Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 87:345 (Jan 1930)
Article: Some Vital But Neglected Factors In All “Quelle” Theories
Author: Herbert William Magoun

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Some Vital But Neglected Factors In All “Quelle” Theories

H. W. Magoun, Ph.D.

Times change. So do methods. The card-catalogue system, now almost universally used in libraries, is, in its present form, a product of the past fifty years. Some libraries had such catalogues here in America fifty years ago; but they were imperfect, not in general use, rare in Great Britain, and not in demand by librarians. Even in my own college days no such facilities as we now have were available. In short, the modern use of a library is modern in the fullest sense of the word.

Fifty years ago other methods were employed, had to be employed, in fact, because the card-catalogue system had not yet been perfected. The name of Melvil Dewey first came to my ears in that connection, and some doubted his wisdom. In none of the libraries with which I had anything to do as a student was there a card catalogue for our use. The books we needed were segregated, and we went to them so arranged. It was also a privilege to browse, as we called it, among the books of the general library, and we enjoyed the opportunity occasionally. Catalogues did not attract us. The books themselves did.

The idea of locating all the books on a given subject, or all the important ones, and then making a careful study of them, simply had not gained any such footing as it now possesses, and there was a reason. Moreover, there were certain advantages in the very limitations thus placed upon investigators. They missed some things; but they also escaped some, especially the inevitable prejudice produced by much reading of similar views. But that was not all.

Modern knowledge, roughly speaking, began with the year 1840. It was at about that time that the comparative method of study came into vogue. It really began some years earlier than 1840, when resemblances of Sankrit words to certain Greek ones were noticed and a com-

BSac 87:345 (Jan 1930) p. 27

parison was begun. It was thus that the science of Comparative Philology was born, and that opened the door to similar studies in many fields. The marvelous progress of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries resulted, and it is no longer possible for any one man to know fairly well the main points in all fields of knowledge. That day is gone.

How many can remember the conditions that prevailed only fifty years ago? At that time our homes contained no electric lights, no radios, no phonographs, no tiled bathrooms, no safety razors, no vacuum cleaners, no electric stoves or irons or toasters, no automatic water heaters, no gas ranges, no kodaks, practically no Oriental rugs or telephones or typewriters,—although all three were known or had made some beginning,—and no incinerator...