Every American citizen must understand the Civil War. Unless he does, the country as it is today, is unintelligible to him, and the men, the battles, and the issues of fifty years ago mean nothing more than names to him. At Harvard there is no one course that presents an intelligent, comprehensive and non-partisan view of the conflict, that induces a point of view which the Northerner and Southerner can hold together, that can inspire patriotism and at the same time not awaken partisan feeling. Without such a course an ignorance flourishes which not only shuts men from an interesting topic of conversation, but also dulls their patriotism, and may allow blind prejudices to exist.

Are there any objections that the University can raise against such a course? It may be claimed that the field is covered sufficiently as it is, but when there is no undergraduate course which does anything more than touch upon the subject, we do not call that sufficient. It cannot be claimed that the war is too recent to be fairly treated. So far as we know, the only objection is that the Faculty does not want a purely war course, that it does not want to give war such importance. If this had been a conflict in a far away country, in a far away time, such an objection might be valid, but under the circumstances it is worthless, for such a course would not be a mere history of campaigns, and even if it were the military interest would not be uppermost. As matters stand, there will be a distinct gap in the view that Harvard gives us of our past, until a course on the Civil War and Reconstruction is offered.