HISTORY AND THE HISTORIAN:

...BY MICHAEL KAMMEN through teaching history, they will ad- RICHARD L. SCHOENWALD mit rather shamefacedly that they, in Cornell Univ...

...Michael Kam- times, no matter how strong his deterthe record of the past...

...ladled on just before packaging...

...titative norms for being a professional turned to Becker's assertions that every- The earliest letters in this volume, historian, not a mere writer of history man's truth had to take on a color just dating from soon after 1900, creak with like Francis Parkman, or a mere teacha bit unlike that of his neighbor's, and formality, even awkwardness...

...ings...

...are already keen on Becker nevertheless deals with ends, goals, purpose, finalBecker's relativism applied to the will enjoy peeping into these letters, ities and ultimates, matters set aside for task of examining an elephant sounds despite editing so awkward that Leo- the spirit or the soul...

...History is not a unglamorously defeatist, dully void of nardo da Vinci and Martha's Vineyard costume drama, or a list in which one drama, full of exhortations to restraint are awarded identifying footnotes...

...In fact he re- churchliness...

...when competitors were not so many: ally, because he would have finished In the introduction Professor Kammen at the Providence meeting of the Amerby closing forever the guild, or the remarks that many people addicted to ican Historical Association in 1936 (he union, of historians...

...History is a revelation of man's which rescued his thought...

...Becker's failure to read everything tory be concerned with maddeningly saw Turner doing-pounding multi- already in print on every subject he difficult decisions about purposes, farious facts into shape, playing imagi- dealt with has been noticed repeatedly, choices, values...

...of what truly mattered with as much because he had always wanted to write, Becker liked to point out that the honesty as he could manage...

...self the master of a clear and funny He entered into history...

...No one will ever know what an his nervopsness and depressions and find two of his best pupils in Jews, Leo elephant really, totally is: final elephan- ulcers and the nature of his tie to his Gershoy and Louis Gottschalk, an untine truth must elude all seekers, but wife, occur and recur in the introduc- common adventure in American acamen gradually form more reliable pic- tion and the letters, but their share in demic life before 1945...

...Airy re- tions of Independence and constitutions Becker forced historians to think about marks about the inevitability of change similarly reminded men of what they the limits of their search for the entire and the inevitability of resistance to had agreed to hold to and to carry out...

...Pati- receives any estimate...

...Becker called the attack a had in the thirteenth century...

...He assured in- could not locate easily the people he foolish as to contend that every observer quirers that they would not feel let wanted to see...

...It has be- the profundity when historians seek to of the order of speeches and Declaracome accepted to acknowledge that uncover Deeper Meanings...

...Thomas Aquinas courses...

...They provoke other historians into writing " `lulu...

...counted as a historian...

...From his boyhood in that the Exodus testifies to the involvedained freedom as the foundation of Iowa on throughout his life he abhorred ment of the Old Testament God in man's existence...

...For Becker and because he could use some additionman doing the remembering warped the great truth of the nineteenth cen- al income...

...From very early Vaughan and G. A. Billias, eds., Per- often he had to step outside and examin life, Becker recalled in his maturity, spectives on Early American History, ine the creation and meanings of Eurohe had wanted to write, and he added 1973...

...Though evidence afforded by the literature and notion that history embodies anything Becker in later life continued to speak philosophy which had survived from more complicated than the dates of wistfully of the inferiority of history the past, and think about their meanbattles...

...They recall with horror a HISTORY high school class or a college course in which they tried to learn a thousand AND THE "What Is the Good of sacred facts about what really hap- HISTORIAN History...

...Becker himself continues to pieces...

...For him, fessor who thought of himself as a being, and though Becker would squirm style did not mean be'eweled applique teacher and writer, not as a scurrying, mightily, he would not finally disagree...

...He did produce it merits...

...29 March 1974: 88...

...Actually the letters fall between ingly compared the same meeting, the unlike the creature flickering in the eye prime and choice Becker...

...In the an end such as freedom only if he be- dealing with any enormous questions spring, when I explain to a class in lieved, as Becker thought modern man about the transcendent meaning of hu- Jewish history or to a group at a Seder certainly could not, that God had or- man existence...

...Secure in his great trick comes in putting these re- bear if Carl Becker must be acknowl- loving appreciation of Cornell, at peace ports together and slowly piecing out edged to be the possessor of such hu- somehow despite inner stress and the a picture of what the elephant appears manity...

...So he wrote published learned, footnoted articles in Milton M. Klein's essay in A. T. short books, mainly about America, but scholarly periodicals...

...tures of factors which distort their own the formation of his moral attitudes, his The good of history lives right in perception and mar the understanding stance toward fate and fortune, never Becker, who was its prophet, ironic and of which their fellows are capable...

...Those with wealth, but from his salary as a pro- consist in writing books and articles yet unslaked thirsts may drain the his- fessor...

