BOOK REVIEWS

History of the University of Pennsylvania, 1J40-1940. By EDWARD POTTS CHEYNEY. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1940. xi, 461 p. $4.00.) To mark its bicentennial, the distinguished Professor Emeritus, Edward Potts Cheyney, has written a history of his alma mater that commands atten- tion. His account is sober, meaty, arresting—and all too brief. It is based on the official documents, supported by the researches of colleagues and friends, and illuminated by an affectionate understanding that springs from sixty years of personal knowledge and participation. Professor Cheyney's contribution is the more welcome as it is the only comprehensive and scholarly survey now available on one of our notable educational institutions. In this book the facul- ties of the University will find their origins and raison d'etre, and the citizens of Philadelphia the justification for their interest and pride. To its pages, students may turn for pertinent materials on the peculiar growth and the unique potentialities of the higher (and wider) learning, as the same have been practised in America these last two centuries. In structure and content Professor Cheyney's history is logical. It handles the central theme of how an experimental acorn, planted by the initiative of Benjamin Franklin in the soil of late colonial Philadelphia, sprouted, suffered, shot up, and at last flowered out into the many-branched system of schools and departments that today serve the diverse educational needs of a populous and wealthy region. The story is organized chronologically into "books," with attention divided about equally between the first forty years of founding and struggle, an intermediate century of decline and revival, and the last sixty years of phenomenal expansion. In this process, certain hitherto neglected periods have been given their first adequate treatment, and the prejudices of earlier annalists have received needed correction. The question as to whether the University ought ever to have claimed so early a date as 1740 for its founding is not settled, but the reader is provided with the materials for forming his own opinion. Students of American education, and in particular the lovers of other col- leges and universities, will find in Professor Cheyney's account many familiar echoes, and some surprising novelties. Like so many of our collegiate institu- tions, Pennsylvania has had its strong men and its colorful characters, its long struggles against poverty and outside interference, its yearning to get out into the country. The voice of the alumni, the hand of positive trustees, and the blight of war have left their marks here, too. Experiment after experiment has failed for want of money, or an informed public support. On the other hand, certain endeavors have flourished, blossomed, subdivided and achieved such energy and success as to bring glory to the institution (and sometimes even the

374 i94i BOOK REVIEWS 375

fear that central purposes were being forgotten). The lower school append- ages, the want of dormitories, the three-year course, and the lack of a Presi- dent, were cruel and unusual trials in the early days. The problems that state support and state control imposed on a University, not too sure of its purposes, have been clearly suggested. The early distinction of the Medical School, and the increasing initiative that the faculties in all branches have achieved in recent years, are briefly hinted at. Not the least notable feature of the account is the almost total omission of athletics and undergraduate life in general. This last calls attention to the insuperable obstacle that Professor Cheyney had to face. Within the limits of a single volume of less than five hundred pages he could not hope to cover the whole history of so multifarious an enterprise as a modern city university. To his own regret, as to ours, he had to leave out almost more than he took in. Hence it is that this account seems often a table of "firsts"; the beginnings of many departments and divisions of activity are chronicled, not their later careers. Hence again the quite reason- able decision in the matter of student activities. On the other hand, one wishes that space had been found for analyses of admission standards and the curricu- lum in the last sixty years, for comments on teaching methods, for more reflections on the changing patterns of educational philosophy. The reader is made only dimly aware of the rivers of influence that intermittently poured into Philadelphia from Europe and certain sister institutions in America. Com- parison with other colleges seems occasionally to serve to justify rather than illuminate. From what social and regional backgrounds are Pennsylvania's students now coming? To what professions and occupations have they most contributed? Professor Cheyney is so interesting when he hints at the influ- ence of religion and economics in University development, and his treatment of the perennial problem of training "leaders" is so provocative, that one wishes he had found it possible to give more attention to the intellectual and cultural aspects of his subject. Between two covers, of course, we ought not to expect to find the whole world. And Professor Cheyney himself has ruefully enumerated a number of the limitations that time and space have imposed. Hence these remarks must be taken less as criticism than as echoing the author's hope that further books and articles will sooner or later supplement this indispensable administrative study. What first had to be done, Professor Cheyney has accomplished to the credit of himself and the historical profession. As he himself insists: "This is a history of the University as a whole. There are always numberless divergent paths through a wilderness. This book follows the main trail." Yale University GEORGE WILSON PIERSON

