to mislead the public with a skillful art of deception, it becomes a more difficult art for the historian to convince that public of the truth. Equally important in the consideration of American history is it to avoid a one-sided treatment of the subject. A remarkable scene was enacted in London some months ago, when the first division of our expeditionary forces, on their way to the battlefields of Europe to do their part in making the world safe for democracy, passed across the bridge at the Houses of Parliament, thus beginning a new era in the annals of two free nations. One hundred years ago, the possibility of such an adventure was too remote even for the imagination of the novelist, but, in this case, truth is stranger than fiction. It seems that the hatred for England engendered by the Revolution, and perpetuated in the one-sided textbooks, has been superseded by a spirit of mutual understanding, although the prejudices and impressions gained in early life have too often distorted the vision and given the student a false picture of the conditions which led to the conflict with the Mother Country. May we not draw this conclusion from an impartial reading of that period of our history: that victory came to both parties; that the triumph in America gave birth to a free nation, while for England it meant the beginning of a new era, all due to the struggle with the liberty loving colonists in the days of 1776. The violent Anglophobe may not be satisfied with this verdict, but such is the light that critical history sheds, and in spite of wars, dissensions, and irritating controversies, we must accept the truth, for truth promotes justice, and justice international comity and happiness. Just now when there is a general quest for peace among the nations, we may find much profit and satisfaction in Whitelaw Reid's lecture at Cambridge University, "The Greatest Fact in Modern History," in which he has this to say of the historical treatment of the American Revolution: "It used to be remarked that American histories of that period were unfriendly and unfair to Great Britain. Perhaps they were. At the close of this war with the Mother Country, Americans may have been somewhat in the temper of the Puritans after the Parliamentary wars, or of the Royalists after the restoration. Certainly they had not reached that stage in the evolution of free government which enabled them eighty years later, to close another civil war without a single execution and with a speedy return to the defeated side of all its political privileges. It has even been said that our histories now tend to perpetuate an old unfairness and bitterness. If that were ever true, I hope and believe it is true no longer. At any rate, Americans, while not always agreeing, accept in the main with pleasure the work upon that period of recent English historians like the lamented Lecky. They are satisfied with the admirable history of the American Revolution, on which the Right Honorable Sir George Otto Trevelyan is still engaged. And they are likewise content with the comprehensive report of what that Revolution led to, in the luminous pages of "The American Commonwealth," by a member of the present government, the Right Honorable James Bryce, Secretary of Ireland. May I take the liberty, if not as an American, at least as a loyal and grateful son of Cambridge, to add and adopt the lines of the great Victorian poet, with which one of these Englishmen introduces his work: O, thou, that sendest out the man To rule by land and sea, Strong mother of a Lion-line, Be proud of those strong sons of thine Rather than perpetuate the bad feelings with the Mother Country, it is more profitable to the cause of civilization to understand the tendencies toward peace between the two chief branches of the Anglo-Saxon race. After the treaty closing the War of 1812 had been signed, John Quincy Adams, one of the commissioners, responded to the toast: "Ghent, city of peace, may the doors of the Temple of Janus, closed here, not be opened in one hundred years." As far as Great Britain and America are concerned, his hope has been realized, not without international disputes and threats of war, but we have gradually found a common ground of understanding in language, institutions, and democratic ideals. Perhaps a still stronger incentive to peace is the inherent quality of restraint possessed by the race on both sides of the Atlantic. As Viscount Bryce says, "when bad manners were exhibited in London there was good sense in Washington," or as Sir Walter Phillimore puts it, "time to think, to know the truth, to listen to the voice of reason, will in most cases prevent the tragedy of war." Nations so endowed are eminently qualified for a high place in a league of states for the defence of mankind against barbarism and aggression of every form. This great problem finds solution in the peace conference, and if the ideals so fondly cherished are not realized, history will pronounce a stern judgment on the faithless stewards of international obligations. If one-sided history is misleading and prejudicial, what shall I Xsay of the pernicious influence of German Propaganda to be found in the American schools and universities? Ours is a sovereign nation, therefore, any movement to destroy its unity or to weaken the allegiance of all the people must be regarded as dangerous to the future of our institutions. Listen to that interesting Frenchman, Hector St. John, who visited the United States more than one hundred years ago, and who wrote some good advice profitable to all who find a refuge on our shores: "What attachment can a poor European immigrant have for a country where he had nothing? The knowledge of the language, the love of a few kindred as poor as himself, were the only cords that tied him; his country is now that which gives him land, bread, protection and consequence. What then is the American, this new man? He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Ameri cans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along Contrast this wisdom of the generous Frenchman with the boastful Kultur lessons of the Teutonic intellectuals, whose representatives in our country declared some years ago: "Only with a background of German political history and, above all, of the history of German Kultur, can a proper understanding of American history be obtained; only through the knowledge of the history of Germany can there be awakened in the German American youth the well justified pride of their descent." Not so much through our history textbooks as by means of German school readers has this insidious propaganda done its work, while professors like a Munsterberg at Harvard have boldly extolled the virtues of the Prussian theory of the state. Then it was our duty, even years ago, to offset this influence; to take more account of our own institutions, their nature and origin, their inheritance from English instead of German sources. We confess that long ago we should have discovered this impending peril. Americans, since the days of Edward Everett and George Bancroft have sojourned for months and years at the Prussian universities, and our globe-trotting tourists were in the habit of penetrating every nook and corner of the Kaiser's realms, but in most cases, seeking reality, they found only appearances, and pursuing knowledge, they gained only opinions. Even so distinguished an authority on constitutional law as Dr. John W. Burgess declared three years ago in his book, "America's Relations to the Great War," "Very little has been said or written from the point of view of the likeness of German institutions to those of the United States, although to such men as are thoroughly acquainted with them that likeness appears much stronger than what obtains between French and American institutions, and equally as strong as what obtains between British and American institutions." But all the sophistries published by Dr. Burgess in his later years cannot bridge the gulf that separates the Prussian theory of the state from democracy as conceived and practiced in the United States. It may seem presumptuous for an obscure high school teacher to question the opinions of a disciple of Bluntschli at Heidelberg, but it requires no superior mental vision to detect the fallacies of a doctrinaire educated in a land of hero-ideals and boasted efficiency. Suddenly, with the outbreak of the war, we discovered our own shortcoming in educational matters, our failure correctly to interpret the history and literature of a designing foe, impelled to conflict through the visions of a greater empire yet to be. For this tragic neglect of an intellectual and moral duty, the American schools and universities are adjudged guilty. We taught history in a provincial fashion, and we allowed Prussian cynicism and hypocrisy to deceive an unsuspecting world until at last the thundering. guns called us to arms for the purpose of crushing the aggressive designs of militarism. Is it not true that, since 1914, we have gained more knowledge of the real Germany than the professors have imparted to us in fifty years? In a new treatment of American history, narrow provincialism and isolation must necessarily be avoided, for we have just learned in the great war, and we are now learning in the peace deliberations, that no country can exist for itself alone. By the very conditions of life prevailing here in colonial days, in the Revolution, and in the subsequent epochs of our national development, down to the Spanish-American War, we never dreamed of a place at the council of international politics. With us, our safety was in isolation, in liberty within our own borders, protected by the ocean shores. Although drawn into the vortex of great world-events during the French Revolution, and disturbed until 1815 by the vicissitudes of a changing order in Europe, we retired as soon as possible within ourselves to work out a destiny that concerned us alone. Turning to the pages of Bancroft's History of the United |