“A Source History of the United States”
BY PROFESSORS CALDWELL AND PERSINGER.
Many of the literary histories written in the last half century have carefully avoided quotations or reprints of documents. In the early historical literature of America documents were inserted or appended to almost every history; but this style gave way to the literary ideal of expressing the thought of the documents in the historian’s own words. There are many volumed histories written toward the close of the nineteenth century which make no pretence of reproducing the form or words of the source-material. It was but natural, therefore, when the study of history came to be taken up seriously in colleges and schools, that teachers and scholars should desire to get away from the insipid literary generalizations, and taste the freshness of the original sources. It was this insistence upon a certain literary style which created the source-book; and to-day we have therefore the literary history and the source-collection side by side. Early source-books contained simply highly significant documents, or documents which might be treated as types. We have advanced far from this, and now our editor aims to give the narrative of history in the language of the original documents.
Casting aside all reverence for the document as a completed whole, Professors Caldwell and Persinger have cut and trimmed out every unnecessary phrase and sentence, taking a few words from one document, a few paragraphs from another, a few pages, perhaps, from another. By this process, the volume is made to approach nearly to the consecutive development of thought and arrangement shown in the narrative histories. The language and spelling of the originals are in all cases preserved, and all omissions are indicated by the usual typographical means.
The work is divided into four chapters; the first on “The Making of Colonial America,” occupies 165 pages; the second, “Revolution and Independence, 1764-1786,” fills 100 pages; the third, “The Making of a Democratic Nation,” 131 pages; and the fourth, “Slavery and the Sectional Struggle, 1841-1877,” 86 pages. Or, to put it in other words, the period before 1789 is allotted 284 pages, while that under the constitution to 1877 is given 200 pages. Each chapter is subdivided into sections, and these into smaller groups of sources. Taking for granted that the plan of the editors is a practical one, the test as to whether they have done it well is to be found in the proportions assigned to the several topics, and in the character of the extracts given or excluded. The first thought which comes to mind is that too much space has been given to the colonial and revolutionary periods, and too little to the constitutional period. An inspection of the several sections shows that the colonial period lends itself best to the form of treatment adopted by the authors, and naturally they have emphasized that period. The documents upon recent history, particularly the civil war and reconstruction, have not fitted so readily into the narrative. Yet it must be admitted that the editors have resolutely carried on their method to the close; they give extracts from Lincoln’s public papers and letters respecting slavery and reconstruction, and arrange them in the same analytical form adopted for the extracts bearing upon the Stamp Act or on Bacon’s Rebellion. One cannot but wish, however, that the editors had been as generous in their excerpts for the later period as they were for the earlier; perhaps five pages of quotations is not too much for the “Effects of the English Revolution of 1688” upon America, but surely two pages is too short for Lincoln’s attitude toward slavery; we welcome the ten pages of extracts from Washington’s letters bearing upon the Revolutionary War, but we wish for more than two very short quotations treating of the Civil War.
The method of the editors can best be shown by noting the character of the illustrative material gathered by them upon several topics. For instance in Chapter I there is the sub-topic, “Colonial Constitutional Development, 1689-1763,” occupying 17 pages. Within this space we have quotations from the ordinance of 1696 creating the Board of Lords of Trade and Plantations, and from the additional instructions of 1752 respecting the board. There are as many as fourteen extracts showing the increased parliamentary regulation of colonial affairs in the period 1696 to 1751. These include parts of the navigation act of 1696, Edmund Burke’s account of the sugar act of 1733, extracts from the woolens act of 1699, the hat act of 1732, and the iron act of 1750; excerpts showing the bounties on naval stores, rice and indigo; and quotations from the act regulating colonial coinage (1707), the post-office act of 1710, the debt recovery act of 1732, the naturalization act of 1740, the land-bank act of 1741, and the paper money act of 1751. Next there are four quotations showing the desire of the English authorities to reduce all the colonies to one form of government; and the same number of extracts from plans for colonial union. Then follow three extracts showing the desire to establish an Anglican episcopate in the colonies, and the section closes with papers illustrating the “growing assertion of colonial rights.” Under the latter heading we have four extracts relating to conflicts between the governors and the assemblies; an account of the trial and acquittal of John Peter Zenger; John Adams’ account of James Otis’ speech against writs of assistance; and a report of Patrick Henry’s speech in the Parson’s Cause. Such an array of quotations shows not only wide reading and intensive knowledge of the documents, but it also implies a keen judgment as to their pedagogical value, and an ability to arrange the extracts into a working analysis.
