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June, 1895 (6:60) This is the only time
Traubel actually titled an issue “Walt Whitman Birthday Number: for May
31.” As always, the issue began with a Traubel editorial,
which he titled “Collect,” after Whitman (also as usual, it was signed
“H.L.T.”). Among the contents
of the birthday issue was a short piece on “Emerson’s and Lowell’s Views
of Whitman,” an attack on Max Nordau’s Degeneration (in which Whitman
was categorized as insane), an article by Harned on “Whitman and the Future,”
a Bucke article answering the question, “Was Whitman Mad?” (the answer,
from one who said he had “examined in my life about five thousand lunatics,”
is no!). But, as an academic,
my favorite item from the issue is the following short communication,
which may well draw attention to the first Whitman course at an American
university. (A year later The Conservator offered
this news about Professor Triggs: “David McKay, of Philadelphia, is about
to issue an edition of Leaves of Grass for colleges, with notes
by Professor Oscar L. Triggs” [7:140]; Triggs’s byline would later appear
in The Conservator.)
Whitman and Chicago University We
celebrated the day at the Chicago University by inaugurating a three weeks’
course of lectures on Whitman, Professor Triggs being the instructor. I came on and told the students of Walt—how he looked to me, how
his voice sounded, and things like that. They were deeply interested. It was all very fine in Professor Triggs, and
I was glad to go out and help him make the day memorable in the University.
Professor Triggs is dealing with modern and vital themes
in literature. He has running
a course upon fiction, wherein he deals with the most modern and up-to-date
novels. This interested me very much.
After I came to know Professor Triggs I found him also a student
of Whitman. The course of lectures
he opened on the 31st is upon “Whitman as Poet, Thinker and Man.” I regarded this as a notable event, and I felt
honored in taking a part in it myself.
It seemed to me significant that Professor Triggs should be able
to announce such a series of lectures.
I was glad to learn further that this was the second year of the
course, and that one university in America had recognized the power and
inclusiveness of Whitman’s work. Hamlin
Garland. Oscar Lovell Triggs, perhaps
the first “dean of Whitman scholars,” was to become a |