We come now to the most prejudiced and inexcusably inadequate musical section in the whole _Britannica_—namely, to American composers. Again we find that narrow patronage, that provincial condescension and that contemptuous neglect which so conspicuously characterize the _Encyclopædia Britannica’s_ treatment of all American institutions and culture. We have already beheld how this neglect and contempt have worked against our painters, our novelists, our poets and our dramatists; we have seen what rank injustice has been dealt our artists and writers; we have reviewed the record of omissions contained in this Encyclopædia’s account of our intellectual activities. But in no other instance has British scorn allowed itself so extreme and indefensible an expression as in the peremptory manner in which our musical composers are dismissed. The negligence with which American musical compositions and composers are reviewed is greater than in the case of any other nation. As I have said before, if the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ had been compiled to sell only in suburban England, we would have no complaint against the petty contempt shown our artists; but when an encyclopædia is put together largely for the purpose of American distribution, the sweeping neglect of our native creative effort resolves itself into an insult which every American should hotly resent. And especially should such neglect be resented when the advertising campaign with which the _Britannica_ was foisted upon the public claimed for that work an exalted supremacy as a library of international education, and definitely stated that it contained an adequate discussion of every subject which would appeal to intelligent persons. As I write this the _Britannica_ advertises itself as containing “an exhaustive account of all human achievement.” But I think I have shown with pretty fair conclusiveness that it does not contain anywhere near an exhaustive account of American achievement; and yet I doubt if even an Englishman would deny that we were “human.” Let us see how “exhaustive” the _Britannica_ is in its record of American musical achievement. To begin with, there are just thirty-seven lines in the article on American composers; and for our other information we must depend on the biographies. But what do we find? Dudley Buck is given an incomplete biography of fourteen lines; and MacDowell draws thirty lines of inadequate data. Gottschalk, the most celebrated of American piano virtuosi, who toured Europe with great success and wrote much music which survives even to-day, is surely of enough historical importance to be given a biography; but his name does not so much as appear in the _Britannica_. John Knowles Paine has no biography; nor has William Mason; nor Arthur Foote; nor Chadwick; nor Edgar Stillman Kelly; nor Ethelbert Nevin; nor Charles Loeffler; nor Mrs. Beach; nor Henry K. Hadley; nor Cadman; nor Horatio Parker; nor Frederick Converse.