To the Editor:

COMMUNICATIONS

Dr. Barker has very courteously sent me a copy of his somewhat impressionistic review of The War with Mexico,1 presumably to enable me to answer it promptly. Most of his criticisms are of such a nature that your necessary rules do not permit a reply, but I should like to cite vol. I., pp. xi and 406, and to mention three simple questions of fact. 1. He generously credits me with having visited "every" battlefield of the war; but the preface (p. viii) only says "chief" battlefields. 2. He calls "imaginative" a passage relating to the battle of Contreras (actually based on twelve first-hand sources); but, as he cannot have read all (if any) of these sources, how can he do so? 3. He protests against "the eternal rightness of Scott" in my narrative, and says, "Not once through the book is Scott at fault". But Scott is unfavorably criticized on the following pages at least: I. 197, 198, 477, 544; II. 59, 129, 147, 188, 284, 318, 390, 391, 401, 402, 436. Perhaps these three illustrations are enough. But Dr. Barker did not intend to misrepresent the book.

JUSTIN H. SMITH.

To the Editor:

I hope that readers who may be interested will examine the references cited by Dr. Smith and determine for themselves the correctness of my impression of his attitude toward Scott.

1 [Pp. 729-732, above. ED.]

EUGENE C. BARKER.

HISTORICAL NEWS

From June 25 to September 5 the managing editor of this journal is to be addressed at North Edgecomb. Maine (telegrams to Wiscasset, Maine); after the latter date, at 1140 Woodward Building. Washington. D. C., as usual.

Copies of no. 2 of vol. I. of this journal and of no. 2 of vol. VI. are urgently desired by the managing editor.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

Under the will of the late George L. Beer, the American Historica! Association receives the sum of $5000, to be kept as a separate fund, the income from which is to be devoted to an annual prize for the best work by an American author on European international relations since 1895.

At the annual meeting of the Agricultural History Society, in April, Dr. Rodney H. True of the Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington. D. C., was elected president, Professor William J. Trimble of the University of Idaho, vice-president, Mr. Lyman Carrier of the Bureau of Plant Industry, secretary-treasurer, with Professor Percy W. Bidwell of Yale University and Dr. O. C. Stine of the Office of Farm Management, Washington, as additional members of the executive committee. The memorandum of affiliation between the American Historical Association and the Agricultural History Society (pp. 386–387, above) was ratified.

PERSONAL

Dr. James Schouler, author of a notable History of the United States under the Constitution, 1789-1877 (1880-1891, 1899, 1913) and president of the American Historical Association in 1897, died on April 16, at the age of eighty-one. He has given an interesting account of his life, as well as of his methods, in his Historical Briefs (1896). Another work of some note was his Americans of 1776 (1905). A lawyer and legal writer by profession, and for twenty years a professor in a law school, he wrote his American political history largely from a legal point of view, with less attention to economic movements than would now be customary, and he wrote it with some preconceptions natural to the son of a Whig editor and Civil War adjutant-general of Massachusetts. But it rested on careful study, extensive information, and independent thinking, it was fair in all intention, it was marked by much political acumen, it presented the general reader within a dozen years with the whole story from 1789 to 1861, for which that reader had long been waiting, and the style, though it was too picturesque and lacked sim

plicity and at times dignity, was piquant and readable. Therefore the book deserved and obtained high success. Personally Dr. Schouler was a genial and even lovable man, simple, cordial, and friendly.

Paul Fredericq, one of the most distinguished of Belgian historians, and for many years professor in the University of Ghent, died there on March 31 at the age of sixty-nine. Writing in both French and Flemish, for he was an ardent though liberal "Flamingant" (a fact which lent additional poignancy to the indignation caused by the circumstances of his arrest and imprisonment by the German government in Belgium), he had made his early reputation by an Essai sur le Rôle Politique et Social des Ducs de Bourgogne dans les Pays-Bas (1875), and by the first volume of a history of De Nederlanden onder Keizer Karel (1885). His later studies were concentrated on the history of the Inquisition in the Netherlands; fruits of them were two excellent volumes on the Geschiedenis der Inquisitie in de Nederlanden (1892, 1897), and a remarkable series, of which five volumes have hitherto been published, Corpus Documentorum Inquisitionis Haereticae Pravitatis Neerlandicae (1889-1906). Professor Fredericq was a high-minded gentleman of the utmost dignity and social charm. His imprisonment and harsh detention in Germany from March, 1916, to November, 1918, undermined his constitution. If efforts made to secure his release on condition of his coming to America, where a temporary professorship was promised him either at Cornell University or at Princeton, had been successful, he would certainly, we are assured by Professor Pirenne, have recovered.

Jacques Flach, the author of numerous historical works on a wide range of subjects, died on December 4, 1919, at the age of seventy-four years. His masterpiece was Les Origines de l'Ancienne France, of which four volumes have appeared (1886-1917) and a fifth volume is in press.

Henri Welschinger died in November, 1919, in his seventy-fourth year. Most of his numerous historical works related to the history of France during and since the Revolution.

