HIRSCH 



2801 



HISTORY 



harpooned and brought to land. A baby hippo- 

 potamus in search of its mother is then easily 

 captured alive, caged and tamed. 



Consult Roosevelt and Heller's Life Histories 

 of African Game Animals. 



HIRSCH, hirsh, EMIL GUSTAV (1852- ), an 

 American rabbi, born in Luxemburg. He set- 

 tled in the United States in 1866, was gradu- 

 ated from the University of Pennsylvania and 

 afterwards took post-graduate courses in Berlin 

 and Leipzig. After serving as rabbi in Balti- 

 more and Louisville, he took charge of the 

 Sinai Congregation in Chicago in 1881. Sinai 

 has developed under his inspiration a wide 

 range of social settlement activities, conducted 

 from New Sinai Center. From 1888 to 1897 

 he was president of the Chicago Public Library 

 Board, and in 1892 became professor of 

 Hebrew in the University of Chicago. 



HIRSCH, MAURICE, Baron de (1831-1896), an 

 Austrian financier, capitalist and philanthropist 

 of Jewish descent, was born at Munich. The 

 great wealth which he inherited from his father 

 was increased by marriage and by his banking 

 and railroad enterprises. His fortune was esti- 

 mated at $200,000,000, and his income at from 

 $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 a year. He and his 

 wife donated about $115,000,000 to charitable 

 purposes, largely for the education and better- 

 ment of the Jews. He established industrial 

 institutions in Egypt and Turkey, and in 1888 

 offered $10,000,000 to the Russian government 

 for schools, provided no race or religious dis- 

 tinction should govern its distribution. This 

 offer was declined. The Baron de Hirsch 

 Fund is an important branch of Jewish philan- 

 thropic work in the United States. 



HISTOLOGY, histol'oji, a word derived 

 from the Greek histos, meaning a tissue or 

 web, and now applied to the science which 

 treats of the microscopic study of tissues of 

 animals and plants. In anatomy, the science of 

 histology is devoted to the study of the tissues 

 of which different parts of the body are 

 formed. The elements of which the body is 

 composed are woven together to complete the 

 tissues of the human system much as cotton 

 or woolen threads are woven into a textile 

 fabric. Although the science of histology dates 

 from the seventh century, little real knowledge 

 was gained until the invention of the micro- 

 scope made it possible to study the minute 

 particles of which the tissues are composed. 

 The microscope first revealed the presence of 

 nerves and blood vessels in the tissues, and is 

 now much used in detection of diseases. 

 176 



HISTORY, a word derived from a Greek 

 word meaning a search for knowledge. Like 

 philosophy, history was originally a branch of 

 research; it meant investigation and inquiry, 

 and the historian was a man who sought the 

 truth. As men began to tell what they had 

 learned, the name historian took on a new 

 meaning it meant the man who recorded or 

 told what he had found; and in the course 

 of time "history" became story or record. Un- 

 fortunately this meaning is now confused with 

 another, that history comprises the events 

 themselves, not the record of events. Thus 

 when we say that history is being made every 

 day, we think of the events, not of their record. 



What events constitute history? Emerson 

 once said that history "may be resolved into 

 the biographies of a few great men." In a 

 very narrow sense this is true, for great men 

 do influence the course of events. Even the 

 greatest of men, however, have been helped or 

 handicapped by circumstances which they 

 could not control. Men are the actors in his- 

 tory, but just as actors on the stage to-day 

 depend on scenery and other stage effects and 

 are limited by them, so the great figures of 

 history have been limited by nature. There 

 was a time when actors used no scenery, just 

 as there was a time when men were regarded 

 as the sole makers of history. 



But to-day the complexity of history is 

 recognized. In the broadest sense, history is 

 everything that has happened. As modern 

 science shows that everything is constantly 

 changing, the universe and every part of it 

 have a history. In this sense there is a history 

 of the mountains and seas, of plants and ani- 

 mals, and of all the changing things which make 

 up the universe. The more common use of 

 the term, however, restricts it to those things 

 which are directly related to man's activities. 

 Man is interested chiefly in himself, and his- 

 tory is the record of his achievement. 



Divisions of History. In treating history it 

 has become customary to make an arbitrary 

 division into three periods, ancient, medieval 

 and modern. Ancient history deals with two 

 great groups, the eastern and western civiliza- 

 tions; the East included Egypt, Chaldea, 

 Assyria, Babylonia, the Hebrews and Phoeni- 

 cians, Persia and China; the West comprised 

 Greece, Carthage and Rome. Although a few 

 historians place the end of ancient history in 

 A. D. 814, at the death of Charlemagne, most 

 of them accept the fall of Rome in A. D. 476. 

 The medieval period included approximately 



