Robinson and Beard’s Development of “Modern Europe”

REVIEWED BY PROFESSOR SIDNEY B. FAY, OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.

If a teacher finds that the remoteness of Pericles and Clovis makes it difficult to arouse in the history class the most active interest of the student, who nevertheless would be keen to know something of Bismarck and Li Hung Chang; or if a teacher finds it unsatisfactory, in the second year course in medieval and modern European history to try to teach the spread of constitutional government and democratic ideas from the French to the Turkish Revolution before the student knows anything of the English parliamentary system and of the Industrial Revolution; or if the teacher is assailed by the school-board or by the tax-paying parents of the pupils, on the ground that ancient and medieval history is relatively useless and ought to be replaced by something more practical,—such a teacher will find in these two volumes a very present help in time of trouble.

The authors have thrown to the winds the recommendations of the Committee of Seven, and do not try to make their book fit into any four years’ course as now outlined for high schools. The first volume begins with the reign of Louis XIV; and from that moment the reader’s eye is constantly directed forward to the present moment, so that he can read intelligently the dispatches from Europe in his morning newspaper. Much of the traditional matter is omitted in order to give fuller treatment to those subjects which are most important for an understanding of the present. This leads to an arrangement and a placing of emphasis which often seems arbitrary and unhistorical,—as, for instance, the scant half dozen pages given to the whole reign of Napoleon III, or the insertion in each volume of a score of pages on natural science. It is, of course, desirable to have the pupil have some knowledge of the development and influence of such fundamental subjects as evolution, bacteriology and the atomic theory; but it is unwise to put these things in a text-book of history. Few teachers at present could teach these pages properly; and efficiency of instruction is likely to be weakened in any institution where instructors trespass on each others’ fields. This criticism, however, does not apply to the remarkable chapter on the Industrial Revolution and to the excellent pages on socialism, colonial expansion, Russo-Japanese relations and other timely topics of present-day interest; all of these may properly be taught by the teacher of history.

The authors have made a text-book which is accurate, lucid, packed with information, and, at the same time, extremely readable. It has already been used in some college courses, and evokes real enthusiasm from the students. They feel they are learning things which are of practical value and are up to date.

Probably this text-book, at present at any rate, is better adapted for college than for high school use. But schools of business or commerce could very profitably use it. Ordinary high schools should have it in the school library for collateral reading, but could not adopt it as a text-book until they are ready to readjust their history curriculum so as to give much more time than at present to Modern European History. Perhaps that time is not far distant.

[“The Development of Modern Europe.” By James Harvey Robinson and Charles A. Beard. Two volumes; pp. xi, 362; vii, 448. Boston, 1908: Ginn & Co.]