...along to graduate school, there to take been: what did it all show about the The case of Carl Becker affronts all courses designed to help him become nature of man, what did it all say normal expectations...

...teachers that he strive unflaggingly to their history in the shape of movie and Becker was bewitched by an outstand- portray what had really happened...

...At the close of the nine- about the possibilities open to him...

...Becker asked anxiously whether the let- was 63) he found that 1000 registrants In the end, Becker had his relativism ters would prove disappointing when made "a terrible crush," so that he as well as his truth...

...finally succeeded made him matchless: agonizingly ever since, under the inDid historians seek and poke in the no other historian active in the United junction to show by amount of publispoor of the past to no final avail...

...pean ideas which had bent American that he soon decided he should have Unquestionably Becker could fulfill fate...

...Yet TV spectaculars, or in the form of best- ing historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, he would not again wheeze and cough selling books that contain all of the who did not live mainly from the wide amid dusty papers until the very end past of Spain or the Jews or the Ro- sale of his writing, or from inherited of his life...

...Better World Be?] lies in the fact that iconoclasts who helped to prepare the Becker died in 1945, but many of his contemporary platitudes have been enway for the French Revolution loved books are still purchasable, perhaps be- dowed by Mr...

...How could the writing of his- to literature, his response to what he ing...

...Once they have escaped from edu- something to write about, so he pro- the injunction of his science-bemused cational institutions, most people take ceeded to study history...

...They regard note to himself as a reminder...

...Fundamentally he wanted to liners such as "History shows that...

...opment which singled out the influence take some books and articles written or "History repeats itself...

...Luckily for Becker's they have sought to maintain that he almost suddenly the wit and deftness serenity, he had established himself didn't really mean to be taken so liter- appear which marked him forever after...

...Was there, then, no real truth...

...Oscar Handlin has movof an elephant beheld a beast utterly down...

...Turner created "the Turner the- based on such papers and other "real" torical wisdom dehydrated into one- sis," a view of all of American devel- remains...

...Becker was born in 1873, and he did teenth century it was becoming pos- Of Becker's works, the ones with the not become a historian just by making sible, and soon would be virtually man- largest number of pages turned out to up his mind that he would write books datory, for a historian to learn how be two textbooks...

...earth...

...It is true that then went forward with his life, and phrase's meaning) mostly as having the platitude often lies not far from more conventional historical documents been an important thinker...

...Becker was not so they finally appeared...

...He even became history as a means for discovering some nishes the stage for God's action...

...All this stuff, all these prose lifted him to the front page of Finished with college, Becker went kinds of evidence about what man had The New York Times Book Review...

...of the frontier as paramountly signifi- by other historians, together with the Most people find utterly foreign the cant in shaping Americans...

...Some observers of the has lived on despite his oddity for two the truth to emerge out of the facts, conflict about whether Becker was right main reasons...

...Sometimes first such he had ever attended, and of his neighbor...

...Becker learned says or lectures, or a largish essay man, had become historians by saying: well: his big piece of work for the divided into several chapters...

...Press, $12.50 fact, liked history, oddly enough, even though most of their friends couldn't stand it...

...29 March 1974: 86 Becker is best known for The Heav- Becker yet published, felt drawn to him sault leveled against Becker by Edmund enly City of the Eighteenth-Century as many historians have, but finally ac- Wilson in 1944: "'the only real distincPhilosophers, a still controversial argu- counted him "one of the most attractive tion of the book [How New Will the ment that the avant-garde ideological if minor figures of our age...

...Those who large and profit, because history really be generally reliable...

...Becker insisted on trying sometimes with more aid from them, or wrong have correctly pointed out to know what history meant: he did not sometimes with less...

...ence, humility, and just cussed dogged- not live unacquainted with demons and Anyone who takes Becker up, in these ness in not being satisfied with the with the darkness of hope burnt away...

...F OR most people, there is no good to history...

...It was Becker's style Becker became and remained a pro- thing...

...The beautiful prose tainly with the output of increasingly was an unabashed relativist, and the which he made himself sculpt morning professionalized colleagues beaverishly downrightness with which he proclaimed after morning, the five or ten pages piling up pages...

...Style calculating member of an established Through Becker men can be persuaded entailed a man's discovery of what he historical profession whose standards he to give history the meditative scrutiny actually did think and believe, and the had sworn to hold dear...

...letters and in books and essays alike, handiest answer finally win out, and a In fact Professor Kammen lists a great finds that his spirit or his soul-some picture of an elephant develops which many points toward whose resolving the inner thing along that line-must enis moderately reliable, and may even letters offer no aid at all...

...Some- Selected Letters of times, facing a stranger who has ack- Carl L. Becker, 1900-1945 nowledged that he makes a living ED...

...Earlier Amer- a lawyer entered a school intended to a book, it would be a collection of esican historians, such as Francis Park- fit him for his career...

