Cambridge History of American Literature: volume 3
Trent, William Peterfield, 1862-1939., Erskine, John, 1879-1951., Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1881-1926., Van Doren, Carl, 1885-1950., Ed.

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[180] Hennepin's Description of Louisiana (1880), and other similar original works were valuable additions to the assets of historians in this particular field. By calling attention to the French origins of our trans-Alleghany region O'Callaghan and Shea gave balance to a period of our history which had previously been too much accented on the English side, and opened the way for the fuller and more appreciated volumes of Francis Parkman.

Two college professors belong in this group of historians, one a teacher of chemistry the other a teacher of Greek but both best remembered as historians. Henry Martyn Baird (1832-1906) took for his theme the history of the Huguenots, which he presented in the following instalments: History of the rise of the Huguenots (2 vols., 1879), The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre (2 vols., 1886), and The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (2 vols., 1895). Besides these books he wrote a short life of Theodore Beza (1899). His work was done carefully and in great detail. It was well written, but it always took the side of the Huguenots, and it is to be classed with the history of the old school, of which it was a notable and successful specimen.

John William Draper (1811-82) had won an assured position as a scientist before he turned to history. Like Professor Baird he was a member of the faculty of New York University. At the middle of the century the idea that history is an exact science, an idea that grew out of the teachings of Auguste Comte, had been widely advocated by scientific men. Two men, Buckle in London and Draper in New York, working independently of each other, undertook to give the idea its application. Buckle published the first volume of his History of civilization in England in 1857, and the second in 1861; further efforts ceased with his death in 1862. Draper published his book, The history of the intellectual development of Europe, in 1862. We are assured that it was practically complete before the first volume of Buckle appeared and that it remained in the author's hands in manuscript during the interval.

In our day the world has not a great interest in history as an exact science; but in 1862 the work of Comte, Buckle, Darwin, and Spencer had prepared it for another attitude. Draper reaped the harvest thus made ready, and his book quickly