New-York tribune., 1921-06-26
By DR.. Willis Fletcher Johnson

By DR.. Willis Fletcher johnson
THE FIGHT FOR A FREE SEA. BY Ralph
-. Paine.
THE PATHS Or INLAND CONNIE
BY Archer b. Hubert.
ADVENTURES OF OREGON. BY Con
stance Lindsay Skinner
OUR FOREIGNERS By Samuel p orth
THE RAILROAD BUILDERS BY John
Moody
TIE ARMIES OF LABOR. BY Samuel p.
THE MASTERS OF CAPITAL. BY John
Moody.
THE NEW SOUTH by Holland rhomp
TIE AGRARtAN CRUSADE BY solon
THE CANADIAN DOMINION. By Oscar
-. Shelton
Published by the Yale University Press,
being the fourth ten Of ifty volumes.
FT% HE art preservative of arts
for such the writing of history
is at least as truly and as sig
nifcantly as the mere printing
of books-draws fittingly upon all arts
for its advancement. Time was when
the historian was man apart, and the
historical style in letters was as dis
tinct from all other forms of writing
as was its subject matter distinct from
novel, poem or drama. 1t may be that
for certain purposes. The writing Of
comprehensive histories as integral
works is SO complex and arduous al
undertaking as to demand substantially
monopoly of attention and effort;
while to perform it satisfactorily de-
mands with equal imperativeness an
author of all but universal genius.
But while at intervals, not over
crowded upon each other, the world
will continue to produce Gibbons and
Macaulays and Greens and Motleys, it
is being realized more and more that
history writing may properly be tcpi-
cal as we'll as integral; and that thus
it may serve the most practical and
useful Of purposes. We can i'm
agine, for example, a man whose
tastes and needs in general American
history would be adequately and cred
itably met by reading a single duo
decimo volume, but who wanted and
needed to know a great deal more than
any such work could contain about, let
us say, the history of our inland COM
merce, or the Civil War and its re-
suits. 1T would be an imposition to
require him to read some twenty-vol-
ume work, in which a score of other
topics in which he was not specially in-
terested were as fully treated as the
one he wanted to learn about. The
far better and probably the only salts
factory plan is that which was adopted
by the projectors of The Chronicles of
America, namely-to present great
number of special histories, each on
some one phase of the general subject
and to have them all so conceived and
proportion and harmonious relation
ship to the others, and that all taken
together shall completely cover the
entire field.
Now as it is scarcely once in hun
dred years that nature produces a man
capable Of himself writing all the
volumes in such a gigantic congeries
it is necessary that multiplicity of
authors shall be engaged, and the most
commendable as we'll as inevitable, cor
ollary is that they shall be men and
women of diverse gifts and occupt:ons.
Of the fitness of the three dozen new
historians" Of these chronicles for the
special tasks assigned to them it would
be superfluous, as we'll as necessarily
proliX, to speak in detail. But at least
a word of heartiest approval must be
number of writer's hitherto known
chiefly as poets and novelists. Be
tween poetry and romance on the one
hand and serious history on the other.
there is, no doubt, difference, but it
is more formidable to the superficial
than to the profound observer.
We must remember that among the
progenitors, of English literature poets
were the first historians. The Morse
sagas contain the first historical men
ton of America; the voyages of Eric
and Left, his son, were commemorate
by the bards, and he must indeed be
obtuse who does not perceive in the
spirit of the ballad maker the true mar
rative spirit of the historian Nor, de-
spite the cynicisln which obviously is
suggested, is the spirit of the romance
writer less congruous with and profit
able to the history writer. For, apart
from the narrative and dramatic quail
ties which are essential to the novelist
and which are supremely precious in
the historian, there are the gifts of
imagination and of insight into charac-
ters, motives and acts, which enable
the romancer to get closer to truth
and life than it is possible for the
most dilgent student to get without
them. Note, for example, Miss Skim
Eer's account of the chartering of the
Governor and Company of Adventur-
ers of England Trading Into Hudson's
Bay," on the whole the most famous
such company in the wogld:
"This charter, giving away an
empire almost half the size OF Europe,
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