution at which R. G. 
 Moulton had lectured a few days before, who wrote : ‘ One 
 of our members, a very intellectual man, but an agnostic, 
 went out the next day and bought several volumes of the 
 Modern Reader’s Bible and has been reading it with great 
 delight.’ The history of the success of this presentation 
 of the Bible, which will ever be so closely associated with 
 his name, affords a striking illustration of the power of 
 that Book to bring home its own message ; and although 
 nothing in the nature of evangelism came within the scope 
 of his activities, there is no room for doubt that by his 
 presentation of the Bible he did bring into a new relation¬ 
 ship to the claims of God many men and women 
 who would not have been reached by the normal appeal 
 of the evangelist. 
 
 By such a worker, of course, the amount of pure 
 ‘ holiday ’ taken during the summers, whether in England 
 or America, was not large. The investigation and exposi¬ 
 tion of the study of literature, as he conceived it, was 
 continually being advanced in one way or another. 
 Opportunities for literary evangelism were many, but it 
 
112 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 was necessary to limit the use of these in order to safe¬ 
 guard the time for private study. Invitations to take 
 part in Summer Meetings at Cambridge, Oxford, and 
 Edinburgh were gladly accepted when any of the topics 
 upon which he was accustomed to lecture would fit in 
 with the general subject selected for the whole meeting. 
 He was also sometimes found at ' Summer Schools ’ of 
 American Universities, and at ‘ chautauquas ’—especially 
 at the original Chautauqua in the State of New York, 
 where in the course of years Bishop Vincent and his son, 
 President George E. Vincent (now President of the 
 Rockefeller Foundation, New York) gave him opportunities 
 which he greatly valued. With reference to short 
 ' campaigns ’ and single lectures, I find that the English 
 engagements for the arrangement of which I myself was 
 responsible amounted to a very considerable number. 
 Among these were the return visits he always loved to pay 
 to his old fields of University Extension activity. Pre¬ 
 eminent among these was Newcastle-on-Tyne ; and that 
 notable centre of intellectual stimulus, which is officially 
 styled the Literary and Philosophical Institution, but is 
 far more often known among its devotees by the affection¬ 
 ate and intimate designation ‘ the Lit. and Phil.,’ was the 
 sphere of some of his most successful work for the move¬ 
 ment. The building in which his regular Extension 
 courses had been given was burnt down in 1893, but the 
 ideals for which it stood were fireproof, and in new 
 premises, and to a large degree from a new constituency, 
 R. G. Moulton continued in later years to receive the same 
 welcome and draw the same overflowing audiences as 
 before. I usually arranged that he should take the Sunday 
 at Brunswick Chapel with Bible lectures, and the Lit. and 
 Phil, with other Literature lectures for two or three 
 evenings in the week : and, as a rule, both buildings were 
 packed to the doors. Another sphere to which he was wont 
 
A STRENUOUS MINISTRY 
 
 n 3 
 
 to return year after year was the John Rylands Library 
 at Manchester, where Dr. Henry Guppy was always 
 wishful to include him in his programme of lectures for 
 the winter and spring, and where, perhaps more than 
 anywhere else, he was likely to be listened to by those who 
 possessed a specialized knowledge of the subjects with 
 which he dealt. A very considerable proportion of his 
 lectures during these English visits were on aspects of the 
 literary study of the Bible, and there was never any 
 difficulty in finding those who were only too glad to open 
 their pulpits to him for his unusual but pre-eminently 
 attractive and fruitful presentation of Biblical literature. 
 One such visit calls for special notice on personal grounds. 
 Reference has already been made to his having been born 
 in Preston, and, as I was stationed in that town from 1907 
 to 1910, I arranged with him that he should come for a 
 week of lectures in 1909. Not the least interesting feature 
 of the visit was the lecture on Saturday evening in Lune 
 Street Chapel, when he dealt with ‘ The Bible—A Book, 
 a Library, a Literature.’ It was there that he had been 
 christened just sixty years before ; and although he had 
 given University Extension lectures in Preston, it had been 
 prior to his taking up the literary study of the Bible, and 
 therefore he had never occupied the pulpit before. It was 
 fitting that the chair should have been taken on that 
 evening by his elder brother, Lord Justice Fletcher 
 Moulton, as he then was ; and it was also interesting that 
 among those on the platform was Sir William Ascroft, who, 
 nearly thirty years before, had been chairman of the 
 committee for the working of the University Extension 
 lectures. The event aroused a considerable degree of 
 interest in Preston, and the Guardian gave nearly a page 
 to an illustrated article on the former Lune Street pastor 
 and his four outstanding sons. 
 
 The War necessarily interfered greatly with his English 
 
 H 
 
RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 114 
 
 visits, so far as such fields as the Universities and the 
 Summer Meetings were concerned. He came as usual in 
 1915 and 1916, but was obliged to remain in America in 
 1917 and 1918. In those—his last two years before retir¬ 
 ing—he did full-time work in the University. At times 
 during the continuance of the War, while in no case under¬ 
 taking anything in the nature of ‘ propaganda work,' he 
 would, when specially requested, give addresses designed 
 to help in interpreting the two great English-speaking 
 peoples to each other, in the interests of mutual under¬ 
 standing and helpfulness. Such organizations as 
 ‘ Luncheon Clubs ’—of very varied membership— 
 furnished the chief occasions for these talks. But, also 
 in response to a demand, a new lecture or course title 
 appears on his list: ‘ The Bible as a Document of Inter¬ 
 nationalism.’ In these lectures, through the purely 
 literary interpretation of the great Book, his hearers 
 found themselves helped to a larger view of the whole 
 subject and clearer thinking on the immediate questions 
 which filled the minds of all. 
 
 Before leaving the matter of his English visits there is 
 one more that calls for notice. In August 1896, in the old 
 Norfolk Street Chapel, Sheffield—which stood on the site 
 now occupied by the Victoria Hall—R. G. Moulton was 
 united in matrimony to Alice Maud Cole, youngest surviv¬ 
 ing daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Skelton Cole. Their home 
 had meant much to him ever since he first gave lectures in 
 Sheffield in 1875. Mr. Skelton Cole was among the 
 leaders in educational matters in Sheffield. He was a 
 very active member of the School Board from the first, 
 and was largely concerned in the organization of the 
 ‘ Central School ’—the first of its kind in England— 
 which was to provide a connecting link between the 
 education given in the Primary Elementary Schools and 
 that higher education which had recently been made 
 
