CHAPTER VI

ATTEMPTS TO CONTROL TEXTBOOKS

The public school deals with that period of life in which strong impressions find easy lodgment in the child’s memory. Altruism, glorification of national achievements, hero worship, and other emotions are excited by contacts with teachers and books. It is the age in which the child’s ideals can be fired by the sayings of famous men and in which the story of valorous deeds stirs a responsive enthusiasm. Indeed, it is a common belief that the influences of these early associations and impressions persist far into maturity, for “as the twig is bent, so the tree is inclined.” With a keen appreciation of the possibilities of this plastic period of child life, authors of textbooks in history and the other social studies, obedient to the spirit of their times, have exalted and condemned as the prevailing temper has dictated.

History for the sake of propaganda is not a unique possession of any one country. It has been employed in the name of “patriotism” by many nations. Livy extolled Rome, Green exalted England, Bancroft eulogized the exploits of the founders of America, and Treitschke and Nietzsche pictured the glories of an imperialist régime in Germany. As a result, there has developed an overweening pride in national and racial attributes and achievements. From such a source has sprung much of the hereditary enmity between France and Germany. Indeed, it has been said that an analogous situation exists in the United States, and a well-known writer recently declared that, through the study of American history, “Americans are taught to hate Britishers, ... and not only descendants of the men who made the Revolution, but every newly arrived immigrant child imbibes the hatred of Great Britain of today from the patriotic ceremonies of the public schools.”[411]

Propagandist history, however, is not merely an instrument of the ultra-nationalist. By the pacifist it may be employed to depict with a vivid gruesomeness the horrors of war; by it the militarist may demonstrate the advantages of preparedness; the racially conscious may narrate, in their history, achievements of their heroes to the exclusion or derogation of those of other groups; the religious enthusiasts may commend the contributions of their sect to the neglect of others; and economic and social organizations may seek to serve their particular purposes. Demands for revised history textbooks, such as emanated during the World War, to teach the point of view then current, are but a recent instance of a practice as old as the teaching of history.

HISTORY TEXTBOOKS IN THE SOUTH

In the United States, as well as elsewhere, propagandist influences have played their part in shaping the content of history textbooks. The South, in particular, has shown such tendencies, attempting in the _ante-bellum_ days to propagate a history favorable to the slave-holding interests, and since that time endeavoring to justify the past in the eyes of posterity. The desire to depict events from a sectional point of view was especially apparent in the decade preceding the Civil War when a concerted effort to prescribe the content of history textbooks expressed itself in frequent agitations against the use of Northern textbooks. By the Southerner was raised the same query which has been raised in our own time--whether the author of a textbook has a right “to step aside from his proper course to drag in his own private views on vexed questions of national import” about which a writer should “maintain an impartial stand.”[412] Such criticisms were directed against Northern textbook writers; for Southerners were agreed that an author would not be guilty of a heinous offense if he should “step aside ... to drag in” views favorable to the institution of slavery. Indeed, a sectional presentation of history was deemed a necessity; and a movement for “home education” to combat the teachings of the “abolitionist North” attained considerable vigor in the ’fifties. To the Southerner, “home education” meant Southern trained teachers and textbooks filled with the convictions of the slave-holding South. Through such agencies it was hoped to expel from their midst “the wandering incendiary Yankee school-master” with “his incendiary school books”[413] parading under “the black piratical ensign of abolitionism.”[414]

Even prior to the ’fifties, the South had realized the value of a propagandist literature, for Duff Green, a relative of John C. Calhoun, had secured a charter from South Carolina for a Southern Literary Company for the purpose of publishing school books adapted to his section.[415] Green’s efforts must have proved unsuccessful, for it was followed by much newspaper discussion of the situation, which gained in asperity as the South became more belligerent in the assertion of her rights.

Writing in _De Bow’s Review_ of 1855, one alarmist declared: “Our text-books are abolition works. They are so to the extent of their capacity, and though the poison of anti-slavery dogmas has not found its way into arithmetic and mixed mathematics, yet we should not be surprised to find that some work is now in progress in which the young learner will find his sums stated in abolition phrases, and perhaps be required to tell how many more sinners might have gone to Heaven if Abraham, the ‘father of the faithful and the friend of God’ had not been a slave holder and a dealer in human chattels; ... and so long as we use such work as Wayland’s _Moral Science_ and the abolition geographies, readers and histories, overrunning as they do, with all sorts of slanders, caricatures and blood-thirsty sentiments ... [they will] array our children by false ideas, against the established ordinances of God,....”[416]

