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 The Sifted Grain and the Grain Sifters 227 tion " has undergone a prodigious increase. Take Harvard College, for instance; in 1796 it graduated thirty-three students, and in 1896 it graduated four hundred and eight, — an increase of more than twelvefold. In 1796, also, there were not a tenth part of the in- stitutions of advanced education in the country which now exist. The statistics of the publishing houses and the shelves of the book- selling establishments all point to the same conclusion. Of course, it does not follow that because a book is bought it is also read ; but it is not unsafe to say that twenty copies of Gibbon's Dtxlinc and Fall are called for in the bookstores of to-day to one that was called for in 1800. On this subject, however, very instructive light may be derived from another quarter. I refer to the public library. While dis- cussing the question eighteen months ago, I ventured to state that, " in the case of one public library in a considerable Massachusetts city I had been led to conclude, as the result of examination and somewhat careful inquiry, that the copy of the Decline and Fall on its shelves had, in over thirty years, not once been consecutively read through by a single individual." I have since made further and more careful inquiry on this point from other, and larger, though similar institutions, and the inference I then drew has been confirmed and generalized. I have also sought information as to the demand for historical literature, and the tendency and character of the reading so far as it could be ascertained, or approximately in- ferred. I have submitted my Hst of historical writers, and inquired as to the call for them. Suggestive in all respects, the results have, in some, been little less than startling. Take for instance pop- ularity, and let me recur to Macaulay and Carlyle. I have spoken of the two as great masters in historical composition, — comparing them in their field to Turner and Millet in the field of art. Like Turner and Millet, they influenced to a marked extent a whole gen- eration of workers that ensued. To such an extent did they influ- ence it that a scholastic reaction against them set in, — a reaction as distinct as it was strong. Nevertheless, in spite of that reaction, to what extent did the master retain his popular hold ? I admit that my astonishment was great when I learned that between 1880, more than twenty years after his death, and 1900, besides innumerable editions issued on both sides of the Atlantic, the authorized London publishers of Macaulay had sold in two shapes only, — and they ap- pear in many other shapes, — 80,000 copies of his History and 90,000 of his Miscellanies. Of Carlyle and the call for his writings I could gather no such specific particulars ; but in reply to my inquiries, I was generally advised that, while the English demand had been large,