i8S4.]
��Toivii and City Histories.
��325
��It is the endeavor to do this which has vitiated all the histories so far writ- ten of the late Civil War. The same principle made Thiers's French Revo- lution an almost worthless book as a history. To come down to lesser things, the same principle underlying and pervading all American local his- tories has done more toward making them worthless than any other single defect. In the name of truth and justice we ask, " Why should the writing of history be made satisfactory, plea- sant, to those who aid in the making of it?" We want the truth about the near, as well as the far, past. Let us do unto our descendants as we would that our ancestors had done by us, and tell them the truth about ourselves.
Perhaps we ought to be more lenient in the case of this history of Pittsfield, in consideration of the fact that this was a public work, and, therefore, more caution had to be exercised than we would otherwise have expected. Of course no employee would like to dis- please even a single member of the corporation that employed him. Pos- sibly the same argument might be raised in defence of any historian, in that the pubhc is virtually his employer. Here, however, reasoning by analogy fails, for the public is a very large body, and will seldom take up the cudgel in defence of any single individual. This is a question, however, which should be settled on the ground of right, not of expediency. But even if the right be left out of account, the expedient in this case is not necessarily opposed to truth and accuracy. This is well shown by the phenomenal success of The Memorial History of Boston, men- tioned above. It may be well just here to say a little more about this admirable work, for it is even more typical of what
��an ideal city history should be, than that of Pittsfield is of the ideal town history.
From the title-page we learn that The Memorial History of Boston, in- cluding Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-18S0, was edited by Justin Win- sor, and issued under the business superintendence of the projector, Clar- ence F. Jewett, in 1S80, The nature of the book is learned from the preface, which says : " The history is cast on a novel plan : not so much in being a work of co-operation, but because, so far as could be, the several themes, as sections of one homogeneous whole, have been treated by those who have some particular association and, it may be, long acquaintance with the subject. In the diversity of authors there will, of course, be variety of opinions, and it has not been thought ill-judged, con- sidering the different points of view assumed by the various writers, that the same events should be interpreted sometimes in varying and, perhaps, opposite ways. The chapters may thus make good the poet's description :
' Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea," —
and may not be the worse for each offering a reflection, according to its turn to the light, without marring the unity of the general expanse."
Among those who contributed one or more chapters to this work were Justin Winsor (the editor), Charles Francis Adams, Jr., R. C. Winthrop, T. W. Higginson, Edward Everett Hale, H. E. Scudder, F. W. Palfrey, Phillips Brooks, Andrew P. Peabody, Henry Cabot Lodge, Josiah P. Quincy, and Edward Atkinson. Such names as these are more than enough to insure the truth, accuracy, and historical value of the book. Each one of them dis-
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