The life of each succeeding present must dictate its own norms of efficiency: whether citizenship or patriotism, character or individuality, socialization or socialism, etc. The practical value of history is like the practical value of all other subjects—it must adapt itself to life needs, and by its leadership make itself indispensable to life and society. Also it must be of practical value to the individual for his pleasure, his use, and his business; by its adaptability to these ends it makes itself indispensable to him. It has this practical value for the pupils in the grades, high school, and college, in contributing something for themselves and for their parts in life.
An Idaho cow-puncher last summer defined life as “just one d—— thing after another.” It has also been pointed out that this is the best definition of history, as all too often taught and written. The “cow-puncher” forms a small class, and is rapidly disappearing; history will soon be forced to adapt itself to another class and to a life otherwise defined. In doing so it is hoped that it will not be by this chance and unconscious adaptation, but that it will consciously and deliberately adapt itself to the new class and its life.
I believe history has a practical value in life, and a place in the school system; and also that it can prove this value so efficiently that its critics will not wish to relegate history to the position of Greek and Latin.
“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.