Mindful of the heritage of heroic pioneers, we must embark upon our intellectual pioneering with the same resolute courage, the same loyal devotion, the same consecration to a high cause. Although our scholars are still being lured aside either to the camp of the æsthetes or the camp of the philologists, America must hereafter strive to develop the “middle-of-the-road” scholar who shall be, as Emerson said, Man Thinking, the delegated mind of society, whose major aim shall be the purposeful and discriminating interpretation of the record man has left, in terms of beauty, regarding “the conduct of life” and the path to peace. When such scholar-critics have developed such a social imagination, such a popular unanimity of hope, we shall be ready to receive the artist of genius who is to write for us the great American novel. Note--For copyrighted evidence used in the foregoing essay I am indebted as follows: Sherwood Anderson, _Poor White_ (Modern Library, N. Y., 1925); Dorothy Canfield Fisher, _The Brimming Cup_ (Grosset and Dunlap, N. Y., 1921); James Branch Cabell, _The Cream of the Jest_ (Modern Library, N. Y., 1922); _Jurgen_ (Grosset and Dunlap, N. Y., 1927); _Beyond Life_ (Modern Library, N. Y., 1919); _Straws and Prayerbooks_ (Robert M. McBride and Co., N. Y., 1925); Willa Cather, _The Professor’s House_ (Alfred A. Knopf, N. Y., 1925); Floyd Dell, _Moon-Calf_ (Alfred A. Knopf, N. Y., 1921); R. W. Emerson, _Complete Works_ (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1903); _Journals_ (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1909-14); _The Correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle_ (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1888); Norman Foerster, _American Criticism_ (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1928); Hamlin Garland, _A Son of the Middle Border_ (Grosset and Dunlap, N. Y., 1927); Joseph Hergesheimer, _Linda Condon_ (Alfred A. Knopf, N. Y., 1919); Mark Twain, _Complete Works_ (American Publishing Co., Hartford, 1903); A. B. Paine, _Mark Twain, A Biography_ (Harper and Brothers, N. Y., 1912); F. L. Pattee, “James Fenimore Cooper” (_American Mercury_, Alfred A. Knopf, N. Y.); Gregory Paine, Introduction to _The Deerslayer_ (Harcourt, Brace and Co., N. Y., 1927); O. E. Rolvaag, _Giants in the Earth_ (Harper and Brothers, N. Y., 1929). _Dionysus in Dismay_ STANLEY P. CHASE