Das Deutschtum in Westkanada by Heinz LehmannReview by: Carl WittkeThe American Historical Review, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Apr., 1940), pp. 667-668Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1840755 .

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Lehmann: Das Deutschtum in Westkanada 667

lay influence making itself felt. In one case the ministers of a congregation "were required to apologize to conference" for planning a special Bible instruction meeting for their congregation without having previously ob- tained the consent of the conference. The bishops seem to be very much opposed to having their people hear preachers who are not formally ap- proved by them. Apparently, independent thinking on the part of laymen is unwelcome. One result of this attitude has been the loss of "many young people". On several of these points the Mennonites of Iowa and those of Mountain Lake, Minnesota, have followed in the wake of the American democratic tradition, whereas the Franconia Mennonites maintain the political, social, and ecclesiastical tradition of colonial and pre-Jacksonian times. Since the Franconia group has been in America much longer than either of the others, the Turnerian may see in this contrast the influence of the trans-Mississippi frontier. The author's illustrations are excellent. In- dexes, appendixes, bibliographies, and documentation are adequate. The volume should be especially valuable as a reference work for libraries.

Western Reserve University. JACOB C. MEYER.

Das Deutschtum in Westkanada. Von Dr. phil. habil. HEINZ LEHMANN.

[Ver6ffentlichungen der Hochschule fur Politik.] (Berlin: Junker und Diinnhaupt. 1939. Pp. 414. 12 M-) IN this volume the author, who published a study of the Germans in

eastern Canada in 1931, has directed his researches to the German element in the prairie provinces of the Canadian West. With great thoroughness, attention to detail, and extensive research he has produced a volume that is a useful, scholarly addition to the literature of Canadian immigration.

After a short discussion of the physical features of the prairie provinces and the selective immigration policy of Canada and its railways, the nar- rative ferrets out the hundreds of German communities in western Canada and describes the reasons for and the methods of their establishment. Tables and maps supplement and clarify the account. Fully two thirds of the Ger- mans in western Canada derive from the German peasant colonies of Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Rumania; most of the remainder came from the United States, and very few emigrated directly from Germany to Canada. The most interesting and successful pioneer group were undoubtedly the Mennonites, although as a result of their experiences in the World War and the depression, a substantial number have now departed for Mexico and Paraguay. Many German immigrants of the postwar period were overtaken by the crash of I929 and the continuing depression before they could really take root in their new homes.

Especially valuable are Dr. Lehmann's chapters on the religious life of the pioneers, their press and their societies and their "German Day" celebra- tions, and the fate of their institutions during the World War and after.

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668 Reviews of Books

Recent Canadian legislation against separate parochial schools has been espe- cially offensive to certain minority groups, and a long section is devoted to the controversy over this issue. In a final chapter the author concerns him- self, in the spirit of the Third Reich, with the future of the German Volks- tum in the Dominion. He hopes that the German element may help to combat the "communist propaganda of lies" against Germany, and the "Anglo-Canadian Jewish press", and he seems to believe that the Hitler renaissance in the Third Reich will somehow have a great integrating and consolidating effect upon the German element abroad. As a matter of fact, the Americanization process, involving that American democratic liberalism which Dr. Lehmann so much dislikes, will probably go on as relentlessly in Canada as it has among the Germans in the United States.

Oberlin College. CARL WIrrKE.

The Circuit Rider Dismounts: A Social History of Southern Methodism, I865-igoo. By HUNTER DICKINSON FARISH, Director, Department of Re- search and Record, Colonial Williamsburg, Incorporated, Sometime In- structor and Tutor in American History, Harvard University. (Rich- mond: Dietz Press. i938. PP- 400. $5.00.) BECAUSE of the reunion of the three principal wings of the Methodist

Church this study is most timely. It enlightens the bewilderment of those unfamiliar with the deep forces that made the reconciliation of the Northern and Southern branches such a slow, laborious task. Had disagreement over slavery been the principal factor, it would seem that the two churches could have buried their differences with the extermination of the root. But, as the Southern bishops explained, slavery was only the symbol of a deeper con- stitutional issue involving "the right to handle and determine matters outside their proper jurisdiction" (pp. 58-59). Embitterment of relations by slavery agitation confirmed Southern Methodists in their adherence to a narrowly Scriptural definition of the scope of the church and hampered the develop- ment of a latitudinarian attitude, all of which contributed to the prolonging of the breach.

Had there been no Civil War, the road to reunion would have been much easier. But the conflict had a spiritual front carried into the South by the Northern Church and bearing with it such deep-seated animosities that the ecclesiastical schism was greatly widened. In these more tolerant days we can scarcely realize the harshness and bitterness which Mr. Farish shows to have existed towards the Southern brethren. "Methodist rebels", a "degen- erate, bastard Methodism", an "apostate church", "hopelessly debauched with pro-slaveryism and tainted with treason" were some of the characteriza- tions in the Northern Methodist press (p. 44). Perhaps.the principal reason why reunion did not come sooner was that it was not desired. Nothing less than the complete disintegration or absorption of the Southern Church would satisfy the majority of the Northern leaders.

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