PLANS AND PROJECTS-1838-1905 505 



nesota. My aim was to arouse thinking men to the im 

 portance of the subject, and I now hope to prepare a dis 

 cussion of i The Problem of High Crime, to be divided 

 into three parts, the first on the present condition of the 

 problem, the second on its origin, and the third on pos 

 sible and probable remedies. 



Of all my projects for historical treatises, there are two 

 which I have dreamed of for many years, hoping against 

 hope for their realization. I have tried to induce some of 

 our younger historical professors to undertake them or to 

 train up students to undertake them ; and, as the time has 

 gone by when I can devote myself to them, I now mention 

 them in the hope that some one will arise to do honor to 

 himself and to our country by developing them. 



The first of these is a history of the middle ages in the 

 general style of Robertson s &quot;Introduction to the Life of 

 Charles V.&quot; Years ago, when beginning my work as a 

 professor of modern history at the University of Michi 

 gan, I felt greatly the need for my students of some work 

 which should show briefly but clearly the transition from 

 ancient history to modern. Life is not long enough for 

 the study of the minute details of the mediaeval period in 

 addition to ancient and modern history. What is needed 

 for the mass of thinking young men is something which 

 shall show what the work was which was accomplished 

 between the fall of Rome and the new beginnings of 

 civilization at the Renascence and the Reformation. For 

 this purpose Robertson s work was once a master 

 piece. It has rendered great services not only in English- 

 speaking lands, but in others, by enabling thinking men to 

 see how this modern world has been developed out of the 

 past and to gain some ideas as to the way in which a yet 

 nobler civilization may be developed out of the present. 

 Robertson s work still remains a classic, but modern his 

 torical research has superseded large parts of it, and 

 what is now needed is a short history of, say, three hun 

 dred pages carried out on the main lines of Robertson, 

 taking in succession the most important subjects in the 



