The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-01-24

st. Louis tried to excuse himself from
attending Mr.. Fiske's lectures by say
ing that after all he was superficial.
"SuperficiaIr' exclaimed his instructor,
Superficial You had as we'll call him
emaciatedr'
Mr.. Justin Winsor has done a unique
service for American history in making
its greatest guide and reference book.
His Narrative and Critical History
is seldom seen in the book stores for
the volumes are too large and hardly
enough in popular demand to adorn
the counters given to popular literature;
but every serious student of American
history owes a greater debt to these
volumes than to any other. They tell
the story of our whole career, and not
only this, nor chiefly this-they con-
tain guides to the original sources,
maps, illustrations and lists of dOcu
ments bearing ON every period. Win
sor is in fact the great repository and
treasury of reference-the browning
work Of the great age of research; and
by reason of his books, it has been for
the first time made possible for an
knowledge of our history and its
sources without loss of time.
Mr.. Winsor is and has long been the
librarian Of Harvard university, and
1t is by reason Of his breadth and ac-
tivity that this library has become
indispensable to the historian.
DR.. Edward Eggleston-first school
master, then preacher, then novelist
came after this varied and interesting
experience to the work of the historian;
and he chose to write not the narrative
of political and literary events, but
the life of the people. For fifteen years
or more, he has been engaged in col
lectfng and arranging his material, and
his first volume just now published,
shows the clearneSS with which he con-
ceiVed the plan and the thoroughness
with which he has carried it out. DR..
Eggleston has had the immense advant-
age of having had in his own experience
a direct training for such work. All
historical and literary judgments need
correction by actual life. And he has
seen the people and been of them alike
in the West and in the East as man
Of action and as a student. 1t requires
man of the people to write
the peoples social history His fifteen
years of labor in New York city in
winter and at Lake George in summer
will be followed by perhaps ten more
years before his ambitious work is
done.
Of all the younger historians there is
no one of so much promise as Prof
Woodrow Wilson. He, too, has had a
unique experience. Virginian by
birth. he was educated At At Princeton
and after a brief career as a lawyer,
he took an advanced COURSE of study
at the Johns Hopkins university. AS
teacher, he lived and worked for a
time in New England and was then
called to the important post of profess
sor of Jurisprudence at Princeton-one
of the most important chairs of the
university, a chair, moreover which al
lows him leisure for historical work
The particular quality that distinguish
es him is his style; whatever he writes
he writes with distinction. You will
never find a page of his finished work
that does not for some reason interest
you. This rare faculty is worth every
thing to a man of good historical equip
ment Without it any amount of his
tcrical learning is as raw material and
dry bones; with it the whole world lies
before him for conquest. There must
for instance, be some purely personal
charm in Mr.. Wilson's work to warrant
his telling over again the story of the
life of Washington. He has added few
new facts to what was known of Wash
ington's life-there were few to add
But he has set them in such proper
of that time as to do more than has
for a long time been done to arouse
keen personal interest in Washington
to make him appear a man, as he was,
and not mere functionary.
And yet it is easy to see that his
torical writing in the United States is
only fairly begun. Tere are great gaps
both in time and in area to be filled by
Northwest is yet to have its dramatic
history written, and the Southwest as
well; and the South is an almost un
touched field. We are coming into a
new era in historical writing for an
other reason; it is only now that the
type Of American historian has been
made possible who has at once the full
ness Of knowledge bought by modern
research and the artistic skill to make
his page a living piece of writing
Washington Irving had style, but he
lived before the day of accurate and
wide knowledge. Bancroft was laborioIlS
and knew something of modern histor-
ical methods, but he, too, came before
the dawn of the modern method in I'll
its fullness, and: he ,rWrote without
charm. The list of what promises TO
be regarded for a long, period as the
great American historians began with
Parkham, and so far ihasoculminated
In Fiske, whose stylef and whose sense
0f proportion are infinitely better than
any Of his predecessors; his Discovery
Of America" is a second Odyssey. OF
the younger historians Woodrow Will
son has the keenest sense of STYLE
the quality of speech that gives dis
tinction to whatever he writes.
1t is in the direction of the artistic
side of historical writing that special
training is now most needed All our
great universities are training schools
In accuracy-in first-hand historical re-
search-but not one Of them has yet
trained men in the principles of the
artistic presentation and grouping of
facts. Read chapter Of Bancroft and
then read a chapter Of Fiske and the
difference between a horny handed son
of toll and a master Of a Splendid art
appears at once.
There has perhaps never been in III,
world of letters more brilliant oppor-
tunity than now lies before young men
thoroughly trained in historical work
who, at the same time, have the artistic
ability to write history and not a mere
narrative; for it is beginning to be
seen that there has never been so inter
esting chapter Of human experience
as the history Of life in America.
About the far West a new crop of in
teresting literature is promised. Will
tam E. Smythe is writing for the At
lantic Monthly a first-hand study OF
certain real Utopias, notably those
communities in Southern California
where farmers have electric lights and
all the urban accompaniment of civ
ilization that electric lights imply, a
al o1xy LIZ I'll