Another writer could not condone the indifference of his section to the existence of such conditions. “When the public mind of our section was divided as to the justice and propriety of this institution [slavery] ...,” he remarked, “it was not then to be wondered at that we should remain indifferent to the views presented to our youth on the subject, and that we should carelessly allow them to peruse, even in their tender years, works in which slavery was denounced as an unmitigated evil, and the universal race of Ham’s descendants were blazoned forth as a set of dusky angels and martyrs. Such a course may have been defensible at that period, but tell me, what show of propriety is there in its continuance at the present day? We have become awake to the rightfulness and justice of our stand; we have come to know that we are more sinned against than sinning; and we have witnessed the complete failure of many quixotic attempts to transform negroes into prosperous and thriving freemen. Why then should we wish that the rising generation, who are to frame and control public opinion, after we have passed from being, should be on this question of vital importance taught doctrines which are in direct conflict with what we now believe?”[417]

Because “southern life, habits, thoughts, and aims” were “so essentially different from those of the North,” another protagonist of “home education” maintained that a different character of books and training was required to “bring up the boy to manhood with his faculties fully developed.”[418] Nor could this “true man” be developed if he must sit “at the feet of some abolition Gamaliel of the North,” but he must have “books and teachers of history from the South who should point out the destiny of the South.”[419]

As a result of the agitation of the press, the commercial conventions, which met during the years from 1853 to 1860, committed themselves with one accord, to the Southern educational program. The Memphis Convention of 1853 demanded the employment of native teachers, the encouragement of a home press, and the publication of books adapted to the educational wants and the social conditions of the section.[420] The following year, the Charleston Convention passed a resolution which urged the production of textbooks by Southern men “with express reference to the proper education of the Southern youth.”[421] The resolution declared that “this Convention earnestly recommends all parents and guardians within these states, to consider well, that to neglect the claims of their own seminaries and colleges, and patronize and enrich those of remote states, is fraught with peril to our sacred interests, perpetuating our dependence on those who do not understand and cannot appreciate our necessities and responsibilities; and at the same time fixing a lasting reproach upon our institutions, teachers and people.”[422]

In 1856, the Savannah Convention issued to “The People of the Slaveholding States” an address advocating joint action on the part of the Southern legislatures. “It will be well, at least, to look to our school books,” they declared. “Can the making of these be entrusted exclusively to those, who by instilling an occasional heresy, dangerous to our repose, imagine that they serve at the same time God and Mammon--their consciences and their pocket? The State Legislatures at the South alone are competent to heal this mischief. Property will submit to any amount of taxation for such a purpose. A system can and ought to be matured at the South by which the most ample encouragement shall be given to its educational system and its press. Withdraw at once the contributions which are returned too often to us now in contumely and insult.”[423]

At the same convention the committee upon the subject of “Text Books for Southern Schools and Colleges” reported that “the books rapidly coming into use in our schools and colleges at the South are not only polluted with opinions adverse to our institutions, and hostile to our constitutional views, but are inferior in every respect, as books of instruction to those which might be produced amongst ourselves, or procured from Europe....”[424] The Committee proposed that the convention take the matter “under their auspices and select or prepare such a series of books, in every department of study, from the earliest primer to the highest grade of literature and science, as shall seem to them best qualified to elevate and purify the education of the South.”[425] The Committee further recommended that “when this series of books shall have been prepared, the Legislatures of the Southern States be requested to adopt them as text-books.”[426]

The committees appointed at the Southern conventions evidently failed to obtain results, for _De Bow’s Review_ of 1858 querulously remarked that the committees seemed to have dropped into repose after their appointments.[427] Newspaper agitation, however, continued without abatement, _The Constitutionalist_ suggesting, in 1858, that Georgia by law should compel her schools to use Georgia school books in which information was given regarding the early history of the state, and which contained “eloquent and patriotic emanations from the gifted pens” of some of their “ablest writers.”[428]

History textbooks held a conspicuous place in most of the discussions. Peter Parley’s _History_, extensively used at this time, came in for much adverse criticism because, in the opinion of the Southerner, it “insulted” and “misrepresented” the institutions of the South.[429] “If it is important for us to have a home literature of our own in the lighter departments of reading and knowledge,” one critic remarked, “how much more vitally essential it is to our best interests that the books from which our children imbibe their earliest lessons in history and political economy should be written by those who are able to expound and vindicate, instead of misrepresenting and defaming the institutions under which they are to live and be educated.”[430]

