360 Ohio
Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
AFTERNOON SESSION
President Johnson called the meeting to
order at
2 o'clock. The audience was
delightfully instructed and
entertained by Dr. George W. Rightmire,
who delivered
the following timely address on the
subject, THE HIS-
TORIAN AND HIS MATERIALS:
I should like to open my remarks with a
quotation from an
Italian historian, Beccari. Long ago he
wrote, "Happy is the
country without a history."
To him history meant military campaigns,
political upheavals,
international intrigue and social
unrest. And generally that is
what it had meant, and if, as he saw it,
a community should have
none of these shaking experiences to
chronicle it would have no
history, and therefore, must be happy.
But that conception of history is
entirely inadequate; history
comprehends those occurrences but it
means much more. Essen-
tially it is an attempt to recreate the
past--the whole past, and it
goes on as a natural human endeavor.
Men in the sundown of life turn aside to
recall and to recite
their own deeds and experiences which
rise up vividly out of the
past; they desire their children to know
what manner of men
they have been and they find a peculiar
satisfaction in their own
achievements which, through the mists of
time, seem imposing
and significant. There is also a
half-expressed desire to instruct
those who come after and furnish them an
example; what other
motive could probably have prompted
Franklin in writing his
intimate biography, or Depew in his My
Memories of Eighty
Years? Some such urge impels men to write also about others;
future generations should know of the
exploits of an Alexander
or a Genghis Khan, the religious
motivation of a Luther or a
Wesley, and the social transformations
activated by a Florence
Nightingale or a Frances
Willard--although the Caesars and the
Napoleons have held most of the stage!
As men have chronicled contemporary
events or have recre-
ated the men and the deeds of a bygone
age, they have, of course,
wanted to leave a personal memorial.
They anticipated a feeling
of satisfaction in the association of
their names with great men
or great movements. Hereafter men may
often speak not of Wash-
ington, but of Weems's Life of Washington!
Not of Lincoln, but
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362 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
of Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln! Not
of the development of the
western country, but of Roosevelt's Winning of the
West. Who
thinks of Greece without Grote, or Rome without Gibbon
or
Mommsen, and so on with perhaps some
illustrations closer home?
But writers of history have been chiefly
actuated by these
purposes: they become impressed with the culture of an
age or a
people and want their own and future generations to
have this
inspiration for their guidance and improvement.
Also, they delight in dissecting human
motives, in analyzing
human conduct, in probing the influences which, for one
hundred
fifty years prompted men to venture
their fortunes and their
lives in the Crusades, or for an equal
period of time to push back
with an unbroken advance the line
"Where the West begins" in
these United States!
Also, they have been absorbed in tracing
the course of civili-
zation from its beginnings in the Orient
through its spread over
the western world, and the checkered
experiences which have
marked its development.
Also they have a curiosity about our
status among the na-
tions, and a natural pride in showing
that we are the deserving
beneficiaries of past improvements, are
an outstanding people,
and are with intelligence and confidence
passing on the torch of
human perfection.
These are all worthy purposes; they
enable the present to
utilize the substance and to appropriate
the culture of the past,
to promote confidence and inspire a vision
of the future. As the
historian conducts our steps through
these mazes of human ex-
perience he finds a horrible example of
how it should not be done,
and for our advice he hangs a placard on
Carthage bearing the
warning, "Cave Canem," or in
the more modern fashion of cen-
tral Europe, "Wehrt Euch." On
little Switzerland's career, he will
hang the tag, "Well Done"; on
the Great Wars he will inscribe,
"Never Again"; mankind's
failures and misfits he will decorate
with the wish, "Requiescant in
Pace"; and all genuine efforts to
reach international good will and a
spirit of mutual interest, he
will enthusiastically inscribe in
illuminated letters, "Gloria in
Excelsis"!
How will the historian proceed in
unrolling the past, in analyz-
ing its features and in organizing it
into a truthful and moving
recital? Let the historian himself
answer. Rene Fulop-Miller in
his recent single volume on the history
of The Power and Secret
of the Jesuits uses an appendix of bibliography spread over
twenty-five pages, almost if not
entirely composed of book titles.