A STRENUOUS MINISTRY 
 
 ii5 
 
 possible in Sheffield through the establishment of Firth 
 College. This College, which ultimately developed into 
 the University of Sheffield, was the direct outcome of the 
 University Extension Movement. Mr. Skelton Cole was 
 a trustee of Firth College from its foundation, and treasurer 
 of the Technical School, in which he was always keenly 
 interested ; and other educational institutions in the town 
 also received much of his time and thought. With so 
 active an interest in all these developing educational 
 schemes, it is easy to understand that there was much in 
 common between him and R. G. Moulton, in whose thought 
 also the organization of education was very prominent. 
 Besides this there was great sympathy with the literary 
 projects and ideas of the younger man on the part of both 
 Mr. Skelton Cole and his wife, the personality and 
 intellectual discernment of Mrs. Skelton Cole especially 
 always counting for much to R. G. Moulton. A unique 
 place in the family life soon became his, there being many 
 tastes in common, and the carrying forward of these 
 associations into his later life through his marriage was 
 always a source of deep satisfaction to him. About the 
 happy married life which thus began, and lasted for twenty- 
 eight years, those most intimately concerned would desire 
 that nothing be said. Let it suffice if I say that a 
 community of taste as well as of affection made them 
 comrades in the fullest sense, each able and eager to enter 
 into the work and recreation of the other. Nowhere was 
 that more manifest than in the field of music. Miss Maud 
 Cole came of a musical family, and had been under 
 inspiring teachers—amongst them for a time that brilliant 
 and discerning pianist, Mr. Frederick Dawson—and an 
 insight into the technique of piano playing was added to a 
 spirit of musical appreciation and understanding. It 
 followed that throughout their married life R. G. Moulton 
 and his wife ever found in music the richest enjoyment and 
 
n6 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 the completest recreation. They availed themselves of 
 the great musical opportunities of Chicago as far as 
 professional work would permit. However exacting were 
 the demands upon his time and energies, from October to 
 April a determined effort was made—not always successful 
 —to keep free on Friday afternoon and Saturday evening 
 in order to attend the concerts of the Chicago Symphony 
 Orchestra, which was for years known by the name of the 
 Theodore Thomas Orchestra, after the great conductor 
 who gave the orchestra its outstanding place in the 
 musical life of America. The same programme—always 
 most carefully planned—was given at these two perform¬ 
 ances in the week, thus enabling those who attended both 
 concerts to obtain what amounted to much more than 
 double the mental grasp of new or intricate musical 
 works. In performances of the Grand Opera Season, 
 which also became one of the important institutions of 
 Chicago, he was occasionally able to enjoy anew the 
 experiences of Dresden, Baireuth, and other places ; but 
 pure orchestral music, magnificently rendered as by the 
 Chicago Symphony Orchestra, remained his greatest 
 musical interest. Tracing related principles underlying 
 form and development in both music and literature, he 
 found a grasp of the one of great assistance in the inter¬ 
 pretation of the other, and while listening to a great 
 musical work would not infrequently see quite suddenly 
 the solution of some literary puzzle. How much all this 
 meant to him during the Chicago years, and how the value 
 of such support was recognized, is shown by the fact that 
 he was requested to give the In Memoriam address at a 
 Congregational Church in the University neighbourhood 
 on the occasion of the great conductor’s death in January, 
 1905. That address is so revealing in respect of the 
 speaker as well as of the subject of his appreciation that 
 it may fittingly find a place in these pages : 
 
A STRENUOUS MINISTRY 
 
 ii 7 
 
 A great citizen of Chicago has passed from among us : 
 I am inclined to say, the greatest of our fellow-citizens, 
 for can we show any name that has such currency 
 throughout the whole intellectual world as the name of 
 Theodore Thomas ? The mourning inseparable from 
 the first announcement of death is over ; we are here 
 to-day, not to bewail a lost presence, but rather to 
 inaugurate an eternal memory. It was a great presence 
 while it was with us. To many thousands of Chicago 
 people during the last thirteen years no single figure 
 has been more familiar than that of the stately conductor 
 at his desk, dignified in its combined energy and restraint. 
 Those of us who knew Theodore Thomas in private life 
 found a personality genial and cheery, rejoicing in 
 sympathy and good fellowship. We knew at the same 
 time that this was the surface aspect of a character 
 deeply based in severity, catholicity, reverence. In 
 severity: the severity of the scholar, intolerant of 
 imperfection, refusing all compromise with the second 
 best, that has no arithmetic with which to measure 
 trouble against attainment, that could afford to wait 
 for appreciation. In catholicity : for while the leader 
 admitted—what every man has a right to admit— 
 strong predilections and preferences, yet the composers 
 who were least his favourites never received from their 
 own devotees such splendid justice as was rendered 
 them in the programmes and performances of the 
 Chicago Orchestra. And I add reverence, as the real 
 basis in Theodore Thomas of his absolute fidelity of 
 interpretation, as rigorously inductive as physical science, 
 that saw only the musical truth before him, disdaining 
 modifications in the interest of sensation or novelty. 
 
 Such high ideals Theodore Thomas carried through 
 every phase of a musical life ; beginning with the 
 simpler role of the virtuoso, passing on to the complex 
 tasks of direction and management ; the private soldier 
 developing into the leader, and the strategist of musical 
 enterprise. And in this case great powers were not 
 
n8 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 hampered by unfavourable surroundings. It was given 
 to Theodore Thomas to see his life-work accomplished, 
 reaching the goal he had himself indicated ; that most 
 remarkable endorsement of art triumph by democracy 
 when the poor man’s mite and the thousands of the 
 millionaire co-operated to build the material home that 
 should make the highest art practicable. His life 
 achieved all this and then closed. He just touched 
 the threescore and ten, he just touched his crowning 
 success, and then passed away, in the moment of 
 attainment, in the fulness of mastery, without a hint 
 of diminishing vigour : a career that from the very first 
 had steadily moved with ever widening and brightening 
 development to its full height. * The path of the just 
 is as the light of Dawn, shining more and more unto the 
 perfect Day.’ 
 
 The address continues with a striking comparison 
 between the Chicago Orchestra and the University : 
 
 A University has two distinct functions. On the 
 one hand it is a congregation of specialists, pursuing 
 their several studies and training new specialists to 
 succeed them. Its second function is to awaken culture 
 in others : not only does it train the young entrusted 
 to it, but it seeks to extend its influence outside, in 
 fostering culture amongst the busy men and women 
 who have other occupations than that of learning. 
 Now the Chicago Orchestra is a band of musical scholars ; 
 the least of them an expert, while its leaders are finished 
 scholars in their own lines, covering the whole range of 
 some side of music and enlarging it. All of these would 
 testify to the great inspiration they have received from 
 their leader. But it was specially distinctive of Theodore 
 Thomas that he realized so strongly the other University 
 function, the training not of performers in technique 
 but of the audience in appreciation. With his carefully 
 planned programmes, representing the many-sidedness 
 and the regular development of music, the frequent 
 
A STRENUOUS MINISTRY 
 
 119 
 
 repetitions of the newer or more notable compositions, 
 and, above all, the lucid and inspiring performance, it 
 has been possible for a whole generation of adults to 
 feel that they were continuing their education after 
 they had left school. I always point to the work of the 
 Chicago Orchestra as the most successful example of a 
 University Extension Movement. 
 
 And the field in which all this work has been accom¬ 
 plished is Music—the one characteristic art of our 
 modern world. I hear a great deal of talk about Art 
 with which I can feel no sympathy : a narrow-visioned 
 pessimism that finds comfort in deploring modern 
 Philistinism, and invidiously compares some commerce- 
 ridden Chicago with some artistic Athens of old. When 
 I study ancient Greece, I seem to see—once you strip 
 off surface accidents—a world very much resembling 
 our own world. To contemporary observers Athens 
 seemed a gossiping society ever in search of novelty ; 
 its comic poets satirize just what our satirists attack : 
 its public life is seen as a struggle of self-interest and 
 corruption against patriotic ideals, just as with us. 
 But—it is answered—look at Athens itself, a city of 
 architectural masterpieces, with miracles of inimitable 
 statuary : what have we to compare with this ? Nothing 
 of the same kind. But when we turn to Music, the case 
 is reversed ; here it is we who are the giants and the 
 ancient world the pigmies. Modern music is linked 
 with mechanism, of all things the most progressive ; 
 the same mechanical advance which has built loco¬ 
 motives and engineered ocean canals has steadily 
 developed the instruments of the musical orchestra, 
 and each invention of the instrument has enlarged the 
 capacity of musical thought. Nor is this all. In 
 architecture and sculpture the ideal and its realization 
 are accomplished together, and further time can do 
 nothing but deface. Music divides creative honours 
 between the composer and the performer ; when the 
 composer has once for all made his creation, a field of 
 
120 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 not less artistic possibilities opens for the performer, in 
 approaching nearer and nearer to a realization of the 
 ideal, that for ever remains unattained. Theodore 
 Thomas, I presume, could not have written the Fifth 
 Symphony : but I doubt if Beethoven or Tschaikowsky 
 had the organizing and directing powers that could 
 attain such a realization of their own masterpieces as 
 we have been privileged to hear from our own Chicago 
 Orchestra. Thus the greatness which our leader achieved 
 for himself is a greatness in just that which makes us 
 great, which finds for Chicago and our modern times 
 even in the field of art a place beside the greatness of 
 the past. 
 
