p. 786 | “ROMANIZING” HISTORY

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 28, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 50.

“ROMANIZING” HISTORY.

THE Boston correspondent of the New York Evening Post gives an account in the columns of that paper for November 17, of the first of a series of public meetings which will be held in Boston during the coming winter for the agitation of the question of Roman Catholic interference with the public schools. At the meeting last week the Committee of One Hundred, appointed, at the mass-meeting in July, to look after the interests of the Protestants, made a statement upon their own authority, charging that Anderson’s General History, which was substituted by the Boston School Committee for Swinton’s History, had been Romanized by the alteration or omission of passages which might seem to reflect upon the Catholics. As to Anderson’s History itself, which was substituted for Swinton’s on the ground that “it gives a fair account of indulgences”—to quote from the words of the School Committee—the Committee of One Hundred charge that “it does not contain a word about indulgences.” The committee then go on to present the case against Anderson’s book as follows:—

“What then are we to understand? That the committee had not examined the book, and had been imposed upon? or having examined it, they would impose upon the public? We leave the gentlemen to explain. It was further said in the committee: ‘If facts are to be given in a history, they must be given as they are, and not distorted.’ Very true, and that is just what Swinton does. But how about the history that does not give the facts?

“On page 598 of Anderson’s new General History we read that in the reign of Maximilian I. ‘Martin Luther published his famous ninety-five theses against the doctrines of the Catholic Church.’ Is this what the members of the Boston School Committee call ‘truthful history’? Do they know that Martin Luther’s theses were against indulgences? Again, on page 599, we read that ‘from the spread of Luther’s tenets grew what is called the Reformation.’ And this is all that the School Committee of Boston would teach the youth of America concerning one of the greatest and grandest events of modern history. Cardinal Newman, a very high authority of the Roman Catholic Church, says in his pamphlet in reply to Mr. W. E. Gladstone’s ‘Vatican Decrees,’ that, while Protestants speak of the blessed Reformation, Catholics, when they describe it, speak of it as the so-called Reformation.’ Singular agreement between Anderson, the author, and Newman, the cardinal.

“Why is it that Anderson’s General History, so highly commended by the School Committee of Boston, speaks thus slightly of such a great event, and otherwise falsifies and distorts history? Why? Anderson’s History has been Romanized.

“Three years ago the Third Plenary Roman Catholic Council of Baltimore that put Swinton’s History on the index of prohibited books, and enjoined priests everywhere to be diligent in purging schools of such dangerous works, placed Anderson’s General History on the same list. How does it happen, then, that Anderson, three years ago condemned and prohibited by the Romish Church, is now commended and eulogized by that church, and substituted in the public school for another prohibited book which the church had succeeded in having removed? Why? The book has been Romanized and doctored to meet the wishes of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.”

Following this in parallel columns are passages from the old Anderson History, and the history now in use, showing how the text has been altered and revised to avoid giving offense to Roman Catholic sensibilities. For example, in the old version, a passage referring to Henry IV. as endeavoring to gain the favor of the church by persecuting the followers of Wycliffe, is omitted entirely in the new version. A passage in the old history that reads as follows is also omitted in the new: “The Inquisition was established at Toulouse, and all who refused to conform to the tenets of the Church of Rome were mercilessly punished.” One of the changes noted in the phraseology of the two versions is the substitution of the words “rise of the Albigenses,” for “the persecution of the Albigenses.” These citations are sufficient to show that the charge that the Anderson History has been Romanized is based on self-evident truth. No intelligent person would have the hardihood to pretend that the alterations and omissions noted could have been made with any other purpose in view than that of conforming the history to the strictly Roman Catholic standard. The exposition made by the committee shows also what we may expect in every case where the

Papists obtain the ruling hand in the public schools, as they have in Boston. It will mean that the children who attend them will receive their history only after it has passed through a process of evisceration at the hands of the bigoted, jealous, narrow-minded, and truth-hating ecclesiastics who form the great majority of the priesthood of the Roman Church. This is taking it for granted that the Romanists would not allow the public schools to stand at all where their influence was dominant. Where they cannot do away altogether with the public-school system, they can introduce their garbled and falsified text-books in the schools, and so accomplish in a more indirect way their chief ends.—N. Y. Observer.