The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1869-10-29
American JourunIism-Our Two Quarterifes

| American J0urnalism-Our Two Quartcrife4
The great fire which has happened in Fultos
| street, and which has been destructive largel
Of the property of the Leonard Scott Publishing
Company, commends attention to our quar- 4
terly and monthly literature. Not one of Opl
| readers who has made himself at all acquaintef
with the reprints of Leonard Scott & Co. bu
will feel sorry if the enterprising publisher
have sustained loss by the fire to which v
have referred. The barrenness of our quaj
terly and monthly journals has justified tfFT
company in their laborious and painstakn 4
efforts to give US reprints of the best Engls
journals Of that order. To them we ar
indebted for our monthly Blackpood, op
quarterly Westminster and Edinburg al
London and North British Recieaos and "a
beautiful literature which these journals hav
placed in the hands of our thoughtful fellol
citizens has worked world of good. If b
this fire the company have sustained serious
loss we feel satisfied they will not be without
sympathy and, what is better, encouragement
and support.
1t is lamentable to think that, in the matter
OF monthly and quarterly literature of the
solid and thoughtful sort, we should be so
dependent on foreign sources. But facts are
facts, and we must bow to them. In home
production we have nothing which at all
approaches the English quarterlies or even the
English monthly magazines. We have, il
fact, but two quarterlies-the North Ame,fcat
and the National Quarterly. The Nord
american is Boston journal. The Nationa
belongs to New York. Neither of these jour
nails at all approaches in excellence it
British contemporaries but it is as little t
be denied that, in spite of the parade an
show of Cambridge professors and New Eng
land philosophers, the New York journal is
the better of the two. No one can take up
| the two American quarterlies without feeling
that while the one is the organ of clique
| and bound down and restrained by the narrow
| est Puritan sentiment, the other is broad, gem
erous and catholic in tone, and worldwide in
its sympathy. The North american and IT'D
little sister, the atlantic Monthly, think of the
world from what Lord Bacon would have
| called the Cave, and treat the world as if Bos-
ton were really the hub of the universe. The
National Quarterly takes nobler standpoint,
and from its grander elevation makes juster
observations and arrives at more correct con-
clusions. 1t has always been the object of the
| North american Reoieao to fill the place of q
truly national journal. We cannot cay that il
has ever accomplished its selfappointed task.
Time was when it was the best thing of the
kind we had. But times have changed, and
what might once have been arrived at is now
impossible. We have outgrown Boston, and,
Of course, the great Boston journal. We need
something higher, more scholarly, less pedan-
tic, more catholic, less Puritanic; and the
National Quarterly gives us reason to hops
that it will soon supply our want. New York
| must become the literary as well as the COM
mercial centre. We do not say that the
National Quarterly is yet all that we could
wish it to be; but enterprise not failing, Ii
| promise is good