Book _ AS. COURSE XXI Booklovers Reading Clu Hand-BooR j>jf Hon. HENRY CABOT LODGE Professor ALBERT BUSHNELL HAR1 Professor JOHN BACH McMASTER Dr. REUBEN GOLD THWAITES Mr. PAUL LEICESTER FORD Professor A. C. McLAUGHLIN -And Othe\ n ** 6 ISSUED FROM THE PRESS OF THE BOOKLOVERS LIBRARY 1323 WALNUT ST., PHILADELPHIA (5) JOHN FISKE THE BOOKLOVERS READING CLUB HAND-BOOK TO AC- COMPANY THE READING COURSE ENTITLED, AMERICAN FOUNDA- TION HISTORT SEYMOUR EATON Librarian FREDERIC W. SPEIRS, Ph.D. Educational Director (?) THE LIBRARY OF OONGRESS, Two CoHid Receiveb FEB. 1 190: COTVBWMT ENTRY CLASS O. XXo. No. i« c»py a Copyright, 1901 The Booklovers Librart AMERICAN FOUN- DATION HISTORY Course XXI: Booklovers Reading Club BOOKS SELECTED FOR THIS READING COURSE by Hon. HENRY CABOT LODGE (9) The BOOKS HE following three books are supplied by The Booklovers Library to Club Members who have enrolled for Course XXL ' /. OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGH- BOURS (John Fiske) //. THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENG- LAND (John Fiske) ///. AMERICAN HISTORY TOLD BY CON- TEMPORARIES: Volume I— ERA OF COLONIZATION (Albert Bushnell Hart) The course of reading as outlined in this handbook is based on these books. Suggestions for supplementary reading will be found at the end. ("> AMERICAN FOUNDATION HISTORT TALKS and LECTURES by ALBERT BUSHNELL HART and JOHN BACH McMASTER and PAUL LEICESTER FORD and REUBEN GOLD THWAITES and andrew c. Mclaughlin "These papers by Professor Hart, Professor McMaster, Mr. Ford, Mr. Thwaites and Professor McLaughlin have been prepared especially for readers of this course. EDITORIAL NOTES by DR. CLAUDE HALSTEAD VAN TTNE 03) A WORD from THE DIRECTOR T is often urged as an objection to democ- racy that in the distribution of civic honors scant recognition is given to intellectual ability and training. The men who sit in legislative halls and who wield executive power in a democracy refect not the highest but merely the average intelligence of the community . In certain European countries the " scholar in politics" is an important factor, but in America he is a rarity. Among the few Americans in public life who have gained recognition in the world of scholarship 05) A Word from the Director Senator Henry Cabot Lodge holds a promine?it place. Although he was trained for the law, he made literature his profession, working principally in the historical field. Those who are fa?niliar with his History of the English Colonies in America and his Story of the Revolution will readily understand our reasons for requesting Senator Lodge to give our readers the benefit of his judgment in the selection of books for this course. It is a striking tribute to the work of folin Fiske that two of his books were given a place in a collection on American foundation history which was li?nited to three treatises. Indeed, we seriously considered basing our course altogether upon Mr. Fiske 's books. His series of three works on colo- nial history, The Beginnings of New England, Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, and The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, covers the whole subject in most satisfactory fashion. But since we felt that the original documents which have bee?i put into such attractive form by Professor Hart would have unique interest and value, we finally decided to drop one of Mr. Fiske' s books in favor of American History Told by Contemporaries. // was not difficult to decide which one should be omitted. It is 1'6) A Word from the Director generally recognized that the two principal colonial centers from which radiated the lines of influence that have controlled our national development were New Engla?id and Virginia. The Middle Colonies were more heterogeneous in population and less distinctive in character. For this reason the book on the Puritan settlements and the work on the group of colonies centering about Virginia best served our purpose. The character of the historical work of "John Fiske is so well known that readers will take up the books of the course with some initial appreciation of their delightful and stimulating qualities. Mr.. Fiske had an extraordinary range of historical vision and re?narkable power of lucid and vivid presentation. In a judicial review of the career of the historian Professor Hart says: " The great historical service of fohn Fiske was that of the interpreter of the dull and the confused; he made it his honorable profession to bring home to the average man wholesome truths about our ancestors. Like other historians, he fell into some errors, and he had his prejudices, but he loved and sought the truth; he stated it as he saw it; he made it clear. A recent critic calls him ' fohn Fiske, popularizer.' Large the service of him who popularizes love of truth ! ' ' 2Q (17) A Word from the Director The papers of the handbook represent a notable group of writers and teachers of American history. Professor Hart and Professor McMaster are in the very front rank of authorities in their special field. Each is at the head of a strong depart?nent in a great university ', and both have made valuable contributions to historical literature. Professor McLaughlin holds a chair of American history in a university which is famous for excellent work in this subject. Mr. Thwaites is a spe- cialist of high authority in colonial history. Many of the readers of Mr. Paul Leicester Ford's popular fiction do not realize that he is a serious student of history, but those who know him through his Many-sided Franklin and The True George Washington will understa/id that he is able to write on the subject of historical fiction with an appreciation of the historian s point of view as well as of the novelist 's. The various suggestions to the reader in the form of outlines, notes, and questions, furnished by Dr. Van Tyne, of the University of Pennsylvania, will be extremely valuable to those who take the course with a serious purpose to master the essen- tial principles of American colonial development. (IS) The Idea of the Course S early as the time of Andrew Jackson, J\ travelers from other lands found the American public too much interested in itself. Americans were impatient of censure and insatiable of praise. Yet such was their hurry and impetuosity, complained the foreigners, that they never stopped to inform themselves of the really important facts of their own past. They were content with a few ideas about Columbus, John Smith, the Plymouth Rock, a cer- tain battle of Lexington about which clung unpleasant associations for Englishmen, and the Declaration of Independence, which they consid- ered the central fact on which universal history turned. Around those few historical data the "blighting tempest of democracy" raged. The citizens of the United States seemed to feel that they were an aboriginal race, owing nothing to Europe or to European civilization. Americans forgot that they were but Englishmen, Dutchmen, and Frenchmen transplanted to a new soil. It would be well, wrote the strangers in America, if this great people learned their obligations. Travelers are unnecessarily harsh. There is good reason to believe that the subjects of Andrew Jackson were too busily engaged reducing their (19) The Booklovers Reading Club environment to the requirements of civilized life to give a thought to yesterday. The work of development is now well advanced toward comple- tion. Recent events have given a new impetus to national pride, and Americans are turning with fresh interest to the study of their national his- tory. It is the purpose of the present course to assist the reader to learn the lessons which the past can teach by giving an attractive view of the foundation history of our country. (20) HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS TO THE READER The necessity of limiting the number of books in the course leaves certain parts of American colonial history without any special recognition by the books selected. The period of discovery proper and the whole subject of the history of the Middle Colonies receive no special attention. Happily, Mr. Fiske's method of going deeply into the causes of events has in part supplied the loss in the age of discovery, and, as we shall see, Professor Hart's Era of Colonization gives us some very valuable material for filling the lacunae in the Mid- dle Colonies. Finally, both of those omissions receive admirable summary treatment in the several papers in this handbook. It is important that the student who undertakes to read carefully the books of Mr. Fiske which form the basis of this course should have some preliminary knowledge of the point of view and the methods of the historian. One of the great charms of Mr. Fiske's historical writing is his care to point out the significance of small (21) The Booklovers Reading Club things. He selects an event or movement which we have long accepted as of world-wide import- ance, and persuades us to connect logically that event with an apparently very minor event in colonial history. The mind is thus led to magnify the minor event until it assumes equal proportions with the major. Valuable as this is in assist- ing the memory, it creates, nevertheless, a dis- torted image, against belief in which the reader should be constantly upon his guard. The condi- tions in which the event took place must be kept in mind, and the size of the event not confused with the importance of the results. Again the reader must beware of Mr. Fiske's tendency to use too brilliant colors. It should be remem- bered that every fact mentioned may have an undeniable existence, but the neglect of counter- balancing facts may destroy the verity of the effect upon the mind. Mr. Fiske will frequently be found dogmatic, and the alert reader will find ample scope for historical skepticism. One may ask, Is he prejudiced ; is he too sympathetic ; can he know with the certainty that he assumes ? Such questions cannot fail to give a livelier interest in the study in hand. Finally the reader must carefully distinguish the work of the philosopher from the work of the historian. The philosopher does not submit his facts for inspection, but presumes that they will be recalled by the reader. The historian should, (22) Am erican Foundation History wherever possible, present sufficient data that his reader maybe in position to judge for himself the accuracy of a conclusion. Such a method soon establishes a confidential relation between the author and the reader. In general the reader may be assured that John Fiske was a conscien- tious as well as a brilliant historian, and that his mind was comprehensive enough to grasp the larger meaning of things. Above all, for the ofeneral reader he has made American colonial history a good substitute for some forms of litera- ture which as a rule monopolize the reading public. In Old Virginia and Her Neighbours we have not a history of each of the Southern Colonies but a history of a group that was characterized by certain economic and social phases. The divi- sion is not an arbitrary geographical distinction between Northern and Southern Colonies but is based upon a distinction of sectional character recognized by the colonists themselves. When there was to be united action upon any matter it was recognized that the Southern, the Middle, and the Eastern Colonies had different interests, and each section demanded that its interests be distinctively represented. Mr. Fiske has selected for treatment that group of plantation colonies whose extensive rather than intensive agriculture gave to all its institutions, economic, political, and (23) The Booklovers Reading Club social, a character common to each member of the group. The book follows the history of the Southern Colonies down to 1753 when "the stream of Virginia history becomes an insepar- able portion of the majestic stream in which floats the career of our Federal Union." The Beginnings of Nezv England presents an entirely new set of institutions, affected in this case not only by different economic conditions but by the pronounced character of the people who took up the task of developing the country. The author feels the necessity of accounting for the stern Puritan race whose characteristics entered into all the institutions of this colonial group. In opening the book the reader is sur- prised to find almost fifty pages with scarcely a mention of America. One is conscious of a desire to look again at the title-page to assure oneself that the book is a history of New Eng- land. As in all of Mr. Fiske's books the spirit of the philosopher is present. Not with the embark- ation of the Mayflower, but with the Cathari, or the Puritans of the Eastern Empire, began the history of New England. There must be a sect of Albigenses and Lollards, and there must be a Latimer and a Cromwell before men would grimly go to a new world to escape Roman Catholicism. Again, he goes back ages to trace the movement toward a new conception of representative govern- (24) American Foundation History ment. Since Mr. Fiske was a New England man by birth and training, his treatment of Puri- tan institutions and Puritan character has special interest aud value. It would be a great mistake to use the American History Told by Contemporaries in the same way that we should use the works of Fiske, which are connected narratives intended to be read as a whole. True, Professor Hart has most ably arranged the various selections under certain large divisions of colonial history, and again chosen such passages as will, taken in order, best tell the story of that period ; but the nice adjustment of proportion and historical per- spective is impossible. The book is then best used for illustration and as a corrective for wrong impressions necessarily gotten from the general statements of the historian. The reader can also get the flavor of an event and the quaint spirit of an age better from a real product of that time than from the interpretations of the historian. It is true that there are dangers as well as advan- tages from the use of these so-called sources of history. The general reader cannot have all the sources, and gets only the impression from the one selected and placed before him. Other just as reliable sources might entirely change the opinion formed on the basis of the selection. Again, the reader of Professor Hart's book cannot (^5) The Booklovers Reading Club be placed in possession of complete knowledge of the circumstances under which the selected document was written, and as a result can make no allowances for prejudice on the part of the writer. Nevertheless, the information and pleas- ure that may be gained from the reading of the Contemporaries is of a kind that no secondary history can give. Two selections from the works of Francis Park- man are presented in this handbook (page 101) because the books and the papers of the course afford no adequate view of the great struggle that took place between France and England for the possession of America. In the luminous passage first cited Parkman sketches the characteristics of the colonizing methods of both nations and shows clearly why England won the gigantic struggle. The second quotation is the historian's scholarly tribute to the zealous service of the Jesuits, who failed — but not ingloriously. (26) TOPICAL OUTLINE F THE C U R S E (V) The Booklovers Reading Club Memoranda : TOPICAL OUTLINE F r H E CO U R S E In this outline the abbreviations O. Va., N. E. y and Contemp.y stand respectively for Old Virginia and Her NcigJibours, The Beginnings of New England, and American History Told by Cojitcmporaries. In the Contemporaries the number of the selection is indicated, not the page. I. Historical Geography. A. The Work of Discovery and Explora- tion. 1. Spanish: 0, Va., I, i-ii; Contetnp., 17-24. 