in the introduction to "The Best Short Stories of 1916," I
pointed out that the American short story cannot be reduced to a
literary formula, because the art in which it finds its concrete
embodiment is a growing art. The critic, when he approaches American
literature, cannot regard it as he can regard any foreign literature.
Setting aside the question of whether our cosmopolitan population, with
its widely different kinds of racial heritage, is at an advantage or a
disadvantage because of its conflicting traditions, we must accept the
variety in substance and attempt to find in it a new kind of national
unity, hitherto unknown in the history of the world. The message voiced
in President Wilson's words on several occasions during the past year is
a true reflection of the message implicit in American literature.
Various in substance, it finds its unity in the new freedom of
democracy, and English and French, German and Slav, Italian and
Scandinavian bring to the common melting-pot ideals which are fused in a
national unity of democratic utterance.

It is inevitable, therefore, that in this stage of our national literary
development, our newly conscious speech lacks the sophisticated
technique of older literatures. But, perhaps because of this very
limitation, it is much more alert to the variety and life of the human
substance with which it deals. It does not take the whole of life for
granted and it often reveals the fresh naivete of childhood in its
discovery of life. When its sophistication is complete, it is the
sophistication of English rather than of American literature, and is
derivative rather than original, for the most part, in its criticism of
life. I would specifically except, however, from this criticism the
work of three writers, at least, whose sophistication is the embodiment
of a new American technique. Katharine Fullerton Gerould, Wilbur Daniel
Steele, and H. G. Dwight have each attained a distinction in our
contemporary literature which places them at the head of their craft.

During the past year there has been much pessimistic criticism of the
American short story, some of it by Americans, and some by Europeans who
are now residing in our midst. To the European mind, trained in a
tradition where technique in story-writing is paramount, it is natural
that the American short story should seem to reveal grave deficiencies.
I am by no means disposed to minimize the weakness of American
craftsmanship, bu