I venture the guess that by 1950 the common schools of the world will be history schools in a far more fundamental sense than they ever were Latin schools, or, as we are still old-fashioned enough to call them, grammar schools. And just as now, in the United States, a child's advance from grade to grade depends on his understanding of arithmetic, so in the schools of the future I think the willingness of a maturer group to admit any young person to its intellectual adventures will depend largely on the range and vividness of that young person's historical perceptions. By talking about historical perceptions, I mean quite concrete things. For one thing, I mean his power to discover fresh and meaningful analogies between the present and the past; I am thinking of such an analogy, for instance, as Mr. Leiserson's when he called the rising labor-unions the "new House of Commons"; only I suppose I mean a younger, less embracing comparison.

Much more, though, I am thinking of a person's power to feel the present flowing on in a stream of change like the past; to feel history moving along under us, carrying us along, "Freshening its current, and spotted with foam."

And, finally, when I say "historical perceptions," I am thinking of the perception that history consists of a blend of cultures—a skein of major human interests as international as arithmetic.

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Originally published in Time Magazine on June 9, 1930

Less than a year ago gentle, cultured Century magazine found the world moving at "too fast a pace," changed its own periodicity from monthly to quarterly (TIME, Aug. 5). Despite the proud note in Editor Hewitt Hanson Howland's announcement that "Century proposes to take the first move" toward more leisurely living, observers suspected a prelude to surrender. Last week the 60-year-old Century was taken over by its robust monthly neighbor, Forum, bustling "magazine of controversy."

Purchase by Forum afforded faltering Century honorable refuge from a life which, while eminently respectable, had become in recent years a burden. It was after the death in 1881 of Editor Josiah Gilbert Holland (cofounder with Roswell Smith) that Century reached the zenith of its editorial command. Then, under Editor Richard Watson Gilder, it scored its journalistic triumph with the serial life of Lincoln, by Nicolay & Hay, and a Civil War battle series written by the most important participants. Circulation reached its peak of 150,000 in 1906. Followed a gentle but inexorable decline which not even energetic Editor Glenn Frank (now president of University of Wisconsin) could completely check.

Circulation dwindled to 31,000 in 1925; 22,000 in 1928; less than 20,000 this year. Once a favored advertising medium, member of the self-respecting "Quality Group,"* Century carried in its spring issue only five pages of advertising other than its own publisher's.

Forum, with its 90,000 circulation and bountiful advertising, has little to gain by the merger, save to clear its cluttered field of one element of competition, and speed the swing of public taste away from the Victorian "genteel literary magazine" toward the virile, provocative medium for present-day skeptics. The joint title, Forum & Century will not affect its tactics while Editor Henry Goddard Leach remains.

The same restless attitude of public mind that brought defeat to Century made for Forum's success. Sixteen years Century's junior, Forum was founded by Isaac L. Rice, edited first by Lorettus Sutton Metcalf, next by famed Walter Hines Page. A succession of editors led in 1923 to Mr. Leach, under whose direction Forum has more than tripled the highest circulation of Page's time.

*Quality Group, comprised of Century, Harper's, Scribner's, World's Work, Review of Reviews, Atlantic Monthly endeavored to induce advertisers to purchase space in the entire group. It disintegrated in 1928, partly because of disagreements over page-size; partly because the "strong" members wearied of carrying the "weak."

Originally published in Time Magazine on August 5, 1929

Six weeks ago announcement was made that in September the monthly Magazine of Business would become a weekly (The Business Week) in order that it might keep up with "the new tempo in business" (TIME, June 24).

Last week announcement was made that Century, for 60 years a monthly, would make its first appearance in October as a quarterly because the world is going at "too fast a pace." Explained Century Editor Hewitt Hanson Rowland: "We have stepped on the accelerator with such a heavy foot that time is out of joint; what we once spread over three leisurely months we now crowd into one, with the leisure squeezed out. . . The Century proposes to take the first move. With added leisure in which to make a better magazine we give you [Century readers] added leisure in which to read and reflect."

In 1906 Century circulation was 150,000 and there was a commensurate amount -of advertising. In 1925, Century circulation had shrunk to 31,000; last year had shrunk still more, to 22,000. Advertising pages have been scarce in Century.

Was Century losing money? Editor Howland said he did not know because he had nothing to do with the accounting department. Furthermore, explained he: "It's an honest-to-God fact that we are changing Century's issues to four times a year because we think people in this hurry-up-age really want more time to read it! I have already received many letters commending the change. We'll still have the same standards Century has always had."

The Century standards were first thought of by two men, Roswell Smith and Josiah Gilbert Holland, who met in Geneva in 1869, confided in each other their ambitions to become publishers. Next year with help of funds subscribed by Scribner & Co., book publishers, they founded Scribner's Monthly— later changed to the Century.