2. French : Contempt 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43- 3. English : 0. Va., I, 12-61 ; N. E., 76-77 ; Contcnip., 26-33, 9°- 4. Dutch : Contemp., 38, 150, 151. B. The Task of Settlement. 1. Spanish : Handbook, 71. 2. French : Contemp., 36, 41. 3. English : (a) The Theory of Colonization. TV. E. t 1-49. (b) Settlement. O. Va., I, 61-194; Con- temp., 44-58, 61, 62-64, 97-99; N. E. y 50-137- 4. Dutch : O. Va., II, 3-4, 139, 140; Con- temp., 153, 154. 5. Swedish: Con temp., 158, 159. (29) The Booklovers Reading Club C. The Struggle for Supremacy. i. The Dutch overcome the Swedes. O. Va., II, 139. 2. By a brief struggle the English supplant the Dutch. Contemp., 155. 3. The gigantic struggle between the English and the French. O. Va., II, 377-379, 398-400 ; N. E., 274-277 ; Handbook, 74. II. Political Development in the Eng- lish Colonies. A. The Southern Colonies. 1. Virginia. The reign of the remodeled London Com- pany. O. Va., I, 177-254. The first American legislature. O. Va., I, 241-254; Contemp., 65. Bacon's Rebellion. O. Va., II, 45-107 ; Contemp., 71. A century of political education. O. Va., II, 108-130; Contemp., 66-70. 2. Maryland. The palatinate form of government. O. Va., I, 255-285 ; Contemp., 72. Troubles with William Claiborne. O. Va., I, 286-318 ; Contemp., 74. Quarrels with near neighbors. O. Va., II, 1 31-146; Contemp., JJ. Preparation for the Revolution. O. Va., II, 149-173. (30) American Foundation History 3. The Carolinas. The Fundamental Constitutions and how they worked. O. Va., II, 270-280; Con- tempt 80. The restless era of proprietary government and its end. O. Va., II, 281-308; Con- temp., 78, 79. Royal government. O. Va., II, 308-333. 4. Georgia. Its beginnings. O. Va., II, 333-33 6 - B. New England. 1. The representative system. N. E., 105-107; Contempt 107. 2. The effects of restricting the suffrage. N. E., 109-137. New Hampshire and Rhode Island founded. Contcmp., 1 1 3-1 16. Connecticut and New Haven founded. Con- temp., 1 17-122. 3. The New England Confederacy. N. E., 140-16 1 ; Contemp., 129. 4. The question of religious freedom. N. E., 163-198. 5. The complaints of the Lords of Trade. N. E., 242-264; Contemp., 109. 6. The annulment of the Massachusetts charter and the tyranny of Andros. N. E., 265- 274; Contemp., 135, 136. 7. Massachusetts becomes a royal province and the seeds of revolution are sown. N. E., 274-278. 130 The Booklovers Reading Club C. The Middle Colonies. i. New York. Under an English proprietary government. Contemp., 156. Leisler's revolution. Contempt 157. A royal province. 2. Pennsylvania. The proprietary government with a charter. Contempt 161, 162. Measures to attract immigrants ; results. Contcmp., 163. The long struggle between the representa- tives of the proprietor and the people of the colony. 3. New Jersey. Contemp., 164-168. 4. Delaware. Contemp., 160. III. Social and Economic Life in the English Colonies. A. New England. 1. Education and religion. Contemp., 137-146, 93, 94; N. E., 108, no, 146-149, 172-190, 243-250. 2. Pioneer mode of life affected by relations with the Indians. Contemp., 147, 92, 91 ; N. E., 199-241. 3. Everyday life of the people. Contemp., 149, 100, 101. B. The Middle Colonies. 1. Education and religion. Contemp., 171, 169. (3^J American Foundation History 2. Mode of life as affected by relations with the Indians. Contempt 152. 3. Social conditions- Contcmp., 172. C. Southern Colonies. 1. Education and religion. Contcmp., 84-86, 89; O. Va., II, 241-259. 2. Industrial conditions. Contemp., 87, 88 ; O. Va., I, 174-200. 3. Commercial conditions. O. Va., II, 338-369. 4. Social life. O. Va., II, 1-44, 200-241, 260- 266, 311-331. 3Q (33) The Fundamental Principles of American History : A Talk by ANDREW C. McLAUGHLIN (35) The Fundamental Principles of American History : A Talk by ANDREW C. McLAUGHLIN Andrew C. McLaughlin was graduated from the University of Michigan in 1882, and from the law department in 1885. He practised law for a short time, and then became instructor in Latin in the Michigan University. In a year he went over into the history department, where in 1S91 he became professor of American history, which position he still holds. He has written a life of Lewis Cass, a History of Higher Education in Michigan, Civil Government of Michigan, and A History of the American Nation. He also edited the third edition of Cooley's Principles of Constitutional Law, and has contributed to vari- ous periodicals. In addition to his academic duties he has the editorial management of the American Historical Review. The fundamental principles of American history- are not far to seek. Four hundred years ago the world entered upon a new era, an era of colonization, during which the ideas and the civiliza- tion of western Europe were gradually extended. That stage of the world's history has not yet gone by ; in these latter days we see the process of expansion going on plainly before our eyes, in Africa, in Asia, in the islands of the sea. America, which at the beginning was a field for coloniza- tion, has in the course of time become one of the (37) The Booklovers Reading Club active agents in the work of thrusting onward and forward the essential ideas of occidental civilization. The student, therefore, who would understand American history must try to realize at the outset that this continent was an open field inviting set- tlement, and that the nations of the Old World in the process of European expansion entered upon the task of occupying the land. He must see also that while in its broadest aspects the most important thing is this extension of Europe out- ward toward the west, the European states entered into rivalry, each seeking to win the advantage and to excel the other in gaining new dominion and power. While beyond all question the important fact was that the civilization of western Christendom was expanded and its power multiplied, the nations engaged in this stupendous work looked with suspicion one upon the other, and were often bitter antagonists in the prose- cution of their enterprises. The early history of America, then, must be viewed from these two sides : it was a time in which Europe was making America her own ; it was a time of rivalry between contestants for the lion's share of the prize. At the end of a hundred and fifty years, the guerdon had fallen to two nations who were in quite different ways successful as colonizers, England and Spain. England had won a large part of North America and given her best civiliza- (38) American Foundation History tion, her freest and freshest ideas, her truest impulse to a young people who were soon to press forward with zealous energy in carrying out an inherited tendency. Spain then owned the greater portion of South America with a share of the northern continent, and before she lost pos- session she had impressed herself, her language, her religion, her laws, her modes of thought, indelibly upon the New World ; to remotest gene- rations the inhabitants of these United States must deal with the real Spain which has been left at our doors. England too lost her most promising colo- nies in what we call our Revolution. We ought not to lose sight of the fact, however, that the breaking of the political bond was not the most significant fact. The cardinal thought is this, that the United States remained a colony of England, the heir to her language, her customs, her modes of thought and action, her natural impulses and desires. It is true that many new ideas had sprung up in this New World and that it was in part to maintain these ideas, to compel a legal recognition of political principles, that the Revolution was fought. But casting aside that notion for a moment let us realize that England did not fail, even by the so-called loss of her colonies when as free States they went forward to magnify her influence and to carry on the work of extending European and Anglo-Saxon civilization. The pioneers of America (39) The Booklovers Reading Club who pushed boldly over die mountains a cen- tury and a quarter ago were in reality engaged in the same task as the earlier pioneers who settled at Jamestown or Plymouth. Moreover in what we call colonial times the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin had been here in conflict. England had begun her settlements in opposition to Spain, had succeeded in pushing the Spaniards off toward the south, and finally in wresting Canada and the eastern half of the Mississippi basin from France The United States carried on the work. First Louisiana was won ; then west Florida was seized ; next east Florida was obtained ; then Texas and California and the great West were annexed ; finally Porto Rico and the Philippines were taken, and the yoke of the master, that had rested heavily on Cuba from the time of Columbus the Admiral, was taken from her weary shoulders. Such certainly is one of the most fundamental notions of American history. Any one desiring to understand the different phases of development cannot lose sight of this simple fact that our his- tory forms a large part of that era of colonization, of the expansion of western Europe, which began with Henry the Navigator, Columbus, and DaGama, and is not yet ended ; the end no one can foresee. It is necessary, too, that we should see that the United States has not only won terri- tory from Spain, but with marvelous rapidity has extended across a continent. One hundred and (40) American Foundation History twenty-five years ago when independence was declared, the population was less than three millions ; settlements were confined to the Atlantic coast, though a few bold spirits had had the temerity to move over into the great valley. By the first census there were not four million people, including slaves, in this country, and only 228,758 across the mountains. The ease and celerity with which the Mississippi valley was won for civiliza- tion must always remain one of the astounding achievements of history. The pioneer took with him the school-house, the court-house, and the church. The privations of the frontier were soon changed for the comforts, one might well say the graces and elegancies, of the farther east. No one can appreciate American history unless he keeps constantly in mind the task of subduing a continent ; he must remember that, if we have not the poets and sculptors and musicians of Europe, American energy has gone whither nature beck- oned it, and has transformed the wilderness and made it the abode of civilized and happy man. It will not do, however, to omit from our con- sideration the fact of which I have already spoken, that at the time of the American Revolution cer- tain principles were put forth of which the people demanded a legal recognition. It may be said that the conflict with Great Britain was begun to obtain the legal expression and application of a new ethical principle in politics. The Americans (40 The Booklovers Reading Club claimed that they were demanding only that England recognize the well-established principles of the English Constitution ; in reality they sought the recognition of an ethical notion as yet not formulated in the law of the mother-country. America stood for the idea that no man's money should be taken without his consent or the con- sent of his representative duly chosen. In its broadest sense this meant self-government by the main body of the people, and although it did not immediately find its fullest expression in Ameri- can institutions, this principle was slowly worked out in the democratization of the country in the first forty years of its independence. And so, naturally, as an inevitable product of its history, the United States stood for the intrinsic worth of self-government. Men of the last century, like Jefferson or other democratic leaders, would have argued that better government. was obtained when the people were the custodians of power. But after all it was not good government alone that they were seeking ; it was self-government as the natural and inherent right of man. Again, with this process of democratization, which must always be borne in mind, was another essential idea which was expressed so clearly and cogently by Jefferson in the Declaration of Inde- pendence, and by George Mason in the Virginia Bill of Rights. Jefferson declared that everyone has the natural and inherent right to "pursue (42) American Foundation History happiness." These words are trite — so much the better for America — but they were not trite when they were first written. It is easy to forget this most fundamental fact in our history, a fact in comparison with which dates, and battles, and proper names are of no account, viz., that America set before its eyes this idea, hitherto not carried out in the world, that there must not be privileged orders, or stratified society, or special advantages, but that each man because of his manhood must have the right to seek happi- ness and to rise by virtue of his own buoyancy to a place which might seem to bring him his heart's desire. If I were asked to state, then, the four funda- mental ideas that should be carried in the mind of the reader of American history, whatever else might fail him, I should say, first, the place of America in the history of colonization, remember- ing that we have been both active and passive agents in the process ; second, our conquests from Spain and the extension of our rule and our civilization across the continent ; third, the demand for self-government and the gradual democratiza- tion of society, a process in which ideals have been in part made good ; fourth, the idea that America stands, not for stagnant well-being, but for progress. (43) The Foundations ^Ameri- can Nationality : A Lecture by JOHN BACH McMASTER (45) The Foundations ^Ameri- can Nationality : A Lecture by JOHN BACH McMASTER John Bach McMaster was educated in the public schools of Brooklyn and was graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1872. He taught grammar in that college for a year, then studied civil engineering, and in 1877 wa s appointed instructor in civil engineering at Princeton. As early as 1870 he had begun to gather materials for A History of the People of the United States. From that time until 1883 his spare moments were devoted to that work. Upon the appearance of the first volume of the history in 1883 it gained an immediate success. The author was at once made professor of Ameri- can history in the University of Pennsylvania. Since that time four volumes more have appeared, and he has written in addition Benjamin Franklin as a Man of Letters and a series of magazine articles which have been collected in a volume entitled With the Fathers. His papers on Daniel Webster, originally published in the Century, have now appeared in book form. The early history of what is now the United States falls naturally into four periods ; that of discovery and exploration, that of occupation and settlement, that of struggle for possession, and that during which the course of events led steadily on to the war for independence. That our continent was visited by Europeans long before the famous voyage of Columbus may (47) The Booklovers Reading Club now be accepted as a fact ; yet the history of our country may, nevertheless, be considered as start- ing- with those great epoch-making voyages which made the New World known to the Old. Now it is