The Study of Western History in Our Schools

BY PROFESSOR CLARENCE W. ALVORD, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

The West has always been self-assertive. This may sound somewhat banal, but no adjective describes so exactly that principal characteristic of her vigorous youth. Commercially, politically, socially she has displayed her egoism and has continually demanded from her elder sister, the East, praise for her achievements. Youth is, however, passing away; over a century of political life has been left behind; age has brought with it a new pride in the consciousness of accomplishment. To-day the West realizes that she has had a history that is no mean part of the national story. The cry from the prairies is no longer: “See what we are doing;” but, “See what we have done.” Self-assertion again! Yes, perhaps bumptiousness, but such is the fact. On every side there are signs of this new phase of western self-consciousness. In no part of the Union is there such an interest in local history. State-supported departments of history, State historical societies, county and city historical societies, even women’s clubs and public schools, and larger unions such as the confederation of the societies of the Ohio Valley and the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, are all active in collecting material for and exploiting western history. Some of the efforts are misdirected, many of the papers presented before these learned societies are absurd; but even the aimless gropings of the historical amœbæ indicate the innermost yearnings for a knowledge of the past and the consciousness of deeds worth recording.

In developing this consciousness of her past, the West, naturally enough, has found a grievance against the historians of America who have somewhat neglected this important phase of the national development. Before the eyes of the historian educated under the shadow of the gilded dome of the Puritan Capitol, the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers looms larger on the historical horizon than the occupation of the Old Northwest during the Revolutionary War, so that he gives a more careful and extensive description to the former than to the latter event. The westerner gazes upon another horizon, where the relative importance of events are differently grouped. To him many events confined to New England, the description of which fills pages of our national histories, appear of local interest; and events belonging to other parts of the country assume national importance.

This grievance is not altogether fictitious, as a glance at any of our large histories and particularly at the text-books used in our schools will disclose. The signs of the times, however, point to a healthful change; for in the last many-volumed American history, chapter after chapter is devoted to the history of the West. The correction of the error in proportion, moreover, lies in the hands of the western historians, who can bring to prominence the events of their section only by producing serious and scientific studies on the development of the West; and consciously or unconsciously the recent movement in the study of western history is directed toward that end. Besides the popular interest in the subject, already noted, the universities are turning the attention of their graduate students to the field; the scientifically-trained instructors of these institutions are conducting researches into the history of the valley; in other words, western history is already recognized as a legitimate field for research work. Time alone is needed for the results of this activity to become a part of the national consciousness, when the relative importance of western events will be correctly given in our larger histories and be finally disseminated through text-books and popular works to the public.

The Teacher’s Duty.

The development of a popular knowledge of the history of the West will largely be the work of the teachers in our public schools. This is fortunate, for the subject is suited in a remarkable degree for the purposes of instruction. In the great central valley the romantic, religious, political, and economic growths have been luxuriant, and every student, whatever his character, will find events to arouse his historical imagination. The glamour around the wild life of the forest and prairie appears most brilliant to children. The lurking Indian, the silent Jesuit, the song-loving voyageur, the hardy trapper—these are figures that give a picturesque touch to our early history which never fails to retain the attention of the class.

Fortunately the earliest phase of western history inspired the brilliant pen of Francis Parkman, and his accounts of the discovery and occupation of the Mississippi Valley have become parts of the common knowledge of our people, so that the figures of Marquette, Lasalle, and Frontenac stand out relatively clear in the memories of the school days. Since, in Parkman’s works, literature, romance, and good historical narrative are so well combined, the teacher should make the most of these, for where he ends, there is no work or set of works, comparable to his, to continue the narrative.

Many have been the attempts to tell the story of the advance of the English pioneers across the mountains, but we still await the well-equipped and inspired historian. There are, of course, books to which the pupils can turn with profit and interest. Particularly has the frontiersman with gun and axe been glorified, and his picturesque figure is fully as attractive as Jesuit priest or French voyageur. But the fundamental motives of the westward movement should not be lost in the romantic story of a Boone or Sevier. The first impulse westward came from the Englishman’s desire to participate in the fur trade which the French threatened to monopolize. During the reign of Charles II the movement, extending from Hudson Bay to the Carolinas, was started. Almost as early as Lasalle, Virginians were on the waters of the Upper Ohio, and were trading among the Indians of the Southwest. The fight for the fur trade had begun.

Land speculation was a second impulse for the westward movement. Boom towns were not an invention of yesterday. The far-famed American pioneer played his part in these enterprises, but he was often only a pawn in the hands of the gentleman speculator of the East, who is to be found in every period of western development. The speculative energy of such men as George Washington, the Lees, and George Morgan advertised the advantages of the valley lands far and wide. Then followed the wild rush of homeseekers which rapidly built the Western States.

The story of the West in the Revolutionary War is not well told in the usual text-books of the schools, for the description of the events which decided whether this vast territory should be British or Spanish or belong to the United States are generally relegated to a few lines of a paragraph. The settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee, the occupation of the Old Northwest by the Virginians, the successful campaigns of Governor Galvez which gave the Floridas to Spain, the defeat of the various British campaigns to recover their hold on the central Mississippi; these are all events of stupendous importance for the future development of the American people.

Western Tendencies.

The first and most marked characteristic in the history of the West is its unity. This sets it off from the East, where particularistic development was the rule. On the seaboard, well marked peculiarities separate the inhabitants of the different sections. In the Mississippi Valley, State boundaries have little meaning, and divide in no way the people living on either side. Even when broader areas than those of the States are considered, diverse development is not so well marked as it is east of the mountains. Throughout the early pioneer period the emigration westward was the same in character north and south of Mason and Dixon’s line. The Ohio River was the great channel by which the tide of immigration flowed over the prairies of the Old Northwest and the blue grass region of Kentucky; and accident frequently led one man to the slave-holding States and his neighbor to the North.

If the Ohio was the gateway to the West, the Mississippi was the great central avenue upon which the western people from all sections met in friendly trade, so that the original feeling of solidarity was strengthened by continuous intercourse and the realization of mutual interests. The different environment at the headwaters and mouth of the river never succeeded in separating completely the western people. Here the idea of the unity of the country took deeper root than in the East, where statehood meant more and nation less. It was in the Middle West that, as the struggle between North and South drew near, national leaders were developed and where the strongest efforts were made to hold the country in unity.

Western Democracy.

The West has moulded our national character even more than New England with her far-famed and narrow Puritanism; for the West has been the cauldron into which the nations of the world have poured their streams of immigrants and from which has come the national type. This amalgamation of character began in the oldest West, when Irishmen, Englishmen, Scotch-Irish, and Germans settled in the region between the falls of the seaboard rivers and the mountains, stretching from Vermont to Georgia. Here was moulded the new type of man, who was to populate the greater West across the mountain ridges. In an environment of primeval conditions, in the struggle with the Indians and the forests there was developed a self-reliance of character, differing in many ways from any single European type. This new man of the West admired the doer of deeds, condemned all reliance on traditional or family position, scorned State authority, and loved independence. In the soil of the new West, created by these men, the doctrines of Rousseau flourished luxuriantly. All unconscious, the frontiersmen were putting into practice the most radical philosophy of the French Revolution. It was on the frontier that those conservative traditions of Europe, which lingered years afterwards in the more settled East, were swept away, and American democracy was really bred. It was on the border of the older frontier that the spokesman of this democracy, Thomas Jefferson, lived; and it was out of the new West that the hero of democracy, Andrew Jackson, came.