The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-07-27
HOWeIlS DOCtOred by Oxford



 William Dean Howells was created an honorary Doctor of Literature of Ok | ford the other day, which draws atten- ton to the fact that this notable novelist is not graduate of any college. A writer in Harper's Weekly remarks, how ever, that it "can be said with accurate truth that a man who lived so long in Boston as MT. Howells did, who lived so near to James Russell Lowell as he 1 lived, and whose most familiar associates In years, when his mind was still plastic, were Harvard professors, was wholly in- dependent of the conventional education afforded by American colleges" MT. | Howells "got his full share of college | education; got it through the pores and | by word of mouth.'
 That the honorary degree at Oxford was taken by our American literator in many veins as serious tribute and a proper compliment to the prominence he has attained there is no reason to doubt; but in this international incident of the literary world turks a twinkle of fun. The Oxford Dons cannot be very well acquainted with the critical preachments oracle, though they may have skinned the bubbly cream on the top of the mild | milk of his novels, else they would never , have laid their venerable accolade on the man who so insistently has endeavored, since he got a serious hearing, to att tack English art and letters. to reduce Dickens to the rank of a bad reporter, oust Thackeray from his niche as a con summate literary artist and sap the firm foundations on which the jewelled throne of universal Shakespeare towers over the thrones of kings and sheds its genial rays into the cabins of the poor.
 There was a time when MT. Howells would have appreciated the intrinsic hu- nor of being thus doctored by Oxford and would have grinned complacently or laughed consumedly at the mere idea of such an anticlmax to his career as a literary iconclast. In recent years, how ever, evidence has multiplied that MT. Howtlls takes himself and his work very seriously-which Is also a concept con taining considerable humor. But, leav- ing his personality presently out of the question, we Americans must regard this international incident" as another strong proof. were further proof needed, how thoroughly the barriers between our English cousins an dourselves have been burned away and how near at hand is the day, when the world will be com pelled to regard us as practically one people, and perhaps, in self defence will be forced to organize against any fur ther expansion due to our joint acqus- tiveness and aggressiveness.
 Who reads an American book?' That sneering query of century ago has lost it's point and sting Most of us have even forgotten who said 1t. The other extreme has been reached Our authors. av. some of our trashiest, are as eagerly perused in England as here and the culminating proof of this changed condition is that even MT. Howells, whose works and whose personality English critics and public for years could not stomach, must now have quite a respectable audience over there. if a recent announcement by his publish CTS Is to be believed, which we see no good cause to doubt.
 Some of us may be inclined to suspect that the usually phlegmatic English are overdoing this novel business of adulat- ing and adoring all things American, and may secretly opine that time will make a few rough revisions of certain present
 
 mean trick of punching holes. even in some of the holiest and most carefully padded vestiments of human venity. He Is. indeed, better sapper of regulations and breaker of images than MT. Howells himself Still, the present apotheosis of American literators in England, anyway must be set down as a solid gain.
 Taking up now in it's turn the point pressed by the writer in Harper's Week. ly as to MT. Howels excellent lack of a collegiate educationl or, putting 1t anoth- CT way, his acquisition of all that was mentally necessary by mere association with Harvard professors and by inhailing the classic air of Cambridge and the east winds of Boston, something undoubted- ly might be urged in favor of this method of education, at least on grounds of econ omy, for 1t would save paying colleeiate fees; and collegiate teas. if a bright young fellow, as MT. Howells was when he left the west to come east and grow m with the country, by getting invited round from one professors house to another o'nights might subsist his body quite fairly, while gorging his brain.
 But the plain fact in Mir How,sIr case of mental development Is contrary to the pleasing theory that he acquired his learning mostly in the old Athenian way by word of mouth or as inc Har- per's Weekly writer absurdlv save through the pores" a poor figure. since everyone knows the pores are channels through which impurities pour out--not purities pour in. MT Howells, himself in his elaborate Literary Confessions and "Reminiscences of Himself and other son,s celebrities clearly demonstrates that hs has been all his life a bookworm ana hard student. He has had passion for feeding on other mems minds. He tars with engaging frankness how he tried to catch the style of one writer after an- other. He tried hard and long to be a poet; but. finding that no go. he became