contribute to thought little more than tribal medicine men
have contributed.

Among historians of the Southwest the general rule has
been to be careful with facts and equally careful in avoiding
thought-provoking interpretations. In the multitudinous
studies on Spanish-American history all padres are "good"
and all conquistadores are "intrepid," and that is about as
far as interpretation goes. The one state book of the
Southwest that does not chloroform ideas is Erna Fergusson's _New
Mexico: A Pageant of Three Peoples_ (Knopf, New York,
1952). Essayical in form, it treats only of the consequential.
It evaluates from the point of view of good taste, good sense,
and an urbane comprehension of democracy. The subject is
provincial, but the historian transcends all provincialism. Her
sympathy does not stifle conclusions unusable in church or
chamber of commerce propaganda. In brief, a cultivated
mind can take pleasure in this interpretation of New Mexico
--and that marks it as a solitary among the histories of
neighboring states.

The outstanding historical interpreter of the Southwest
is Walter Prescott Webb, of the University of Texas. _The
Great Plains_ utilizes chronology to explain the presence of
man on the plains; it is primarily a study in cause and effect,
of water and drought, of adaptations and lack of adaptations,
of the land's growth into human imagination as well as
economic institutions. Webb uses facts to get at meanings. He
fulfils Emerson's definition of Scholar: "Man Thinking." In
_Divided We Stand_ he goes into machinery, the feudalism of