Source Book PRACTICAL INTRODUCTIONS I. The Use of Sources WITH the use whical writing, this book has nothing to do, except TH the use which investigators make of sources, as a basis for to suggest that upon such materials, vast in amount and bewildering in variety, rest all that we really know about the history of times earlier than the memory of living men. Even the investigator nowadays does not necessarily examine for himself every record of the events with which he deals he may accept, and almost always does accept, some statements of facts gathered for him by other writers who have themselves examined the ground. It is not the conception of the editor that young and inexperienced boys and girls can find in this book material broad enough to serve as the sole basis for generalizations; or that they can construct a complete narrative for themselves out of any amount of material: the Source Book is meant to supplement, not to supplant the text-book. In schools, and even in most college classes, the sources have a very different office: they are to act as adjuncts to historical narrative, by illustrating it, and making it vivid; as by analyzing a few flowers the young student of botany learns some plant structure, and accepts the rest from the text-book, so the student of history by intimate acquaintance with a few writers of contemporary books finds his reading in secondary works easier to understand. Upon the subject of source-study in schools there is as yet little in print. Charles W. Colby, in the Introduction to his Selections from the Sources of English History (1899), very suggestively discusses the uses of sources. In the Report of the Madison Conference, included in the Report of the Committee [of Ten] on Secondary School Studies (1893), §§ 15, 33, sources are treated incidentally in connection with topical study. In the American History Studies, issued by the University of Nebraska, are hints and suggestions. The University of Pennsylvania issues a little tract, The Use of Original Sources in the Teaching of History, which has helpful suggestions and includes a brief list of collections available for schools in various fields of history. The editor of this book has prefixed an essay on this subject to each of the volumes of American History told by Contemporaries. Almost the only general discussion of the subject is in one of the appendices to The Study of History in Schools, Report of the Committee of Seven (1899), printed also in Report of the American Historical Association for 1898. The subject is taken up in connection with other topics in the printed proceedings of the two Associations of Colleges and Preparatory Schoolsthat of New England, and that of the Middle States; and also in the proceedings of the New England History Teachers' Association for 1898 and 1899, and of the American Historical Association for 1897. The use of sources in secondary and normal schools is described below by experts; it is therefore necessary here only to allude to some of the general advantages of sources, and to suggest some cautions in their use. First of all, as reading matter, even brief sources have the advantage of lively narratives on interesting subjects; and one cannot read extracts from men like John Evelyn, Captain John Smith, Cotton Mather, Whittier, or Lincoln, without desiring to know more about them and their times; but so much depends upon a writer's character, his truthfulness, his opportunities, his prejudices, that it is not safe to take sources at haphazard, without some one to vouch for them. The use of sources enforces on the mind what ought to be familiar to any pupil in history: that the text-book grows out of such material, directly or at second hand; and that the knowledge of the writer of history goes no farther than the sum of his sources. On the Revolution, for instance, the pupil must realize that the books quote only a few out of hundreds of sources, and that generalization from narrow bases is dangerous. Sources may very well furnish sufficient types of oft-repeated experience for instance, from the text-book the pupil gets the impression of the number of voyages of discovery, and of the cross-relations of the Spanish, Portuguese, French, English, Dutch, and Swedes in the new world during two centuries. But the general aim and results of those voyages are well enough set forth in the seventeen pages of Chapter I, which includes one Spanish voyage and one Spanish land exploration, two English sea-voyages and one land exploration, and one French exploration. Since it is a common experience that the illustration fixes the principle in mind, and not the principle the illustration, it is fair to expect that these illustrative voyages will serve to make vivid the consecutive narrative of explorations in general. In the same way, colonial life has many phases, and it would take years of study in a large library of sources to get an idea of how our forefathers lived and thought; but the illustrative extracts in Chapter V, below, show in detail something of a few phases of social life, of church services, of witchcraft delusions, of trade, and of slave life; and they will serve to explain the general and necessarily sweeping statements of text-books. History has two functions: to tell us what has happened, and to tell us why the men of old time let it so