THE HISTORICAL OPPORTUNITY IN COLORADO 23 



school system with 83 per cent, of its instructors college graduates calls 

 loudly for a historical explanation. A universal application of irriga- 

 tion law gives a distinctive color and emphasis to legal history; while 

 the relation of a state government to the control of mines can be studied 

 here in all its aspects. 



The field of local institutional history has never been worked to 

 its extreme capacity in the United States. Much has been done in the 

 far East, but even there the study has been fragmentary, and has been 

 embarrassed in many Cases by the historical remoteness of the origins. 

 Throughout the West in general this remoteness does not exist. In 

 Colorado it is still possible to supplement the documentary evidence 

 as to historical beginnings with the recollection of historical partici- 

 pants. And the fact that the growth has been unduly rapid gives an 

 unusual degree of continuity to the institutions. There is not a town 

 or community in Colorado but has some economic or political reason 

 for its existence and needs its careful historian. The mine and the 

 watershed are still to be measured and estimated in their influences 

 upon place and form of social life. 



Transportation is perhaps the most significant element in the history 

 of the West. It not only constitutes a large part of the cost of every 

 commodity in use, but it possesses the power to build up or to destroy 

 whole communities. Yet no one has written adequate histories of the 

 wagon routes from the Missouri to the Rockies which made Colorado 

 possible; no one has exhausted the subject of Federal policy towards 

 continental railroads and public lands ;^ no one has even broken the 

 ground in the deveploment of transportation by road, trail, steam and 

 electricity within the state. All these fields are crying for some one 

 to exploit them. 



The opportunity thus opening in Colorado makes it possible for 

 every student of American history to do something in the field of his- 

 torical research. Every topic that he works out strengthens himself, 

 and every article or note that he prints makes smoother the path of his 

 colleagues. Whether he work in connection with a great educational 



» Two of the Bulletins of the University oj Wisconsin reveal the possibilities in this general field. John 

 Bell Sanborn, "Congressional Grants of Land in Aid of Railways," Biclletin No. 30 (Madison, iSop);^ 

 Joseph Schafer, "The Origin of the System of Land Grants for Education," Bulletin No. 63 (Madison, 1902). 



