FUND WILL AID CHANNING WRITE AMERICAN HISTORY

This article is the third of a series to be published in the Crimson concerning the work which will be done by the 21 professors who have received awards from the Milton Fund.

The award of an allowance for two years of research will enable Professor Edward Channing '78 to add volumes seven and eight to his "History of the United States." The research is too arduous and exacting for one man alone, so that only with the aid of the Milton Fund can Professor Channing handle the voluminous documentary material.

Work Is a New Departure

In his first volume of the history Professor Channing set forth his purposes to which these new volumes will conform. It is his intention to depart from the antiquarian methods of considering each occurrence for itself. Unity has so characterized all that is American that the inter-relation of events cannot be ignored.

Professor Channing's volumes have shown a further object: to see through the eyes of a man of the era. It is his belief that history cannot be treated by a modern as current events. It has ever been his purpose to live in the history of the time he is chronicling. To this end he employs all manuscripts and photostatic copies available, that he may read history in the personal writings of its makers.

Studies American, Industry

In his next two volumes he will employ the results of his researches into the statistics of production, labor, immigration, population, and education. These statistics will be used in illustrating the American industrial society from the close of the War for Southern Independence to the outbreak of the Great War.

The library of Congress at Washington is a veritable mine for such material, but to work it a writer must have numerous assistants. It is toward securing this that the Milton awards will contribute. The library of Congress and some of the governmental departments are expected to yield to researchers photostatic copies of documentary material.

Such matter as the Stanton Manuscripts which contain new information as to the contest with President Johnson and also the Johnson Manuscripts themselves will be photographed. Almost every month new material is coming in to the Manuscript Division of Widener and the handling of this mass of manuscripts is Professor Channing's present concern.