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BY RIGHT REVEREND J. HENRY TIHEN, Bishop of Lincoln [Paper read at the annual meeting
of the Nebraska State Historical Society, January 13,
1913.] |
eternal homogeneity of the race. No man can place himself above it, no man may seek to place himself beneath it. From these general fundamental principles of the solidarity of the human race, no matter where or when dispersed, there flows naturally, logically and rationally the interest that men take or ought to take in the doings of the race in its life story. That is history. A man in action is biographical history, a community in action is local history, a nation in action is a nation's history, and the world in action is universal history. The energies and the activities of the vast army of men and women of the past have woven the fabric of the world's story. It is all one. The men and women of to-day weave into that continuous fabric their hopes and anxieties, struggles and victories of love and hate, of achievement and failure, and then retire from the scene of action, "to sleep with their fathers", and another generation takes their place, to work into the same fabric the story of the new achievements which the future bears in her womb, but hidden from the eyes of the present. And so on until the end of time, when the last page of the world's history shall have been written, the last thread of human activity woven into the great fabric of the world's life story, and a supreme judge shall pass on its merits. And who does not even now discern in this great fabric made by the men and women of all days in all the world, running through it all, clearly perceptible to the eye that is willing to see, the golden thread of an energy and activity that comes not from men, not even from the greatest of them, the golden thread of a Providence that "ordereth all things wisely and disposeth them sweetly", the superior power that is omnipotence, the intelligence of which it can truly be said that the "wisdom of men is only its folly". Here then the reason for history. Here its value. Here its commendation. Here the cause why the deeds of |
men in any generation or place be not permitted to disappear, but be incorporated into the great acts of humanity. Naturally this general relationship of all men is subject to intensification by circumstances and conditions of time and place. Family and community and nation are ties that bind closer and increase the interests men have in each other. So does time. Men are more interested in the affairs of to-day than of yesterday, more in those of this year and century than in those of last. Perhaps it is due to our innate weakness or selfishness that we truly care so little for anybody or anything except what is close to us in time and place. Some one has well said that no man can truthfully say that he is deeply concerned about the future of his great-grandchildren. This trait of human nature probably accounts for the fact that local and contemporary history has more attraction for the average man than general and ancient. Yet we must in theory at least--even though we be not strong enough to "suit the action to the word "--hold to the solidarity of the great human family. It was a God who solicitously inquired, "Where is thy brother?" It was a murderer who answered, "Am I my brother's keeper?" It is to the credit of our day in the world's history that men realize more than ever this relationship and solidarity of the great human family. Fast trains and fast boats have virtually annihilated distance. Because of these the world is close to-day, geographically speaking. Telegraph and telephone and a perfect mail service have brought it close together, intellectually and socially. Over the sentient wire, in cable and on pole, comes the story of the heartbeat and the mind flashes of my brother in every part of the world. And back to him travels the news of myself. Worldwide movements for world-wide betterments are probably only one of the natural and logical results of this nearness of mankind to itself. Peace movements and a general |
interest in the welfare of the masses rather than of the classes, sociological activity in general, the care of children, the housing of men and women, the banishment of factors that tend to shorten or destroy their lives are so many evidences of the quickened consciousness in our generation of the solidarity of our race. And we go beyond our age of the present we know into the past of which we know only a little. We have gone to the fountainheads for information. We want to know something of the men and women of the past. We have ransacked the libraries, have noted the story of the printed page, of the musty manuscript, have looked everywhere on the surface of the earth for the signposts that would point the hand for us to the way in which our forefathers walked. Into the bowels of the earth have we gone for futher (sic) information. We got from the excavated ruins of the past the textbooks of another school, the story of another civilization. It is unfair to past generations to say that they were indifferent in these matters. There always was among men a certain regard and even veneration for the past; but the spirit of homogeneity was never so pronounced as it is to-day. "Our great highways of commerce and civilization to-day are no longer, it has been well said, than those 'threads of soil', the Indian trails; but they are much wider, much smoother, far more serviceable and do more for us to- day, than did the beginning in trail-making for the men and women of that day. Braddock's road through the wilderness reached no farther than the trail he followed. The Cumberland Road was paralleled its entire distance by an Indian path which in turn was preceded by the track of the buffaloes to their salt-licks. Yet both were wide roads infinitely more useful and serviceable than their forerunners. Note the double track of one of our great railways, following the exact line of buffalo trails and Indian paths, to figure the difference in service to man." Through expansion of our |