Further criticism of the same textbook is found in an article on “Wants of the South” in _De Bow’s Review_ for 1860. “Our schools have long been groaning under the burden of questionable orthodoxy, and in some instances decided hostility to the institutions which her public instructors, of all others, may reasonably be expected to advocate and defend,” said one writer. “... no teacher or pupil who has used Peter Parley’s Histories, or any of the popular ‘Readers’ and ‘Orators’ from which juvenile disciples of Demosthenes have learned to spout so glibly eloquent invectives against slavery, the slave trade, will fail to recognize the long-deplored existence of this deadly evil.”[431]

Other books of an historical nature, which were especially obnoxious to the South, were Gilbert’s _Atlas_ and Appleton’s _Complete Guide of the World_, which contained “hidden lessons of the most fiendish and murderous character that enraged fanaticism could conceive or indite.”[432] “This book and many other northern school books scattered over the country come within range of the Statutes of this State [Louisiana], which provide for the imprisonment for life or the infliction of a penalty of death upon any person who shall publish or distribute such works ...,” declared one writer.[433]

Whelpley’s _Compend of History_ was also considered heretical in nature because of its discussion of slavery, which inculcated “improper precepts in the minds of our children.”[434] The writer in his diatribe against this book quoted the following passage from Whelpley to prove his point: “But for what purpose was he [the slave] brought from his country? Why was he forced from the scenes of his youth, and the cool retreats of his native mountains? Was it, that he might witness the saving knowledge of the gospel?... No. He was deprived of his _freedom_, the dearest pledge of his existence. _His mind was not cultivated and improved by science!... He is detested for his complexion, and ranked among the brutes for his stupidity._ His laborious exertions are extorted from him to enrich his purchasers, and _his scanty allowance is furnished, only that he may endure his sufferings for their aggrandizement_.”[435]

The discussion of slavery in the Northern textbooks was not the only cause for irritation. Equally distasteful to the Southerner were the invidious comparisons made between North and South.[436] The histories produced by the North, one writer pointed out, “are filled with praise and glorification of the New England and Northern states generally, as a set of incorruptible patriots, irreproachable moralists, and most exemplary models for future imitation, and their descendants are depicted as fully equalling the standard set for them by their distinguished ancestors, of unexceptionable demeanor. On the other hand, the individuals who organized society in the Southern States are pictured as a race of immoral reprobates, who have handed down all of their vices and evil habits to their descendants of this day. While the institution of slavery and its introduction into our country are made the occasion of much violent invective, there is but a slight effort at rebuke, and a large amount of apology is offered, for the amusements of burning witches, hanging Quakers, and banishing Baptists, formerly so very popular in New England. While we, who now support and defend the institution of slavery, are either denounced or pitied, the residents of the Northern States, who have always been the chief prosecutors of the slave trade are allowed to pass uncensured. Such is the state of the histories.”[437]

To Willson’s _Historical Series_ objection was raised because “the author has elected to make himself sectional and therefore must expect sectional support.” “Why say of the odious Hartford Convention,” a critic remarked, “‘Its proceedings were not as objectionable as many anticipated,’ or why use comparisons between the different sections as invidious, and as we believe and know, as false as these: ‘In Virginia and the southern colonies, where the inhabitants guided in the selection of their dwelling places chiefly by consideration of agricultural conveniences, dispersed themselves over the face of the country, often at considerable distances from each other, schools and churches were necessarily rare, and social intercourse but little known. The evils of the state of society thus produced still exist to a considerable extent in the southern portions of the Union. The colonization of New England was more favorable to the improvement of human character and morals.’” Further cause for complaint lay in the following passage: “Of the state of manners and morals in Maryland, Virginia and the southern colonies generally, we cannot give so gratifying an account. While the upper classes of inhabitants among the southern people were distinguished for a luxurious and expensive hospitality, they were too generally addicted to the vices of card playing, gambling and intemperance, while hunting and cock-fighting were favorite amusements of persons of all ranks.... It cannot be denied, however, that New England colonial history furnishes, on the whole, the most agreeable reminiscences, as well as the most abundant materials for the historian.”[438]

So common was a biased presentation of controversial questions in the books of the time that William Howard Russell, _The_ [London] _Times_ correspondent during the Civil War, declared that he was unable to obtain “a single solid, substantial work” on the controversy between the North and the South, for there was not one published which was “worth a cent.”[439]

Little response to the exponents of “home education” seems to have been made at this time by the state legislatures, although, in 1859, the Louisiana legislature adopted a resolution endorsing the movement “to encourage the production of and introduction into the schools of Louisiana of a series of school books written by citizens of the State, published in the South, not contaminated by the fanaticism of Northern authors.”[440] Other Southern states since the Civil War have prescribed the type of histories to be used in their schools, but they have had for their chief intent a “proper presentation of the War of the States.”