Since the order has been in existence
four centuries, and has had
the most profound influence all around
the globe and has always
Annual Meeting of the Board of
Trustees 363
been militant, this array of authorities
is not surprising. That
Miller should have been able to refer to
so many volumes in
diverse languages written in widely
separated periods, shows the
genius, the industry, and the good faith
of the modern historian.
Gibbon in his monumental work cites all
his authorities in his
footnotes, and what a wealth of
historical material he discloses!
Source material consisting of public
documents, official decrees
and communications, correspondence,
speeches, literary works,
manuscripts, books, memorials,
memorabilia brought together
from the countries stretching from the
Indus River to the Atlantic
Ocean, and from the Upper Nile to
Britain, reveal a degree of
scholarliness, industry, and devotion
almost incredible. But in
Gibbon's time it was not fashionable to
add an appendix of
authorities and so we must follow his
search for information
through his six big volumes, page by
page. If he had chosen to
group his materials in one place under
the favorite, present-day
title, "Bibliography," I do
not doubt it would cover fifty pages.
Gibbon devoted twenty years to this
task.
A very modern writer, who deals with
Rome in a manner to
be mentioned later, cites his
authorities in his text and footnotes
but throws out this consoling hint,
"I am aware that the bibliog-
raphy is far from complete. As a rule I
have abstained from
piling up references to antiquated books
and articles, but have
cited only those which I have carefully read and on
which my own
information is based; those which did not help me are
not quoted
as being unlikely to help my readers.
.. Most of my notes are
not of a bibliographical character. In
those sections where I have
found no modern books to help me and
where I have had to
collect and elucidate the evidence myself, I have
generally inserted
some notes which are really short
articles on various special points
and of the nature of excursions or
appendices. Some of these
notes are long and overburdened with
quotations; only specialists
are likely to read them in full."
Let me quote further for our
enlightenment about the his-
torian's method: "The illustrations which I have
added to the
text are not intended to amuse or to please the reader.
They are
an essential part of the book, as
essential, in fact, as the notes
and the quotations from literary or
documentary sources. They
are drawn from the large store of
archaeological evidence, which
for a student of social and economic
life, is as important and as
indispensable as the written evidence.
Some of my inferences and
conclusions are largely based on
archaeological material."
This is an illuminating portrait of the
keen historical student
at work. As we read we recall other historians who do
not seem
to be so discriminating in their array
of sources. One is reminded
364 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
of the maker of law books who states a
principle of law and
refers to a footnote where numerous
cases are cited and, when
they are studied individually, some of them are found
not to touch
the principle, or to deny it. It is a
trick of law writers to pick a
whole block of cases out of a brief in
some Court report and adopt
them all without serious study. Thus
they may make a showing
of profound learning which turns out to
be a thin shadow. Some
of our historians are equally generous
and undiscriminating.
Now, let us turn to a late history of
the early period of our
political life, Jefferson and
Hamilton, by Claude G. Bowers. In
dealing with these characters in a
delightfully refreshing manner,
he finds his way through a six-page
collection of historical ma-
terials including books, pamphlets,
newspapers and magazines
which he says are "cited or
consulted." The pamphlets and news-
papers are contemporary. I should like
to state in his own words
how he uses the newspapers as source
material:
"A liberal use has been made of the
newspapers of the period;
not only the descriptions of actual
events, but of the false rumors
and stories that entered into the
creation of the prejudices that
always play their part in the affairs of
men. In determining why
a given result was forced by public
opinion, it is no more necessary
to know what the truth was than
to know what the people who
formed that opinion thought it to
be."
This statement embodies a great truth
which we must daily
apply if we would understand public
movements in our democracy.
To understand the political scene Bowers
takes the reader into
struggles in Congress, the bickerings in
the streets, coffee-houses
and taverns, mobs and mass-meetings, and
behind the closed
doors and shuttered windows of
"society." He says he is trying
to depict these two men and their
associates as they really were
in the heat of controversy; "to
paint them as men of flesh and
blood with passions, prejudices and
human limitations; to show
them at close quarters wielding their
weapons, and sometimes, in
the heat of the fight, stooping to
conquer; and to uncover their
motives as they are clearly disclosed in
the correspondence of
themselves and their friends. This has
necessitated the abolish-
ment of some fashionable myths, when
myths have obstructed the
view of truth." "The dignified
steel engravings of the participants
with which we are familiar give no
impression of the disheveled
figures seen by their contemporaries on
the battle-field." The pur-
pose of the author is "to make the
men of the steel engravings
flesh and blood."
