Book Department
| Published date | 01 May 1967 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271626737100112 |
| Date | 01 May 1967 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
198
Book
Department
AMERICAN
HISTORY
AND
GOVERNMENT
BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN.
The
Papers
of
Benjamin
Franklin,
Vol.
10:
January
1,
1762
through
December
31,
1763.
Ed-
ited
by
Leonard
W.
Labaree,
with
the
assistance of
Helen
C.
Boatfield,
Helen
H.
Fineman,
and
James
H.
Hutson.
Pp.
xxviii,
459.
New
Haven,
Conn.:
Yale
University
Press,
1966.
$12.50.
It
is
a
delightful
Franklin
that
the
reader
meets
in
this
tenth
volume.
Not
that
this
side
of
him
has
not
been
in
evidence
in
the
earlier
volumes,
but
there
it
has
usually
been
a
minor
display,
while
his
natural
vindictiveness
and
malice
often
overshad-
owed
his
better
self.
His
limited,
provin-
cial
horizon
prevented
him
from
seeing
the
larger
relationships
of
province
to
na-
tional
government
and
from
appreciating
the
democratic
aspects
of
political
life
which
he
dominated
and
in
which
he
ap-
peared
to
be
very
popular
with
the
most
factious
and
even
some
of the
more
re-
strained.
The
conflict
in
Pennsylvania
over
taxation
of the
proprietary
estates
made
particularly
pertinent
by
the
wartime
de-
fense
needs
had
landed
him
in
London
on
an
embassy
to
government,
and
there
he
is
found
when
the
New
Year
of
1762
began.
After
five
years
in
London,
he
left
for
home
in
August,
1762.
His
exposure
to
the
Old
World
culture
as
well
as
to
the
political
life
of
the
nation
at
its
center
helped
make
a
gentleman
of
him
as
well
as
to
bring
him
prestige
for
his
scientific
investigations
which
do
indeed
sound
extraordinary
for
one
of
his
back-
ground.
His
correspondence
with
other
scientists
at
home
and
abroad
was
very
extensive,
and
his
reputation
grew
apace
to
the
point
where
even
Oxford
was
im-
pressed,
and
he
was
offered
a
degree
of
Doctor
of
Civil
Law
whenever
he
would
see
fit
to
come
to
that
learned
center
and
collect
it.
He
was
not
slow
to
do
this
and
took with
him
his
handsome
son
William
who
was
also
given
a
degree,
that
of
Master
of
Arts.
Apparently,
the
interest
which
at
this
time
brought
him
the
most
pleasure
was
his
invention
of
a
new
type
of
&dquo;Ar-
monica,&dquo;
a
musical
instrument
made
of
glasses
graded
to
give
forth
the
needed
tones
and
played
by
rubbing
the
fingers
on
their
rims.
Franklin
also
designed
the
wooden
framework
for
the
instrument
and
investigated
the
music
best
suited
for
it.
He
himself
learned
to
play
well
on
it
and
often
entertained
his
friends
that
way
in
London
and
in
Philadelphia.
Upon
his
return
to
Philadelphia
he
sent
in
to
the
province
government
his
account
of
expenses
for
his
agency
and
in
so
doing
revealed
much
about
the
life
and
activities
of
a
colonial
agent
over
and
above
the
usual
responsibilities.
Once
settled
again
at
home
he
took
up
his
duties
as
deputy
postmaster
general
for
the
colonies
and
made
extensive
trips
to
various
centers
to
199
organize
and
to
administer
the
service.
One
of
the
most
important
tasks
of
his
office
was
to
make
the
British
monthly
packet-boat
service,
now
re-established
on
a
peacetime
basis,
useful
to
men
in
trade,
as
well
as
to
those
in
government
office.
Franklin
still
kept
up
his
contacts
with
friends
and
political
events
in
England.
With
great
regret
he
noted
from
London
letters
that
the
beautiful
dream
of
a
hand-
some
young
king
who
wanted
peace
with
the
world
and
his
people
was
already
pass-
ing,
and
the
peace
which
he,
Franklin,
thought
the
best
Britain
had
ever
obtained,
was
now,
under
the
influence
of
Wilkes
and
his
friends,
considered
a
betrayal.
This
attitude
of
the
English
people
made
him
change
his
mind
about
wanting
to
return
to
live
in
England.
The
reader
should
not
forget
that
this
wonderfully
vivid
picture
of
a
great
early
American
would
not
be
possible
but
for
the
skill
of
the
editors
in
choosing
such
a
wealth
of
varied
primary
source
material.
