When an associate dies who was not yet forty-eight years old, whom most
of us knew as a strong enduring man, who was capable of an immense
amount of intellectual work, it is a real calamity,--a calamity which in
this case History mourns, as Edward Gaylord Bourne was an excellent
teacher and a thorough historical scholar. The physical details of any
illness are apt to be repulsive, but the malady in Bourne's case was
somehow so bound up in his life that an inquiry into it comes from no
morbid curiosity. When ten years old he was attacked with tubercular
disease of the hip, and for some weeks his life was despaired of; but he
was saved by the loving care of his parents, receiving particular
devotion from his father, who was a Congregational minister in charge of
a parish in Connecticut. As the left leg had out-grown the other, Bourne
was obliged to use crutches for three years, when his father took him to
a specialist in Boston, and the result was that he was able to abandon
crutches and in the end to get about by an appliance to adjust the
lengths of the different legs, such as his friends were familiar with.
Despite this disability he developed great physical strength, especially
in the chest and arms, but his lameness prevented his accompanying his
college companions on long tramps, so that the bicycle was for him a
most welcome invention. He became expert in the use of it, riding on it
down Pike's Peak at the time of his visit to Colorado; and he performed
a similar feat of endurance on another occasion when stopping with me at
Jefferson in the White Mountains. Starting early in the morning, he
traveled by rail to the terminus of the mountain railroad, went up Mount
Washington on the railroad, and rode down the carriage road on his wheel
to the Glen House, which ought to have been enough of fatigue and
exertion for one day, but he then had about ten miles to make on his
bicycle over a somewhat rough mountain road to reach Jefferson.
Jefferson he did make, but not until after midnight.
During an acquaintance of over nineteen years with Bourne, I was always
impressed with his physical strength and endurance; and I was therefore
much surprised to learn, in a letter received from him last winter while
I was in Rome, that his youthful malady had attacked him, that he was
again on crutches and had been obliged to give up his work at Yale. In
truth ever since the autumn of 1906 he has had a painful, hopeless
struggle. He has had the benefit of all the resources of medicine and
surgery, and he and his wife were buoyed up by hope until the last; but
as the sequel of one of a series of operations death came to his relief
on February 24.
Only less remarkable than his struggle for life and physical strength
was his energy in acquiring an education. The sacrifices that parents in
New England and the rest of the country make in order to send their boys
to school and college is a common enough circumstance, but not always is
the return so satisfactory as it was in the case of Edward Bourne, and
his brother. Edward went to the Norwich Academy, where his studious
disposition and diligent purpose gained him the favor of the principal.
Thence to Yale, where he attracted the attention of Professor William G.
Sumner, who became to him a guide and a friend. Until his senior year at
Yale his favorite studies were Latin and Greek; and his brother, who was
in his class, informs me that ever since his preparatory school days, it
was his custom to read the whole of any author in hand as well as the
part set for the class. During recitations he recalls seeing him again
and again reading ahead in additional books of the author, keeping at
the same time "a finger on the page where the class was translating, in
order not to be caught off his guard." In his senior year at Yale, under
the influence of Professor Sumner, he became interested in economics and
won the Cobden medal. After graduation he wrote his first historical
book, "The History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837," published in 1885 in
Putnam's "Questions of the Day" series. For this and his other graduate
work his university later conferred upon him the degree of Ph.D. Since I
have learned the story of his boyhood and youth, it is with peculiar
appreciation that I read the dedication of this first book: "To my
Father and Mother." I may add in this connection that while pursuing his
indefatigable labors for the support of his large family, his father's
sickness and death overtaxed his strength, and the breakdown followed.
At Yale during his graduate work he won the Foote scholarship; he was
instructor in history there from 1886 to 1888, then took a similar
position at Adelbert College, Cleveland, becoming Professor of History
in 1890. This post he held until 1895, when he was called to Yale
University as Professor of History, a position that he held at the time
of his death.
Besides the doctor's thesis, Bourne published two books, the first of
which was "Essays in Historical Criticism," one of the Yale bicentennial
publications, the most notable essay in which is that on Marcus Whitman.
A paper read at the Ann Arbor session of the American Historical meeting
in Detroit and later published in the _American Historical Review_ is
here amplified into a long and exhaustive treatment of the subject. The
original paper gained Bourne some celebrity and subjected him to some
harsh criticism, both of which, I think, he thoroughly enjoyed. Feeling
sure of his facts and ground, he delighted in his final word to support
the contention which he had read with emphasis and pleasure to an
attentive audience in one of the halls of the University of Michigan.
The final paragraph sums up what he set out to prove with undoubted
success:
That Marcus Whitman was a devoted and heroic missionary who braved
every hardship and imperilled his life for the cause of Christian
missions and Christian civilization in the far Northwest and finally
died at his post, a sacrifice to the cause, will not be gainsaid.
That he deserves grateful commemoration in Oregon and Washington is
beyond dispute. But that he is a national figure in American
history, or that he "saved" Oregon, must be rejected as a fiction
[p. 100].