In such a work one would naturally look for the treatment of Culturgeschichte, and indeed the editors have not neglected this side of their story. An interesting section is that describing the industrial, social, and religious condition of the country in 1840. The subject is analyzed minutely,—like all other parts of the work,—into such topics as “business characteristics,” “means of communication,” “the standard of living,” “democracy,” “the South,” and “American Morals.” The sources for quotation are almost exclusively the accounts of European—mainly English—travelers in the country at the period. These accounts are well known to students of the period, but it has been difficult heretofore for teachers to bring the flavor of these criticisms to the scholars of high school or even college classes. The editors of the “Source-history” have selected and arranged a series of accounts from Buckingham, Martineau, Chambers, Dickens, Grund, Lyell, de Tocqueville and others which will be of service in both college and secondary school classes.
The two sections here mentioned show the method of the editors. Not only have they selected their material with skill, but they have also arranged it under such a scheme of topics that it may be used by the tyro in the study of history. He does not need to dig the historical jewels out from the midst of documentary rubbish; that has been done for him. In addition the editors have placed extended series of questions upon the text at the close of each section, and references to the standard text-books. There is an analytical table of contents, but no index. There are some typographical errors in the book which should be corrected in a later edition. It is also to be hoped if we are to have any more of such collections, that a simpler typographical device may be invented to mark omitted matter.
The work is a valuable pedagogical device; it marks the climax of the source-method. It should very widely extend the knowledge of sources in our high schools and colleges. We shall watch its use with interest.
[A Source History of the United States from Discovery (1492) to End of Reconstruction (1877), by Howard Walter Caldwell and Clark Edmund Persinger, pp. xvi, 484. Chicago, Ainsworth & Co., price $1.25.] A. E. M.
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EDITORS
Managing Editor, Albert E. McKinley, Ph.D.
History in the College and the School, Arthur C. Howland, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of European History, University of Pennsylvania.
The Training of the History Teacher, Norman M. Trenholme, Professor of the Teaching of History, School of Education, University of Missouri.
Source Methods of Teaching History, Fred Morrow Fling, Professor of European History, University of Nebraska.
Reports from the History Field, Walter H. Cushing, Secretary, New England History Teachers’ Association, South Framingham, Mass.
Current History, John Haynes, Dorchester High School, Boston, Mass.
American History in Secondary Schools, Arthur M. Wolfson, Ph.D., DeWitt Clinton High School, New York.
The Teaching of Civics in the Secondary School, Albert H. Sanford, State Normal School, La Crosse, Wis.
European History in Secondary Schools, Daniel C. Knowlton, Ph.D., Barringer High School, Newark, N. J.
English History in Secondary Schools, C. B. Newton, Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, N. J.
Ancient History in Secondary Schools, William Fairley, Ph.D., Commercial High School, Brooklyn, N. Y.
History in the Grades, Armand J. Gerson, Supervising Principal, Robert Morris Public School, Philadelphia, Pa.
CORRESPONDENTS.
Henry Johnson, Teachers’ College, Columbia University, New York.
Mabel Hill, High School, Lowell, Mass.
George H. Gaston, Wendell Phillips High School, Chicago, Ill.
James F. Willard, University of Colorado, Boulder, Col.
H. W. Edwards, High School, Berkeley, Cal.
Walter L. Fleming, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, La.
Mary Shannon Smith, Meredith College, Raleigh, N. C.
EDITORIAL CONFERENCE.
A meeting of the editors and correspondents of The History Teacher’s Magazine will be held in Teachers’ College, Columbia University, New York, on Tuesday, December 28, at 3.30 o’clock. The meeting will be an open one, and the attendance is requested not only of the editorial staff, but also of contributors and others interested in extending the usefulness of the Magazine. Such a conference, giving opportunity for comparison of views, should strengthen the policy of the paper. It is planned to make the editorial conference an annual matter, meeting at the same time and place as the American Historical Association.