4i8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



KAEL LAMPRECHT AND KULTURGESCHICHTE. 



By Peofessoe WM. E. DODD, 

 kandolph-macon college. 



DUEIjSTG the last ten years a fierce war of words has been waged 

 in Germany concerning the nature and scope of history. It is 

 known as the 'Kam^Df um die Kulturgeschichte ' and almost every his- 

 torical scholar in the Empire has been forced to take either the one 

 side or the other. This 'Kampf which seems to mean so much for 

 history and its writing began in 1893 with the appearance of the first 

 volume of 'Deutsche Geschichte' by Karl Lamprecht, professor of his- 

 tory in the University of Leipzig. Leipzig and Berlin have been the 

 centers of the opposing forces, and seldom has a learned controversy 

 been conducted with so much animus. The question at issue is : Is 

 history a science or an art? Lam.precht boldly asserts that it is a 

 science, while his opponents maintain that it is and must always 

 remain an art. The adlierents of Lamprecht have been dubbed 'Lam- 

 prechtianer, ' while the enemies of the new movement call themselves 

 Mungrankianer. ' It will thus be seen that the name and fame of the 

 great Eanke have been enlisted on the conservative side of the dis- 

 pute. 



American scholars have troubled themselves but little about a con- 

 test both sides of which are supported by so much of truth. In fact 

 little has been said or written in this country about Lamprecht or Del- 

 briick, the leading champion of the Ranke school. Only one article 

 and one review have come to the attention of the writer; the article 

 appeared in the American Historical Review, of April, 1898, the re- 

 view in the same publication of July, 1903. Yet the word 'Kultur- 

 geschichte' — Lamprecht 's slogan — is not unfamiliar to most of us, and 

 quite often in addresses and papers on history and its teaching the 

 principles laid down in the works of the Leipzig professor are given 

 no little prominence. In some quarters, however, the unconscious 

 Ranke influence has found expression in slurs on the claims of 'Ivultur- 

 geschichte' — history as a science, as Lamprecht insists. Still it is 

 safe to say that the ideas advanced by the new school of German histo- 

 rians find a more general acceptance in our country than in any other, 

 and this without our knowing just how it comes about. The cause of 

 it is, perhaps, the reasonableness of the tenets of the Lamprecht school, 

 the practical cast of mind of American scholars and our comparative 

 freedom from the trammels of tradition and class prejudice. 



