III ENGLISH HISTORY IN AMERICAN SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS One of my earliest recollections is that of being taken to see the fireworks which were set off at the pierhead in Ramsgate harbor to celebrate the declaration of peace after the Crimean War. From that time until I went, when quite a young man, into the Gallery of Battles in Versailles—a gallery in which the glories of the French armies are celebrated in acres of canvas by the famous French artist Detaille-I never fully realized that Englishmen had ever been defeated by land or sea. I had been brought up in the belief that one Englishman could beat three Johnny Crapauds. But here all my illusions on that score were shattered at one rude blow, for about one picture in every three represented a defeat of the English in either a naval or a military engagement. Then I made up my mind with Sir Robert Walpole, that I would "study anything but history, for history must be false." Some such awakening has no doubt come to almost every thinking man or woman who has been brought up on the old methods of teaching the history of their country, whether they be English or American, French or German, Turk or Russian -this no doubt has its effect in inspiring a patriotic feeling; in keeping alive a belief in the invincibleness of one's own nation; a faith in its good star, which has led men on to further victories and inspired them to yet more valorous deeds than their forefathers have performed. But in these later days we are recognizing more fully than ever the dignity of history, we are realizing that patriotism is not the sole and ultimate object of its study, but the search for truth, and abiding by the truth when found, for "the truth shall make ye free" is an axiom that applies here as always. A quaint old writer has said: This is a great fault in a chronologer, To turn parasite: an absolute history Should be in fear of none, neither should he Now young America has until recent years been brought up in just as one-sided a way of looking upon England as young England was formerly brought up to look upon France, and if I touch for a little while upon some of those characteristics in the school history text-books of the past, which have been to some extent responsible for this, it is not with a view of raking up old grievances, of re-opening old sores, or reviving discussions that are happily closed, but in order to emphasize the more strongly the brighter day that is dawning—or, rather, that has dawned already and in the light of which we are now living. For my main object is not so much to show how English history has been handled in the past and how the English people have been misrepresented in American school text-books, as to call attention to the spirit in which the subject is being handled by those who are providing the school histories of the present and the near future. Those old text-books which told the children how "proud Britain was humiliated," how "the boasted power of England was broken," her "haughty title of mistress of the seas forever taken from her," and "the tyrant of the ocean destroyed "; talked of "the bloodthirsty British redcoats," the "inhuman English soldiery," "the outrages perpetrated by Indians with the sanction of British officers," of the treatment of the colonies by the English as "a distinct and subordinate class of subjects" are well described in a report presented by the Committee of Text-Books on American History to the New England History Teachers in October, 1898.1 It says: The older style of text-book was a curious product. Its author was frequently a literary hack, ready to compile a dictionary, annotate a classical text, or write an algebra, as occasion offered. Of special training in history he had none; but he had read a good deal, had a number of apt stories at his command, and made up for his limited knowledge by a vivid and pliable imagination. To such a writer, the preparation of a school book in American history was an easy task. Details aside, the general formula 1 EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, 16: 483. was quite unvarying. Say nothing about the physical features of the continent, but extol the virtues of the noble Indian; dwell on the brilliant intellect, the undaunted courage, and the magnificent faith of Columbus, the hardships of the Pilgrims, the grim sternness of the Puritans, the simplicity of the Quakers, and the quaintness of the Dutch; show how the Revolution was due solely to the brutal tyranny of the British, and how Washington and Franklin had, in supreme degree, all the virtues ever exhibited by men in their respective spheres, and not a single fault; characterize the Constitution as "the greatest product of the human mind," but avoid much reference to it after its adoption; cut up the period after 1789 into four-year morsels, and give to the mastication of each about the same amount of space; dwell on the enormities of England after the peace of 1783, and the glorious victories of the war of 1812, not omitting mention of Jackson's cotton bales and Perry's green-timber fleet; show what a lovely thing the era of good feeling was, and how the South went all wrong about nullification, slavery, and the Civil War; add in an appendix the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and a list of Presidents, and then enliven the whole by a profusion of fancy pictures, including "Washington Crossing the Delaware," "A Winter at Valley Forge," "An Emigrant Train,” and "Welcome, Englishmen!"