BOOK REVIEWS

A Noteworthy Synthesis of Eighteenth-Century * The scholarly and readable volume which Carl and Jessica Bridenbaugh have devoted to Philadelphia in mid-eighteenth century makes a significant contribution to a significant theme. The thirty-five years immediately pre- ceding the outbreak of the American Revolution witnessed the growth of Philadelphia from a town of 13,000 to over three times that size and the second city of the Empire it was about to repudiate. Contemporaneously there took place a remarkable deepening of cultural life. Both of these developments were furthered by Philadelphia's contacts with the sea. "The steady passage of Delaware-built ships . . . produced two results ... it yielded wealth to the merchants of Philadelphia and their dependents, and it brought to the capital not only the material commodities of comfortable living, but also larger cargoes of people and ideas," enrich- ing "not only the pockets but the minds of its citizens." "After 1735 it is an anachronism to speak of Philadelphia as the Quaker City." On the eve of the Revolution Friends numbered only one seventh of the population, the Presbyterians being the strongest denomination numer- ically. "In this period of generally declining religious enthusiasms Phila- delphia churches exercised probably more influence upon the social and political than upon the spiritual lives of their communicants." Congrega- tions tended to be divided along linguistic or national lines, while "wealth was largely concentrated in the hands of Friends and Anglicans" and "all looked upon the latter as the stronghold of aristocracy." More productive than the churches of that free association of peoples so necessary to the growth of the democratic spirit were the many clubs organized in Philadelphia during this period. They ran the gamut from "glutton clubs" to Franklin's Junto and "The Society meeting weekly for their Mutual Improvement in Useful Knowledge." "Perhaps the most im- portant organizations in the city were the seventeen fire companies, which . . . had come by the seventies to involve a membership of from five to seven hundred citizens. Persons of all ranks and nationalities joined to form these bodies," and "convivial, benevolent, or political functions occupied the membership of all companies quite as much as the satisfaction of the natural desire in men of all ages to attend fires." In 1740 "the Quaker system of schools comprised the town's principal educational facilities," with Anthony Benezet the most famous teacher in * Rebels and Gentlemen: Philadelphia in the Age of Franklin, By CARL and JESSICA BRIDEN- BAUGH. (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1942. xvii, 393 p. #3.50.) 166 1943 BOOK REVIEWS l6j its "English School," and with emphasis on utilitarian studies, "writing, arithmetic, bookkeeping, French and German—though 'not the whole vari- ation of the nouns and irregular verbs.'" Other denominations also estab- lished schools for the education of their youth, and many private teachers formed classes in a wide variety of subjects classical as well as useful. "As early as 1743 Franklin had conceived a plan for a quasi-public academy to prepare boys for business and civil life," but it was not until 1751 that the first classes were held in what was to become the University of Pennsyl- vania. By the end of the colonial period, education, whether parochial, public, or private, male or female, aristocratic or democratic, was definitely a business in Philadelphia, and almost complete literacy prevailed. Phila- delphians even took a hand in the education of other localities, sending out teachers, and aiding in the organization of at least two institutions of higher learning, the Academy of Newark, later the University of Delaware, and the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University. To supply the market created by this expanding educational program, forty-two printers, Franklin and the Bradfords foremost among them, were at work in Philadelphia in the period under discussion, putting out fifteen newspapers, several magazines, and innumerable books and pamphlets. The number of book stores increased from five in 1742 to thirty in the seventies, and some specialized in certain types of books. Gentlemen such as , , Richard and William Peters, Francis Hopkinson, and Dr. John Morgan accumulated valuable private libraries, while others joined together to form circulating libraries. Three of these eventually merged with Franklin's Library Company of 1742, and the combined col- lection was installed in Carpenters' Hall in 1773. James Logan bequeathed his library to the city and it was opened to the public in 1768, housed in a one-story brick building on the corner of Sixth and Walnut Streets. Increased reading led to attempts at literary production. James Logan stood first among classical scholars of the colonies, publishing scientific papers in Latin in Europe and America. William Smith, brought to Phila- delphia in 1753 by Franklin as Provost of the College, himself wrote in many forms, and consciously sought to foster literary development among young men of promise of such diverse origin as the blue-blooded Francis Hopkinson and Thomas Godfrey, Jr., son of a lowly glazier. Of more natural charm were the diaries kept by Hannah Callendar, Sarah Eve, and Sally Wister. Most prominent was a voluminous literature of controversy, religious and political, written by such men as Franklin, Smith, David James Dove, John Dickinson, Joseph Galloway, James Wilson, and Tom Paine. Native dramatists were not so productive, though Thomas Godfrey, Jr., and Thomas Forrest each had a play produced at the Southwark Theatre. Despite the opposition of Quakers and Presbyterians, plays were acted professionally in Philadelphia in 1749, 1753, and from 1759 until the out- break of the Revolution. "As many as forty different plays, most of them 168 BOOK REVIEWS April well selected, with an equal number of farces or musical afterpieces, were presented in a single season; included were some thirteen works of Shake- speare, usually, it must be confessed, in the diluted versions of Thomson, Dryden, Cibber, or Garrick." The theater accomplished much in the way of general education sweetened with diversion, but unfortunately it also served as a social divisor by giving an aristocracy on the make the occasion for ostentatious display bitterly resented by the powerful middle class, also on the make. Increasingly elaborate church music, folk music brought by immigrants, political songs enjoyed at taverns or clubs, not to mention formal instruc- tion from some thirty teachers, enabled Philadelphia to overtake and pass her sister cities of Boston and Charleston in the encouragement of music. Shops carried or even specialized in sheet music and musical instruments, and all sorts of the latter were made in the city, many of them by German artisans. Various musical societies were organized, and gave soirees in private homes, while students at the College formed the Orpheus Club in 1759. The first subscription series of concerts was organized and directed by Signor Giovanni Gualdo in 1769, in an atmosphere of "Decency, good Manners and silence" at Davenport's Hall. The theater company even produced a few operas, with local gentry forming the orchestra. "In con- trast with the theater, music, which knew no nation and no class, was a cultural force making for social unity in Philadelphia." As in literature, so in the graphic arts, Philadelphians progressed from possession and enjoyment of the products of others to attempts at produc- tion themselves. Prints were sold at first by booksellers, later at print shops, and copies of paintings in European galleries as well as "engraved views of cities, mezzotints, cartoons, 'perspective views of Gentlemen's Seats,' maps and 'history pieces' found a ready market, first with the gentry, and later among all classes." As early as 1743 James Claypoole "opened a shop in Walnut Street where he sold books and 'most sorts of Painter's Colours, ready prepar'd for Use and neatly put up in Bladders.' " Sign painting furnished apprenticeship and a source of income to would-be portrait painters. During this period some thirty-six portraitists immor- talized the features of Philadelphia's leading citizens. "Much of the work was unschooled and poorly executed," but it reveals an honest craftsman- ship which felt no need of "the fashionably aristocratic deceptions of cur- rent English portraiture." Besides James Claypoole this group included Gustavus Hesselius, Matthew Pratt, Henry Groath, William Bartram, William Williams, and Benjamin West. After 1769 Charles Willson Peale of Maryland joined the group. "Just as the Philadelphia school seemed on the verge of genuine accomplishment an unfortunate mutation occurred" in the sending of Benjamin West to Europe for further study. His subse- quent triumphs filled Philadelphians with pride and caused other young men of promise to follow him to London, where they became imitators of English or European traditions instead of perfecting a native American I943 BOOK REVIEWS 169 art. So far as it went, however, painting had already become more natural- ized than either music or the theater. The three most prominent architects of the Philadelphia of this period happened all to be Quakers: Samuel Powel the elder, known as "the rich carpenter," Samuel Rhoads, designer of the , and Robert Smith, who was "responsible for the first, and probably the most valid, American style of college building." Nassau Hall at Princeton and the "New College" building at Philadelphia were designed by him, and the former "clearly furnished the pattern for" both Dartmouth Hall and the "college edifice" at Providence, Rhode Island. He also planned Car- penters' Hall, the Walnut Street Prison, and St. Peters Church. These men, along with such cabinetmakers as William Savery and Thomas Tufft, and such silversmiths as Joseph Richardson, Philip Syng, and David Hall, prospered and took their places in the social and philanthropic life of the town. Elaborate formal gardens were maintained at William