Portraits in the University of Pennsylvania. Edited by AGNES ADDISON. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1940. vi, 67 p. Illus- trated. $3.00.) In connection with the Bicentenary celebrations, the University of Penn- sylvania has brought out a volume, admirable in format and useful in context, 376 BOOK REVIEWS July of the portraits in its possession. A total of 267 oil paintings and pastels are described, of which 102 are illustrated by plates, mostly four to a page. Thumb-nail sketches of the subjects in the Who's Who manner make up the text, and although this method of treatment has its limitations from a literary point of view, considerations of space made it the only alternative. Generally considered, the book is indeed a catalogue of Philadelphia's Por- trait Gallery. Nearly every prominent Philadelphian during the past two centuries either studied at, or had some relationship with, the University, and so the great names in the annals of our city pass in review as we turn the pages; Franklin, Rittenhouse, Mayor Powel, James Wilson, Benjamin Rush, Caspar Wistar, Dr. Physick, Nicholas Biddle, Weir Mitchell, and the rest— truly a noble company. Between a third and a half of the whole number are physicians and surgeons, clearly showing the strong influence of the medical school at the University and the distinguished medical traditions of the city. Law rates a poor second numerically, albeit in distinction, Penn's members of the bar are indeed second to none. Science, the church, architecture, teaching, and letters all have their foremost representatives in these pages, too; so that the volume fills adequately a void in the history of our city's life. In quality, the portraits are unequal; the best are very good, and others— we may say with some charity—are not as good as the best. For the most part they are by American artists, the astonishingly fine picture of Dr. John Morgan by Angelica Kauffmann (Medical School) being perhaps the most outstanding exception. Of America's Old Masters, Charles Willson Peale is represented by a fine early portrait of David Rittenhouse (College Hall), and has three less important paintings attributed to him. West and Copley are not represented, but there is a fine picture of Dr. William Shippen attrib- uted to Gilbert Stuart (Wistar Institute). John Neagle has several fine can- vases, particularly those of Dr. Rush and Dr. Dewees (both Medical School), while Sully is well represented especially by the three-quarter lengths of Dr. Chapman and Dr. Horner (Medical School). Most dramatic in scope of all the pictures is Eakins' masterpiece, Dr. Agnew's clinic (Medical School), beside which J. McClure Hamilton's Weir Mitchell (College Hall) strikes a lyrical note of contrast. Sargent has one picture, but one of his very best, Dr. J. William White (Medical School), while among the moderns Julian Story, Adolphe Borie, Leopold Seyffert and Robert Vonnoh carry off the honors. As already implied, the Medical School has the strongest single group of pictures of any department of the University, in fact it has quite a choice little gallery in its own right. There seems less reason for some of the other University buildings to have the particular pictures hanging on their walls which one finds there. And it is indeed surprising to discover the charm- ing oval of Nicholas Biddle, attributed to Sully, in the School of Veterinary Medicine. The reproductions in the volume are excellent, and Miss Addison deserves great credit for her editorial ability. Devon, Pennsylvania BOIES PENROSE i94i BOOK REVIEWS 377

