The excellent address made by the President of the Nebraska Federation at Denver was crowded into insufficient space in our issue of last month, and this department was the loser thereby. The editor desires to apologize for the absence of some parts of the address, and to say that she will supply the complete copy to any member of the Nebraska Federation who asks for it.

The Atmosphere of School Room's. It is interesting to observe the steady progress of the movement for decorating school rooms, says the "American Architect." It is not very many years since anything was thought good enough for children. Rough benches, bad air, foul water, steep stairs, and the cheapest location available were considered suitable for school purposes. In one case, an abandoned cemetery in a Massachusetts town was taken for a school lot; and all books on hygiene for the last quarter century refer to "school room air” as the type of the worst kind.

At the present day, in most of our older states, a generous supply of pure air for school rooms is made compulsory. Inspectors are provided, to see that the

law is complied with, and a school in which ventilation is insufficient may be summarily closed. Public opinion will no longer tolerate the use of well water for city schools, which was not unusual two decades ago. The consequence of the reforms is already seen in the superior health and strength of young Ameri cans, and it is not strange that people who understand the verygreat influence of outside surroundings on the minds of children have thought of providing for their aesthetic cultivation by surrounding them with objects of art.

Many schools are now ornamented with photographs of buildings or pictures, and it is becoming rather common for the architects of school buildings to arrange places where casts of statuary can be put. One public school building has a full-sized cast of Donatello's “Saint George, in a conspicuous position in its assembly-hall. The influence of the beautiful statue upon the 700 children who see it every day must be incalculable.

Judicious selection is likely soon to be an important consideration in these matters. The taste of school committees and superintendents is apt to be warped in a literary direction, and busts of Shakespeare or Whittier or Longfellow are likely, unless watch is kept, to be chosen instead of works of real aesthetic value.

T

EDITORIAL
Some New National Problems.

our language becomes the common speech of HOUGHTFUL men are saying that the these peopl·, the sooner they will become important factor in our recent victories

Americanized. Ame

American literature breathes a was the man behind the guns."

Be spirit of freedom. The children of Cuba and hind this man was the American free school;

Hawaii and Luzon and Puerto Rico should be in the school was the thoughtful teacher.

If taught the literature of Longfellow, Whittier, the teacher and the school brought about these

Mrs. Stowe, Lowell, and the history of Washvictories, they must now meet new problems. ington, Franklin, Lincoln, and Grant at once. If Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines are

Our songs should become their songs. It is to to be a part of America, they must be Amer- be hoped that this will become at once the esicanized. This can be done only through the

tablished policy in the administration of the American school.

islands. Provincial school superintendents This school must be taught by well educated

should be sent to the islands from among the men and women who believe in America and its

best and most progressive superintendents in institutions. The language of the schools must this country. A normal school should be esbe English exclusively--at least after the first

tablished at once in each island, and a territorial year. The natives of these islands, while they system of education with local teachers' instihave been taught colloquial Spanish, have no tutes put into operation immediately. This love for Spain, for its institutions, for its his should be done in the interest of education, hutory, for its literature. There is no excuse for manity, and economy of administration. any sentiment on this side of the question. Industrial schools should be a part of the Spanish should not be taught in our schools, system. The very crude methods of work in nor in the schools of these islands. The sooner agriculture and the trades prevent the fullest development of the country. It is imperative the rural schools there and fitted for college in that the natives be developed at once into self- one of the best academies of that state. He supporting citizens. The country is wonder- then began teaching, and, unlike too many teachfully productive, and experts say that the soil ers, began his real studying. He was naturally could be made to yield five times what it does and constantly a student. By hard study he now. There is demand for trained men in all added to his scholarship until he was the equal the trades. If three men like Booker T. Wash- in scholarship of any graduate of any normal ington could be found and sent, one to Manila, school. He taught a few years in Illinois, one to Havana, and the other to San Juan, then came to Nebraska, taking charge of the and put in charge of such an institution as schools at David City. From there he went to Tuskegee Institute, it would hasten peace and Crete, and did the strongest work there that pro p.rity more than battleships and standing had ever been done in the state. Soon after armies.

locating there he began studying in the Nebraska State University at Lincoln, twenty miles from Crete. For several years he came to Lincoln on Saturdays-arriving at 7 A.M. and leaving at 6 P.M. In this way he studied botany, chemistry, zoology, Latin, and began his work in literature with Dr. Sherman which was his great delight, and in which he did remarkable work. The University, recognizing his hard work and counting his Saturday and summer school work as residence work, granted him the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1896. Not satisfied with this he took up additional lines of study and in 1897 was granted the Master's degree.

He spent seven years in Crete, and was then called to Nebraska City five years ago. In five years he had made the schools superior to any others in the state, and superior in language, reading, geography, arithmetic, and nature study to any schools the writer has ever seen anywhere. Other men played with new ideas; he used them. In five years he had made great schools by making great teachers. He transformed the schools by transforming the teach

Long will these faithful workers hold him in grateful recollection.

As an institute worker he had no equal in the West. His wonderful energy and enthusiasm touched even the most indifferent.

