698 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters . 
leonic wars, the Germans began a systematic study of their 
own history, and in particular, of the period of German 
glory, when the Holy Roman Empire was dominant. The 
formation of the Gesellschaft fur altere deutsche Geschichts- 
kunde was one of the patriotic achievements of Stein and his 
associates, and resulted in the publication of the stately 
volumes of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Ranke’s 
seminar trained a host of able men to investigate the sources, 
and its influence, through direct apostolic succession, may 
be noted in universities in every civilized country. In com¬ 
pany with hundreds of others, I can say that I was a student 
of one of Ranke’s students; his inspiration is spreading in 
constantly widening circles of waves, which will eventually 
reach the most distant shores. 
With one group of the Germans we are especially con¬ 
cerned at the present day, the so-called Prussian school, 
represented by Droysen, Sybel, and Treitschke. Their work 
was the blending of history and politics and, in the case of 
the last especially, making history a vehicle for patriotic 
teaching. Freeman became the great exponent of this idea 
for England and the United States with his favorite phrase 
displayed on the walls of the historical seminar at Johns 
Hopkins, “History is past politics; politics is present his¬ 
tory.” With such god-fathers, it is no wonder that this 
conception has had great currency, although comparatively 
few historians could be found now who would consider the 
statement either sufficient or satisfactory. We are more in¬ 
clined to agree with Burke, who wrote a century ago: 
“Political arrangement, as it is a work for social ends, is 
only to be wrought by social means. Mind must combine 
with mind”; or with Oliver Cromwell, who said, “What lib¬ 
erty and prosperity depend upon are the souls of men and 
the spirits—which are the men. The mind is the man.” 
During the first half of the nineteenth century there were 
improvements in methods of work, due especially to Ranke’s 
leadership, a change of conceptions on account of the rise of 
romanticism, which resulted in a new idea of the Middle 
Ages; a growing interest in the middle class, especially 
voiced by Guizot; and some very promising attempts to 
include new material in the scope of history. But, on the 
whole, histories were written along some one or other of the 
general lines laid down above. 
