Bascom, John. Aesthetics : or, The Science of Beauty. Boston: Crosby and Ainsworth, 1867. [12015]
Black cloth bordered in blind, bright gilt title to spine, edge-worn with fraying at the spine ends and corner tips, 7 3/4 x 5 1/4 inches. [viii], [1]-256 unmarked pp., tight; very infrequent foxing. Good. Hardcover.
"Cambridge: Stereotyped by Welch, Bigelow, and Company. Presswork by John Wilson and Son." on the copyright page.
"The following Lectures were written with a desire to supply a want of an exclusive and compact treatise on the principles of taste. Though the literature of this subject is voluminous, there is no work which gives itself singly to a systematic statement of the nature of beauty, and of its primary and fundamental laws. Kames's Elements of Criticism, so long used in academic and collegiate instruction, contains matter which belongs to several distinct departments, and is not a complete or thorough presentation of the subject of taste, for which it has been chiefly relied on." - Preface.
John Bascom (1827-1911), b. Genoa, NY; d. Williamstown, MA. Rev. Bascom was educated at Williams College in Massachusetts, and at the Andover Theological Seminary. He was the author of numerous books on religion and philosophy, and served as a professor at Williams College, and as president of the University of Wisconsin, later returning as a lecturer at his alma mater.
Bascom is remembered as "the colorful President of the University of Wisconsin from 1874-1887 who championed women’s rights, worker’s rights, temperance, the pursuit of truth, and a notion that would go on to earn fame as 'The Wisconsin Idea.'" - Wisconsin Public Radio online.
