A reply to Mrs. Willard's "Appeal,"
Willson, Marcius, 1813- [from old catalog]
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Although it has been published less than two years, its sale is already greater than any other School History — it has been intro¬ duced into the Public Schools of New York City— the Normal School in Al¬ bany, the Public Schools in Newark, Brooklyn, Rochester, Buffalo, Cincinnati and St. Louis — as well as in the best Male and Female Academies and Semi¬ naries in all parts of the country. The publisher’s ask its farther introduc¬ tion on its merits alone , firmly persuaded that it has merits possessed by no other School History. Its peculiarities are — rsuperior accuracy, both as to facts and dates — a complete Marginal Analysis — Geographical Notes at the bottom of each page with Maps illustrative, nearly one hundred Maps, Plans of Battles, and Charts illustrating the History — a Chronological Chart of American His¬ tory, with dates from 1509 to 1845.' The history of eacS State is first given separately, then the whole collectively — The history embraces a period of 353 years, beginning with the discovery of America by Columbus. The best his¬ torians have been consulted, public documents searched, errors in other histo¬ ries corrected, and the whole adapted with admirable skill to practical use in the schoolroom.. The publishers invite a comparison with any other History for Schools extant. The book is printed on good paper and substantially bound, and is furnished to Schools at as low a price as any of the inferior His¬ tories containing the same amount of reading matter. Teachers and School Committees will be furnished with copies for examination by the publishers. MARK H. NEWMAN & CO., May 26th, 1847. 199 Broadway, New-York. 1 lead the following from Cincinnati: — The Text-book Committee having examined Marcius Willson’s History of the United States,, would /hereby recommend' it as a suitable book for the use of the Common Schools of the city. We would suggest that hereafter it should be used in the place of Mrs. Willard’s Abridgment. The work now recommended is one of great accuracy, clear and forcible style, embracing a period from 1492, the discovery of the country, to 1845, the opening of the administration of James K. Polk. This history, we think, is well adapted to the use of schools. The miniature chart of Ancient History shows at a glance, by means of a light shade, the -progress of civilization and the settlement of the Anglo-Saxon race upon this continent. The arrangement of the work into four several parts is natural, and renders the work easily remembered. Period I. Embraces the history of Voyages and Discoveries till 1607, the first settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, a period of 115 years. Period II. Extends from the settlement of Jamestown to the American Revo¬ lution in 1775, 168 years. Period III. From the commencement of the American Revolution to the Administration of George Washington in 17S9, a period of 14 years. Period IV. From George Washington’s administration in 17S9 to James K. Polk in 1845, a period of 56 years. The marginal dates, (new style,) as here arranged, we consider of great importance to a school book, when dates are taught, as a part of Common School instruction. All which is respectfully submitted. CHAS. S. BRYANT, JOUN A. WARDER, WM. PHILLIPS, Jr., I concur in the recommendation of Willson’s History as a Text-Book. Jan. 18, 1S47. PEYTON. S; SYMMES. On the 22ck February, 1847, the Board of Trustees and Visitors of the Common Schools of Cincinnati, unanimously adopted the following resolution. “ Resolved, That the United States History, by. Marcius Willson, be and the same is hereby adopted by the board of Trustees and Visitors as the Text-Book to be used in the Common Schools of Cincinnati, in place of the abridgment, by Mrs. Willard.” Text-Book Committee. A REPLY TO MRS. WILLARD'S “ APPEAL.” “ Look on this picture, — and then on that.” V. Vi ■v. A few days since, the writer of the following article received from the city of New York a pamphlet, of which the following is the title : “ An Appeal to the Public, especially those concerned in Education, against the wrong and injury done by Marcius Willson, in his pamphlet, entitled, £ Report on American Histories, etc. ; published by Mark H. Newman & Co., New York, 1847’ — show¬ ing also their trespasses on my literary property. By Emma Wil¬ lard.” To this “ Appeal,” the party accused of injustice submits the following Reply. The complaints and accusations brought forward in Mrs. Wil¬ lard’s “ Appeal” refer to two distinct subjects ; consisting, 1st, of charges of injustice against Mr. Willson’s pamphlet “ Review of American Histories and 2d, of charges against him, of imitating , in his History of the United States, Mrs. Willard’s work on the same subject. We have been at some trouble to analyze Mrs. Willard’s very discursive “ Appeal,” and, for the sake of method, have arranged the various charges contained