 The sacred associations of the place in which I speak 
 make it fitting that I should add, this same music is 
 the most religious of all the arts, the closest counterpart 
 of our modern religion, which draws together all peoples, 
 nations and tongues into one deep harmony under one 
 Supreme Leader ; even as in the music of Theodore 
 Thomas, German and French, Slav and Russian, Italian 
 and Norse, Bohemian and Hungarian, their national 
 characteristics not effaced but emphasized, blended 
 together in one symphony of common appreciation and 
 joy. It has been a grand life, that was permitted to 
 consecrate high powers to the advancement of its day 
 and generation, in an art which is the distinctive glory 
 of modern times, the art which is the united world's 
 worship of the Divine as it is revealed in the form of 
 beauty. 
 
 It was in the full tide of work, achievement, and appre¬ 
 ciation of all that life brings, that the time drew near when, 
 under the rules of the University, R. G. Moulton would have 
 to retire under the age-limit. Perhaps on the whole it 
 may be said that this age-limit regulation intervened as a 
 providential means of affording an exit from a work which 
 
A STRENUOUS MINISTRY 
 
 121 
 
 he loved, but the strenuousness of which he would have 
 been loth to abate under the force of anything short of 
 sheer compulsion. 
 
 It was on June io, 1919, that he bade farewell to the 
 sphere of his labours for the previous twenty-seven years, 
 to the University which he had seen grow up from very 
 small beginnings. In a record of the annual enrolment of 
 students we find that in the first academic year (1892-3) 
 the total number was 744. In 1918-9—his last year 
 before retiring—8,635 were registered, this number being, 
 however, almost 2,000 fewer than in 1916-17, which was 
 the last year preceding the entry of the United States into 
 the Great War. 1 This is a remarkable record for a teacher 
 to see during his period of service, and it must have been 
 with deep emotion that he delivered the oration on that 
 day in June, 1919. He chose as his theme ‘ The Turning- 
 point in the History of Culture ’—which he discerned 
 in the meeting of Hellenic and Hebraic. It was a favourite 
 field of his, and much of what he said was what might have 
 been expected of him, judging from the trend of his books. 
 But its concluding words constitute an apologia pro vita 
 sua, and as such I quote them : 
 
 You will perhaps say that all this is an individual 
 interpretation of things, biased by the literary pro¬ 
 fessor’s wish to exalt literature as the natural food of 
 culture, with special readings of disputed questions. 
 Very likely you may be right. But what you have been 
 hearing this afternoon is not a Doctor’s thesis, to be 
 controversially defended against the cross-examination 
 of a committee of specialists. Take it rather as the last 
 speech and confession of a teacher retiring from active 
 service after a fifty-year job and leaving the field to 
 
 1 By 1924, when R. G. Moulton had been ‘ Professor Emeritus’ for 
 five j^ears, the total number of students had risen to about 13,000, 
 partly through the full consolidation with the University proper of the 
 Medical School, which had hitherto been ‘ affiliated.’ 
 
122 
 
 l 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 others ; leaving it to colleagues brilliantly equipped in 
 their several fields and with years of distinguished 
 service ahead of them ; leaving it to you, young men 
 and women, who are this day to put on your academic 
 armour with which to face the problems of the future. 
 I have simply been putting to you what the situation 
 looks like to me as I retire. A great saying of Bacon 
 comes to me as I sum up—itself an echo from biblical 
 wisdom. ' Take your stand upon the paths of antiquity ' 
 —but the sentence does not end there—' in order to see 
 clearly in what directions you shall make your progress.’ 
 In the chronic difficulty of reading correctly the past 
 and present, in the special perplexity today of speculat¬ 
 ing upon the future, you have one safe clue if you 
 recognize the foundation of our civilization as resting 
 on the meeting of Hellenic and Hebraic, if by granting 
 in education equal play to classical and biblical literature 
 you maintain the sanity of our modern culture. 1 
 
 Printed in the University of Chicago Record, July 1919, p. 207. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Eventide 
 
 There was no question of balancing relative advantages as 
 to possible places for retirement, since that had been settled 
 for years. In 1912 Mrs. Moulton’s two sisters and one 
 of her brothers had removed from Sheffield to Tunbridge 
 Wells ; and in the new manage it was arranged that ‘ the 
 Americans ’ should share the house as their base when 
 on visits to England, and as their ultimate home when 
 the time came for retirement. So it was at Hallamleigh 
 that a radiant and fruitful eventide of five years was 
 passed. R. G. Moulton’s life-passion was strong to the end, 
 and both by voice and pen he continued to spread 
 abroad his message. Considerable work was done towards 
 the preparation of ' studies ’ which he had always hoped 
 to publish, dealing with particular literary masterpieces. 
 To this period belongs also the production of The Modern 
 Reader's Bible for Schools (the New Testament in 1920 and 
 the Old Testament in 1922), and of that tasteful little 
 volume which bears the designation ‘ Twenty-fifth and 
 final volume of The Modern Reader's Bible,’ and is entitled 
 ‘ How to Read the Bible.' It was an appropriate subject 
 for his last published volume. He lectured for the 
 London, Cambridge, and Oxford Universities' Extension 
 Boards in London, Hastings, Cambridge, Tunbridge Wells, 
 and other places within manageable distance from his 
 home. He was a yearly visitor to the John Rylands 
 Library at Manchester. Moreover, he would make short 
 
 123 
 
124 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 lecture tours which I arranged in the North of England, 
 visiting especially the scenes of his early labours. Although 
 the generation which had belonged to that earlier life of 
 lecturing in England had to a great extent passed away, 
 in his seventies he proved the same attraction as he had 
 been in his thirties. In particular he was glad to take as 
 many as possible of the numerous opportunities afforded 
 for furthering the understanding of the Bible by his 
 lectures and interpretative recitals—this being a new field 
 of service since his earlier University Extension years. 
 Public work was interrupted in November 1920 by a 
 severe illness which put a stop to all lecturing for many 
 months, but a marvellous recovery made possible a 
 resumption of some of his activities, although with con¬ 
 siderable limitation of travelling. 
 
 In July 1923, the Jubilee of the Cambridge University 
 Extension was celebrated with a Conference in which he 
 took part. On that occasion he was one of three upon 
 whom the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred at a 
 Congregation presided over by the Vice-Chancellor (Dr 
 Pearce, Master of Corpus Christi College) in the absence 
 through illness of the Chancellor, the Right Hon. the Earl 
 of Balfour, K.G., O.M. In the same year he was elected 
 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a Vice- 
 President of the Shakespeare Reading Society. 
 
