The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-01-22

land myself as Artemus Ward used to say,
and still look down on the Dutch"
ssWell, we must skip the Puritan landing;
that 1 know dd nGuSedm. / feel like the
Fourth of July orator, who, having attempted
TO write an Grafton, and having sckened of
the whole subject said: Ladies and gentle
men. wish the Mayfower on her first voy-
age had gone down in mid-oceanG and then
sat down. You see that the subject has been
done to death by inferior pens. 1t is cold,
harsh and forbidding; il is at the same time
enormously romantic, heroic and grand.
Miles Standsh bringing In the head OF an
Indian chief on long pole to Plymouth,
while Rose Standish, his wife, with red lips
was waiting to greet him, is picture out OF
the dark ages. Yet 1 know of no one who
has done it Justice. All that Indian warfare,
that early religious tyranny-how painful it
all isl do not love the Puritans."
'No, unworthy daughter ola noble stock,
know you do not! l suppose you like better
that pretty, romantic story OF LORD Ballt-
more and his agreeing to pay the king year
ly rent of two arrows and one fifth of what
ever gold and silver he should find; that
pleases uou, because it is feudal and fine!
You women are all aristocrats and love bau-
bles and titles and such gauds; that is the
reason you do not like American history"
81 grant you there is great deal in that.
want my two roses, my York and Lancas-
ter; want my Eleanor and fair Rosamond;
want, my Henry of Navarro and his
white plume, / know my weakness. I de-
sire, with all woman's love of color and
luxury, the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Life
is too hard, too self sacrificing, too full OF
tears and selfrenunciation, to be be always
reading of such story as that OF the Purl-
tans. believe in the iron clad virtues, but 1
do ask for velvet mantle to throw over the
hard points; it is human nature. Yet see
what a magician can do! 1 can read of Will
liam of Orange, as hard, and silent and cold
a creature as ever breathed, If Motley tells the
story. I can read of hunger, cold, starvation,
and cruelty, if Macaulay holds the pen. 1t is
the historian that is wanting, / think"
swell, if it is, what are you going to do
about it? Are you going to invoke Carlyle,
Macaulay, Motley~
"Yes, think shall; wish Mr.. Bancroft
had begun just where he is leaving off! What
a story he could have made if he had written
all his history in the tone with which he de-
scribes the battle of Lexington, which Emer-
son says he never can read without tearsv'
Bancroft has written an erudite history
for scholars and thinkers; all American his
tory has been done in that style. There are
some admirable small compendiums, no
doubt; but they are dry. And that reminds
me-you have been engaged in teaching the
young idea how to shoot lately-how much
history is taught in the common schools how
much in the colleges ?"
american history? None at all The pu-
pills of the public schools are compelled to
learn little, but they hate it; while at the
private schools there is no necessary course
of American history. At Harvard college
and at Yale the subject is not approached at
all until the junior year, when the young stu
dent is taught the principles of the Constitu-
@f 10 T,1sA -1 C4-k41 Ia L..
ate with the highest hOnOrs from either in
stitution, and know nothing of that struggle,
or of those well-fought battle-felds TO whose
baptism of blood he owes his very birth
right"
"All wrong, all wrong" said Orestes. "Yet
/ do not know how you are to make the bill
of rights interesting. Our political history
important, grand, and peculiar as it is, is very
dull reading to the young, no doubt"
GLOW would it do to take up the story of
the governors, beginning with that violent
old Berkeley of Virginia, who in 1876 fined,
confiscated and hanged all the poor rebel
Virginiansp THAT old FOOL said the king,
when Berkeley returned home, has taken
away more lives in that naked country tnan
for the murder of my fatherp Royal and
dissolute Charles! he had not hard heart, if
he did lead rather unkingly and unchris-
tian life. always admire Berkeley's old
Virginian hospitality to Drummond, repub-
lican. You are welcome said the old ty-
rant; I am more glad to see you than any
man in Virginia; you shall be hanged in half
an hourp"
''Yes, that was epigrammatic, certainly,
and it put the poor fellow out of any danger
of catching cold, or suffering from dyspepsia.
Then you could have your beloved, long
haired Cavalier Governors of Maryland, and
your crop-eared Puritans in New England"
said Orestes. 81 see what your idea is; you
want to administer a pill of history in large
marmalade of story; that is natural sug-
gestion from the nursery; but do not ap-
prove. I would have the people made to
learn history as they do the multiplication
table, or the French verbs. would make
the same rules as these which prevail in
English schools. Imagine young English
boy or girl growing up without his 'Mang-
NAILS Questionsv The young Englishman
who goes up to a competitive examination is
examined in English history and nothing
else, that is to say, no other history. If he
knows the history of England, he can do
England's work."
eyes, but the history of England includes
the history of the world for a thousand
years."
Sand our own-so it does measurably, but
not from the standpoint of the American stu
dent. That long story of the Indian wars,
admirably told by Parkman, that should be
studied, and the young American, whose
grandfather was perhaps carried away, an
infant in his mothers arms, from India hor-
rors, should know the story of King Williams
War. The dreadful incident of Mrs. Dustin
is in the picture books, to be sure, but what
American boy of seventeen can tell that pro-
digious history of the years from 1895 to 100
that period which includes Sir Edmund
Andres, and the romantic episode of the
Charter Oak, and the middle-age legends of
Sir William Phipps, sort of titled Captain
Kidd, who raised plate, and jewels, and treas
ures, from the wrecks in the southern seas?
Then as if Heaven were angry with the poor
colonists, as if pagan rather than a chris
tian divinity reigned, came, in 1892, the story
of the Salem witchcraft, cold. and hunger,
and absence of all national amusements. The
short, dark days of New England winter
had sent in upon itself that interpretive and
active New England mind. I wonder al
ways that such people in such position
are not mad. should have been witch
prosecutor myself"
'Yes, Orestes, you would have been good
Cotton Mather, except that you would have
never written 'The Wonders of the Invisible
World You would have hanged and burned
the witches, and have defended yourself to
the end"
'Thank you, you are singularly compli-
mentary and just. Why so aggressive? I
thought had been agreeing with YOU"
$50 you had. I only thought you would
Al