Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 301, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1913 — HISTORIANS AND THEIR WORK [ARTICLE]

HISTORIANS AND THEIR WORK

American Authors Occupy Foremost Places in the Ranks of Those Whom the World Honors. \ Views of what is the distinctive historical faculty, whether breadth of vision, power or organization, pholosophical insight, or narrative talent, must vary as widely as historical styles and aims; but upon one requirement, skill and patience in research, all agree. Evpn the impressionistic author of the “French Revolution” had to bewail in his “Frederick the Great” “the mountains of dust and ashes to be tumbled down to disengage the truly memorable.” It is in this light that one notes with especial pleasure the remarks of James Ford Rhodes aboi|t the preeminent advantages of America in her historical depositories. Even foreign detractors, he told the American Antiquarian society, must admire “the easy and methodical arrangement of our historical materials, the accessibility of our libraries, and the various helps” connected with thdm; particularly since their own scholars still had “to pore over books without indexes, ajd delve among manuscripts in dusty archives." The justice of his statement needs no comment. A remarkable historical zeal has long been manifested in America. Every state and nearly every large city has its historical library; colleges and universities are jealous of their collections; the veriest hamlets, in our older localities,Thave their historical and genealogical societies; and private accumulations are innumer-. able—all /reely at the service of the, ihvestigator. The organization before which Mr. Rhodes spoke has itself closed a century in gathering a specialized accumulation of almost unique fullness. Only the federal government may be accused of lagging behind. —New York Evening Post. ,