The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Scherer, Edmond (Henri Adolphe)

SCHERER, shā-rār, Edmond (Henri Adolphe), French critic: b. Paris, 8 April 1815; d. Versailles, 16 March 1889. He studied at the law faculty of Paris, took a course in theology at Strassburg, entered the Protestant ministry in 1840 and in 1845 became professor of exegesis in the Ecole Evangelique, Geneva, popularly known as L'Oratoire. This he resigned in 1849 and became a leader in the liberal movement in Protestant theology. He was elected to the National Assembly from Seine-et-Oise in 1871 and became life-senator in 1875. In both chambers he was a prominent representative of the left centre. He was made chief literary critic of the Temps in 1860, later its editor. He took rank as a brilliant though opinionated critic, his reputation in this field having been made by a series of articles on important thinkers and writers of other literatures in the Revue des Deux Mondes. Among his writings in book form are ‘Dogmatique de l'Eglise Réformé’ (1843); ‘La Critique et la Foi’ (1850); ‘Alexandre Vinet, sa vie et ses écrits’ (1853); ‘Etudes Critiques sur la Littérature Contemporaine’ (1863-89); ‘Diderot’ (1880), and the posthumous ‘Etudes sur la Littérature au XVIIIe Siècle’ (1891). He also wrote a biography of Melchior Grimm (1887). Consult the study by Gérard (1890); article by Dowden in the Fortnightly, Vol. XLV (1889); Fisher, ‘A Group of French Critics’ (1897).