There is no more
fascinating story than that of the beginnings of American science
in and outside of the colleges, and this movement, like the
influence of journalism and of the higher education, counted for
colonial union.
Professor Tyler, our foremost literary student of the period,
summarizes the characteristics of colonial literature in these
words: "Before the year 1765, we find in this country, not one
American people, but many American peoples . . . . No cohesive
principle prevailed, no centralizing life; each little nation was
working out its own destiny in its own fashion." But he adds that
with that year the colonial isolation came to an end, and that
the student must thereafter "deal with the literature of one
multitudinous people, variegated, indeed, in personal traits, but
single in its commanding ideas and in its national destinies." It
is easy to be wise after the event. Yet there was living in
London in 1765, as the agent for Pennsylvania, a shrewd and bland
Colonial--an honorary M. A. from both Harvard and Yale, a D.
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