Pennsylvania: A Guide to the Keystone State, Compiled by the Writer's Pro- gram of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Pennsylvania. Co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania Historical Commission and the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania. (Oxford University Press: New York, 1940. Illustrated. $3.00.) S. K. Stevens, State Historian, says in the foreword to Pennsylvania: A Guide to the Keystone State, that the book is "the most valuable aid in seeing and knowing Pennsylvania yet made available to the general public." That is a simple statement of fact. I, who have travelled by car to all corners of the state, have checked up on several of the "tours" listed, and have found them not only accurate but accompanied by historical data that make all the countryside penetrated by the routes take on additional interest. Take Tour I, for example, and follow it from Milford on the Delaware to Corry in the oil country in northwestern Pennsylvania. Under Rummerfield you find the romantic story of the French colony and its great log house, fabled to be "the largest log house ever built in America." Under Wellsboro, Pine Creek gorge, one of the seven wonders of Pennsylvania, has its praises fittingly sung. And so it is all along the route. What the average tourist will want to know about the places he is passing through is fully set down. As an appendix there is "A Guide to Further Reading," a list of books about Penn- sylvania of the widest scope and variety of interest. Something more than the first half of the book is taken up with a series of articles called "The General Background" and another series on the prin- cipal "Cities and Towns" of the State. All these are adequately done, and some of them more than adequately. Our Indian past is stressed and our folk- ways. Things Pennsylvania Dutch, than which there is nothing more pic- turesque in life upstate, are made much of, and there is an admirable pres- entation of Joe Magarac, the man of steel of the Hungarian folk about Pittsburgh. Music, painting, and architecture are all fully presented. Look up the singing of the Ephrata Kloster, or Stephen C. Foster, or the Philadelphia Orchestra. You will find all given what is due. Though there is but a line on him, James G. Huneker is acknowledged an internationally known music critic. Our artists form a really notable array, West, Sully, Eichholtz, Doughty, Abbey, Eakins, Redfield, Pennell, and their fellows today. The chapter on architecture calls attention to many old houses of beauty often passed by. There is no article on medicine or on natural science among the sixteen titles of "The General Background." There should have been such articles. Under "Education" and under "Philadelphia" reference is made to medicine but only slight reference. So great a man as Joseph Leidy is referred to for his obtaining of the skeleton of a giant and not for his work in anatomy or zoology. Bartram and Audubon are mentioned but not Nuttall or Alexander Wilson, Spencer Fullerton Baird or Witmer Stone. Our Quaker origins gave 378 BOOK REVIEWS July

Pennsylvania a bia9 toward the study of natural science, and there is no de- partment of life in which Pennsylvanians have more largely attained. This W.P.A. guide is in many ways a book characteristically Pennsylvanian. We are a self-contained and reticent people, seldom given to overstatement about the significance of our state to all America, and this book is low-keyed and avoidant of overpraise of our industries or natural resources or beauty of countryside. It was not, of course, possible in the plan of the book to em- phasize views here and there, for that would outrage the people of neighbor- hoods not picked out for praise. For out-of-state people visiting Pennsylvania I wish there had been more pointings out of such prospects as that from Top Rock in Nockamixon in Bucks, or from the height of land beyond Bedford on the old Glades Road, or the lookout on the wild valley of the west branch of the Susquehanna beyond Lock Haven. New Englanders whom I know have been surprised by the beauty of such a village as Falsington in Bucks and of such a town as Montrose in Susquehanna. There is no adequate praise of the fertility and well being of Lancaster County, or of the Kishacoquillas or Big Valley in Mifflin County. The illustrations, in many instances, take the place of the descriptions in words that are lacking. All in all, though, Pennsyl- vania: A Guide to the Keystone State reveals more of what Pennsylvanians are proud of in their state than does any other guidebook. University of Pennsylvania CORNELIUS WEYGANDT

Propaganda and the American Revolution. By PHILIP DAVIDSON. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1941. xvi, 460 p. $4.00.) "I entirely agree with you," the Reverend Andrew Eliot wrote to a friend in 1766, "that an interest in the public prints is of great importance. The spirit of liberty would soon be lost & the people would grow quite lethargic, if there were not some one on watch, to awaken and rouse them." This Boston divine well knew that the rising opposition to Britain was at best the work of a minority, and that, therefore, propaganda was indispensable to the success of the cause. Professor Davidson has for many years been uncovering the propaganda of the Revolution and applying to it the most approved modern techniques of analysis. Now he offers his conclusions in a timely and entertain- ing volume which is a major contribution to the understanding of this complex period of our history. The Whig leaders were men of property and standing in their communities who never contemplated social upheaval. They felt their position to be threatened from above by Britain and from below by the middle and lower classes, and in consequence they agitated not for but against change. What they began as a demand for home rule became increasingly after 1774 a secession movement. At no time after the Stamp Act did they enjoy the backing of a majority of Americans. Thus the basic problem of these leaders, when they assumed the role of propagandists, was to unify their group. As John Adams once said the problem was to make thirteen clocks strike in unison. The colonial i94i BOOK REVIEWS 379 assemblies, the county governments in the South, and the more than seven hundred town meetings of New England were predominantly Whig in sym- pathy and were made the agencies for the dissemination of a skillfully directed propaganda of resolves and petitions. When they were linked together by committees of correspondence an effective appearance of unity was created. In like fashion merchants and mechanics formed organizations which sounded the "trumpets of sedition." The Congregational clergy of New England and the Presbyterians of the Middle Colonies and Virginia preached the cause from the pulpit, cloaking it by implication with divine approval. Professors and tutors "educated" their students in the classroom; Dr. Witherspoon of Prince- ton openly bragged that every one of his boys was a staunch patriot. Even clubs and other social organizations were potential revolutionary cells. Colonial barristers spun out legal and constitutional arguments which, when coupled with the theories of John Locke, made a powerful appeal to many. Fast days, mass meetings and oratory were other devices employed to "awaken and rouse" the people. But the most potent agency for influencing opinion was the press. Pamphlets and broadsides, in prose or verse, poured from the presses by the hundreds, and in the forty-two newspapers, largely under Whig control, literally thousands of little political essays appeared. Judged by modern standards the machinery for mass propaganda, 1763-1783, was crude, but it was operated successfully by men who were masters of the art to suggest, insinuate, convince, refute or arouse hatred as the cause demanded. Among the ablest of these penmen and orators of the Revolution were such Philadel- phians as Dickinson, Franklin, Thomson, Mifflin, Reed and Tom Paine. Throughout the period the Tories endeavored to create a powerful counter- propaganda. Loyalty, after all, was the normal attitude and it was hard to defend. The task of Tory propaganda was not to gain adherents to a cause, but rather to preserve loyalty. Most Tories were complacent and expected the government to do their work. But government and most other agencies for forming opinion fell almost wholly into Whig hands. Thus handicapped the loyalist case had to be presented by the individual efforts of such men as Joseph Galloway and Samuel Seabury, who became skilled propagandists. The Tory appeal to reason and authority and the pitfalls of independence, however, never successfully counter-balanced the powerful Whig efforts. One or two doubts have arisen from the reading of this work. Mr. David- son discounts largely the influence of the almanacs. As far as the reviewer can determine, those of the Middle and Southern Colonies did not carry much propaganda, but the late Professor C. N. Greenough demonstrated a con- siderable body of propaganda in the almanacs of New England, particularly those of Dedham and Providence. How is one to account for this sectional difference? The influence of clubs and social organizations is indeed difficult to gauge, but I feel that in the case of Pennsylvania the author has under- estimated it. At Philadelphia it appears that such bodies proved very active in the patriot cause, and that the American Philosophical Society carried on from 380 BOOK REVIEWS July

1769 to 1775 an adroit and active campaign to promote home manufactures and the unifying of colonial intellectuals. Everyone interested in modern propaganda techniques will find this book well worth reading, and students of our Revolution will readily note how much light Mr. Davidson has cast on the subject. Graceful writing and a pleasing vein of humor, well-selected excerpts from contemporary propaganda and several excellent illustrations, are combined in this work, which demonstrates above everything else that "much of what we know of the Revolution has been learned from revolutionary propaganda." Brown University CARL BRIDENBAUGH