If this discriminating probing is needed
to present the true
history of men and events only a century
and a quarter away in
a country where the press and the
scholar have been uncensored,
Annual Meeting of the Board of
Trustees 365
the problem undertaken by the historian
of early colonial times,
or the Renaissance, or the late days of
the Roman Republic when
men's passions were inflamed and
intrigue ran riot, or the more
recent happenings in Russia, is almost
bewildering.
The current newspaper is difficult
material for the historian
of military and political events, but
Bowers is a newspaper writer
and is endeavoring to translate familiar
materials into historical
narrative, and no one will deny that he
paints a fascinating picture.
He pursued the same methods with the
same types of materials
in writing The Tragic Era or the Revolution
After Lincoln, in
which he traced the course of reconstruction.
I mention this to introduce another kind
of contemporary
material, in this instance used by no
one before, but of rare value.
This is the diary of Representative
George W. Julian of Indiana
which Bowers used in the unpublished
manuscript. It sheds light
on motives and admits the reader to
private conferences among
the great actors of the times. Generally
though, there is no satis-
factory way of checking on the
reliability of a diary since it is
made up of ex parte statements,
and its use will depend upon the
judicial temper of the writer who
appears somewhat in the role
of a private reporter.
I am mentioning Bowers at some length
because he makes
conspicuous and, I think, successful use
of voluminous newspaper
files for political history of the most
moving sort. It is refractory
material for this purpose except in the
hands of an expert such
as Bowers; we could cite some rather
conspicuous instances of its
use where the resulting history of the
United States is practically
a compilation of quotations treated as
equally important and trust-
worthy! But for an economic or
commercial or social history,
the newspaper has large possibilities. Professor
Schlesinger cre-
ated a mild sensation among American
historians twenty years
ago by presenting a thesis on the
influence of commercial or busi-
ness relations and practices on the
American Revolution, as shown
in contemporary newspapers. He was
interested in dealing with
social factors as influencing political events and
found them con-
tinuous and powerful.
In recent years there has been a
pronounced trend toward
social history as distinguished from
political or military or con-
stitutional history. This calls for a
searching of all the influences
which make the life of a people what it
is at any given time--the
state of the arts, of business, of
industry, of the amusements and
dissipations of a people, of its luxuries, of its
facilities for trans-
portation and communication--the live historian will
utilize them
all and he must find them in the
schools, in the factories, in the
stores, the libraries, the homes, the
museums, and the archives.
366 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
Verily, to write a good history, the
historian must be a genius as
well as an honest and industrious man!
Every historian should become familiar
with these materials
existing in the period studied, for the sake at least
of perspective;
he should appreciate the influences at
work whether he purposes
writing about them all or not. He may
choose a thesis as Adams
does in The Epic of America and
in The March of Democracy,
and as Parrington does in his unfinished
social history entitled,
Main Currents in American Thought. Adams sets out to show
the effect upon our national development
of the American dream
of equality of individual
opportunity--the doctrine of the equal
chance for all--and in tracing the
fortunes of this philosophy he
finds the existence of the frontier a
dominating physical and social
factor, and its non-existence for the
past third of a century a like-
wise powerful factor in creating the
very different social condi-
tions we are living in today. He must
recognize unlimited freedom
of operation to every social influence
in the community in select-
ing his materials and in grouping them
about his thesis; he be-
comes a philosopher of history, and
therefore, exercises a type of
discrimination in the choosing and
evaluating of materials and a
quality of thought in developing his
thesis not needed by the
narrative historian, or by one who is
attempting to present a gen-
eral outlook. The historian who ventures
into this type of his-
torical writing is dealing with the
composition of forces and is in
grave danger of overstatement.
Now let us glance at some of the reasons
why the history
of a period is written and rewritten.
