ount, the expedient in this case is not
necessarily opposed to truth and accuracy. This is well shown by the
phenomenal success of The Memorial History of Boston, mentioned above.
It may be well just here to say a little more about this admirable work,
for it is even more typical of what an ideal city history should be,
than that of Pittsfield is of the ideal town history.

From the title-page we learn that The Memorial History of Boston,
including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, was edited by Justin
Winsor, and issued under the business superintendence of the projector,
Clarence F. Jewett, in 1880. The nature of the book is learned from the
preface, which says: "The history is cast on a novel plan: not so much
in being a work of co-operation, but because, so far as could be, the
several themes, as sections of one homogeneous whole, have been treated
by those who have some particular association and, it may be, long
acquaintance with the subject. In the diversity of authors there will,
of course, be variety of opinions, and it has not been thought
ill-judged, considering the different points of view assumed by the
various writers, that the same events should be interpreted sometimes in
varying and, perhaps, opposite ways. The chapters may thus make good the
poet's description:

'Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea,'--

and may not be the worse for each offering a reflection, according to
its turn to the light, without marring the unity of the general
expanse."

Among those who contributed one or more chapters to this work were
Justin Winsor (the editor), Charles Francis Adams, Jr., R.C. Winthrop,
T.W. Higginson, Edward Everett Hale, H.E. Scudder, F.W. Palfrey,
Phillips Brooks, Andrew P. Peabody, Henry Cabot Lodge, Josiah P. Quincy,
and Edward Atkinson. Such names as these are more than enough to insure
the truth, accuracy, and historical value of the book. Each one of them
discussed one or more topics, and then their work with that of the less
famous contributors was arranged chronologically, making a logically
consecutive series of essays complete in themselves. The whole was
published in four elegantly printed volumes, containing, in all,
twenty-five hundred and seventy-seven pages.

This is the kind of a history which is of value, not only for immediate
use, but also for future reference; and this is the kind that gladdens
the heart and cheers the labors of the student and the writer. It is t