58 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. — SECTION D. 



by the increasing" number of historical works of first import- 

 ance which are being produced in the United States and 

 Canada. 



It is not too much to say that the world's richest treasures 

 to-day are its ancient archives, tliose inscriptions on coffins and 

 tablets which are being brought out from Egyptian tombs and 

 unearthed from the mounds under which Babylonian and 

 Assyrian cities have found their age-long resting-places. How 

 valuable even the slightest details of these records prove has 

 been attested by a writer on Egyptian antiquities, who observes 

 on the work of the investigators : ^ — "No object has been 

 deemed too trivial for examination. The relations of one 

 monarch to another have been found on scraps of vases, chips 

 of wood and fragments of papyri. A mutilated heirogiyph on 

 the dress of a statue has revealed a political mystery, and a 

 series of erasures on granite blocks a refigious revolution! " 



It is not claimed that modern archives can ever in the most 

 distant future assume an importance comparable with that of 

 these few relics from a dim and hoary past, for the means or 

 record have been so greatly multiplied, but that they must 

 always be a great national asset of the people to whom they 

 belong" cannot be gainsaid, an asset which can never depreciate- 

 but will increase in value as the years increase. 



In what particular they become a national asset need not be 

 stated at length, but the more closely nationality is studied the 

 more it becomes apparent that the opinions, the prejvidices, the 

 hopes, the ideals, and even the capabilities of a nation are phe- 

 nomena which can only be adequately accounted for when 

 they are regarded as the resultant of forces which have operated 

 through successive generations in the past. They are 

 not simply the totality of present ideas and influences. They 

 are the results of forces which have worked in a perfectly 

 natural way, and which will continue so to work in the future. 

 It must therefore be of immense advantage to a nation to be 

 able to re-create its past, for it is only in that way that it can 

 come to understand itself and so help on the time when 

 " the alchemy of years 



Has purged the base and left the good 



Flawlessly tempered by fine tears, 



Welded in perfect brotherhood." 



That archives greatly assist in that direction is indicated by 

 the Canadian Archivist in one of his reports — " The effect of 

 the collection of archives has been to modify greatly in many 

 cases the histories of Canada and the United States, and their 

 relations to the mother country." 



The very word " Union," which all through the ages has 

 been the stepping-stone from which nations have risen to 

 greatness and true nationhood, presupposes that in the past 

 there has been separation, and separation has usually been a 

 synonym for jealousy and strife, for hatred and war. 



Whatever will help a people to clear up its misunderstandings 

 is a possession of real value. But there are other aspects of 

 nationality which claim the attention of a people hoping for a 

 high place among the great nations of the world. National 