Peters' Belmont, at the Norris estate Fairhill, the Hamiltons' Bush Hill, and the Proprietors' Springettsbury, and above all at Graeme Park. Professional gardeners came from Scotland to care for them, and John Bartram, William Young, and James Alexander, gardener at Springettsbury, supplied plants and seeds. Along with the advantages of wealth went a concern for the less fortu- nate. "In Penn's city, eighteenth-century humanitarianism combined with the charitable tradition of the Quakers and with certain factors indigenous to all New World societies to produce an interest and an accomplishment in movements humanitarian unsurpassed in any other community of the age." The Quakers had erected an Alms House on Walnut Street in 1729, "where poor families were assured the novelty of privacy by their assign- ment to separate apartments," and a little later their pressure on Assembly and Corporation was largely instrumental in bringing into being "a brick Alms House containing an infirmary for the indigent sick and special apart- ments for the insane, and providing for the healthy poor facilities for work." As population trebled and wars and depressions took their toll, these houses proved inadequate, but it was not until 1767 that the new Bettering House was opened on Spruce Street between Tenth and Eleventh, due again to "the quiet persistence of Quaker pressure." With the opening of the Walnut Street prison in 1775, "thirteen years of publicity and agitation had finally resulted in the erection of a place of confinement unequaled in England or America." However, liberalization of the law of imprisonment for debt "had to await the radical provisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776." But perhaps Philadelphia's principal contribution to the "Age of Benevolence" was its crusade for humane treatment of the Negro, and for the progressive elimination of his servile status. The traditions of the medical profession in Philadelphia were well laid by Dr. John Kearsley, who taught a number of younger associates. A surprisingly high percentage of the city's doctors topped off their education I7O BOOK REVIEWS April in Europe, until the establishment of a local medical school with as high standards as were to be found anywhere rendered this no longer necessary. In 1752 the Pennsylvania Hospital was opened, largely on the initiative of Dr. Thomas Bond, seconded by the organizing genius of Franklin. Prob- lems of public health began to be studied, and inoculation for small pox became prevalent. "Philadelphia supplied a set of services unsurpassed in any other community of its day, and indeed, in proportion to the size of the place, seldom equaled." Numbered among local scientists were James Logan, already mentioned in other connections, Thomas Godfrey, who invented a quadrant, Joseph Breintnall, John Bartram, and others. Experiments with electricity were carried on by a group of men, of whom Franklin and Ebenezer Kinnersley are best known. Cartography had its votaries in Lewis Evans, Nicholas Scull, and Joshua Fisher, who made a Chart of the Delaware Bay and River in 1756. sent two expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage, which came back with valuable information about Labrador. David Rittenhouse was "the peer of American instrument makers." His masterpiece was an orrery, which he sold "to the College of New Jersey, much to the chagrin of William Smith, who had wanted it for his own institution. . . . Rittenhouse finally mollified the irate Scot by consenting to construct another orrery for the College of Philadelphia, and by his promise not to deliver his first to Princeton until the second had been completed." Starting with Franklin's Junto in 1727, men of this type had been meet- ing to discuss their problems and to give and receive inspiration for new ventures. In 1744 a short-lived American Philosophical Society was formed, and in 1766 another such group adopted the name "American Society for Promoting and Propagating Useful Knowledge, Held at Philadelphia." A rival group endeavored to revive the American Philosophical Society of 1744, and the two embarked upon a struggle for membership and publicity. Fortunately, public criticism and good sense finally led to their union on equal terms in 1769, under the title "American Philosophical Society, Held at Philadelphia, for Promoting Useful Knowledge." Carl and Jessica Bridenbaugh have written a book which is doubly welcome. In the first place it helps to remedy an injustice, partly self- inflicted, which Philadelphia has sustained at the bar of history. The con- tribution of Boston, main port of entry of Puritanism, has been accorded universal recognition, and rightly so. That of Philadelphia, principal Amer- ican recipient of the influence of the Enlightenment, remains largely un- recognized. It will come as a surprise to many that Philadelphia had the most extensive shipbuilding yards in the colonies; that it was the foremost medical centre in America, its hospitals eclipsing in important respects those of the greatest cities of Europe; that more young men from Philadel- phia topped off their education in England than from any other part of the colonies; and that, to condense a great deal into a few words, between 1740 1943 BOOK REVIEWS 171 and 1776 Philadelphia produced a galaxy of intellectual and civic leaders which could be equaled by no other city in America and by few in Europe. One wonders whether an inherent modesty, a smug indifference, or a tacit assumption of superiority has been principally responsible for Philadelphia's failure adequately to recognize in print her own contribution to the culture of this country and of the world. Important as was the New England contribution, it seems valid to regard that of the city on the Delaware as more significant. The scale of values of the Enlightenment, much more closely than that of Puritanism, approximates that of our own day, and Pennsylvania, strategically located in the central Atlantic seaboard, was working out a cultural synthesis which forecast, more accurately than that of Massachusetts, what America was becoming. In the second place, the subject matter of this study affords an excellent opportunity for contemplating the process of culture transference and synthesis. The fundamental culture of Pennsylvania was of course im- ported, and was principally but, thanks to the cosmopolitan nature of the community, by no means exclusively English. Nor was the Enlightenment, with its emphasis upon reason and upon the dignity of the individual, an indigenous development. Yet there was evolving on these shores a culture which was not European but American. The present study aids in the eval- uation of the continued influence of the old world upon the new. In some departments of endeavor this was of fundamental importance; in others a too servile acceptance of European standards exercised a stultifying influ- ence. The remarkable developments in medicine and other branches of science would not by any chance have taken place but for the progress made in these fields elsewhere. The influence of European standards upon the architecture and cabinetmaking of a community less than a century re- moved from the raw frontier seems to have been clearly beneficial. The independence and practical common sense of local craftsmen kept them from following too slavishly the models from which they drew their inspira- tion, and their works reflected an individuality of their own. Music, like- wise, was too much a thing of the people to be unnaturally warped by tra- ditional standards. The European influence here was great—and appar- ently all to the good. In the case of the drama the European influence did not inhibit native tendencies, for such can scarcely be said to have existed, plays and players alike being for the most part mere importations. But in the graphic arts a local evolution, rich in potentialities, seems to have been retarded by a proclivity to ape alien standards. Another evident European influence of a deleterious sort, though the Bridenbaughs do not dwell upon it, was in the field of politics. The Euro- pean connection obviously did much to keep in power the oligarchic, though not entirely unprogressive, proprietary regime. Does it not, after all, amount to this: the influence of Europe was beneficial in those fields of endeavor where the current tradition was vital and progressive, as it was in science and music? The painting of Georgian England was decadent, 172 BOOK REVIEWS April while its political life was sadly bogged down in a mire of privilege and corruption. Under such circumstances to turn to Europe for inspiration was to drink at a dry well. The conflict between the standards of the old world and the new tended to be merged into that between the privileged and the rank and file in the colony itself. Those who because of their control of the business and the political life of the community tended to monopolize not wealth alone but also the opportunity to acquire it were the objects of a jealousy which was not unmingled with a sense of injustice. With the colonial aristocracy copying English standards of fashion which tended toward the alien and the artificial, it is understandable that the "mechanics" favored the in- digenous and the practical. One may wonder to what extent this feeling, largely subconscious perhaps, led carpenters and cabinetmakers to modify designs from England. The conflict is plainly visible in rival theories of education. The democracy which found in Franklin its most effective spokesman favored a practical vocational education, though one in which cultural values were by no means lost sight of, while Provost William Smith was the outstanding exponent of an education which stressed the classics as the necessary hallmark of a gentleman. The feelings of the two groups were transparently displayed in the disputes which raged over the theater. With not one Philadelphian in fifty enjoying the franchise, and with mu- nicipal affairs in the hands of a self-perpetuating oligarchy, the bearing of all this upon the American Revolution is not difficult to discern.

