Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-11-13
III DR. SCHELLLNG IS TOLERANT OF SANDBURG r.
Fl. WELLS MOST
AUDACIOUS STUNT
The Wonder IsThat He Did IL
at All, Rather Than He
Did k Well or I'LL

In sublime intellectual audacity II. G.. |
Wells has overtopped all his literary |
contemporaries by writing an outline |
of history from the Creation OF the
Peace Conference. No timid man would
have attempted such stupendous task
and no broadly educated man who was
aware that historical experts after Civ
ing years to the study had already
successfully told the story would have
been so rash as to think that it needed
doing again.
Mr.. Wells IL neither broadly edu-
Gated nor Is he timid. Perhaps the
one is the natural result Of the. other.
At any rate he has produced q book in
two volumes with z total q, Of ia3o !TEo fnely mt
line of History" with the subtitle.
Mankind" Now for man to sit down
to write history Of life and mankind
in eighteen months or two ycars-Mr.
~ longer than this
on his task-requires large measure
the credit of Mr.. Wells that he was
aware of his audacity, for he explains
in his introduction that he met with
scarcely a single instance of irrita-
ton or impaticnce' on the part of
specialists whose domains he had in
vaded or travcrsed in what must have
seemed to many Of them an exasper-
atingly impudent and superficial way"
We can let the impudence pass, but
the indictment Of superfciality must
stand. 1t is impossible for a man who
has not devoted himself exclusively to
the subject to be anything but super
fetal when he tries to write a history
of the development Of man and Of soci-
ETY. from its earliest beginnings. The
wonder is not that the book is super
| 6pia1 bitf tbot Mr Wpllo boo haop n hla
/ to do il at all.
The outline Of history is a literary
rtunt. Mr.. Wells has used Gibbon 8
Eome, the Encyclopedia Britannica. and
other wellknown books as his sources.
He crammed for the task and rewrote
with copious quotations what he read.
Te assumes. to find a process of develop
sought for in vain. But then Adams
was not audacious. He mastered a
subject before he presumed to write on
it, and when he wrote he made a con-
tributiQn to the sum of knowledge. Mr.
Wells thinks he has made a contribution
in the theory of progress to establish
which he set out on his great task. The
discerning will regret that Mr.. Adams
Is not still alive to dismiss with an
epigram the presumption of the bril-
liant British novelist who has turned
his attention to history.
No one can read far in the book with
out recognizing the Wellsian touch.
ago that he had never written anything
which was not inspired by a desire to
change the world. This desire is mani
tested in 1.-THE Outline of History" 1t
is really a book of propaganda for his
plan of making over the world into a
human society with the national spirit
extinct and with a sort of glorified
socialism displacing the present sys-
tens.
The preceding remarks should not
deter any one from reading the book.
1t Is well worth the time that it will
take. The style is brilliant, rising at
I mes to eloquence. The arrangement
of the material, is surprisingly well
thought out when one considers the
shortness of the time in which the man
had to digest 80 much. If there are oc-
casional evidences of indigestion they
are to be expected under the circum-
stances. But with all its faults the
book will serve n useful end. Its pur-
pose is to combat parOchial thinking
and to broaden the knowledge of this
generation on what has happened in
ters Of thousands of persons who will
read it-there is no doubt that it will
be widely circulated--wll lay it down
with better appreciation of the sig
nifcancc Of present world movements
than they had before they began it.
Specialists in various fields will find
it full Of flaws. They will dispute his
ferences and sometimes challenge the
accuracy Of his statements. But as the
experts do not all agree among them.
selves no one need be disduietcd by their
} disagreement with Mr.. Wells.
THE OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE WORLD
| Being a plain history OF life and man.
kind BY II. G. Wells. New York: The
. Macmillan Co. so 20.