Philanthropy and the state, or, Social politics / by B. Kirkman Gray. Ed. by Eleanor Kirkman Gray and B.L. Hutchinson.

  • Benjamin Gray
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Philanthropy and the state, or, Social politics / by B. Kirkman Gray. Ed. by Eleanor Kirkman Gray and B.L. Hutchinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/364
    No one can be more conscious than myself how great is the loss of the revision and final touches that only an author himself can properly give to his own work. The loss is especially great in the case of a work like the present, which appears to have been written with extreme condensation, the thought often indicated rather than expressed, and probably intended to be amplified and more fully illustrated in course of revision. But Mrs. Gray and I have done our best to render the rough draft clear and readable. We have confined our revision strictly to the removal of obvious roughness or inaccuracies in the style, and occasionally of obscure sentences or clauses, to the verifying of references, and to the introduction of illustrative matter where the text appeared bald and incomplete. In some cases these illustrations have been taken from the Author’s own notes, in others, from sources indicated by marginal notes in the MS., in others, from original materials used at our own discretion. But no theoretical or controversial matter has been imported, and the Author’s opinions are left to speak for themselves. In some instances, I fear, with all our efforts, the text will still appear rough and somewhat obscure, of the nature of notes rather than finished work. Such is especially the case with portions of Chap. II., Chap. III., the conclusion of Chap. VIII., and Chap. IX. In these cases, however, it has seemed to us that the passages in question, though defective, contained ideas that were helpful to the argument, and would be valued by a sympathetic reader, even in their present imperfect condition. We have preferred to make some sacrifice of form and style, where necessary, rather than delete anything tha could contribute to the significance of the whole. B. Leigh Hutchins.