Bourne had a good knowledge of American history, and he specialized on
the Discoveries period, to which he gave close and continuous attention.
He was indebted to Professor Hart's ambitious and excellent cooperative
history, "The American Nation," for the opportunity to obtain a hearing
on his favorite subject. His "Spain in America," his third published
book, is the book of a scholar. While the conditions of his narrative
allowed only forty-six pages to the story of Columbus, he had
undoubtedly material enough well arranged and digested to fill the
volume on this topic alone. I desire to quote a signal example of
compression:
It was November, 1504, when Columbus arrived in Seville, a broken
man, something over twelve years from the time he first set sail
from Palos. Each successive voyage since his first had left him at a
lower point. On his return from the second he was on the defensive;
after his third he was deprived of his viceroyalty; on his fourth he
was shipwrecked.... The last blow, the death of his patron Isabella,
soon followed. It was months before he was able to attend court.
His strength gradually failed, he sank from public view, and on the
eve of Ascension Day, May 20, 1506, he passed away in obscurity
[p. 81].
And I am very fond of this final characterization:
Columbus ... has revealed himself in his writings as few men of
action have been revealed. His hopes, his illusions, his vanity, and
love of money, his devotion to by-gone ideals, his keen and
sensitive observation of the natural world, his credulity and utter
lack of critical power in dealing with literary evidence, his
practical abilities as a navigator, his tenacity of purpose and
boldness of execution, his lack of fidelity as a husband and a
lover,... all stand out in clear relief.... Of all the self-made men
that America has produced, none has had a more dazzling success, a
more pathetic sinking to obscurity, or achieved a more universal
celebrity [p. 82].
His chapter on Magellan is thoroughly interesting. The treatment of
Columbus and Magellan shows what Bourne might have achieved in
historical work if he could have had leisure to select his own subjects
and elaborate them at will.
Before "Spain in America" appeared, he wrote a scholarly introduction to
the vast work on the "Philippine Islands" published by the Arthur H.
Clark Company, of Cleveland, of which fifty-one volumes are already out.
The study of this subject gave Bourne a chance for the exhibition of his
dry wit at one of the gatherings of the American Historical Association.
It was asserted that in the acquisition of the Philippine Islands our
country had violated the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine, which properly
confined our indulgence of the land hunger that is preying upon the
world to the Western hemisphere. Bourne took issue with this statement.
He said that it might well be a question whether the Philippine Islands
did not belong to the Western hemisphere and that--
for the first three centuries of their recorded history, they were
in a sense a dependency of America. As a dependency of New Spain
they constituted the extreme western verge of the Spanish dominions
and were commonly known as the Western Islands. When the sun rose in
Madrid it was still early afternoon of the preceding day in Manila.
Down to the end of the year 1844 the Manilan calendar was reckoned
after that of Spain, that is, Manila time was about sixteen hours
slower than Madrid time.
Bourne undertook to write the Life of Motley for Houghton, Mifflin and
Company's American Men of Letters series, and he had done considerable
work in the investigation of material. He was editor of a number of
publications, one of which was John Fiske's posthumous volume, "New
France and New England," and he wrote critical notices for the _Nation_,
_New York Tribune_, and the _New York Times_. As I have said, he had a
large family to support, and he sought work of the potboiling order; but
in this necessary labor he never sacrificed his ideal of thoroughness. A
remark that he made to me some while ago has come back with pathetic
interest. After telling me what he was doing, how much time his teaching
left for outside work, why he did this and that because it brought him
money, he said: "I can get along all right. I can support my family,
educate my children, and get a little needed recreation, if only my
health does not break down."
Bourne took great interest in the American Historical Association, and
rarely if ever missed an annual meeting. He frequently read papers,
which were carefully prepared, and a number of them are printed in the
volume of Essays to which I have referred. He was the efficient chairman
of the programme committee at the meeting in New Haven in 1898; and as
chairman of an important committee, or as member of the Council, he
attended the November dinners and meetings in New York, so that he came
to be looked upon as one of the chief supporters of the Association.
Interested also in the _American Historical Review_, he was a frequent
contributor of critical book notices.
My acquaintance with Bourne began in 1888, the year in which I commenced
the composition of my history. We were both living in Cleveland, and, as
it was his custom to dine with me once or twice a month, acquaintance
grew into friendship, and I came to have a great respect for his
training and knowledge as a historical scholar. The vastness of
historical inquiry impressed me, as it has all writers of history.
Recognizing in Bourne a kindred spirit, it occurred to me whether I
could not hasten my work if he would employ part of his summer vacation
in collecting material. I imparted the idea to Bourne, who received it
favorably, and he spent a month of the summer of 1889 at work for me in
the Boston Athenaeum on my general specifications, laboring with industry
and discrimination over the newspapers of the early '50's to which we
had agreed to confine his work. His task completed, he made me a visit
of a few days at Bar Harbor, affording an opportunity for us to discuss
the period and his material. I was so impressed with the value of his
assistance that, when the manuscript of my first two volumes was
completed in 1891, I asked him to spend a month with me and work jointly
on its revision. We used to devote four or five hours a day to this
labor, and in 1894, when I had finished my third volume, we had a
similar collaboration.[163] I have never known a better test of general
knowledge and intellectual temper.
