192 HISTORY OF AMERICA 



from non-English stocks, the history of the European conditions 

 that brought these people to us, the process of transformation of 

 the immigrants into American citizens, the effects which they pro- 

 duced upon American society and industrial life, are all too little 

 known. We shall not understand the American people without 

 giving much more attention to this important subject. 



It is impossible to do more than name some of the long list of 

 topics as yet inadequately treated. There is needed a study of our 

 relations to the American Indian. No systematic study of this pro- 

 blem as a whole has been made, and yet it is an exceedingly important 

 one in the history of American development, and one from which rich 

 results may be expected. It is hardly necessary to say that such 

 a study of the negro is needed. The history of the law in America 

 remains to be written by the cooperative study of men trained to 

 historical investigation as well as in the law. The history of religion 

 and of the various churches in the United States has not yet been 

 written as a phase of the general social development of the American 

 people. It should be considered in its relation to American history 

 as a whole, and it will be found that some of the most fundamental 

 factors in our history require such a study for their explanation. 

 Recently some important beginnings have been made at a history of 

 labor in America. This has been one of the most important neglected 

 fields in our history, and it is to be hoped that thorough investigation 

 will be given to the rise of the laboring classes, the organization of 

 labor and its influence in American society. Somewhat connected 

 with the same topic is the study of the development of democracy 

 in the United States. As yet we know but imperfectly the stages in the 

 development of the political power of the common people. A com- 

 plete history of the franchise in this country and of the organization 

 of the masses to impress their will upon legislation is a desideratum. 

 A comparative study of the process of settlement of the United 

 States would be another important contribution. If, with our own 

 methods of the occupation of the frontier, we should compare those 

 of other countries which have dealt with similar problems, such 

 as Russia, Germany, and the English colonies in Canada, Australia, 

 and Africa, we should undoubtedly find most fruitful results. 



But I pass from the enumeration of these tempting problems of 

 topical history, an enumeration which is merely begun, not at all 

 completed, to suggest next that certain periods and areas of our 

 history have been inadequately treated. The whole colonial history 

 of the eighteenth century needs study. The Revolution and French 

 and Indian wars of that period have withdrawn attention from the 

 contemporaneous transformations in our economic, political, and 

 social institutions. In some respects, this was the period of forma- 

 tion of the peculiarly American institutions in contrast to the English 