Historical materials are not
always on tap, sometimes they are by the
will of the owner not
to be opened for a number of years, as
in the case of private let-
ters, documents and diaries. After the
World War an eminent
English actor therein died leaving a
large collection of such
sources of information about his times
and his activities and the
actions of contemporaries, but his will
provided that they should
not be opened for fifty years. Doubtless
other important papers
will not be released for years; and
although we today think we
know all about the Great War, yet of its
real causes and the
significance of many of its movements,
our remote descendants
will know much more than we. Possibly we
do not envy them that
larger information. As the archives are
opened and new letters
and documents are revealed the history
of that cataclysm will be
written and rewritten, each time with a
more complete conception
possible.
We recall Bowers' experience with
Julian's diary sixty years
after the events of reconstruction. I
know some of the diffi-
culties with which earlier students of
this period struggled; the
Annual Meeting of the Board of
Trustees 367
University, thirty-five years ago, very
generously gave me the
Master's degree for studies relating to
the XIVth Amendment.
I had access to the State Library and
the University Library and
exhausted the materials so far as I could locate
them--practically
all in Congressional records and government documents
such as
the investigations and official reports
of Carl Schurz and General
Howard. It was a thorny and
unsatisfactory field. A student of
that subject today would find a wealth
of material made available
all through the South and in newspaper
files and studies and in
released writings and documents. I don't
know that I could do
any better with the subject today, but a
real historian would find
his way made easy by the materials
uncovered since that time!
The American conception of our
Revolutionary War has un-
dergone a radical change in the last
thirty years. I believe the
needed enlightenment came first through
Trevelyan's study of
that era. We know that a dominant
political minority in England
overrode the best thought of the time
about the colonies and
blundered into and through the
Revolution. For a century the
jingo could always get a local response
by twisting the lion's tail
and we passed through a long period of
rabid chauvinism. But
the discovery of much source materials
and its analysis and spread
have removed old misunderstandings. We
have called this opera-
tion "debunking" history and
there is pretty general agreement
that the "debunked" history is
better.
Further, in the light of rather recent
discoveries and
studies, we wonder how Thaddeus Stevens
rose to the dictator-
ship in post Civil War affairs; we
wonder whether we have ever
understood President Grant; we have
begun to look upon Andrew
Johnson as a capable but much persecuted
and misrepresented
man. It has taken over sixty years to
clear the murky atmos-
phere that hung over the land for a
dozen years after the death
of Lincoln. And the constant search and
probing into historical
materials by historical students hunting
the truth have brought us
into an era of enlightenment about the
rebellion and its terrible
political aftermath.
I want to emphasize the point that the
discovery of new his-
torical materials or the changed
view-points with reference to the
meaning of known materials, concerning a
period of time, pre-
sents the history of that time in new
aspects; indeed it makes it
appear like a different history. But I
do not want to dwell upon
this point unduly. However, some further
illustrations come to
mind which will show how uncertain
historical conclusions must
always be.
Lamb's recent volumes on the Crusades
have brought forward
some Islamic sources of the history of
that prolonged movement
368 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
and we get a different understanding of
some of its later develop-
ments. To go still further back, I
suppose we have generally
thought that the history of the Roman
Empire was completely
told by Gibbon. Not much fault has been
found with this history
in the century and a half since he wrote
it, but in recent times we
have been learning that there were
sources which he did not use
and about which he probably did not
know, and it may be of
whose importance he was not convinced.
But recently the Russian scholar,
Rostovtzeff, professor at
Yale University, has written the Social
and Economic History
of the Roman Empire; he says these phases of Roman life have
not been adequately treated in other
histories which deal pri-
marily with military and political Rome.
There is a good deal
of the economic and social in Gibbon's Rome,
but nothing com-
parable with Rostovtzeff's treatment. He
was impressed with
the knowledge to be gained from the
study of memorials, mosaics,
friezes, stelai, coins, antiquities in
many museums, and the find-
ings in numerous widely separated
excavations. From these
materials, records and manuscripts he
recreated the commerce
of the times, the trade routes, the
industries of many communi-
ties, domestic customs and business
practices. These bear heav-
ily upon political and military events
and international relations,
and at that point he fills the picture
of Roman life. He sheds
a brilliant illumination upon the
character and significance of
antiquities; no age seems too remote for
further study in the
light of museum treasures, excavations,
and manuscripts lately
discovered. We recall distinctly the
significance of the late dis-
coveries in the tomb of Tutankhamen and
the wealth of materials
brought back a few years ago from Egypt
by the exploring
parties from the Metropolitan Museum.