Montesquieu in America, ij 60-1801. By PAUL MERRILL SPURLIN. (Univer- sity, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1940. xi, 302 p. $3.00.) It is hardly to be expected that a book of this character would become the subject matter of an evening's pleasant reading. Indeed, it does not aspire to. The author makes it clear that he is not trying to settle the old quarrel over the extent of Montesquieu's influence on the formation of the government of the United States; he says, rather, that the "immediate objective is to show the dissemination of Montesquieu's works in America." It is only on such a basis of careful and laborious research, the author insists, that one can find a real foundation for an opinion as to his influence—a task which up to now had not been adequately done. The results turn out to be, therefore, a detailed outline of the evidences of American acquaintance with Montesquieu. The source material was found in public and private libraries, in journals, letters, memoirs, speeches, and the like, and in direct or indirect quotations of Montesquieu in newspapers and pamphlets. This makes dull reading, and the reviewer knows from experience with similar projects that much of the careful work which went into the book made dull entertainment; but he is the first to suggest that, in its particular field of cultural exchange, none could be more valuable. Here are the facts between two covers, and anyone who wishes to discuss the real influence of Montesquieu in relation to such questions as "the separation of powers" in the American government, or the importance of Virtue in a republic, will find this book a most useful point of departure. The author asserts, on the basis of an extensive and excellent working bibliography, that American knowledge of the works of Montesquieu (espe- cially of the Spirit of the Laws) grew steadily from colonial times until he was appealed to, during the days before the Revolution, as one of the most eminent authorities on the English Constitution; and finally during the Confederation, the Constitutional Convention, and the first years of the Republic, as the oracle of almost all matters concerning government and political science. Franklin D. Roosevelt Library JAMES L. WHITEHEAD i94i BOOK REVIEWS 381

The Delegate from New York. Or Proceedings of the Federal Convention of ij8j from the Notes of John Lansing, Jr. JOSEPH REESE STRAYER, editor. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939. ix, 125 p. $2.00.) The Historical Society of Pennsylvania because of its location in Philadel- phia where the Federal Convention was held and through the Society's pos- session of some of the most valuable documents relating to the proceedings of that body has a particular interest in material bearing upon the framing of the Constitution of the United States. It is a matter of regret, accordingly, that the publication of the most important original source uncovered within the last thirty years bearing directly upon the proceedings of the Convention should have gone so long unrecorded in the PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. The responsibility is that of the reviewer alone, but circumstances beyond his control made earlier notice impossible. The item in question consists of the notes of John Lansing, Jr., on the proceedings of the Federal Convention from May 25 to June 9, 1787. Lansing first attended the Convention on June 2. His notes before that date were copied from those of his colleague, Robert Yates, which are well known in their published form under the title of Secret Proceedings. Adopting the same form, Lansing's records for the days he remained in the Convention are similar in character and quality to those of Yates. They dis- close nothing new of sufficient importance to change one's interpretation of any part of the Constitution. They throw additional light, however, upon the characters and opinions of members of the Convention. None of these is more revealing than the unmistakable evidence that Lansing at times differed with Yates both in opinions expressed and in votes that were cast. The notes help to clear up some speeches and incidents otherwise slightly obscure during the period when the all important question of the method of representation was before the Convention. The importance of this publication then consists in adding one "more source from which we can recreate the atmosphere of the Convention and estimate the character of the leading delegates." Professor Strayer's editing is beyond criticism. If it errs at all it is on the side of being over-meticulous—a good fault when the importance of the sub- ject is remembered. Every correction is marked, every difference is recorded. The student may use these published notes with the same confidence that he would study the original manuscript and with greater ease and fuller informa- tion. The little book has been appropriately and attractively printed. The Huntington Library MAX FARRAND