well, at the outset, to understand that the voyage of Columbus was in no sense an accident, but the direct result of a business, a commercial need. It must be remembered that the highways of trade between Europe and the Indies were then in the hands of the Turks and might at any moment be closed ; that a new way to the East, a way not subject to Moslem control, was an imperative necessity ; that Portugal, in hope of finding such a way, had long been pushing her explorations down the west coast of Africa ; and that it was to discover a shorter and more direct route than that attempted by Portugal that Columbus went due west across the Atlantic. It is well, again, to understand at the outset who this man Columbus was ; why he believed in this particular route, and what were the direct results of his voyage. We should know why the Pope drew the Line of Demarcation. We should know the names of some of the other explorers who were so quick to follow Columbus ; and we should know where these men went and what they accomplished. In some respects Columbus had failed in his undertaking. He sought the East. He found a continent that barred the way to the East, and with the realization of this fact (48) American Foundation History by Europe we enter on a new period of explora- tion, during which patient search is made, at first for a southwest passage through or around the New World, and finally — after Magellan sailed through the strait that still bears his name — for a shorter passage in the northwest. Voyages such as these did much toward the discovery of the coast-line, and so prepared the way for the exploration and settlement of the interior and the seaboard. In this work of exploration it should be noted that two European nations, the Spanish and the French, stand preeminent ; while in the work of settlement and colonization England surpasses both. Indeed, it is not too much to say that down to the founding of the United States every impor- tant contribution to the knowledee of the geography of the interior of our country was made by Spaniards or Frenchmen. Following on the track of Columbus the Span- iards became the possessors of the West Indies and of Mexico, and, naturally, the explorers of our Gulf coast and the southwest. The journeys of Ponce de Leon and De Soto are familiar to every one ; but far more remarkable are the over- land wanderings of Vaca and his companions, and the great march of Coronado in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola. The doings and adven- tures of these men and their followers in the Rio Grande valley has been too much neglected, and 4 Q (49) The Booklovers Reading Club now that the story has been so well told by Mr. Lummis in his Spanish Pioneers, it should be read as part of the foundation history of our country. Turning to the work of French explorers, we should understand at the outset how it came about that they went to the Gulf and the River St. Law- rence rather than to any other part of our country; how the hostility of the Indians of central New York prevented them from coming down the valley of the Hudson ; how they were forced to make their explorations westward ; how they dis- covered the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River ; how they thus gained possession of the very heart of our continent ; and we should under- stand what this meant to the English settlers on the seaboard. These seaboard settlements, it should be noted, were made by men of three nations, the English, the Dutch, and the Swedes ; and again it should be understood why these people came to particu- lar localities, and on what their claims, real or pretended, were formed. Their history should be so read as to afford a clear conception of why the two Virginia Companies were chartered, what they attempted to do, why they failed, how one by one the thirteen colonies were created, what causes led to the foundation of each, what kind of settlers came to each, and what were the boundaries set forth in the charters ; for out of these came the present limits of many of our sea- (50) American Foundation History board States and the land disputes which so nearly wrecked the old Confederation. But above all colonial history must not be so read as to become a mere record of Indian wars and massacres, of the quarrels of petty rulers, and of persecutions in the name of religion. True it is that all such things are not to be ignored. They have their place and remind us of what hardships were endured, what dangers were met, what sac- rifices were made by those who laid the foundation of our country. But quite as important is some knowledge of the customs, usages, institutions, ways of living of those commonwealth builders. We should know and appreciate the vast differ- ence between life in a New England village or on a Virginia plantation and in the woods of Canada and the far Northwest. The minister with his hour-glass on the pulpit, the housewife with her rude utensils about her, the frontier farmer with his musket on his back, the slave in the tobacco field, the priest with his portable altar, the coureur de bois with his canoe full of furs, should all be as real to us as the men we meet upon our streets. It was these differences which counted for so much when the great struggle for supremacy was under way. Two of the four nationalities that entered this struggle were disposed of easily. The Swedes were conquered by the Dutch, and they in turn by the English. But the conflict was long and (50 The Booklovers Reading Club bloody when the English met the French, and three-quarters of a century passed before it ended in an English triumph. This bitter fight appears in our annals under the meaningless names of King William's War, Queen Anne's War, King George's War, and the French and Indian War, all but so many phases of the one contest for the possession of America. Before entering on a study of this long struggle it is well to get clearly before us the historical geography of the country. The French were then in possession of Nova Scotia and the islands round about ; of New Brunswick and New France, which was the drainage basin of the river St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes ; and of Louisiana, which then extended from the Alle- gheny River to the Rocky Mountains and the Rio Grande, and from New France to the Gulf of Mexico. The Spaniards, as the explorers and occupiers of Florida, held the coast from near St. Mary's River to Mobile Bay, and were entitled to all the country drained by the rivers of that coast, and to the upper valley of the Rio Grande and what is now our southwestern Territories and California. The far Northwest was still an unknown land. The English by a treaty with Spain in 1670 had come into undisputed posses- sion of the Atlantic watershed from Maine to Georgia, and were even then pushing steadily westward toward the mountains. (52) American Foundation History With the English in New England and New York, and the French on the St. Lawrence and the fishing grounds, a contest between the two peoples for possession was sure to come, and by the time King William's War opened the colo- nies of both nations were strong enough to begin the fight. Naturally enough in this struggle the geographical features of the country played a most important part. The seafaring New Englanders made their attack by sea. The French, with their stronghold at Quebec, came down the lake and river system and harried the frontier of New England and New York. When the peace came in 1697 neither party had gained anything while both had suffered much. The first signs of English conquest are visible in the next or Queen Anne's War (1 701-13) when the French are forced to acknowledge the claims of England to Newfoundland and the country around Hudson Bay, and to leave New Bruns- wick and Nova Scotia and its chief town, Port Royal (now Annapolis), in English hands. To the true characteristics of the struggle thus begun in America Great Britain seems to have been oblivious. But France was keenly alive, and during the thirty years of peace which followed the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, she built Louisburg and a chain of forts across Louisiana from Niagara to Mobile Bay, and this line of defence the colonists during King George's War (53) The Booklovers Reading Club could not break down. They did, indeed, take Louisburg, but the British gave it back at the peace, and France, coming out of the war with all of her possessions in America safe, promptly took the next step and began another chain of forts which was to shut the British out of the Ohio valley. But the British colonists, moving west- ward, had already pushed the frontier to the Sus- quehanna in Pennsylvania and the upper waters of the Potomac in Virginia. Indeed, a great land company had already been organized and was preparing to open up to settlement a great tract of land lying around the head waters of the Ohio River, when the French began the construction of their forts at Presque Isle (Erie), Le Bceuf, and Venango. Alarmed at their proceedings the governor of Virginia bade them begone, and chose as his messenger George Washington. The refusal of the French to go was followed by the second journey of Washington to build a fort where Pittsburg now stands, by his capture at Fort Necessity, and by the opening of the French and Indian War. The last phase of the struggle for supremacy in America now began. When it ended France surrendered all of her possessions in Canada, save a few islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and entering what is now the United States divided Louisiana by the Mississippi River. All to the east she gave to Great Britain. All to the west she gave to Spain. But Spain also had (54) American Foundation History taken part in the war, and when peace was made was forced to yield Florida to Great Britain, who thus came out of the contest with an enormous addition to her New World domain. A reform in colonial government now became necessary. The new territory must be occupied and governed, the old French forts must be held by British troops, the Indians must be kept in order, and the frontier must be defended. Toward accomplishing these ends the mother-country began drawing lines about the well-inhabited regions and establishing new provinces or col- onies. That created in Canada was called the province of Quebec. Two more along our gulf coast were named East and West Florida. Another line drawn along the coast of the Atlantic watershed from Maine to Florida parted the colo- nies from French Louisiana, which was closed to settlement and reserved for the use of the Indians. For the purpose of defending the colonies against enemies at home and from abroad, troops were to be sent over and the cost of maintaining them was to be borne by the colonies. This cost was to be met by enforcing the navigation acts, by the collection of water-edge duties, and by the inland taxes imposed by the ever-famous Stamp Act of 1765, against which the colonists rose as one man. What now followed should be so studied that the Declaration of Independence may be under- (55) The Booklovers Reading Club stood when read. That document is a great bill of complaints against the King and Parliament, and sums up the wrongs which the colonists suf- fered for ten long years. It was the party platform of the American Whig, and every charge it made had a meaning for every man who read the Declaration. So too it should have a meaning for us. "He has refused his assent," says the Declaration, " to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good." What were some of those laws ? " He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firm- ness his invasions on the rights of the people." What representative houses did he dissolve? "He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices;" "he has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people;" "he has kept among us in times of peace standing armies;" "he has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns," cut "off our trade with all parts of the world," imposed "taxes on us without our consent," and deprived "us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury." What specific instances are here referred to? When did he ravage our coasts, plunder our seas, cut off trade, in short, do any of the thirty evil deeds he is accused of doing in the Declara- tion ? Till these questions can be answered with some detail the Declaration is almost meaning- v56) American Foundation History less, and a most important decade in the history of the foundation of our country is read to little purpose. The Declaration read and understood, we should pass to some of the consequences of this assertion of independence. We should ask ourselves what became of the royal governors ; how did the colo- nies become States ; what sort of governments did they establish ; what sort of authority did the Continental Congress have over the States before the March day, 1781, when the Articles of Con- federation went into force ? We should under- stand that the long delay in adopting the Articles of Confederation was due to the dispute between the small States with well-defined western bounda- ries — Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Mary- land — and those which under their old charters claimed at least to the Mississippi. We should know what these disputes were ; how they were settled by the cession of New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut ; what pledges the Continental Congress made and how these pledges were redeemed. We should know how this Northwest Territory became the nucleus of our public domain, how our land system was devised, the Territory with its two grades of gov- ernment created, and the way made straight for the admission of new States into our Union. We should know, finally, why the Articles of Confed- eration, ratified with so much difficulty, were soon (57) The Booklovers Reading Club found wanting. We should see how the inability of Congress to lay a tax of any sort deprived it of money and made the payment of its debts impossible. We should see how the lack of power on the part of Congress to regulate trade with foreign countries and the failure of the States to impose uniform regulations for themselves left our merchants at the mercy of foreigners. We should see how the power of each State to issue paper money, pass tender laws, and force acts brought on such financial distress as our countrymen never saw before or since. We should clearly see why our present Constitution was not only a political but a business necessity, and we should know something of its framing and adoption, because with its adoption the foundation of our country was finished. (58) American Historical Geography : A Lecture by ALBERT BUSHNELL HART (59) American Historical Geography : A Lecture b y ALBERT BUSHNELL HART Albert Bushnell Hart was graduated from Harvard University in 1880. He then pursued graduate studies at Harvard, University of Berlin, University of Freiburg, and the School of Politi- cal Science in Paris. He received the degree of doctor of philosophy from the University of Freiburg in 1883, and in the same year became instructor in American history at Harvard. He now occupies a chair of American history in the University. He has written An Introduction ta the Study of Federal Government, The Formation of the Union, Foundations of American Foreign Policy, Practical Essays on American Govern- ment, and, in collaboration, A Guide to the Study of American History. He is the editor of Epochs of American