Since the Civil War the most active exponents of a pro-Southern history have been Southern veterans’ associations and kindred groups. Especially vigilant have been the United Confederate Veterans who, since 1892, with few exceptions have announced in annual convention their advocacy of “a true and reliable history.” In 1892, the first historical committee, composed of “comrades skilled and experienced in such matters,” was appointed to “select proper and truthful histories of the United States to recommend for use in the public and private schools of the South.”[441] No meeting of the Veterans was held in 1893, but the following year the Historical Committee offered an extensive and elaborate report.[442] This report suggested the establishment of a chair of American history in Southern universities with time for research; that the Association recommend to the legislatures of Southern states that provision be made in the public school course for the teaching of history of the native state for one year, and for the establishment and support of a chair of American history in the state university or some suitable state institution, and that the preparation of school histories of the state be encouraged; that all private schools and academies teach the history of the state one year and devote the same amount of time to United States history; and that state legislatures be memorialized in order to gain their coöperation in securing “a different presentation of the narrative of facts for the truth of history of our common country.”[443]

The Committee, besides their recommendations, classified school histories in three groups. In the first class were those issued in the first ten or fifteen years following the close of the War, “dictated by prejudice and prompted by the evil passion that time had not then softened.” Secondly came those Northern histories apparently fair, either through a revision of an earlier edition or emasculation, in an “effort to curry favor with the text-book patrons of both sections”; also those histories with separate editions for North and South, as well as those “written and published at the North in which an honest effort is made to do justice to the South” but which failed to emphasize the distinctive features of the South or to emphasize the place of the South in the history of the Union. The third group contained a list of text-books acceptable to the Veterans, including _Hansell’s Histories_ by H. E. Chambers of Louisiana, _History of the American People_ by J. H. Shinn of Arkansas, _History of the United States_ by Alexander Stephens of Georgia, _History of the United States_ by George F. Holmes of Virginia, _History of the United States_ by Blackburn and McDonald of Maryland, _Grammar School History_ by L. A. Field of Georgia, and _History of the United States_ by J. T. Terry of Georgia.

The report of the Committee of 1894 was accepted unanimously and the resolution, passed to continue the committee, urged that it “do everything in its power to encourage the preparation of suitable school histories and especially to encourage their publication by the building up of Southern publishing houses....”[444]

The Reports of 1895 and of 1896 manifested the same spirit and offered substantially the same recommendations as those made by the Committee of 1894. Both desired a “vindication for the Southern people and a refutation of the slanders, the misrepresentations and the imputations” which they had “so long and patiently borne.”[445] The Report of 1895 pointed out that “while the South has always been prominent in making history, she has left the writing of history to New England historians” whose chief defect was “lack of catholic sympathy for all sections of the country.”[446] The importance of the work of the Historical Committee was recognized in 1895 by increasing its membership from seven to fifteen to include a representative from each Southern state.[447]

By 1897 the agitation for sectional histories had become so stormy that the Nashville reunion took under advisement a suggestion of the Grand Army of the Republic of Wisconsin, which proposed the appointment of a “commission of distinguished educators from the ranks of the contending armies” who should write a history of the period 1861 to 1865 which should be satisfactory to both sections.[448] The Historical Committee of the Confederate Veterans, however, deemed it inadvisable to undertake such a project, believing that a history textbook could not be written as well by a commission as by one person. However, the Committee pointed out that “the destiny of the South is now inseparably bound up with that of this great republic and that it is to the interest of the whole nation and its citizens everywhere that coming generations of Southern men should give to the Union the same love and devotion which their fathers gave to the United States and then to the ill-starred Confederacy;....”[449] And, although they realized that “no sectional history is wanted in the schools of this country,” yet the Southern people desired in their histories “to retain from the wreck in which their constitutional views, their domestic institutions, the mass of their property, and the lives of their best and bravest were lost, the knowledge that their conduct was honorable throughout, and that their submission at last ... in no way blackened their motives or established the wrong of the cause for which they fought.”[450]