views with regard to our fellow men of the present and the past we should improve in service and use to them. I realize that, practical and utilitarian in view as Americans generally are, some in the audience are perhaps inclined to say to me: "These things about the past and the reason for the knowledge of general history are all very good in their way; but of what practical benefit are they?" In reply, permit me to cite a few authorities. Jowett tells us that: "The greatest changes of which we have had experience as yet are due to our increasing knowledge of history and of nature. They have been produced by few minds appearing in three or four favored nations in comparatively a short period of time. May we be allowed to imagine the minds of men everywhere working together during many ages for the completion of our knowledge? May not the increase of knowledge transfigure the world.?" Another tells us: "Nothing is so likely to beget in us a spirit of enlightened liberality, of Christian forebearance, as a careful study of the history of doctrine". Another says: "A man who does not know what has been thought by those who have gone before him is sure to set an undue value upon his own ideas. All our hopes of the future depend upon a sound understanding of the past". "The thoughts that were developed in the past are of infinite consequence". "He who has learned to understand the true character and tendency of many suceeding (sic) ages is not likely to go very far wrong in estimating his own". Even poets are urged to study history as Wordsworth declares: "I hold that the degree in which poets dwell in sympathy with the past marks exactly the degree of their poetical faculty". "There are no truths which more readily gain the assent of mankind or are more firmly retained by them than those of an historical nature". Goethe declared that he who cannot give to himself a satisfactory account of at least 3,000 years of the world's history merely exists in |
darkness, cannot emerge into the full sunlight of human life. History broadens the mind, enlarges the viewpoint. A narrow, prejudiced mind cannot study history. The one or the other will be dropped". I will not tire you by further citations or arguments. Your very presence here under the auspices of a society that has for one of its objects the fostering of historical study and the membership of many of you in that organization is conclusive evidence of your views upon the subject. I do wish, however, in closing, to call attention to history's claim and service on the patriotic heart. As a nation making force, history stands out preëminent. The main influences working in the making of a nation may be said to be, "(1st) physical environment; (2d) race; (3d) language; (4th) custom; (5th) religion; (6th) common interests; (7th) history, or the men who made it; (8th) the government". The history of the nations past and of the worlds past is its lesson for the present. "This solidarity in time, as it has been called, is no mere sentiment; or, if a sentiment, it is one that is strong enough to hold together in unity of nationhood men who have little else in common. Thus the Swiss have no unity of language, or of race, or of religion; their government is most decentralized; their country is divided into well marked regions that differ. in almost every respect and are well-nigh cut off from mutual intercourse. But the nation has common memories. It has not forgotten Morgarten and Sempach, where it overthrew the Austrians, nor Grandson and Morat where it ruined Charles the Bold. Nor must it forget the still more crucial struggles in which it weathered the nineteenth century. So too the three imperial eagles that divided the fallen Polish state could neither destroy the people nor tear up the pages of her history. They cannot debar her during the long night of her captivity from dreaming of the days when she vindicated her right to live against Russian |
and German and Swede and became the bulwark of Christendom against the Turk." Brunetiere sums up the importance of history to a nation in the one sentence: "There is no fatherland without a long history, which is at one and the same time its stay, its justification, the source of its life and of its perpetual rejuvenation". Here then is the additional fact that history in its making and in its study is the duty of the citizen as well as the privilege of the student. If there has been rhyme or reason, argument or sentiment in aught I have said to you, then have I spoken a word in favor of the work in which the officers and members of the Nebraska State Historical Society have applied themselves so diligently in the past, a work of which every student and patriot will spontaneously say, "God speed it". |
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