No man Welles H. Skinner.

ever contributed more to the educational inter

ests of Nebraska. As a writer he was becoming DIED SEPTEMBER 21, 1898.

favorably known. As a lecturer and speaker he EBRASKA and the West could ill afford was in great demand. He had been engaged to

to lose this man. His work was just deliver an address before the New Jersey Teach

beginning to be appreciated. His life ers' Association in December. The loss to Newas spent in hard work. He was born in 1855 braska is great, and to his personal friends and in Virginia, and received his early education in family his death was a sad bereavement.

ers.

N

B

External Criticism: Genuineness of the Sources ERNHEIM'S KRITIK, the second division be used. The historian should guard against of Method, covers practically the same

these two errors. ground as Langlois and Seignobos' Op- Man is naturally credulous. It is much easérations analytiques. The subdivisions of the ier to believe what we hear than to sift the eviformer are External Criticism, Internal Criti- dence in order to find out the truth. This last cism, and Critical Arrangement of the Material; process is so unnatural that few men will unof the latter, External Criticism and Internal dertake it unless it is absolutely necessary. Criticism.

Criticism is often a thankless task, for its reExternal Criticism, Bernheim subdivides into: sults are frequently negative, forcing the hisTesting the Genuineness, Localization of the torian to throw aside as worthless what he has Source, and Editing; Langlois and Seignobos, gathered with so much difficulty. into Criticism of Restoration, Criticism of Ori- The critical attitude toward the sources has gin, Critical Classification of the Sources, and been a product of time. Although it has Criticism of Erudition and the Erudites. reached its fullest development in our day, there

The ground covered in both works is practi- were historians among the Greeks whose attically the same, Bernheim being, of course, tude was in some respects strikingly modern. more technical and detailed, while Langlois and Speaking of the credulous spirit, Thucydides Seignobos, in their interesting chapter on “La said (I., 20): “For men receive alike without critique d'érudition et les érudits," deal with a examination from each other the reports of past subject not treated by Bernheim, or, rather, events, even though they may have happened treat it from a different point of view.

in their own country.

With so little In this chapter, I shall consider the first sub- pains is the investigation of truth pursued by division of External Criticism, the Testing of most men; and they rather turn to views althe Genuineness of the Source.

ready formed.” Referring to his own methods The first question that the historian puts to of investigation, he wrote (I., 22): “But with the sources that he has brought together is regard to the facts of what was done in this “Are they genuine? Or, subdividing the ques- war, I do not presume to state them on hearsay tion, he asks, “Are they what they appear from any chance informant, nor as I thought to be?” (forgery), and “ Are they what I probable myself, but those at which I was perthink they are?” (self-deception). In the first sonally present, and, when informed by others, case, the trouble lies with the source; in the sec- only after investigating the accurately in ond case, with the historian. A lack of criti- every particular, as far as was possible." cism in the first case would lead us to use material Many passages from the histories of Polybthat should not be used; a lack of criticism in ius (I., 14; XII., 17-22) show that his attitude the second case, or it may be hypercriticism, toward the sources was decidedly critical. would cause us to reject material that should But I recall nothing that would indicate that either of these writers carried their skepticism Moabite pottery, the second the Sardinian so far as to doubt the genuineness of the material literature, or “Parchments of Arborea.” that fellinto their hands. They dealt more with After the discovery, in 1866, of the Mesa what we call to-day Internal Criticism. Even stone with its invaluable inscription, in the land here Thucydides was not consistent, but at- of Moab, there appeared for sale by a dealer in tempted to make a rational narrative out of the antiquities at Jerusalem certain old Hebrew inmyths of the Iliad, gravely discussed the reasons scriptions similar to that on the Mesa stone. for Agamemnon's leadership in the Trojan War, In the spring of the year 1872, there appeared and knew the contents of the sealed letter sent at the same place certain pieces of pottery and by Pausanias to the Persian king, Xerxes. In later in the year vases, urns, etc., with inscripa word, the critical method was not thoroughly tions and drawings, 2,000 pieces in all. The conscious and scientific.

articles were brought to Jerusalem by an Arab, The Greeks left us nothing in the writing of Selim, who had been in the employ of Eurohistory but the work of Lucian, referred to in

pean excavators. The dealer in Jerusalem was the preceding chapter. The Romans did not charged with fraud, and, in company with those accomplish as much as the Greeks, and the man interested, went to the place indicated by Selim of the Middle Ages was incapable of doing crit- and found other articles of the same nature. ical work. With the Renaissance, the forward Although criticism was not silenced, many of movement began again and from rational criti- tbe articles were bought, at the advice of Gercism the scholars of the follownig period passed man savants, for the Berlin Museum. Careful rapidly to hypercriticism. In the latter part of criticism has shown that the articles are counterthe seventeenth century, the Jesuit Harduin, dis- feits and that the work was probably done by turbed by the large amount of forged material the Arab Selim. that he encountered, went so far as “to deny The Sardinian forgery is even more interestthe entire foundation of our historical knowl- ing. In 1863–65, there was published in Italy edge, and to reject as forged a long series of a series of letters, biographies, poems, and historical works and documents: Pindar, other literary fragments, supposed to have Thucydides, Dionysius, Diodorus, Strabo, Jo- been composed in the island of Sardinia in the sephus, Varro, Livy, Terrence, Vergil, Horace, period from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. Eusebius, Cassiodorus, etc.”