happen. Perhaps the most difficult problem for the teacher is to bring home to the minds of pupils how differently other people have looked at things. Our own slavery contest is an example: freedom seems to us normal, and we can understand neither the South nor the North unless we let people who lived in the midst of slavery speak for themselves. One has only to take a succession of statements of facts about the slavery contest out of the best text-books, and then state the same thing out of the narratives of fugitives and the apologies of slave-holders, to see whether secondary narrative or source leaves the deeper impression on the mind. combination of the two makes it possible to see more clearly both the significance and the relation of events. A This book is not prepared with reference to any particular text-book ; wherever a good, straightforward, accurate, narrative history is used, which deals with what is really important in the history of the nation, the extracts in this volume may be brought in to supplement the accounts of special episodes, and to furnish a background of reality and personal character. A II. Materials for Source Study NY well-chosen set of extracts, each long enough to be characteristic, and all together broad enough to cover the main episodes of American history, will serve to illuminate the study; but schools should have at least a small library of complete volumes, both to extend the interest that may be raised by extracts, and to give material for topical work. Many people are startled at the idea that pupils can safely be trusted with " original sources," just as the same good people were startled at the idea of laboratories in chemistry or physics, or of sight reading in classics. There is nothing dangerous in sources if used for purposes which are within the abilities of pupils. Topics can well be prepared from secondary books which are fresh to the pupil; but they can also be prepared from sources if you have them, and the quaintness and liveliness of much of this material make it more interesting to dig down through the crust of secondary works. The point of view must always be that the pupil's result is incomplete, because he has not time, material, or judgment to come to any final conclusion; but that he learns what, but for use of sources, neither he nor his friends could know. A pupil cannot be expected to weigh conflicting evidence or to reconcile disagreements, but he can state things as he finds them. However simple his work and small his result, however far it may be from "original research," it is nevertheless to him a voyage of discovery; and the statement of his results, if he really puts his mind upon it, is a creative act. To aid in such work a short list of desirable books may be suggested, containing only a few of the most important works in each field. Bibliographies of Sources as Lists of select sources are to be found in various small books, William E. Foster's little pamphlet, References to the History of Presidential Administrations, 1789–1885 (New York, 1885), containing excellent classified references to biographies. Channing and Hart's Guide to the Study of American History (Boston, 1896) includes long classified lists of sources, with exact titles. The editor of this book has prefixed lists of sources to each of the four volumes of American History told by Contemporaries. Good characterizations of the writers of sources may be found in H. T. Tuckerman's America and her Commentators (New York, 1864); and Justin Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America (8 volumes, Boston, 1886-89) is the greatest work of American historical bibliography. Sources may often be reached through the footnotes and lists of works cited in the standard secondary historians, especially Doyle, English in America, Bancroft (early edition), Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, Henry Adams, History, Von Holst, Rhodes; and in the more detailed biographies. Collections of Reprints available for Schools There are now four collections of related reprints in American history, besides five series of leaflets, obtainable in single numbers or in quantities. Full sets of the nine works mentioned below, complete to the end of 1899, should cost all together about $45. American Colonial Tracts. Edited by George P. Humphrey (Rochester, 1897-).—A monthly series of reprints, taken chiefly from the rare and expensive Force Tracts, and not collated with the originals. American History Leaflets. Edited by Albert Bushnell Hart and Edward Channing (New York, 1892-96). Thirty numbers, chiefly documents; some complete, others made up of short related pieces. American History Studies: Selections made from the Sources. Edited by H. W. Caldwell (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1897-). — Chiefly short related extracts illustrating some general subject. American History told by Contemporaries. Edited by Albert Bushnell Hart (4 volumes, New York, 1897-). — Made up substantially on the same plan as the Source Book, except that the extracts are longer, and include many more subjects and authors. American Orations: Studies in American Political History. Edited by Alexander Johnston, reëdited by James Albert Woodburn (4 volumes, 2d ed., New York, 1898). Select Documents illustrative of the History of the United States. |