BOOK REVIEWS
And Then the Storm. By Sister M. Monica. (New York, Long-
mans,
Green & Co., 1937. 231p. $2.50.)
Few foreigners have been privileged to
study Spain from
so many and widely different viewpoints
as the author of And
Then the Storm, and little escaped her discerning and com-
passionate eyes. Chaperoned by the two
charming sisters of
Don Juan de Cardenas, the then Spanish
ambassador at Wash-
ington, Sister Monica had intimate
contact with the old aristoc-
racy, and found the Spanish women
"kind, elegant, spiritual-
minded and alert." The wife of our ambassador, Mrs. Irwin
Loughlin, was another of the good
angels, who befriended the
writer through the first difficult weeks
of adjustment in a strange
country. The historical researches were
capably guided by the
distinguished scholar, Don Miguel
Marques del Saltillo, and the
equally eminent historian, Doctor
Palencia, who recognized in
the American nun a kindred spirit.
Sister Monica spent many
hours poring over the ancient documents
in the National Archives
of Madrid, and the famous Archives of
the Indies at Seville.
However, the keen-witted nun was never
too wrapped in the dim
past that she failed to observe the
momentous happenings of the
present. Even in 1932, she caught
something sinister in the
Spanish capital at Madrid. Most of the
powerful aristocrats
had fled the city at the advent of the
Radical Republic taking
with them as much of their fortunes as
they could salvage. It
did not escape the notice of Sister
Monica that while the graft-
ing Republic stripped the nobility, it
was not the poor who profited
by the confiscation, although it was
being done in their name.
The author liked better the tortuous
streets of Seville. Its tradi-
tion and people had a strong fascination
for her. The convent
where she lodged sheltered a constant
throng of servant girls
and working women. The kindly Religious
gathered in the little
waifs from the byways, fed, clothed, and
instructed them. There
was a small group of gentle-women living
at the convent en
pension. Listening to their conversation as they sat around a
260
BOOK REVIEWS 261
"brasero," which
"tempered the room softly and warmed the toes
and knees of the gray-haired ladies, her
fast friends," Sister
Monica had added opportunity to study
the Spanish people as a
race. Day by day she witnessed the
events that led to the final
revolt of the Nation against the
Soviet-controlled Government at
Valencia. But the Spanish Nation is
proud and stubborn. It
will never submit to be ruled from the
Kremlin in Moscow.
Once she has conquered the Communists
the new Spain will
realize the exalted ambition of General
Franco, its national hero,
and Gil Robles, the deposed leader of
the Right: "To guarantee
liberty and organization for labor; to
get rid of the Socialistic
concept of property, and substitute the
Christian concept instead,
of a small landowner, guaranteed in
possession of his property.
For social justice will come, not by
expropriation and violence
but by scientific studying of resources
and economic possibilities."
Sister Monica writes in the delightful
manner of a woman who
has traveled in many lands and observed
much, so that her com-
ments and conclusions, told with pungent
humor and tolerance,
merit attention and thought.
ANNA SHANNON McALLISTER
The Ohio Gateway. By D. E. Crouse. (New York, Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1938. xiii, 146p.
illus. Cloth, $3.00.)
It is a concern of many persons
connected with the educa-
tional professions that most of the
effective methods for trans-
mitting ideas are being usurped by
purely recreational institutions
in society. At the present time much
lost ground is being made
up by educators of one sort or another
in adapting the newer
technics to their work. One phase of
this process is represented
by those individuals who have attempted
to change the book-
making industry to meet modern
competition. The essence of
this movement is popularization. The
Ohio Gateway by D. E.
Crouse will be longest remembered as an
experiment in book
popularization. As such an experiment it
has much in common
with the first of the Gold Seal
Books--The United States: A
262
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Graphic History by Louis M. Hacker, Rudolf Modley and George
R. Taylor.
Like the Gold Seal Book, The Ohio
Gateway can be used
either by examining the plates in
sequence or by reading the text.
Paper and type-face have been selected
to please the reader's eye
and the style has been selected to
capture the reader's imagination.