Among the points at issue in the adoption of Northern textbooks was the use of certain opprobrious terms. At the Atlanta reunion in 1898, a resolution was adopted which gave voice to such objections. It requested the substitution of the term “the civil war between the States” for “the war of the Rebellion,” because such an expression reflected “on the patriotism of the Southern people and the cause for which they so heroically fought....”[451] The Historical Committee at the same time indicated their aversion to other “offensive epithets” in Northern histories, such as “rebels” and “arch-traitors.”[452] They recommended, among other things, that “Boards of Education and all others having charge of the selection of histories, geographies, speeches, readers, etc., be careful to exclude works that show the

## partisan, sectional and unpatriotic spirit.”[453]

Yet the need of a “broad American patriotism” was recognized by the United Confederate Veterans regardless of their attacks on Northern produced histories. Such an attitude manifested itself in the committee report of the reunion of 1898 which quoted with favorable comment an extract from an address of Commander John W. Frazier of the Fred Taylor Post, G. A. R., of Philadelphia. The Confederate Veterans especially approved the spirit of Mr. Frazier when he declared: “We must under the blending influence exerted by the new order of things, undo that which sectional feelings led both North and South to do in regard to the publication of public school histories--certain to create and foster lasting and bitter prejudices--and use our influence in behalf of a public school history of the late war and the causes leading to it, that will be used in common in all the public schools of the country,....”[454]

The suggestion of Mr. Frazier reflected the welding influence of the Spanish-American War upon all factions in America. In 1899, the Historical Committee of the Confederate Veterans announced that its duty was “little more than to keep watch upon the histories of the day” for “the prospect for fairness and candor in historical writing” seemed “much improved since the Spanish War,” because “a new perspective,” had been afforded the historian.[455] Yet the same report evidenced a watchfulness on the part of the Southerner to prevent the use of books which “either pervert or fail to do justice to the history of the people of this section.”[456] The reunion further endorsed the recommendation of the Historical Committee for the appointment in each state of a sub-committee of three to examine “every history taught in the schools of the state with especial reference to ascertaining whether said books contain incorrect or inaccurate statements or make important omissions of facts, or inculcate narrow or partisan sentiments.”[457] In the event that any defects were found in any of the histories used in the schools, the Committee suggested that each sub-committee should “enter into friendly correspondence with the authors and publishers of such books, with a view to correcting such errors, or supplying such omissions.” In addition, it became the duty of each sub-committee “annually, one month before each reunion to make a report” to the Historical Committee, showing what histories of the state and of the United States were used in the schools of the state; and further “to make such suggestions with regard to school histories and with regard to the teaching of history” as might seem appropriate.[458]

The reports of the next few years show a slackening vigilance on the part of the historical committees. At each meeting of the Veterans a report and suggestions as to the improvement of historical instruction in the South were offered, but much of the recriminatory tone of the reports of the ’nineties had disappeared. In 1900, the Committee recommended again that the term “the war between the states” be substituted for other terms, and that money be appropriated in order that the Historical Committee could carry on their campaign, through the press and public meetings, for the use of histories doing “full justice” both to the South and the North.[459] The Reunion of 1902 sanctioned the suggestion of the Historical Committee dealing with the preparation of a source book portraying the “character, the ideals and the leadership of the South,” and called favorable attention to Thomas Dixon’s novel _The Leopard’s Spots_.[460]

The historical reports presented to the reunions held in 1908, 1909 and 1910 still discussed the need for “true history” although commending the fairness of most historians. Yet the Committee hesitated to relax its watchfulness because “the history of the Confederate period as it is told in many books that may be used in our schools, ... demands and deserves undiminished vigilance.”[461]

The Report of 1910 expressed, however, a sanguine satisfaction in the condition resulting from the agitation about history textbooks. “We do not fear the bookmaker now,” the Veterans declared. “Southern schools and Southern teachers have prepared books which Southern children may read without insult or traduction of their fathers. Printing presses all over the Southland--and all over the Northland--are sending forth by thousands ones which tell the true character of the heroic struggle. The influence and wealth of the South forbid longer the perversion of truth and the falsification of history.”[462]

