truth when effectively presented to work its own way into wide acceptance without the aid of any sort of force. He has always been content merely to turn on the light and allow it slowly to penetrate every corner of the country. He has presented his ideas and trusted in their own soundness to win ultimate success. He has never attempted to run rough shod over the minds or bully the moral judgments of men. There has been all over the country remarkable growth in toleration of opposing opinion, but there is still further need to purify the air. The victory for religious liberty and toleration would seem among all enlightened men to be complete. We all realize that to make out of religious zeal a whip of scorpions would be morally as bad and practically as harmful as the burning of heretics. We ought equally to recognize that any attempt to turn State pride or sectional patriotism into a rod of correction or that any use of the lash of political opinion is always and everywhere as wicked and destructive as any torture devised by the Inquisition. We can only make progress through ideas, not through force.

President Eliot's teaching and example give emphasis to the duty of educated men in all parts of the country by intelligent discussion and by wise use of the franchise to help on the causes of good government. He has himself taken much interest in questions of government, especially in questions of municipal government. He is not a partisan, but he has the courage to vote for the principles he believes best and for the men he regards as most competent, whether Republicans or Democrats. He was among the leaders in Massachusetts who favored Mr. Cleveland for President, though he has doubtless usually voted the Republican ticket in national elections. It would be a great gain for good government in the South as in all parts of the country if all educated men would take an intelligent interest in questions of city, state, and national government, and if they were courageous enough to vote as they think without much regard to party allegiance. Parties are good things, but so are independent voters. President Eliot has most convincingly pointed out that small groups of intelligent and courageous citizens working together for good causes may achieve valuable results. This cannot be done where men blindly follow political bosses or traditional shibboleths and vote in mass. If this doctrine should find accept

ance in any Southern State, it would speedily lead to improvement in many directions.

President Eliot has more than once remarked that never in his life before has he learned so much in the same length of time as during the seven weeks spent in traveling through the Southern States. There are undoubtedly some lessons that the nation could well afford to learn from these states. But we of the South are not so much concerned to point out these lessons as we are to put ourselves in all respects in line with the progressive men and progressive sections of our common country.

BOOK REVIEWS

THE BEGINNINGS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN NORTH CAROLINA: A DocuMENTARY HISTORY, 1790-1840. By Charles L. Coon, Superintendent of the Wilson Public Schools. Two volumes. Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Co., 1908. Published by the North Carolina Historical Commission. 1,077 pages.

The author of these two volumes has gone to old newspaper files, and published and unpublished proceedings of the General Assembly, and presents in two volumes of more than a thousand pages messages from the governors, bills that were introduced, resolutions that were submitted, reports of committees, editorials and articles that were written which tell the story of the agitation and the educational ideals of the people for fifty years before the first public school system was established in North Carolina. Much of the material herein brought together has never before been published, and a great deal of what had been published was inaccessible to all except a few.

These volumes make a complete documentary history of education from 1790 to 1840; and every historian who writes of this period will be indebted to Superintendent Coon for preparing in accessible form such valuable material. Not only that, but the writer who undertakes to treat of the life of the people-their prevision and their shortsightedness, their wisdom and their primitive ideas of life, their cosmopolitan ways of thinking and their fear of all forms of taxation, their consistencies and contradictions, their fears and hopes-will find here a source book with argument for both sides.

James Anthony Froude, in his essay on "The Science of History,” says in speaking of the "passive irony" of history: "Like Jarno in Goethe's novel, it will not condescend to argue with you, but will provide you with abundant illustrations of anything which you may wish to believe."

So it is with this documentary history. It tells its own tale, or many tales. There were men in those days who obstructed every progressive move. On the other hand there were men with prevision who labored in season and out of season for progress and enlightenment.

The introduction to Volume I. gives a good résumé in fortyseven pages of the two volumes. We find here a brief argument against Latin and Greek, in a bill introduced in 1803. It "declared that the dead languages were not necessary to be taught in the schools of a republican government." As early as 1810 we find the formation of agricultural societies and argument in favor of introducing agriculture into the schools. In fact it would be hard to find an educational problem of today that was not treated or hinted at in the fifty years before our public school system was established.

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Volume II. covers the period from 1832 to 1840, and is especially important because within these eight years the system of education in North Carolina went through all the stages of construction from a majority against the system, including warm debates in the General Assembly, in the press, and in the pulpit, to the final passage of the bill and the campaign for local taxation. This volume takes up the cause of emigration of thousands of North Carolinians to the West, attributing it to the ignorance the masses and the poor educational facilities. Educational systems in other States were reviewed and discussed by the press and the General Assembly. In the midst of these discussions the federal money was withdrawn from the national banks and distributed among the States. Schools now could be established without raising the State tax; for this large sum added to the literary fund made an endowment. The public school bill became a law and was sent to the counties for ratification, for each county was required to supplement the fund by a special county tax. Thus our school system was established, and this documentary history of two volumes tells the tale.

E. C. BROOKS.

A HISTORY OF the United StATES. By Edward Channing. Volume II. A Century of History, 1660-1760. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1908. Pp. vii., 614.

Ever since the appearance of the initial volume of Professor Channing's work in 1905, the advent of the second has been eagerly awaited by those interested in American colonial history. The character of the first volume led to the hope and belief that the second would fill the long-felt want for an adequate treat

ment of that long-neglected and exceedingly important period of American development, the eighteenth century. It is not too severe criticism to say that the present volume does not in every way do this. This statement must not be taken to mean that the work is not a valuable addition to our written history. It is all of that and more, not only because of the need mentioned above, but also because the work is in many ways one of high merit even if the final word is not yet said concerning the period covered by it. In the first place the book is interesting and readable. Then, with a few minor exceptions, it seems very accurate in its statement of fact. The accuracy of many of the author's conclusions, however, will scarcely be conceded by his readers. Another excellent feature is to be found in the bibliographical notes appended to each of the chapters, though here also his critical estimates may meet with disagreement. It is rather difficult for the average reader to conceive why it should be necessary for the author to assure the reader that General McCrady's History of South Carolina is reliable in spite of the fact that he was a Charleston lawyer, a Confederate soldier, and a warden of St. Phillip's Church (p. 29). The whole work shows the traces of careful and exhaustive study of part of the material for the period and is characterized by much clear analysis of policies, events, and, to a minor extent, of men.

The chief criticism that may be made is of the author's perspective. Throughout the book there is strong evidence of the traditional hostility to England which characterized the writings of our early historians, which has proved such an obstacle to a correct interpretation of the relations between the colonies and the mother country, and which, happily, is rapidly disappearing. There is, for example, a strong suggestion of Puritan feeling in every mention of Charles II. and his advisers. Bad as they may have been, it cannot be denied that there was much of unreasoning prejudice in the attitude of Massachusetts towards England. This defect of perspective is also strongly apparent in the proportion of space accorded to various matters discussed. Another distinct fault of the book is to be found in the arrangement which conspires with the author to prevent the reader from forming any clear-cut conception of most of the movements of the period.

Of the nineteen chapters, probably the two last, treating of