The Ohio Gateway goes beyond the scope of the Gold Seal Book
in revealing the possibilities of
applying this type of graphic
presentation of history to a smaller
political division than the
Nation.
As has been intimated, one must not
judge The Ohio Gate-
way merely as a history of the state of Ohio. As a history
it is
a victim of generalization and
over-simplification, characteristics
often found in this type of book.
One would not expect careful
documentation or original re-
search in a volume of the general
character of The Ohio Gate-
way. The author used only secondary sources according to his
Bibliography but he evidently made a
fairly good selection of the
important works on Ohio Valley history.
He must have wished
for a larger selection of books on the
effects of transportation
and immigration on the history of the
region. These fields,
emphasized by Mr. Crouse, have never
been adequately examined
by historians. There are, however,
several conspicuous absentees
from the Bibliography, among them
Beverly W. Bond's Civiliza-
tion of the Old Northwest, Randolph C. Downes' Frontier Ohio,
Jacob Burnet's Notes on the Early
Settlement of the Northwest
Territory, and The American Pioneer. Robert E. Chaddock's
Ohio before 1850, a Study of the
Early Influence of Pennsylvania
and Southern Populations in Ohio, and Rufus King's Ohio, First
Fruits of the Ordinance of 1787, would have been of assistance
to the author. The printed Bibliography
apparently does not
include all of the author's sources. The
Cleveland Herald is
quoted on page 107 and The Scioto
Gazette is quoted on pages
125 and 135, but neither is listed in
the Bibliography.
In some cases the author has allowed his
similes and meta-
phors to get out of hand as in the first
statement in the book
BOOK REVIEWS 263
(p. xi) "The angry tantrum of
Nature that raised the area now
representing Ohio from its lowly
position as a hole in the bot-
tom of the sea to its present altitude
also thrust upward count-
less peaks of vertical rock strata . . .
"--somewhat fantastic to
say nothing of the geological
inaccuracies. The following speci-
men is found on page twenty-three:
"When Nature, in a playful
mood for change, used the gigantic
glacial eraser to wipe out the
existing watersheds of the northwestern
Appalachian slope . . ."
and on page 138, the last statement in
the book is typical: "The
miniature pedestrian stream, that
trickled through the mountain
crevices as pioneers, has swollen into a
mighty torrent of high-
way, railroad and air traffic that
finds--even with the skyway--
that the mountain, lake and river
sentinels, which Nature placed
to designate the best route toward the
setting sun, maintain the
prestige of the Ohio Country as the
Gateway of the West."
The author did not intend the book to be
a history of the
state but merely "a graphic
presentation of the story of how and
why the great-grandfathers of the
present Midwest came to the
northwest wilderness." The volume
is not a final answer to the
"how" and the
"why"--such an answer probably will never be
written. The book does succeed, however,
with the "graphic
presentation" of its story and as
such it will be a valuable lesson
to those persons interested in
popularizing history. The volume
can be recommended for study to teachers
of history and for
reading to persons who want to learn the
story of Ohio's history
"painlessly."
K. W. McK.
The Life of Blackstone. By Lewis C. Warden. (Charlottesville,
Va., Michie Co., 1938. 451p. illus.
$5.00.)
Warden, the first biographer of
William Blackstone, has
made a significant contribution to the
understanding of one of
England's greatest legal minds. It has
been the author's task
to sketch the life and analyze the
character and writings of a
genius who, although influencing the
legal profession in Europe
and America, effecting the
interpretation of constitutional issues
264
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
and revolutionizing the teaching of the
law, has heretofore been
neglected by historians. William
Blackstone, the posthumous
son of Charles Blackstone, was born in
Cheapside in 1723. He
attended Charter House, where he
distinguished himself in litera-
ture and poetry, obtaining the Benson
prize medal for verses on
Milton, and later, at the age of
fifteen, entered Pembroke Col-
lege, Oxford. Abandoning the study of
literature and architecture,
studies for which he displayed an
unusual aptitude, Blackstone
turned to the study of the law,
registering in the Middle Temple
as a law student in 1741. Five years of
law at All Souls' fol-
lowed, after which he received his
degree of Bachelor of Civil
Laws (1745). A year later he was called
to the bar. During the
years immediately following his
graduation Blackstone, not encum-
bered with clients, continued his
studies at Oxford, eventually re-
ceiving the Degree of Doctor of Civil
Laws, served as bursar of
laws in All Souls', during which time he
was responsible for the
completion of the Quadrangle of
Codrington Library, as steward
of the College Manors, as common law
assessor, as assessor in the
university vice-chancellor's court, and
as bursar of arts. At the
bar, after seven years' practice, his
prospects were so indifferent
that he returned to Oxford on his
fellowship, which, granted
in 1744, he had not relinquished.
