PROFESSOR MACE’S NEW BOOK REVIEW BY CHARLES A. COULOMB.
In spite of repeated attempts at producing a history suitable for class-room work in the fourth or fifth grades of the elementary school, the teaching public still awaits a satisfactory book. Children cannot be interested in a mere chronological narrative, nor are they capable of forming sound judgments from groups of facts. Since the days of “Peter Parley,” therefore, the most satisfactory histories of the United States for children have been biographical. In the present work Professor Mace has so far followed tradition. But in the endeavor to secure more continuity of narrative than would otherwise be possible, the stories have been gathered together in groups of two or three or more. Each man in the group appears in his proper historical perspective instead of being partially eclipsed by the fame of some great personage whose biography is used to cover a long period of time or several historical movements. The author has selected his stories from those in which he finds a certain element of heroism, the term being broad enough, however, to cover the lives of Penn and Samuel F. B. Morse, as well as those of Drake and John Paul Jones.
The heroism of some of our great men is shown by overcoming great obstacles just as that of others is indicated by fighting the enemies of their country. So we find William Penn and James Oglethorpe associated with Hudson, the explorer, and Stuyvesant, the fighting Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, in the chapter about “The Men Who Planted Colonies for Many Kinds of People.”
Out of the three hundred and ninety-six pages in the book, two hundred and twenty-nine are devoted to our history prior to 1789, leaving but one hundred and sixty-seven to our history under the Constitution. The division seems to give a disproportionate amount of space to our Colonial and Revolutionary history. This is justified to some extent by the plan of the author. There is no question as to the romance to be found in the voyages of Polo and Drake, and in the life of Captain Smith. At the same time there are other equally dramatic features of our later history that might have been included, and so have given a better distribution of space. More room is given to Washington’s activities before the Revolution than to the rest of his life, which did not, it is true, cover so many years, but is certainly of more importance. With the exception of the statement that Grant was twice elected president, and the story of Edison and his inventions, the history of our country from 1865 to the battle of Manila Bay contains nothing worth recording, so far as this book is concerned. Out of the sixty-six names we do not find one jurist; one feels that Chief Justice Marshall’s name is certainly not sixty-seventh in our history.
The attempt to fix the facts of each chapter by a list of questions for study is to be commended, as is the unusually satisfactory index. Professor Mace has, besides, done what few scholars succeed in doing. He has written his book in such simple, clear English that the pupils for whom it is intended will have little difficulty in understanding it.
Most of the pictures have been selected for their dramatic value, but many portraits and pictures of places and things of historic interest are included in the book. On the whole, the book is a step forward, and the inequalities in it are no greater than those of other books that have otherwise less to commend them. In classes where the course of study in history does not extend beyond the Revolution, the book should have a wide use.
[A Primary History: Stories of Heroism. By William H. Mace, Professor of History in Syracuse University. Cloth, 8vo. xxv+ 396 pp. Rand, McNally & Co. Chicago, New York.]