therein under the two heads above mentioned. First, then, we shall examine Mrs. Wil¬ lard’s Charges against the Review. The pamphlet, of which Mrs. Willard at this late day complains, was first published, in full, in the early part of July, 1845, nearly 'wo years ago ; at which time also the first twenty-three pages of said pamphlet appeared in the July number of the Biblical Repos- 1 2 A REPLY TO MRS. WILLARD^ “ APPEAL.” itory, a Quarterly, published in the city of New York. The title of the pamphlet then was, and still is : “ A Critical Review of American Common School Histories, as embraced in a Report sub¬ mitted to the New Jersey Society of Teachers and Friends of Education, at a quarterly meeting, held March 7, 1845. By M. Willson, N. Y.” This pamphlet was a general review of American Histories, but was more particularly devoted to an examination of eight of our most prominent School Histories, viz. : Hale’s, Webster’s, Olney’s, Grimshaw’s, Frost’s, the two Goodrich’s, and Mrs. Willard’s. The subjects treated were, 1st, Arrangement ; 2d, Anachronisms , con¬ tained in all the principal works on American History, not except¬ ing those of Belknap, Holmes, Bancroft, &c. ; 3d, Errors of fact ; 4th, Literary merits. /phis brief statement is made to correct the impression which Mrs/ Willard’s “ Appeal” would convey, that the Review was directed solely, or even principally against Mrs. Wil¬ lard’s History. It is true that the work of that lady suffered the most severely, simply because it was the most open to criticism ; yet in all cases the language of the Review was perfectly decorous and respectful, which is much more than can be said of Mrs. Willard’s “ Appeal.” Because the writer of the Review has stated facts which Mrs. W. cannot, and does not attempt to controvert, the pub¬ lic are told that he is “ robbing her of her character as an author ;” circulating his “ slanderous pamphlet ;” “ abusing her works and herself;” — he is charged with “ avarice” and “ defamation with being “ unfit to give moral impressions to the young;” — and he is sneered at for his “ amiable air of great zeal for the cause of edu¬ cation ;” for “his wonderful assumption of learning;” “his pre¬ tensions as a writer of history ;” his “ amazingly calm magisterial tone and manner;” and, to close a long tirade of similar abuse, this amiable authoress, in a lame attempt at ridicule, adds, that from Mr*. Willson’s “ criticisms upon facts or events, one would natu¬ rally suppose that he had lived since the days of Columbus /” W e cannot here enter upon an exposition of the character of the “ Review” complained of, any farther than to defend it where it has been unjustly assailed, but we ask every one who feels an in¬ terest in the subject to read it, that he may judge for himself whether there be any injustice in it or not. The circumstances under which the Review was submitted to the public have been A REPLY TO MRS. Wherein then does she charge our Review with doing her injustice ? Principally in this ; — that since the Review was first published, she has corrected the errors which it pointed out in her History, and that we still allow the Review to be circulated, as though those er¬ rors in her History still remained ! And because we will not new suppress the Review, she charges “ the Review, bearing date 1847” with containing, “ concerning her Histories alone, about forty erro¬ neous accusations .” Herein the lady unwittingly makes a confes¬ sion rather injurious to her cause. She does not say that Willson’s Review contained, when first read in public, in 1845, any erroneous accusations whatever, concerning her Histories as then published ; but that, at the present date , 1847, since she has corrected her History, the Review imputes to it about forty errors, which no longer exist ! Suppose, that we should admit, that since we wrote our Review, Mrs. Willard has corrected “ about forty” of the errors which we pointed out ; we should, however, see no impropriety in still allowing the Review to circulate as a standing historical document. Mrs. Willard has made use of the fruits of our labors in correcting her History, so far as she has corrected it, and we see no reason why we should allow her the exclusive use of cor¬ rections, which we ourselves have made. On the contrary, we would sooner think of accusing her of plagiarizing from our Re¬ view. Mrs. Willard indeed says that “the major part of the accusa¬ tions” contained in the Review, “ were unfounded from the first.” But is such an assertion to pass, unchallenged, when no attempt is made to show wherein the accusations are unfounded ? The Re¬ view gives abundant references, dates, and quotations, to prove its assertions j all which Mrs. Willard dispose! of by her simple dic- * The Review complained of title, cover, and all, is appended to this Reply, that the reader may compare and judge for himself. 4 A REPLY TO MRS. WILLARD^S u APPEAL. 