S84 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



perhaps in iall, of the Greek cities, chroniclers were also at work. 

 Wherever language has been reduced to writing men have appeared 

 who kept records. Sometimes they were public officials, sometimes 

 private persons who wi'ote for reasons which they could probably not 

 themselves have explained. It is known that Herodotus used materials 

 collected by municipal chroniclers when compiling his historical work. 

 He tells the reader that he published his researches in the hope of pre- 

 serving from decay " the remembrance of what men have done and of pre- 

 venting the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and Barbarians 

 from losing their due meed of glory." When he adds that he wants " to 

 put on record what were the grounds of their feud," he enters upon the 

 field of philosophical if not of scientific history. 



Except in the quantity of materials collected the modern "local 

 paper" may be regarded as the successor of the old-time chronicles. 

 Its object is to record events from day to day, without taking into ac- 

 count their connection with each other, even when there is such con- 

 nection. All local newspapers are unreliable except in so far as they 

 publish proceedings of municipal councils, of courts and of other public 

 bodies. None of them print anything that would put a "leading citi- 

 zen" in a bad light. We may be sure that most of the records of the 

 olden time, except in rare cases, partook of this character. It is evident 

 that any person endowed with ordinary common sense who has a fair 

 education can write a history. All he needs is materials upon which to 

 base his conclusions. But a history written with no other object in 

 view than to set forth facts nobody would read except from a sense of 

 duty or as an act of penance. The work of the historian worthy of the 

 name requires not only judgment in the scrutinizing of evidence, but 

 likewise in the sifting and arrangement of materials and the final form 

 that is given to the narrative. It is probable that in the matter of 

 artistic form the models set up by the Greeks and Eomans will never 

 be surpassed. But the range of their discussion is either very narrow, 

 or their statements full of errors. They are chiefly concerned with 

 wars or with those things that pertain to war ; they fail to tell us much 

 that we should like to know, and of which they could give us trustworthy 

 information because it came under their immediate observation. They 

 omitted what they considered of no importance ; they lacked the point of 

 view of the scientist, to whom nothing that exists is unimportant. It is 

 probable that Professor Freeman formulated his definition of history as 

 " past politics " from a study of the works of the ancients. This defini- 

 tion is now regarded as grossly inadequate because the reading public 

 has come to realize more and more fully that in states which claim to be 

 civilized only a small part of the people are directly engaged in war or 

 politics. Except in rare instances the proportion has never been much 

 larger. Nor does any man now agree with Xenophon that the only 