University of Pennsylvania LEONIDAS DODSON

Paul Revere and the World He Lived In. By ESTHER FORBES. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1942. xiii,5iop. Illustrated. $3.75.) Why anyone would write another biography about Paul Revere I cannot tell you. However, the fact remains that Esther Forbes has done one, and given a very creditable performance with a distinctly second-rate subject. From an historian's point of view, it might be considered a matter of regret that Miss Forbes did not write about Molineaux, Captain Macintosh, Dr. Young, or any of the other leaders of the Caucus Club about whom we know little. The lack of extant materials is, I suppose, the reason that neither she nor anyone else has done so. In fact, and this Miss Forbes admits frankly, there is little absolute knowledge of what Revere himself did. And since recorded proofs are lacking in many instances, Miss Forbes has permitted herself to suppose that Revere took part in a number of events, as, for example, the procession of tradesmen mentioned on page 102. I admit that her assumptions are fair enough, but this is not history. In her book Miss Forbes has not eulogized Revere, nor attempted to make him out a hero, always a difficult thing for a biographer to avoid. Although I do not think that she has added much to what Gosse in his two 1943 BOOK REVIEWS 173 volume life has told us about Revere, she has created a picture of Revolu- tionary times which is unsurpassable. There is not the slightest doubt that she knows Boston and the colonial era as few historians do. Perfectly at home there, she makes the reader aware of the living Boston, one of the most vital and energetic cities of the eighteenth century. Her happy faculty of giving an apt picture in a few words is well illustrated by her remark, that as early as 1715, "Boston was more than a geographical fact; [even then it was] something of a state of mind." And when speaking of the various Whig clubs, the three Caucuses, and their inns and taverns, Miss Forbes is at her best. It was here, of course, that Paul Revere probably was a tremendous factor. However, it is my opinion that he served chiefly as a tool for Adams and Warren, and took but little initiative of his own. In this connection it is interesting to note that no mention of Revere is made by either John Roe or John Boyle in their diaries. And, unfortunately, Revere himself failed to leave a diary or series of letters describing the activities of the Caucus Club. This is much to be regretted since there is little doubt that he was very much concerned with the Sons of Liberty. However, if Revere had but little money, social position, and education, if he lacked stature with his fellowmen, he did have a Longfellow—without whom this book might never have been written. Miss Forbes admits that Revere's famous ride has been very much exaggerated. As a matter of fact, I doubt that it would have made any difference to the cause of the Colonies had Revere never set out on his midnight journey. Incidentally, Miss Mary Benjamin remembers owning a letter of John Hancock's in which the latter stated that the Colonists knew of the probable approach of the enemy four or five days before Revere was supposed to have taken his ride. Even as a young man, Paul Revere did not take soldiering seriously, being more concerned with the making of money, and it is surely significant that he did not participate in the Concord, Lexington or Bunker Hill skir- mishes, although he was in the immediate vicinity of all three. In fact, the only other time Revere attempted to distinguish himself in a military way was in the Penobscot Campaign, which ended most disastrously for his reputation, as well as for the American soldiers. I am sorry that Miss Forbes has not dwelt more fully on this whole campaign, as it is one of the events in the Revolution about which too little is known. Miss Forbes* appraisal of Hutchinson is excellent and I am in entire agree- ment with her statement that had the British won, Hutchinson would haye been regarded as one of our great patriots. He loved America and under- stood it better than any other royal governor, with the possible exception of Pownall. Likewise, her statement (p. 296) that Church's treacheries covered a period of ten years coincides very nearly with my own opinion, expressed in Letters on the American Revolution. The format of the book is very pleasant. The engravings and headings of the chapters are especially commendable. All in all, Paul Revere and the 174 BOOK REVIEWS April

World He Lived In is a real contribution to American history in general and to that of Boston in particular. It could have been written only by a New Englander, and by one who had read voluminously about the colonial era. Philadelphia FREDERIC R. KIRKLAND

Lafayette and the Close of the American Revolution. By Louis GOTTSCHALK. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942. xiv, 548 p. $4.50.) This is the third volume in Professor Gottschalk's monumental biography of Lafayette and like its predecessors deserves high praise for vivid and excellent writing. Beginning with Lafayette's return to France in February, 1779, it covers in considerable detail the abortive attempt to invade Eng- land (a scheme which has not heretofore been so well narrated in print), follows him back to America through the campaigns of 1780 and 1781, covers the return to France and the activities on behalf of peace and in Spain, and ends with the return to Chavaniac, his childhood home, in March, 1783—an event which Professor Gottschalk logically considers to mark the end of his youth. Professor Gottschalk has set himself a stupendous task. It is to reappraise and understand Lafayette, to learn why and how France's wealthiest young aristocrat, seemingly a colorless courtier, became the leading liberal of his time. His conclusion is that Lafayette "acquired his interest in freedom and reform from his American associations." In this volume he notes that "there is a striking crescendo of attention to such questions as Irish liberty, parlia- ments, rights of man, emancipation of Negroes, and freedom of trade . . . until they stand forth quite clearly as a major interest in 1783." He also has found that "Lafayette was officious and intrigant^ though always with good intentions and often with good results." Obviously, such a task involves not only much research, but also requires critical acumen and judgment. Professor Gottschalk has submitted Lafa- yette's memoirs, usually considered reliable evidence, to particularly close scrutiny, and by checking statements therein with letters written by Lafa- yette in his youth shows how greatly his later beliefs and experiences colored and reshaped events in his memory. For this painstaking work and the careful searching out of Lafayette letters, all historians are indebted to Professor Gottschalk. Having been given so much, it seems ungrateful to complain. Yet to this reviewer, Professor Gottschalk's volumes are disappointing. With his gifts as a writer, his exceptional talent for making his subjects come to life, and with his capacity for taking great pains, it was expected that he would consider and digest all the data available today. Unfortunately, this seems not to have been done. True, Professor Gottschalk makes acknowledgments to numerous libraries and collections and has been indefatigable in searching out Lafayette letters. But Lafayette was inextricably involved in the great 1943 BOOK REVIEWS 175 events of the Revolutionary years, and to evaluate his services requires an exacting study not only of Lafayette's part from Lafayette's letters and memoirs, but also a study of the events as a whole from the evidence of other participants. For the general history of events, Professor Gottschalk seems to have been content to rely on printed books. With the great wealth of unutilized manuscript material, especially that made available within the last twenty years, printed books are inadequate and sometimes mislead- ing. There is no evidence, for example, that Professor Gottschalk absorbed the mass of material in the Gates papers in The New York Historical Society or attempted to work out the data on the Virginia campaign from the Anthony Wayne papers in The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Yet Wayne operated with Lafayette in Virginia. Nor is there any indication that he used the important collections in the Clements Library—the Sir Henry Clinton, the Lord George Germain, or the Nathanael Greene papers —for studying the events about which he writes. Nor is there evidence of using for such purposes either the Public Record Office or the splendid series of photostats of their files and those of other European archives made avail- able in the Library of Congress by Mr. Rockefeller. How can one write the history of a campaign without studying the papers of the generals on both sides? The failure to utilize the transcripts prepared by the Clements Li- brary for its documentary history of the peace negotiations is particularly evident. Similar neglect of other manuscript collections in gathering the facts about the events in which Lafayette participated can be cited. The only collection which he seems to have used extensively for historical study is the Sparks Manuscripts at Harvard. Another disappointment, to be expected from the foregoing, is the failure to discuss primary sources, particularly the manuscript collections. Al- though at the end of each chapter there is a small section of bibliographical notes, which contain sound appraisals of printed books, these might better be called suggestions for collateral reading. Citations to documents are usually to the printed versions, though the originals might have been noted as well. One pleasurable feature is the singular freedom from slips and typographical errors, though New Hampshire may rise up and claim Ports- mouth as its own, denying it to Maine. All in all, however, Professor Gottschalk has given us a book for which we should be grateful. It is extremely readable, beautifully written, and furnishes a fine bibliography of Lafayette letters and documents. The critical acumen with which Professor Gottschalk balances legend and an old man's memories against contemporary statements has resulted in a book that is indispensable. Perhaps one should not expect more from a biographer and the expression of this reviewer's disappointment is unfair. Yet the failure to utilize the untapped manuscript sources for a more accu- rate understanding of the events in which Lafayette participated means that the research student can never entirely rely on this book, that he must check it always against other evidence. The National Archives EDNA VOSPER I76 BOOK REVIEWS April