The original manuscripts were of parchment A reaction naturally set in against this ex- and paper. The find created a great sensation, treme view, leading to the present rational for it was not known that such a state of culture attitude of carefully testing all material and had ever existed in Sardinia. The originals, "holding fast that which is good.” This is the after publication, were deposited in the library solid foundation of External Criticism, upon at Cagliari. As a heated discussion had arisen in which modern historical science is built.

Italy over the genuineness of the material, some But it is not surprising that the man of the of the originals were submitted to the Academy Renaissance were led into hypercriticism. The of Sciences at Berlin for criticism. Jaffé inhighways and by ways of history are strewn vestigated the material of the manuscripts and with forgeries. Every kind of source material the handwriting; Tobler, the language and can point to its famous examples. Some of literature; Dove, the historical contents. They these cases are well known to others than the established, beyond the possibility of a doubt, special student of history.

that the material was forged. A long list of forgeries could be made under The Forged Decretals, the Gift of Constanthe head of Remains. This practice of fabricat- tine, the poems of Ossian and Chatterton are ing relics of the past and, for various reasons, forgeries known to every school boy. passing them off as genuine has been continued Marie Antoinette suffered much at the hands down to our own day. Two of the most famous of the forger. The historian of the French of those perpetrated in the nineteenth century Revolution who attempts to write the life of are described by Bernheim; the first was the

this unfortunate woman is confronted at the very threshold of his work with the question, This rendered the critics suspicious, and they “How many of the letters attributed to her were were naturally desirous to know why the origireally written by her?” The famous collection nal manuscript had been destroyed and how of her letters by Feuillet de Conches and Count much of the Mémoires was the work of Talleyd'Hunolstein contain a great mass of forgeries. rand and how much the work of Bacourt. A glance at the introduction to the first volume They will probably never know. of the collection by La Rocheterie and De Beau- In 1897, the English Historical Review and court (Paris, 1895 ) will give some idea of the German Historische Zeitschrift contained what a Herculanean labor the determination of interesting critical articles on a series of secret the genuineness of the material may become. reports on the French Revolution published in

In 1895 a work entitled, “The Journal of a the Dropmore Papers. Spy in Paris during the Reign of Terror,” pur- The Mémoires de Weber on the French porting to have been written in 1794 by one Revolution is largely the work of Lolly-TollenRaoul Hesdin, was printed in London by the dal, and it is claimed that the Comte de Ségur reputable firm of John Murray. The editor wrote the Mémoires de Besenval. And so the did not give his name, did not state where the list might be continued indefinitely. Besides manuscript was found, nor where it could be the injury done by treating forged material as seen by the skeptical.

if it were genuine, as great an injury may be The work received little attention on this side of done by treating genuine material as if it were the Atlantic. The American Historical Review forged. Bernheim gives a number of inter(July, 1896) remarked that “the unsatisfactory esting illustrations of this kind of error. The point about The Journal is that no evidence is mistake is due to ignorance.

mistake is due to ignorance. During the first given of its authenticity,” but no attempt was half of this century, quite a number of mediaemade to prove by a study of its contents that val sources were set aside as forgeries, but the work was a forgery. This was successfully have since been recognized as genuine. undertaken by the English Historical Rewiew in Enough has been written, I take it, to make the July number of 1896. It is a good example clear the necessity of testing the genuineness of for the student of history to study. The work sources before using them. It is now in order was shown to be a forgery.

to say a word about how this is done. This case is the more interesting as the anon- Apart from the genius that characterizes the ymous editor attempted to defend himself by most successful criticism, the indespensable anonymous letters written to the Athenaeum. preparation for this work is the acquisition of Although the work is a forgery, it is a clever a fund of detailed knowledge concerning the forgery, and it would be well worth the while source material of the period in which the forof the historical student to give it some study. gery is supposed to have originated. Such a fund The absence of the manuscript rendered, of is not the property of the novice, and only the course, the work of detection much more diffi- veteran knows how difficult of acquisition it cult than it otherwise would have been.

is, how much time and patience and skill are exThe question of the authenticity of the so- pended in securing it. called “Casket Letters” of Mary Queen of The investigation of the genuineness of a Scots is still an unsettled question. The ap- source is little more than a series of comparipearance of the Mémoires of Talleyrand a few sons systematically conducted.

The suspected years ago raised a discussion upon their source forms a part of the remains that have genuineness that lasted for more than a year. come down to us from some previous age. If The manuscript of Talleyrand was not to be it be genuine it will be in harmony with all the found; it had probably been destroyed. The other sources of that period and bear the marks existing manuscript was a copy made by Ba- common to all the culture products of that age. court. This gentleman had formerly edited A simple statement of this fact will make the correspondence between Mirabeau and De clear that as difficult as it may be to detect a Lamarck, and had taken great liberties with it. forgery, it is even more difficult for a forgery