History, American History Told by Contemporaries, and the American Citizen series, and is one of the editors of the American Histor- ical Review. Professor Hart is a constant con- tributor to the periodical literature of history and political science. The hypnotist insists that the subject shall look straight at a fixed point, in order thereby to concentrate his thought : the teacher of American history in like manner bids his pupils put their attention on the geography of their own country, for everything else in a very real sense rests upon the surface of the earth. Indeed, historical geography, rightly viewed, is (6.) The Booklovers Reading Club the illuminant of history and the most fascinating of studies. For historical geography is the record of human storm and stress, the story of the rising of man above his environment, of a defiance of nature. When you ride over the Horseshoe Curve on the Pennsylvania Railroad you feel a sense of exhila- rating conquest. Environment says : "There is no road here ; I have set a boundary over which you cannot pass." Historical geography says : "Both sides of the mountains belong to the people, and they shall hold them together." Historical geography is also the evidence of previous historic changes. A glance over the present map of the United States shows a graphic outline of the history of the country in which we live. The little black dots which mark the prin- cipal cities and towns are the stepping-stones over which has passed the procession of advanc- ing settlement and civilization ; the sweeping lines which designate the boundaries of States and Territories are the edicts of statesmen, setting off the solitary in families and communities, dividing Territories and States. Taking up the history of America from the beginning, every epoch abounds in geographic delights. The romantic, the adventurous, the imag- inative has nowhere a broader field than in the early stages of the record of the discovery and exploration of our country. Listen a moment to (62) American Foundation History Columbus' own account of the first event in the territorial history of civilized America: "The Admiral was quite convinced of the proximity of land. In consequence of that when they said the Salve, which they used to say and sing it in their way, all the sailors and all being present, the Admiral requested and admonished them to keep a sharp lookout at the castle of the bow, and to look well for land, and said that he would give to him who first saw land a silk doublet, besides the other rewards that the King and Queen had promised, namely, an annual pension of ten thousand maravedis to him who should see it first. Two hours after midnight the land appeared about two leagues off. They lowered all the sails, leaving only a storm squaresail, which is the mainsail without bonnets, and lay to until Friday when they reached a small island of the Lucayos, called Guanahani by the natives. They soon saw people." Or let quaint John Smith tell of the delights of exploring an unknown shore : ''And then the Countrie of the Massachusets, which is the Paradise of all those parts : for, heere are many lies all planted with corne ; groues, mulberries, saluage gardens, and good harbors. . . . The Sea Coast as you passe, shewes you all along large corne fields, and great troupes of well proportioned people, and in the harbors we frequented, a little boye might take of Cunners and Pinacks and such (63) The Booklovers Reading Club delicate fish at the ships sterne, more than sixe or tenne can eate in a daie." The inland explorers who opened up the high- ways and with their camp-fires marked the sites of future cities were historical geographers. What a flavor of buffalo hunts and Kansas blizzards is in Coronado's account of his journey east of the Rocky Mountains in 1 541 : "Through mighty plains and sandy heaths, smooth and wearisome and bare of wood. All that way the plains are as full of crook-back oxen as the mountain Serena in Spain is of sheep. One day it rained in that plain a great shower of hail, as big as oranges, which caused many tears, weaknesses, and vows." An article, or indeed a volume, might be given to one of the simplest phases of our historical geography, the names of places. Thus, the limits of the Spanish occupation of parts of the present United States may be traced by Spanish names : Cape Mendocino in northern California, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, the Colorado River, Santa Fe in New Mexico, Pueblo in Colorado, Corpus Christi in Texas, St. Augus- tine and Fernandina in Florida. Through these points might be drawn a line which would show clearly how far the Spanish power had extended. A French boundary might in like manner be drawn through Louisburg, Frenchman's Bay, Trois Pistoles, Chazy, Presque Isle (now Erie), Braddock's Field, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, (64) American Foundation History and Biloxi to the Gulf; and from St. Louis through St. Paul to the northern lakes. The Dutch have left us some rather strong and unspeakable names. We may follow them from Staten Island through Rhinebeck, Rensselaar- wyck, Poughkeepsie, Fort Orange to Schenectady and Canajoharie. The site of a German colony and the ravages of the French in the Palatinate, which caused their exodus, are commemorated in Palatine Bridge in central New York. In that State alone is preserved the record of another invasion not mentioned in history : the limit of the Roman Empire in the west is dis- tinctly marked, not by York and Chester, but by Lyons, Turin, Ithaca, Syracuse, Utica, and Rome of the State of New York; and one could not suggest a more difficult task in historical geogra- phy than the correct location on the atlas of classical geography of the following stations on the New York Central Railroad : Ilion, Utica, Rome, Verona, Manlius, Syracuse, Memphis, Jor- dan, Lyons, Palmyra, Macedon, South Greece, Medina, Batavia, Camillus, Marcellus, Aurelius, Mertensia. As strict American names, besides the pic- turesque and individual West Points, Little Rocks, Painted Posts, and Chinquapin Roughs, we have the beautiful Indian names, the Oneidas and Cayugas, and Cuyahogas which will always remain with us, an imperishable memorial of the Q (&5) The Booklovers Reading Club race that bestowed them. An erratic American poet has even proposed that appropriate names be composed of parts of Indian words. Thus, of Cayuga, Chenango, and Naumkeag may be built up an endless succession of Ca-nan-keags and Che yu-keags and Naum-u-gas and Che-na- naums to puzzle future philologists. A striking instance of the passable success of such com- pounds is Beloit in Wisconsin ; it seems as French as Detroit or Bellaire, but was really a happy Anglo-Saxon inspiration. In general, Americans seem pledged againt a really striking name. Appomattox, which had passed into history along with the Caudine Forks and Waterloo, has recently changed its name to Surrender. Thus settlers from other continents have constantly brought their names and their experience to enrich our history ; and discoverers, explorers, and colonizers have expressed the romance of Ameri- can geography in the terms of topography. The early colonists liked geography exceedingly, provided they might make the maps themselves. The Spaniards tried to color all of North America south of the Delaware with their tint ; the French wanted to sow all the land north of the Hudson with their lilies on a white ground ; the Dutch drew a streak of bright orange between New England and Virginia ; and the English with their "thin red line" confused and obliterated the labors of the Spanish, French, and Dutch geogra- (66) American Foundation History phers, and would have it that there was only one color in America east of the Mississippi. Then came Brother Jonathan, with most of the solar spectrum on his palette, and painted a great gore out of the map of British America. The earlier Americans served as explorers, delineators, geographers, and conquerors all in one. John Smith made real maps of some unreal experiences ; John Winthrop followed the Merri- mac to its head ; Champlain thought he had reached China, and named his discovery Lachine, and Lachine the rapids above Montreal remain to this day. William Penn got his patents by the thousand square miles ; Sir William Johnson marked a new frontier ; John Jay described a new boundary. It was not an accident that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were both surveyors ; for they both learned the impor- tance of historical geography, and applied their knowledge to the problems of their presidencies. Good surveyors and good geographers were necessary in colonial days because the English grants were hopelessly mixed. Massachusetts had a charter all the way from Nahant to the Pacific Ocean ; Pennsylvania cut off a slice of Maryland, including the present site of Philadel- phia. Lord Baltimore had the spirit to resist, declaring " that the king was greatly mistaken, that he could not leave his patent to follow the king's letter, nor could a letter void his patent; K67) The Booklovers Reading Club by that he would stand." Penn piously hoped that "we shall all do the thing that is just and honest, according to our respective stations, which is always wise ; " and having a stronger court influence behind him, Penn was able, partly by bullying and partly by judicial decision, to gain his end. Such disputes raged all along the stretch from the Altamaha to the Saint Croix ; and the line between Massachusetts and Rhode Island is still not quite adjusted, after two centuries and a half of dispute. The geography of the frontier, so attractively described by Theodore Roosevelt in his Winning of the West, is one of the liveliest phases of Amer- ican history. The pioneer, with his ox-wagon, his brood of children, his ax and gun, is still a favorite character in play, story, and real life. Almost as interesting is the land speculator, of whom the most eager was that excellent man of business, George Washington. In one of his letters setting forth the advantages of his seventy thousand acre tract in the Great Kanawha he ingenuously says : " It is not reasonable to suppose that those who had the first choice were inattentive to the quality of the soil or the advantage of the situation." Our ancestors early busied themselves with the question of subdividing the new western country ; Vandalia, Transylvania, Westsylvania, Kentucky, Franklin were some of the States proposed from 1776 to 1783. In 1784 Jefferson put his mighty (68) American Foundation History mind on the problem and proposed to divide the Northwest into ten States, to be called Sylvania, Michigania, Chersonesus, Assenisipia, Mesopota- mia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia. Providence excised the polysylla- bles, but any reader would find it interesting to note how the Northwestern Territory was cre- ated and later divided, and how Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota came to be. Another of the panoramas of American histor- ical geography is to be found in the annexation of territory: George Rogers Clark's conquest of the Northwest in 1778 ; Adams and Jay's triumph in securing the Southwest in 1782 ; the romantic, incredible, but absolutely true tale of how the Sultan of the French threw Louisiana at the head of the American envoys in 1803 ; the strange and prodigious adventures of Lewis and Clark in their journey to Oregon in 1804— 1806; the adherent claims to West Florida ; the goading of Spain to cede the Floridas in 18 19 ; the timely dropping in 1845 of the ripe prickly-pear, Texas, into the lap of Columbia ; the remarkable coincidence that in the very next year we conquered New Mexico and California; the Gadsden Purchase of 1853; the acquirement in 1867 of the Alaskan ice-gorge, which proved to be a gold-mine in disguise ; the islands of the East and West Indies in 1898 sail- ing like ducks into the range of our big guns. (69) The Booklovers Reading Club Let Sindbad have a holiday while we read of these greater wonders! The territorial develop- ment of the United States ; purchase, conquest, and voluntary cession ; subdivision and organiza- tion ; admission of new States — these things are the core of American history and the field for the life of adventure. One other topic in our historical geography deserves mention, the slavery contest, to a large degree a struggle for territory. In 1 820 Congress was convulsed by the debates over the question whether a given piece of territory should be the slave State Missouri or the free State Missouri. John Quincy Adams set down in his diary the conclusion: "If the Union must be dissolved, slavery is precisely the question upon which it ought to break. For the present, however, the question is laid asleep." In a conversa- tion with Calhoun, who hinted at a secession and alliance with England, Adams stated the issue with equal firmness : " Do you think that in that case New England people would remain bound hand and foot upon their rocks to starve ? Or would they not use their powers of locomotion to move southward by land ? " That question was answered in 1864 when Sherman's veterans marched to the sea. Upon the geographical question of slavery the mightiest and the best strove for forty years. Against the annexation of Texas John Quincy (70) American Foundation History Adams brought his fiercest invectives and his sharpest satire. For free territory Joshua R. Giddings defied his adversaries. To settle the territorial question of slavery Clay gave his last life-blood in 1850, and Douglas girded himself for the Kansas-Nebraska debate of 1854. Pierce and Buchanan tried to annex Cuba to be slave territory. Abraham Lincoln forged his most pow- erful speeches in 1858 to defend the principle that new territory was always born free. In behalf of a territorial principle John Brown of Ossawatomie stole slaves, stole horses on which to carry the fugitives away, and massacred his enemies, and yet throughout all stood forth as the most romantic character in American history. Like a prophet of Israel, he felt toward the slaveholder as Samuel felt toward Agag : "And Agag came unto him cheerfully. And Agag said, ' Surely the bitterness of death is past.' And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before Jehovah in Gilgal." Since 1898 territorial questions have again risen to perplex our councils and to thrust new duties upon us ; hence the past history of our ter- ritorial relations is at this moment the most important subject before the American people, for from it we must draw wisdom for the present crisis. From the beginning of the history of America to the year 1901 geographical questions have been among the most important and far reaching, and are worthy of the most study ; for (70 The Booklovers Reading Club they include the history of discovery, the progress of settlement, the strife with other races, the distribution of types of individuals , and the perplexing problem of legislation for depend- encies. Geography is not only concentrated history ; in our experience it has often been concentrated morals. (72) Life and Manners in the Colonies: A Talk by REUBEN GOLD THWAITES (73) Life and Manners in the Colonies: A Talk by REUBEN GOLD THWAITES Reuben Gold Thwaites was born and educated in New England. After completing his post- graduate work at Yale (1874-5) he became manag- ing editor of the Wisconsin State Journal. Since 1885 Mr. Thwaites has been secretary and super- intendent of the State Historical Society of Wis- consin. He is also a lecturer on American his- tory at the University of Wisconsin, chairman of the American Historical Manuscripts Commission, and editor of the Jesuit Relations and many other historical collections and chronicles. Mr. Thwaites was elected president of the American Library Association in 1900. He is the author of The Colonies, Historic Waterways, Stories of the Badger State, Afloat on the Ohio, and The Story of Wisconsin, besides numerous magazine articles and monographs on the history of New France and the middle West. