HISTORY-MAKING FORCES 349 



HISTOEY-MAKING FORCES 



By Db. FRANK T. CARLTON 



ALBION COLLEGE 



HTSTOEY is a science; it belongs to the family of social sciences. 

 History is concerned with more than the mere perfunctory cata- 

 loging of incidents, with more than a string of events held together by 

 the colorless thread of chronology. It is no longer to be considered a 

 record of sanguinary episodes and of individual prowess or debauchery. 

 True history presents a picture of the struggles of conflicting races, 

 interests, sections and classes; it tells the interesting story of the 

 struggle of the masses upward toward equality. Historical science is a 

 study of cause and effect. In the political and social world, structures 

 are evolved and changes take place in response to modifications in the 

 physical and social environment, or in the industry of the people. 

 Political institutions, wars and royal intrigues are but the visible mani- 

 festations of underlying and powerful social, economic, geographic and 

 racial forces. History — true history — is, consequently, a study of the 

 social physics of the past ; sociology, of the present. It is, indeed, " the 

 record not of the doings of man, but of his progress." The memoirs of 

 the " not-great " are the most important, but usually the neglected, part 

 of real history. Unless the study of history aids in the solution of the 

 important social and economic problems of to-day, it remains in the 

 lower rank of leisure-class, cultural studies — the value of which is 

 chiefly traditional and putative. In our progressive educational insti- 

 tutions history is not offered merely for the sake of storing up in the 

 mind of the youth a knowledge of the past, for its disciplinary value 

 only, for so-called cultural purposes, or because it is considered to be 

 the proper or conventional kind of knowledge for a college graduate to 

 become familiarly acquainted with. 



The medieval mind had no idea of causation in the physical world; 

 only comparatively recently did the men of modern times begin to 

 throw off medievalism in regard to social progress. According to the 

 early metaphysical conception of history, data and investigations were 

 of no value, or of negative value. In a similar way, the medieval au- 

 thorities considered inductive physical science to be improper and im- 

 moral. However, metaphysics and superstition in regard to the evo- 

 lution of political institutions are fortunately rapidly giving way to 

 scientific hypotheses based upon exact and detailed investigation of 

 historical data. 



The proper function of real historical study is to ascertain and ex- 



