Ohio History Journal


Editorialana

Editorialana.                         95

 

 

ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA.

The latest and one of the best encyclopedias to appear is that known

as the Encyclopedia Americana, published under the auspices of the

Scientific American Company and edited by Frederick Converse Beach

and a corps of competent assistants. It comprises sixteen large volumes

and is produced in the best mechanical and typographical form  with

copious illustrations, maps, tables, etc. One of its excellent features is

that the articles on leading subjects are written by well-known and

acknowledged authorities over their subscribed names. This gives the

topics thus treated an unusual attraction and value. The article on Ohio

is contributed by the Honorable Daniel J. Ryan, Ex-Secretary of State

and trustee of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. It

goes without saying that Mr. Ryan has produced a most scholarly, read-

able and comprehensive chapter. The article would occupy some fifty

pages of an ordinary 12 mo. book and treats tersely of the typography,

hydrography, and geology of the State, its natural resources; material,

industrial, agricultural and other productions, its educational and charit-

able institutions; its development and government. The portion devoted

to the history of the Buckeye State from earliest pre-state times to the

present is a recital particularly satisfactory and interesting. Few, if any,

students are better versed in the history of Ohio than is Mr. Ryan and

in the compass of a few thousand words he has given in clear and logical

sequence the brief events in the remarkable and romantic narrative of

the emerging of the great and powerful Ohio Commonwealth from the

early days when La Salle (1669) on his journey of adventure discovered

the Ohio River and ascended its waters from the Mississippi to the site

of Louisville. Mr. Ryan's chapter is the best sketch of Ohio "in a nut

shell" we have yet seen in any publication.

 

 

GOVERNMENT OF OHIO.

The Government of Ohio, its history and administration is a new

volume just issued from the press of the Macmillan Company of New

York and written by Wilbur H. Siebert, professor of European History

at the Ohio State University; author of the Underground Railroad from

Slavery to Freedom. This little volume is an admirable and reliable

compendium of the history of the State and the structure and machinery

of its government. It deals with the growth of the government, begin-

ning with Ohio as a part of the Northwest Territory and following the

events that led to the organization of Ohio as a state. Chapters follow

in logical order concerning the character of the state constitution, citizen-

ship, suffrage, local governments of the state, the administration of jus-

tice, control of economic interests, management of public finances and