They Broke the Prairie
by
[Scribners, $2.50]
THIS book interested me profoundly for four reasons. First, it is a conspicuous proof that history — I mean good history, sound history — is as fascinating as the best of novels. Whatever its subject may be, straight history needs no bowdlerizing to make it acceptable to a civilized taste, and still less does it need to be stenched up with mephitic fiction. Mr. Calkins has taken about as unpromising a subject as he could find; he gives a straight, undecorated, unperfumed account of a communal life which at any point in its century of existence must impress the student of civilized man as simply appalling; and yet the history of that life, taken as a literary fact, is interesting to the verge of fascination. The test of an interesting book is the regularity with which one goes back and dips into it here and there for the sheer pleasure of rereading; and I believe Mr. Calkins’s book will pass this test with any reader who deserves to be called literate.
Second, I was interested to notice that, like all sound history, this book starts up a wayward desire to know more about the details of its subject, indifferent or even repellent as the subject itselt may be. I looked over Mr. Calkins’s bibliography, and rather wished that life were long enough for me to waste a little of it, not only on the published books he cites, but also on reading the pioneers’ letters, the memoirs, pamphlets, minutes of meetings, manuscript reminiscences, all of which he gives us now and then a taste. One would even like to go out there and examine the region which his book describes, to see the lie of the land and get a more vivid sense of its characteristics. These are vagrant wishes, certainly, but it is a great recommendation for a book that it should set such wishes going.
Third, it interested me to find that Mr. Calkins has set a superb model or formula — I cannot imagine a better one — for any number of similar regional histories which ought to be produced. Until they are produced, in fact, I do not believe that any really competent general history of the United States can be written. I take it that, within its scope, Mr. Calkins’s work is an astonishingly complete and workable handbook for the general historian. It indicates all his authorities, sets him straight on how to take them and what to do with them, spurs up his enthusiasm for his task; what more can a general historian ask of his specialists?
Imagine, for example, how inestimably valuable to the general historian would be the regional histories centring in Lebanon and Lancaster counties in Pennsylvania, and in Orange and Ulster counties in New York; or on the other side of the Hudson, in the counties of Columbia and Dutchess — provided they were done on Mr. Calkins’s formula and with his extraordinary knowledge, as displayed in this book, extending to the most intimate minutiæ of detail. In my opinion Mr. Calkins’s greatest merit is that he has emphasized the supreme importance of regional histories in the most effective way, by merely giving a demonstration of it.
Fourth, I was interested to see that the simplicity and drive of Mr. Calkins’s prose often slides him off into some pretty indifferent English, which for a rather fanciful reason — though it may be heresy to say so - I did not find objectionable, but rather the opposite. We all know how certain types of beauty are sometimes actually helped out by a minor defect or deformation which in another type would be a blemish. Brand Whitlock once remarked to me how distinctly, when Andrew Jackson roared in his mighty wrath, ‘I know them French.' his bad grammar enhances the force of his words. Out of curiosity I straightened up a number of Mr. Calkins’s lapses, and found that in every instance I had weakened his sentence; it seemed to be in the nature of his subjectmatter that what he said was best said as he said it.
Mr. Calkins describes his book as ‘some account of the settlement of the Upper Mississippi by religious and educational pioneers; told in terms of one city, Galesburg, and of one college, Knox.’ Enough said — there it is. The book is just that. On the foregoing grounds I cannot urge it too strongly on the reader’s attention; nor can I recommend it to him too highly as an incentive to serious reflection on the qualities and conditions, the principles and animating motives, of the regional society about him, wherever in America he may dwell. Such is Galesburg; such, essentially, is American civilization. Such is Knox College; such, essentially, is American education, both in theory and in practice. God help us all!
ALBERT JAY NOCK