 Early in 1924 a course of lectures on Spenser’s Faerie 
 Queene was given at Tunbridge Wells on the invitation 
 of the Oxford University Extension Delegacy, this com¬ 
 pleting his fiftieth season of public educational work. 
 Arrangements had been made for lectures at the Cambridge 
 Summer Meeting and for courses under both Oxford and 
 Cambridge University Extension in the following autumn. 
 But in April serious symptoms manifested themselves, 
 and all engagements for subsequent months had to be 
 cancelled. On Sunday, April 27, in the Church of St. 
 
EVENTIDE 
 
 125 
 
 Edward the King, Cambridge—the church of Frederick 
 Denison Maurice—he spoke in public for the last time. 
 He had chosen for his subject the ninetieth and ninety- 
 first Psalms, always treated by him together as being 
 expansions of two lines from the Blessing of Moses : 
 
 The eternal God is thy dwelling-place. 
 
 And underneath are the everlasting arms. 
 
 There could have been no more fitting theme for a 
 last public utterance ; and there was no suggestion of 
 failing strength that morning. But his condition was 
 more critical than he or others knew at the moment. 
 
 A three months’ fight against increasing physical 
 weakness was of no avail, and the end—hastened by 
 pneumonia—came on August 15, 1924. 
 
 ..The following day a telegram was received from Dr. 
 E. D. Burton, then President of the University of Chicago, 
 who happened to be in England, asking to make an 
 appointment. The only reply to be given was that his 
 old friend and colleague had passed away the day before : 
 and when he came to Tunbridge Wells it was to pay the 
 last tribute for himself and the University at the funeral 
 service. 
 
 How R. G. Moulton was regarded by those who were his 
 colleagues is shown by the appreciation contributed to the 
 University Record by Vice-President Tufts when the news 
 of his death reached Chicago: 
 
 It does not seem long since Professor Moulton was 
 among us, a figure both scholarly and genial, a man whose 
 enthusiasm kindled a like spirit in all his associates, 
 and whose influence even among the youngest students 
 among whom he worked was unique. Coming from 
 England, where his first notable successes were achieved, 
 he brought to America and to the University of Chicago 
 
126 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 the essence of British scholarly tradition. He brought 
 also a generous conception of education for the com¬ 
 munity and a body of well-tempered methods, which 
 made him from the outset a distinctive figure. He was an 
 innovator. As such he assumed a rightful place at a 
 time when pioneers in education were establishing the 
 reputation of the University. At our University he 
 has left no successor in the extra-mural field. 
 
 . . . When the University of Chicago opened its 
 doors in 1892 he was elected Professor of Literature in 
 English. As he interpreted the function of his chair 
 it was to present the great classics of the world’s liter¬ 
 ature, particularly those which have found such fitting 
 translation into English as makes them in a sense a 
 part of English literature. Deuteronomy, Job, and 
 the Greek tragedies lived again in his presentations. 
 In 1901 the title of his chair was changed to that of 
 Professor of Literary Theory and Interpretation, but 
 there was no fundamental change in his message. His 
 selection was one of the most fortunate instances of the 
 far-seeing vision of President Harper. 
 
 From the year of his appointment until his retirement 
 from active service here, Richard Green Moulton toiled 
 as few men have toiled to bring to a public far beyond 
 the University quadrangles his message of the beauty 
 of literature and the beauty of religion. He taught 
 classes, many of them undergraduate classes, in which 
 the works of Shakespeare were illuminated in a new way 
 for young students ; he travelled far and wide, lecturing 
 to large, popular audiences ; he wrote book after book. 
 He worked without sparing his strength. His voice 
 and pen were never idle, and both were at the service of 
 the University and of the people throughout the 
 years. . . . 
 
 So passed a great scholar and teacher. 
 
 From among the many striking tributes by former 
 students I select that of an American journalist, who on 
 
EVENTIDE 
 
 127 
 
 hearing of his death wrote from Paris a letter to The Times 
 containing the following appreciation : 
 
 England has had few Ambassadors in America who 
 exerted a finer influence than Professor Richard Green 
 Moulton, of whose death I have just read in The Times. 
 This remarkable man carried a human and intellectual 
 richness that made him a potent force. As a young 
 journalist I attended his lectures at the University of 
 Chicago, and knew him well. The memory of the 
 association is a beautiful one. Professor Moulton was 
 a great scholar, teacher, and interpreter, and he was 
 also a great human being. The spirit he radiated made 
 him beloved by all with whom he came in contact. 
 
 This reiteration of the word ‘ human ’ is to be noted ; for 
 it tells of one who never lost the note of the ‘ man ' in the 
 preoccupations of the ‘ scholar.’ Earlier in these pages 
 it has been said that in contemplation of the man and his 
 work the impression is produced of a singularly harmonious 
 whole, and reference has also been made to the 
 philosophical bent of his mind. The suggestion that 
 ‘ philosophy is only a fine word for seeing things in 
 perspective ’ is significant in connexion with his continual 
 insistence upon the idea of correct perspective in literary 
 study, in education and in life as a whole. There is 
 unusual evidence that the intellectual and educational work 
 which R. G. Moulton at the age of thirty set himself 
 was—with all its enlarging possibilities—kept steadily 
 before him as a life object, his own developing powers 
 and opportunities being constantly brought into adjust¬ 
 ment with it. Having begun his career with this high 
 ideal of ‘ service to the passing generation,’ he had been 
 fortunate in finding a place among the early University 
 Extension lecturers, with what were at that time excep¬ 
 tional opportunities for coming into contact with the minds 
 and fives of all classes—the cultured and the uneducated ; 
 
128 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 those with much leisure for intellectual pursuits, and those 
 with very little—all brought together by the common 
 desire to ‘ get understanding.’ In this developing move¬ 
 ment and the method of teaching evolved within it he 
 saw a most important advance towards bridging ‘ the 
 chasm between the thinkers and the rest of the world,’ 
 and his personal powers of interpretation and presentation 
 were cultivated and kept at their best, so as to enable 
 him to take his part in that task. But still more important 
 to him was the subject he had chosen to present, which he 
 regarded as a universal medium for that larger ‘ study of 
 life ’ than is possible in the experience of one individual, 
 one nation or one age, and which is the best corrective 
 for over-specialization. There was the ever-deepening 
 conviction that through literature the individual is best 
 able to gain ‘ imaginative knowledge—an immediate, 
 constant, and pressing necessity as spiritual nourishment 
 by which the higher self is evolved,’ and that through a 
 right use of literature might be found the surest means of 
 moral progress. 
 
 But this study of literature was in a chaotic state, and 
 recognition of the need for scientific method must be 
 obtained. The thought of all the ages, so far as it is 
 embodied in literature, should be made accessible to all, 
 and stress should be laid upon the understanding of literary 
 form as a first essential to accuracy of interpretation. 
 The love of literature—beauty of thought and beauty of 
 expression—must, of course, be encouraged, and every 
 possible assistance must be available for the ‘ imperfectly 
 literary.’ Along lines which would help towards such ends 
 his whole life work was carried out. The extent to which 
 he was able to record results in books, and the relation of 
 his seven larger works to the object he had in view is 
 outlined by himself in the Preface to The Modern Study of 
 Literature. 
 
