In relation to Japan, I would like to read a statement regarding their acceptance as a full Registering Authority Member of WAHO. As you know, Japan has been an Applying Member of WAHO since the mid-1980s. With only a handful of Arabian foals produced each year, all born from imported parents from WAHO approved studbooks, it is only now that they feel that they have enough Arabians to make it viable to complete their first studbook and move from Applying Member status to full Registering Authority Member status. They pay their annual dues and foal levy on time every year, and send in the usual annual reports on their statistics to the WAHO Office. The name of the Japanese Registry changed in 2010, it remains the same highly respected and very efficient and professional organization that registers thoroughbreds, previously known as the Japan Racehorse Registry. The new name is the Japan Association for International Racing and Studbook, which is JAIRS. JAIRS now feels that full WAHO Registering Authority Membership would not only benefit them on the international stage, but they also believe that they could make a great contribution to WAHO in the future.
As a note of historical interest, the earliest documented imports to Japan date back well over 100 years and include horses from the United Kingdom, France, Hungary, Portugal, Syria and Saudi Arabia. In other words, essentially the same sources of foundation horses as for many other countries. Unfortunately, there are no living descendants of any of these horses in the first volume of the Japanese Arabian studbook, which has been presented to WAHO for approval. Therefore, I will just repeat, none of the historical horses appear in the studbook that has been presented.
The Arabian Stud Book Volume 51
During the mid-19th century, the need for Arabian blood to improve the breeding stock for light cavalry horses in Europe resulted in more excursions to the Middle East. Queen Isabel II of Spain sent representatives to the desert to purchase Arabian horses and by 1847 had established a stud book; her successor, King Alfonso XII imported additional bloodstock from other European nations. By 1893, the state military stud farm, Yeguada Militar was established in Córdoba, Spain for breeding both Arabian and Iberian horses. The military remained heavily involved in the importation and breeding of Arabians in Spain well into the early 20th century, and the Yeguada Militar is still in existence today.[135]
Several Arabians, mostly of Polish breeding, were captured from Nazi Germany and imported to the U.S.A. following World War II.[178] In 1957, two deaths in England led to more sales to the United States: first from Crabbet Stud on the demise of Lady Wentworth,[179] and then from Hanstead with the passing of Gladys Yule.[143] As the tensions of the Cold War eased, more Arabians were imported to America from Poland and Egypt, and in the late 1970s, as political issues surrounding import regulations and the recognition of stud books were resolved, many Arabian horses were imported from Spain and Russia.[97][180]
For some breeds, such as the Thoroughbred, Arabian influence of specific animals is documented in written stud books.[220] For older breeds, dating the influx of Arabian ancestry is more difficult. For example, while outside cultures, and the horses they brought with them, influenced the predecessor to the Iberian horse in both the time of Ancient Rome and again with the Islamic invasions of the 8th century, it is difficult to trace precise details of the journeys taken by waves of conquerors and their horses as they traveled from the Middle East to North Africa and across Gibraltar to southern Europe. Mitochondrial DNA studies of modern Andalusian horses of the Iberian peninsula and Barb horses of North Africa present convincing evidence that both breeds crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and influenced one another.[221] Though these studies did not compare Andalusian and Barb mtDNA to that of Arabian horses, there is evidence that horses resembling Arabians, whether before or after the breed was called an "Arabian", were part of this genetic mix. Arabians and Barbs, though probably related to one another, are quite different in appearance,[222] and horses of both Arabian and Barb type were present in the Muslim armies that occupied Europe.[135] There is also historical documentation that Islamic invaders raised Arabian horses in Spain prior to the Reconquista;[223] the Spanish also documented imports of Arabian horses in 1847, 1884 and 1885 that were used to improve existing Spanish stock and revive declining equine populations.[135]
My aim was not to select the best fifty, or best hundred, books in the world, but to give, in twenty-three thousand pages or thereabouts, a picture of the progress of the human race within historical times, so far as that progress can be depicted in books. The purpose of The Harvard Classics is, therefore, one different from that of collections in which the editor's aim has been to select a number of best books; it is nothing less than the purpose to present so ample and characteristic a record of the stream of the world's thought that the observant reader's mind shall be enriched, refined and fertilized. Within the limits of fifty volumes, containing about twenty-three thousand pages, my task was to provide the means of obtaining such knowledge of ancient and modern literature as seemed essential to the twentieth-century idea of a cultivated man. The best acquisition of a cultivated man is a liberal frame of mind or way of thinking; but there must be added to that possession acquaintance with the prodigious store of recorded discoveries, experiences, and reflections which humanity in its intermittent and irregular progress from barbarism to civilization has acquired and laid up.