19 turn, “they are unfounded.” She repeatedly charges the Review with “ accusing authors of errors which they never committed but why has she not gratified the readers of the Appeal by making specifications? Have we made any erroneous quotations from Mrs. Willard’s, or from any other History ? If so, let it be shown, for the public will certainly demand proof of the charge. The reader can satisfy himself by referring to the Review, and compa¬ ring it with the works criticised. Mrs. Willard charges us (“ Appeal”, page 6,) with using, for our criticisms, the “ first editions of her Histories.” This remark she subsequently qualifies (page 28) by saying, “ that is, the first edi¬ tions of my American Histories as published subsequently to 1841,” at which time, she says, the abridged History was entirely rewritten ; her former work not being by her while she was writing it. To this charge we reply, that the abridged History was the work principally referred to, and that we used a copy of the edition of 1844, which copy is now on our table, and which, we have reason to believe, differs in no respect from any other copies of the work published that year. The writing of the Review was commenced in December, 1844, and we used a copy of Mrs. Willard’s History, published the same year. How then stands the assertion of Mrs. W. ? And we now challenge any person to find a copy of Mrs. Willard’s History bearing date prior to March 7, 1845, that does not contain all the errors which the Review attributes to her work. Among many ungrammatical sentences which the Review point¬ ed out in Mrs. Willard’s History, there were ten examples, em¬ braced in eleven lines of the Review, of the wrong use of the pronoun ; as, “ who did he send,” &c. The “ Appeal” now as¬ serts that seven of these examples were corrected before the first publication of the Review, and the other three immediately after, (“ Appeal” p. 9.) This might have been so, and we be still free from having made any misstatement ; for the Review was read in public before a large audience in the city of Newark, New Jersey, on the 7th of March, 1845, nearly four months before it was published; and, doubtless, Mrs. Willard was informed of the character of it. She is careful, however, not to state how long it was before the Review was “ published ” that stie made those corrections. This is of the same nature as the other charges, of “ about forty” misstatements now found in the Review. 5 A REPLY TO MRS. WILLARD^S “APPEAL.” But Mrs. Willard now maintains that the phraseology which she used “ ought to be recognized by grammarians as correct.” Then why did she change the sentences? She says, page 9 of the Ap¬ peal, •“ These colloquialisms, I now remark, are all one thing, — who used for whom in asking questions. This is according to good usage in ordinary conversation, as, ‘ who did you see V i Who did you marry V And ought, I think, to be recognized by grammari¬ ans ; for good usage is, after all, the standard.” Good usage , for¬ sooth ! “ Who did you see ?” And is this the teaching of a lady who has been for “ thirty years at the head of an important literary institution ?” Behold then, reader, the standard by which our authoress measures grammatical purity l — We also request you to read from page 18 to page 23, of the Review, the quotations from Mrs. Willard’s History ; compare them with her History published prior to 1845, that you may know there is no unfairness in the ex¬ tracts ; and then observe how Mrs. Willard, in the “ Appeal,” dis¬ poses of the subject. She says, page 9, “ Of the words which he (Willson) cites as incorrectly used, there is not one in which the defi¬ nitions given by Mr. Webster in his large dictionary, do not justify Mrs. Willard.” But does Mr. Webster sanction such gross rhetori¬ cal and grammatical absurdities as this teacher of “thirty years’ ” ex¬ perience has committed, and which she attempts to justify, and most of which she still retains in her History ? Let the reader examine that portion of the Review referred to, and judge for himself in this matter- But Mrs. Willard farther says, in reference to the errors attrib¬ uted to her History, (p. 17, of the Appeal,) “Of these accusations, the major part were unfounded from the first ; and the others (accu¬ sations 1) however small the matters to which they relate, have been corrected nearly two years , as Mr. Willson knows, so that the whole body of these accusations are now untrue.” Is it possible that Mrs. Willard ever saw this paragraph before the publication of the “ Ap¬ peal ?” The evident meaning of it, after correcting its rhetorical and grammatical inaccuracies, is, that the errors pointed out in Mrs. Willard’s History have been corrected. And will not the reader of the Appeal be disappointed to find that the greater portion of them has not been corrected ? We have now before us one of the latest nopies of Mrs. Willard’s History, published the present year , 1847, and by comparing it with our Review, and with the copy of the History of 1844, which we used in writing our criticisms, we find 6 A REPLY TO MRS. WILLARD^ “ APPEAL.” that, of the whole number of errors of fact which the Review im¬ putes to Mrs. Willard’s History, only five have been corrected. We can hardly believe that Mrs. Willard penned that paragraph, or that she even ignorantly sanctioned it ; for how could she be so ignorant as not to know whether she had made corrections in her book or not? Let the reader satisfy^ himself in this matter by look¬ ing over the errors of fact imputed, in the foregoing Review, to Mrs. Willard’s History, and comparing them with any edition of her work published prior to the present time. To aid him in this inves¬ tigation, we will specify what are the only errors of fact that have, thus far, been corrected : First, the inaccurate account of De Soto, see Review, p. 13 ; — second, that pertaining to Weston’s Colony, p. 15 ; — third, that concerning the settlement of Delaware, which has been wholly re-written, p. 16 ; — fourth, the departure of Wash¬ ington for the French forts, p. 29 — and fifth* the localities of Bun¬ ker’s and Breed’s Hill, p. 32. But the reader may say, ‘perhaps Mrs. -Willard will deny that any of the other cases specified in the Review are errors, . and that it is on these grounds she asserts that she has corrected the errors pointed out by the Review.’ But, although this charitable suppo¬ sition should be true, still it will not help the case, for there are errors whioh Mrs. Willard admits to be such, which have not been corrected in her History. In a note on page 22 of the Appeal, Mrs.. Willard admits “six errors, (in dates,) of which three were wrong by just ten years, and one a mistake in the day of the month, where 6 was used for 26,” &c. By this we can ascertain some of the- errors, which Mrs. Willard acknowledges, although she has evi¬ dently made one too many against herself, among those specified as being wrong by ten years. Two of the cases to which she alludes are, evidently, 1st, Castine’s attack on Pemaquid, and 2dr the Jerseys united to New York, both of which she had dated ten years too early. The other is the surrender of Louisburg, which she dates July 6th, instead of July 26th. These three, therefore,, Mrs. Willard acknowledges to be errors ; and yet, notwithstanding the positive statement of the Appeal;, that the errors pointed out in the Review, “ however small the matters to which they relate, have leen corrected for nearly two years f — notwithstanding, I say, this positive statement, yet not one of these three acknowledged errors has been corrected, either in Mrs. Willard’s large ox small History, A REPLY TO MRS. WILLARD’S “ APPEAL/ 7 up to this present year 1847. We have new copies of both of Mrs. Willard’s works before us, under date of 1847, which we have just obtained from the city of New York, for the purpose of these com¬ parisons.* Misstatements so exceedingly foolish , and so open to detection, we know not how to speak of, nor how to reconcile with our views of mental sanity. But the writer of the “ Appeal” refers to ourselves for authority that the errors have been corrected, and in a note, p. 17, quotes the following language from the second page of the title leaf of the Review. “ Since the Review was first published, the errors pointed out in it have been corrected in several of the works referred to.” The writer of the “ Appeal,” by gratuitously supposing that we had especial reference to Mrs. Willard’s History, appears to have taken it fcr granted, without investigation, that Mrs. Willard had made the corrections. This is the most charitable supposition we can make for whoever wrote this part of the “Appeal.” Con¬ nected with the same subject, there is another perversion of truth, which we have not the boldness to charge upon a woman. In the same note, p. 17, of the “ Appeal,” it is stated that the remark alluded to on the second page of the title leaf of the Review is, “ at the foot of the page, in small print, much out of sight.” But the remark alluded to is printed in the same type as all the rest of the page ; and as the whole page is now republished, exactly as before, (see second page of the cover of the Review,) the reader will prob¬ ably satisfy himself that a perversion of truth was not undesigned by the writer of the “Appeal.” As regards the rhetorical and grammatical errors of Mrs. Wil¬ lard’s History, we remark, that, out of the forty-six specifications made in the Review, eighteen, and only eighteen, of the grossest of the errors have been corrected, ten of which were the colloquialisms previously alluded to. And, surely, why make these corrections at all, as the general style of the book can scarcely be affected by a little pruning. From page 23 of the Appeal we extract the following, showing a perversion of truth, (whether ignorantly or designedly we will not say,) almost unparalleled. The “ Appeal” says, “ The matter * As the publishers may yet make these corrections in Mrs. Willards History, in a subsequent edition of the present year, the reader would do well to refer to copies under date of 1846. 