EVENTIDE 
 
 129 
 
 It has always been my ambition to make some con¬ 
 tribution toward the shaping of this study of literature, 
 which by tradition is so miscellaneous and unorganized. 
 Previous works of mine have been preliminary studies ; 
 discussion of particular principles in application to special 
 literary fields. The most obvious defect of the study 
 is the absence of any instinct for inductive observation, 
 such as must be the basis for criticism of any other kind. 
 My first book was an attempt to illustrate such scientific 
 criticism in the most delightful of all literary provinces, 
 the plays of Shakespeare. This Shakespeare as a Drama¬ 
 tic Artist was, at a later period, supplemented by 
 Shakespeare as a Dramatic Thinker, which discussed the 
 philosophy of life underlying the dramatic stories, and 
 illustrated the general principle that fiction is the 
 experimental side of human philosophy, Again : the 
 traditional study, while rightly recognizing the Greek 
 and Latin classics as a foundation for literary culture, 
 has in practice sacrificed the literary for the linguistic 
 element in these classics. My second book sought to 
 introduce The Ancient Classical Drama to the English 
 reader, and to use this as a study of literary evolution. 
 But there is another defect in our traditional study of 
 literature which is appalling in its gravity—the omission 
 of the Bible. It is not only the spiritual loss to academic 
 education ; the literary forms of the Hebrew classics, 
 rich in themselves, and the natural corrective to the 
 purely Greek criticism founded by Aristotle, have been 
 entirely effaced under the mediaeval arrangement of the 
 Bible in chapters and verses which is still retained in 
 current versions. My third work was on The Literary 
 Study of the Bible: An Account of the Literary Forms 
 Represented in the Sacred Writings ; and, following this, 
 twelve years of my life were occupied with editing The 
 Modern Reader’s Bible, and the investigation of literary 
 structure which this involved. My last work was an 
 attempt to grasp the whole field of literature, not as 
 an aggregation of particular literatures, but in the 
 I 
 
130 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 conception of World Literature, as seen in perspective 
 from the English point of view. In succession to these 
 separate studies the present book seeks to arrive at a 
 synthetic view of the theory and interpretation of 
 literature. 
 
 This book has been planned to give some account of the 
 work of one who, together with a strong feeling for the 
 higher needs of humanity, had a clear and ever-enlarging 
 perception of a progressive means of meeting them. 
 Throughout his life R. G. Moulton devoted all his powers 
 to the attempt to pass on to others whatever of insight he 
 himself gained, encouraging receptiveness, removing 
 hindrances, and opening and pointing the way for all— 
 as he saw it—of a truly ‘ liberal education ’ of mind and 
 soul. Gladly receiving much vision of truth and beauty, 
 he gave freely of his best to all. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 SYLLABUS OF LECTURE GIVEN AT BELPER ON THE UNIVERSITY 
 EXTENSION MOVEMENT. (See p. 30). 
 
 [As far as possible there are represented here the typographical 
 variations as they appear in his syllabus—a matter concerning 
 which he was most particular .] 
 
 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 
 
 Idea of the Movement : University Education for 
 the Whole Nation on Voluntary Principles. 
 
 University Extension implies 
 
 1. Higher Education : not necessarily in the sense of 
 
 high subjects, but as distinguished from 
 
 a. School Education, which is for the young : 
 
 b. Technical and Professional Education, which 
 
 trains directly for the business of life. 
 Higher Education looks equally, or more, 
 to its leisure. 
 
 2. The teaching (as well as examining) under the direction 
 
 of the University. 
 
 Higher Education depends more on the manner 
 in which the instruction has been given than on 
 the amount of actual knowledge acquired. 
 
 The Idea embodied in Practical Institutions. 
 
 The University Extension Movement is a Joint Movement of 
 
 The Universities : supplying the Educational 
 
 Organization. 
 
 The Towns : „ Local Organiza¬ 
 
 tion and Funds. 
 
132 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 i. 
 
 University Extension as a Method of Education. 
 
 1. Only a small fraction of the nation can go up to the 
 University towns to obtain the great educational advantages 
 of Residence—for the great masses the University agencies 
 must go out to the Towns. 
 
 2. If the organization is to reach the whole nation it must 
 be such as will be applicable to all classes of society without 
 distinction. For teaching purposes all such varieties resolve 
 themselves into two : 
 
 Public Audiences as composite in character as the 
 congregation of a church or chapel: for these the 
 Movement provides connected Courses of Lectures 
 —an advance, educationally, on disconnected lectures. 
 
 In each Audience a nucleus of Students : for these are 
 provided (i) Weekly Exercises on the subjects of the 
 Lecture, to be done at home and sent to the Lecturer 
 for written comment, (ii) A second meeting usually 
 called the Class, before or after the following Lecture, 
 at which explanations are given by the Lecturer, such 
 as arise out of the Exercises sent in ; discussion also is 
 invited, (iii) Certificates by the University for the 
 work of each term. 
 
 This union of the Class for the Students, including Weekly 
 Exercises and Certificates, with Lectures for popular 
 Audiences, is the distinctive feature of the movement—thus 
 it will be seen that the University Extension Movement does 
 not come into competition with organizations for providing 
 Popular Lectures — its lectures being indeed the lesser half 
 of the operations. 
 
 3. If the scheme is to be applied universally the Education 
 must be so arranged that it can be taken in various amounts. 
 The unit of the movement is a single Term’s course (3 
 months) of lectures and Classes as described above. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 133 
 
 4. As large numbers of the Students will be working under 
 difficulties, it is especially incumbent on the movement to 
 pioneer in the latest improvements of educational method. 
 
 (a) The subjects must be such as have already established 
 
 their hold on the popular mind, not those of 
 academic interest only. . . . 
 
 (b) Every Course of Lectures should have its own text¬ 
 
 book : this is secured by means of the Syllabus, a 
 cheap pamphlet which sketches the order and plan 
 of the teaching, and refers to existing books for the 
 detailed matter. 
 
 (c) Certificates should have the effect of assisting the 
 
 teacher by examinations, not of subordinating the 
 teacher to examinations. 
 
 The University grants the Certificates for each 
 Course upon a double test : (1) The Lecturer’s 
 Report of the Weekly Exercises : (2) a Special 
 Examiner’s Report of an Examination at the 
 end of the Course. 
 
 The effect of this system is : (a) The Certificates have a 
 unique value as indicating not only the passing an examina¬ 
 tion but also a regular course of study followed out under 
 the supervision of the University, (b) Scope is given to 
 both types of minds, those who can do themselves justice 
 in examinations, and those who can do thoughtful and 
 original work at home, (c) The very questionable principle 
 of competitive examination is entirely discarded, (d) The 
 whole system will be seen to be purely voluntary : it exercises 
 influence, not pressure, and the profit any student derives 
 from it depends upon himself. 
 
 II. 
 
 The University Extension Movement aims at securing, 
 in combination with other agencies, a complete 
 
 LADDER OF EDUCATION, FROM THE PRIMARY SCHOOL 
 
 to the University. 
 
 1. The three kinds of education, School, Technical, and 
 Higher, are in Continental systems under direction of the 
 
134 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 State and organized into a complete scheme. In England 
 the State accepts responsibility only for single sections of 
 educational work, and the organization of the national 
 Education as a whole can be arrived at only by gradual and 
 combined effort. 
 
 2. A leading feature of our English system is the Local 
 College, as a centre of Technical and Higher Education, 
 such as those already springing up in the larger towns. . . . 
 Colleges may under certain conditions be affiliated to Oxford 
 and Cambridge, thereby shortening the term of residence in 
 the University itself. 1 
 
 3. The University Extension Movement does not enter 
 into competition with this or any other existing agency, 
 but seeks to fill up the intervals which existing agencies leave 
 unsupplied in the idea of a complete scheme of national 
 education. It may thus be described as a sort of Floating 
 University for the whole country, each locality organizing 
 itself and availing itself of the education supplied by the 
 movement to whatever extent its demands and funds warrant. 
 
