EDITOR'S TABLE. 



tzg 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



HISTORY AND THE CENTENNIAL. 



THERE are symptoms of a revival 

 of the study of history, or of a 

 new impulse to it, as a consequence of 

 the fact that the life of the nation has 

 reached a round hundred years. His- 

 tories of the United States are in spe- 

 cial order, and histories of the world 

 for common schools are copiously forth- 

 coming. Tlie importance of history is, 

 of course, a foregone conclusion ; and 

 the triple importance of the history of 

 one's own country goes for self-evident. 

 This is the wrong year to disturb politi- 

 cal superstitions, and we are not going 

 to question the great necessity of read- 

 ing more about the doings of politicians 

 for the last hundred years than past 

 facilities have made practicable. But 

 we may suggest that it is not an unsuit- 

 able time to widen and liberalize some- 

 what our notions of what history prop- 

 erly is, or should be. That it has hith- 

 erto dealt mainly with the superficies 

 of human affairs, with conspicuous sur- 

 face effects, and with the sayings and 

 doings of men who have been skillful in 

 the art of keeping themselves in the 

 focus of public observation, has come 

 to be a truism. And, when a history 

 of the United States is announced, it is 

 well enough understood that we are to 

 have a new shaking-up of the- old mate- 

 rials, with new pictures, but with the 

 usual account of Indians, constitution- 

 making, political administrations, and 

 the wars in which the country has been 

 engaged. 



But is not our impending Centennial 

 celebration in Philadelphia calculated 

 to impress upon us the historic interest 

 of quite a different class of things ? No 

 doubt there will be collected and placed 

 on show numerous relics and curiosities 

 of purely national import; but these 

 will not constitute the staple attrac- 



tions of the exhibition. Its supreme 

 interest will consist in the array of prod- 

 ucts which will be there gathered of 

 the art, science, invention, and skill, of 

 the world. It is these that have been 

 appealed to, to signalize and make mem- 

 orable the hundredth year of our sepa- 

 rate national life. This is the realiza- 

 tion of an idea which could hardly have 

 entered into the dreams of the men who 

 figured as " founders of the republic." 

 Their notion of " celebrating " our " In- 

 dependence " for all time, consisted in 

 making a prodigious noise, by ringing 

 bells, and exploding gunpowder. But 

 now we celebrate this event on a grand 

 scale, by invoking the cooperation of 

 the civilized world in the competitive 

 display of industrial resources, con- 

 structions, fabrics, and works of use and 

 beauty, distributed through a hundred 

 departments of classified variety. And, 

 of these multitudinous results of man's 

 inventive and constructive faculty, the 

 great mass will be the products of the 

 past century's experience and progress, 

 of which hardly the germs existed when 

 we set up in politics for ourselves. And 

 they will not be the results of adminis- 

 trative policy or forms of government. 

 In a large sense they will not belong to 

 any nation, but to civilization and hu- 

 manity. They will be, to no small de- 

 gree, the achievements of enterprise 

 which politicians of all countries have 

 done their best to hinder and defeat. 

 It is the triumph of our time, tliat the 

 forces that have brought such vast and 

 benign consequences have overcome 

 all resistance. They represent the 

 growth and power of the pacific and 

 constructive agencies of modern socie- 

 ty the headway that has been made 

 against the political barbarisms of the 

 past. The chief display at the Centen- 

 nial will svrabolize the silent revolutions 



