Humble History

The Book.* The red brick schoolhouse, copy books, McGuffey's readers; Rockefeller's millions and Roosevelt's teeth; Langley and the Wright Brothers building flimsy miracles; Hill and Harriman fighting for a railroad; automobiles and oil wells and Andrew Carnegie, "The Octopus," The Jungle and dirty canned meat; "The Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight," "Old Dan Tucker," "Buffalo Gals" and "The Man with the Hoe." These are a few of the elements of history in the first years of the century; they are a few of the elements in Volume II of Mark Sullivan's Our Times.

The first twelve chapters concern the source of the ideas, the opinions, the prejudices which now, being the common property of every American mind, explain the mental character of the U. S. The most important book in the schools was McGuffey's Eclectic Reader (of which there have been 122,000,000 copies sold). McGuffey, a gentle old pedant who received $1,000 for each of the six Readers in his series, remained a shadowy figure to his multitudinous public; for his death in 1873 no literary reviews, no editorial pages were boxed in heavy black. He remained, even to the urchins who pursed small mouths and whistled or gargled the words of his wan fables, a somewhat severe shade, one to be kept properly prisoned in the dusty darkness of a schoolroom desk. The urchins, now grown into babbitts or clowns or bigwigs, sang their geography, etched Spencerian parabolas into their copy books, played "duck on a rock" at recess, spelled out the stories in McGuffey's; then they walked home on dusty roads, swinging their book straps and talking to each other, stopping to cut their initials into fence rails or the bark of a tree. The songs they sang, the books they read, the things they learned made them make the U. S. into whatever it is now.

From the schools that furnished a background, the book goes to the years after the century's turn. The story of Roosevelt's climb runs through the story of trusts, meat-packing scandals, oil, railroads, the coal strike, Wall Street Finance, etc., etc.

A glance at the index which lies behind the thirty chapters of America Finding Herself will largely reveal the method of the book. All the authors, actors, books that influenced people or interested them 20 years ago are written down under separate headings. Twenty-three of the games that children used to play are listed by name. Under the heading "Plays," there are 104 titles; under "Songs," 155.

The Significance. Mark Sullivan has made a new definition of history. While wars and elections, battles and discoveries are a part of the record of a given period, they are really important only as they hint at the mood or character of the people who take part in them. To understand a nation, it is necessary to know more than its constitution and its language; the more complete history becomes, the more humble, the more complex and the more exciting it becomes. But as it grows more complex it grows harder to write; selection becomes a game of chance; order and emphasis grow unruly. As in The Turn of the Century, the first of his three volumes full of Our Times, Author Sullivan has managed in America Finding Herself, to make his facts behave. Again by sheer quantity of unexpected, unorthodox, incongruous and apparently unlimited information he makes his book valuable as historical data and even more valuable because reading it is amazingly good fun.

The Author. Mark Sullivan's life has run parallel to the lives of the men he writes about. As they reached distinction, he has reached distinction in observing them, writing about them, summing up their achievements. He was born in Pennsylvania, 53 years ago. After he left Harvard in 1900, he went into newspaper work. From 1904 to 1906 he practised law in Manhattan. He has since then become perhaps the most capable captain in the army of newspaper correspondents who report and explain the turmoil of Washington politics. For five years (1912-1917) he edited Collier's Weekly.

The third volume of Our Times is yet to come.

*OUR TIMES, Vol. 2 (America Finding Herself)-Mark Sullivan--Scribner's ($5).