Ohio History Journal

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THE PLACE OF THE OHIO VALLEY

THE PLACE OF THE OHIO VALLEY

IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

 

 

FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER.

Professor of History, University of Wisconsin.

[Mr. Turner, until the fall of 1910, was professor of American His-

tory in the University of Wisconsin. He is now professor of Western

American History at Harvard University and the past year (1910) was

president of the American Historical Association. He delivered the ad-

dress herewith published at the meeting of the Ohio Valley Historical

Association, held at Frankfort, Kentucky, October 16, 1909.-EDITOR.]

In a notable essay Professor Josiah Royce, of Harvard

University, has asserted the salutary influence of a highly organ-

ized provincial life in order to counteract certain evils arising

from the tremendous development of nationalism in our own

day. Among these evils he enumerates:     First, The frequent

changes of dwelling place, whereby the community is in danger

of losing the well knit organization of a common life; second,

the tendency to reduce variety in national civilization to assim-

ilate all to a common type and thus discourage individuality, and

produce a "remorseless mechanism-vast, irrational;" third, the

evils arising from the fact that waves of emotion, the passion

of the mob, tend in our day to sweep across the nation.

Against these national surges of feeling Professor Royce

would erect dikes in the form of provincialism, the resistance of

separate sections each with its own traditions, beliefs and aspira-

tions. "Our national unities have grown so vast, our forces of

social consolidation so paramount, the resulting problems, con-

flicts, evils, have become so intensified, he says, that we must

seek in the province renewed strength, usefulness and beauty

of American life.

Whatever may be thought of this philosopher's appeal for

a revival of sectionalism, on a higher level, in order to check

the tendencies to a deadening uniformity of national consolidation

and to me this appeal, under the limitations which he gives it,

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