 III. 
 
 University Extension as a Local Institution. 
 
 1. The movement was started on the invitation of the 
 Towns to the Universities : in the steps of its further develop¬ 
 ment the Towns have taken at least an equal part : in some 
 places it has already developed into complete Local Colleges. 
 
 2. The object is to secure the establishment in every town 
 of local branches, working in connexion with the Universi¬ 
 ties. In some places existing local Institutes have taken up 
 the Movement and carried it on as a part of their own work : 
 more often a special ‘ University Extension Society ’ has 
 been formed for the purpose. 
 
 1 It must be remembered that this Syllabus belongs to 1885 ; in the 
 intervening years a number of these Local Colleges have matured into 
 Universities themselves. But this paragraph is left as it was written, so 
 as to mark the nature and extent of the development. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 135 
 
 3. The points to be observed in organizing such a local 
 branch are : 
 
 (a) Permanence. It is contrary to the spirit of the 
 
 whole movement to leave the courses to be got up 
 by fresh enterprise each year. 
 
 (b) A popular basis. Where a special society is formed, 
 
 its basis should be wide enough to encourage the 
 actual attendants at Lectures and Classes to enter 
 it. The movement is one of Self-Education : it 
 is part of its conception to bring the masses to 
 realize that the carrying on of Higher Education 
 is an interest of their own. Care should be taken 
 to avoid anything that might be misinterpreted 
 as indicating political or sectarian bias. 
 
 (c) The missionary character of the movement. It seeks 
 
 not only to supply Higher Education, but also to 
 stimulate the demand for it. 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 THE DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL LITERATURE IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 
 
 OFFICERS OF INSTRUCTION. 
 
 A. Instructors attached to the Department of General 
 Literature : 
 
 Richard Green Moulton, Ph.D., Professor of Literary 
 Theory and Interpretation and Head of the Depart¬ 
 ment of General Literature. 
 
 George Carter Howland, A.M., Associate Professor of the 
 History of Literature. 
 
 B. Instructors in other Departments offering courses in 
 t his Department. [List averaging about twenty names: see 
 courses mentioned below.] 
 
 The Heads and acting Heads of Department VIII-XVI 1 
 compose the Committee of Management for Department 
 XVI. 
 
 COURSES OF INSTRUCTION. 
 
 [The following detailed list is taken from the announcements 
 for the years 1912-13 and 1913-14. About 35 courses would 
 be available in each year.] 
 
 I. Courses in General Literature. 
 
 Note .—These are (unless otherwise stated) Senior College 
 courses ; but usually students may, with the approval of 
 the instructor, obtain graduate credit by doing additional 
 work. 
 
 1. World Literature for English Readers. —This course 
 surveys the whole field of literature so far as this has entered 
 into the culture of the English-speaking peoples. It is 
 
 1 All the Language and Literature Departments. 
 
 136 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 137 
 
 designed to lay a foundation for intelligent reading in the 
 future, partly by the presentation of illustrative masterpieces, 
 and partly by seeking a rational scheme for selection of the 
 ‘ best books.' [Richard Green Moulton, Ph.D., Professor 
 of Literary Theory and Interpretation and Head of the 
 Department of General Literature.] 
 
 2. Literary Study of the (English) Bible. —Avoiding 
 questions of theology and historic criticism this course will 
 elucidate the conception of the Bible as one of the leading 
 literatures of the world. Open to the Junior Colleges. 
 [Professor Moulton.] 
 
 3b. Ancient Epic and Tragedy for English Readers. —A 
 
 rapid reading-course in Ancient Classical Epic and Tragedy, 
 centring chiefly around the topic of the Trojan War. 
 [Professor Moulton.] 
 
 5. Dante in English. —Readings in Dante’s works, 
 expecially The Divine Comedy. [George Carter Howland, 
 A.M., Associate Professor of the History of Literature,—-of 
 the Department of General Literature.] 
 
 6. The Story of Faust. —Goethe’s Faust (in English), in 
 comparison with the treatment of the same story in English 
 and Spanish literature, and in music. [Associate Professor 
 Howland.] 
 
 10. Dramatists of the Present Day. —A study of the most 
 significant authors and movements at the present day in 
 continental Europe. [Associate Professor Howland.] 
 
 11. The Short Story in Contemporary European Literature. 
 [Associate Professor Howland.] 
 
 14. The Contemporary European Novel.— The Principal 
 living novelists of Continental Europe will be studied with 
 reference to their place in world literature. [Associate 
 Professor Howland.] 
 
 18. Seneca : ‘ Tragedies.’ —Three or four of the tragedies 
 will be studied in detail, with especial reference to Seneca’s 
 style and dramatic art. The remaining tragedies will be 
 read rapidly in translations, with a study of their philosophical 
 content, and a comparison with the corresponding Greek 
 dramas on the same themes. [Frank Justus Miller, Ph.D., 
 
138 
 
 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 LL.D., Professor of Latin,—of the Department of the Latin 
 Language and Literature.] 
 
 19. Ovid : ‘ Metamorphoses.’ —The reading will be accom¬ 
 panied by a study of the use of classical mythology by 
 representative English poets. [Professor Miller.] 
 
 20 . The Greater French Essayists and Their Bearing upon 
 the Essay in English Literature. [Associate Professor 
 Howland.] 
 
 22 . Modern Epic Poetry. —A study of the great epics in 
 modern European literatures other than English. [Associate 
 Professor Howland.] 
 
 23 . Cervantes and His Contemporaries. —Studies in the 
 classic Spanish novelists. [Associate Professor Howland.] 
 
 24 . History of Sanskrit Literature. —The aim of this course 
 is to give brief survey of the literature of India—a literature 
 of no small intrinsic value, and one which offers much that 
 is of interest to the occidental student. An effort will be 
 made to gain some intelligent appreciation of the social and 
 intellectual conditions under which this literature was 
 produced, and to form some conception of its place in the 
 literature and thought of the world. No knowledge of 
 Sanskrit or Pali is necessary, but a large amount of reading 
 in translations will be required. [Walter Eugene Clark, 
 Ph.D., Instructor,—-of the Department of Sanskrit and the 
 Indo-European Comparative Philology.] 
 
 25 . Ballad and Epic Poetry. —The English ballads will be 
 studied in the complete collections of Child and Kittredge. 
 Beowulf and the Iliad will be read in translation; other famous 
 epics will be treated in lectures. [Albert Harris Tolman, 
 Ph.D., Professor of English,—of the Department of the 
 English Language and Literature.] 
 
 26 . Such courses as : 
 
 The Psalter. [Herbert Lockwood Willett, Ph.D., Associate 
 Professor of the Old Testament Language and Literature, 
 —of the Department of Semitic Languages and Literatures.] 
 Ezekiel. —A close study of the book and its exilic background. 
 [Associate Professor Smith, Ph.D.,—of the Department of 
 Semitic Languages and Literatures.] 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 139 
 
 28 . Such courses as : 
 
 Beginnings of Old Testament Literature and History. 
 
 [Associate Professor Willett.] 
 
