A Columbianthology
 

ARNOLD H. SWENSON
 

IN AN ARTICLE about Columbia University which ap¬
peared in a popular magazine a few years ago, attention was
called to the great number of books written annually by its
faculty. The article contended, however, that Columbia had
"never produced a truly great author." The inference given—that
quantity rather than quality is what distinguishes the writing of
Columbia authors—was anything but fair. For the fact is that not
only is the contribution of Columbia to all fields of writing extra¬
ordinarily imposing in output, but much of it is also far-reaching
in influence, and some of it will remain as monuments for many
years to come.

To do full justice to the Columbia influence in the world of
books would take a much longer article than space in this organ
permits. Even if the story is limited to the period in which the
present Friends of the Columbia Libraries have been active, and
to the output of faculty authors only, the record of achievement
is remarkable.

The American Library Association issues annually a list of the
most notable books of the year, the basis of selection being the
authors' influence on the enrichment of personal life. It is not sur¬
prising to find these lists studded with the names of Columbia
scholars. Those compiled for 1950 and 1951 contain the names of
three of the ablest writers among living American historians-
Henry Steele Commager, Allan Nevins, and Dumas Malone. Pro¬
fessor Commager, who alone gets out a five-foot shelf of books a
year, was honored in 1950 for the rich and brilliant The American
Mind, and in 1951 for editing Living Ideas in America, an anthol¬
ogy interpreting the American idea. The year 1950 also saw the
publication of Professor Nevins' monumental, two-volume The

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