8 A REPLY TO MRS. WILLARD^ “ APPEAL.” contained in the last nine pages of Mr. Willson’s pamphlet is thus headed : ‘ An Appendix containing an addition dt list of the errors found in our Common School Histories.’ The phrase italicised affirms a former list of errors as at present existing , and affirms it under no date hut that of the title page , which is 184V.” We do not like to accuse a lady of wilful perversion, and there¬ fore shall use no harsh language, but simply state facts in contra¬ vention of Mrs. Willard’s statement. Mrs. W. has taken up the pamphlet Review published this present year , 1847, and she indi¬ rectly asserts that the Appendix contained therein is now published for the first time ; and she directly asserts that it is published under no date but that of the title page of the cover of the pamphlet, which is 1847. We deny both these assertions, by stating, 1st, that the Appendix alluded to has been published in every pamphlet of the Review ever issued ; and that it was published and circulated, in the city of New York and elsewhere, three months before Mrs. Wil¬ lard’s Reply in the Biblical Repository of Oct. 1845 ; although that lady now says, “ there are several reasons why I should suppose it (the Appendix) written subsequently to my * Reply.’” What does the lady mean by -such assertions ! In the second place, she directly asserts that the Appendix is published under no date but that of 1847. But the first two lines in the Appendix assert that the Appendix is a part of the “ Report” submitted to the New Jersey Education Society ; and the heading of the “ Report” or “ Review,” says that it was read “ at a quarterly meeting of the Society held March 7, 1845.” Thus, both Review and Appendix, which com¬ prise the Report as published, bear date 1845. The cover only has on it the imprint of the publishers under date of 1847. And does not the publishers’ imprint , in Mrs. Willard’s History change the date every year, although the History was written several years ago ? Mrs. We have remarked that in only two instances has Mrs. Willard even attempted to show that the Review attributed errors to her His¬ tory which were not so in reality. Thus she allows all the other numerous charges of error to go against her by default. The first charge of error that she controverts, (see Appeal, page 7,) but against which she makes scarcely an attempt at argument, is with reference to the first land discovered by the Cabots in 1497 ; — we maintaining, with Bancroft, that the land first discovered was Labra¬ dor , and Mrs. Willard alleging, in accordance with all the old writers, that it was Newfoundland. We gave our authorities in the Review, (page 13,) to which we again refer the reader for con¬ firmation of the position we assumed. The other charge of error that she designed to controvert, is con¬ tained in the following extract from page 25 of the pamphlet Review. “ Mrs. Willard has fallen into an error with respect to the first settlement in the Carolinas. In North Carolina two separate colonies were formed : — the Albemarle County Colony, in the north-eastern part of the State, and the Clarendon County Colony, farther south, on Cape Fear River. But Mrs. Willard, on page 95 of the large work, and also on page 121 of the Abridgement, by a marginal note, describes the colony on Cape Fear River, as being the first in South Carolina . That this is not a typographical error may be shown from the fact that the writer speaks of these settlements as the Carolinas; meaning thereby, North and South Carolina; and besides, she speaks of no other settlement being the first in South Carolina.” Review, p. 26. 10 A REPLY TO MRS. WILLARD^ “ APPEAL.” Let the 'reader carefully peruse this extract, and then, consider¬ ing that Cape Fear River is within the present limits of North Carolina, ask himself, what is the charge against Mrs. Willard’s History? It is simply this ; — that she commits 'the topographical blunder of speaking of the settlement on Cape Fear River as being within the limits of South Carolina ; — the same kind of blunder that she made when repeatedly speaking of Delaware as being on the East side of Delaware River ; a blunder that had remained in her History until we pointed it out, ( see Review, p. 16,) but which is one of those subsequently corrected. Mrs. Willard has devoted four, pages and a half of small type in her “ Appeal” to a discus¬ sion of the subject, whether the early settlement at the mouth of Cape Fear River belonged, u at the first division of Carolina ,” to the northern province or to the southern province : — a subject pre¬ senting an inconsistency in itself, because at the time of the Cape Fear settlement there was no southern province , nor any settlement in South Carolina until ten years later. Mrs. Willard has discussed a subject which is not the question at issue ; and all her arguments, based on an absurdity, are wholly irrelevant to the charge made in the Review. Moreover, we were writing about the early settle¬ ments made within the present limits of North Carolina, and so was Mr. Bancroft in that part of his History referred to by Mrs. Wil¬ lard ; and yet that lady appears, most unaccountably, to have mistaken us both ; and, in order to do so, has gone so far “ beyond the record,” as to make History belie itself. But admitting, for the sake of argument, that there was a division of the province of Carolina at the time of the Cape Fear settlement, how then stands the question? Plainly thus. Mrs. 32,) “ I cannot but think that he (Willson) has, as a historian, mad'e some assertions, for the purpose of showing' others in the wrong, that he knows are contrary to ascertained facts.” Has our fair authoress sufficient historical acumen to perceive that we are right now? We should think it useless to ask her to admit that she is wrong. Thus we have noticed all the tangible charges brought forward against the Review, — charges, the absurdity and falsity of which would have rendered them unworthy of notice, if advanced by any other than the person complaining of injustice. The great aim of Mrs. Willard, in her “ Appeal,” is to excite the sympathy of the public in her favor, by the cry that she is an injured woman. She writes as though she thought the fact of her being a female should screen her from all censure as an authoress. It is doubtful whether candid persons-, in search of truth, will be willing, from motives of gallantry, to give currency, by the use of her book, to notorious errors in history. That the Review, of which she complains, has greatly injured the sale of her work, by showing that it is the most faulty in point of style, the most erroneous in point of fact, and on the whole the most carelessly written of any School History in this country, is n^doubt true ; but we assert that the Review is just and 12 A REPLY TO MRS. WILLARD’S “ APPEAL.” impartial, and that Mrs. Willard has not even attempted to show that it has committed errors in imputing errors to her History, ex¬ cept in the two instances alluded to, in which she alleges that her views of an historical fact are right and ours wrong. What then ! Because a just criticism upon a faulty book will injure its sale, must the pen of the reviewer be laid aside ? Does the writer of a just criticism commit any injustice upon the author of a bad book ? Does he not, rather, do an act of justice to» the public, and will not the public commend him therefor ? But the very gist of Mrs. Willard’s complaint against the Review is, that it is published and circulated long after the errors which it pointed out have been corrected. This is the sum of the whole matter. But had the corrections been made, as alleged tojiave been, still we should deem her cause of complaint a trivial one. But we have shown the falsity of the allegation, so far as the great body of the errors is concerned. Why such an allegation was made, under the circumstances, which ought to have been known to the writer of the “ Appeal,” is beyond our comprehension. Mrs. W., however, evidently writes, (if she wrote the “ Appeal,”) under the impression that the great mass of the errors, “ however small the matters to which they relate,” had been corrected. She acknowl¬ edges no obligation to us for our labors in furnishing the materials with which she might have made her History considerably better than it would ever, otherwise, have been ; and she calls upon the public to condemn us, because we have enabled her to supply that very public with an article of her own manufacture somewhat im¬ proved. Did ever one hear of such ingratitude ! But the public has, already, not only thanked us for what we have done in giving additional accuracy to the History of our Country, but, considering that “the laborer is worthy of his hire,” (Appeal, p. 10,) has given us the credit of the few corrections made in Mrs. Willard’s History, and, setting her History aside, has taken ours into favor. We sym¬ pathize with the lady in her afflictions, but can afford her no conso¬ lation. We now proceed, in the second place, to Mrs. Willard’s Charges of Imitation and Plagiarism, or, as stated on the title page of the “ Appeal,” the “ Trespasses on her literary property.” g A REPLY TO MRS. WILLARD^ “ APPEAL. ,r 13 Mrs. Willard accuses us, not only of imitating, in the History we have written, the plan which she has adopted in hers, but, also, her style of writing; and, farther, that in sundry instances specified, we have plagiarized the very language in her book, and which she claims as her exclusive u literary property;” — to all which charges we now ask the careful attention of the reader, while we expose the unfounded assertions and gross ignorance of the writer who made them. We have analyzed these several charges, and arranged them- in the following order : 1st Charge.