The Counter-Revolution in Pennsylvania, 1776-1790. ROBERT L. BRUN- HOUSE. (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical Commission, 1942. viii, 227 p., notes, appendices, maps, and index.) For a generation now it has been said that the decade of the 1780's was a period of conservative reaction, a Thermidorean period when (and here one chooses one's words according to one's bias) men of property—or wealth, or moderation, or good sense—first resisted, then opposed, finally overthrew the radical extremists—or democrats, or liberals, or violent revolutionaries—who had won their great victory in 1776. The critical value of such an interpretation is, of course, that it presents the revolution- ary epic to the modern reader as a struggle among men of various opinions, emotions, and intentions, a struggle for immediate goals not all of a piece, and certainly not an esoteric idealistic struggle between freedom and tyr- anny divorced from the things of life. The disadvantage of the theory is, that it may not be an accurate representation of the facts. Historical theories are the products of the historian's creative attempts to relate evidences, to classify, organize and distribute facts in series and groups, in such a way that they fall into a pattern of relationship. There each in its own place becomes more easily comprehensible than it would be if it stood apart from logic or remained impervious to classification. Such theories are an index to the age that makes them. Whether they have a more permanent, objective value is less clear. In the volume before us, there is offered more material for reflection on this issue as it relates to Pennsylvania than has before been available. It is material that will richly illustrate and develop this generation's general theory of the revolution. "Only with the detailed story of the struggle between radical and conservative forces in each state," the author remarks, "can one gain a more complete understanding of the history of the Revolu- tion and Confederation." Published by the Pennsylvania Historical Com- mission, the study does much credit to the enterprise and vision of that department, and of the writer as well. Mr. Brunhouse undertook the work as a doctoral dissertation, and has subsequently developed it through deep and devoted study of the ample sources in the state, until it emerges as a substantial commentary on a body of information larger than most men in a single study are capable of assimilating. As a scholarly monograph it is excellent, and to be highly recommended. No consideration of the theory of the counter-revolution, nor of the history of Pennsylvania during the period, can overlook it. For the general reader it offers the pitfalls familiar in literature addressed primarily to the professional student. Mr. Brunhouse defines the conservative reaction in terms of political parties. The whole theme of the period 1776-1790 was counter-revolution, he begins; the party seeking it was that which opposed the radical consti- tution of 1776. He divides the fourteen years into four episodes. The first is the rise and triumph of the radicals from 1776 to 1780, and their successful I943 BOOK REVIEWS 177 defense against the conservative opposition. The narrative of these four years is clearly presented, in spite of serious stylistic difficulties that would have overwhelmed a less careful organizer. The sections on "The Conserva- tive Opposition/' "Personalities under Fire," and "The State Revolution Completed" contain original contributions to our knowledge of the sub- jects. This reviewer found here a more thorough and intelligent grouping of the many personalities involved than he has encountered elsewhere, and was struck anew with the impact of the factional struggles upon other than political interests in the city. The account of political issues surrounding Benedict Arnold in Philadelphia is admirably lucid. In summarizing the four years of radical supremacy the author notes the intensified hatred between the two parties, and the violence of the "rabble." The vital stum- bling block of the radicals, however, he concludes, "was not the sound and fury of the mob but the inability to solve the financial and economic prob- lems of the day. The Constitutionalists [i.e., the radicals] failed; and the Republican merchants stepped forth to show what money and financial credit could do. That they succeeded where the Radicals had failed was obvious to everyone; that the public would turn to them for guidance and leadership was inevitable." A still deeper reason for the collapse of radicalism is advanced, in the shrewd observation that the constitutionalists had really exhausted their resources. They had played every card in their hands. Their program, to establish a democratic constitution, dispossess the Penns, liberalize the university, oust Arnold, and proscribe the tories, had been accomplished. To solve the financial difficulties of the state was in essence extraneous to their intentions, abilities, or desires. The emergence of the conservatives depended upon the adequacy of their intentions, abilities and desires to reduce taxes, protect property, control prices, and stabilize the money of the state and the continent. The four years 1780-1784 of conservative victory, beginning with what Mr. Brunhouse terms "the political revolt of October, 1780," make the second episode. His material here is diverse; political, social, religious, economic and intellectual threads are woven skilfully together. The personality of Robert Morris casts its shadow over the confused polemic of these days. His was the genius which saved the continental financial structure, and along with it the conservatives' po- litical fortunes. But the conservatives over-reached themselves. A radical opposition, sustained with the most bitter animosity, seized upon every opportunity for advantage. Three issues, the incorporating of the city of Philadelphia, the restoration of the College (which the radicals had reorganized in 1779 ousting the conservative provost, William Smith) and the repeal of the test acts, were the occasions for reassertion by the radicals of their democratic arguments, and their second triumph in 1783. By the most extreme polit- ical tactics they were able to return to power, and the years 1783 to 1786 were the critical ones. The Bank, the Wyoming lands controversy, the I78 BOOK REVIEWS April

depression and the desperate condition of the artisan class, together with the financial problem, each in turn discovered ideological differences be- tween Bryan and Wilson, between constitutionalist and republican. Power in this third period went back and forth, but the radicals were too zealous and ardent to retain their following. "In their swan song of triumph they failed to realize that they could no longer count on war hysteria and anti- British sentiment. The day of these psychological forces had passed. As level-headed men turned with disgust from the excesses of the Radical assembly of 1784-178 5, they realized the seriousness of national problems which could no longer be delayed. The Radical particularistic State rights philosophy of government was not adequate to a satisfactory solution of these problems. For many years the Republicans had waited for the occa- sion when the public would turn to them for leadership." From 1786 to 1790, the conservatives gained strength, and their strength met the test of the ratification controversy of 1787-1788. State and national constitutions, after 1790, exemplified the ideals of the republicans. The new instrument of government in the last year crystallized the victory. Throughout the book, although details are more than abundant, Mr. Brunhouse never loses the main tenets of his arguments. His footnotes are careful, unusually thorough, and suggestive. The idea-structures of both sides in what was a considerable polemic are neglected, but Mr. Brunhouse does not pretend to be writing intellectual history. The importance of mass meetings, propaganda techniques, the linkage of state and federal issues, are all clearly described. This is, in short, a study eminently satisfactory from every point of view, except that it proceeds on premises that need a very careful scrutiny, which appears nowhere in these pages. Whether the factional struggles described actually constituted a counter-revolution, is a question not yet answered. Most American historians agree with Mr. Brunhouse that they do. If this reviewer's doubts exceed those of his col- leagues, this is not the proper place to develop them; nor does a difference in historical theory lessen at all the usefulness and importance of a scholarly production of an excellent type.