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS The physical characteristics of the English colonies on the Atlantic seaboard profoundly affected the life and manners of our colonial ancestors. The New England coast is narrow, and the streams short and rapid, with occasional navigable stretches between waterfalls. This condition was favorable for the development of factory towns and their busy, ingenious, thrifty people. In the South, although the coast has few (75) The Booklovers Reading Club safe harbors, there are long, broad rivers flowing lazily through the plains, affording avenues of approach to large, isolated colonial estates, whereon aristocratic planters could, by aid of slave labor, cultivate a life of ease and luxury, and, by having their ports of entry at their own doors, exist quite independently of tradesmen. The Middle Colonies combined the physical character- istics of their abutting neighbors on either side. Back of the colonists were the mountains barringf the way to the West, and guarded by the Indians and the French who sought to hem in the English to the coast. Thus were the little commonwealths prevented from diffusing their power all over the continent, until in time they were firmly knit and could present a solid front for the beating down of obstacles to expansion. A REFLECTION OF ENGLISH LIFE Let us remember that colonial life was but Eng- lish life reflected in a provincial mirror although much affected by environment. To dress and act "like the people at home" was the height of colonial ambition. Manners changed from time to time in the century and a half of colonial exist- ence as manners changed in England, or as economical and social conditions changed in the colonies themselves. It is therefore impossible to depict colonial life without taking into consid- eration variances in time and place. Seventeenth (76) American Foundation History century conditions, as reflected in Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standi sh, Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, and Whittier's Mogg Megone are often quite apart from those depicted in the eighteenth century studies of Cooper's LeatJierstocking Tales, Mrs. Stowe's The Minister s Wooing, Long- fellow's Evangeline, and Thackeray's The Vir- ginians. THE SOUTH The colonies were divided naturally into three groups, differing in origin, natural conditions, and people. Throughout the South the English were dominant, although there were many for- eigners, especially in the Carolinas, where we find Huguenots, Moravians, Germans, Swiss, and Scotch-Irish. Trading towns were few, the climate was mild, the soil was rich ; the rivers were the chief highways. With certain local exceptions, which are not important to note here, society was principally divided into four classes : negro slaves ; indented white servants — some of them convicts — who were often cruelly treated ; the middle class — small farmers and the despised tradesmen ; and the upper class, who in dress, manners, and political thought resembled English country gen- tlemen. This last is the class about which we mostly read, the people of fine clothes and stately manners, of whom Washington and most other southern leaders of the Revolution were examples. During much of the colonial era this elegant (77) The Booklovers Reading Club formality was often a mere protection against society itself. In the main the manners of the upper class were coarse, judged by our standards. The gentlemen were born aristocrats, indolent, vain, haughty, arrogant, and sensitive to restraints. They drank, gambled, and sometimes fought. They exhibited an almost absurd gallantry toward women, but this was chiefly on the surface ; their letters often exhibit a quite low estimate of the weaker sex, which, to tell the truth, was then but indifferently educated as a helpmeet for man. Nevertheless, the virtues of these southern gentle- men were many: they had a keen sense of honor and pride of ancestry ; their isolated life begat a broad point of view ; their leisure was often de- voted to political study; and they furnished the Revolution with a high class of soldiers, diplomats, and statesmen. Education was largely by tutors, or the young men were sent to English colleges. In Virginia and North Carolina there were, during most of the colonial period, practically no professions. In Maryland and South Carolina, owing to the exist- ence of quarrelsome elements, lawyers arose, but they were poorly equipped and held in low esteem. Medicine was in a crude stage. While there were clergymen of superior attainments, the majority were deficient in breeding and education. Roads were in execrable condition. Few people had traveled as far as the adjoining colonies, save (78) American Foundation History as peddlers. Horseback was the principal mode of land conveyance ; boats were chiefly used for visiting and for commerce. As a consequence of isolation and difficulties of travel, the planters showed marked hospitality to the few gentlemen who made tours through the southern country. This practice of generous hospitality resulted in the many pleasing pictures of plantation life which have come down to us in the published journals of that day. A plantation with its galleried manor-house, its rows of negro quarters, its barns and shops, was largely a self-sustained community. Vessels from Europe and the West Indies came to the planter's door. Many of his slaves were excellent mechan- ics. Manufactures and many elegancies, as well as necessaries, were imported from England or from the neighboring colonies. The economic and social conditions were favorable to single crops — tobacco or cotton, both of which were, in their respective localities, largely and profitably grown. NEW ENGLAND The narrow coast of New England was the other extreme. The soil was thin, and inter- spersed with rock and gravel ; the principal forests were exceptionally heavy, and land difficult to clear ; the climate was harsh — courageous toil was necessary to overcome these and other obsta- cles to human welfare. (79) The Booklovers Reading Club Whereas the population of the South largely sprang from west England, and was closely related to the Welsh and the ancient Britons, the New Englanders were from east England, with roots in Germany and Scandinavia. It will be seen that these were, in general terms, the respective regions of the conservative Cavaliers and the contentious Roundheads of the seven- teenth century, a fact which of itself would cause marked distinctions between the people of the southern and those of the northern colonies. Although receiving some foreign emigration, the New Englanders were for a century and a half practically an east England people, multiplying on its own soil with solidarity of temper and char- acteristics. It is New England colonial life upon which we of our day love most to dwell. Roundheads and Puritans, and proud in their sturdy notions of independence, they were not democrats. Social distinctions were almost as sharply drawn as in the South. Heading society was the powerful and much respected aristocratic class, beginning with the village squire and end- ing with crown officials in the capital towns. Next came yeomen, merchants, and mechanics in their order, all thus properly seated at church and appropriately dressed, for to be attired above one's rank was a gross affront to superiors. Now and then there were landed estates, but not generally ; public offices and the professions (80) American Foundation History were filled by gentlemen ; no one was idle in colonial New England. There were a few slaves ; but economic conditions did not render profitable the service of any who had to be driven to work. Of the professions the ministry was the most important, embracing men of the best ability and station, for it took the best to maintain suprem- acy in those parishes of sturdy, intelligent people. In medicine, quackery flourished ; the best physi- cians were but " herb-doctors " and " blood- letters," some of whom were barbers as well, and others clergymen. Among all primitive peoples the medicine man and the priest have been either identical or in close relationship. Unlike the South, New England relied but little on England for manufactured goods. Mechanics, millers, miners, and the like were plentiful. The fisheries were important ; hamlets of fishermen, nurseries of the American navy, were strung all along the shore, and whalers ventured into the Arctic seas. Commerce was extended far and wide. Out of Maine went fish-oil and lumber to foreign coun- tries ; hay, grain, and cattle were sent to New York, Philadelphia, and the West Indies. There was an immense longshore traffic in produce and wares. Many of the numerous Yankee vessels were in the slave-trade. There are instances of New England vessels taking rum to Africa in 6q (8i) The Booklovers Reading Club exchange for slaves, and the slaves themselves to the West Indies to be bartered for sugar and molasses, which were carried home and converted into rum ; but it was the day when kegs of rum were given to ministers at donation parties, and ministers made brandy by the barrel for their own use and for sale to parishioners. Boston, Newport, and New Haven were the principal New England towns, and trade there flourished mightily. Small villages abounded, the neighborhood centres of the various towns ; there were the dwellings of the minister and the school- teacher, with the shops of tradesmen and artisans, and farm-houses grouped about. The village streets were overhung with elms. The houses were quaint, roomy, gambrel-roofed, with their sides to the street, and were presided over by model housewives. The towns were thoroughly officered with their selectmen, constables, hog- reeves, fence-viewers, and numerous other small officials. The people were, as a rule, in moderate finan- cial circumstances ; they were neat, intelligent, fairly educated ; both sexes, old and young, worked hard, were frugal and thrifty ; they were generally strict in morals, kind and hospitable, but, English-like, coldly reserved to strangers and acutely inquisitive. They were attired in sober- colored garments, except on Sunday, when som- bre finery was displayed. The men wore long (82) American Foundation History stockings and knee breeches, with low buckled shoes ; workmen had leather or canvas aprons, and nearly all were in homespun — only the rich wore imported clothes. The large open fireplaces were ill adapted to the rigor of New England winters ; rheumatism, pleurisy, and throat and lung diseases sorely afflicted the aged. The dreary churches, where long-winded sermons were delivered by austere pastors, were wholly unprovided with heating arrangements, although individuals mitigated the severity of the temperature by the use of foot- stoves which today amuse us as we see them in museums. The popular diet was spare ; cider and rum were freely consumed, but drunkenness was not prevalent, for the New England tempera- ment was not conducive to roistering. The gen- eral tone of social life was sedate. There was "a lurking inherited distrust for enjoyment," yet there was prevalent a certain dry humor, which has been preserved for us in the old Yankee say- ings which once graced our joke books. For the young people life brought more or less jollity in the form of house-raisings, dancing parties, and husking, spinning, quilting, and apple-paring bees. In the towns social intercourse was somewhat more ceremonial in character, with minuets, recep- tions, and out-of-door tea-parties ; but in general the social differences between town and village were not strongly marked. (83) The Booklovers Reading Club Nowhere else was there such general communi- cation between the colonies as in New England. The highways were in fair condition, but the large streams were unbridged, and boat ferries were in much demand. Until the Revolution, wheeled vehicles, except for heavy loads, were uncommon beyond the limits of the large settlements ; horse- back was the ordinary mode of conveyance. Each village had at least one tavern, kept by a leading citizen ; his rates were reasonable and the lodg- ings good, but the cooking is declared by the diarists of the day to have been execrable. Crime was less frequent in New England than elsewhere. As in England at the time, great publicity was given to punishments. Each town had its gibbet, chiefly used for pirates ; stocks for vagrancy and petty thieving; pillory, largely for offences against the moral code ; ducking-stool for scolds ; and whipping-posts for brawlers and wife beaters. Criminals might also be branded, mutilated, or compelled to wear conspicuously colored letters, as in Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. In religion the colonial New Englanders were harsh and narrow. It has not inaptly been said, though of course with some exaggeration, that the Puritans "came to worship in their own manner, and to make others do the same." They were shrewd, close-fisted, thrifty, enterprising, brave ; and their town-meetings were free parliaments which served as rare training-schools in democ- (84) American Foundation History racy. New England institutions are today, in large measure, the characteristic institutions of the American commonwealth. THE MIDDLE COLONIES In the Middle Colonies the river systems drain- ing into Chesapeake, Delaware, and New York Bays lead far inland. Back from the sandy coast the soil is fertile ; the climate is an agreeable compromise between New England and the South. It is the chief region of the present-day seaside and mountain resorts. The colonial population of this region was remarkably heterogeneous — Dutch, French, Ger- mans, Swedes, Finns, Welsh, Scotch-Irish, and English Quakers, bringing together great variety of speech, customs, and thought. Among the Dutch rural aristocrats, or manor-chiefs, along the Hudson River, trade was exalted, free labor was not degraded, and there was not much servile labor. In Pennsylvania the Quaker squires built up a sort of feudal system, although there was a strong underlying spirit of democracy, stronger even than in New England and in the South. Clergymen took high rank ; on the other hand, the bar was inferior. Agriculture was the chief industry, but there were not a few diversified manufactures and some mining. The sense for trade was keen ; there was a widespread and prosperous commerce. An extensive fur trade (85) The Booklovers Reading Club was developed among the Indians to the west, in sharp competition with the French, and ships traf- ficked with other American colonies and with the Madeiras, Lisbon, England, and the West Indies. The Dutch adhered tenaciously to old costumes and customs ; their farm-houses were picturesque and distinguished by the overhanging top story, rafters ribbed the ceilings, the spacious fireplaces were framed in pictured tiles, wooden and pewter dishes were arrayed in racks along the kitchen walls, and the floors were daily scrubbed and sanded. The better class of farmers practised a mixed agriculture and were