I persuade myself that additional extenuation for this biography of a
book is to be found in the relation which "The Hoosier School-Master"
happens to bear to the most significant movement in American literature
in our generation. It is the file-leader of the procession of American
dialect novels. Before the appearance of this story, the New England
folk-speech had long been employed for various literary purposes, it is
true; and after its use by Lowell, it had acquired a standing that made
it the classic _lingua rustica_ of the United States. Even Hoosiers and
Southerners when put into print, as they sometimes were in rude
burlesque stories, usually talked about "huskin' bees" and "apple-parin'
bees" and used many other expressions foreign to their vernacular.
American literature hardly touched the speech and life of the people
outside of New England; in other words, it was provincial in the narrow
sense.

I can hardly suppose that "The Hoosier School-Master" bore any causative
relation to that broader provincial movement in our literature which now
includes such remarkable productions as the writings of Mr. Cable, Mr.
Harris, Mr. Page, Miss Murfree, Mr. Richard Malcom Johnson, Mr. Howe,
Mr. Garland, some of Mrs. Burnett's stories and others quite worthy of
inclusion in this list. The taking up of life in this regional way has
made our literature really national by the only process possible. The
Federal nation has at length manifested a consciousness of the
continental diversity of its forms of life. The "great American novel,"
for which prophetic critics yearned so fondly twenty years ago, is
appearing in sections. I may claim for this book the distinction, such
as it is, of being the first of the dialect stories that depict a life
quite beyond New England influence. Some of Mr. Bret Harte's brief and
powerful tales had already foreshadowed this movement toward a larger