University of Delaware J. H. POWELL

The Keelboat Age on Western Waters. By LELAND D. BALDWIN. With Chapter Decorations by HARVEY B. CUSHMAN. (Pittsburgh: Univer- sity of Pittsburgh Press, 1941. xiv, 268 p. $3.00.) In a deft combination of thorough research and genuinely interesting narrative, Leland D. Baldwin's Keelboat Age on Western Waters vividly re-creates life on the keelboats and flatboats that plied the Ohio, Missis- sippi, and other rivers in early frontier days. There is also competent dis- cussion of the brief Ohio experiment with ocean-going sailing vessels (an astounded Italian customs official is said to have denied there could be such 1943 BOOK REVIEWS 179

a seaport as Pittsburgh); some study of life on such rivers as the Missouri; and even passing mention of steamboating. But Mr. Baldwin very properly sticks close to the theme indicated in his title: the age of the keelboats. As former assistant director of the Western Pennsylvania Historical Survey and the present librarian of the University of Pittsburgh, Mr. Bald- win has long been familiar with the general scene of which he writes. He has not only had access to much first-hand material, but he has also been able to travel up and down the rivers, familiarizing himself with locale. Pittsburgh was the natural point at which overland travelers began the descent of the Ohio. There the legends of the boatmen have lingered, and there also collections of manuscripts and other materials have in modern times grown up. Rich collections of material do not always lead to interesting writing, but Mr. Baldwin—always the careful scholar—has also been admirably sensitive to the picturesque aspects of his subject. The boatmen's boasting ("I can out-run, out-jump, out-swim, chaw more tobacco and spit less, and drink more whiskey and keep soberer than any other man in these localities"); their appalling fights with "devil's claws," or metal fingers designed to slash an opponent's face, maiming him for life; their generous good-nature, as revealed by characters like Bill Sedley, who had a "heart as big as an apple bar'l"; their gay fiddling and dancing on calm voyages; their gallantry in the face of the Indian danger; their cheerful communism as regarded the settlers' chickens—all this and a great deal more is set forth in lively fashion and with a blessed abundance of documentation that invites the reader to further study. That is more, I may add, than can be said of most docu- mentation. It is to be hoped that Hollywood may never discover the fascinating chapter on "River Pirates," or Mr. Baldwin, to the disappointment of his readers, will be dragged from historical labors, which have proved so fruitful, to the slavery of the silver screen! Washington, D. C. JOHN BAKELESS

Herndn Cortes, Conqueror of Mexico. By SALVADOR DE MADARIAGA. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941. ix, 554 p. #4.00.) This diplomat and philosopher has again turned biographer and, it must be confessed, he does it remarkably well. The name of Madariaga was well known, of course, but, prior to his Christopher Columbus, not in the field of biography. In this second venture into the field of literary portraiture Madariaga gives us an uncommonly good picture of the great conquistador. The author must have been faced by problems seemingly inherent in the replowing of a well-worked field/ chiefly that of how, in the turning of the soil, to give its surface a new appearance. It is here that the artistry of the writer comes in: his product is not so much a sharply delineated photograph l8o BOOK REVIEWS April as it is a full-length painting done with all the chromatic overtones which the richly colorful environment offered his palette. Madariaga proves himself a skillful craftsman. It is difficult for a biography to escape a chronological organization and, indeed, there is little point in trying to do so. This author does not make the attempt. The plan of his book is relatively simple. The thirty-two chapters are divided into a prologue and six parts. In the prologue the author gives us a vivid account of the superstitious milieu in which the Aztecs awaited the coming of the legendary Quetzalcoatl. "In the year 4-House of the eighth sheaf of years of the Mexican era," Madariaga begins, "the Emperor Moteguguma the Younger had a great fright." He then proceeds with superb adroitness to picture the state of mind which condi- tioned all the actions of this superstition-ridden race. The next five chapters take us to Cortes, tracing his "Self-Discovery." In Part II the conqueror "Conceives the Conquest." Parts III and IV deal with "The First Conquest" and how he "Throws Away His Conquest." Part V gives us the story of "The Second Conquest" and the final group of chapters that of Cortes' "Self-Conquest." Five appendices give us a brief list of acknowledgments, a few paragraphs on the spelling of names, a list of the supposedly authentic portraits of Cortes (one of which serves as a frontispiece for the volume), a bibliography, and an extensive series of notes to the chapters. The volume contains two sketch maps and two indices, one general and the other dealing with Cortes himself. The book is attractively bound and well printed. Madariaga has relied especially on original sources, the letters of Cortes, various collections of documentos ineditos> and many others. The author leans heavily on the famous True History of the Conquest, by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, toward whom he is as affectionate as he is suspicious of that other famous contemporary, Bartolome de las Casas. One of the valuable points of the volume is the critical manner in which Madariaga weighs and evalu- ates the various source accounts from which he has to choose. There the scientific historian and biographer comes out; it is in the deft shaping of materials that the artist shows himself. It is trite, of course, to say that an author makes his subject live. Even if the characterization is a cliche it fits Madariaga's treatment of Cortes. He probes into the conqueror's mind, he sets him in the matrix of his en- vironment, he subjects him to the interplay of the intricate emotional forces then current. All this psychological exploration on the author's part might lead him into the realm of pure fancy, but the reader is left with growing confidence in Madariaga's integrity and accuracy as the product of thor- ough research. The narrative becomes a little heavy at times, and in certain instances one cannot escape the conviction that, reversing the supposed relationship of master and valet, the subject has here become a little too much of a hero to his biographer—Madariaga seems inclined to place a halo about Cortes' 1943 BOOK REVIEWS l8l undoubtedly shrewd head. Withal, however, it is a very human picture which he draws; there is no apparent effort to draw a charitable veil around the foibles and vanities which this man was heir to. Madariaga has shown himself the master of this period and its men and motives. He has placed us in his debt with this excellent picture of Cortes. We will be further obligated if he sees fit to follow the biographical path toward a full-length portrait of Pizarro.

