THE PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 357 



(2) Let a committee of mature scholars map out a list of the pre- 

 cise topics now most demanding further research, and let the younger 

 scholars in our university faculties be thus supplied with intelli- 

 gent lines for their ambitions to pursue during the coming generation. 



(3) Let the universities found a journal or series of proceedings 

 or studies in which historical essays, long or short, can be insured 

 a publication. 



(4) Let the universities unitedly offer an annual or biennial prize 

 of a substantial sum for historical essays, perhaps requiring the 

 amount to be spent in study abroad. 



(5) Finally, but most important of all, let the materials for his- 

 torical research be more amply provided. (1) As for materials 

 already printed, this means that there ought to be at least five 

 libraries, in different centres of this country, whose equipment in 

 English materials reasonably approaches in fullness that of the 

 Harvard Law School. It may not be longer possible to obtain in 

 multiplicate all of its sources, and in any case not without some years' 

 of search. Nevertheless, the fact ought to be faced that in order to 

 promote a healthy diffusion of historical activity, adequate means 

 should exist in at least five widely separated places. This would 

 require from $10,000 to $25,000 each to supplement the collections 

 now existing at some points. (2) As for the materials not yet printed, 

 the cause demands a decided expansion and acceleration of work. 

 These materials, roughly divided, are (a) the Rolls and other judicial 

 documents and early treatises now being gradually reprinted by the 

 English Record Commissioners and the Camden, Surtees, Pipe Roll, 

 and Selden Societies; (6) the Year Books; (c) the American colonial 

 records. As to the first of these groups the various efforts now being 

 made may be trusted to mature as rapidly as is feasible. As to the 

 second of these groups, the Year Books, something more can be and 

 ought to be done to speed the reediting. 1 Since it is largely a question 

 of funds, the United States ought to contribute a share to this task of 

 common benefit. As a beginning, an assessment should be requested 

 from every university in the Association of American Law Schools, in 

 the amount of $100 each for every 200 students in its school; this 

 assessment to be pledged biennially or triennially. As for the third 

 group, colonial records (in which, indeed, much has already been done 

 by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire), the State 

 Bar Associations of the Atlantic states should undertake to secure 

 the printing by a state commission of the distinctively legal material. 



the materials at present accessible for studies in that epoch. Work done now 

 could hardly be expected to stand, after a generation. This dearth of materials 

 (to be noticed later) can be remedied in time; but the reasons are all the stronger 

 for hastening that fortunate day. 



1 At this moment, the arrest of progress seems to be due chiefly to the difficulty 

 of finding persons who combine in equal and adequate degree the skill of a palaeo- 

 grapher and the training of a lawyer. 