The turning point in his career came in
1753 when, after
being denied the privilege of filling
the chair of Civil Law at
Oxford, he proposed and was occasioned
the privilege of reading
a series of lectures on the common law,
which, at this period,
was in its formative stage. Six years
later, Blackstone, having
fallen heir to the generosity of Charles
Viner, was unanimously
elected the first Vinerian professor of
the English common law,
a position which he held until 1766 when
he abandoned teaching
and returned in triumph to the scenes of
his earlier reverses to
resume the practice of the law. In 1761
he was granted Letters
Patent of Precedence which gave him the rank of king's council;
in the same year he was appointed
principal of the New Inn Hall,
and in 1763 was made solicitor-general
to the queen. Although
not especially interested in politics
Blackstone was elected re-
BOOK REVIEWS 265
corder of the Borough of Wallingford, a
position which he held
for twenty-one years, served in
Parliament for the Borough of
Hindon (1762-68) and afterwards for
Westbury (1768-70). In
1770
Blackstone, after having refused the post of solicitorship to
the king, accepted the appointment as
judge of the court of com-
mon pleas, received the honor of
knighthood, and ended his career
on the bench.
The author, not eschewing the
"psychological" school of
biographies, attempts to explain
Blackstone's backwardness, oc-
casional period of melancholia, and
aversion to publicity, either
to something inherent in his nature, or
to a spirit of defeatism
occasioned by his early reverses as an
attorney at law in London,
or to an unfortunate love affair which
caused the future com-
mentator to revert temporarily to the
"muses." It is indeed
gratifying to learn that Blackstone's
unfortunate love affair did
not completely shatter his faith in
womankind, that he married
Sarah Clitherow, after an anxious but
proper courtship, that she
bore him eight children, who, although
not unwelcome, had a
tendency to disturb the tranquility of
the orderly household which
he had established. The author also
gives intimate glimpses of
Blackstone as a serious student, as an
exacting professor, as a
writer, as a husband and father, as an
idealist, and as a country
gentleman at Castle Priory, an estate
which he purchased in 1753.
It is interesting also, to note the
diversity of Blackstone's in-
terests. He served as a delegate to the
Clarendon Press, as a mem-
ber of the Antiquarian Society,
interested himself in architec-
ture and the rebuilding of St. Peter's
Church in Wallingford
which had been practically demolished
during the Cromwellian
Wars, promoted the construction of
turnpikes and later, as a
judge of the court of common pleas,
concerned himself with
road-mapping, prison reform, and an
"augmentation of judges'
salaries."