Modern Democracy. By CARL L. BECKER. (New Haven: The Yale Uni- versity Press, 1941. viii, 100 p. $2.00.) Very few men are better equipped than Professor Becker to write about Democracy, and very few American historians have spoken out more vigor- ously and more persuasively in its support. His recent articles in The Yale Review, particularly the one entitled "Generalities that Still Glitter" ought to be read by every young American. This small volume before us, in which 382 BOOK REVIEWS July are reprinted three lectures delivered in the autumn of 1940 at the University of Virginia, is rather designed to explain than to promote. It begins with a definition of the democratic ideal, proceeds to consider Democracy as a going concern, and finally faces what Professor Becker regards as the inescapable dilemma of Democracy—"how in practice to curtail the freedom of the individual in economic enterprise sufficiently to effect that equality of oppor- tunity and of possessions without which Democracy is an empty form, and at the same time to preserve that measure of individual freedom in intellectual and political life without which it can not exist." (p. 64) A large part of this book is historical and is sound history, though Professor Becker, in setting forth the development of the democratic pattern, is, I think, too much concerned with the philosophers and not enough with the practical politicians. After all, the most successful democracies have been those of the Anglo-Saxon variety, where progress has been made rather by trial and error and compromise than by a too rigid adherence to a doctrinaire programme. In the concluding pages Professor Becker is much concerned with what he calls "the discord between the physical power at our disposal and our capacity to make a good use of it." (p. 98) He notes that whereas the mind of man has, particularly in the last two centuries, made unprecedented progress in con- trolling the forces of nature, it has accomplished little or nothing in the application of these forces to humane and rational ends. And he envisages the possibility that reason may give way to naked force, and "naked force prove to be the prelude to another dark age of barbarism." (p. 99) He insists that the one hope of escape from such an eventuality lies in the power of the un- shackled human mind. The chief virtue of Democracy, as he sees it, "and in the long run the sole reason for cherishing it" (p. 100) is that, with all its defects, it still provides the most favorable medium for the free mind to function. University of Pennsylvania CONYERS READ

New England: Indian Summer, 1865-191$. By VAN WYCK BROOKS. (New York: E. P. Dutton, Co., 1940. xii, 557 p. $3.75.) This book, like its predecessor, The Flowering of New England, is an omnium gatherum of interesting anecdotes, apt quotations, and illuminating minutiae, culled from countless sources which Mr. Brooks has drawn on with meticulous accuracy. His range of information is enormous, and New Eng- landers will take pride in this revivication of their cultural life from 1865 to 1915. The style of the new book is at least up to that of The Flowering of New England. It is never pedestrian (Mr. Brooks' sense of humor sees to that) and at times it becomes exuberant. Take, for example, some of his remarks about Amy Lowell: Her telephone had the force of a dozen Big Berthas; and God might have picked up the fragments of those who opposed her—there was little of them left for men to bury. One could hear the guns go off at the other end of Texas. But the Texans and Nebras- i94i BOOK REVIEWS 383 kans and the people of St. Paul crowded the window-ledges of their halls to hear her; and the map on which she had put poetry started and trembled under her feet—the map of poetry blossomed in purple and red. She touched a fuse wherever she went, and fire- works rose in the air; and there were no set-pieces more brilliant than hers, no Catherine-wheels or girandoles or fountains. There was no still, small voice in Amy Lowell. Her bombs exploded with a bang and came down in a shower of stars; and she whizzed and she whirred, and she rustled and rumbled, and she glistened and sparkled and blazed and blared. If, at the end, it seemed like the Fourth of July, it was a famous victory, none the less, though the fields and the trees were littered with the sticks and the debris, with charred frames and burnt-out cases.