--and you had a book admirably adapted to the training of citizens and patriots. On such stuff were many of us fed in our youth. Mr. Edwin D. Mead, editor of the New England Magazine, writes: Much of the ill-will toward England which undeniably exists in great sections of the American people and which the mischief-making politician can confidently appeal to springs from a false view of what the American Revolution was and what the history of England was in connection with it. The feelings of jealousy and anger which were born in the throes of the struggle for independence are indiscriminately perpetuated. Our children grow up with the feeling that "redcoat" is the very badge and synonym of enmity to America. They are trained and fortified in it often by false and superficial text-books. The influence of false history and of crude, one-sided history is enormous. It is a natural and logical step by which children pass many of our schoolrooms to the back yard, there to set up images of Britishers" and fire at the whites of their eyes; and it is natural that feelings so born should die hard and at times become a dangerous factor in the national life. So important is the whole influence of popular historical views that we do not think it too much to say that a vast amount of the persistent ill-will toward England of which from time to time we become conscious among our people, as compared with the almost universal kindliness of English feeling toward us, is to be explained by the very different spirit in which the history of the American Revolution is taught to the boys and girls in the schools of the one country and of the other. Writing on America revisited, in 1896, Mr. Samuel Smith, M. P., said: The history books taught in the public schools too often give the children of America the impression that the main events in human history are the American War of Independence, concluded in 1783, and the war with. Great Britain of 1812-14. It need not be added that Great Britain appears, in those histories always in the wrong, and the Americans always right.. There are no pains taken to show that the best men in England protested. against the policy of George III. and Lord North, and that the British nation to-day esteems George Washington as much as do the people of America. It is not explained that the England of last century was. governed by the aristocracy, and that the England of to-day repudiates the fatal policy of the eighteenth century as much as do the citizens of the United States. These truths gradually become clear to all educated Americans, especially to those who visit Europe. But the children of the ignorant foreign population get no correcting education afterward. The newspapers they read perpetuate these prejudices, and there is consequently created a permanent mass of ill-feeling against Great Britain. The unfortunate and injudicious language that has been used in describing the events of the Revolution and the War of 1812, in the text-books which have just been described, can hardly be said to be materially untrue. But the child, the untrained reader, is more affected by a plain assertion than by any qualified phraseology. If you call a man "tyrant," "thief," or "murderer," no matter what you afterward say to minimize the offense, no matter what extenuating circumstances you bring forward, no matter what explanation may be offered the opprobrium of the term will be sure to stick. And, as I have said, with the young no amount of explanatory justice can overcome the effect of strong denunciatory language. Such words as "tyrant," "oppressor," "slave," and arrogant " expressing the sense of the strong provocation of a hundred and thirty years agɔ, revive, rekindle, and keep alight the rancor and the passion of that time. They have: kept alive in children's minds the idea that the English were monsters and the Americans the sublimest of heroes. 66 Before turning to another point I may cite a few passages to illustrate what I have said. They are quoted from various books, which, altho still in use, have either been modified or are ceasing to have any large and important sale: The troops burned the Capitol and other public buildings. After this act of vandalism they withdrew to their shipping. After committing shocking brutalities at Hampton, the fleet sailed for the West Indies. England treated the settlers as an inferior class of people. Her intention was to make and keep the colonies dependent. The laws were framed to favor the English manufacturer and merchant at the expense of the colonists. . . . American manufactures were prohibited. Iron-works were denounced as common nuisances "; even William Pitt, the friend of America, declared she had no right to manufacture even a nail for a horseshoe except by permission from Parliament. 64 The British naval officers behaved in a very high-handed way. In one instance their insolence was deservedly punished. The employment of foreign hirelings to subdue British-born subjects became a leading cause of American hatred for the mother country. There is no doubt but that the Boston boys were impudent sometimes. It is said that they called the red-coated soldiers "lobsters" and "bloodybacks"; but I am sure they would not have done so if they had been treated right. One of the most successful teachers of history in this country says that American histories have unintentionally stirred up strife between England and the United States by omission rather than commission. Our historians have failed to state fairly issues between the countries. The causes of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 have never been properly stated. The story of these wars has always been so stated as to minimize English success. There has been a failure to show the obligation that we are under to England from the intellectual side-literature, art, and invention. Most school histories have been written by ignorant schoolmasters, who put in print popular tradition rather than examine authorities for themselves. A few words about these sins of omission, and then I shall turn to another phase of the subject. In nearly all the school-history text-books the employment of Indians by the British is described, sometimes in very strong terms; but there is little or no mention of the employment of Indians by the Americans, or of outrages committed by American troops. In dealing with the War of 1812 much is made of the massacre of the River Raisin, little of the American " atrocities" which provoked this. There is a general failure to call attention to the fact that the Government could even |