Education: Abbe-Barrymore

When Diderot, leader of France's 18th century philosophes, edited his great Encyclopaedia, he was harassed and vilified. Valuable plates were destroyed by Government agents; behind his back, articles were viciously, cruelly emasculated.

When Dr. Samuel Johnson compiled his great Dictionary, he was nagged, hounded by printer's devils. "The great" offered no help; alone he struggled, published.

However, when the late Sir Leslie Stephen started the English Dictionary of National Biography, he received encouraging letters from his friends Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, Henry James; later he was made Knight Commander of the...

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