Perhaps the most interesting years of
Blackstone's life, how-
ever, are those associated with his
writings. Of his works the
best known are the Commentaries, the
writing of which covered
a period of fifteen years. The Commentaries,
based on Black-
266
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
stone's carefully prepared Oxford
lectures, offered a popular
exposition of the laws of England. This
work, containing in-
accuracies, irreconcilable contraditions
and evidence of plagia-
rism, was first published in four
volumes (1765-69). Since no
clear statement of the English common
law had heretofore been
compiled and published, the Commentaries
became an immediate
success not only in England, but also in
France, Germany, and
America. The author, in a chapter
devoted to an analysis of the
Commentaries, which, in some instances appears to be a com-
pilation of evidence rather than a
digested evaluation of the work,
points out that Blackstone represented
the conservative constitu-
tional school, that he displayed a
pronounced aversion to reform,
and that he definitely erred in his
analysis of the English separa-
tion of powers. Other of Blackstone's
writing, including such
titles as an "Essay on Collateral
Consanguinity" (1750), "A
Treatise on the Law of Descents in Fee
Simple" (1759), and the
"Law Tracts" (1762), gives a
better impression of Blackstone
as a serious student. The "Essay on
Collateral Consanguinity,"
written during his student days, was
designed to defeat the claims
of people, who were related to the
founders of All Souls', to
fellowships. Of the many legal
controversies in which Black-
stone participated perhaps the most
interesting and yet the most
damaging to his position and reputation
as an authority on legal
matters was the famous Wilke's Case. Warden,
after sketching
this controversial case, concludes that
Blackstone, contrary to
contemporary Whig opinion, was not
entirely inconsistent, in the
light of present evidence, in reversing
his position as stated in
the Commentaries and maintaining
in Parliament that a legisla-
tive body may exclude a member for a
sufficient reason on a vote
of pro re nata.
As stated earlier, the author has made a
significant contribu-
tion to the understanding of one of
England's greatest legal minds.
Aside from a slight tendency toward hero
worship, the author's
treatment is fair and impartial. While
the narrative flows
smoothly and the style is for the most
part good, the reviewer
feels that such words and phrases as
"legal hatchery" (p. 52),
"Dame Law" (p. 43), "wet
blanket" (p. 39), "failed to click"
BOOK REVIEWS 267
(p. 68), "running in the red"
(p. 110), "batting for Oxford"
(p. 136), have no place in a biography
written either in a popular
or serious style. Then, too, the use of the personal pronoun
"I" in formal writing (pp.
42, 200; 13 times in 16 lines on pp. 232,
247, 249) is annoying. Several errors,
particularly in reproduc-
ing quotations have been noted (pp. 266,
275, 276,
309, 317, 318,
323, 339, 387, 390). It is to be
regretted that the first biographer
of Blackstone did not see the necessity
of using more extensive
footnote items. Certainly such
statements as "Blackstone's heart
jumped into his mouth" (p. 140)
cannot stand without a proper
citation to the source of
information. The bibliography, unor-
thodox and incomplete, is neither
classified nor critical. The
volume is attractively bound,
well-printed, contains four illustra-
tions, a list of works and a
chronological table of Sir William
Blackstone, and an index. J. 0. M.
R. F. D. By Charles Allen Smart. (New York, W. W. Norton
& Co., 1938. 314p. $2.50.)
Of all the delightful pastoral
literature which we are heir to,
Charles Allen Smart's R. F. D. leads
the parade. This is true
because he has given expression to those
thoughts, moods and
enthusiasms which are the gratifying
rewards of all true farmers
of the soil--feelings which the majority
of us have difficulty in
describing. His writing reveals
sincerity and a genuine love for
the bucolic life, born of actual
experience. And this is the more
remarkable in that he was not
farm-raised, but a graft, having
been city-bred, with a number of years
spent as editor, teacher
and novelist, taking up life on a farm
with misgivings, only after
inheriting one near Chillicothe, Ohio.
This book is not an idyllic idolon,
pleasing to the fancy
merely, and lacking in reality. Witness:
That first year, only one of my ewes had
trouble. You are supposed
to wait half an hour before helping. I
waited three-quarters, disinfected
myself, remembered the pictures in my
book, and finished the process and
the pain. This lamb became the biggest
of all.... I was quite alone with
these sheep in the middle of a cold, raw night, with
one flashlight. Along
268
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
with moments of writing, my first trick
alone at the wheel of a ship, my
first class as a teacher, and a few
others, that simple little act was one of
the major excitements of my life so far.
This and many such opportunities for
grappling with funda-
mental things, reveal the farmer as
living every moment of every
day for all that life has to offer.
Smart has written a vital story
of people and nature, exhibiting them
through the sensitive lens
of understanding, in all their humor and
pathos. Perhaps there
are some readers who will feel that
certain experiences and
incidents of farm life are outside the
bounds of propriety to de-
scribe or mention, even in a review of
the book describing them.