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Originally published in Time Magazine on September 14, 1925

To be the editor of a great magazine is to possess a national, perhaps a worldwide, consequence. To be the president of a university is to take rank in a tradition that knows no limitation of time or country, to shed off personal sharpnesses in the dignity of scholarship. Some months ago Glenn Frank weighed these truths. Should he continue as editor of the Century? Or resign to become President of Wisconsin University? He chose, as many people are aware (TIME, May 25, EDUCATION) the latter course.

Last week his successor was named—a man who has attained his position "without college training of any kind." The new editor, Hewitt H. Howland, has been for many years literary adviser to the Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis publishers. He is a friend of Robert Underwood Johnson, onetime Century editor, who long ago sought his services. "Leave him alone," begged officials of the Bobbs-Merrill Co. In the sanctity of their private offices, these officials would confess to intimates that Howland "had genius for literary values". Like Booth Tarkington, Theodore Dreiser, Lew Wallace, Meredith Nicholson, George Ade, George Barr McCutcheon and James Whitcomb Riley, he comes from Indiana. His wife is the sister of that loose-lipped and not infrequently objectionable funnyman journalist, Irvin S. Cobb. He will go to the Century in October.

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Originally Published: The Century Magazine Vol. 110, No. 2 -- June 1925

Further Memories of the Midland
By H.C. Chatfield-Taylor

Carpenters were hammering frantically one afternoon in order to finish a temporary floor in the Auditorium on which little feet in satin slippers were soon to glide beside spurred heels. Florists, meanwhile, were attaching garden garlands to gilded balconies, and nimble decorators, high up on ladders, were fastening banners of red and yellow silk— the oro y sangre of Spain—to Venetian masts, when into the midst of this hubbub came the governor of a sovereign State, very red in the face, to demand of a pair of tired young men why a box for the ball of that evening bad not been reserved for him.

One of the young men was John L. Chamberlain, then a first lieutenant of artillery, but now, so has time flown, a retired major-general, with a D. S. M. for "exceptionally meritorious service" as inspector-general of the armies of the United States. The other was the writer of these memories, functioning as secretary of the Inaugural Reception Committee of the World's Columbian Exposition of which brave and stately General Nelson A. Miles was the chairman, its members being Hempstead Washburne, Mayor of Chicago; Marshall Field; George M, Pullman; and N. K. Fairbank. For days and days Lieutenant Chamberlain had been helping me to solve the seemingly insoluble problem of how to place in forty boxes, of six chairs each, at least four hundred importunate officials each of whom demanded not a seat only, but an entire box labeled with his name and rank in letters so large that all who ran might read. Before a wrathful governor began to upbraid us for a fancied slight to his dignity as ruler of a great and glorious commonwealth, we had been prodding carpenters, florists, and decorators for hours and hours, while counting the precious moments that remained to us ere John Philip Sousa's bandsmen were due to play a march dedicated to a great republic, and its dignitaries to appear upon a floor not yet finished, while the figures "1492-1892" blazed forth on a stage where banners were still being hung to slender poles.

Just when the anger of one who had not had the politeness to reply to a courteous invitation had reached its apogee, a citizen who was either a camcriere del Papa, or something quite as hierarchical, appeared upon the scene to demand with more politeness than his Excellency had shown, yet with equal insistence, the tickets for the box of his Eminence Cardinal Gibbons. Now, it happened that the secretary of an exposition which was holding its dedicatory ceremonies six months before its doors were to open in order to make prospective exhibitors aware of its existence had failed not only to inform Chamberlain and me that this great prelate had been invited to attend them, but that he was actually in Chicago, accompanied by Archbishops Satolli and Ireland. Luckily, we had had the foresight to retain for such an emergency the tickets for a box which, although well situated, bore the number thirteen. But between the demands of an angry governor and an insistent camcriere, we were in a quandary until, putting our heads together, we came to the conclusion that whereas the chief executive of a State was able, no doubt, to create a rumpus within its confines, a cardinal might, if offended, spread an unfavorable impression of Chicago's cherished enterprise throughout the entire Christian world. To the emissary of his Eminence, therefore, the tickets for box thirteen were given, his Excellency being placated by the inclosure within red ribbons of six orchestra chairs, and the hanging upon a neighboring pillar of a flag on which were blazoned the arms of a commonwealth.

When the last banner had been hung and the last nail driven, my able coadjutor and I dressed in a jiffy and bolted a hasty dinner; then, with the assistance of a corps of white-gloved young men wearing red-and-yellow sashes across their shirt-bosoms, we formed upon a floor completed but an hour before a receiving-line composed of a score of the city's most prominent ladies, with Mrs. Potter Palmer, beautiful and bejeweled, at its head.

