SHAPING THE SEMINAR IN LOCAL HISTORY1
by HARVEY WISH
Associate Professor of History,
Western Reserve University
History-writing has no prouder tradition
than the pretentious
"seminar" for graduate
students, and yet in far too many cases it
has no rival for stuffiness and
ineptitude. That the seminar has
survived and is in no immediate danger
of extinction is not due to
the guiding principles of Ranke or
Herbert B. Adams, but rather
because it serves as a convenient center
for the dissemination of
bibliographical information, superficial
literary mechanics, and the
proper format for dissertations. Student
reports, in the absence of
really meaningful criteria, tend to be
painfully dull and unen-
lightening. Many professors, gifted with
a flair for "human inter-
est" stories, may avoid complete
boredom, but unfortunately they
are not always equally successful in
escaping sterility. Graduate
professors enjoy the immortality that
comes with the publishing
successes of able students, but it is
not at all clear that these books
stem from the scientific methods learned
in the seminar room. The
writer is too aware of the perplexities
involved in the seminar
method for him to approach this subject
with anything but a humble
spirit.
One important step toward revitalizing
the seminar is to make
the seminar problems real and free from
any suggestion of mere
antiquarianism. The writer recalls one
seminar, which was given
by a well-known professor, which gave
successive generations the
same problems: "Did Patrick Henry
really say 'Give me liberty or
give me death'?" and "Who
burnt Columbia, South Carolina?" A
colleague in European history echoed
this technique in "Who burnt
Magdeburg?" and "Did Napoleon
burn Moscow?" The answer had
become stereotyped, and one could
scarcely hope as a graduate
student to add anything to a fresh
consideration of the subject. The
1 This paper is written largely in
response to a gracious letter from the editor
of the Quarterly; after noting
the various articles accepted from my seminar students at
Western Reserve, he has requested that I discuss my
seminar methods-a suggestion
that my vanity could not withstand.
179