REVISING HISTORY by N. Y. Observer

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 27, 1890

REVISING HISTORY.

By N. Y. Observer

AMERICAN public schools have a double warfare with Romanism, warfare without and warfare within. Not content with building their own parochial schools and enforcing attendance upon them by ecclesiastical authority and penalties, the Romanists are equally energetic in trying to control the entire system of public education in their own interest. It is only necessary to read the names of those who are engaged in the work of public education in this city, to see that those who drive out the Roman Catholic children from the schools have no such purpose in regard to Roman Catholic teachers.

Boston has had public spirit enough, and patriotism enough, to meet this Roman Catholic attack upon the internal management of the schools in such a way that it is an admirable object lesson for the whole country.

Swinton's "History of the United States" was removed from the Boston schools at the dictation of the Roman Catholics, because it contained offensive mention of the sale of indulgences as one of the causes of the Reformation. Professor Anderson's "New Manual of General History" was introduced to take its place, a book which the author had revised for the special purpose of making it acceptable to different classes of religionists. Of course the question of practical interest is in regard to how much history is to be concealed or distorted in order to make it pleasing to any one or another religious or irreligious class. In order to ascertain what had been actually accomplished in this direction by the introduction of Professor Anderson's book, a special committee, consisting of the Rev. Joseph Cook, the Rev. Dr. A. A. Miner, the Rev. James M. Gray, the Rev. Dr. William F. Warren, President of Boston University, and the Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale, was appointed to examine the book, and report to the committee of one hundred, under whose direction the defense of the public schools against Roman Catholic aggression has been conducted. We have not space for the entire report, which maintains that Professor Anderson's book has been so thoroughly revised for the pleasure of Roman Catholics that it is practically misleading and untrustworthy in vital points. His avowed purpose to make the book inoffensive "has been executed with such painstaking thoroughness that the volume in its present form is in effect a partisan and Romanized production. In this statement we do not intend to affirm that Professor Anderson wrote at the dictation of Catholic critics, but that he has been successful in his purpose of making his history inoffensive to them. At the same time he has not been successful in making it inoffensive to fair-minded Protestant scholars and educators, who ask for nothing but impartiality and truth, and expect in a textbook only the vital outlines of history."

In regard to that extremely tender point, indulgences, the word itself is actually left out, as Professor Anderson contends that the "subject of indulgences is so open to bitter dispute, as the history of the last three hundred years shows, as to be unfit for even mention in our school histories." Consequently a word which is graven in the stone above the doorways of European churches cannot be mentioned in an American school-book lest it should offend religious sensibilities. This is making history ridiculous. It would be far better to omit history altogether than to teach it in this puerile way. Imagine the Presbyterians combining and conspiring against any school history that mentions the name of Servetus in the history of Geneva, the Congregationalists doing the same against any book that alludes to witchcraft in Salem, and everyone eliminating everything that he considers disrespectful to his ancestors. It is right and kind never to speak of rope in the house of one who was hanged, but it is wrong and absurd to write and teach history in such a way that it shall be pleasant at all hazards. Certainly the committee is very moderate in saying that "in a book written on this plan it is impossible to follow the great lines of cause and effect in the succession of events, for the very hinges of history are hidden from the pupil."

We cannot tell what will be the result of the committee's recommendation that Professor Anderson's history should be superseded by a better book. We are sure, however, that the result of their work will be influential throughout the country in showing to what extent the Roman Catholics can actually mould the education of all American youth while in the very act of making war on our public schools. Side by side with ecclesiastical fulminations against parents who send their children to these schools, we find ecclesiastically-directed manipulations of the textbooks directly in the interest of Romanism, and avowedly for the purpose of preventing the children from learning the most important lessons taught by the struggle of our fathers for civil and religious liberty. This is the age of toleration. It will be the age of national deterioration, if we permit our schools to be either controlled or impaired by ecclesiasticism, which has every reason in the world to dread the light of history.