May I give a further illustration
bearing upon this same
thought, that no age can write its own history, and it
may be
many ages before the complete history of any period may
be
written? In 1265 the Englishman,
Bracton, completed a very
great book on the customs and laws of
England written in the
Latin language. Sundry attempts were
made to translate that
work and the one which obtained the
widest circulation was that
by Sir Travers Twiss about 1860. Lawyers
and students felt
that Twiss had made many mistakes
because of misunderstand-
ing Bracton's statements and their
import, yet they were not able
to correct them with any assurance.
About 1885 a young Rus-
sian student, Vinogradoff, came to
England to make a special
study of the feudal age in England. He
was interested in the
system of land-holding and cultivation
there in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries because he believed
that these might very
Annual Meeting of the Board of
Trustees 369
closely resemble the system of
land-holding in Russia of his
time. He wanted to get the historical background, if
there was
one, and he made some very penetrating studies of land
tenure
in England through the use of the
ancient documents. His
ability to find and translate these
documents was so remarkable
that he attracted the attention of the
preeminent legal scholar,
Maitland, who was devoting himself to a
study of the old year-
books and other early legal documents in
English history.
Through Maitland's influence Vinogradoff
became interested in
these legal documents and one day while
rummaging about in
the British Museum he came upon a bundle
of law cases of the
thirteenth century and at once believed
that he had fallen upon
Bracton's notebook. Nobody had ever seen
this document, at
least had ever identified it, and so
Vinogradoff made a very
remarkable discovery of notes on the
cases which Bracton had
discussed in his monumental law book of
1265, and this threw
a flood of light upon Bracton's text
which had not hitherto been
possible. Thus was a very important
phase of the life of the
thirteenth century revealed six
centuries later, and the legal his-
tory of that time has since been written
with a higher degree of
knowledge and intelligence than was ever
before attainable.
As the centuries pass away documents
become scattered or
destroyed or lost, and this was
especially likely to happen before
the age of printing. From various statements
gleaned here and
there through legal writings, it was
believed that we did not have
all of Bracton's manuscripts and we had
some reasons to be-
lieve also that, as they had become
scattered, the best manu-
scripts of Bracton had not come down to
us. Careful searches
had been made through the British Museum
and through the
private libraries of various members of
the English nobility, but
yet inquiring minds in the twentieth
century were not satisfied
with the results.
Professor George Woodbine of Yale University
became inter-
ested in the sources of Bracton's
materials and for twenty years
he has been going to England to study
available manuscripts
and has unearthed a few in the old
mansion-houses of the an-
cient nobility. Several most important
manuscripts have thus
been brought to light and have been
photographed and brought
back to this country where Woodbine has
given them critical
study. The result is that he has already
issued two volumes of
a proposed six-volume compilation of the
texts of Bracton,
with a reconciliation so far as possible
of the aberrant texts, and
a translation based upon all these
sources of information is
forthcoming--all of which promise to
make Woodbine's work
of the greatest historical value. What
he is doing is, through
Vol. XLII--24
370 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
recent discoveries of ancient documents,
to shed the light of mod-
ern research, scholarship and devotion
upon the legal practices
and conditions of a time six centuries
remote. These illustra-
tions might be repeated almost
indefinitely.
