712 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters. 
must be to understand the past, to interpret it sympa¬ 
thetically, and to co-ordinate his results, so as to lay a firm 
foundation for future work. His attention must be directed 
to man and his achievements and failures. The study must - 
embrace all the remains of men’s activity. In presenting 
the results, however, a careful discrimination must be made 
between the facts which are significant and those which are 
of little value. In this process the student shows his real 
ability; he may know all the rules of criticism, he may have 
mastered all the necessary auxiliary sciences, he may have 
exploited all the sources, but if he is not competent to judge 
which facts should be selected, what material should be used, 
he will never be a historian. If he has this ability and can 
present his results in a clear and attractive style, his work 
may live for a century, or more. 
The last statement implies that we have not reached a 
final stage in our historical work. Most certainly not! 
This is the greatest inspiration to the historian! He can not 
tell what the next step will be; he can not tell whether it will 
be possible, as some hope, to frame “descriptive formulae, 
qualitative and quantitative,” which will enable us to make 
history more objective and more accurate. He has no means 
of knowing the sources whence new aid will come. In the 
last twenty years the unearthing of papyri in Egypt has 
enabled historians to begin a re-examination of Roman his¬ 
tory with notable results. The recent development of sta¬ 
tistics has furnished a more exact instrument for testing 
historical facts. The study of tribal customs and folk lore 
has added something and promises more. It is certain that 
each generation will re-interpret the history of the past. 
The historian can only hope that his own product may be of 
some use to the future worker; he has the consolation of 
knowing that if his task is done honestly he is helping in a 
work which will always interest and command the services 
of men of like mind, a goodly fellowship. As in his daily in¬ 
vestigation he is associating sympathetically with the men 
of former ages and of by-gone civilizations, so by his written 
words he may hope to live in future generations and to aid 
them. Is not this the goal for which every sincere worker 
in any branch of knowledge is striving? 