University of California at Los Angeles RUSSELL H. FITZGIBBON

Outlines of Russian Culture. By PAUL MILIUKOV. Edited by MICHAEL KARPOVICH. Translated by VALENTINE UGHET and ELEANOR DAVIS. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1942. Volume I: Religion. 220 pages. $2.50; Volume II: Literature. 130 pages. $1.50; Volume III: Architecture, Painting and Music. 159 pages. $2.00. The set: $5.00.) The heroic resistance of the Red Army has immensely increased Amer- ica's interest in all things Russian—not only in the immediate past and the fleeting present, but also in the more remote periods of Russian history. At the same time, the man in the street as well as persons with an intelligent interest in social sciences are often unable to interpret to themselves the roots of the stubborn resistance of Russia to the tremendous pressure of the great armed might of Germany, because of their lack of knowledge of the course of development of the Russian nation. It is true that for a general outline of Russia's political history an Amer- ican reader may turn to V. O. Kliuchevskii's Course in Russian History, translated into English by C. J. Hogarth. Until recently, however, there was no authoritative book on the process of growth of Russian culture avail- able in the English language. Thomas G. Mazaryk, in his The Spirit of Russia^ made an abortive attempt, but failed to handle his material in a systematic fashion. This need is, in a measure, satisfied by the publication by the University of Pennsylvania Press of Professor Paul Miliukov's Out- lines of Russian Culture. The three ably edited and well-translated volumes so timely published are an abridged, authorized version of Volume II of the Russian original and deal with religion, literature, architecture, painting and music. Paul Miliukov, one of the few living pupils of the older masters of Russian historiography, S. M. Soloviev and Kliuchevskii, has already reached the age of eighty-three. The volumes of the Outlines testify to his remarkable mental vigor. Dr. Anatole G. Mazour, in his excellent An Outline of Modern Russian Historiography', published in 1939, has expressed regret that so much of Miliukov's energy has been diverted to other channels connected with politics, since "Russia has few scholars like Miliukov and his frequent absence from their ranks is keenly felt." The new version of the Outlines 182 BOOK REVIEWS April is an indication that neither the humiliation of political defeat in 1917, when Miliukov was serving as Foreign Minister, nor the elimination from Russian political life of the great liberal party of Constitutional Democrats which he led, nor even the bitterness of exile from his native land, has affected his objectivity as a historian. The pages dealing with literature under the Soviet regime are as painstakingly free of bias as are those con- cerned with the classical period of Russian literature. Professor Michael Karpovich has brought the volumes up-to-date in his excellent postscripts. Bibliographical notes attached to each of the volumes give lists of books on various phases of Russian culture available in Western languages, mostly English. These lists are a welcome and valuable addition likely to be appreciated by readers who would use the Outlines as a point of departure for their studies of Russia's cultural past. Some professional historians will find fault with Miliukov's method in the volumes under review. As Professor Frederick J. Taggart wrote in his Theory and Processes of History: "During the last few years, historians have come, quite generally, to express the view that the aim of historical inquiry is to show how things have come to be as they are." In other words, the primary interest of the historian is concerned, according to this view, with the elucidation of some present situation in the affairs of men. Miliukov's work does not provide an answer to such a question, although it furnishes the thoughtful reader with a great deal of material to form his own opinion. One part of the work—that dealing with religion—is likely to provoke more criticism than the others. As the editor admits: "There will be some . . . who will not agree with Mr. Miliukov's reading of Russian religious history." This reviewer was particularly impressed by the lack of a definite religious viewpoint and of any effort to connect the variegated field of Russian religious life with the undertow of social struggle which it expressed. The obvious affinity of Professor Miliukov's historical views with the theory of slow continuous modification makes it difficult for Miliukov to explain adequately the remarkable acceleration in the tempo of cultural development in Russia at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries—attempts of Russian musicians, writers and paint- ers to "catch up and overtake" Western Europe which ante-dated the efforts of the Soviet leaders in the field of social and economic life. It is eminently fitting that the University of Pennsylvania, with its ex- cellent, though small, Russian library donated by Charlemagne Tower, should be responsible for the appearance of the Outlines in the English language. Pennsylvania's interest in Russia has been considerable in the past. A number of prominent Pennsylvanians, as different as Buchanan and Boker, went to the Court of St. Petersburg to represent the . Only quite recently another Pennsylvanian has performed the same office in the USSR. Russia's men-of-war were built at Cramp's, now revital- ized. A Russian Catholic missionary—Galitzine—proselitized among the Indian tribes of Pennsylvania. To-day the-great industrial enterprises of 1943 BOOK REVIEWS 183

our state supply a large portion of the lease-lend material delivered to Russia. The three slender volumes of the Outlines will help Americans to under- stand the cultural heritage of a great country now fighting side by side with the United States against the common enemy. Philadelphia D. FEDOTOFF WHITE

Economic History of Europe, 1760-1939. By ERNEST L. BOGART. (London; New York; Toronto: Longmans, Green & Co., 1942. xvi, 734 p. $4.50.) This is an exceptionally fine book on two counts: first, it is a perfect gold mine of facts and figures, being replete with charts, tables and statistics of every kind; second, it provides an Olympian sweep of nearly two centuries of economic history in a way that is worthy of Gibbon. Beginning with the traditional mercantilist and economic bases of Renaissance Europe, the book takes us through the Industrial Revolution, through the scientific develop- ment of agriculture, through the growth of high-speed transportation, and through the increase in the banking systems, right down to the day re- ferred to in the sinister closing sentence of the book: "This [the German defense economy] directed all economic activities in peace time towards complete military preparedness and subjected the whole German people to the regimentation and privations of a war economy." There are three main divisions in the work; the first, "The Rise of the Machine," from 1760 to 1870; the second, "Economic Rivalries," from 1870 to 1914; and the third, "Economic and Political Revolution," from 1914 to 1939. Each division attains a very sound balance by the inclusion of chap- ters on population and welfare, which chapters form perhaps the most in- teresting portions of the whole book. Economic writers as a class have al- ways gone out of their way to avoid any literary style, but Mr. Bogart is a brilliant exception, with the result that his prose is clear, lucid and very readable. Throughout he writes soundly and dispassionately, with a fine sense of proportion and an occasional twinkle of humor. And although an economist, he eschews the overworked theory that war is solely the result of economic forces, but admits that many other factors go into the manu- facture of an Armageddon. Throughout the bulk of his work (the last section includes Italy and Russia) his case histories are England, France and Germany, and the na- tional characteristics as well as the national economic developments are very vividly brought out. In the case of England we see the conservatism, the essential practical bent, the ability to compromise, the fundamental sense of balance, and, above all, the aristocratic social tradition. France appears as the land of the peasant, intensely individualistic and rational- istic; the land of the small farm and the small workshop, where a man would rather eke out a frugal living in backward economic surroundings than sacrifice his freedom. This at once is the source of French strength 184 BOOK REVIEWS April and French weakness. The Germans are well portrayed as a people of great technical ability and great energy, whose moody and mystical romanticism has since the time of Goethe made them live for the state as units in the macrocosm. Equally well brought out is the development of the three powers since 1760. The decline of France from its place as the most important conti- nental state in the eighteenth century, to its third-rate position in our own day, is vividly portrayed, as is the remarkable growth of Germany, both in population and production, beginning with its regeneration from the leth- argy of Kleinstaaterei a century and a half ago. England, in keeping with its national character, has continued on the even tenor of its way, with characteristic common sense and practicability. The chapters on social conditions paint a picture of slow but gradual and almost continuous improvement in living conditions, retarded time and again by war and trade depression, but sufficiently on the upgrade to war- rant some optimism for the future of the human race—provided the spectre of militarism can be banished. In spite of German propaganda that the British propertied classes have so brutally exploited the workers, Mr. Bogart shows that the British laborer has constantly fared better than his Continental fellows. The German workman has long been favored, how- ever, with social security legislation, to such a degree that even pre-1914 Germany was to a large extent a socialistic state. France, in comparison, has always had the lowest standard of living of the three nations, but even there the lot of the artisan had materially improved in the past century. Various tables on food consumption, real wages, and birth and death rates form a convincing background to these trends. Reference must also be made to the chapters on agriculture and transportation, which are extraor- dinarily good, albeit in the latter (p. 395) the author makes the grotesque assertion that Edinburgh is 188 miles from London and that fast trains do the journey in eight hours. This is indeed a book which every intelligent man should have on his shelves. Washington, D. C. BOIES PENROSE

