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 HERDER

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HERDER

"Teutsche Blatter", by the royal and imperial au- thorities at head-quarters as early as the end of 1813, Herder went to Paris with the allied armies in 1815 in Metternich's train as "Director of the Royal and Imperial Field Press". Subsequent to the conclu- sion of peace he founded an art institution for lithog- raphy, copperplate engraving, and modelling in terra cotta, in connexion with his pubhshing business. In the course of time upwards of three hundred pupils were turned out from this institution, while the sumptuous illustrations and maps that were issued mark an epoch in the history of this branch of technic — especially the "Heilige Schriften des Alten und Neuen Testamentes in 200 biblischen Kupfern " (the Holy Writ of the Old and the New Testament in 200 biblical engravings), of which he reproduced nu- merous impressions by an original lithographic pro- cess, and Woerl's "Atlas von Central-Europa in 60 Blattern" (Atlas of Central Europe in 60 plates, 18.30), which was the earliest employment of two-colour lithography. As late as 1870 this atlas rendered im- portant service to the German army by reason of the map of France it contained. Although such great achievements won a European reputation for the house, the commercial profits derived therefrom were entirely disproportionate to the expenditure. Con- sequently the condition of the house at Bartholomaus Herder's death in 1839 was by no means a satisfactory one. His two sons succeeded to the heritage.

Kajrl R.^phael Herder (b. 2 November, 1816; d. 10 June, 1865), the elder son of Bartholomaus, took up the commercial side of the business, while the younger Benj.\min Herder (b. 31 July, 1818; d. 10 Novem- ber, 1888), took charge of the publishing department until his brother's retirement in 1S56, when he under- took the sole management. Equipped with a thorough, scholarly education, trained in the book business by his father and unrler Gauthier de Laguionie in Paris, Benjamin had had his views further broadened early in life by travels tlirough Germany, Austria, France, England, and Italy. Of a character earnest and reli- gious, he was strongly impressed by the Cologne troubles of 1837, and, as in the case of so rnany of his contemporaries, they gave a direction to his life, and this youth of twenty-one set to work with the definite aim of taking his part in the liberation and revival of the Catholic Church in Germany. First of all he gradually abandoned fine-art publications in favour of book-publishing, being thus enabled to devote the full measure of his energies to the service of religious learning. Herein he displayed such activity in the encouragement of particular branches of erudition that the history of his theological publications, for instance, would comprise a considerable fragment of the history of modern theological literature, and the catechetical branch thereof would constitute one of the most important divisions of the history of cate- chetics. After theology Herder applied himself with the greatest zest to pedagogics, to the lives and learn- ing of the saints as well as to other edifying biogra- phies; also after a long and cautious delay to the publication of sermons. He next took up works deal- ing with the religious and political problems of the day, with questions of ecclesiastical policy and social con- troversies and issues. Finally, passing beyond the limits which previously Catholic literature had seldom ventured to transcend, he began the publication of works on the general sciences — history and philoso- phy, the natural sciences, geography, and ethnology, including the publication of atlases, school textbooks, music, art and its literature, the history of literature, and belles-lettres. His governing purpose through- out was to avoid wasting his energies on particular publications, but to build up the various branches gradually and systematically by the publication of more comprehensive 'collections" and "libraries" and by the issue of scientific periodicals.

The " Kirchenlexikon " (Church Lexicon) was the great centre of his fifty years' activity as a publisher. It was the first comprehensive attempt to treat every- thing that had any connexion with theology encyclo- pedically in one work, and also the first attempt to unite all the Catholic savants of Germany, who had hitherto pursued each his own path, in the production of one great work. Herder had nursed this project since 1840. The difficulties encountered even in the preliminary work were almost inconceivable. Then, when its appearance was made possible and its issue was begun in 1847 under the direction of Welte, the exegete of Tubingen, and Wetzer, the Orientalist of Freiburg, followed the even graver difficulties of ensur- ing its continuation, difficulties which were heightened at the beginning by the terrors of the Revolution of 1848, and towards the end by the oppression of the Church in Baden. But finally, after sixteen years of struggling and striving on the part of Herder, all obstacles were overcome, and the work was brought to completion in 1856, thanks chiefly to the never- failing, self-sacrificing support of Hefele. It had a decisive influence on the subsequent intellectual activity of Cathohcism, and the importance which the Protestant scientific world attributed to it was elo- quently demonstrated in the fact that, while it was still in process of issue, the Protestant scholars made use of Herder's scheme, even down to the smallest de- tails, for the " Real-Encyklopadie filr protestantische Theologie ". It was sixteen years more before the pre- liminary work could be begun on the new edition which soon became necessary, and ten years more before its publication could be started. While the historical element had been especially emphasized in the first edition, the dogmatic and exegetical side was ex- panded to equal dimensions in the second edition, in view of the far-reaching change which had taken place in the domain of theology. The subjects to be treated were chosen by .Adalbert Weiss, professor at the Freising lyccum, and the editorial chair was held by Hergenrother (q. v.) until his elevation to the cardinalate, and afterwards by Kaulen (q. v.), the exegete of Bonn.

■The stupendous plan, which Benjamin had cher- ished since 1841, of building up a " TheologLsche Bibliothek" (Theological Library) according to an equally logical and symmetrical scheme, he was un- able to realize until" thirty years later. When the "Kirchenlexikon" was nearing completion. Herder sought, by the publication of the " Kon versa tions-Lexi- kon" (Universal Encyclopaedia, 1st ed., 1853-7), to make the Catholic public independent of the hostile literature which ruled unchallenged in the highly important domain of works of general information. .Although, out of regard for the hmited purchasing capacity of the Catholic public in Germany, he con- fined himself to the modest limits of five medium- sized volumes, still the undertaking was for his day a very courageous one. Of the very great number of other works published by him, we can draw attention only to the most notable, which spread the reputation of the house far beyond the limits of Germany. Among the earliest were the works of .\lban Stolz (q. v.), a man endowed by nature with all the gifts of the popular theologian and teacher of the people, whose " Kalender fur Zeit und Ewigkeit", as.sailing in power- ful and eloquent language the fundamental evils of the world and the age, achieved an extraordinary success in strengthening and deepening the faith of the people. Alongside of Stolz we find Ignaz Schus- ter, whose catechisms and Biblical histories, issued in constantly improved editions and based upon the tradition of the Church and the text of Holy Writ, were scattered over the world, like Stolz's work.s, in hundreds of thou.sands of copies, the larger editions of the Biblical histories being translated into no less than twenty-five languages. Even before the com-