...must be Christian theologians of the freedom in the eighteenth century could A second element saved his carrying Reinhold Niebuhr persuasion...

...To him history was man rememAs for Becker's reputation, he has Professional historians in this coun- bering, everyman recalling that he had consistently failed to place anywhere try mainly skitter away nervously from a bill to pay because he had written a near the top of rankings of "greatest" Ultimates and Big Subjects...

...God and related Big Sub- Yet for many Jewish theologians, in mained a professor of history all of his jects were not for him, he loved to pro- contrast to the generality of Jews, there days, racking up fifteen years at the test...

...even many who are highly sophisticated, himself created, or could man live for Becker liked to deny that he was have never met this conception...

...He preferred the about epic happenings and epochal ad- to be a historian, just as a doctor or essay, and if he were going to write ventures out of the past...

...Becker's most private concerns, world's turmoil, he could reach out and to be...

...The human enough failing but not easier to Scholar, Summer, 1971...

...From American historians, and has been put with disfavor colleagues who set out to that jotted historical document one man down (with a slight sense of the slang dabble in such mysteries...

...happened in a certain decade or to an institution of higher learning and (For a highly critical reappraisal, see particular individuals...

...Soon and er of history...

...He wanted to know has gazed steadily upon history in its but that he wanted to inquire whether what man's past totaled up to when you biggest and most nearly ultimate sense the revolutionary values associated with combined the plusses and the minuses...

...Becker with a patina religiously assured faith and absolute cause they get assigned in college that gives them the dignity of museum certitude just as St...

...Most people, Could man live by values which he prose style...

...His chief object did not manoffs within two covers...

...Becker tion lies through art...

...He was pointing out they deal in trivialities, or they force sessions since the 1950's which drew that people have different feelings about the reader to catch Becker repeating several thousand registrants: "History: elephants and tend to report selected himself to several correspondents, a A Discipline in Crisis...

...States in this century exhibited his geni- cation that you are meeting the quanAgain and again historians have re- us as a writer...

...Burleigh Wilkins, men in his introduction to this collec- mination to live only in the present, or who wrote the biggest and best study of tion of Becker's letters quotes the as- to hurl himself into a future where he Commonweal: 87 could dwell free of the miseries of the imparting to others of his own sense -that is, he wrote books and articles present...

...Could Becker wrestle "the Methodist menace," which was his history, I hear and see unmistakable with such perplexities and still be shorthand for conventional American signs of the novelty of what I have said...

...Always I am going to write books about Great degree of Doctor of Philosophy was he sought the power, the gratification Dramatic Things which happened be- a study from the old and original rec- and the insight which come from genfore my time...

...The American facts mixed with assorted emotions...

...How could the histor- natively with the record of the past sometimes with grudging admiration ian amount to anything more than a so that he might cause large-scale sense for his nerve, sometimes with clucking pettifogging scribbler, unless his potent to arise from it- belies his near-regret.disapproval...

...They were writhing his relativism drove other historians thrown away en route to the one which already, as many have thrashed more wild...

...Becker surely did jaundiced, but eloquent and untiring...

...truth, and even to admit that he forced change mar the pages of a historian Man was man because he had a past some to consider the moral implications such as Crane Brinton, whose repute which he was driven to turn to, at of writing and studying and teaching has suffered accordingly...

...Yet beneath the rhetoric of protest- is nothing very new in paying serious University of Kansas, and a quarter ing and the jokes of denying he used attention to the idea that history furcentury at Cornell...

...pened way back somewhere...

...turned out to be not so breathtakingly about him, and it is now clear that he Historians want facts, and they expect new after all...

...From survive by themselves when, as in the out of this quest from turning into sopo- them the God in Whom they declared twentieth century, the religiously certain rific dialecticizing in the manner of their belief was a God Who showed absolutes to which they had seemed to Hegel or anatomizing and clinicizing in aspects of His nature as He acted in be linked indissolubly had actually been the manner of Toynbee: he made him- the lives of men, in other words, as corroded away...

...a historian...

...These men had to be ords of social and economic stresses eralizing, and he could not fulfill that considered historians because they on politics in the province of New aim by producing finely detailed narrawrote about history, not because they York in the decades just before the tives about everything that had ever held posts as Professors of History in outbreak of the American Revolution...

...president of the American Historical signs which pointed somehow toward Not for Becker any of this talk about Association, and in his presidential ad- fragments of some answers to the one history as the stage on which God dress resoundingly whacked the idola- great question confronting us: How can shows His concern for men-Becker tries that historians really do, and we ever find out how to live on this refused to tolerate neo-mystical babblshould, tell it like it really was...

...damn thing follows another damn and humbleness...

...The one large that Becker was not concerned only set any little and zealously researchable group of American intellectuals which with issues in the history of past ideas, goal for himself...

...He did not compare his and kneaded the remembering because tury still held: the last road to salva- printed wordage enviously and uncerof his own tastes and fondnesses...