The principal difficulty with New England: Indian Summer is that Mr. Brooks once more sees the individual trees so clearly that he scarcely visualizes the woods at all. Sentence by sentence this book is enchanting; paragraph by paragraph it is fascinating, even though the central tree in every paragraph is apt to be digressively interlocked with several saplings, and even though the notes are commonly more interesting than the text. The whole mass of material has been set forth in twenty-five chapters which are related to each other, and to the whole subject, with a degree of incoherence that leaves the thoughtful reader first baffled and then indignant. All of this valuable mate- rial could have been adequately arranged in a set of chapters each of which would deal with a major figure and incidentally with his less distinguished associates—a biographical arrangement modified to include the lesser lights— but this plan was not followed. Or this material could have been arranged, after a fashion, geographically, the author treating the important New England communities and their respective great men in a series of orderly chapters city by city—but this plan was not followed. Again, the material could have been sorted out chronologically, decade by decade, and, if the author had a real grasp of the period 1865-1915, he could have made a definite con- tribution to the history and thought in New England during these crucial years—but this plan was not followed. An Index of over twelve pages, with something like a thousand separate entries, suggests that this new volume might be of use for easy alphabetical reference. But unhappily the Index merely exhibits the carefree abandon with which the various items have been organized—or disorganized—to suit the convenience of the author rather than the reasonable requirements of the reader. A fair sample from the Index—not an extreme case—will show how the biographical material about a representative New England author is scat- tered at random throughout the whole book:

Norton, Charles Eliot, 2, 9, 14, 17, 24-28, 31, 33"35> 78, 84, 101, 102, 109, 115, 121, 128, 136, 146, 147, 169, 190, 209, 213, 229, 230, 245, 250-255, 260, 261, 282, 293, 310, 311, 340-341, 377, 409, 416, 417, 419, 420, 421, 424, 425, 435, 436, 443, 448, 455, 456. In 1936 Mr. Brooks gave us The Flowering of New England, a book brilliant but badly arranged; he has now given us a second volume more bril- liant but more badly arranged. In the near future he plans to give us a third: 384 BOOK REVIEWS July

The Age of Washington Irving, Let us hope that this projected volume, in contrast to the other two, will be planned so as to be enjoyed and remem- bered by people with orderly minds. We had Mr. Brooks' mature autumn, and now we have had his gay, holiday winter. Is it too much to ask of him: "O, Wind, if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" Haver ford College EDWARD D. SNYDER

The Coming of the Scot. By JOHN H. FINLEY. (New York: Charles Scrib- ner's Sons, 1940, vi, 186 p. $2.00.) In 1929 John H. Finley delivered at the University of Edinburgh a series of six lectures on the part played by the Scot in the making of America. These lectures are now printed in the volume under review. Charming in style, in- teresting and witty in content, they are intended neither to be comprehensive nor strictly historical. Rather, as Mr. Finley wrote of them in his preface, "They are but a tribute to my Scotch-Irish ancestors." Through biography, history and anecdote, often half in jest, yet always with a serious thought in the back of his mind, and with a delightful knack of drawing meaning from the apparently most unrelated incidents, Mr. Finley tells the story of the directive influence of the Scots in the making of our na- tion. He speaks of their part in the discovery and settlement of the land, their large contributions to our political system and territorial empire, their deter- mined defense of human rights and their impact upon modern ideals of Amer- ican citizenship. From the very beginning he sees the Scots in America as a small but vigorous band, acting as a "mysterious catalyst" that transformed all about them without self-change. In his very first sentence the author remarks that he "had thought to give this brief series the title, 'The Predestinating of America,' " but had been deterred by the discovery of a statute of James I declaring "that no one under the order of a bishop or a dean should presume to speak of the mysteries of predestination." This statute he certainly breaks, but with a clarity and grace that bishops and deans might well envy. For throughout this process of mak- ing and transforming America runs the thread of predestination—often too thin to sustain the credulity of any but the elect—yet tremendously intriguing in its possibilities as Mr. Finley presents them. Take, for example, the inci- dent of the Panama Canal. Late in the seventeenth century one Reverend Alexander Stobo set sail with an expedition of Scots to found a port and thor- oughfare across the Isthmus of Panama. The expedition failed and Stobo's vessel made for Charleston, South Carolina. There it was dashed to pieces by a hurricane and all on board perished save the Reverend Alexander Stobo who had providentially been invited to preach in Charleston, the local minis- ter having died. This sole survivor was to be the great-great-great grand- father of Theodore Roosevelt, builder of the Panama Canal. Says Mr. Finley: "The thread of connection is but a slender one . . . but after all, except for this thread . . . who can say that a Theodore Roosevelt would have arisen to begin the fulfilment of this prophecy?" (p. 54) 1941 BOOK REVIEWS 385

