D. REPORT OF AND REVIEW ON CERTAIN TEXT BOOKS IN HISTORY USED IN THE SCHOOLS, AND ORDER RELATING THERETO [City of Boston][920]
The following was presented:
On October 23, [1922] the City Council 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 this city 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. The preface to the Ward edition of Burke’s “Speech on Conciliation” was found to be in certain respects objectionable, and the book therefore has been dropped from the list.
In compliance with this request the School Committee appointed for a hearing the late afternoon of Wednesday, November 15, and in response to a further request that the hearing be in the evening rather than in the afternoon in order to meet the convenience of the members of the City Council, the hour was changed to 8 o’clock P.M. on that day. The City Council was represented at the hearing by one of its members.
The School Committee believes that extreme care is taken to avoid the inclusion upon the so-called Authorized List of any unfit or improper books for use in the public schools, and whenever in the past it has appeared that any books to which reasonable objections may be made have been so included prompt steps have been taken to discontinue the use of such books. This course will be followed in the future as carefully as in the past.
The School Committee welcomes all honest and fair-minded criticism of any of its acts, and particularly when such criticism is helpful and constructive. It does not welcome criticism that seeks merely to tear down or destroy and does not substitute for the object of attack something that is better and more useful.
The members of the Committee have personally examined the books under discussion, with considerable care, both before and after the hearing. They feel, therefore, that they are reasonably well acquainted with the contents of the books and with the objections that have been urged against them. They have also had prepared a careful and dispassionate review under the direction 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. The review is hereto appended.
Neither this report, nor the accompanying review should be construed as indicating that the members of the Committee are in entire sympathy and agreement with all the statements which the books contain, nor that proper and balanced emphasis has been placed in all instances upon certain events in our national history. Opinions on this point must necessarily and widely differ and cannot be brought into absolute reconcilement, but such differences certainly are not sufficient to warrant the condemnation of the books nor the impeachment of the sincerity and good faith of the authors.
In the opinion of the Committee, also, there are in the books examples of what might be called “loose writing,” one single instance of which must suffice.
Professor Hart says “the only way to find out what races composed the white population (in 1790) is to examine the family names and they show that about five-sixths were descended from English ancestors; one-twelfth were Scotch, Scotch-Irish, and Irish; ...; [sic] about one-twentieth were Germans, and about one-fiftieth were Dutch.”