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puted dates, to delineate the character, influence and deeds of 
illustrious men; in a word, ‘‘ to walk about the towers thereof, to 
mark well her bulwarks and consider her palaces, that he may tell it 
to the generations following.”’ 
This is the design of all historical societies, and many of them 
have already contributed much to the consummation of it. 
Allow me then, ye men of philosophy, on this auspicious day on 
which you will hear much of what your ancestors have told to the 
generations that came after them, and of what you are gathering 
for the benefit of those who will follow you, to speak of a theme 
closely allied to that which you cultivate. Philosophy and history 
are sisters, of whom /zsfory is the older, for history began in the 
primeval Eden. They tell us that some ancient writer hassaid that 
history is philosophy teaching by example; but history furnished 
the examples before philosophy or science could utilize them. 
Macaulay was of the same mind when he says: ‘ History, as it 
lies at the root of all science, is also the first distinct product of 
man’s spiritual nature ; his earliest expression of what can be called 
thought. Before philosophy can teach by experience . . . . the 
experience must be gathered and intelligibly recorded.’’ And 
that’s history. 
I have thought that it would not be inappropriate on this occa- 
sion to present a brief dissertation on ‘‘ The Nature and Design of 
the Historical Societies of our Country, and the Invaluable Benefit 
They Have Conferred upon the Community.’’ Of late years they 
have contributed marvelously to the illustration of our older history 
and are constantly piling up much rich material for future writers. 
The design of such foundations is not primarily to write history so 
much as it is to collect, arrange, classify, describe and preserve authen- 
tic materials of whatever kinds they may be, out of which history may 
be written. It is true, societies may publish what an individual or a 
committee has elaborated, and many local histories and cognate 
papers or treatises have been thus published, but, after all, the main 
design is to collect the timber, stone, and everything else out of 
which the historic edifice is built by the master workman, and this 
most useful work our principal societies have diligently and success- 
fully performed. They are composed of that class of men whom 
Bacon designates as ‘‘ industrious persons who, by an exact and 
scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, 
words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, frag- 