The
results
not
only
offer
indispensable
aid
to
the
research
scholar,
but
they
provide
for
the
general
reader
a
better
picture
of
the
man
and
his
America
than
can
be
had
from
the
usual
historical
narrative.
VIOLA
F.
BARNES
Emeritus
Profssor
of
History
Mount
Holyoke
College
CLINTON
ROSSITER.
1787:
The
Grand
Con-
vention.
Pp.
443.
New
York:
The
Macmillan
Company,
1966.
$7.95.
This
book,
a
study
of
the
Constitutional
Convention
of
1787,
is
at
one
and
the
same
time
an
admirable
work
and
a
considerable
disappointment.
Its
strength
lies
in
the
grace
and
felicity
of
style
with
which
Rossiter
narrates
once
more
the
oft-told
story
of
that
fateful
Philadelphia
Summer
of
1787,
and
in
the
sense
of
drama,
tense
and
yet
properly
controlled
and
restrained,
with
which
the
author
succeeds
in
invest-
ing
the
principal
events
of
his
narrative.
It
is
a
magnificent
tale,
full
of
intrinsic
excitement,
and
in
telling
it,
author
Rossi-
ter
exhibits
a
literary
skill
matched
by
only
a
very
few
practitioners
of
the
historian’s
art.
The
book’s
weakness
lies
in
its
almost
complete
failure
to
deal
adequately
with
the
maze
of
deadly
technical
problems
surrounding
the
business
of
nation-making.
For
the
fact
is
that
what
imparts genuine
grandeur
to
the
work
of
the
Philadelphia
Convention
is
not
the
colorful
careers
of
the
dramatis
personae,
nor
the
grand
con-
frontations
between
the
nationalists
and
states-rights
men,
exciting
as
these
are,
but
the
delegates’
success
in
solving
a
series
of
highly
complex
and
exceedingly
difficult
technical
constitutional
problems.
It
is
precisely
in
this
respect
that
the
present
narrative
breaks
down.
The
failure
is
apparent
almost
at
the
onset:
there
is
no
adequate
analysis
of
the
more
subtle
failures
of
the
Confederation-that
of
the
Articles’
resort
to
state-agency
and
the
absence
of
a
mechanism
for
solving
what
Andrew
McLaughlin
long
ago
labeled
the
&dquo;problem
of
respective
spheres.&dquo;
An
un-
happy
by-product
of
this
hiatus
is
the
book’s
failure
to
deal
adequately
or
even
correctly
in
any
precise
sense
with
the
problems
of
coercion
either
in
the
Confed-
eration
or
at
Philadelphia.
The
treatment
of
the
legislative
question
in
the
Convention
is
better,
if
dangerously
summary;
but
the
handling
of
the
problem
of
executive
power
is
defective
both
in
theory
and
in
narrative,
while
the
terribly
difficult
matter
of
the
Convention’s
struggle
with
the
problem
of
sovereignty
simply
does
not
come
off.
It
may
be
too
much
to
expect
that
a
book
which
tells
the
&dquo;story&dquo;
of
the
Convention
with
such
rich-
ness
of
personailty
and
circumstance
also
should
handle
adequately
those
highly
dif-
ficult
technical
problems,
the
solution
of
which
imparts
to
the
Convention
its
abid-
ing
grandeur;
but
in
that
event
the
present
work
must
be
put
down
as
a
pleasant
piece
of
reading
to
be
perused
with
some
pleasure
and
delight
of
a
winter’s
evening,
glass
of
madeira
in
hand,
before
a
blazing
log-fire.
ALFRED
H.
KELLY
Professor
and
Chairman
Department
of
History
Wayne
State
University
LILLIAN
B.
MILLER.
Patrons
and
Patriot-
ism :
The
Encouragement
of
the
Fine
200
Arts
in
the
United
States,
1790-1860.
Pp.
xv,
335.
Chicago:
University
of
Chicago
Press,
1966.
$8.50.
The
recent
activities
of
the
federal
gov-
ernment
in
encouraging
the
fine
arts
and
the
passage
by
Congress
of
the
National
Foundation
on
the
Arts
and
Humanities
Act
of
1965
makes
an
inquiry
into
the
en-
couragement
of
the
arts
in
the
early
na-
tional
period
a
subject
of
current
interest.