And now let me show how the age in which
the historian
writes and the age about which he writes
are both reflected in
his writing. The historian is always put
to it to determine which
is the best material available, and
usually the materials are in
quantity. Which should he use? This depends upon which ma-
terial he thinks reflects the
life of the times and its political and
military activities most effectively,
and in making this decision
he will operate upon principles of
relativity. He may not know,
there may be nothing to show clearly,
what forces were the
most powerful in shaping the period
about which he is to write,
or what elements entered into the
composition of these influential
forces. He must, therefore, select, and
to do so must put his
own appraisement upon the materials at
hand. His appraisement
will be colored by the thinking of his
times, by his training, by
the evaluation of social and political
forces current in his own
experience. The genius and culture of
his own age, therefore,
enter, and it may be without formal
purpose on his part, into
his study and selection of the materials
of the past age, and it
is easily conceivable that much may be
neglected which a writer
of a different type, or of another age,
might regard as of ex-
treme importance. That is another reason
why history is writ-
ten and re-written. A history of Rome in
1933 would be done
very differently from a history of Rome
in 1774 or any time be-
tween now and then. We are bent now upon
digging into the
social forces and manifestations of a
period, and these are often
hard to come at, but we find them so far
as possible and they
color our historical writings. We may
misconstrue them when
we tinge them with the color of our own
period, its culture and
genius; but willy-nilly they must be
forced into the compass of
our historical perceptions and
conceptions, and the reader, a
hundred years ago, of a history of a
past period, got a very
different picture of that time from one
impressed upon the
reader of today by a writer of today.
Therefore, the elements
of personality, of contemporaneous
cultural ideas and of indi-
vidualism in the choice and
determination of importance of ma-
terials are all in the problem, and we
are never sure that we can
get a correct picture of any past
age. The emphasis will be here
in one age and there in another; it will
be at one point with one
author and at a different point with
another even though they
be contemporary; so we must despair of a
complete picture of
the times as they were seen and appreciated by the
people living
Annual Meeting of the Board of
Trustees 371
in those times. The best we can do is an
approximation; whether
it is close or remote will depend upon
the current conception
of historical writings, the capacity of
the writer to be appreci-
ative and sympathetic, his ability to
select the materials adapted
to his purpose, and his ability to color
with his own personality
and with the culture of his age in a
truly reproductive fashion the
masses of materials which lie at hand
for the study of almost
any past age which has left a large
impress upon the world's
history.
The materials for almost any period of
the world's history
are vast and varied. There is only one
historian who has had the
fortitude to undertake by himself the
whole long history of
English Law, from Anglo-Saxon times down
to George the Fifth.
The writers of the social, or political,
or military history of
England--and it is of course customary
to treat them together--
usually choose a period or a phase. As
Macaulay says in his
Preface, "I purpose to write the
history of England from the
accession of King James the Second down
to a time which is
within the memory of men still
living."
But in these times no one really feels
sufficiently familiar
with the great store of historical materials
to venture on the
writing of England's entire history.
When this is desired a
number of historical students
collaborate, each taking the period
with which he is most familiar.
Accordingly a few years ago
a seven-volume history came out. Oman,
the well-known Ox-
ford professor, brought it down to the
Norman Conquest; Davis
took it through the Normans and Angevins
down to Edward
First, the English Justinian in 1272;
Vickers went on through
the late Middle Ages ending where
Richard the Third ended--
at Bosworth Field in 1485; Innes then
carried on through the
Tudors ending with Queen Elizabeth who,
as everybody remem-
bers, died in 1603; the famous
Trevelyan then went on through
the Stuarts, which dynasty ended with
Queen Anne in 1714;
Robertson picked up the thread at that
point and traced the
fortunes of the German kings from
Hanover up to Waterloo,
while Marriott brought it from there on.
A rather remarkable
history of England, the materials--and
they are voluminous--
in each period being treated by the
expert according to his best
judgment. But, you will say, here are
really seven histories, not
one; and the answer must be that if you
want a continuous his-
tory of England from Caesar to McDonald
that is the only way
to get it!
We have several times pursued the same
plan in producing
a History of the United States; we turn
loose the expert on his
372 Ohio Arch. and Hist.
Society Publications
period. The Yale History, the
Schlesinger Social History, and
others, are examples of this type of
history making.
We are going in that direction rapidly
in some of our states,
although Ohio will not need that plan
for some years; with the
fine volumes of Randall and Ryan and the
able and sympathetic
writing of Galbreath, we shall be able
to get the history of Ohio
from a single historian's viewpoint for
many years, and no
tandem series on the mound builders will
be needed so long as
Shetrone's volume endures!
As we stand in the presence of the many
volumes of a sin-
gle historian, like George Bancroft, or
Von I lost, or Lamartine,
or Hume, or the magnificently written
volumes of Green, we are
filled with an immense respect and
appreciation, especially if we
have tried to write some small volumes
ourselves! This respect
rises to praise and almost to wonder in
the case of an English-
speaking historian who ventures into
foreign fields where he
faces the language difficulty in the use
of sources--such as
Motley with his Rise of the Dutch
Republic, Irving with his
Conquest of Granada, Prescott with his Conquest of Mexico, and
Gibbon with his Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire.
