his purpose was declared to be the bringing together not simply of auditors but of pupils-élèves. The librarian of the Sorbonne, M. Léon Rénier, was put in charge. Associated with him were Waddington, an old student of Oxford, and subsequently minister of public instruction; Michel Bréal, who had drawn up an admirable report on the methods in Germany; and Alfred Maury, director of the national archives. To the amazement of everybody, Duruy appointed young men, for the most part unknown, in regard to whose ability he had extraordinary sagacity. One of the most noteworthy of these was Gabriel Monod, who at once instituted a seminary of the most approved German thoroughness, and a little later founded the Revue Historique as an organ of expression of this new historical school. During the first year they had but six pupils; but so excellent were their methods, so energetic were their labors, and so admirable were their fruits, that in 1889, twenty-one years after the founding of the school, there have come to be some thirty professors, giving in the most approved and scientific manner scarcely less than a hundred different courses, in which the students are required to carry on their work by means of personal investigation. Of the admirable character of the results accomplished by this group of young French historical scholars, the most abundant evidence is furnished by the pages of the Revue Historique.

But recent and special activity in historical work is not confined to the new schools. It is manifest every where in preponderating influence. Of the thirty-eight professors in the Faculté des Lettres at Paris, ten are professors of history, and two are professors of geography. Under the Second Empire the whole number was only three. A kindred impulse has also been felt in the provinces. The city of Paris has founded a chair for the special study of the history of the French Revolution. A similar chair has been founded at Lyons. Bordeaux has established a chair for the study of the history of southern France. In the École libre des Sciences politiques, founded by M. Boutmy in 1872, much work in the history of political institutions is also done. The French schools at Athens and Rome are doing much in archæology. And so in every quarter and at every point, France seems to be fully alive to the fact that it is in the study of history that the present needs of the nation are to be advantageously and abundantly supplied.

In the presence of such achievements, American scholarship finds far more encouragement for its modesty than for its pride.

Why may not a school, with some such methods and purposes as those established at Paris, be established in the United States Shall it be in Washington, or in New York, or at Harvard, or at Yale, or at Johns Hopkins, or at Cornell, or at some other educational center in the nation?

It is not exhilarating to our patriotism to reflect that until some such facilities are afforded on this side of the Atlantic, large numbers, not only of the brightest but also of the wisest of our youth, will annually flock to the better opportunities provided by the institutions of the Old World.

THE SPIRIT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH.*

By JAMES SCHOULER.

What, let us ask, is history? And by what image may we present to the mind of the student a proper conception of that department of study? Emerson, our American Plato, pictures as a vast sea the universal mind to which all other minds have access. "Of the works of this mind," he adds, "history is the record." That idea is a leading one of this philosopher. Man he considers the encyclopædia, the epitome of facts; the thought, he observes, is always prior to the fact, and is wrought out in human action.

Such a conception may suit the philosophic mind; it may commend itself to men of thought, as contrasted with men of action. But it seems to me too vast if not too vague a definition for an appropriate basis to historical investigation. No one can project history upon such a plan, except man's Maker, the Universal Mind itself. Thought itself may precede the fact, but the two do not coincide nor form a perfect sequence. The empire of thought differs greatly from that of personal action; we each live but one life, while we may propose a hundred. The works of the mind involve all knowledge, all reasoning, all experience. Nor can we with accuracy picture the human mind as a tranquil sea tossing only in its own agitations, but rather as an onward force working through strong physical barriers. History, in truth, is the record of human thought in active motion, of thought which is wrought out into action, of events in their real and recorded sequence. The individual acts upon his external surroundings; those surroundings react upon him and upon his fellows. Men, tribes, nations, thus acting, mold one another's career and are molded in return.

* Read before the American Historical Association, at Washington, December 31, 1889.

History leaves the whole boundless empire of unfettered mental philosophy, of fiction, of imagination. It deals with facts; it notes and narrates what has actually transpired and by whose agency; and it draws where it may the moral. History, in short, is the record of consecutive events-of consecutive public events.

This broad truth should be kept in view, that the human mind (under which term we comprise volition, and not the intellectual process alone), that the individual character acts upon the circumstances surrounding it, upon external nature, upon external fellow-beings. These persons and things external not only modify and influence one's attempted action, but modify his thought and feeling; they react upon him, form and influence his character, his destiny. This makes human history, and it makes the forecast of that history forever uncertain.

The picture, then, that we should prefer to present to the imagination is not of one vast universal mind, calmly germinating, fermenting, conceiving; not of one mind at equilibrium, having various inlets-but of a torrent in motion. They did wisely and naturally who mapped out for us a stream of history flowing onward, and widening and branching in its flow. Downward and onward, this impetuous torrent of human life obeys its own law of gravitation. It advances like a river, with its feeders or its deltas; or like the march of an immense army, now re-enforced, now dividing into columns, now reuniting, but going forever on and never backward. Let us reject, therefore, the idea of an à priori history and whatever conception conjures up a human mind planning history in advance and then executing it. Buckle was oppressed to death by the burden of such an idea as that of reducing the whole history of this world's civilization to a law of natural selection. There is no rigid scientific development to the human race. The particle of divine essence which is in man formulates, creates, compels to its will, changes because of its desire for change; though, after all, it bends to the laws of natural necessity. The man of genius may invent; he may construct a wonderful motive engine which propels by steam or electricity; yet he may be battered to pieces by this same machine, if ignorant or careless of some latent physical cause. We speak, too, of prophecy; but prophecy is vague. "Westward," says Bishop Berkeley, "the course of empire takes its way;" and he looked through the

vista of a century. But who, of all our statesmen and philanthropists who flourished forty years ago-and wise and great, indeed, were many of them-foretold with accuracy how and through what agencies the problem of American slavery, which they so earnestly discussed, would reach its historical solution? To take, then, our simile of the onward torrent from distant sources, or the army advancing from afar: Observe how absorbed was ancient history with the larger streams fed by hidden fountains; how its narrative was confined to the great leaders of thousands and tens of thousands. But in modern history each individual has his relative place; and looking as through a microscope we see an intricate network of rills from which the full stream is supplied. In this consists the difference between ancient and modern life, ancient and modern history. Simplicity is the characteristic of the primitive age; complexity is that of our present civilized and widely multiplied society. The ancient force was the force of the pre eminent leader-of the king, the warrior-chief; but the modern force is that rather of combined mankind-of the majority. Individuals were formerly absorbed under the domination of a single controlling will, but now they are blended or subdued by the co-operation of wills, among which the greatest or the pre-eminent is hard to discover. The course of history all the while is consecutive, knowing no cessation. There is a present, a past, and a future; but the present soon becomes the past, the future takes its turn as the present. And, after all, the only clear law of history is that of motion incessantly onward.

As students of history we seek next a subject and a point of view. Look, then, upon this vast chart of the world's progress. Retrace its course, if you will, and choose where you shall explore. Do not choose at random, but with this great universal record to guide you as a chart; as a chart capable, indeed, of correction, but in the main correct enough to serve the navi gator. Having thus chosen, circumscribe your work; confine your exploration to a particular country, to a particular period, say of twenty, thirty, or a hundred years; let your scrutiny be close, and discover what you may to render the great chart fuller and more accurate than hitherto. If universal history be your subject, you will not go far beyond tracing the bold headlands, while on the other hand, with a small compass of work, you may contribute much information of genuine value to your age. Explore from some starting point; you can de