Professor W. C. Abbott of Yale University has accepted a professorship of history in Harvard University.

Professor Ralph V. Harlow of Simmons College has been elected professor of history in Boston University.

Professor Arthur I. Andrews of Tufts College will be absent in Europe during the coming academic year, part of the time as lecturer in the University of Prag.

Dr. Verner W. Crane, of the University of Michigan, has been elected assistant professor of history in Brown University, with American history as his field.

Henry M. Wriston has been promoted to the rank of professor of

history in Wesleyan University, but will continue on leave during the ensuing year. His courses will remain in charge of Dr. William J. Wilkinson, formerly dean of Washington University (Tennessee) for another year. Paul Burt has been advanced to an associate professorship in the same department.

Professor Max Farrand of Yale University has been granted a second year's leave of absence. His courses will be given by Professor N. W. Stephenson of Charleston College. Professor Kent R. Greenfield of Delaware College has been appointed professor of history in Yale, and there have been the following promotions: Sydney K. Mitchell to the rank of professor; Clarence H. Haring to that of associate professor; John M. S. Allison, Ralph H. Gabriel, and Richard A. Newhall to that of assistant professor.

Professor Charles D. Hazen of Columbia University will be on leave of absence during the coming academic year, serving as professor of American institutions in the University of Strasbourg. Dr. David S. Mussey of the same institution has been promoted to the rank of professor, and Dy Austin P. Evans to that of assistant professor.

Profesor John R. McMaster, after thirty-eight years of continuous *rvice ax protor of American history in the University of Pennsylyama, tax, my accordance with the rules for retirement of that instituFROM Withdawn trom active service and become professor emeritus. Protpoot George L. Sioussat has resigned from Brown University To become protect at American history in the University of Pennsylvance where da Di Watt Bowden of the Carnegie Institute of Pittsbury by love boyu plected avastant professor of European history.

Protezom Byriadotte E. Schmitt of Western Reserve University, Alkek Ayachang in Pie animiet session of Columbia University, will go to burgu tu quid a year in study, mostly in London.

P Rycomedy My come has been advanced to the rank of professor vak ho pay me the Einveroa of Oncinnati: Dr. Beverley W. Bond, jr., of Parlos Buyerarx, hax been elected associate professor in the uni

Paul Vaa Maan Songa bas been made assistant professor of his

"A

versoy of Michigan has been promoted alghiyaad as of history to a professorship. Professor wha hex been in South America for a year and a Ny government, will return to his academic work

Avord of the University of Illinois has acnat varior of American history in the University of

Dr. James Howard Robinson, professor of history in Carleton College, Northfield, Minn., has been granted leave of absence for the year 1920-1921. He will spend the furlough in England, principally at the universities of Manchester and Oxford.

Professors James F. Willard of the University of Colorado and William A. Morris of the University of California will be absent during the coming year, engaged in research in London. Dr. C. C. Eckhardt will take Dr. Willard's place, as acting professor.

Professor Samuel F. Bemis of Colorado College has been elected professor of history in Whitman College.

Dr. Ralph H. Lutz, now assistant professor in the University of Washington, becomes associate professor of European history in Stanford University at the beginning of the next academic year.

In the summer schools of the various universities the following professors external to the regular staff will be giving instruction in history: in the University of California, W. E. Lingelbach and Morris Jastrow, jr., of Pennsylvania; in that of Chicago, H. E. Bourne of Western Reserve University; in that of Colorado, Clarence W. Perkins of Ohio State University; in Columbia, R. J. Kerner of Missouri, R. V. D. Magoffin of Johns Hopkins, R. W. Rogers of Drew Seminary, and B. E. Schmitt of Western Reserve; in Harvard, R. H. George of Yale; in the Johns Hopkins University, B. W. Bond of Cincinnati; in Leland Stanford, F. A. Golder of Washington State College; in the University of Minnesota, F. M. Anderson of Dartmouth; in that of Pennsylvania, E. C. Barker of Texas; in that of Texas, C. H. Ambler of West Virginia and A. C. Cole of Illinois; in that of Wisconsin, E. H. McNeal of Ohio State University.

GENERAL

The Historical Outlook continues its exceedingly interesting and informing series of articles on war activities by participants eminently capable of describing what they saw. The April number presents an account of the Procurement of Quartermaster's Supplies during the World War, by Mr. Albert L. Scott, a principal assistant to Mr. Stettinius; the May number, Experiences of a Y. M. C. A. Secretary in Russia, by Thomas P. Martin; the June number, Intelligence Work at First Army Headquarters, by Capt. John C. Parish, of the State Historical Society of Iowa. The April number has also an article on the Bias of History, by B. C. B. Tighe; the May number, a very interesting "source-study" on the Personality of Robespierre, by Professor H. E. Bourne; the June number, an article by Professor R. L. Finney on the Course in General History from the Sociologist's Standpoint; and al three have other valuable material on teaching.