 29 . The Literature of the Early Orient. —A study of the 
 rise of literary forms and the earliest development of literary 
 art as seen in Egypt, Babylonia, and neighbouring nations. 
 The earliest literature of entertainment, tales, romances, 
 poetry, epics, drama, wisdom, mortuary, and religious com¬ 
 positions, scientific treatises, business and legal documents 
 will be taken up, read in translation, analysed, and discussed. 
 [James Henry Breasted, Ph.D., Professor of Egyptology and 
 Oriental History ; Director of Haskell Oriental Museum,— 
 of the Department of Semitic Languages and Literatures.] 
 
 30 . Primitive Christian Life and Literature. —General survey 
 of the field of New Testament study ; consideration of the 
 books of the New Testament as an expression of the religious 
 life of the early Church ; assigned reading in the history of 
 the apostolic age. [Edgar Johnson Goodspeed, D.B., Ph.D., 
 Associate Professor,—of the Department of Biblical and 
 Patristic Greek.] 
 
 31 . The Gospel of Matthew in English. —Purpose, sources, 
 date, and authorship of the book ; analysis of its contents ; 
 interpretation on the basis of the Greek text and English 
 translations, with particular attention to the discourse 
 sections. [Ernest De Witt Burton, D.D., Professor and Head 
 of the Department of New Testament and Early Christian 
 Literature.] 
 
 32 . The Gospel of John in English. —Purpose, sources, date, 
 and authorship of the book ; interpretation on the basis of 
 the English text. [Shirley Jackson Case, D.B., Ph.D., 
 Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation,—of 
 the Department of Biblical and Patristic Greek.] 
 
 33 . The Epistles to the Corinthians in English. —Historical 
 situation, including conditions of Church life in the Greco- 
 Roman world ; analysis of the letters ; interpretation on the 
 basis of the Greek text and English translations ; contribution 
 of the letters to our knowledge of primitive Christianity. 
 [Associate Professor Goodspeed.] 
 
140 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 34 . The Mediaeval Drama. —The origins and the develop¬ 
 ment of the mediaeval religious drama. [John Matthews 
 Manly, Ph.D., Professor and Head of the Department of the 
 English Language and Literature.] 
 
 35 , 36 . History of the Novel. —From the Renaissance to the 
 present day. (2 majors.) [Robert Morss Lovett, A.B., 
 Professor of English,—of the Department of the English 
 Language and Literature.] 
 
 37 . Homer. —Rapid reading and literary study of the 
 Iliad. [Paul Shorey, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D., Professor and 
 Head of the Department of the Greek Language and Liter¬ 
 ature.] 
 
 38 . The History of Greek Comedy. —Detailed study of the 
 Knights of Aristophanes ; rapid reading of representative 
 fragments of the Middle and the New Comedy ; lectures on 
 the development of comedy in Greece. [Henry Washington 
 Prescott, Ph.D., Professor of Classical Philology,— of the 
 Department of the Greek Language and Literature.] 
 
 39 . American Literature. —A general survey. [Percy 
 Holmes Boynton, A.M., Associate Professor of English,— of 
 the Department of the English Language and Literature.] 
 
 II. Courses in Theory of Literature. 
 
 Note. —These are graduate courses, but open to the Senior 
 Colleges. 
 
 40. Foundation Principles of the Study of Literature.— 
 
 The course is designed to bring out how traditional ideas of 
 literary study are modified by (1) the recognition of the unity 
 of all literature ; (2) the application to literature of modern 
 conceptions of evolution and inductive science. It is 
 specially recommended for those who expect to teach, 
 whether English or any other particular literature; also for 
 Senior College students who will not have the opportunity of 
 taking it as part of their graduate work. [Professor Moulton.] 
 
 41 . Literary Criticism and Theory of Interpretation.— 
 After taking as basis of its treatment a distinction between 
 our leading types of criticism, the course will fall into two 
 
APPENDIX II 
 
 141 
 
 parts : (1) A full exposition of the criticism of interpretation, 
 illustrated in application to well-known masterpieces of 
 literature; (2) an attempt to formulate the leading problems 
 of speculative criticism. [Professor Moulton.] 
 
 42. Studies in the Grammar of Poetic Art. —Familiar 
 masterpieces of poetry will be taken up, not as regards their 
 general interest or position in literary history, but with a 
 view to obtaining materials for analysing the elements of 
 poetic effect. The course will thus be concerned with such 
 topics as plot, movement, and poetic architecture ; with 
 imagery and symbolism; with word-force and metrical 
 mechanics, so far as these last are of literary and not merely 
 linguistic significance. [Professor Moulton.] 
 
 45. ./Esthetics. —An introduction to the history and theory 
 of aesthetics. [James Hayden Tufts, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor 
 and Head of the Department of Philosophy.] 
 
 46. History of French Criticism, especially in the eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries. [Edwin Preston Dargan, Ph.D., 
 Assistant Professor of French Literature,—of the Department 
 of Romance Languages and Literatures.] 
 
 (or 46.) Le Classicisme. —Les oeuvres et la doctrine. 
 Preciosite et naturalisme. Boileau, L’Art poetique (edition 
 Brunetiere) et Les Her os de Roman (edition T. F. Crane). 
 [Henri Charles Edouard David, A.M., Assistant Professor of 
 French Literature,—of the Department of Romance Lan¬ 
 guages and Literatures.] 
 
 47. Life and Works of Corneille. —Origins of the classic 
 drama and its relation to the ideas of Descartes. [William 
 Albert Nitze, Ph.D., Professor and Head of the Department 
 of Romance Languages and Literatures.] 
 
 (or 47.) La reaction contra le classicisme. —Constitution 
 de l’esprit philosophique. Les hommes de lettres philosophes. 
 Roustan, La Philosophic et la societe frangaise au XVIIIe 
 siecle. [Assistant Professor David.] 
 
 48. The Technique of the Drama. —A detailed and careful 
 study of the technique of selected plays. [Robert Herrick, 
 A.B., Professor of English,—of the Department of the English 
 Language and Literature.] 
 
142 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 49. Studies in Romanticism in English Literature of the 
 Eighteenth Century.— Criticism 1725-75. [William Darnall 
 MacClintock, A.M., Professor of English,—of the Department 
 of the English Language and Literature.] 
 
 Note .—Course 60 may be reckoned for Section II or 
 Section III. 
 
 III. Courses in Comparative Literature. 
 
 Note. —These are graduate courses. 
 
 60. Types of Old French Literature. —The literary types 
 of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ; study of illustrative 
 works. A reading knowledge of Old French is pre-requisite. 
 [Professor Nitze.] 
 
 (or 60 .) The Technique of the Latin Epic. —Lectures on the 
 characteristics and the development of the artistic epic in 
 Latin literature, with special reference to Virgil’s JEneid. 
 Parallel readings in the JEneid (in Latin), and in the Homeric, 
 Hellenistic, and later Latin epics (in translation). Short 
 reports. [Professor Prescott.] 
 
 61 . Germanic Mythology. —Vorlesungen mit Zugrundele- 
 gung von Mogk's Artikel in Paul’s Grundriss. [Philip 
 Schuyler Allen, Ph.D., Associate Professor of German Litera¬ 
 ture,—of the Department of Germanic Languages and Litera¬ 
 tures.] 
 
 62 . The Romantic School. —A systematic attempt to give 
 an account of the development and gradual differentiation 
 of the romantic Weltanschauung in the creative and theoretical 
 works of the Romantic School. [Martin Schiitze, Ph.D., 
 Associate Professor of German Literature,—of the Depart¬ 
 ment of Germanic Languages and Literatures.] 
 