prosperous but simple; men and women worked together in the fields, as in continental Europe ; their family life was of the patriarchal type. In the large manor-houses there were trains of white and black servants, and a degree of splendor outshining all the other colo- nists. The Dutch women, rich and poor, were excellent housekeepers, pious in the extreme, and devoted to flowers. The soberly attired Quakers largely influenced society, which evinced for the most part a healthy moral tone. As a whole, life in the Middle Colonies wore a sombre hue and was filled with toil, but there were not lacking abundant rough and simple diversions — in the country, for example, corn- huskings, spinning bees, and house-raisings, at which festivities there was noticeable much hard drinking ; in the towns, horse-racing, bull-baiting,. (86) American Foundation History cock-fighting, tavern parties, balls, and picnics. Men and women were more sociable in their habits than in New England. Although among the common folk was little luxury, there was noticeable a deep-seated satisfaction with life, an idyllic condition quite unlike that of the South, where political speculation resulted in popular uneasiness, or that of New England, which was ever in a contentious mood. The principal town was New York, whose wide streets were lined with trees overhanging low brick and stone houses, which were built with gables to the highway. Philadelphia, the Quaker capital, was laid out upon a convenient checker-board plan, the simple dwellings being backed by orchards and gardens. Except between the large towns there was little communication. The facili- ties for land travel were meagre ; roads were rough and stony, and the chief conveyances were rude wagons, two-wheeled chaises, and saddle-horses. Education was neither general nor of good quality. Public enterprise was much impeded by the great variety of religious denominations, which evinced great bitterness toward each other ; nevertheless there was more popular tolerance than in New England. Serious crime was not prevalent, except that of piracy, which was long a grave detriment to commerce ; but there was great severity toward petty offenders, and hang- ings, whippings, and exposures in the pillory were (87) The Booklovers Reading Club familiar public spectacles. Pauperism appears not to have been serious in extent. Speaking generally of the Middle Colonies, throughout the greater part of their career we see that their distinguishing characteristics were a mixed population, a fertile soil, mixed agriculture, an enterprising commercial spirit, a consider- able fur traffic, religious tolerance, democratic tendencies, and slow political development; later, however, life and manners among these people were much influenced by the inrush of Puritans from New England. The English colonists, on the whole, were undoubtedly worthy men and women, fit ances- tors for their revolutionary sons and daughters. Theirs were lives of toil, characterized by more or less simplicity, some stateliness, and certainly far less democracy than we are content with today. We were long in the habit of referring to colonial days as " the good old times ; " but the study of history has convinced us that our ancestors of two and a half centuries ago lived in times of much bigotry, rude hardships, coarseness in society, and in general a much lower civilization than we now enjoy. vh\$to^h (88) American History as Reflected in Fiction: By PAUL LEICESTER FORD (89) American History as Reflected in Fiction: By PAUL LEICESTER FORD Paul Leicester Ford has gained such wide reputation as a novelist that his important histor- ical and biographical work is somewhat over- shadowed by his successful fiction. He has edited the ten volumes of Thomas Jefferson's Writings and three volumes of the Writings of John Dickinson, and has done a considerable amount of similar editorial work. The True George Washington and The Many-Sided Franklin represent original historical investigation. His novels have usually appeared serially and later in book form. The best known are The Honor- able Peter Stirling, The Story of an Untold Love, and Janice Meredith. Mr. Ford is a native of Brooklyn and a resident of New York City. The value of works of the imagination in an historical sense can only be appreciated when it is clearly recognized how large a portion of our familiar knowledge of the past is due to them. Take away from literature the Iliad, Odyssey, sEneid, and other mythological writings of Greece and Rome, the sagas of the Scandi- navian people, and the Arthurian and other minstrelsy tales of western Europe, all of which are but traditions vivified not by the chronicler but by the poet, and European history has been robbed of its verv foundations and corner-stones. (90 The Booklovers Reading Club Nor is it sufficient to argue that these are excep- tional instances due to the fact that, because these particular myths and fables deal with the early or "dark" centuries of history, we accept them for want of anything more authentic. Take from English-speaking people the plays of Shake- speare and the tales and poems of Scott, and measure the loss it would represent to a general knowledge of many historical periods and persons. What number of people know Macaulay's England, the most popular history ever written, and what number his ballads of Horatius and Ivry? In our own country, what proportion of people have read Bancroft's account of Lexington and Concord, or Rhodes' chapter on the invasion of Maryland, or Ropes' campaign in the Shenan- doah, as compared with those who have read Longfellow's Paid Revere s Ride, Whittier's Bar- bar a Frietchie, or Read's Sheridan's Ride? How much has a general interest in history been popu- larized and broadened and stimulated by the poet and the novelist ? The obvious answer to such a question is that people read these works of imagination for their fiction and not for their history, and that the latter quality is valueless because of the departures from actual occurrences and other inaccuracies or improbabilities. This is to ignore two qualifying conditions which, properly weighed, would leave but a residuum of force in the objection. [9 2 ) American Foundation History The first of these is the fact that all history, save the absolute documentary annals, is merely a compendium of what one writer is able to believe ; and unless it is more than a bare record, that is, unless it receives color from him, it will bs a lifeless and therefore an unread book. Perhaps no fact contains greater discouragement for the historian than the circumstance that that history is not the most popular which approaches the closest to the truth, but that which is most vivi- fied by the man who wrote it, be he impartial or prejudiced. The second and more important qualification is that the poet or novelist, whatever his wish, must be essentially truthful the moment he trenches on the domain of history. No writer of imaginative books, with all his supposed freedom from the restraining and curbing force of fact, would dare to picture Washington as a self-seeking politician, or Lincoln as a traitor to his country, or either of them as small in stature. Nor is this all ; for even more striking is the certainty that the impression left upon the reader by fictitious characters and events can be as truthful, or even more truthful, than that derived from a history. Ivanhoe brings back the England of Cceur de Lion, and The Scarlet Letter the colony of Massachusetts Bay better and more clearly than any historical work yet. written, and it was probably a recognition of this power of the greater imagination over lesser (93) The Booklovers Reading Club imagination which led Napoleon to say, "Take away this history and give me a novel ; I want the truth." It seems, therefore, idle to ignore the educative value of fiction, and a survey of how far the story of our country can be gained from its literature of the imagination may be of value. As the original possessor of our country, the Indian deserves first consideration, and he has been a favorite theme to both the poet and the novelist. Preeminent in verse is Longfellow's Hiawatha, which stands as the great classic of our primeval race. Worthy of mention, though of much less merit, are T. Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming, Seba Smith's Powhatan, G. H. Col- ton's Tecumseh, J. Lathrop's Speech of Canonicus, and A. B. Street's Frontenac. The great depicter, and one might say creator, of the red man in fic- tion is Cooper, who, in his Leatherstocking and Littlepage Manuscript series, and in Wyandotte and Wept of Wish-ton- Wish has drawn a type from which all future draftsmen must copy. The Indian figures prominently in certain of the novels of W. G. Simms and J. E. Cooke, and in John Neal's Logan, H. B. Fuller's Cliff Dwellers, and W. H. C. Hosmer's Yonnondio. Modern aspects of the Indian problem are treated in H. H. Jackson's Ramo?ia and G. Parker's Trans- lation of a Savage. The coming- of the white man to America has been little used. The alleged discovery by the (94) American Foundation History Welsh is the subject of Southey's poem Madoc. S. Rogers' Voyage of Columbus is a poetic account of the discovery, and the same event is the basis for Cooper's novel of Mercedes of Castile. W. G. Simms' stories of The Damsel of Darien and Vas- conselos deal with the explorations of Balboa and DeSoto. The period between the first settlement of the country and the outbreak of the war of inde- pendence has been such a favorite one that some classification is necessary. For New England, Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish and New England Tragedies, and Whittier's Ho?ne Ballads and Mogg Megoiie are the best known poems. Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, Twice-Told Tales, Mosses from an Old Manse, and House of the Seven Gables are preeminent, not merely as stories of New England, but as masterpieces of American literature. Other novels of varying merit are C. M. Sedgwick's Hope Leslie, A New England Tale, and Redzvood ; J. L. Motley's Merry Motmt, J. G. Holland's Bay Path, J. G. Austin's Standish of Standish, Betty Alden, A Nameless Nobleman, Dr. LeBaron and His Daughters, and David Alden s Daughter ; E. L. Bynner's Agnes Surriage, F. J. Stimson's King Noanett, and M. E. Wilkins' Pembroke, and Giles Corey, Yeoman. New York, both province and State, was a favorite locality of Cooper, and some twelve of (95) The Booklovers Reading Club his novels are laid therein, five of which fall within the colonial period, Deerslaycr, Pathfinder, Last of the Mohicans, Satanstoe, and Water- Witch, all being considered among the best of his works. Irving, too, has written delightfully of the Dutch settlers, and his Knickerbocker History of New York, Wolfert" s Roost, Rip Van Winkle, and other pieces rank very high in a literary sense. The same subject is treated in J. K. Paulding's The Dutchman 's Fireside, P. H. Myers' First of the Knickerbockers and Young Patroon, and A. E. Barr's Bow of Orange Ribbon. The Quaker of Pennsylvania has been pictured in several novels, the only notable one of which is S. W. Mitchell's Hugh Wynne, which falls more properly under the Revolution. The colonial life of Maryland is depicted in C. Reade's The Wandering Heir, M. W. Goodwin's Sir Christopher, and W. Churchill's Richard Carvel. Of the southern colonies Virginia has been the subject of innumerable novels. Of all these, Thackeray's The Virginians still stands first, both for art and for history. Most of the stories of J. E. Cooke deal with the happenings in this colony, as do M. W. Goodwin's The Head of a Hundred and White Aprons, C. C. Harrison's Flower-de- Hundred and A Son of the Old Domin- ion, and M. Johnston's Prisoners of Hope and To Have and To Hold. Many of W. G. Simms' novels relate to the history of the southern colonies. (96) American Foundation History A class properly separated from the above, as not really connected with any one colony, deals with tales of the sea. First of these are a number relating to the early buccaneers, such as E. B. Warburton's Darien, E. Howard's Sir Henry Morgan, The Buccaneer, J. H. Ingraham's Captain Kyd, Irving' s Kidd, F. J. Stimson's Pirate Gold, Stevenson's Treasure Island, and Cooper's Red Rover. The latter' s Water- Witch and Two Admirals are nautical stories of the colonial era. More connected with individual colonies, yet forming a class by themselves, are the romances based on the several wars with France. In verse Longfellow's Evangeline is best known, and in fiction the first four novels of Cooper's already referred to under New York. Other tales are C. W. Hall's Twice Taken, C. Doyle's Refugees, G. Parker's Seats of the Mighty, and B. E. Steven- son's A Soldier of Virginia. The favorite theme of American authors has been the war of independence. Cooper in The Spy, Lionel Lincoln, Wyandotte, and The Pilot, and W. G. Simms in The Partisan, Mellichampe, The Scout, Katharine Walton, The Eorayers t and Eutaw have been at once the most prolific and the best known. J. E. Cooke stands next with Canolles and Henry St. fohn, Gentleman ; and other romances are C. Burdett's Margaret Mon- crieffe, C. F. Hoffman's Grayslaer, J. K. Pauld- ing's Old Continental, T. B. Read's Paul Redding, 70. (97) The Booklovers Reading Club H. Frederic's In the Valley, P. L. Ford's yanice Meredith, S. W. Mitchell's Hugh Wynne, W. Churchill's Richard Ca7'vel, G. C. Eggleston's A Carolina Cavalier, M. Thompson's Alice of Old Vincennes, S. O. Jewett's The Tory Lover, and R. W. Chambers' Cardigan. The period between the end of the Revolution and the beginning of the slavery issue has been little dealt with in fiction. R. I. Lockwood's The Insurgents and E. Bellamy's Duke of Stock- bridge have Shay's Rebellion for their subject, and H. H. Breckinridge's Modern Chivalry and H. C. McCook's The Latimers have the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Cooper's Cham-Bearer and Redskins relate to the land question in New York, and his Afloat and Ashore and Miles Walling- ford are devoted to the merchant marine, 1 797-1808. E. A. Dupuy's The Conspirator, E. E. Hale's Man Without a Country, and J. Clemen's The Rivals concern themselves with Burr's conspiracies. S. Woodworth's Champions of Freedom and I. Bacheller's Dri and I cover the War of 181 2, and S. R. Duke's Osceola the Seminole War. Other novels falling within this period which have an historical quality are C. B. Brown's ArtJiur Mervyu, J. L. Allen's Choir Invisible, and H. B. Stowe's The Minister s Wooing. Grouped as a class by themselves are the sto- ries picturing the settlement and upbuilding of the (98) American Foundation History West. Here again Cooper and Simms are at once the pioneers and the best. Other stories are J. K. Paulding's Westward Ho, Irving' s Astoria and Adventures of Captain Bonneville, and J. E. Cooke's Last of the Foresters. For the extreme West the stories of Bret Harte, though making no pretense to be historical, are none the less valuable, as are Bayard Taylor's California poems. This last remark is equally true of a number of novels picturing slavery. First of these in merit, and the most popular novel ever written, is H. B. Stowe's Uncle Toms Cabin, and her D red is on the same subject. For the southern standpoint, T. N. Page's In Ole Virginia is the best. Other stories are N. Adams' The Sable Cloud, J. W. Forest's Kate Beaumont, E. A. Dupuy's Planter s Daughter, J. R. Gilmore's Among the Pines and My Souther ?i Friends, E. Sargent's Peculiar, B. Tucker's Partisan