In the reports of the historical committees two history textbooks received specific criticism for their treatment of Southern institutions and life. In 1903, attention was called to a paragraph in _The Young People’s Story of the Great Republic_ by Ella Hines Stratton, in which “a most false and misleading account” was given of the capture of Fort Pillow by General N. B. Forrest.[463] The Report of 1911 devoted considerable space to an attack on Elson’s _History of the United States_. “One of the most extraordinary happenings in regard to the history of the South occurred in Virginia in the last few weeks,” chronicled the Report. “Elson’s History of the United States had been selected as a textbook by Roanoke College. Miss Sarah Moffett, one of the students of the college, refused to attend the history class or use this history where it referred to the South and its people. For this she suffered reprimand.”[464] The Southern Cross Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy thereupon undertook an investigation and issued a circular which was “widely distributed.”[465] The circular was addressed: “To the Daughters of the Confederacy, the Camps of the Confederate Veterans, the Sons of Veterans, and to all Who are Loyal to the Southland, and Love Her Traditions and Desire a truthful History of Her Social and Political Life.”[466]

The charges brought against Mr. Elson rested upon “the partisan spirit that prompted the writer to slander a people who had reached the pinnacle of high ideals, refinement and culture, and to which it has never been the fortune of many to attain.”[467] To the Southerner was especially abhorrent the portrayal of slave life in the South in which it was said: “‘Often the attractive slave woman was a prostitute to her master,’” “‘an evil’” that “‘was widespread at the South.’”[468] Further objections arose to the statement: “‘A sister of President Madison declared that though the Southern ladies were complimented with the name of wife they were only the mistresses of Seraglios’”; and that “‘a leading Southern lady declared to Harriet Martineau that the wife of many a planter was but the chief slave of his harem.’”[469] Mr. Elson was also regarded as misrepresenting the cause of the Civil War, which he attributed “to slavery and slavery alone” and not to state rights, which he declared “in the abstract had nothing to do with bringing on the war.”[470]

In response to the circular of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Veterans adopted a resolution indicating that it could not be “too earnestly pressed upon the attention of those in charge of our educational institutions the supreme importance of excluding from our schools and colleges all histories that do not in their reports of the great struggle for constitutional liberty ... fairly and impartially represent the facts.” The Reunion further resolved that there be used “only such histories as will recognize the justice of that cause [of 1861-1865] in support of which so many of our brave comrades shed their blood and gave their lives.”[471]

In 1912 the agitation regarding history textbooks had lost much of its bitterness and the line of cleavage between the Northerner’s history and that of the Southerner seemed less apparent. Under the fusing influence of the World War, the Confederate Veterans held their reunion in 1917 in the city of Washington where Confederate and Union flags waved together.[472] But the spirit of sectional interest had too long enslaved them and, in 1921, the Reunion favorably adopted a report of the Rutherford Committee. Chief among the achievements for a “true history” which the Committee were able to report was the adoption of satisfactory histories in the states of Mississippi and Texas. The Committee predicted similar action in North Carolina where there were “true histories by Southern authors and published by a home house,” thereby eliminating any necessity for even considering “any Yankee books.”[473]

A revival of propaganda for sectional histories since 1921 is due in some degree to the appearance of two pamphlets which set forth the need of a distinct type of history for the South: _The Truth of the War Conspiracy of 1861_, by H. W. Johnstone, and _Truths of History_, by Mildred Lewis Rutherford, state historian for the United Daughters of the Confederacy. These pamphlets received the unanimous endorsement of the United Confederate Veterans at their meeting in Richmond, Virginia, June, 1922, in a resolution recommending their use in the public schools.[474] Among other things, these writings purported to establish the fact that Lincoln began the Civil War. The committee report declared: “This [_The Truth of the War Conspiracy of 1861_] presents the official evidence gathered principally from the United States Government archives, which proves the Confederate War was deliberately and personally conceived and its inauguration made by Abraham Lincoln, and that he was personally responsible for forcing the war upon the South.”[475]

The endorsement of this ultra-Southern viewpoint caused a storm of protest, particularly in the North. Under the caption “The Confederate Veterans’ New Glands,” the _Chicago Daily Tribune_ observed: “We are moved to wonder, ‘What is history?’ The Standard Dictionary defines it as ‘a systematic record of past events.’ No better definition in six words occurs to us. But more or less recent events in world politics, coupled with the current action of the Confederate Veterans, indicates [_sic_] that that definition is in error. History is becoming, if it has not already reached that stage, a medium of propaganda. That became evident in the world war, when European histories were combed for evidence of the innate barbarity of the German people. It was more evident in the efforts to arouse the American people to the point of intervention and actual warfare to free Ireland. It is now emphasized through the efforts of the Confederate Veterans to impose upon the children of the south their own interpretation of the Civil War, regardless of accuracy or the effect upon the nation. The Veterans are attempting to pass on their old hates and rancors to their descendants. They have not yet surrendered to Grant. They are a trifle feeble, to be sure, but apparently becoming less so. They are busily engaged in swapping their old glands for new.”[476]