 63 . Wolfram’s von Eschenbach * Willehalm.’ —A com¬ 
 parative study of the poem and its sources. [Starr Willard 
 Cutting, Ph.D., Professor and Head of the Department of 
 Germanic Languages and Literatures.] 
 
 64 . The Literary Relations between England and Germany 
 in the Eighteenth Century. —The main subjects treated are 
 Addison’s Spectator and its numerous German imitations ; 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 143 
 
 Milton’s influence ; the influence of English satire in Ger¬ 
 many ; the part Shakspere played in the old German drama 
 and dramatic criticism, especially in the case of Lessing and 
 the Storm and Stress; Pope, Young, Thompson, and 
 Dryden ; Ossian and Percy’s Reliques ; the Robinsonaden ; 
 the imitations of Sterne, Richardson, and Fielding ; the 
 countercurrent during the last two decades of the century, 
 especially Burger’s Lenore, Schiller’s Rduber, and Goethe. 
 [Jacob Harold Heinzelmann, Ph.D., Professor of German, 
 University of Manitoba.] 
 
 65. The German Court Epic: Hartmann von Aue. —A 
 
 critical reading of his Iwein with reference to its Old French 
 prototype. [Professor Cutting.] 
 
 See also Department XIV, 218 : German-American 
 Literature, (a) Indian and Emigrant Fiction ; (b) German- 
 American Poetry. [Preston Albert Barba, Ph.D., Instructor 
 in German, Indiana University.] 
 
APPENDIX III. 
 
 TITLES OF OTHER COURSES GIVEN BY PROFESSOR MOULTON 
 IN THE UNIVERSITY ARE AS FOLLOWS : 
 
 General Literature : Its significance in the Philosophy of 
 Education 
 The Story of Faust 
 
 The English Bible : Its Place in an Ordinary English 
 Education 
 
 Modem Principles of the Study of Literature 
 
 Milton’s Poetic Art 
 
 Milton’s Paradise Lost 
 
 Miltonic Poetry and Biblical Prophecy 
 
 Dante and Milton 
 
 Biblical Interpretation 
 
 Homer and William Morris 
 
 Homer and Ancient Tragedy 
 
 Ancient Epic and Tragedy for English Readers 
 
 The Odyssey and the Aineid 
 
 From Homer to William Morris 
 
 William Morris as a Modem Homer 
 
 The Poetry of William Morris 
 
 The Ancient Classical Drama for Modem English Students 
 
 The Writings of W’illiam Morris as a Study of Epic Poetry 
 
 Homer and Virgil for English Readers 
 
 The New Study of Literature 
 
 Imagery and Symbolism 
 
 Wisdom Literature 
 
 Masterpieces of World Literature : An Introduction to 
 General Reading 
 
 A Reading Course in the Ancient Classical Drama 
 Biblical Prophecy as a branch of World Literature 
 
 144 
 
APPENDIX III. 
 
 145 
 
 The Poetry and Philosophy of Milton’s Paradise Lost 
 The Philosophy of Shakespeare 
 Shakespeare and the Ancient Classical Drama 
 The Lighter Plays of Shakespeare 
 
 Spenser’s Faerie Queene : The Meeting Ground of Classic 
 and Romantic 
 
 K 
 
BOOKS BY RICHARD GREEN MOULTON. 
 
 Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist: A Popular Illustration of 
 the Principles of Scientific Criticism. Third ed. Published 
 by the Oxford LTniversity Press (price in England, 8/6 
 net ; in America, $2.85). 
 
 The Ancient Classical Drama: A Study in Literary Evolution. 
 Intended for English Readers. Second ed. Published by 
 the Oxford University Press (price in England, 7/6 net ; 
 in America, $2.50). 
 
 Shakespeare as a Dramatic Thinker: 1 An Illustration of 
 Fiction as the Experimental Side of Philosophy. Pub¬ 
 lished by Macmillan (price in America, $2.00; in 
 England, 8/6 net). 
 
 The Literary Study of the Bible: An Account of the Leading 
 Forms of Literature Represented in the Sacred Writings. 
 Second ed. ; in America : published by D. C. Heath & 
 Co., price $2.80 ; in England : published by George G. 
 Harrap & Co., price 10/6 net. 
 
 A Short Introduction to the Literature of the Bible. Published 
 by D. C. Heath & Co. (price in America, $1.68 ; in 
 England, 7/6 net). 
 
 The Modern Reader’s Bible: Books of the Bible (including 
 three books of the Apocrypha), edited in full literary 
 structure : with copious introductions and notes. 
 Issued in two different forms : 
 
 (1) Complete in one volume (1,733 pages), published by 
 Macmillan (price in America : Cloth $2.50, leather 
 $4.50, full limp Morocco 87.50, with coloured illus¬ 
 trations $5.00, full limp Morocco, divinity style 
 $8.50 ; and in England, cloth 15/- net). 
 
 1 Originally published under the title The Moral System of 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 146 
 
BOOKS BY RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 147 
 
 (2) In twenty-one small volumes, published by Mac¬ 
 millan ; volumes sold separately ; Genesis, Exodus 
 —with Leviticus and Numbers, Deuteronomy, The 
 Judges—with Joshua and Samuel (in part). The 
 Kings—with Samuel (in part), The Chronicles—with 
 Ezra and Nehemiah, The Psalms and Lamentations 
 (two volumes), Biblical Idylls (one volume, contain¬ 
 ing Solomon’s Song, Ruth, Esther, Tobit), Isaiah, 
 Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and the Minor Prophets, 
 Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus, Ecclesiastes and Wisdom 
 of Solomon, Job, St. Matthew—with St. Mark and 
 the General Epistles, St. Luke and St. Paul (two 
 volumes, containing the Gospel of St. Luke, the Acts 
 of the Apostles, with the Pauhne Epistles, each 
 inserted at its proper place in the narrative), St. 
 John (the Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation). (Price 
 in America: Cloth 80 cents per vol., leather $1.50 
 per vol., special sets cloth $16.00, special sets 
 leather $30.00 ; price in England: Cloth 3/6 net 
 per vol.) 
 
 Three additional small volumes, mainly intended for 
 young people—Bible Stories (Old Testament), Bible 
 Stories (New Testament), Masterpiece of Biblical 
 Literature (prices in America : Cloth 80 cents per 
 vol., leather $1.50 per vol.; price in England: 
 Cloth 3/6 net per vol., cheap edition cloth—Old 
 Testament Stories 2/6, New Testament Stories 2/6). 
 
 How to Read the Bible. Incorporating The Bible at a 
 Single View. Twenty-fifth and Final Volume of ‘ The 
 Modern Reader’s Bible.’ (Price in America : Cloth 
 80 cents ; in England 3/6 net.) 
 
 The Modern Reader’s Bible for Schools. A variation of the 
 main work, abridged and specially designed for use in 
 educational institutions, elementary or advanced. Two 
 volumes, published by Macmillan : The Old Testament 
 (price in America, $2.50 ; in England, 10/6 net), The 
 New Testament (price in America : Cloth $2.25; in 
 England, 10/6 net). 
 
148 RICHARD GREEN MOULTON 
 
 World Literature: and Its Place in General Culture. Pub¬ 
 lished by Macmillan (price in America, $2; in 
 England, 8/6 net). 
 
 The Modern Study of Literature: An Introduction to Literary 
 Theory and Interpretation. Published by The 
 University of Chicago Press (price in America, $3 ; in 
 England [Agents : The Cambridge University Press], 
 15/- net). 
 

 
 
 
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Date due 
 
925.742 
 
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