F. Roger Dunn, 1961
Many years ago, back in the dark ages of my own history, I took a class at Potsdam State called Documents in American History, then taught by Jack Hennessy. The text for this course was co-edited by the Social Studies Department Chairman, F. Roger Dunn (1902-1964), whose portrait from the 1962 Pioneer Yearbook appears above. A Documentary History of the American People (Ginn, 1951), remains forever ingrained upon the minds of those who took the course. We don’t necessarily remember the documents, but we do remember vividly the lessons the course taught us. Dr. Walter W. Wakefield, his successor as Department Head, said of Professor Dunn, that he “held that no person is educated until he is able to examine critically what he is asked to believe, and base his convictions on that critical evaluation.”
Professor Dunn and his co-editors expanded on this thought in their introductory essay, “Some Words to the Student,” which I have scanned and appended below. They wrote that you must be able, with respect to any historical document, identify its theme and thesis, the methods by which the theme is developed and the evidence he produces to support his thesis. His opinions must be distinguished from his facts, his emotion from his evidence, and his analogies from his arguments.
Further, documents must be examined for their credibility: is the writer willing and able to tell the truth?
As students, we were asked to determine, with respect to any document, whether or not the writer was an observer, how close he was to the event, and for how long was his view. How expert was his knowledge of the subject and did he understand what he was seeing? How long after the event did he write? Did the writer have a personal stake in the matter? Was he a participant in the event? What was his reason for writing and who was his audience? How much truth was sacrificed for literary effect?
In our day, when truth is routinely sacrificed for political effect, it is more important than ever to be able to examine critically what we see on television and read on the internet. Politicians and the news media have few scruples about misleading the public in the pursuit of their own private interests. Dunn’s immortal lessons provide us with tools which can help us evaluate with confidence the misinformation with which we are daily bombarded.
Potsdam’s truly great professors like Jack Hennessy, Walter Wakefield and Charles Lahey fueled my life-long interest in documentary collection and research. Their influence is present on this blog and elsewhere in many places, and to them I give life-long thanks for the lessons they taught and the challenges they presented.
Some Words to the Student
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