Latin America and the Enlightenment. Essays by ARTHUR P. WHITAKER, ROLAND D. HUSSEY, HARRY BERNSTEIN, JOHN TATE LANNING, AR- THUR SCOTT AITON, and ALEXANDER D. MARCHANT. Introduction by FEDERICO DE ONIS. Edited by ARTHUR P. WHITAKER. (D. Appleton- Century Company: New York, 1942. xiii, 130 p. $1.25.) This group of monographic studies published in the Appleton-Century Historical Essays grew out of a session of the American Historical Associa- tion at New York City in December, 1940. Four of these essays: "The Dual Role of Latin America in the Enlightenment," by Arthur P. Whit- aker; "Traces of French Enlightenment in Colonial Hispanic America," by Ronald D. Hussey; "Some Inter-American Aspects of the Enlighten- 1943 BOOK REVIEWS I 85 ment," by Harry Bernstein; and "The Reception of the Enlightenment in Latin America," by John T. Lanning, are based on papers read at that con- ference. Two other essays, namely, "Aspects of the Enlightenment in Brazil," by Alexander Marchant; and "The Spanish Government and the Enlightenment in America," by Arthur S. Aiton, were added to the series in order to give a fuller treatment to the general topic. In addition Dr. Federico de Onis furnished an introduction to the book in which he asserted that the period under consideration was "the most important in the his- torical development of Spanish and Portuguese America." In the sketch concerning the dual role of Latin America, Whitaker takes the view that Latin America had two roles in the Enlightenment. One was passive; the subject was discussed by such philosophers as Abbe Raynal. The second was positive, insofar as that vast domain actually participated in the Enlightenment movement. This author presents the view that Spain and her colonies were influenced from Germany rather than from France or England. Hussey's monograph describing French influence on the En- lightenment surveys the editors, scholars, and teachers whose writings found their way into Spanish and Portuguese America. Hussey also notices in some detail the influence exerted by Europe on travelers in that vast region. "Some Inter-American Aspects of the Enlightenment," by Bern- stein, is mainly concerned with the relations among various sections of the New World. Among other developments this author points out that corre- spondence was initiated between certain scholars in eastern North America and various South American savants. In his discussion of the reception of the Enlightenment in Spanish and Portuguese America Lanning sketches the effects of the intellectual ferment on some of its leaders and indicates the attitude of its critics. Marchant supplements Hussey and Whitaker with respect to Portuguese America and makes clear in detail that an Enlightenment occurred there which, however, was quantitatively inferior to the corresponding movement in the Spanish Indies. In his account of the Spanish government and the Enlight- enment, Aiton discusses colonial Spanish America as viewed from Madrid. His thesis is that from 1773 to 1778 Spain was the senior partner in the Bourbon Family Compact, and that she wished to engage only in those "diplomatic or warlike adventures" which would be advantageous to her. Thus, despite the efforts of Abbe Beliardi, the Enlightenment in the Spanish Indies lagged much behind that in the motherland. Here and there these essays overlap. If it had been possible to coordinate them into a synthetic whole, they would have been more helpful to the general public. Had it been feasible to standardize the bibliographical equipment in each case, after the fashion followed by Dr. Hussey, they would have been more useful to serious students of the history of our southern neighbors. In general, however, this book makes scholarly, though some- what disjointed, contributions to the pre-revolutionary history of Latin America. University of Illinois WILLIAM SPENCE ROBERTSON 186 BOOK REVIEWS April

The Old South. The Founding of American Civilization. By THOMAS JEFFERSON WERTENBAKER. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1942. xiv, 364p. $3.50.) This second volume of Professor Wertenbaker's "The Founding of American Civilization" takes us to the country south of the Mason and Dixon line, to the land of tobacco and wheat, of rice and indigo, and finally of cotton, the most voracious crop of all. For the Pennsylvanian as for the general reader, the links that bind it to the earlier volume on the Middle States are the pioneer highways from central and western Pennsylvania through western Maryland and the Valley of Virginia to the Carolina back- country, and the bands of German and Scots-Irish settlers struggling along them to free and fertile lands in the South. To these regions they trans- planted many of the customs, folkways and agricultural habits, and some of the crafts, so charmingly described by this author in the earlier volume. They were sufficient to provide lasting variety to an area misnamed "the solid South," they made of the Valley of Virginia a sort of "test laboratory" of the American civilization of the melting pot, but neither in numbers nor in capacity for leadership were they ever able to alter the fundamental character imparted to the entire region by the Tuckahoe and his plantation economy. In a series of leisurely and pleasant chapters Mr. Wertenbaker describes the development of that character and that region. He shows how climate, soil and topography irresistibly transformed the English settler into Mary- lander, Virginian or Carolinian, no matter how powerful his nostalgia for the ways of the Mother Country. He gives a sympathetic explanation of the first of the series of historic and economic accidents by which the costly one-crop system of agriculture became fastened on the South. He describes the planter's—and the farmer's—eternal problems of transport and his efforts to surmount them. He lays to rest the legend of the noble origins of the Virginia gentleman, along with such other myths as the log cabin and the prevalence of brick imported from England as ballast. And he places continual stress on the rich complexity of this region "with its aristocratic social structure, its wasteful agriculture, its courtly gentlemen, its ignorant yeomen, its fine mansions, and crude huts," where homogeneity and uni- formity have been overemphasized to the point of monotony. Little of this is new to the informed historian, but much of it bears repeating for the general reader. This is, withal, a disconcerting book. For hidden among paragraphs of pleasant and wholly unstartling exposition are occasional statements so incisive and so challenging that one wishes the author had seen fit to discuss them further. In music as in art, says Mr. Wertenbaker, "the Virginia and Maryland planters were appreciative rather than creative,"—a cultural outlook that might be traced through much of southern history. Again, the seventeenth-century planters "looked upon themselves as occupying an outpost of Europe rather than the threshold of America," an attitude which 1943 BOOK REVIEWS 187 continued prevalent at least through the era of Sir Walter Scott. And finally, Mr. Wertenbaker deplores the squeezing out of the white artisan class before competition from European importations and black slave labor, since that class "constituted a sorely needed element of strength and democracy in a society economically unsound and basically aristocratic." Indeed, the author points out in a later connection that the society that produced Washington and Jefferson was "an aristocracy . . . based on an unsound economy and in some cases on actual fraud," and that Jefferson himself recognized the class from which he sprung as "but the glittering apex of an unsound society." A history of the Old South which took full account of these factors might cast much needed light on some of the economic and psychological problems of the nation today. Pennsylvanians may find interest in the historical contrast between their own region and the Old South in these respects, and speculate as to how much the presence of such an urban center as Philadelphia contributed to their own different destiny. In his conclusion Mr. Wertenbaker suggests that the slave-holding South of 1820-1865, the South of Calhoun and Jefferson Davis, represents an aberration from the true destiny of that region, as prefigured by its colonial and early national development, and to which, with its mining, industry, fruit and truck gardening, and the increase of its middle class, the New South is now returning. Perhaps, but with the increasing frequency of today's utterances from that section indicating that, though the body of John C. Calhoun may lie a-molding in the grave, his soul is still very much on the march (see a recent issue of a nationally circulated periodical pub- lished in Philadelphia), one wonders if the spirit he represented did not reflect something far more fundamental in the southern mind than defense of a peculiar institution, now only a matter of history. The next presi- dential election may clarify this point. Like its predecessor, this volume is lavishly and beautifully illustrated. This being the case, the absence of a map is especially to be deplored, for seldom in history has an area been so completely the product and the victim of its geography as our southern states. Also, in a writer of Mr. Wertenbaker's experience, it is hard to forgive such sentences as "Mills had been greatly shocked by the loss of life in the burning of the Richmond Theatre, in which seventy-one persons lost their lives, including the governor of Virginia." New York CARL AND JESSICA BRIDENBAUGH

Benjamin Franklin's Experiments. A New Edition of Franklin's Experi- ments and Observations on Electricity. Edited by I. BERNHARD COHEN. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941. xxviii, 454 p. Illustrated. $4.00.) has much to live up to. His reputation as statesman, author, printer, diplomat, and wit is secure. Yet in the one field of human 188 BOOK REVIEWS April

endeavor in which Franklin made his soundest reputation he has perhaps been forgotten the most quickly. The worth of Franklin's scientific writings is certified to by the fact that his Experiments and Observations in Electricity passed through five English, three French, one German, and one Italian edition. Moreover, many of the words which he gave to the science of electricity remain in current use: "plus," "minus," "negative," "battery." Franklin's scientific reputation was well founded in Europe during his life- time. Today Franklin's scientific experiments are all but unknown to many of his countrymen, with the exception of those specialists whose narrowed interests have led them to antiquarian work. His more dramatic political activities have overshadowed his solid scientific work, and Mr. Cohen has done Franklin's countrymen, as well as science, a service by reprinting the Philadelphian's writings on the subject of electricity. The Experiments and Observations on Electricity made at Philadelphia in America by Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. and F.R.S.—as the title of the fifth English edition reads—is really not a book but a series of twenty-five letters which Franklin wrote to his various European scientific friends. The letters are accounts of the experiments which Franklin conducted, and the observations which he made thereupon, on lightning, and those other electrical phenomena of nature which interested the eighteenth century so greatly. Franklin's scientific attitude is remarkable. He proves himself an objective, sound, disinterested interpreter, and an honest reporter. Mr. Cohen's lengthy introduction places the letters in their proper historical setting by discussing first the status of electricity before Franklin and then considering Franklin's own contributions to the science.