The idea of the Harvard Classics was presented in speeches by then President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University.[1] Several years prior to 1909, Eliot gave a speech in which he remarked that a three-foot shelf would be sufficient to hold enough books to give a liberal education to anyone who would read them with devotion. He was inundated with requests for the list of those book titles that would fill the three-foot shelf. After many attempts to support his initial claim, he decided that the shelf would need to be lengthened to five feet - but a definitive list of works was not declared. A well-known publisher Peter Fenelon Collier and his son, Robert J. Collier, saw a financial opportunity and asked that Eliot make good on his statement by selecting 50 volumes (400 to 500 pages each). Collier representatives proposed the name for the series as either "The Harvard Library" or "The Harvard Classics" pending approval by Harvard University. The proposal, presented to the President and Fellows of Harvard College, was unanimously approved as a useful undertaking from an educational point of view.[1]
In a June 1909 issue of Collier's Weekly, P.F. Collier & Son announced it would publish a series of books selected by Eliot, without disclosing the list of included works, that would be approximately five feet in length and would supply the readers a liberal education. A few days after the announced intent to publish Dr. Eliot's Five-Foot Shelf of Books, several newspapers published an incomplete list of selected works to be included. Eliot felt the publications were unauthorized and asked Collier's Weekly publishers to publish his letter to the editors explaining the initial list and selection process in the July 24, 1909, edition of Collier's. Eliot describes his goal in helping publish The Harvard Classics as motivated by an educational purpose and he explains why the English Bible was not selected. In January 1910, P.F. Collier & Son announced in a "Publishers' Statement" that the 50 volumes were almost complete and offered a "Statement from the Editor" (Eliot) describing the origins of process resulting in the first sets of The Harvard Classics. The first editions printed by P.F. Collier & Son in three separate styles of bindings were first offered for sale on October 13, 1909.[7]
The first editions of The Harvard Classics were known as "De Luxe" sets. Most were limited-quantity print runs and some "autographed" editions (only Volume 1 is authographed) include signatures by Eliot and in some cases Robert J. Collier. The first print runs in 1909 were for volumes 1 to 25. Another print run was needed in 1910 for volumes 26 to 50 because those volumes were not selected and edited by Eliot until the middle of 1910. The first editions include Japanese vellum paper with "Eliot" watermarks (made by S.D. Warren & Co. of Boston), deckled pages, silk moire endpapers, sewn in bookmarks, and top edged gilt pages.[7] Each was appealing to buyers for the elaborate illustrations, frontispieces, plates, portraits, facsimiles, and crimson silk page markers (features unlikely to be found in later printings).[6] The colophon found on the ultimate page of content of first editions notes these sets were "planned and designed by William Patten" (the Book Manager at P.F. Collier & Son).[7]
Some clues about the printing history can help identify the print run year. For example, the inclusion of the "Lectures" began in 1914. Additionally, the "Editor's Introduction" in volume 50 includes a second "Editor's Introduction" that is dated in 1917. Fabrikoid was first used as binding for The Harvard Classics in 1919. Lastly, the publishing company marketed a larger size of books with the Home Library edition. This set of The Harvard Classics and subsequent editions are 15 percent larger than previous editions. None of these clues allow for an exact printing year, but each can be used to establish that the printing could not have occurred before a certain year, and of course, the printing cannot have occurred before the most recent copyright date.
The last edition of The Harvard Classics printed by P.F. Collier & Son (then a subsidiary of Crowell Collier & Macmillan, Inc.) was the 63rd printing in 1970 of a 22-volume called the "Great Literature Edition" in green fibrated (essentially bonded) leather with 22K decor that sold for $3.78 per volume ($1 each for the first three volumes). The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint in 1972 against Crowell Collier for deceptive selling practices of The Harvard Classics.[19] In a statement responding to the complaint, Crowell Collier stated that it no longer sells The Harvard Classics.[19] On March 24, 1973, the FTC provisionally accepted a consent order from Crowell Collier (now called Crowell, Collier and MacMillan, Inc.) that the publisher would stop trying to sell The Harvard Classics in one bulk shipment. The publisher ended the subscription plan used since 1909 and stated that it had no plans to sell The Harvard Classics one book at a time.[20] 2ff7e9595c
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