_The New York Times_ expressed equally strong disapproval of an effort to revive the bitterness of the past and attempt “a revocation of beatification or canonization” of Lincoln.[477]

No less resentful at the attempted disparagement of Lincoln’s services were the officers of the Grand Army of the Republic, who assailed Miss Rutherford’s statement that Lincoln began the war as a “lie.”[478] Mrs. John A. Logan, representing the Dames of the Loyal Legion, also offered objections to such “a perversion of facts,” and declared that all patriotic societies would be urged to seek the suppression of any such histories.[479]

Protests against this revival of sectional animosity were not localized in the North. _The Macon_ [Georgia] _Telegraph_ suggested to Miss Rutherford that she would find better employment were she to bring to public view the virtues, the generosities and heroisms which were in the Old South and should be carried over in the New South. The _Telegraph_ also believed that it would prove fruitful of good were she to dwell on the cordial tributes paid by the North to Lee as a man and as a general; and as for Lincoln, with much less research than she used in unearthing dubious evidences of his antagonism to the Southerners, she could find almost innumerable and indubitable proofs of his good-will. The _Telegraph_ concluded that “the whole nation looks upon its Lincolns and its Lees as Americans, and humanity looks upon them as its own.”[480]

Beside the allegation that Lincoln began the Civil War, Miss Rutherford, following the impulse given her by the Johnstone pamphlet, _Truths of the War Conspiracy of 1861_,[481] offered quotations to show that Lincoln was not a fit example for children, nor was he given his rightful place in history. Such quotations as the following are indicative of the character of her remarks: “People found in Lincoln before his death nothing remarkably good or great, but on the contrary, found in him the reverse of goodness or greatness. Lincoln as one of Fame’s immortals does not appear in the Lincoln of 1861 (Schouler’s _History of the United States_, Vol. VI, p. 21).”[482] “Lincoln signed the liquor revenue bill and turned the saloon loose on the country, thus undoing the previous temperance work of the churches.”[483] “Mr. Lincoln went to church, but he went to mock and came away to mimic.”[484] “The people all drank, and Abe was for doing what the people did, right or wrong.”[485] Miss Rutherford also presented evidence designed to prove that Lincoln was a tricky politician,[486] and that the Emancipation Proclamation was unconstitutional.[487]

In contrast with these characterizations of Lincoln are the “spotless integrity, controlling conscience” and “sincere religious convictions” ascribed to Davis. Even a Northern historian, Ridpath, according to Miss Rutherford, testified that Davis had bitterness toward no man.[488]

Eighty-one per cent of the schools and colleges in the South, according to Miss Rutherford, were using, in 1921, “text-books untrue to the South,” and “seventeen per cent” were “using histories omitting most important facts concerning the South.”[489] As written, the histories “magnify and exalt the New England colonies and the Mayflower crew, with bare mention of the Jamestown Colony, thirteen years older, and the crews of the _Susan Constant_, the _Discovery_, and the _Goodspeed_.”[490] Other objectionable features in most school histories were the “extended account” generally given to the “religious faith and practice” of New England with no mention of Sir Thomas Dale’s Code in the Jamestown Colony, “which enforced daily attendance upon Divine worship, penalty for absence, penalty for blasphemy, penalty for speaking evil of the Church, and refusing to answer the Catechism, and for neglecting work.”[491]

Other Southerners than Miss Rutherford have criticized the customary presentation of history. “We owe it to our dead, to our living, and to our children, to preserve the truth and repel the falsehoods, so that we may secure just judgment from the only tribunal before which we may appear and be fully and fairly heard, and that tribunal is the bar of history,” asserted Benjamin H. Hill.[492] Likewise Thomas Nelson Page declared: “In a few years there will be no South to demand a history if we have history as it is now written. How do we stand today in the eyes of the world? We are esteemed ‘ignorant, illiterate, cruel, semi-barbarous, a race sunken in brutality and vice, a race of slave drivers who disrupted the Union in order to perpetuate human slavery and who as a people have contributed nothing to the advancement of mankind.’”[493]

Among the textbooks designated by Miss Rutherford for special criticism were Davidson’s _History of the United States_, Montgomery’s _Beginner’s American History_, and Muzzey’s _An American History_.[494] Davidson was criticized because he asserted that “the Jamestown colonists were vicious idlers and jail birds picked up on the streets of London,” and because of the statement that “side by side the two civilizations had grown up in America--the one dedicated to progress and kept up with the spirit of the age--the other a landed aristocracy with slavery as the chief excuse for its existence.”[495]