An ungracious chief executive of the nation having remained in Washington, our next duty was to marshal the members of the cabinet, the diplomatic corps, and the Supreme Court, together with the governors of some thirty States, their gold-braided staffs, and sundry senators, congressmen, and officers of the army and navy, all in order of precedence behind Vice-President Morton, who, being "kind and affable to every creature," fulfilled a definition of a gentleman made centuries ago.

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Originally Published: The Century Magazine Vol. 110, No. 2 -- June 1925

BY WALTER TITTLE

Social life in the Latin countries is not the free and open institution to which we are accustomed in America and England. The Anglo-Saxon has his barriers that are more or less easily passed, and, this achieved, social intercourse is so general that it can easily become a cumulative burden, with some a business. To the Frenchman his home is particularly his castle, which he guards most carefully and jealously. He may have "cafe" friendships" with men for long periods without a thought on either side of introductions into the respective homes of the participants. When this finally comes, it may be taken as the best compliment that its donor can bestow.

My first invitation to a Parisian home came from Baron Denaint, who, being half English, was a partial exception to the rule. Another was from a French boy whom I had met casually in Rome, and whose undying gratitude I had won by a trifling loan of a sufficient number of lire to tide him over until his belated allowance arrived. These were pleasant and alluring glimpses into French home life. A third was from a member of the Chamber of Deputies at a time when his family were at their country place; whether this was carefully timed because of that fact, I do not know.

Paris, which usually dwells in the rosiest chambers of my mind as a city of sunshine, gaiety, and laughter, can at certain seasons rival London in its chill inclemency. On a dismal October day of violent downpour I sat in the writing-room of my hotel answering accumulated letters that I would have joyously neglected were Paris only living up to the reputation that I still reserved for her. Suddenly I was confronted by two men, objects of dripping misery, with hats and umbrellas that seemed to weigh pounds, or kilos if you prefer, because of the moisture that they had absorbed.

"How do you do, my friend?" one of them addressed me. "I am Monsieur Bélugu. We met often at Baron Stoops's in London. My wife sends her most cordial greetings. Do you remember us? I was just passing the Galerie Devambez and saw the posters of your exhibition there. The gallery attendant gave me your address."

Mme. Carolus-Duran, our hostess

I was touched by the kindly interest that braved the weather that I was carefully shunning, and I greeted my visitors with corresponding enthusiasm. The following Sunday found me at M. Bélugu's house for luncheon, the party having been arranged not only as a reunion with my host and hostess after our pleasant contact in London, but also for me to meet the Due de Guise. The bearer of that historic name was unable to come on this particular day, however, and the pleasure of meeting him was reserved for another time. Among the guests were the Count Dumiere and Mme. Carolus-Duran, daughter-in-law of the celebrated painter.

The luncheon passed with much gay chatter; fortunately for me, the English language was in evidence in sufficient, but varying degrees of, perfection, saving the strain of my slender stock of French. Toward tea-time we all repaired to the house of Mme. Carolus-Duran near by, where a most interesting company gradually assembled. Among the early arrivals were the principals of the Moscow Art Theater, fresh from their first successful season in New York and full of praise of my native land.

The cordiality of their reception in America had warmed their hearts to us, and their leading actress, Mme. Chekhov, widow of the great writer, voiced her enthusiasm in excellent English for everything American. They were to open soon for a short engagement at the Theatre Champs-Elysees, and after that a brief sojourn in London was planned; but these, apparently, were mentally hurdled with an eager eye turned toward New York, where, she told me, after a second engagement in the metropolis they were to have their first real view of our broad land in a tour from coast to coast. She was expecting keen enjoyment of the scenic wonders of our great West.

Russians were much in evidence, and all classes and regimes were represented, from the czar's, in the person of his former procurator-general, to several persons of apparent Bolshevist convictions. Between these extremes stood a venerable gentleman greatly resembling Tolstoy, who had been president of the Douma under Kerensky, and the diminutive, alert, smiling General Skouraud, Tatar from top to toe, who had achieved fame during the war by capturing a German general with his entire staff. In this same house on another occasion two Russian noblemen played with a skill and beauty that was astonishing upon balalaika and zither for the amusement of a company as mixed as the present one; their spirits found vent in song as the concert progressed, and the climax was reached when the impish Skouraud leaped to his feet and launched into a wild Cossack dance that would have been creditable in any Russian ballet. Some of his audience emphasized the rhythms with their hands, and echoed his almost savage cries with joyous enthusiasm.

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