To All Appearances A Lady - University of British Columbia

education and medicine.
Schroeder, who calls himself an ethnic
Mennonite, writes expressly for the "great
many Mennonites (both religious and ethnic)
[who] know their story only in discontinuous
fragments." What the general
reader (Men- nonite or non-Mennonite)
will find in The Mennonites is a compact,
lucid account of the Mennonite experience
in Canada, together with some 180 photographs;
the last 68 pages have no text, and
are indexed as photograph-ic essays. The
text, quite apart from the photographs,
succeeds in putting into perspective the
main events of Canadian Men-nonite life
and the ethos that undergirded them—an
efficient use of its fifty pages.
Although there are a great many interesting
photographs that, in the way of pictorial
records offer nuances difficult to
verbalize, they are somewhat more problematical
than the text. To place a photo
into a particular context is to create the
expectation that it will make its contribution
to that context. Placement is a problem
then in that photos and text do not
consistently match. In the first chapter, for
example, the text takes in the period from
1527, when the first Anabaptist
Confession of Faith was formulated, to
the early 19th century, but the photographs
are dated from approximately 1870 to 1914.
The captions, although generally helpful
and sometimes essential, are at other times
scarcely relevant. The phrases "a contemporary
Mennonite farmer," "a young
Mennonite man of today" do not extend
the meaning of photographs of smiling
young men to which they are attached;
photo credits alone would serve as well to
indicate that, at least in matters of dress,
young Mennonites today are indistinguishable
from non-Mennonites.
Nevertheless, there are a great many
excellent photographs, scenes of emigration
and immigration, of baptisms, funerals and
weddings, of strong, worn-looking, faces.
The poignancy of emigration is beautifully
captured in a 1948 photo taken at the point
of departure for Paraguay, its anguish a
comment on the many emigrations that
punctuate Mennonite history. A contrasting
shipboard scene shows a group of men
on the way to Paraguay. If there was sadness
at departure the mood at this juncture is
clearly one of anticipation: the Paraguayan
wilderness holds no terrors for these men.
And there are the nineteenth century group
portraits, their subjects regarding the camera
with the earnest, unflinching look that
is directed not only at the camera but also,
characteristically, at the world. It is difficult
to imagine them softening with laughter.
Where The Mennonites relies on photographs
and brief text, Urry's None But
Saints offers a densely textured historical
account based on extensive historical
research. After a chapter on the genesis of
Mennonite principles, including a glance at
Mennonite history up to 1785, Urry tells the
story of a century of Mennonite life in
southern Russia—the migration from
Danzig and Polish-Prussia, the process of
establishing colonies, the struggle that
developed between conservative and
reform-minded leaders and groups, the
problems of growth and landlessness, the
formation of a landed gentry, the impact of
Czarist governmental policies; these and
other aspects of Mennonite life are dealt
with in impressive detail.
The principles of selection and arrangement
that guided the shaping of this detail
are not as readily assessed as is the scope of
the scholarship. Indeed, Urry seems to be
uncertain of the genre to which his book
belongs. The Introduction identifies it as
"an interpretative essay," and the epigraph,
an excerpt from Alexander Pope's An Essay
on Criticism from which the title None But
Saints is taken, signals a satirical essay. The
lines, "With Tyranny, then Superstition
join'd/ As that the Body, this enslav'd the
Mind;/ Much was believ'd, but little under-
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