Valuable Introductions.
This short statement gives an idea of the scope of the book and the nature of the extracts. In addition to the documents themselves, another feature gives great value to the book. Many, almost all, of the documents are prefaced by short introductions which give the historical setting of the extracts. In the case of the United States statutes the account of congressional action is very valuable, and in many cases furnishes a succinct narrative of the movement culminating in the act under consideration. Abundant references to secondary works and primary sources are to be found in these introductory remarks.
Thus the book contains a large amount of pedagogical material; sources, bibliography, and analytical introductions combining to add to its usefulness. Such a work will protect the teacher and the scholar, whether in elementary school, in high school, or in college, from loose thinking and careless statements about the facts of American history. There need be few errors in class if such a work is on the teacher’s desk, or, better still, in the student’s hand. And, incidentally, many of our newspapers would profit by the addition of the Source-Book to their libraries. To teachers, journalists, and statesmen, who have not easy access to the Statutes at Large, the collections of treaties, and the congressional documents, or, who, having such access, desire the material in convenient desk form, this book will prove invaluable.
[Documentary Source-Book of American History. 1606-1898. By William MacDonald. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1908, pp. xii-616. Price, $1.75.]
[Cheyney’s Readings in English History]
REVIEWED BY PROFESSOR N. M. TRENHOLME, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI.
The movement towards utilizing the remarkably rich and continuous source literature of English history in the secondary and higher teaching of the subject is well illustrated in the appearance of this full and interesting collection of source readings. Leaving aside the early and rather advanced collections of documentary sources by Stubbs, Prothero, Gardiner and other English historians, we have had during the last decade a succession of source-books for English history. No book, however, has brought together and organized for purposes of study and instruction so large an amount of diverse material as is to be found in Professor Cheyney’s “Readings in English History.” Although but recently published, it is becoming most popular and is proving invaluable to the earnest and enthusiastic teacher in search of profitable collateral reading.
The volume is a substantial one of nearly eight hundred pages, and is divided into chapters to correspond with the author’s “Short History of England,” which the “Readings” is primarily intended to illustrate. Right here, however, it should be said that the “Readings” can be used advantageously with any standard text-book of English history and that teachers who do not use Professor Cheyney’s text-book will find the “Readings” almost as valuable for illustrative purposes and collateral reference as those who do. The “Readings” can stand on its own merits as a book in every way. Each general chapter is divided into excellent topical divisions, while the extracts used are numbered consecutively throughout, showing a total of four hundred and fifty-seven selections, beginning with Julius Cæsar’s description of Britain and ending with an editorial from the “New York Times” on the significance of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Could anything be more comprehensive?
In regard to the special contents of the volume, space will permit of only a very brief survey and mention. The selections to illustrate the geography of England, prehistoric and Celtic Britain, and Roman Britain have been admirably made and furnish enough collateral reading for any high school class studying this early period. Classical and early English sources have been skilfully drawn on and interestingly presented. For Anglo-Saxon England the great literary and historical writings such as Tacitus’ “Germania,” Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History,” the “Beowulf,” the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” Asser’s “Life of Alfred,” and various collections of Anglo-Saxon laws and documents, have been freely used and furnish a scholarly and yet not too advanced a background for the ordinary narrative history. In selecting and organizing his material for Norman and Plantagenet England Professor Cheyney has likewise shown remarkable judgment and discrimination. It is in the modern part, however, that his skilful editorial work is seen to fullest advantage and the variety and breadth of selection is really remarkable. The light thrown on the great Puritan movement of the seventeenth century and on the struggle between the Stuarts and their parliaments is so interesting and valuable that no American teacher of English history can afford to ignore or overlook Chapter XIV on “The Personal Monarchy of the Early Stuarts.” Equally, if not more, important are the extracts contained in the three last chapters illustrating the foundation of the British Empire of to-day, the period of revolution in industry and in politics and government, and the growth of real democracy and social equality through the great reforms of the nineteenth century. All forms of public and private record have been drawn on for illustration, and it will be a poor teacher who cannot make more vital and interesting any lesson in modern English history by the aid of these illuminating and interesting selections. If any criticism is to be made of the contents of the “Readings,” it is of the sort that is sometimes made after too elaborate and substantial a dinner—that we have been perhaps a little over-supplied with rich and savory intellectual food by the efforts and industry of Professor Cheyney.