THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN PRINTER.* ALTHOUGH the subject of
Mr. Scudder's "Biographical Out- line " was latterly the head of one of the greatest American publishing firms, he was essentially a printer. By printing he began at thirteen to earn his living, serving a six years' apprenticeship. By printing he chiefly maintained himself as a student whilst at the University of Vermont at Burlington. Upon printing, when he had taken his degree, after a short engagement as teacher, then as proof-reader, he fell back within two years, taking a share in one of the best Boston printing offices. But he was no mere mechanic. Mr. Scudder says of him :-
" I have often heard him set a high value on the disciplinary collegiate training of his day, which supposed hard intellectual labour for four years. Certainly in his case the effect of this training upon his success as a printer and captain of industry was very great. He was not especially dexterous as a mechanic. What he did have, the gift, especially of his college training, was the power, so much more substantial than mere empiricism, to make his experiments in his head,—to see what he wished to accomplish, and what means, mechanical or other, were needed to produce the desired result. This power was unquestionably confirmed by many years of experience, so that his knowledge of what went to the making of a good book—paper, ink, art of type, presswork" [does authorship count for nothing in a good book, Mr. Scudder 2]—" was unhesitating, but it was a power which sprang rather from the logical faculty behind the eye than from the eye and touch. Another element of success in his vocation which he brought with him from college was also a native gift enhanced
in value by collegiate training, the gift of good taste It was an unfailing source of pleasure to him to examine the work of the great Italian printers, whose masters were in turn the artists of the illuminated missals of the days before printing, and he never wearied of inculcating those fundamental principles of good proportion and simplicity which may be traced in all the acceptable work from Aldus down."
He soon got into relations with two great publishing offices —one of them that of Ticknor and Fields—with which he
• Henry Oscar Houghton: a Biographical Outline. By Horace E. Scudder. Cambridge (U.S.A.)
before long " took the position of an adviser in mechanical matters." His taste in this respect seems to have been conservative ; he "early and always protested against the use of sizes of paper except the old accepted dimensions," and his aim was "to make his type so clear, simple, and orderly that it should do its plain work of expressing language with the least ostentation." A few years later (1864) be himself entered with a partner upon the publishing busi- ness, keeping, however, "the firm of ' H. 0. Houghton and Co.,' printers, distinct from that of Hard and Houghton,' publishers." Later on the publishing firm formed a com- bination with James R. Osgood and Co., who had succeeded Ticknor and Fields. It need hardly be said that the firm (now, and for years past, "Houghton, Mifflin, and Co.") are the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly, one of the oldest American periodicals, of which the seventy-ninth half-yearly volume began with the year.
In the character of the man, as depicted by Mr. Scudder, there seems to have been a curious combination of narrow- ness and breadth, self-will and high purpose. He had been a Protectionist when at College, and he was confirmed in his Protectionism by a stay in London, and " by the evidence which he saw of the almost hopeless prospect of the English workman as compared with his American fellow." He never seems to have asked himself whether, under a system of Pro- tection stricter probably than the American, the prospect of a Russian workman were not far more hopeless than that of an English one, nor whether the better prospect of the American workman (if it be any better at the present day than that of the English) were not owing largely to the fact that behind all American tariffs lies Free-trade for all its products over half a continent, covering a space equal to more than three-quarters of all Europe. He never forgot an error, and never allowed the culprit to forget it. Few who failed in his service "escaped being hauled over the coals,—the coals were rarely allowed to burn into dead ashes; they were fed by many occasions, and the hauling was performed with an energy which kept the band well in practice." Yet "he strained every nerve in dull times to find work with which to help his men along even though at prices which yielded him little or no profit." He was kept back, it would seem, finally by his wife, from changing his partnership into a corporation, providing a pecuniary interest for all engaged in the business. But he instituted a savings department in which any person employed could deposit savings and receive a good interest, and a limited dividend on every hundred dollars deposited. And he established a weekly council, " to which he gave the name, half in jest, half to con- ceal its importance, of 'the Pow-wow," composed of the partners and heads of department or persons charged with special functions, at which the various enterprises of the house were discussed, especially new books recommended for publication, and action was taken. Although in the early years he doubted the worth of the experiment, it became so fixed an institution that, as Mr. Scudder tells us, " Mr. Houghton died on Saturday. The Tuesday following was a holiday in the city ; on the Tuesday after that the Pow-wow' met as usual, and proceeded at once with the business of the week."
Mr. Houghton did not largely take part in public affairs, except when a tariff Bill was before Congress, and in connec- tion with the movement for international copyright. He served on the Cambridge School Committee, on the Common Council and Board of Aldermen, and was elected Mayor for 1872, but displaced the following year in favour of "one of the city officers, whose discharge for insubordination he had forced." He was on more than one commission, took part in the management of a bank, and was a trustee of Cambridge University, and chairman of the standing committee of the School of Law. Largely influenced by his wife, he took an active part in the organisation and practical working of the Indian Rights Association. But Mrs. Houghton, to whom he was devotedly attached, died in 1891, and he survived her for only four years and a few months.
The eight portraits inserted in the volume show a remark- able development, from the strong-willed, hard-featured, almost typical Yankee of his youth, with something of a Carlylesque self-assertion about the mouth, to the shrewd, kindly, and by no means ill-favoured old gentleman who faces the title-page. It is to be regretted that more of his letters could not have been given, as a couple of these to young people, belonging to his latest years, are singularly charming. His doubts as to whether he should send the Sphinx as a present to a young lady friend, amongst other reasons, because " she has got a battered nose, which indicates that she may have been on a drunken spree in her early life," are very comical.
From the autumn of 1894 his health began to fail him, and he went South for the winter. On his return he was strong enough, "in a voice that was never firmer or clearer," to take part in the celebration of his partner, Mr. Mifflin's, fiftieth birthday. His last effort, on August 23rd of that year, was to be present at the celebration of his (only) grandchild's first birthday anniversary. Two days later (August 25th, 1895) he died, aged a little over seventy-two.
Certainly a " master-craftsman,"—a type which one would hardly expect to see evolved amid New World surroundings. Nor has Houghton's work died with him, for Mr. Scudder's volume is a perfect model of good taste in binding and printing. " What a beautiful book ! One is almost afraid to touch it," was the observation of one who took it up from the writer's table. Of Mr. Scudder's own work it is sufficient to say that the volume is no unworthy successor to his charming book on Childhood in literature and Art, reviewed a few years back in these columns. Written with all the frankness of a sincere affection, it brings out for us under its various aspects a remarkable character, several•sided if not many-sided, somewhat narrow, but eminently genuine.
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