The Arkansaw traveler., 1889-04-20

nA@eoEy VI enu COum6ky tmAm nos ever 0Hf0T9 nnmn known For the truth must be told, and 1t is not creditable to American citizens that there h prob ably no intelligent people in any country co amentably ignorant of their own history and eov- ernment as the American people. Our youth are taught the history of other countries and ara fmil lar with the course of general history. They know something of Greece and Rome, know all about Frederick the Great and Napoleon and something of the history of Europe but the hIs- tory of the United States government and of the erAlity of well-informed persons.
 The main difficulty American historians have had to encounter was that they had not only the his tory of the general government to relate, but that oi thirteen other governments also, these latter in- creasing every year. At the first, these govern ments were far more important, and arro9ated to themselves far more authority, than the general government. This cemplexity involved 90 many considerations that for three. quarters of century no writer skillfnl enough seems to have been pro- duced to adequately write an American history
 Is John Fiske training to become that skillful writer1 Certainly he gives rare promise of what may call ntuitive dscernment. He is not satisfied to merely gather and assort the fruit of years that have merged into epOchs. He digs industriously, at the roots of political seedlings. He compares effect with cause and quickly separates living germs of enlightenment and progress from the un- fertilzing ashes of demagogism and serdd intrigue In his pictures of our young and untried govern ment, it's foremost and best beloved administrator towers, as to-day, head and shoulders and mental vision far above his compatriots In another fort night all the pomp and circumstance of army and navy, of state militia, department chiefs and their associate salared officials, of other specially invited guests and the unnumbered, unreported spectators of New Yorks wonderful three days centenary jubilee will bloom, expand and difruse. On the identical spot, but not in the same edifce, where George Washington, of Virginia, majestic in the purity of thought and act, humbled his spirit before its Giver and Guide will his twenty second successor to the now bartered and coveted presi. dency receive the huzzas and homage of a jostling huddled throng.
 In all that ocean of crowd, how few will know or care to know what John Fiske is we'll qualified to teach theml They celebrate themselves rather than event that had its birth in tremendous crisis. The period of which John Fiske writes Q7SS to 17S9) was, in his estimation, "pre- emil nently the turning point in the development of political society in the western hemishere." He impressively says: "As we stand upon the thres- hold of that mighty future, in the light of which all events of the past clearly destined to seem dwindled in their dimensions and significant only in the ratio of their potency causes as we dis cern how large part of that future must be the outcome ot the creative work, for good or ill., of men of English speech we are put into the proper mood for estimating the significance of the causes which determined, 6 century ago, that the conti- nent of North America should be dominated by single powerful and pacific federal nation"
 Such domination is now acknowledged by all the courts of Europe It has been brought about by native ingenuity enterprise and thrift: perhaps even more by these winning qualities of a sover- eign people, than by hardihood, courage and polt- ical sagacity. How it all came to be who stood firm for the right and deftlY pulled leading strings for the young republics unschooled statesmen; and