The reaction of historians was reflected by James Truslow Adams in his article “History and the Lower Criticism” in The Atlantic Monthly for September, 1923, in which he described the advance made in historical scholarship during the generation before the War. “Since then, however,” he declared, “the forces of reaction and obscurantism seem to have been let loose and to have gathered fresh strength.... Partly because it [history] uses the language of the common man, the common man constitutes himself a judge of its truth, and we have the spectacle of a municipal commissioner of accounts attacking the validity of the scholar’s work while a town chamber of commerce defends it.”
“What then of the future?” queried Mr. Adams. “Is the writing of popular history to be an effort to discover and to disseminate among the people the true story of mankind in the past, or is it to be written as an ethical or political tract, to further the passionate conflicts of the present?” The desire of the historian to portray the truth and to be just in his estimates, is to Mr. Adams a surety that “the patriot need fear no danger to the ideals and inspiration to be derived from an ever more painstaking scrutiny of the history of the colonies and of the nation. The historian who most loves truth is most likely to love his country.”[895]
Other cities have passed through experiences similar to that of New York, but less publicity has attended the investigations. On October 23, 1922, the City Council of Boston “unanimously passed an order requesting the School Committee to give a hearing for the consideration of certain objections made to the use in the public schools ... of ‘School History of the United States,’ revised 1920, by Albert Bushnell Hart; Burke’s ‘Speech on Conciliation,’ edited by C. H. Ward 1919, and ‘American History,’ by D. S. Muzzey.”[896]
In compliance with this request the School Committee “personally examined the books under discussion with considerable care....” They also had prepared “a careful and dispassionate review under the direction of all of the Board of Superintendents of all or substantially all of the criticisms made against these books and brought to their attention, and a refutation of these criticisms which, in the opinion of the Committee, justice to the authors demands.”[897]
Although the Committee were not “in entire sympathy and agreement with all the statements which the books contain,” nor in complete accord regarding the emphasis placed upon “certain events in our national history,” yet they felt that “such differences” were not “sufficient to warrant the condemnation of the books nor the impeachment of the sincerity and good faith of the authors.”[898]
A “hearing” regarding the textbooks under examination was arranged for and held by the School Committee and the City Council on November 15, the latter being represented by one member. “In the course of the hearing,” stated the Report, “irrelevant and extraneous matters were brought to the attention of the School Committee to which it listened with scant patience.” What the School Committee regarded as “unwarranted and ill-founded attacks were made upon the authors of these books,” whereas to the Committee “the real and only question at issue” was whether their [Muzzey’s and Hart’s] histories contain material to which reasonable and proper objection may be made.[899] In the opinion of the Committee “no historian had ever succeeded in writing a book which met satisfactorily every point of view, nor does any history place an equal amount of emphasis upon all the topics which it discusses.” Besides, “it is clearly impossible that one brief volume should give adequate treatment to all the steps incident to the origin and growth of a great nation.”[900]
The Committee also deplored “the course pursued by the critics of these books in tearing from their context detached sentences and omitting explanations and summaries which are essential to a grasp of the authors’ real meaning.” Such a procedure, they believed, would permit a critic to find an “opportunity for criticism of any book that ever has been written on the subject of history, and indeed on many other subjects as well.”[901]
After having given “due consideration to the matter,” the School Committee therefore were of the opinion “that the criticisms against these two books” did not justify “their exclusion from the Authorized List.”[902] A dissenting opinion, however, was issued, which, “while in agreement” with the Report, nevertheless set forth the view that the Board of Superintendents should ask for certain changes in the books when they were revised.[903]
In the comprehensive reviews of Hart’s School History of the United States and Muzzey’s An American History, the Committee pointed out that the chief sources of the criticisms were taken from “Mr. Charles Grant Miller,—Treason to American Tradition; Mr. Wallace McCamant,—Review of Muzzey’s American History; Mr. James A. Watson,—Speech before the Boston City Council and interview reported in the Boston Globe of October 24, 1922, ... and from the ‘Report on History Text Books used in public schools of the City of New York, 1922.’”
In examining each statement which had been quoted to prove that these textbooks were Anglicized editions, the Committee showed that the “apologetic attitude toward England” charged by the critics could not be so considered when quotations were taken in their entirety.