Yet one of the best bits of humor in the
book concerns the
author's first experience in the
breeding of cattle. He does this
in such a clean and straight-forward
manner that it would be
prudish to find objection to it.
However, should there be yet a
few who find such matters improper,
though their Sunday's
roast beef depend upon it, the book
should not be cast aside un-
read, for the author has much of value
to say on such a variety of
things.
To this reviewer, the author's social
views are very significant.
He believes the wider adoption of
cooperative enterprise will
"force reconsideration of the
profit motive, the profit system, and
all the rest," without stigmatizing
its practitioners as communists.
A new direction must be followed if some
of the evils which have
gained footing in American civilization
are to be choked out.
Production for use, rather than profit;
service, rather than ex-
ploitation; cooperation, rather than
competition--these are the
challenging ideals, and more than
that--they have been tested and
found workable. For the farmer the Farm
Bureau is leading the
way; for others the consumers'
cooperatives, dealing through pro-
ducer cooperatives, can prove
advantageous to all concerned.
The volume closes with a chapter on
reflections, the last of
which is on death, and because of the
poetic beauty of his con-
ception, his third from the last
paragraph is quoted here.
It is not hard, here [on the farm], to
keep calm, and look at this
thing [death], long enough to see the
whole of life on this planet as the
flowering of a little garden, the
checkered and sanguinary flourishing of a
little farm, in one brief spring,
summer, and autumn, between two winters,
BOOK REVIEWS 269
the first without beginning and the
second without end. It is not hard to
see it all as a little accident, a brief
improvisation, a folk song between
silences, but as more than enough to
send the chance listener in happy awe
through the rest of his life to his
grave.
C. L. W.
Pennsylvania Iron Manufacture in the
Eighteenth Century. By
Arthur Cecil Bining. Publications of
the Pennsylvania His-
torical Commission, IV. (Harrisburg, 1938. 227p. illus.,
maps.)
This monograph, the result of extensive
and painstaking re-
search, treats of one phase of
eighteenth century American indus-
trial life. After sketching the
beginning of iron manufacturing
in New England, the author discusses the
establishment of iron
plantations in Pennsylvania, plantation
management, which, in
some respects, presented problems
comparable to those of a cotton
plantation in the old South, the
development and expansion of the
industry into the Schuylkill, Delaware,
and Susquehanna Valleys,
the Juniata region, and over the
Alleghenies. Other chapters deal
with the technique of iron
manufacturing, improvements, and in-
vention. The author also discussed such
topics as the working
and living conditions of both the
employer and employees, the rate
of wages, price of commodities, the
problems of obtaining a
sufficient labor supply during the
intercolonial wars, the contribu-
tion made by the German and Irish
immigrants to the successful
operation of the plants, the volume of
export trade to England
during the pre-Revolutionary period, the
struggle between the
English and American ironmasters for
control of the iron market,
and the services rendered by the iron
manufacturers in producing
armaments to be used by the patriots in
their struggle for inde-
pendence.
This little study is a valuable
contribution to the understand-
ing of one of America's leading
industries. It is to be regretted
that the author limited his
investigations to the eighteenth cen-
tury, and it is to be hoped that this
beginning will lead the way
to a comprehensive study of the iron
industry in America. The
270
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
lengthy classified bibliography and
extensive footnote citations
evidence the author's wide search for
materials. The placing of
the footnote items at the end of each
chapter, however, is incon-
venient for those readers wishing to
follow both notes and text.
A short appendix, listing the date of
establishment, name, loca-
tion and founder of eighteenth century
Pennsylvania furnaces as
well as a table giving the production in
tons of representative
furnaces, adds to the understanding and
utility of the text. The
volume is well-printed, contains
illustrations, maps, and a useful
index.
J. O. M.
The Founding of American
Civilization--The Middle Colonies
By Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker. (New
York, Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1938. 367p. illus.
$3.00.)
