PREFACE
The American Academy for the Popularization of Antiquities was formed on February 14, 1911, by Eben S. Twitchett, B.B.S., Cornelius Obenchain Van Loot, D.A., C.O.J., Raymond L. Pry, A.B., A.M., S.I.W., and Professor Milton Kilgallen, F.R.S., of Balliol College. The present volume is largely made up of the papers delivered by these distinguished pedants before their equally distinguished society.
The 14th of February is a red-letter day in the history of antiques and antiqueing; for the exhaustive researches and diligent labors of the members of the Academy have not only awakened untold numbers of people to the refining value of something really old, but have cleared up those highly important moot points; that is, when does a thing cease to be merely old and become an antique; and when is an antique not an antique?
One of the finest contributions to the literature of antiques, for example, was Dr. Pry’s masterly monograph on Chisel Markings and Screw-Driver Scratches of the Lower Connecticut Valley (Bulletin of the American Academy for the Popularization of Antiquities, Vol. IV, No. 7, pp. 3682 et seq.). In this monograph Dr. Pry pointed out that an old Colonial frying-pan was a genuine antique, worthy of being used as the central object in a modern mantel-ornament grouping. The workmanship, the artistry, the incomparable grace of a genuine De Ruyter frying-pan puts it in the same class with a great painting or a great ruin. A De Ruyter frying-pan in first-class shape is, in fact, infinitely preferable to some great ruins, especially if the ruins come under the head of third-class ruins.† On the other hand, a genuine Oppendink frying-pan, carefully made during the same year that, say, the De Ruyter frying-pan was produced, is worthless as an antique. Both are antiques, yet one is not an antique. There are some who persist in buying Oppendink frying-pans and hanging them on the walls of their living-rooms, alongside a beautiful old Colonial hack-saw and a rare Colonial egg-beater; but their numbers, thanks to the magnificent, careful, and far-reaching work of the American Academy for the Popularization of Antiquities, are gradually becoming fewer.
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† Grasswink, H. Q., Ruins: Brick, Stone, and Human; Their Classification and Idiosyncrasies.
This is only an isolated example of the Academy’s efforts. Its field agents have collected, collated, segregated, documented, annotated, and filed over seventy-three hundred pounds (August 28, 1922) of reports on American-owned antiques alone. Some of them have undergone the most severe dangers; while two have even made the supreme sacrifice in their pursuit of duty. This tragedy cast a shadow over the entire Academy; for among its members there were no more ardent or well-informed students of antiques than Judson F. Rapp, Litt.D., and Herman Hymen Heller, of Cracow University. The beautiful Rapp-Heller monument, soon to be erected either in Washington, D.C., or in the lonely spot in Northern Maine where Dr. Rapp dug up the first known specimen of folding iron Colonial camping-stool, will represent the Spirit of Antiqueing in a most dignified and touching way. Sketches for this monument have already been prepared by Mrs. Claudia Gaines Gumme, the distinguished sculptress; and the accepted sketch shows a stern-visaged New-England housewife refusing to accept seven dollars from Professor Heller for a beautiful Colonial cradle, while Dr. Rapp surreptitiously examines the bottom of a ladder-back chair in the shadow of a convenient highboy.
The details of the tragedy are probably still fresh in the minds of all antique-lovers. Dr. Rapp and Professor Heller, it will be remembered, had secured for the society a flawless specimen of early well-sweep with bucket attached. They took the well-sweep and bucket to their rooms and prepared to study their treasures with the painstaking care which characterized all their efforts. Dr. Rapp was a native of Calais, Maine, and therefore had developed his New England conscience to a high degree. Professor Heller, though born in Kishinew and educated in Cracow, had thoroughly absorbed the New England traditions and ideals in the nine years he had lived in America. He often laughingly remarked that his New England conscience had become so acute that he was thinking of changing his name to Lowell or Fitzgerald.
In making a careful examination of the well-sweep with their magnifying glasses, Dr. Rapp and Professor Heller reached markedly different conclusions as to its age. Dr. Rapp, as shown by the hasty notes which he jotted down at the time, was of the opinion that it dated back to 1683. Dr. Heller, on the other hand, basing his conclusions on the moss-layers at the end of the pole, was firmly convinced that it could not have been made prior to 1765. Each scientist labored for hours in the effort to win over the other to his views. The arguments finally became bitter, and eventually they attacked each other with their magnifying glasses, which were unusually large and heavy. The noise of the struggle was heard by several neighbors; but it was not investigated, as Professor Heller had long been accustomed to distil alcohol, sampling the results as he went along, and frequently becoming rather noisy. The neighbors, unfortunately, thought he was sampling a new batch. On the following morning, when an attendant came to clean the Professor’s apartments, both Dr. Rapp and Professor Heller were dead. This is a beautiful example of the devotion to a cause which characterizes the work of all the members of the American Academy for the Popularization of Antiquities.