l86 REPORTS ON INVEISTIGATIONS AND PROJECTS. 



HISTORICAL RESEARCH* 



By J. Frankwn Jameson, Director of the Department. 



I beg leave to submit the following as my first annual report as director of 

 the Department of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Wash- 

 ington. I arrange it under the three heads of "General plans," "Work of 

 the past year," and "Special plans for 1907." Since my tenure of this office 

 began on October i, 1905, I aim to cover in the second section of the report 

 the transactions of thirteen rather than twelve months. 



GENERAL PLANS. 



The proper functions of a department of historical research in the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington are defined by the nature of the processes of his- 

 torical work on the one hand, and on the other hand by the present status of 

 such work in the United States and the form of its organization. 



The normal processes of historical work would commonly be said to be 

 four : The finding of the original materials, printed or unprinted ; the putting 

 of them into accessible and well-edited print, if they have not already that 

 form; next, the production of monographs; and, finally, the composition of 

 general histories. Unless under circumstances quite exceptional, the last 

 two processes are better left to the free action of individual scholars. Given 

 the materials, they will produce monographs and histories in the future, as 

 they have in the past, and of a better flavor than those which might be turned 

 out by an organized institution. In the main, it must be the proper function 

 of an organized and permanent institution, disposing of ampler resources 

 than most individual historians can command, to carry on the primary, 

 fundamental, and costly tasks of finding the materials or guiding men to 

 them, and of printing such of them as are unprinted and most deserve print, 

 selecting those which are likely to give the greatest possible aid and incite- 

 ment to the production of good monographs in important fields. For us at 

 any rate, melius est petere fontes quam sectari rivulos. 



Accordingly, the publications of such a department will naturally fall into 

 two classes : A series of reports, aids, and guides, mediating between the 

 worker and his materials, printed or unprinted, and a series of texts ; and the 

 main business of this department must be to plan, and so far as possible to 

 execute, those publications, of these two sorts, which are most needed, or 

 most likely to be of large utility, in the present state of American historical 

 work. 



* Report for the year ending October 31, 1906. Grant No. 313. $17,600 for investiga- 

 tions and maintenance. (For previous reports see Year Book No. 3, pp. 65-79, and 

 Year Book No. 4, pp. 232-237.) 



