Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/51



had already begun his most characteristic work when he moved to La Belle Sauvage. "Cassell's Library" was being published, and on April 3, 1852, the first weekly number of the "Popular Educator" had appeared.

"Cassell's Library" was the earliest venture of a cheap edition of paper-covered books at sevenpence. It inaugurated seventy years ago the form of publishing enterprise so brilliantly revived in the ninth decade of the century. The twenty-six volumes of the collection included a History of England in four volumes and a History of Scotland in two, by Robert Ferguson, LL.D., and "The History and Sources of the British Empire," by Benjamin Parsons. There was a "People's Biographical Dictionary," by J. R. Beard, D.D.; popular science was provided by Professor Wallace in his "Account of the Steam Engine," and by John Kennedy, M.A., who wrote a "Natural History of Man."

The "Popular Educator" was pure Cassell. It was the crown and culmination of John Cassell's experience and judgment of the needs of those to whom general education had been denied. To any man who wished to supply those needs, so far as he could by private study, Cassell meant to offer the material and the machinery. The "Popular Educator" was "a school, an academy, and a university" all in one, as the Dublin University Magazine said. Something quite new, it aroused "real wonder" in the minds of the reviewers who wrote about it, and was acclaimed by public men everywhere as a great civilizing influence. Its popular success was immediate.

Cassell had confided his design to Professor Wallace, of Glasgow University, and appointed him first editor.