older American universities, Yale, the Foundation
will establish a lectureship; and annually there will be given at Yale a
lecture or a course of lectures on American literature by some
distinguished writer or critic. It is hoped that, as the Foundation grows,
other universities will be brought into co-operation with Yale so that the
lectureship may move from centre to centre, stimulating to intelligent
self-expression the varied elements that are contributing to our national
growth.

The lectures given on The Bookman Foundation will be published in book
form by The Bookman in a handsome and uniform edition. Membership in The
Bookman Foundation will be by invitation. All members of the Foundation
will be entitled to receive the published lectures without charge and they
will also have the privilege of subscribing for certain first and limited
editions of notable American books. At the present writing, even so much
as I have suggested is largely tentative, and I offer it for its essential
idea; an executive committee of The Bookman Foundation, in co-operation
with an advisory committee, the members of which committees have
yet to be finally determined, will settle all details. By the time of this
book's publication or even sooner, I expect a full announcement will have
been made; and for the correction of what I have stated I would refer the
reader to The Bookman itself.

=iii=

I am not going to give a historical account of The Bookman here. The
magazine is no newcomer among American periodicals. It has a reasonably
old and highly honourable history. For long published by the house of
Dodd, Mead & Company, it was acquired by George H. Doran Company and
placed under the editorial direction of Robert Cortes Holliday. That was
the beginning of a new vitality in its pages. Mr. Holliday was succeeded
by Mr. Farrar, and now, in its fifty-sixth volume, The Bookman seems to
the thousands who read it more interesting than ever before in its
history.

The roll call of its past and present contributors includes many of the
representative names in contemporary American and English literature. I
will give a few:

JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER
AMY LOWELL
SIEGFRIED SASSOON
JAMES BRANCH CABELL
MARY ROBERTS RINEHART
ZONA GALE
FANNIE HURST
WILLIAM MCFEE
SHERWOOD ANDERSON
HUGH WALPOLE
FRANK SWINNERTON
ROBERT FROST
SARA TEASDALE
IRVIN S. COBB
RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
DONN BYRNE
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
RO