Across a host of such threads are woven the names of men from Ulster and the banks of the Clyde, ancestors of many of our greatest jurists, statesmen, industrialists and educators. The main pattern resulting—the greatest single gift of the Scots to America—is the Presbyterian Church, but many other incidental designs including even golf and thrift jokes are to be found as well. Two days after he had corrected the proofs for this book, John Finley died. His distinguished life, vigorous and influential as those he so ably described, was the best tribute he could possibly have paid to the Scots-Irish ancestry of which he was justly proud. Franklin and Marshall College PHILIP S. KLEIN

The Hero in America: A Chronicle of Hero-Worship. By DIXON WECTER. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941. xiii, 530 p. Illustrated. $3.50.) Professor Wecter's book on who the heroes are and why they are heroes is simple in intention and complex in accomplishment, though not quite as com- plex as the introductory chapter promises and the concluding chapter con- cludes. It is one of those books that begins with an idea so good and so full of possibilities that one's mind opens with happy receptivity and feels—Now, this is something to work with. But, then, it never gives you all that you hoped for. When you have finished it, you think of all the books it might have been rather than of the book that it is. It can properly be called "stimulating"; in the sense that it makes you range beyond the things actually put down on the page. It cannot properly be called "satisfying"; in the sense of being complete within itself. The truth is, that it suggests an important theme, but that it elaborates this theme by the scissors and paste method rather than by firm logical organization. This is what the work aims at: "to look at those great personalities in public life . . . from whom we have hewn our symbols of government, our ideals of what is most praiseworthy as 'American/ " It is further a study of those names and those folk symbols that have stirred "our most powerful col- lective responses." The tone of the book is, quite properly, neither panegyrical nor debunking; it is analytical. The materials have been well selected. The personalities are well chosen because they have been simply chosen and without quibbling—Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Lee, Grant, and the two Roosevelts. The "folk symbols" are equally plain and simple—John Smith and the In- dians, the Puritans, the Revolutionary Soldier, Daniel Boone, the Dime Novel Hero and the Mechanical Genius. But, having said this, nearly all has been said. The details do not settle firmly into the bold outline; instead, they blur and confuse it. It almost seems as if Professor Wecter did not quite make up his mind about his book. At times he writes a commentary on stages of American cul- ture. Some of the best sections come when he wholeheartedly takes this tack. 386 BOOK REVIEWS July

At other times, he tries to generalize the American Hero; that is, he tries to pin down the essence of hero worship and find a formal pattern by which it has operated in the American mind. These parts are the least convincing. At still other times, he is getting and giving considerable pleasure by letting the unreality of a traditional view suddenly find itself face to face with the reality of fact. He is very skillful at this. In fact, the page to page liveliness of the work comes chiefly from the success with which he selects details and places them together in order to secure the maximum of revelation that can be got from mixing fact and fancy. The trouble is, however, that there are too many balls in the air. The stand- ard of juggling is high, but at the end of the act, when the hat labeled "How Americans Choose Their Heroes" is held out, a great many of the balls do not fall into it at all. It cannot be said that the shortcomings are the result of popularly addressing a large audience. The approach to the subject is not direct enough for this to have been the case. The style is too referential and the placing and signifi- cance of detail is too subtle. A large audience, hunting inspirational history— this is suggested incidentally by the format the publishers have given the book—would be bewildered by what they get here. Nor can it be said that the shortcomings are the result of too close and narrow a scholarship. The shortcomings are nothing more and nothing less than the gap between idea and execution. None of these comments mean that the book is not interesting, readable and, from time to time, admirable. They only mean that it falls far short of the book it might have been given the idea, the material and Professor Wecter's obvious ability. WILLIAM REITZEL.