Oxford University makes a good beginning with its new professorship, that of American history, by appointing Samuel Eliot Morison, Ph.D., to fill the chair. As lecturer in history in Harvard University, Dr. Morison has proved himself well equipped for the work which lies before him in England. He will find that much of what he has to teach is news to English students, and that many of their ideas regarding the birth and growth of the United States need correction through a knowledge of history. As regards the early days of our country, and especially the wars of the founders and their successors with the "old country," there are misconceptions that may be removed with advantage to the two great English-speaking nations that in these days join "hands across the sea." Neither in America nor in England do the young find all that should be told them in school histories. These are short, and the historian may find it easy to excuse the omission of anything that does not redound to the credit of his own country, when writing of conflict with another country.

Not always is an English school history of America or an American school history of England a satisfactory guide. How many Englishmen know how the thousands of American prisoners were treated on Long Island in the war of the revolution? How many Americans know how the captain of the Shannon was wounded and doomed to a life of pain in the duel with the Chesapeake? There are far greater things of which the history should be known. It is only since the world war revealed something of the strength and the resources of the United States that the younger people of England have turned their eyes with new looks of interest and inquiry to this side of the Atlantic. Old Oxford is now enabled, through the generosity of Lord Rothermore, to furnish the information they desire--not that which they could obtain by coming over and studying on the spot the completed structure of this nation, but that which relates to the laying of the foundations and the building of the republic. It is evidently felt that knowledge of American history has become necessary.