(Hall 3, September 22, 10 a. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: HONORABLE JAMES B. PERKINS, Rochester, N. Y. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR J. B. BURY, University of Cambridge. 



PROFESSOR CHARLES W. COLBY, McGill University, Montreal. 

 SECRETARY: PROFESSOR FERDINAND SCHWILL, University of Chicago. 



THE Section of Modern History of Europe was presided over by 

 Honorable James B. Perkins, of Rochester, New York. In introduc- 

 ing the speakers the Chairman stated that no period in the long 

 record of man's development has greater interest to the historical 

 student than that which we roughly classify as the modern history 

 of Europe. In it we have scientific discoveries and modifications 

 of religious belief, which have changed our theories of man's place in 

 nature and of his relations to the powers which control nature; we 

 have developments in political science, which have replaced the forms 

 of government that prevailed three centuries ago by the govern- 

 ments of popular rule which now exist in the most advanced nations 

 of the world. These also may be modified in the future, but they will 

 never return to the forms of the past. We have industrial changes, that 

 have altered not only the economic but the social character of society. 

 The study of such a period demands the highest faculties of the 

 historian and affords possibilities of the most fruitful return. 



