Scientific circles in this country have never realized the debt they owe to D. Appleton and Company, and especially to William H. Appleton, in this regard. It is no exaggeration to say that the advance of science in the United States was hastened by more than a quarter of a century by the enlightened and courageous policy which led the firm to add this class of books to their lists at the time they did. Everything apparently was against it--nothing in its favor. Our scientific literature consisted mainly of a few text-books having only a limited sale. Science itself was an affair of laboratories and bug collectors, the one to be shunned and the other commiserated. The few utterances of scientific men having a bearing on the great questions of the right interpretation of Nature, man's relations to his fellows and to the world at large, social betterment, etc., that here and there arrested public attention were received with contemptuous sneers or scouted as the rankest infidelity. Few who are not past middle life will find it possible now to realize that this was the general attitude toward science forty years ago, but we have only to refer the reader to the writings of the time for abundant confirmation of our statements.
It was such conditions as these that the firm was called upon to face when considering the question of entering this new field of publication. All ordinary business instincts were against it. Scarcely a publisher either here or abroad would even listen to the proposal to risk his capital in such an enterprise. Nevertheless, Mr. Appleton, lending an appreciative ear to the arguments of the former editor of this journal and displaying his usual foresight, finally decided in favor of the project, which afterward resulted in the introduction of the works of Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Bain, Romanes, and other distinguished writers to American readers. A further step in the same direction, taken later, was the publication of the International Scientific Series, now numbering some eighty volumes. The scheme as originated and shaped by Professor Youmans was heartily seconded by Mr. Appleton, as was also the plan of the Popular Science Monthly.
A distinctive feature of the arrangements for the issue of all these foreign books, and one which redounds in no small degree to the credit of the firm, was the voluntary agreement, in the absence of an international copyright law, to pay their authors the usual royalties, making no distinction between them and authors at home. Mr. Appleton had been a lifelong advocate of international copyright, founding his contention on the simple justice of recognizing the property rights of the author, no matter where he lived. Although to adopt such a course was to expose themselves to the possibility of heavy loss through the issue of reprints by irresponsible parties, a thing which actually happened in the case of a good many of the volumes, the principle was faithfully adhered to, thus anticipating by many years the central provision of our present law.