Misinforming a Nation. Willard Huntington Wright
find an English publication which, in discussing the United States and its culture, does not contain some affront to our intelligence.
It is quite true, as the English insist, that we are painfully ignorant of Europe; but it must not be forgotten that the chief source of that ignorance is England herself. And the Encyclopædia Britannica, if accepted as authoritative, will go far toward emphasizing and extending that ignorance. Furthermore, it will lessen even the meagre esteem in which we now hold our own accomplishments and potentialities; for, as the following pages will show, the Britannica has persistently discriminated against all American endeavor, not only in the brevity of the articles and biographies relating to this country and in the omissions of many of our leading artists and scientists, but in the bibliographies as well. And it must be remembered that broad and unprejudiced bibliographies are essential to any worthy encyclopaedia: they are the key to the entire tone of the work. The conspicuous absence of many high American authorities, and the inclusion of numerous reactionary and often dubious English authorities, sum up the Britannica's attitude.
However, as I have said, America, if the principal, is not the only country discriminated against. France has fallen a victim to the Encyclopædia's suburban patriotism, and scant justice is done her true greatness. Russia, perhaps even more than France, is culturally neglected; and modern Italy's æsthetic achievements are given slight consideration. Germany's science and her older culture fare much better at the hands of the Britannica's editors than do the efforts of several other nations; but Germany, too, suffers from neglect in the field of modern endeavor.
Even Ireland does not escape English prejudice. In fact, it can be only on grounds of national, political, and personal animosity that one can account for the grossly biased manner in which Ireland, her history and her culture, is dealt with. To take but one example, regard the Britannica's treatment of what has come to be known as the Irish Literary Revival. Among those conspicuous, and in one or two instances world-renowned, figures who do not receive biographies are J. M. Synge, Lady Gregory, Lionel Johnson, Douglas Hyde, and William Larminie. (Although Lionel Johnson's name appears in the article on English literature, it does not appear in the Index—a careless omission which, in victimizing an Irishman and not an Englishman, is perfectly in keeping with the deliberate omissions of the Britannica.)
Furthermore, there are many famous Irish writers whose names are not so much as mentioned in the entire Encyclopaedia for instance, Standish O'Grady, James H. Cousins, John Todhunter, Katherine Tynan, T. W. Rolleston, Nora Hopper, Jane Barlow, Emily Lawless, “A. E.” (George W. Russell), John Eglinton, Charles Kickam, Dora Sigerson Shorter, Shan Bullock, and Seumas MacManus. Modern Irish literature is treated with a brevity and an injustice which are nothing short of contemptible; and what little there is concerning the new Irish renaissance is scattered here and there in the articles on English literature! Elsewhere I have indicated other signs of petty anti-Irish bias, especially in the niggardly and stupid treatment accorded George Moore.
Although such flagrant inadequacies in the case of European art would form a sufficient basis for protest, the really serious grounds for our indignation are those which have to do with the Britannica's neglect of America. That is why I have laid such emphasis on this phase of the Encyclopædia. It is absolutely necessary that this country throw off the yoke of England's intellectual despotism before it can have a free field for an individual and national cultural evolution. America has already accomplished much. She has contributed many great figures to the world's progress. And she is teeming with tremendous and splendid possibilities. To-day she stands in need of no other nation's paternal guidance. In view of her great powers, of her fine intellectual strength, of her wide imagination, of her already brilliant past, and of her boundless and exalted future, such a work as the Encyclopædia Britannica should be resented by every American to whom the welfare of his country is of foremost concern, and in whom there exists one atom of national pride.
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