IV.

FIRST NATIONAL PERIOD.

(1815-1861.)

THE First National Period extends from the close of the War of 1812 to the beginning of the Civil War. It covers nearly half a century, and exhibits great national expansion. The arduous tasks imposed upon the people during the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods were successfully achieved. The dreams of our forefathers began. to be realized. "America," says Hegel, "is the land of the future, where in the ages that lie before us the burden of the world's history shall reveal itself." During the period under consideration it made a long stride toward its coming greatness.

With the establishment of peace in 1815, the United States entered upon an unparalleled era of prosperity. The development of the country went forward with great rapidity. An increasing tide of immigration, chiefly from Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany, swept to our shores. Of kindred blood, the great body of immigrants readily adjusted themselves to their new surroundings, and vigorously joined with our native-born people in developing the agricultural, mineral, and industrial resources of our country. The population increased from 8,438,000 in 1815 to 32,000,000 in 1861, thus equalling the leading nations of Europe.

The great valley of the Mississippi was occupied. Its fertility made it one of the most favored agricultural regions in the world. The invention of agricultural machinery made it possible to harvest immense crops of wheat and corn, for which a market was found in Europe. Trade and manufactures naturally attended upon agriculture; and, as a result, flourishing towns and cities sprang up with unexampled rapidity. Cincinnati grew from a town of 5,000 in 1815 to a city of 161,000 in 1860, while the growth of St. Louis and Chicago was still more phenomenal.

The Atlantic States showed a development no less remarkable. The frontier, carried beyond the Mississippi, made the toils and dangers of border life a tradition. The invention of the steam-engine gave a new impulse to commerce and manufacture. In addition to excellent highways, railroads traversed the country in all directions. The New England States developed large manufacturing interests. The seaboard cities grew in size, wealth, and culture. Baltimore increased from 49,000 in 1815 to 212,000 in 1860. Within the same period, Boston increased from 38,000 to 177,000; Philadelphia from 100,000 to 508,000; and New York from 100,000 to 813,000.

The intellectual culture of the people kept pace with their material expansion. The public-school system was extended from New England throughout the free States. In the West liberal appropriations of land were made for their support. Gradually the courses of study and the methods of instruction were improved through the efforts of intelligent educators like Horace Mann and Henry Barnard. Schools of secondary education were founded in all parts of the country. No fewer than one hundred and forty-nine colleges were established between 1815 and

1861. These institutions, liberally supported by denominational zeal or by private munificence, became centres of literary culture. Harvard College exerted an astonishing influence. Between 1821 and 1831 it graduated Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, Sumner, Phillips, Motley, and Thoreau. Bancroft and Prescott were graduated at an earlier date. Longfellow, though a graduate of Bowdoin, for some years filled the chair of Modern Languages. This list, as will be seen, contains a number of the most honored names in American literature.

The periodical press became a powerful agency in the diffusion of knowledge. In no other country, perhaps, has greater enterprise been shown in periodical literature than in America. Our newspapers, as a rule, show more energy, and our magazines more taste, than those of Europe. In 1860 there were 4,051 papers and periodicals, circulating annually 927,951,000 copies, an average of thirty-four copies for each man, woman, and child in the country. They gradually rose in excellence, and stimulated literary production. A few of our ablest writers, Bryant, Poe, Whittier, and Lowell, served as editors. The North American Review, which was founded in 1815, numbered among its contributors nearly every writer of prominence in the First National Period.

As the foregoing considerations show, our country now, for the first time, presented conditions favorable to the production of general literature. The stress of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods was removed, and the intellectual energies of the people were freer to engage in the arts of peace. The growing wealth of the country brought the leisure and culture that create, to a greater or less degree, a demand for the higher forms of literature:

The large cities became literary centres. Large publishing-houses were established. Under these circumstances it is not strange that there appeared writers in poetry, fiction, and history who attained a high degree of excellence. Irving, Cooper, Bryant, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bancroft, Prescott, and others are names that reflect credit upon their country.

Like the early colo

It will be noticed that nearly all the great writers of this period were from New England. It was there that the conditions were most favorable. The West was still too new for much literary activity. nists, the people were engaged in the great task of subduing an untamed country. In the South the social conditions were not favorable to literature. Slavery retarded the intellectual as well as the material development of the Southern States. It checked manufacture, and turned immigration westward. Manual labor contracted

a fatal taint from slavery. While the slaveholding class were generally intelligent, and often highly cultured, the rest of the white population were comparatively illiterate. The public-school system, regarded as unfavorable to the existing social relations, was not adopted. The energies of the dominant class were devoted to politics rather than to literature. Thus, while the South had great debaters and orators, like Calhoun and Clay, it did not, during this period, produce a single writer of eminence.

So far our inquiry has sought an explanation of the literary activity of this period. The general causes, as in every period of literary bloom, are sufficiently patent. We may now examine the influences that gave literature its distinctive character as contrasted with that of the preceding periods. The result will not be without interest.

The period under consideration witnessed a wonderful stride in the march of human progress. There was a renaissance, based not on a restoration of ancient literature, but upon invention and science. It was not confined to

any one country, but extended throughout the Christian. world. It is not necessary to enumerate the various inventions which in a few decades revolutionized the entire system of agriculture, manufacture, and commerce. The drudgery of life was greatly relieved, the products of human industry were vastly increased, and the comforts of life largely multiplied. The nations of the earth were drawn closer together, and the intellectual horizon was extended until it embraced, not a single province, but the civilized world.

But the period was distinguished scarcely less by its spirit of scientific inquiry. Emancipating themselves largely from the authority of tradition, men learned to look upon the world for themselves. Patient toilers carefully accumulated facts upon which to base their conclusions. All the natural sciences were wonderfully expanded. The origin of man, the history of the past, the laws of society, were all brought under new and searching investigation. As a result of all this scientific inquiry, a flood of light was shed upon the principal problems of nature and life. Christendom was lifted to a higher plane of intelligence than it had ever reached before.

This general renaissance produced a corresponding change in literature. It enriched literature with new treasures of truth. It taught men to look upon the universe in a different way. Literary activity was stimulated, and both poetry and prose were cultivated to an extraordinary degree. New forms of literature were devised to