Leader, J. T. Trowbridge's Neighbour Jackwood, and A. W. Tourgee's Hot Plowshares. In poetry Longfellow's Poems on Slavery and Whittier's Voices of Freedom are best known. So related to slavery as well-nigh to defy sepa- ration are the poetry and romance of the war of secession. The best stories on the southern side are those of T. N. Page, notably Meh Lady. Other novels are J. E. Cooke's Hilt to Hilt, Surry of Eagle s Nest, Mohun, Out of the Foam, and Wearing of the Gray ; J. R. Gilmore's (99) Lol The Booklovers Reading Club Among the Guerrillas, C. C. Coffin's Winning His Way, J. K. Hosmer's Thinking Bayonet, H. Morford's Days of Shoddy, Shotdder-Straps t and The Coward \ M. H. Norris' Grapes of Wrath, M. D. Conway's Pine and Palm, F. Emory's A Maryland Manor, A. E. Hancock's Henry Bourland, and W. Churchill's The Crisis. In poetry the principal are Whitman's Driun-Taps and Lincoln, Whittier's poems of the war, Bayard Taylor's Since 1861, S. Lanier's Tiger Lilies, and G. H. Boker's Poems of the War. The period of reconstruction is described in T. N. Page's Red Rock and A. W. Tourg-ee's A Fool's Errand and Bricks without Straw. /Z~J £&Lt~ ^Z^t (100) Illustrative Selections THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE Francis Parkman The American colonies of France and England grew up to maturity under widely different auspi- ces. Canada, the offspring of Church and State, nursed from infancy in the lap of power, its puny strength fed with artificial stimulants, its move- ments guided by rule and discipline, its limbs trained to martial exercise, languished, in spite of all, from the lack of vital sap and energy. The colonies of England, outcast and neglected, but strong in native vigor and self-confiding courage, grew yet more strong with conflict and with striving, and developed the rugged proportions and unwieldy strength of a youthful giant. In the valley of the St. Lawrence and along the coasts of the Atlantic, adverse principles con- tended for the mastery. Feudalism stood arrayed against Democracy ; Popery against Protestant- ism ; the sword against the ploughshare. The priest, the soldier, and the noble ruled in Canada. The ignorant, light-hearted Canadian peasant knew nothing and cared nothing about popular rights and civil liberties. Born to obey, he lived in contented submission, without the wish or the capacity for self-rule. Power centered in the heart of the system left the masses inert. The settle- (IOI) The Booklovers Reading Club ments along the margin of the St. Lawrence were like a camp, where an army lay at rest ready for the march or the battle, and where war and adventure, not trade and tillage, seemed the chief aims of life. The lords of the soil were petty nobles, for the most part soldiers or the sons of soldiers, proud and ostentatious, thriftless and poor ; and the people were their vassals. Over every cluster of small white houses glittered the sacred emblem of the cross. The church, the convent, and the roadside shrine were seen at every turn ; and in the towns and villages one met each moment the black robe of the Jesuit, the gray garb of the Recollet, and the formal habit of the Ursuline nun. The names of saints, St. Joseph, St. Ignatius, St. Francis, were perpetu- ated in the capes, rivers, and islands, the forts and villages of the land ; and with every day crowds of simple worshippers knelt in adoration before the countless altars of the Roman faith. If we search the world for the sharpest contrast to the spiritual and temporal vassalage of Canada, we shall find it among her immediate neighbors, the Puritans of New England, where the spirit of non-conformity was sublimed to a fiery essence, and where the love of liberty and the hatred of power burned with sevenfold heat. The English colonist, with thoughtful brow and limbs hardened with toil ; calling no man master, yet bowing reverently to the law which he himself had made ; (102) American Foundation History patient and laborious, and seeking for the solid comforts rather than the ornaments of life ; no lover of war, yet, if need were, fighting with a stubborn, indomitable courage, and then bending once more with steadfast energy to his farm, or his merchandise — such a man might well be deemed the very pith and marrow of a common- wealth. The fur-trade engendered a peculiar class of restless bush-rangers, more akin to Indians than to white men. Those who had once felt the fascina- tions of the forest were unfitted ever after for a life of quiet labor ; and with this spirit the whole colony was infected. From this cause, no less than from occasional wars with the English and repeated attacks of the Iroquois, the agriculture of the country was sunk to a low ebb ; while feudal exactions, a ruinous system of monopoly, and the intermeddlings of arbitrary power cramped every branch of industry. Yet, by the zeal of priests and the daring enterprise of soldiers and explorers, Canada, though sapless and infirm, spread forts and missions through all the western wilderness. Feebly rooted in the soil, she thrust out branches which overshadowed half America ; a magnificent object to the eye, but one which the first whirlwind would prostrate in the dust. Such excursive enterprise was alien to the genius of the British colonies. Daring activity was rife among them, but it did not aim at the (103) The Booklovers Reading Club founding of military outposts and forest missions. By the force of energetic industry their population swelled with an unheard-of rapidity, their wealth increased in a yet greater ratio, and their promise of future greatness opened with every advancing year. But it was a greatness rather of peace than of war. The free institutions, the indepen- dence of authority, which were the source of their increase, were adverse to that unity of counsel and promptitude of action which are the soul of war. It was far otherwise with their military rival. France had her Canadian forces well in hand. They had but one will, and that was the will of a mistress. Now here, now there, in sharp and rapid onset, they could assail the cumbrous masses and unwieldy strength of their antagonists as the kingf-bird attacks the eaode, or the sword-fish the whale. Between two such combatants the strife must needs be a long one. THE JESUIT MISSIONARIES Francis Parkman Since the middle of the seventeenth century a change had come over the Jesuit missions of New France. Nothing is more striking or more admirable than the self-devoted apostleship of the earlier period. The movement in western Europe known as the Renaissance was far more than a revival of arts and letters — it was an awakening of (104) American Foundation History intellectual, moral, and religious life ; the offspring of causes long in action and the parent of other movements in action to this day. The Protestant Reformation was a part of it. That revolt against Rome produced a counter Renaissance in the bosom of the ancient Church herself. In the pres- ence of that peril she woke from sloth and corrup- tion and girded herself to beat back the invading heresies, by force or by craft, by inquisitorial fires, by the arms of princely and imperial allies, and by the self-sacrificing enthusiasm of her saints and martyrs. That time of danger produced the exalted zeal of Xavier and the intense, thoughtful, organ- izing zeal of Loyola. After a century had passed the flame still burned, and it never shone with a purer or brighter radiance than in the early missions of New France. Such ardors cannot be permanent ; they must subside, from the law of their nature. If the great western mission had been a success, the enthu- siasm of its founders might have maintained itself for some time longer ; but that mission was extinguished in blood. Its martyrs died in vain, and the burning faith that had created it was rudely tried. Canada ceased to be a mission. The civil and military powers grew strong, and the Church no longer ruled with undivided sway. The times changed, and the men changed with them. It is a characteristic of the Jesuit Order, and one of the sources of its strength, that it (105) The Booklovers Reading Club chooses the workman for his work, studies the qualities of its members, and gives to each the task for which he is fitted best. When its aim was to convert savage hordes and build up another Paraguay in the northern wilderness, it sent a Jogues, a Brebeuf, a Charles Gamier, and a Gabriel Lalemant, like a forlorn hope, to storm the stronghold of heathendom. In later times it sent other men to meet other needs and accomplish other purposes. Before the end of the seventeenth century the functions of the Canadian Jesuit had become as much political as religious ; but if the fires of his apostolic zeal burned less high, his devotion to the Order in which he had merged his personality was as intense as before. While in constant friction with the civil and military powers he tried to make himself necessary to them, and in good measure he succeeded. Nobody was so able to manage the Indian tribes and keep them in the interest of France. "Religion," says Charlevoix, " is the chief bond by which the savages are attached to us ; " and it was the Jesuit above all others who was charged to keep this bond arm. ■ (106) Stimulative Questions hese questions are framed with the sole pur -pose of enabling the reader to apprehend more clearly the important points in the books presented in this course. 'They are not " catch questions," nor are they mere tests of the memory. They are, to borrow an old title , "Aids to Reflection." The method which the reader should follow in using these questions may perhaps best be left to himself. An excellent plan would be to read the books first with no reference to the questions ; then, taking up the questions, to try how far memory and judgment will go toward answering them ; and finally y with the questions in mind, to refer once more to the books, and freshen, correct, and fill up the ideas which the questions are intended to suggest. To get the greatest possible advantage from the course it would be well to write out in a note-book the conclusions reached by such a method, along with any original ideas that the reading and the questions may have suggested. Such a note-book should be preserved, for it will have permanent value for its owner, not only as a record of reading, but as a memorial of a certain stage in the development of his taste and judgment. (107) The Booklovers Reading Club Memoranda : 1 08) STIMULATIVE QUESTIONS OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS i. Does this book seem to have been written by Fiske with any less sympathy than The Beginnings of New England ? 2. What do you think of his statement that there was an undeniable contrast in educational advantages between Virginia and New England ? 3. What effect on the reader's mind does the first chapter create ? 4. What is your personal opinion of his defence of John Smith ? 5. Does this history resemble a collection of essays, or has it dramatic interest ? 6. What is your opinion of his comparison of Nathaniel Bacon with Tiberius Gracchus ? 7. What do you think of his distinction between pirates and sea-kings ? 8. Is he fair in his treatment of the subject of slavery ? 9. Is he calm and unimpassioned in his treatment of moral or political problems, or does he give evidence of personal feeling ? 10. Why did Locke's Fundamental Constitutions fail as a colonial system of government ? 11. How did the Maryland palatinate differ from a proprietary form of government ? 12. Is there anything in his chapter on "The Coming of the Cavaliers " to indicate his social sympathies ? (109) The Booklovers Reading Club 13. What would you say of his ability in portraying historical characters ? Is he inclined to generalize, or to submit sufficient detail that the reader may judge? 14. Is he fair in characterizing Virginia as an aris- tocracy and New England as a democracy ? THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND 1. Is the first chapter history or political philosophy ? What is its purpose in connection with a history of New England ? 2. What are the distinguishing features of a theo- cratic form of government ? 3. What is the value in a history of speculative gen- eralizations like those at the close of the third chapter ? 4. What colonial conditions made for the breaking down of the theocratic form of government ? 5. What was the effect of Indian warfare upon the humanity and the sympathies of the colonists ? 6. Do you think that the confederation in New Eng- land had any effect upon, or in any way furthered, the confederation of the colonies in the Revolution ? 7. Do you detect any sectional prejudice in Fiske's treatment of New England, and upon what subject is it manifested ? 8. Was there the educational value in theological discussion that Fiske attributes to it, or did it only make men more narrow-minded ? 9. Can you determine from this book what Fiske's own religious views were ? 10. What sort of religious freedom did the Puritans seek when they migrated to America ? (no) American Foundation History AMERICAN HISTORY TOLD BY CONTEMPORARIES 1. What is the difference in the authoritative value of two documents like those numbered, respectively, 144 and 145 ? 2. Compare the verisimilitude of Documents 90 and 142. From the internal evidence, which would you incline to believe ? 3. What was the result in New England history of the application of such principles as are found in Docu- ment 93 ? 4. What can you learn from Document 138 about the people that used such a psalm-book? 5. What does Document 162 reveal of William Penn's character ? 6. Which has the greater value for the truth-seeking historian, Document 107 or Document 168? 7. Do you think from internal evidence that the writer of Document 71 had ever been in America? 8. What importance has Document 25 when read after Document 21 ? Could we ever get the information in 25 from the writer of 21 ? 9. How can the historian help us to understand Document 154 ? 10. Would we expect the life described in Document 149 to result from the doctrines preached in Document 112 ? (in) Topics for Special Papers and for Open Discussion i. The contrast between the Puritans and the Cava- liers. 2. A comparison of the educational methods in New- England and Virginia. 3. Where should American foundation histcy close ? 4. Was there in the colonial period any real religious toleration ? 5. The co-onial conditions that necessitated repre- sentative government of the American type. 6. Economic conditions of the South compared with those of the North. 7. The development of slavery in the colonies. 8. The reasons for the different systems of local gov- ernment in the North and South. 9. Did the work of the sea-kings necessarily precede the work of English colonization ? 10. The characteristics of a proprietary government. 11. Is there any similarity in the causes which led to the establishment of royal governments in the various colonies ? 12. What circumstances made the tyranny of Andros possible ? 13. The value of a theoretical government as illus- trated by the experiment in South Carolina. 