The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1908-12-11
now MARYLAND FARES IN
SCHOOL HISTORIES OF
THE UNITED STATES.

Il L.
At a meeting of county School
Commissioners and superintendent
held in Baltimore city on Thursday
evening of last week Mr.. James W.
Thomas, of Allegsny county, started
a movement which should receive
the encouragement and aid of all
fair minded people. His object is to
Danish partisan and sectional his,
tories of the United States from the
public schools. This ought to be
done in the interest of truth, as well
as of State pride and patriotism.
The difficulty will be to find the kind
of history which Mr.. Thomas de-
scribes. Most of the school histories
in use have been written by New
England authors, and their range OF
vision is so limited that it has been
impossible for them to see much be-
voud New York. Great events have
taken place in the South, but in the
school histories these events are
largely ignored or minim!zed, and
especially has Maryland suffered. In
the War of the Revolution the Con-
tinental army was at one time CON-
posed largely of Marylanders. 1t
was a arylander, Thomas johnson,
who proposed Washington as COM
manderin in chief, and by this act
made success possible; it was the
Maryland Line at Brooklyn whose
heroism saved Washington's army
from destruction; it was Maryland
that first proposed the more perfect
union of the States it was Mary
land that brought about the cession
by the S ates of their Western pos,
sessions and thus made the union
possible ln the glorious naval wal
of 1912 Maryland supplied the
United States with more of the naval
omcers who gained the brilliant VIC
tories on the sea than all New Eng
land com bined, and nearly three times
as many as the Empire S ate of New
York II the peaceful and orderly
government of the province before
the Revolution, in the absence OF
fanatic sm and bigotry and religious
pei secution, Maryland was distin-
guished above other colonies.
These things receive but scant no.
tice in the school histories of the
United States. Perhaps Maryland
and other Southern States are not
themselves without blame in this
matter. For while Northern writ
ers have been active and industrious
in writing histories ofthcir own PEG
pie, and historical societies have been
gathering material for the historian,
the Southern people have been in
different and have offered to the pub
lie few books on historical subjects.
It may be that when the Northern
historian writes he finds a lack OF
material for history in one section
compared with another. The West
also has just cause for complaint.
1.-The winning of the West" and the
development of the empire in the
Mississippi Valley and on the Coast,
has been romance of history. And
yet the pupil in the public school
has little opportunity to learn about
it. He can find abundant informa-
ton about the Pilgrims and the
P,euods, but little about the eonver
sion of the Western wilderness into
a land of cities and cultivated fields
aud homes. To read of the Civil
War in a school history the pupil
would never dream that in the mat.
ter of secession a constitutional ques-
ton was involved and that it was
Josiah Quincy, Of Massachusetts,
who first introduced into Congress
the doctrine of secession, and that in
1874 the Legislature of Massachu
sets passed resolution affirming by
inference the right of secession and
threatening to secede. In the school
histories secession is treated as re-
bellion and as purely Southern doc
trine of dlsIoyalty.
There are good and impartial his
tories of the United States-too VOL
luminous, however, for use in the
schools. 1t is MIR. Thomas idea to
have one of these compressed into
proper limits, and at the meeting re-
ferred to a committee was appointed
to look into this matter. -BlltimOre
Sun.