Prussian is not entirely alone, and doubtless had thought of retributive justice in mind. For the demon Corsican, in his day of sweeping conquest, compelled conquered provinces to submit to French school laws. The most recent history furnishes one more example. Under date of June 28, 1899, we find an order of the United States Provost-Marshal-General in Manila compelling the attendance of all children between six and twelve at the reopened public schools and ordaining that "one hour's instruction per day shall be devoted to teaching the English language." We have not yet heard what history of the present war the Philipinos are to study. It is not exactly in point, but it is interesting to note that the schools of Franch to-day use histories that teach the children how entirely Frenchmen won the American War of Independence. Doubtless an instance may be found here and there of compulsory study of the history of a conquest by the conquered people. When occurring it has been the conqueror's final and to his mind most radical expedient, applied by and with relentless force, and with deadly intent to change the minds and characters of the new subjects.

CRUELEST CONQUERORS.

It remained for these, our Southern States, with this State of Virginia leading and guiding the others, (as we fear the record shows) to present the first instance of voluntary submission to this last resort of the cruelest conquerors. The history of the human race furnishes no like example of men who, by their own action, have so exposed their children; of men, who, unconstrained, have dishonored the graves and memories of their dead. Our own people have aided and are still aiding, with "all the insistence of damned and daily school-room iteration," in the work of teaching those malignant falsehoods to Southern children; in the work of so representing a brave people to the world of to-day and the ages to come. How amazing the folly! How dark the crime!

The folly of crime for the State of Virginia is primarily chargeable to the men, who, immediately after the war-when our hearts, if not our intellects, might have been on guard-brought Northern men and Northern histories into our schools and for

years employed them to teach us why and how Southern men fought against the North. Certain honest efforts have been made to expel these books and their teachings. Differences of opinion should not, and do not, induce us to impugn the motives of faithful men; but we regret that these efforts have not been entirely successful.

The general views so far expressed have been presented before. The situation seemed to us to require their forcible repetition. Now, however, and by the last remarks with respect to the histories, we are brought to the special work expected from your committee of this year, the examination of the books allowed for use by the last ruling of our Board of Education, and now in use in the "public" and some of the private schools of the State.

ALL ARE UNFIT.

To begin with, and in general: As the result of our examination and such scholarly aid as we have been able to secure, we have to report the positive conclusion that no Northern author has yet written a school history in which it is not easy to trace one or more of the purposes we have described and denounced. All that we have seen are for this reason unfit for use in Southern schools.

Nor do we hesitate to express the opinion that, standing, as these people do to the truth of history, conscious that their section is on trial with respect to the sectional war, and well aware of the growing signs that theirs is to be the "Lost Cause" at lasthuman nature being imperfect-fair history cannot be expected of Northern authors, unless they be of the rarest and boldest, worthy to rank with the inspired historians who wrote the simple truth. If they imitate these great writers they conquer self to an extent impossible for simple mortals; offend their own people, and fail of their market. They cannot do the first; fear to do the second; the third, their publishers will not allow. Ignorantly or knowingly, seeing with the blinded eyes of prejudice or intent that others shall not see, they are constrained to falsify the record in fact or in effect; otherwise they must be silent. They have not been silent.

NEED TO PLEAD.

Without enlarging upon the point or using the abundant material to be had from English and American literature, we stop a moment for one or two evidences that these writers have need to plead their cause by such means as they can devise. The chairman of this committee on one occasion, being in England, heard a number of British officers of high rank, especially engaged in the study of military history, express their opinion-which we rejoice to recognize, and which these Northern men dread as the world's final verdict that while Washington, Lee, and Jackson were of the great leaders of the world's history, the North had never produced a great commander; that Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan were not to be thought of; that the renegade Virginian, Thomas, was the only man on the Northern side who had approached that rank. On another occasion, travelling in New England, he encountered a gentleman who declared himself a student of history, and desired to be told how it happened that in every crisis of the country's history he found five times as many Southern men as Northern prominently managing affairs. He knew, he said, that the time would come when-utterly wrong and unjust, as he thought itall the romance and glory of this war would gather around Lee and Jackson, and not around Grant and Sheridan. The passing years already prove the soundness of his judgment. Well may they dread to appear at the bar of their own consciences. With respect to their latest act of war, giving the suffrage to the blacks-a deed unsurpassed for hypocrisy as to purpose, malignant intent, and disastrous effect upon all concerned-these writers know that their best men are uniting to condemn it, and will ere long confess that it was indeed conceived in iniquity and born in sin, and is now itself yielding a legion of devils armed to torment the State. Alas! that teachers in our Southern States should, through any mistake of judgment or counsel, join the North in teaching that, as far as we are the sufferers, we reap the due reward of our deeds.

