New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-11-20
National Institute of Arts
Awards Veteran Writer
Gold Medal.
WHITLOCK'S PAPER
ADDS TO PRAISE
American Envoy to Belgium De-
clares HoWells's Fiction Struck
First Clear Note in America.
lBy Telegraph to Tn. Tribune. ]

4 state by Arnold w. Drummer ana tne
reading of a paper prepared by Brand
Whitlock, United States Minister to
/ Belgium, on "The American Quality in
American Literature" were features Of
the annual meeting of the National In
stitute of Arts and Letters in Jordan
Hall to-day.
Mr. Howells was awarded the gold
/ medal of the institute, its highest
\ tribute for attainment in any of the
/ fine arts. He is the first novelist TO re-
ceive it. Hamilton Wright Mabe, OF
! New York, made the presentation
! address, and in the absence of Mr.
Howells the award was accepted by
/ Ripley Hitchcock, secretary of the in
stitute. Mr.. Hitchcock read a letter
/ from the recipient, happily acknowl-
edging the honor One excerpt was:
81 felt that if by no other right the
medal of fiction might me mine by the
right Of seniority, for have been writ
| ing novels now for nearly fifty years,
and ! have outlived nearly every con-
| temporary who might have outrivalled
me in the competition. If this triumph
I of longevity had its inevitable sadness
/ ! hoped that there might DE some touch
( claim of his arrival to the man who is
out of the running.
With a Single Motive.
| $50 far as pure criticism has gov
| erned your vote, ! might say that the
novelist whom you have done the great
est honor that the world could do him
/ has striven for excellence in his art
with no divided motive, unless the con-
4 4 .
| fealty TO fiction. The fashion of this
world passes away, and have seen it
come and 60 in my art, or phases of il.
| The best novel of my day is not the
best novel of yours in some of these"
Mr.. Drummer asserted that persons
grew more courteous as their surround
ings were made more artistic.
"Our American cities were planned
in the rush hour" he said. "They say
Broadway is picturesque; it is not. II
is only sordid, neglected opportunity.
The architecture is in mob state. You
see only mass of incongruity in a
walk down that great metropolitan
thoroughfare."
Percy Mackaye read poem, FEEDER
alton" with peace as its theme. Nicho-
las Murray Butler, president of Column
bia University, read paper on Dis
cipline and the Social Aim in Educa-
ton"
Howells A Pioneer.
Mr.. Whitlock's paper was in part as
follows:
"The memory of the first clear note
Of the American motif in our fiction
takes us back to the days in which we
seem TO have had more literary criti-
cism than we have in these, when
publishers taking culture into Their own
hands so wisely observe the precau-
tion TO print a review of each book on
it's cover We were all thrilling then
over MIR. Howells's battle for realism,
as we understand the word in America,
not naturalism, nor mere meticulous
accuracy in reporting superficial de-
tails, but that inner realism which Is
the soul of things and one with the
logic of life, the eye clear enough
to see and the heart strong enough
to accept the results of character and
deed.
1T is a principle that must be the
basis of any art that is democratic
as it is the basis of democracy itself.
It was, indeed, the democratic faith.
no less than the literary genius, Of
Mr.. Howells that gave the first i'm
pulse toward native and Indigenous
fiction, and with the vision that ac-
companies all real faith he saw what
art might do with the rich and varied
life that lay all undiscovered before
the eyes Of American writers. In a
Modern Instance and The Rise OF
Silas Lapham,' to select but two of his
many novels, he laid the foundation
of a new literature in America.
Great American Novel"
1--WE used to talk in those days of
the Great American Novel, and most
of US fully intended some day to
write il. But it was found to be a
rather large order. America was in
the process of that recurrent discov-
cry that has been going on since Co
lumbus's time, and changed too often
and doomed too large for any single
imagination; it was beyond the writer
as the Grand Canon or Niagara is
beyond the painter. But it had a
quality that determined its validity as
American above any other claim, and
that was, it was not pervaded by the
subtle and facilitating atmosphere Of
caste and rank and privilege; even in
the dialect stories the characters were
not treated patronizingly, en- grand
seigneur de haut en- bias. Between
this work and what had gone before
there was the difference between the
position a gily is permitted 10 assume
in one of the novels of Sir Walter and
that which a Scotsman takes naturally
in the poems of Robert Burns.
"Romanticism, indeed, in some form
always contrives TO flourish on, and to
prevail over it's patient meritorious
rival. even if il has to go into the
cinema, where under the censorship OF
notice sergeants il is, from all reports,
doing so we'll even now. And doubtless
il will continue TO do this, for our bust
ness men after two hours spent in die
tating 10 distinguished stenographers
in the morning, two hours at luncheon
at the club in the middle Of the day
and eighteen holes of golf in the after
noon. are so tired in the evening that
they cannot apply their undoubted
Judgment in art TO the work OF serious
writer's, while their lovely daughters,
whom our publishers are so assiduous
10 please, have long since passed on to
william Blake and Nictzsche.
"And as for our workingmen, after
tho DAVIS work is done, instead of read
ing about the upper classes in the Eng
lisb serials that are always running in
the magazines, they go out to see the
movies. Sometimes IL seems, indeed.
that the audience is so reduced and
limited that there is nobody left for
whom novels may be written, unless
the novelists write for each other and
as the etiquette OF the profession re-
ouircs that they present each other
with autograph comics nj Their work
,bev seem sometimes TO be in danger OF
eating each other up. and perishing
out OF the earth altogether.
49,. Nal U..Iisfic