Christian Reconstruction Research Articles

Book Review: Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks

Book Review: Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks

Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861-1890

Journal Article Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861–1890. By Joe M. Richardson. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986. ix + 348 pp. $30.00.) Get access James Anderson James Anderson University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 73, Issue 4, March 1987, Pages 1044–1045, https://doi.org/10.2307/1904112 Published: 01 March 1987

Where Do We Go From Here?

Of course others have faced this problem, and found their answer. It would be wanton, spiritual arrogance for the author in his academic seclusion to suggest otherwise. Yet sometimes, as he lays aside one or other of the various handbooks of Christian reconstruction with which the market is flooded in these days, a horrid doubt crosses his mind which passes into a nightmarish sense of unreality. We draught our charters, we hold our luncheons, we address our public meetings. We go to the world outside the conference-hall door with a smile, with a handbook, nearly always with a sense of assurance Again, we search the Scriptures not that we may have life, but that we may find a slogan for a Christian mass-movement, in which the demands ot the platform will blunt the sharpness of our truly Christian perception. Our attitude seems sometimes a curiously sorry compact of assurance and desperation. We are assured because we think we have a solution for the frightful torments of the present; we are afraid because we see the dreadful possibility that men will not listen to us, may in fact opt finally for other gods.Is this altogether unfair? The picture is not intentionally spiteful. But there are moments when it seems hard to escape the conviction that some contemporary forms of Christian social activity are little less than highly subtle forms of escapism. They are ‘idealist’ in the sense assigned to that term by Marxist writers, for they rest on unconscious desire to escape the pressing demand to wrestle with social actualities in the here and now by passing into a world that analysis points out to be one of ideas only.

Book Reviews

Abstract The Normal Child and Primary Education. By Arnold L. Gesell, Ph. D. (Clark), Assistant Professor of Education at Yale, and Beatrice Chandler Gesell, Ed. B. (Chicago). Boston, Ginn & Co., 1912. x, 342 pp. $1.50. Leh. Ed., $1.25. Mental Fatigue. By Tsuru Arai, Ph. D. Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. 1912. m, 115 pp. $1.00. Principles of Educational Practice. By Paul Klapper, Ph. D. Instructor of Education, College of the City of New York, New York. D. Appleton & Co., 1912. vi, 485 pp. $1.75. Applied Mental Efficiency. By Tasso Vance Orr. Chicago; The Efficiency Institute, 1913. 262 pp. $1.50, postpaid. Food and Flavor. A Gastronomic Guide to Health and Good Living. By Henry T. Finck. The Century Co., New York, 1913. 8°. 594 pp. $2.00. The Boy's Book of New Inventions. By Harry E. Maule. Doubleday, Page & Co., 1912. 12°. 374 pp. $1.60. The Teacher's Health. By L. M. Terman. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1913. 16°. 137 pp. 60 cents. School Hygiene. By Fletcher B. Dresslar, Ph. D. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1913. 12°. 367 pp. $1.25. Report of the Proceedings of the Conference of Health-Promoting Institutions. P. S. King & Son., London, 1911. 12°. 171 pp. Paper. IS. Lectures in Physiology of Exercise. By Robert Fischer, Dean of the Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene. Director of Physical Training and School Hygiene, Indianapolis Public Schools. Normal College of the North American Gymnastic Union, 1910. 71 pp. Medical Inspection of Schools of Philadelphia. Reprint from the Annual Report of the Department of Public Health and Charities for the Year 1912. Dunlap Printing Co., Philadelphia, 1913. 116 pp. The Study of Individual Children. By Maximilian P. E. Grossmann, Ph. D., Educational Director of the National Association for the Study and Education of Exceptional Children, Plainfield, N. J. 1912. 76 pp. 60 cents. Salesmanship. Compiled from the Lessons and Lectures written by the Thirty-seven Authors of the Complete Course. National School of Salesmanship, Minneapolis. 348 pp. Experimental Studies of Mental Defectives. By J. E. Wallace Wallin, Ph. D., Director of Psychological Clinic, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh. Warwick & York. 1912. 155 pp. $1.25. Handbook of Mental Examination Methods. By Sheperd Ivory Franz, Ph. D. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Co., New York. 1912. Thirty-three figures and diagrams. 165 pp. $2.00. The Tonsils and the Voice. By Richard B. Faulkner, M. D. The Presbyterian Bookstore, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1913. 12°. 381 pp. $2.00. Preventive Medicine and Hygiene. By Milton J. Rosenau, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Hygiene, Harvard University. D. Appleton & Co., 1913. 8°. 1074 pp. $7.00. The Book of Indoor and Outdoor Games. By Mrs. Burton Kingsland. Sully & Kleinteich, 1913. 12° 610 pp. $1.00. The Christian Reconstruction of Modern Life. By Charles Henry Dickinson. The Macmillan Co., 1913. 12°. 327 pp. $1.50. Festivals and Plays. By Percival Chubb and Associates. Harper & Brothers, 1912. 12°. 403 pp. The Book of Useful Plants. By Julia E. Rogers. Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913. 372 pp. $1.10. Guide Book to Childhood. By William B. Forbush. American Institute of Child Life, 1913 (2d edition). 8°. 232 pp. Health in Home and Town. By Bertha Millard Brown, S. B. D. C. Heath & Co., 1912. 12°. 311 pp. 60 cents.

Book Review: The Christian Reconstruction of Modern Life

Book Review: The Christian Reconstruction of Modern Life

Book Review: IV. Missions and Religions: Christian Reconstruction in the South

Book Review: IV. Missions and Religions: Christian Reconstruction in the South