- — Mrs. Willard charges- me with imitating her in intro¬ ducing a series of progressive maps, &c., (“ Appeal,” p. 9.) A suf¬ ficient reply to this would be that my three progressive maps are, tolo coelo, different from her ten or eleven. Hers are, simply, rude and imperfect geographical maps, in the ordinary style ; and in their character differing in no respect from maps which have long been used in historical works. Such were John Smith’s early maps of New England and Virginia ; the map of the French Jesuits in Bancroft, iii. 152-3 ; the map in Bancroft, ii., between pages 296 and 297 ; the two maps in Winterbotham’s United States ; and such were all the maps of our country which have been pub¬ lished, from the rude sketches of the first voyagers down to the present time. The number of such maps, found in works on American History, is legion ; and a connected series of them would illustrate the progress of settlement and civilization in the same manner that Mrs. Willard’s do. And because Mrs. Willard was the first to combine them into a series in a School History of the United States, has no other person a right to get up any kind of maps or charts whatever, to illustrate the progress of our coun¬ try’s history ? The idea is preposterous. But farther, my three maps, on pages 46, 284, and 347,* are not at all on the plan of Mrs. Willard’s maps, nor of any that I have seen previously published. They are, rather, charts, on geographical delineations, showing, by contrasts of light and shade, the gradual advance of civilized upon savage life. On this head the complaint of Mrs. Willard is not only absurd, but truly ridiculous. The smaller maps in my school History, numbering sixty-one in all, are geographical maps, neatly drawn, and having scales of * In the last ten editions, this last map will be found on page 357. 2 14 A REPLY TO MRS. WILLARD^ “ APPEAL.” measurement, and scattered throughout the work as needed, so as to present to the eye of the pupil the topography of the very places referred to. To correspond with these Mrs. Willard has only twelve or thirteen smaller maps, (and these are embraced in the eleven before alluded to,) which are on different scales of measure¬ ment, but without anything to mark the difference ; and they are collected on three or four pages of her work, away from the events which they are designed to illustrate. Is then the flan of my maps and charts an imitation of hers ? Moreover, the flan of illustrating history by maps, is as old as the Common Law — extending back, “ time whereof the memory of man runneth not the contrary.” But farther, — my History contains a brief description of nearly every place referred to,— ^ -such as the localities of battles — the ruins of forts, &e. ; and this, hy some , has been regarded a very impor¬ tant feature of the work. Mrs. W’illard has nothing of the kind in her History, and as she cannot here charge me with imitation , she calls it “ a vicious excess , tending greatly to the discredit of my work.” To this we simply remark, that the public has given a very different verdict from that pronounced by her ladyship. — So much for the gravely charged parallelisms between the geographical illustrations of my History and Mrs. Willard’s, and so much for the somewhat presumptuous claims to original invention. 2d Charge. — Mrs. Willard’s “ Appeal” says, (page 11,) “ The type and general appearance of the two books are strikingly similar!” “The pages of Willson are of the same length exactly as those of the abridged History, (Mrs. Willard’s,) and the width of the read¬ ing matter in both exactly the same.” Grave assertions ! The lady might have added, “ and the name Willson is very similar to that of Willard .” But since Mrs. W. has called our attention to the subject, we find that by exact measurement, the page of our History is, in printer’s language, just half an em wider than Mrs. Willard’s, while the printed margin in the former work is nearly one-third the widest. W e hope our readers will feel deeply inter¬ ested in this matter — at least Mrs. Willard does. But, query : will Mrs. Willard inform us how many books, published during the last year, have their pages of the same length, or of the same width ? We observe, in a work before us, “ Arnold’s Lectures on Modern History,” that the pages are exactly the same length as in Mrs. Willard’s History. So with Theller’s Canada. We imagine that A REPLY TO MRS. WILLARD’S “ APPEAL.” 15 the printers and stereotypers have had a great deal to do with this kind of imitation. And then, many of them use type from the same fonts ! Assuredly they must reform, or Mrs. Willard will charge them with imitating her History. 3d Charge. — “ The reading matter of the abridged History begins at page 15 ; so does Mr. Willson’s.” (Mrs W. probably means page 13 instead of 15.) So does Olney’s commence on page 13. Query, then : who was the inventor of this pforc of commencing a book on the thirteenth page ? 4th Charge. — “ Mr. Willson commences his Colonial History in the year 1606, at page 47 ; the abridged History has the same date at page 37.” “ From that date to the end, the abridged History occupies 309 pages, and Mr. Willson’s 309 pages, exclusive of a map,” &c. 