432 MERGER — SURVIVAL OF ILLUMINATIVE WRITING. [Sept. 17, 



three tulips. Colors, very little red, blue and yellow. Probably made in Bed- 

 minster. In possession of J. Freeman Hendricks, Doylestown. 



It appeared upon inquiry that the art of Fractur was easily 

 traceable to Germany, where^ according to information received 

 from foreign-born citizens of the United States living in Philadel- 

 phia and Bucks county, it had been taught without religious sig- 

 nificance (generally in black, rarely in colors, save to special 

 scholars, and sometimes, if desired, in Nassau with the reed pen of 

 the monks), until about the year 1850, at public schools in Saxony, 

 Bavaria, Hanover, Hesse and Nassau. 



If the existence of Fractur in Pennsylvania had been adequately 

 ■noticed before, its evidences are so interesting that it might well be 

 described again, but we learn that it has been little more than 

 casually alluded to by any writer. Yet it illustrates the relation of 

 Germany to the United States at one of its most interesting points. 

 It recalls the fact that while the English reformation was hostile to 

 artistic impulses, the German reformers were not always unfriendly 

 to them. In this case, at least, they held fast to one of the most 

 beautiful products of mediaeval fancy. Here is a contribution to 

 American character at the beginning, for which we owe nothing to 

 New England and the Puritans. Fractur did not come over in the 

 Mayflowei', nor did it flourish among the associates of those New 

 England reformers who, at the siege of Louisburg, are said to 

 have attacked the adornments of the captured cathedral with axes. 

 As in the case of the Pennsylvanian earthenware of the last century, 

 glazed in several colors and decorated with tulips or the lotus ; as 

 with the Durham stove plates of 1750, adorned by Germans with 

 flaming hearts, tulips and designs of Adam and Eve, Potiphar's 

 wife, and the Dance of Death, we see that we are dealing with a 

 reflection of the artistic instinct of the Middle Ages, directed upon 

 us from the valley of the Rhine. The fresher from Germany the bet- 

 ter the work. But by degrees the iron caster forgets his trans- 

 Atlantic inheritance of taste. A lack of skill finally overtakes the 

 potter after years spent under sterner and more material condi- 

 tions. First, the German mottoes are abandoned upon the plate 

 and jar. By degrees the colors grow less varied and the designs 

 weaker. Then the toys and whistles in the shape of birds, fish and 

 animals, are forgotten with recipes for glaze. At last only the yel- 

 low tints of the pie-dish remain. So, too, the hand of the master 