New York City JOHN JOSEPH STOUDT

Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy. By ELTING E. MORISON. (Boston: Houghton MifHin Company, 1942. xv, 548 p. $5.00.) Mr. Morison, a former graduate student in history at Harvard Uni- versity, now an officer in the Navy, has produced an outstanding book. It is the best biography of a naval officer known to the writer. Although a civilian when the book was written, the author presents naval matters with a sureness that reflects long and deep study. Admiral Sims was the most prominent naval figure of his time, serving during the World War as Force Commander of the United States Naval Forces Operating in European Waters. Previous to that important com- mand, he had had a long career of exceptional usefulness in the Navy. Born in Canada of an American father and a Canadian mother, he was taken as a boy to the United States, and from 1876 to 1882 he attended the United States Naval Academy. Following his graduation he served suc- cessively during most of the next twenty years in the Swatara, Yantic, 1943 BOOK REVIEWS I 89 Saratoga, Philadelphia, Charleston, Monterey, Kentucky, Brooklyn, and New York. In 1894-1895 and again in 1900-1902 he was on the China Station. He spent most of 1889 m Paris studying French, and he returned to that capital in 1896 to fill the position of naval attache. From that year until 1900 he gathered naval intelligence in that city and in St. Petersburg to which he was also accredited. His work as an- intelligence officer on board ships and in Europe taught him the ineffectiveness of American naval gunnery and resulted in his calling it to the attention of the department in numerous reports. His interest in this subject led to his appointment in 1902 as Inspector of Target Practice in the Bureau of Navigation, a position in which he was largely responsible for the great improvement in our naval marksmanship during the succeeding years. He continued as inspector until 1909, serving also after November, 1907, as Naval Aide to the Presi- dent. Although only a commander, Sims was given command of the Minnesota in March, 1909. At the Naval War College in 1911-1913 he learned the principles which enabled him to achieve success as commander of the Atlantic Destroyer Flotilla during the following two years. Another battleship, the Nevada, became his command in 1916, but he was detached from that vessel in December and ordered to the Naval War College as President. It was from this agreeable post that he was ordered in the spring of 1917 to London and the assignment as Force Commander. Early in 1919 he returned to the presidency of the college, and he was still there when he reached retirement age in 1922. Throughout his career Sims was one of the foremost advocates of reform in the Navy; he had much to do with the improvement of naval administration, particularly on the side of naval operations. This book is the product of many years study of manuscripts, archives, government documents, and secondary works. Mr. Morison is a son-in-law of Admiral Sims and had full access to his papers, which are described as "extraordinarily complete and well catalogued." The papers of other naval officers and official records in the Navy Department and the National Archives were also consulted. These and other sources are discussed in a bibliography and cited in footnotes. Except for occasional imperfect letters the book is well printed and attractively bound. It is a very well written and interesting book. A few minor errors were noted. Dayton (p. 225) was a Congressman not an ex-secretary. In the official documents the term used is Aid for Operations not Aide for Operations (p. 126). On p. 441 the date should be January 7, 1920, not January 7, 1917. Plunkett's middle initial was P. not R. (p. 178). Sims became Inspector of Target Practice in November not October, 1902 (p. 131). No person—the student, the lay reader, the Congressman, the naval officer—desirous of understanding the American Navy can afford not to read this illuminating volume. The National Archives HENRY P. BEERS I9O BOOK REVIEWS April

The Tutelo Spirit Adoption Ceremony. Reclothing the Living in the Name of the Dead. FRANK G. SPECK. (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical Commission, 1942. 125 p.) The Tutelo Indians, a fragment of a once larger Siouan people that dwelt anciently in Virginia, are now incorporated into the Cayuga (Iroquoian) tribe and live with the Cayuga in Pennsylvania. The incorporation occurred in the middle of the eighteenth century. Today no Tutelo can claim as much as one-half the blood of the people with whom he identifies himself; most of their old culture is gone; they speak the adopted Iroquoian language and remember of Tutelo speech only a few words that appear in liturgy. Nevertheless they retain a strong sense of ethnic identity. An important factor in the preservation of this sense of collective identity is the ceremony which forms the subject of the principal part of the publica- tion reviewed. The ceremony is held to bring the soul of a Tutelo tribe member who has recently died into association with the living for one night. The ritual restores his spirit among the living by the appointment, in the ceremony, of a living person as his representative on earth. The living representative of the deceased takes the social position, and, character- istically, the name of the dead tribesman. The Tutelo now commonly adopt a Cayuga by this rite. The rite thus tends to make up losses in the number of (socially recognized) Tutelo, while by its solemn and religious commemoration and identification of the adopted person with a long family line and ancient tradition, it renews the sense which the survivors have of being a distinct people. The monograph is an excellent piece of ethnographic reporting and com- mentary. Dr. Speck presents a generalized account of the ceremony derived from several accounts given him by informants, and gives also a vivid personal description of one celebration of the rite which he witnessed. The implications of the meaning of details of the ritual are carefully explored and reported. There is an interesting diagrammatic summary of the ritual bringing out the symmetrical crescendo-decrescendo by which is brought about a movement from normal secular life to sacred intensity and back again to normal life. In his discussion of the ritual Dr. Speck ventures the suggestion that a use of the pyramidal earthworks common in the Southeast was for rituals such as this, and suggests that it may have been a cult of this sort, rather than a complete culture, which is represented by the earthworks. The publication includes a discussion of the history of the Tutelo by Claude E. Schaeffer, an analysis of music used in the rite, by George Herzog, and notes on two other minor Tutelo rituals, and on Tutelo names, by Speck.

University of Chicago ROBERT REDFIELD 1943 BOOK REVIEWS I9I

The Negro in English Romantic Thought. Or a Study of Sympathy for the Oppressed. By EVA BEATRICE DYKES. (Washington, D. C. The Associated Publishers, Inc., 1942. x, 198 p. $2.00.) The stated purpose of this book is "first to ascertain from the great bulk of poetry and prose of the eighteenth century any sympathetic attitude toward the Negro, and secondly, to find out reasons for this attitude." The least that we could expect of The Negro in English Romantic Thought is to throw new light on the English romantic movement. Not only does Miss Dykes fail to make clear to us the operations of English romantic thought on the great problem of humanity and freedom for oppressed Negroes, she fails to make clear to us what constituted the English romantic movement as such. English romanticism possessing an emotional interest in other peoples stood in a definitely contrasted relation to German and French romanticism which was essentially nationalistic. But a mere inci- dental, isolated mention of Ferdinand Freilgath, an historically insignificant German romanticist, and Chateaubriand cannot begin to establish a prin- ciple. Nor does the author concern herself with valid principles or common denominators, arrived at only through integrating many individual facts. The English romantic movement, like all great historical streams or cur- rents, was made up of distant uncertain beginnings, was fed by many tributaries, and grew eventually into one onrushing floodtide. Any study, however much energy and patience it involves, which loses itself in isolated springs or individual streamlets, forgetful of the whole big body, can lay claim to precious little merit. The best that can be said of this study is that the author obviously spent many weary hours on it. The work in question is typical of an immense and ever growing body of books and essays on the Negro. More often than not is the treatment too superficial, devoid both of wealth of background knowledge and breadth and depth of interest. Wilberforce University LEWIS K. MCMILLAN