Bourne was a slow thinker and worker, but he was sure, and, when he knew
a thing, his exposition was clear and pointed. The chance of reflection
over night and the occasional discussion at meal times, outside of our
set hours, gave him the opportunity to recall all his knowledge bearing
on the subject in hand, to digest and classify it thoroughly, so that,
when he tackled a question, he talked, so to speak, like a book. Two
chapters especially attracted him,--the one on Slavery in my first
volume, and the one on general financial and social conditions at the
beginning of the third; and I think that I may say that not only every
paragraph and sentence, but every important word in these two chapters
was discussed and weighed. Bourne was a good critic, and, to set him
entirely at ease, as he was twelve years younger, I told him to lay
aside any respect on account of age, and to speak out frankly, no matter
how hard it hit, adding that I had better hear disagreeable things from
him than to have them said by critics after the volumes were printed.
The intelligent note on page 51 of my third volume was written by
Bourne, as I state in the note itself, but I did not speak of the large
amount of study he gave to it. I never knew a man take keener interest
in anything, and as we had all the necessary authorities at hand, he
worked over them for two days, coming down on the morning of the third
day with the triumphant air of one who had wrestled successfully with a
mathematical problem all night. He sat down and, as I remember it, wrote
the note substantially as it now stands in the volume. He was very
strong on all economic and sociological questions, displaying in a
marked degree the intellectual stimulus he had derived from his
association with Professor Sumner. He was a born controversialist and
liked to argue. "The appetite comes in eating" is a French saying, and
with Bourne his knowledge seemed to be best evolved by the actual joint
working and collision with another mind.
I remember one felicitous suggestion of Bourne's which after much
working over we incorporated into a paragraph to our common
satisfaction; and this paragraph received commendation in some critical
notice. Showing this to Bourne, I said: "That is the way of the world.
You did the thinking, I got the credit." Bourne had, however, forgotten
his part in the paragraph. His mind was really so full of knowledge,
when one could get at it, that he did not remember giving off any part
of it. In addition to his quality of close concentration, he acquired a
good deal of knowledge in a desultory way. In my library when
conversation lagged he would go to the shelves and take down book after
book, reading a little here or there, lighting especially upon any books
that had been acquired since his previous visit, and with reading he
would comment. This love of browsing in a library he acquired when a
boy, so his brother informs me, and when at Yale it was said that he
knew the library as well as the librarian himself.
It will be remembered that last spring our accomplished editor, Mr.
Smith, decided that he could no longer bear the burden of this highly
important work; and the question of a fit successor came up at once in
the mind of our President. Writing to me while I was in Europe, he
expressed the desire of consulting with me on the subject as soon as I
returned. I was unfortunately unable to get back in time for the June
meeting of the Society; and afterwards when I reached Boston the
President had gone West, and when he got home I was at Seal Harbor. To
spare me the trip to Boston and Lincoln, he courteously offered to come
to see me at Seal Harbor, where we had the opportunity to discuss the
subject in all its bearings. It will be quite evident from this
narrative that my choice for editor would be no other than Professor
Bourne, and I was much gratified to learn that the President from his
own observation and reflection had determined on the same man. Mr. Adams
had been accustomed to see Bourne at meetings of the American
Historical Association and at dinners of their Council; but, so he
informed me, he was not specially impressed by him until he read the
essay on Marcus Whitman, which gave him a high idea of Bourne's power of
working over material, and his faculty of trenchant criticism. We
arrived readily at the conclusion that Bourne would be an ideal editor
and that the position would suit him perfectly. Relieved of the drudgery
of teaching, he could give full swing to his love of books and to his
desire of running down through all the authorities some fact or
reference bearing upon the subject in hand. The work would be a labor of
love on which he could bring to bear his knowledge, conscientious
endeavor, and historical training. It would have been a case of mutual
benefit. He would be fortunate in securing such a position, and the
Society might be congratulated on being able to get a man so peculiarly
qualified for editorial work. But there was the question of Bourne's
health. We both knew that he had been failing, but we were not aware
that his case was hopeless. The President did not wish to present his
recommendation to the Council until there was a reasonable chance of his
recovery, and I undertook from time to time to get information from a
common friend in New Haven of his progress. But there was no good news.
While Bourne, with the help of his devoted wife, made an energetic fight
for life, it was unavailing. In his death Yale lost an excellent teacher
of history and this Society a candidate who, if he had been chosen,
would have made an accomplished editor.
[163] Bourne also revised the manuscript of my fourth volume, but the
conditions did not admit of our being together more than two
days, and the revision was not so satisfactory to either of us
as that of the first three volumes.