14. Discuss the so-called "seeds" of the American Revolution. (112) SUPPLEMENTARY BOOKS GENERAL HISTORIES The Colonies : 1492- 1750. By Reuben Gold Thwaites. A most readable condensation of the history of the colonies in the period of exploration, settlement, and struggle for supremacy. The facts are not merely catalogued, but are marshaled in an order that makes their relation plain. The Colonial Era. By George Park Fisher. This work, beginning with a description of the physi- cal geography of America and a brief chapter on the aborigines, tells in a straightforward way the story of colonization in America, closing the narrative at the beginning of the final struggle between England and France. History of the United States. By George Ban- croft. The first five volumes of the edition of 1859 complete the period covered by this course. This history has long occupied the position of a monumental work upon the period it covers. Here and there its accu- racy and scholarship have been attacked, but it still remains one of the most interesting of histories. A Larger History of the United States of America. By Thomas Wentworth Higginson. This is written with the salient purpose of interest- ing. It has movement and dramatic power. It is especially valuable as a rapid review of the whole field. 8q (113) The Booklovers Reading Club SPECIAL HISTORIES The Spanish Pioneers. By Charles F. Lummis. A fascinating history. The very table of contents is inspiring. " A Girdle around the World," " The Storming of the Sky-City," " The American Golden Fleece," " The Golden Ransom" — such chapter head- ings would lure any one, and the reader will not be disappointed. The Transit of Civilization. By Edward Eggle- ston. A history of life in the colonial United States. Here are treated the medical notions of the colonists, their folk-lore and literature, their traditions of education, and the subject of land and labor. Colonial Days in Old New York. Home Life in Colonial Days. The Customs and Fashions in Old New England. The Sabbath in Puritan New England. By Alice Morse Earle. This charming series of books upon the every-day life of our forefathers must be read eagerly by anyone with a grain of interest in the past. The very quaint- ness and simplicity of it all is winning. In them we learn, not of political theories and evolving constitu- tional law, but of the wooing and wedding of our forefathers, their holidays, their wardrobes, child life, domestic service, doctors and their patients, taverns and turnpikes — all presented in vivid style. (in) American Foundation History The Romance of Colonization. By G. Bamett Smith. This book presents in a readable way the attempts, failures, and successes of colonizers before the land- ing of the Pilgrim fathers. LOCAL HISTORIES The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America. By John Fiske. This work has an especial value for those who have done the work laid out in this course. It fills the vacancy made by not having a history of the Middle Colonies. Verrazano and Hudson, the West India Company and its colonization schemes in New York, and the struggle between the English and Dutch for control are all here presented. The True William Penn. By Sydney George Fisher. This very interesting biography gives incidentally the details of the colonization of Pennsylvania which are not included in the work of this course. The Pilgrim Republic. By John Abbott Goodwin. This history of the colony of New Plymouth was intended, as the author says, "for the mere reader;" and for one who wishes to dwell upon the history of the Pilgrims it is full of details of their primitive life. France and England in North America. By Francis Parkman. This series of historical narratives, nine volumes in all, treats of the great struggle between France and England for America. It is so written that one or (115) The Booklovers Reading Club two volumes may be read at a time with the feeling of having completed a subject. The work, both from an historical and a literary point of view, reaches the high-water mark of American historical writing. BOOKS THAT CONTAIN SOURCES OF AMERICAN HISTORY Voyages of Elizabethan Seamen. Edited by Edward J. Payne. Here are contemporary accounts of the voyages of Hawkins, Frobisher, and Drake. Anyone who can read the Arabian Nights or Robinson Crusoe can get pleasure from these thrilling stories of seafaring in a romantic age. The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers : As Told by Themselves, Their Friends, and Their Ene- mies. Edited by Edward Arber. From this pleasant collection of contemporary litera- ture we learn of the " prophets of the ' holy disci- pline' and their comical proceedings." The old life in Scrooby, Amsterdam, and Leyden is quaintly told, and the Pilgrim fathers are here scrutinized just as the title promises. Old South Leaflets. Edited by Edwin Doak Mead. This collection contains many very interesting docu- ments in American history which may be used to supplement Professor Hart's admirable collection. American History Leaflets. Edited by Albert Bushnell Hart and Edward Channing. Another series useful in eking out the more valuable compilation made by Professor Hart in his Contem- poraries. (116) Twenty-Five Reading Courses No. i— PROBLEMS IN MODERN DEMOCRACY Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this course are ex-President Cleveland; Woodrow Wilson, Professor of Politics, Princeton University ; Henry J. Ford, author of Rise and Growth of American Politics; and Henry D. Lloyd, author of Newest England. The books for the course are selected by Mr. Cleveland. No. 2— MODERN MASTERS OF MUSIC Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this course are Reginald de Koven, Dr. W. S. B. Mathews, editor of Music ; James G. Huneker, editor of Musical Courier ; Henry E. Krehbiel, musical critic New York Tribune; and Gustave Kobbe", author of Wagner 's Life and Works. The most attrac- tive reading course ever offered to lovers of music. No. 3— RAMBLINGS AMONG ART CENTRES Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this course are F. Hopkinson Smith, Dr. John C. Van Dyke, Dr. John La Farge, President of the Society of American Artists ; Ken yon Cox and Dr. Russell Sturgis. The handbook is attractively illustrated. Mr. Smith and Dr. Van Dyke are responsible for selecting the books to be read. No. 4— AMERICAN VACATIONS IN EUROPE This course is the next best thing to going abroad oneself. Among the contributors to the handbook are Frank R. Stockton, Jeannette L. Gilder, editor of The Critic; Mrs. Schuyler Crown- inshield and George Ade. The handbook has a fine portrait frontispiece. No. 5 _A STUDY OF SIX NEW ENGLAND CLASSICS The books for this course are selected by Dr. Edward Everett Hale. Among the contributors to the handbook are Dr. Hale, Julian Hawthorne, Mrs. James T. Fields and Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson. Dr. Emerson is a son of Ralph Waldo Emerson. This is one of the most attractive courses in the entire series. No. 6- SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLISH KINGS The plays are selected for this course by H. Beerbohm Tree, the well-known English actor, and the books to be read in connection with the plays are selected by Sir Henry (i '9) The Booklovers Reading Clu Irving. Among the other contributors to the handbook are Prof. Edward Dowden, acknowledged the greatest Shakespearean scholar of Great Britain, Dr. Hiram Corson, of Cornell Univer- sity; Dr. William J. Rolfe and Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie. The handbook is very attractively illustrated. No. 7— CHARLES DICKENS : HIS LIFE AND WORK Among the contributors to the delightful handbook accompany- ing this course are George W. Cable, the well-known novelist; Irving Bacheller, author of Eben Holden; Andrew Lang, the distinguished English writer ; Amelia E. Barr, the novelist ; and James L. Hughes, author of Dickens as an Educator. The books to be read are selected by Mr. Cable and Mr. Bacheller. The handbook is beautifully illustrated. No. 8— CHILD STUDY FOR MOTHERS AND TEACHERS Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this course are Margaret E. Sangster, Nora Archibald Smith, Anne Emilie Poulson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Lucy Wheelock and Kate Gannett Wells. Mrs. Sangster selects the books to be read. .No. 9— INDUSTRIAL QUESTIONS OF THE DAY The following distinguished writers on economic problems contribute to the handbook accompanying this course : Presi- dent Jacob Gould Schurman, of Cornell University ; Jeremiah Whipple Jenks, Professor of Political Science, Cornell University ; Richard Theodore Ely, Director of the School of Economics, Political Science and History, University of Wisconsin ; Sidney Webb, Lecturer London School of Economics and Political Science, Member London County Council ; and Carroll Davidson Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor. No. io— FLORENCE IN ART AND LITERATURE Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this course are William Dean Howells, Dr. Russell Sturgis, Frank Preston Stearns, author of Midsummer of Italian Art, Life of Tititoretto, etc. ; Dr. William Henry Goodyear, Curator Fine Arts Museum of Brooklyn Institute; and Lewis Frederick Pilcher, Professor of Art, Vassar College. The handbook has some attractive illustrations. No. ii— STUDIES OF EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS The books have been selected specially for this course by the Rt. Hon. James Bryce, of the English House of Commons, and the Hon. Andrew D. White, United States Ambassador to Ger- (120) The Booklovers Reading Club many. Among the other contributors to the handbook are Jesse Macy, Professor of Constitutional History and Political Science, Iowa College; and John William Burgess, Professor of Political Science and Constitutional Law, and Dean of the Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University. No. 12— FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE RENAISSANCE Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this course are Col. Thomas Went worth Higginson, Margaret Deland and Charlotte Brewster Jordan. The handbook has several very interesting illustrations. No. 13— THE MODERN CITY AND ITS PROBLEMS Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this course are Dr. Frederic W. Speirs ; Dr. Albert Shaw, editor of The Review of Reviews ; Bird S. Coler, Comptroller of the City of New York, author of Municipal Government ; and Charles J. Bonaparte, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Municipal League. The books are selected by Dr. Speirs. No. 14— STUDIES IN APPLIED ELECTRICITY This is without exception the most attractive and the most helpful reading course ever offered to students of electricity. Thomas A. Edison selects the books specially for these studies. Among the other contributors to the handbook are Dr. Edwin J. Houston, Dr. Elihu Thomson, Carl Hering, Ex-President of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers ; and Arthur V. Abbott, Chief Engineer of the Chicago Telephone Company. No. 15— FIVE WEEKS' STUDY OF ASTRONOMY Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this course are Charles A. Young, Professor of Astronomy, Prince- ton University ; Sir Robert S. Ball, Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge University, and Director of Cambridge Observa- tory, England ; Camille Flammarion, founder of the As- tronomical Society of France, and author of Marvels of the Heavens, Astronomy, etc.; George C. Comstock, Director of Washburn Observatory, University of Wisconsin ; and Harold Jacoby, Professor of Astronomy, Columbia University. The study programme includes contributions from the most famous astronomers of England and France. No. 16— RECENT ENGLISH DRAMATISTS Lovers of the best modern dramas will find much pleasure in these studies. Among the contributors to the handbook are Brander Matthews, Professor of Literature, Columbia University; (121) The Booklovers Reading Club Dr. William Winter, Dramatic Critic for the New York Tribune ; Dr. Harry Thurston Peck, Editor of The Bookman; Louise Chandler Moulton ; and Norman Hapgood, the well-known writer of dramatic criticism. The handbook has some interest- ing illustrations. No. 17— STUDIES IN CURRENT RELIGIOUS THOUGHT The books are chosen for the course by Ur. Lyman Abbott and Dr. Washington Gladden. Among the contributors to the handbook are Dr. Samuel D. McConnell, Rector of Holy Trinity Church, Brooklyn ; President William DeWitt Hyde, of Bovvdoin College; Dr. Amory H. Bradford, Editor of The Outlook ; Dr. Henry Collin Minton, of San Erancisco Theological Seminary, late Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly ; Dr. H. W. Thomas, Pastor of the People's Church, Chicago; and Dr. Theodore T. Munger, Pastor of the United Congrega- tional Church, New Haven. For clergymen and laymen who wish to stimulate the growth of a theology which is in harmony with the best thought of the time we recommend this handbook and this reading course. No. 18— THE GREATER VICTORIAN POETS The books are selected for this course by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Among the other contributors to the handbook are Thomas R. Lounsbury, Professor of English, Yale University; Dr. T. M. Parrott, of Princeton University ; and Marie Ada Moli- neux, author of The Phrase Book of Broivning. No. 19— OUT-OF-DOOR AMERICANS Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this course are John Burroughs, Ernest Seton-Thompson, President David Starr Jordan, of the Leland Stanford Junior University ; Ernest Ingersoll and Hamlin Garland. Lovers of nature will find delight n the outlines and recommendations of this course. No. 20— THE WORLD'S GREAT WOMAN NOVELISTS Mrs. Humphry Ward, the well-known English novelist, is the first contributor to the handbook accompanying this course. The other contributors are Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, Mary E. Wilkins, Agnes Repplier, Katherine Lee Bates, Professor of English, Wellesley College; and Oscar Fay Adams. The hand- book contains some interestinc: illustrations. No. 21— AMERICAN FOUNDATION HISTORY Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge selects the books for this course. Among the other contributors are Albert Bushnell Hart, Pro- fessor of American History, Harvard University ; John Bach (122) The Booklovers Reading Club McMaster, Professor of American History, University of Penn- sylvania ; Reuben Gold Thwaites, Secretary of the State Histori- cal Society of Wisconsin, author of The Colonies ; Paul Leicester Ford, author of Janice Meredith; and Andrew Cunningham McLaughlin, Professor of American History, University of Michigan. No. 22— STUDIES IN AMERICAN LITERARY LIFE Professor Barrett Wendell and Professor Lewis E. Gates, of Harvard, and Dr. Horace E. Scudder, late editor of The Atlantic Monthly, contribute to the handbook accompanying this course. For a brief stimulative and instructive course in American litera- ture nothing better could possibly be offered. No. 23— STUDIES IN RECENT FRENCH FICTION Alc£e Fortier, Professor of Romance Languages, Tulane University of Louisiana, has chosen the books for this reading course. Among the contributors to the handbook are the three distinguished French writers, Edouard Rod, Ferdinand Bru- netiere and Paul Bourget, and the notable American critic, Dr. Benjamin W. Wells, author of Modern French Literature and A Century of French Literature. No. 24— THE ENGLISH BIBLE : HOW WE GOT IT The contributors to this course include President William R. Harper, of the University of Chicago ; John Franklin Genung, Professor of Rhetoric, Amherst College ; William Newton Clarke, Professor of Christian Theology, Colgate University; and Richard G. Moulton, Professor of English Literature, University of Chicago. The handbook is a very interesting and instructive volume in itself. No. 25— THE MECHANISM OF PRESENT DAY COMMERCE Ln Preparation. The books are selected by the Hon. Lyman }. Gage, Secretary of the Treasury. (•23) v OF c