56 PRSIDENTIAL ADDRESS. — SECTION D. 



relationships, and that not the least important of these is his 

 relationship to the national life of which he constitutes an in- 

 tegral part. 



That is a factor which we are not in danger, perhaps, of over- 

 looking at the present juncture in our national affairs, but 

 there are aspects of the individual's relationship to the general 

 development of the State which do not always receive the 

 attention they deserve. The destiny of a nation is largely 

 affected by its genius, and the genius is determined by many 

 elements, of which there is one aspect which speciallv concerns 

 the subject which I have to discuss. That aspect is the rela- 

 tion of those elements to the past. The material for the effec- 

 tive study of any important phase of national life can never be 

 found in the e\ents or facts of any single generation, and it not 

 infrecjuently happens that a nation fails to understand itself 

 because it confines its attention too closely to present facts and 

 issues only, or in looking back over the past is unable to see 

 more than a few landmarks of history, to which an exaggerated 

 importance is attached. The long stretches of country which 

 lie between those landmarks are entirely neglected, or, because 

 they are inadequately studied, are regarded as of little value. 



That nations misunderstand themselves may sometime be 

 easily accounted for on these grounds. Racial animosities and 

 party strife produce lines of cleavage, and successive genera- 

 tions, yielding to the force of circumstances, are content to per- 

 petuate the partisan spirit because there is no real encpiiry as to 

 its justifiableness. 



Nor do the historians always provide an antidote : indeed it 

 is not too much to say that in the matter of fairness many a 

 writer of history has much to learn. The personal equation is 

 often allowed to dominate the facts, which are distorted: or 

 truth is made to suffer by neglect or deliberate suppression of 

 motives, words, or deeds. Occasionally history as it is Avritten 

 is affected not only by the personal idiosyncrasies of the his- 

 torian, but by some temporary disturbance of the local, poli- 

 tical atmosphere at the time of writing. 



One remedy for such an unsatisfactory condition of affairs is 

 that every country should be provided with adequate, well- 

 arranged, and easily accessible archives, in which shall be de- 

 posited records and documents bearing upon the history of the 

 country, and the dcA elopment of the people in everv aspect of 

 the national life. 



This necessity is being increasingly provided for in the great 

 European countries, and younger nations, like the United 

 States, are sparing no expense in order to adequately equip 

 the student of history for the task which he sets himself to per- 

 form. And so prolific have been its results, indeed so far has 

 this work gone in some directions that in the introduction of 

 that great work, " The Cambridge Modern History," we read : 

 " Great additions have of late been made to our knowledge of 

 the past ; the long conspiracy against the revelation of truth 

 has gradually given way; and competing historians all over the 

 civilised world have been zealous to take advantage of the change. 

 The printing of archives has kept pace with the admission of 