Miss
Miller’s
study
of
the
formalized
arts
of
painting
and
sculpture
in
the
post-
Revolutionary
United
States
is
based
on
the
assumption
that
Americans
tradition-
ally
have
had
a
sense
of
inferiority
in
the
fine
arts
and
an
awareness
of
the
national
dedication
to
materialistic
goals.
During
a
period
of
resurgent
nationalism,
such
as
that
which
followed
the
American
Revolu-
tion
and
the
War
of
1812,
the
encourage-
ment
of
the
arts
became
a
patriotic
duty
in
order
to
prove
that
this
independent
repub-
lic
was
competent
to
maintain
a
native
culture
comparable
in
quality
to
the
older
aristocratic
cultures
of
Europe.
The
purpose
of
Miss
Miller’s
book
is
to
determine
the
American
definition
of
art,
the
justification
of
the
promotion
of
art,
and
the
extent
of
American
artistic
achieve-
ment
during
the
early
national
period.
Her
findings
indicate
that
there
was
a
genuine
consciousness
of
developing
a
distinctively
American
civilization-a
thesis
which
has
been
stated
most
often
in
terms
of
literary
culture,
rather
than
in
terms
of
the
plastic
arts.
Patronage
of
the
fine
arts
was
under-
taken
most
significantly
by
wealthy
com-
mercial
businessmen
in
the
major
cities;
government
activity
in
this
field
was
lim-
ited.
Federal
patronage
of
the
fine
arts
on an
extensive
basis
was
urged
in
the
early
nineteenth
century,
especially
by
men
from
the
northeast,
but
the
nation
was
not
pre-
pared
for
it,
partly
because
of
sectional
jealousies
and
partly
because
of
preoccupa-
tion
with
more
material
issues,
such
as
internal
improvements
and
the
Second
Bank
of the
United
States.
There
was,
to
be
sure,
a
limited
federal
patronage
to
meet
specific
needs,
such
as
the
building
of
the
Capitol,
and
there
were
members
of
Con-
gress
who
were
motivated
by
cultural
na-
tionalism.
Economy,
however,
dictated
the
federal
government’s
limit
in
cultural
en-
couragement,
and,
when
federal
money
was
spent
on an
object
of
art,
&dquo;Taste&dquo;
required
that
art
point
a
patriotic
moral.
The
patronage
of
the
arts
by
local
governments
was
too
minimal
to
be
included
in
Miss
Miller’s
study.
Community
patronage
of
the
arts
took
the
form
of
the
orgamzation
of
art
academies
and
museums,
financed
and
directed
by
businessmen.
Art
acad-
emies
organized
independently
by
artists
who
resented
direction
by
businessmen
were
unsuccessful
and
short-lived.
While
American
merchant
princes,
such
as
Philip
Hone
and
Luman
Reed,
provided
the
connoisseurship
and
capital
necessary
for
commumty
promotion
of
the
arts,
the
general
public
tended
to
be
unresponsive.
Miss
Miller
attributes
this
mass
indifference
to
cultural
immaturity,
a
materialistic
ethic,
and
anti-intellectuahsm.
However,
she
cor-
rects
Hoftstadter’s
thesis
that
American
life
has
from
the
beginning
suffered
from
anti-intellectualism:
there
has
always
been
an
elite
and
influential
group
in
American
society
that
has
&dquo;insisted
upon
the
impor-
tance
of
culture
for
their
communities,
and
often
against
great
odds
maintained
cul-
tural
enterprises
with
that
end
in
view.&dquo;
Miss
Miller’s
point
is
well
taken.
The
relationship
between
great
wealth,
an
urban
environment,
and
the
promotion
of
cultural
enterprise
is
clear
throughout
her
study.
In
the
years
preceding
the
Civil
War
nationalism
tended
to
disintegrate
into
a
narrow,
local
cultural
provincialism,
as
di-
visive
sectional
forces
predominated.
This
was
not
so
much
&dquo;paradoxical,&dquo;
as
Miss
Miller
indicates,
as
it
was
typical
of
the
period
from
about
1820
to
1860.
Ameri-
can
nationalism
was
not
yet
very
well
defined.
Americans
were
as
fuzzy
in
their
understanding
of
what
constituted
a
na-
tional
art
as
they
were
in
their
legal
defini-
tion
of
American
citizenship.
What
re-
mained
of
cultural
nationalism
by
1860
became,
for
the
most
part,
hopelessly
con-
fused
as
the
nation
was
torn
by
civil
war.
Miss
Miller’s
book
is
well
researched
and
well
written
and
evinces
a
cultivated
sense
of
humor.
The
illustrations
are
well
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