Because of the variety of Pennsylvania's
contribution to the
making of Ohio civilization, anyone
interested in Ohio history
will be interested in Dr. Thomas Jefferson
Wertenbaker's recent
contribution to the literature of
American history entitled The
Fouunding of American
Civilization--the Middle Colonies. This
illustrated book of 367 pages presents
the cultural history of these
colonies, tracing the evolution of
American civilization for a cen-
tury and a half as it sprang from the
English, Dutch, German,
French Huguenot, and Swedish cultures
planted in New York,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.
The author has pre-
sented his material with a new emphasis.
Political history has been
touched only lightly because, as the
author says, so much emphasis
has already been placed upon it. The
accompanying photographs,
maps, drawings, and copies of old
documents add to the value and
attractiveness of the book. It is
planned to trace the founding
of civilization in the New England and
Southern Colonies in later
volumes.
H. L.
BOOK REVIEWS 271
A Check List of Manuscripts in the
Edward E. Ayer Collection
[The Newberry Library]. Compiled by Ruth Lapham Butler.
(Chicago, Newberry Library, 1938. 295p. $5.00.)
About fifty years ago Edward E. Ayer
began to collect a
library with the idea of specializing in
the archaeology and
ethnology of the American Indian. His
plans grew and he in-
cluded many phases of exploration,
colonial and frontier history,
pre-Columbian geography, and the
development of the cartography
of America and later American expansion.
In an edition of 500 copies, this list
has been issued to ac-
quaint a greater number of students with
this material. The col-
lection is classified under the subject
headings of North America,
Spanish America, Philippine Islands,
Hawaiian Islands, Indian
Languages, Philippine Languages and
Hawaiian Languages, and
a very comprehensive index of
seventy-two pages referring to
item numbers increases its value. The
Newberry Library has
rendered a real service to students of
American history by mak-
ing possible for them to learn of the
manuscript resources of the
collection, known previously to a
comparatively small group of
specialists.
H. L.
Jacob Piatt Dunn; His Miami Language
Studies and Indiana
Manuscript Collection. By Caroline Dunn.
(Indianapolis,
Indiana Historical Society, 1937.)
The Indiana Historical Society has begun
the publication of a
Prehistory Research Series consisting of occasional publications
upon American anthropology, archaeology
and allied subjects. The
second number of this series was issued
December, 1937, and is
entitled Jacob Piatt Dunn; His Miami
Language Studies and
Indiana Manuscript Collection. It was prepared by Dunn's daugh-
ter, Miss Caroline Dunn, a member of the
staff of the Indiana
State Library. Dunn was a lifelong
student of Indiana and
Indiana history and was recording
secretary of the Indiana His-
torical Society from 1886 to 1924. This booklet of fifty-nine
272 OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
pages gives a sketch of Dunn's life and
enumerates his many con-
tributions to history. It also includes
a list of his manuscript
Indiana material which is now in the
Indiana State Library, and
a bibliography of his published works.
H. L.
Children of Light in Honor of Rufus
M. Jones. Edited by
Howard H. Brinton. (New York, Macmillan
Co., 1938. xii,
416p. $3.50.)
This book was published in honor of
Rufus M. Jones the
great Quaker historian and philosopher
on the occasion of his
seventy-fifth birthday. It is a record
of the history, thought and
achievements of Friends here and abroad.
The book contains
fifteen chapters, with a list of the
books of Dr. Jones and an
index. Each chapter has been written by
students of Quaker
history, four chapters being written by
English writers and eleven
chapters by American writers. The book
opens with a sonnet to
Rufus M. Jones by T. Edmund Harvey, a
member of the British
Parliament. Two chapters have to do with
Quakerism in the Ohio
Valley. One of them is entitled,
"The Quaker Contribution to
the Old Northwest," by Harlow
Lindley and the other, "Timothy
Nicholson, Candle of the Lord," by
Walter C. Woodward.
The Story of Ohio. By William Harvey Van Fossen. (New
York, Macmillan Co., 1937. 250p. illus.)
A review of this book was published in
the February, 1937,
issue of Museum Echoes.