Finally, why should we be busy in our
time in accumulating
materials which a historian of some
future time may utilize in
portraying our lives and civilization to
his people? Of what
importance is it to us whether we
accumulate any historical
material or not? Merely this: we know
our intense curiosity
about the peoples of the past, our
ancestors, or at least our pre-
decessors; we deplore the fact that
printing was not always
known and could not, therefore, always
have left publications
which would be the foundation of our
studies today to satisfy
our historical curiosity. We are
prompted to write, to print, to
accumulate, by something which is a
distinct attribute of the
human being. We preserve our records in
many ways; we want
to pass ourselves on to posterity in the
most complete and fa-
vorable light possible. We cannot escape
these emotions, these
attitudes, these driving
tendencies. Somehow we want to be
understood by the people who come after.
Therefore, we are
willing to spend money and time and the
highest intelligence upon
the accumulation, the organization, the
preservation of all types
of materials which show the character
and quality of our time.
We do this sometimes at enormous personal inconvenience
and
personal efforts but it is well that we do so. We are
merely
satisfying one of the most powerful
innate characteristics of the
human being.
We are enthusiastic about our historical
monuments; we are
solicitous about our historical
manuscripts, and records and me-
Annual Meeting of the Board of Trustees 373 morials; we study, almost with bated breath, the relics of a bygone people turned up in our field excavations, and we bring all these materials together in an orderly exhibit completely cata- logued and identified in our museums. We carefully preserve also the evidences of our own domestic life, our industrial pro- cesses and our culture. We organize historical societies to pro- mote and to perpetuate our historical collections and monuments and to enrich the treasures by which a future generation may judge us sympathetically. Financial support for the societies and the museums will wax and wane but it will always be forth- coming. The archives which we build and the antiquities which we store will be in the workshop of the future historian. We trust that the high character of our records may have a shaping and invigorating effect upon the life, and above all upon the thought of future generations. Dr. Rightmire's address was heard with unusual interest and appreciation and heartily applauded at its conclusion. |
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360 Ohio
Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
AFTERNOON SESSION
President Johnson called the meeting to
order at
2 o'clock. The audience was
delightfully instructed and
entertained by Dr. George W. Rightmire,
who delivered
the following timely address on the
subject, THE HIS-
TORIAN AND HIS MATERIALS:
I should like to open my remarks with a
quotation from an
Italian historian, Beccari. Long ago he
wrote, "Happy is the
country without a history."
To him history meant military campaigns,
political upheavals,
international intrigue and social
unrest. And generally that is
what it had meant, and if, as he saw it,
a community should have
none of these shaking experiences to
chronicle it would have no
history, and therefore, must be happy.
But that conception of history is
entirely inadequate; history
comprehends those occurrences but it
means much more. Essen-
tially it is an attempt to recreate the
past--the whole past, and it
goes on as a natural human endeavor.
Men in the sundown of life turn aside to
recall and to recite
their own deeds and experiences which
rise up vividly out of the
past; they desire their children to know
what manner of men
they have been and they find a peculiar
satisfaction in their own
achievements which, through the mists of
time, seem imposing
and significant. There is also a
half-expressed desire to instruct
those who come after and furnish them an
example; what other
motive could probably have prompted
Franklin in writing his
intimate biography, or Depew in his My
Memories of Eighty
Years? Some such urge impels men to write also about others;
future generations should know of the
exploits of an Alexander
or a Genghis Khan, the religious
motivation of a Luther or a
Wesley, and the social transformations
activated by a Florence
Nightingale or a Frances
Willard--although the Caesars and the
Napoleons have held most of the stage!
As men have chronicled contemporary
events or have recre-
ated the men and the deeds of a bygone
age, they have, of course,
wanted to leave a personal memorial.
They anticipated a feeling
of satisfaction in the association of
their names with great men
or great movements. Hereafter men may
often speak not of Wash-
ington, but of Weems's Life of Washington!
Not of Lincoln, but
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