John Jay Chapman

About this book

Though esteemed by men of letters such as William James, Edmund Wilson, Daniel Aaron, and Jacques Barzun, the American writer and thinker John Jay Chapman (1862-1933) produced works on government, social theory, education, and literature that remain largely unknown or misknown. This dissertation argues directly and implicitly that his political and educational writings and his literary criticism, conveyed in a superb style, reveal both an important witness of the 1890's through the first decades of the last century and one of America's forest essayists. Countering social Darwinism, Chapman contends that any complete political theory must account for the unselfish characteristics in human psychology. Democracy needs a balanced consideration of both the legitimate requirements of the individual and the group, one in keeping with the self-development of the individual as a religious creature. Reform of democratic governmental machinery must keep this in view. What are Chapman's other achievements? His literary criticism suggests that his value as a critic lies not only in his appreciation of romanticist elements, but, even more significantly, in the range of his interests, including speculations about genre, genesis, reader response, and the limits of scholarship, as well as judicial assessments of a sensitive empiricism, expressed with epigrammatic precision and witty metaphors. As regards education, Chapman's prescience concerning the influence of business in the American university and college, the neglect of the humanities, and the onset of scientism in the appraisal of knowledge and administration of education, demonstrates a pioneer in the diagnosis of learning conditions at the turn of the 20 th century. Chapman's thoughts are shaped and incarnated by a distinguished style. An analysis of various effects of his prose--related to its syntax, arrangement, tone, rhythm, and rhetorical fitness--demonstrates how he begets the ease, lucidity, and force which make him re-readable with pleasure. The unique combination in his prose of aphoristic, epigrammatic elements with sequential and reasoning ones indicates that both the static order of reason and the dynamic working of inspiration are at work in his thinking, and stands for his unity and excellence.