AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 



the gleam" with singleness of purpose and 

 have written poems that will live. Among 

 the older poets may be mentioned Joaquin 

 Miller, Edwin Markham, Edward Rowland Sill, 

 Thomas Bailey Aldrich and Richard Watson 

 Gilder, while more recently William Vaughn 

 Moody, Madison Cawein, Percy Mackaye and 

 Edgar Lee Masters have won numerous 

 admirers. 



The last-named is representative of an inter- 

 :ig tendency in modern poetry. -The old 

 stanza, meter and rhyme, declare many of 

 the present-day writers,, hamper genius and 

 make real poetic freedom impossible; and 

 they adopt therefore a new form or absence 

 of form which they call free verse. Not only 

 does it refuse to be bound by restraints of 

 meter, but it insists that all subjects are alike 

 poetic, and that the true artist may see as 

 much beauty in a display of red shoes in a 

 window as in a riot of red roses in a garden. 

 Their idea is not entirely new Whitman was 

 the strong advocate of just such a theory; but 

 the new poets are not exactly followers of 

 Whitman. One of the strongest of these free- 

 verse writers is undoubtedly Edgar Lee Mas- 

 ters, whose Spoon River Anthology was one 

 of the most discussed books of its year. 



The above discussion has of necessity been 

 of the most general sort, for it is intended to 

 serve merely as a basis for more extended 

 study. Each author here mentioned is given 

 full discussion in these volumes under his own 

 name, while the articles on ESSAY, NOVEL, 

 POETRY, DRAMA and HISTORY contain informa- 

 tion and index lists which should be used in 

 connection with this study. See LITERATURE, 

 sub-title Literature for Children, or, Directing 

 Children's Reading. A.MCC. 



Consult Bates's American Literature; Haw- 

 thorne and Lemmon's American Literature; 

 Matthews' An Introduction to the Study of Amer- 

 ican Literature; Trent's Southern Writers. 



AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, an educational 

 institution of university rank opened at Wash- 

 ington, D. C., in 1914, under the auspices of 

 the Methodist Episcopal Church. The first 

 charter for the university was granted under 

 the government of the District of Columbia 

 in 1891. The plans for the institution included 

 fellowships for graduate study, lectureships in 

 Washington on matters of vital interest, and 

 in other educational centers under the direc- 

 tion of the university, and the publication of 

 important lectures and theses; all of these 

 features were inaugurated during the first year 

 of actual work, ending in May, 1915. A cam- 



234 AMESBURY 



pus of ninety-two acres, overlooking the city 

 of Washington and nearby districts in Mary- 

 land and Virginia, affords an attractive site, 

 and buildings are being erected as funds are 

 available. The total university holdings are 

 valued at about $2,225,000. A college publi- 

 cation, called The University Courier, is issued 

 every three months. The university is national 

 in scope, and on its board of trustees are 

 prominent men from various parts of the 

 United States. 



AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, a mcr' i kus 

 vespu' shus. See VESPUCIUS, AMERICUS. 



AMERICUS, amer' ikus, GA., the county 

 seat of Sumter County is in the southwestern 

 part of the state, seventy-one miles southwest 

 of Macon and sixty-four miles southeast of 

 Columbus. It is at the junction of the Sea- 

 board Air Line (with shops here), and tin- 

 Central of Georgia railroads. The area is 

 nearly five square miles. In 1910 the popu- 

 lation was 8,063; in 1914 it was 8,227. 



Settled in 1832, Americus was first chartered 

 as a city in 1855 and rechartered in 1889. It 

 is the seat of the State Agricultural College 

 and has a Y. M. C. A. building and Carnegie 

 Library. It is in a productive agricultural 

 section; the principal crops are cotton, sugar 

 cane, corn, pecans and fruit. The city has 

 cotton-seed oil mills, fertilizer mills, lumber 

 mills, chemical works, iron foundry, and man- 

 ufactures carriages, wagons and harness. It 

 is an important horse and mule, and cotton 

 market. E.H.H. 



AMESBURY, amz' beri, MASS., an old city 

 in the extreme northeastern part of the state, 

 which bears the distinction of being "the only 

 Amesbury in the United States." It was 

 founded in 1600, was incorporated as a city 

 in 1666, and was named for Amesbury, an 

 English town. Most of the inhabitants are 

 American, and their number was 9,894 in 1910; 

 the state census of 1915 showed a slight de- 

 crease to 8,543. The area is about thirteen 

 square miles. 



Amesbury is situated in Essex County, on 

 the Merrimac River, about five miles from the 

 sea. Boston is forty-three miles, and Law- 

 rence eighteen miles southwest. The Boston 

 & Maine Railroad, constructed to this point 

 in 1852, affords good railway transportation; 

 with thirteen daily trains, trolley lines extend 

 totowns in all directions and to the popular 

 beaches and summer resorts in the vicinity. 

 An important industry is the manufacture of 

 automobile bodies and accessories; other 