Condemnation was meted out to Muzzey’s textbook because it was alleged that he said, “The cause for which the Confederate soldiers fought was an unworthy cause and should have been defeated,” and because “it is impossible for the student of history today to feel otherwise than that the cause for which the South fought was unworthy.”[496] Montgomery was placed in the objectionable group because he described the settlers of Georgia as “filthy, ragged, dirty prisoners taken from the ‘Debtor’s Prison’ by Oglethorpe.”[497]

On the other hand, R. G. Horton’s _A Youth’s History of the Civil War_ presents a point of view acceptable to Miss Rutherford, for it declares that “the withdrawal of the Southern States from the Union was in no sense a declaration of war upon the Federal government but the Federal government declared war on them, as history will show.”[498]

Doubtless the most prejudiced discussion of mooted questions since the Civil War appears in the textbooks produced before the opening of the twentieth century. This period, in general, characterized by a spirit of intense local patriotism, reflected itself clearly in the history textbooks. During this period were published such Southern textbooks as Venable, _A School History of the United States_, Lee, _New School History of the United States_, Chambers, _A School History of the United States_, and Taylor, _Model School History_.

Susan Pendleton Lee’s _New School History of the United States_ can be quoted as typical. “The Constitution of the United States recognized slavery.... The opinion that it was a moral wrong did not prevail before the days of Garrison and his followers who pronounced it to be the sum of all ‘iniquity.’... The outcry against slavery had made the Southern people study the subject, and they had reached the conclusion that the evils connected with it were less than those of any other system of labor. Hundreds of thousands of African savages had been Christianized under its influence. The kindest relations existed between the slaves and their owners.... The bondage in which the negroes were held was not thought a wrong to them, because they were better off than any other menial class in the world.”[499] The same author justified the Ku Klux Klan because “no high spirited, courageous people could patiently submit to such a government.” “As open resistance was impossible,” she declares, “they, too, had recourse to secret organizations. They were at first local, and were intended for self-protection against the barn burnings and worse outrages committed by misguided negroes.”[500]

As a result of this desire to present the history of their section in terms of their own convictions, the Southerners have always agitated for textbooks different from those used in Northern schools. Northern textbook companies whose enterprise was much condemned during the _ante-bellum_ period have capitalized this sectional preference and produced for Southern consumption, among others, Evans’ _The Essential Facts of American History_, Chambers’ A _School History of the United States_, and Stephenson’s _An American History_.[501] On the other hand, for the North, the same book companies have published textbooks satisfactory to that section. Today, in substantially all of the states which formed the Confederacy, specific textbooks in American history are prescribed, a practice not so universal in the North, where local adoption is sometimes found.[502] An analysis of these Southern textbooks, however, discloses a very temperate presentation of controversial questions. Upon the points of contention between the North and the South, there is a natural bias in favor of the South, a tendency to attempt justification and exoneration. Evans, in _The Essential Facts of American History_, for example, in discussing “reasons for secession,” lays greater stress than the textbooks of the North on the right of secession, a “right which had been asserted by other than the Southern States.”[503] Stephenson, in _An American History_, dubs John Brown as “that terrible John Brown,”[504] and characterizes the carpet-bag governments as insolent, dishonest and violent.[505] The terms “rebellion” and “civil war” are employed by Northern, not Southern, histories, the “war of the states” and the “war of secession” being used in the South.

ATTEMPTS OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC TO CONTROL HISTORY TEXTBOOKS

Six years before the Confederate Veterans in reunion accepted the report of their first historical committee regarding the “false” histories used in Southern schools, the Grand Army of the Republic learned through a similar channel that the history textbooks of the North “signally” failed “to comprehend the causes that resulted in the war of the rebellion.”[506] Much cause for complaint arose from the fact that textbooks were “compiled for a national system of education, South as well as North,”--a condition held sadly unacceptable, it would seem, by the patriotic organizations of this period.[507]

In the Report of 1888, the G. A. R. undertook to point out statements in textbooks used in the South which appealed to them as indicative of “a thoroughly studied, rank, partisan system of sectional education.”[508] As a case in point Davidson’s _School History of South Carolina_, “published at Columbia, South Carolina, by one W. J. Duffie, copyrighted in 1869,” was examined. This history, so the Report declared, in