FISKE'S HISTORY.

Now, to return and deal with the particular books we were set to examine:

First in order is Mr. John Fiske's History. This book has been very carefully examined, noting the changes appearing in the edition of 1899. Rev. Dr. Tucker's and Mr. Carter A. Bishop's reports upon it have already been submitted. The work done by both of these gentlemen is able and conclusive. To read their reports would, of course, overrun our time.

It is evident to all of us that Mr. Fiske is an able man and a student of history. He has seen, more plainly than any other perhaps (what the Northern orators and writers are silently or openly yielding), that every claim of the South, of such sort as naturally rests upon categorical facts, is already res adjudicata in our favor at the bar of the world. He knows from the writers around him (Mr. Lodge and others) that our claim to the right of secession cannot be resisted; that the right of coercion cannot be maintained; that the superior personal and military character of our leaders is beyond dispute; that estimating Americans, foreign mercenaries, and the negroes in their ranks, the average type and quality of their private soldier was far below ours; and their numbers so far superior that the Southern victories set the world wondering. He knows, too, that the records made up along the track of armies and their own statistics of deaths in prison have forever proved our higher civilization in war. So he foresees and dreads the day of doom, when, as already prophesied, history is to declare the truth triumphant and his the "Lost Cause." His writings, the others as well as the history, prove his consciousness that there remains to his section only this last resort-to make the world believe that our motives were base-a charge which they hope will be answered with more difficulty, inasmuch as it rests upon unsubstantial and intangible interpretation of facts, and not upon facts themselves.

ELEGANCE OF DICTION.

With elegance of diction and wealth of knowledge sufficient to blind and interest a multitude of readers he devotes himself to this object. He is an advocate seeking to procure pardon for the wrong-doings of his own section by persuading the world of the guilt

of ours; by convincing all who read or study his book (our own children among them) that in defiance of all reasons to know the wrong of slavery, we argued before the war and fought in it, not from conviction of duty or loyalty to our constitutional rights and those of our children, not even from insulted and outraged manhood, but, simply to hold the negro in possession.

We do not assert his insincerity; it may well be that he believed what he said on that point. He is, therefore, the more dangerous as teaching falsehood with all the force that belongs to the conviction of truth.

It will go far to establish our proposition as to Mr. Fiske's inability to see the truth when slavery and the war enter his field of view and the consequent entire unfitness of his "history" for school use, if we briefly examine other noted writings that have come from his hand. It is a maxim laid down by a famous philosopher and writer that children are more influenced by the spirit and the unexpressed opinions of the teacher than they are by the words they chance to hear from his lips. We, therefore, examine Mr. Fiske. His personality is in his history; the chapter and verse criticism of that book is in the able reports of Captain Bishop and Rev. Dr. Tucker. We turn to the latter half of the 191st page of his muchlauded "Old Virginia and Her Neighbors." It contains matter which will not only prove our criticism just, but furnish us occasion for much astonishment. Speaking of the slave-trade and its abolition, Mr. Fiske tells us that George Mason in his lifetime denounced the infamous traffic ""in terms which were to be resented by his grandsons, when they fell from the lips of Wendell Phillips." All this we quote literally. A handsome antithesis and well proportioned sentence, you will observe. The author is not careful to present (we avoid saying that he is careful not to present) the true point of contrast. George Mason denounced as "infamous" the sale of free men into slavery and the horrors of the middle passage, and argued against slavery in Virginia on economic and social grounds. Wendell Phillips denounced the South and Southern slave-holders. Mr. Fiske's readers do not learn from him that this was the offence that we resented, and that with a just indigna

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