In the January number of _The American Historical Review_ appeared a number of documents entitled: "General M. C. Meigs on the conduct of the Civil War." In that same number is an interesting article entitled: "A Confederate Diplomat at the Court of Napoleon III," by L. M. Sears.
The Associated Publishers, a firm recently organized to publish books bearing on the Negro will soon bring out Dr. C. G. Woodson's work on _The Negro Church_. This is an intensive treatise of the development of religion among the American Negroes. The leading topics discussed are: The Attitude of the Early Missionaries toward the Negro, the Dawn of the New Day, Pioneer Negro Preachers, The Independent Church Movement, The Growth of the Negro Church, The Situation in the South before the Civil War, Preachers of Versatile Genius in the North, The Civil War and the Church, Religious Education, The Call of Politics, The Statistics of the Negro Church and The Negro Church Socialized.
This same firm in the near future will publish also Dr. Woodson's long delayed text book to be entitled _The Negro in Our History_. Because of the many upheavals in the publishing world, it has been impossible to bring out this work at an earlier date but this firm promises the publication of it by next fall.
The opinion of the Western World toward Africa and Africans is in the process of a very slow, yet very tremendous, change. The distant yet ultimate development of this process will bring about a most important revolution in the world of modern thought. It will be marked by a complete reversal of the prevailing present-day evaluation of the history of a continent and of the accomplishments and possibilities of a great people.
To the lay mind of the modern world, Africa is a gigantic jungle of barbarians, bamboo and baboons, where Livingstone traveled, Rhodes prospected, and Roosevelt hunted. Furthermore, it is only within the last twenty-five years or more that even that learned group whose profession is the exposition and interpretation of human history has begun to modify its opinions in this connection.
An insight into the spirit of learned opinion regarding Africa and the Africans only a comparatively short time ago may be gained from the following article, which appeared in a Berlin journal in 1891.[1] The article, in part, runs: