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deals, not as the result of his own reasoning, but must depend almost entirely upon what others have said or written. He must give a hearing to what Father Woods has designated as the witnesses of the past. The best he may do is to examine and correlate sources of history, and then, perhaps, make some generalizations. It is the sources of history which give us our light and hence the importance of knowing whether or not these sources are in themselves trustworthy.

Any historian or teacher of history in order to make his mark must possess originality in some form. And I believe that it has been clearly shown this afternoon that the degree of his originality depends almost entirely upon how extensive may be his knowledge of the sources of the subject. It seems that in dealing with history one is of necessity limited to two courses; he may use materials hitherto inaccessible or unprinted, or he may set to work and make fresh combinations of historical facts already well known. If we are to pass judgment on the correctness of either method, when employed, and give the proper instruction to those who have the right to demand it of us, it behooves us to acquaint ourselves with at least some of the important sources indicated. We may then be in a position to determine whether or not the texts which we are almost of necessity forced to employ, have been built up on truth or falsehood. The power of the printed page over the mind of a young student is almost final. The teacher must know, at least in part, how to justify or refute the statements of the text. Several false statements well printed and illustrated may easily offset the truth poorly edited. It is every day becoming more popular to employ source-books in connection with the ordinary texts of history and it has often struck me as very strange that almost three-fourths of the so-called contemporary letters, and the like, which these source-books record are contributed by court favorites who evidently had the temper of their gracious kings and queens in mind when they penned the lines which we now accept as the sources of history. It has been well noted that a modern newspaper statement, though probably true, if quoted in a book as testimony, would be laughed at; but the letter of a court gossip, if written centuries ago, is thought good historical evidence.

I believe Father Woods has clearly demonstrated that accumulated dust and difficulty of attainment do not constitute a source. On the contrary it often follows that the matter more readily accessible is oftentimes the better source.

I thought at this point of offering a suggestion which, if carried out, would go a long ways towards easing the way for the historian and the teachers of Church history in our own country. We now have it in our power to coordinate much of the sources that lie back of the religious and political history of our own country. If some plan could be adopted whereby the historical treasures of every college, school and convent in this country could be tabulated and an exchange of these effected, I believe it

would go a long ways towards awakening an interest in the things of home which we are apt to belittle and forget in the light of the great things of the past.

The reference by the writer of to-day's paper to historical sources as witnesses in a trial suggests another thought; that we oftentimes carry our prejudices too far. If the aim of history is to get at the truth and express it as clearly as possible, if the ethics of our profession is to be forward in correcting errors we have reason to feel uneasy when we meet gross misrepresentations of the Church's attitude toward certain great questions. But there is always danger of hasty generalizations. And though we may have reason to grow suspicious of interesting things, the fact that they are interesting does not justify us in classing them as untrue. We must hear the witness for what he is worth, bearing in mind, too, that though there are no misstatements there may be a suppression of the truth.

Carrying the analogy of the witness a little further my point is made clear by an incident told of an Ohio judge, some years ago. The defendant was charged with having stolen a horse. The owner of the horse had seen him take it and sworn to that effect. After this witness had been heard eight friends of the accused appeared and each in turn swore that he had never seen him steal a horse. "Discharged," said the judge, "for the testimony of eight men is certainly worth more than the testimony of one."

And it seems to be this principle, that the testimony of eight is worth more than the testimony of one, which has held down the witnesses of truth and which has led us to a position where in order to be effective as teachers of history we must "consult and verify."

BROTHER BERNARDINE, F. S. C.: The very thorough treatment which the subject, "The Sources of History," has received at the hands of the Rev. Father Woods, leaves little to be said except by way of a mere supplemental statement in reference to one special field of historical inquiry. All peoples have a supreme interest in the attainment of the truth in every line of scientific investigation.

This fact deserves particular emphasis in the case of the teachers of history from whom indeed exactness of statement is primarily expected. To deal properly with the sources of history, the teacher must first of all be a student of the subject. He must know the criteria which the Rev. Father Woods has pointed out and apply the same with caution and with the single purpose of getting at the whole truth-the full contents of the historical data presented by the written monuments and oral traditions of the various peoples under examination.

Proper regard must be had to the natural features of the country and to the names attached thereto; for the key to ethnology is in many cases to be found in the original names borne by a given territory, island, mountain chain, river, lake or valley; thus philology plays an important part

in the identification of races and nations and the peculiarities of their ethnic and social relations.

For it is a postulate of modern critical investigation in the field of history that any given race or people know the original facts concerning their own history better than other people, however enlightened these latter may be. The record must be examined in the light of the original testimony, and the internal consistency of the story must be established. When this process is completed extraneous evidence may be cited to prove or disprove the original narrative. In other words the original witnesses must be assumed to be in possession of the truth as against those who impugn the original narrative or those who attempt to discredit the original witnesses. The operation of the principle herein laid down is strikingly shown in the case of the Irish historical record. It was quite the fashion with the English historians some decades back to belittle the history of Ireland as it had been handed down by the annalists and the native seannachies. The historian, Keating, was cited as an example of the extravagant lengths to which the native authors go in detailing the events which make up the Irish historical record. Within the past ten years, however, owing to the more diligent study of the Irish record brought about in the progress of the Gaelic movement, the best scholars, German as well as Irish, pay tribute to the honesty, industry and remarkable accuracy of the "Foras Feasa ar Eiriny."

Again, the closer study of the Irish historical record through the medium of the native tongue brings to light the fact that a Celtic civilization did exist, more ancient in origin than the Saxon; that the latter gained much from contact with the former, and that, in fact, to study the ancient written monuments and the traditional memorials of the Celts of Ireland is to be brought into direct relation with one of the most cultured branches of the great Aryan stock. Thus the social and national life of a remarkable people was for a long time obscured by the repetition of a charge which thorough investigation had proved to be exaggerated; and as greater advances will be made in the near future with respect to the monuments of Celtic civilization, the student of Irish history and the teacher as well, will be in a position to give due weight to the mighty influences which Celtic thought and Celtic civilization have had in the upbuilding of the so-called Anglo-Saxon supremacy in the life of modern nations.

Many written sources, such as the old legendary tales and tracts of the mediæval Irish writers, harking back to still more obscure sources in the centuries preceding the coming of Saint Patrick, may not be readily available for some years to come; but enough has been already brought to light to furnish fairly accurate data to illustrate the continuity of the Irish historical record and to fix its character as a genuine source of historical information. Written records, moreover, are not the sole records of a given people; material monuments, too, perish, and the records they contain are obliterated for evermore. But the natural geographical features of the early

habitat of a people are indelibly fixed in the common memory and the names once given to a region survive because of the very fact that they stand for permanent features in the natural environment of the people concerned. The ethnographic data thus provided the student and the teacher, are particularly abundant in the case of Ireland and its people. To this day each valley, hill, river, town and countryside tells its own story of the early colonizers and their later descendants, and the associated events are as clearly indicated in the place names as the actors in these same events are indicated in the names of the chieftains and their clans.

Every shred of historical material is valuable as a contribution to the sum of historic truth; hence the language of the Irish people, representing as it does the mind of the people themselves, furnishes the proper apparatus for the scientific study of Irish civilization. The conserving genius of the Irish Celts and the tenacity of purpose which distinguished them in the earlier period of their national life; the elemental vigor of their tribal organizations; the sense of legal justice and the limits of social rank and professional rights; the character of authority and the restrictions placed upon its exercise; in a word, the whole social fabric and the political ideals toward which the race was striving are laid bare in the structural groundwork of the national tongue.

In modern times the methods of historical investigation have undergone a complete change. Through the labors of the archaeologist the baked bricks and broken tablets of Assyria and Babylon, the sculptured walls of Baalbeck and the stony images of Karnaak and Heliopolis, have been made to yield the secrets of the primitive peoples who dwelt in the valleys of the Tigris, the Euphrates and the Nile. Results as interesting, and perhaps even more serviceable to the right appreciation of the history of Western Europe, await the scientific study of Ireland's ancient manuscripts, and especially the artificial remains of the primitive civilization which once flourished in the plains and valleys of the "Ancient Isle."

MODERN LANGUAGES SECTION

PROCEEDINGS

The first session of the Modern Languages Section was held Tuesday, July 5, at 4 p. m.

The opening prayer was said by the Chairman, the Very Rev.. M. F. McAuliffe.

In opening the meeting Father McAuliffe remarked that it had been deemed advisable to divide the work originally planned for the Section. Greek is assigned to the Latin Section, and the Modern Languages will constitute the subject matter of the papers and discussions of this section.

A paper on the "Beginner's Year in French," prepared by a Sister of St. Mary's High School, Haverhill, Mass., was read. In the discussion which followed, the originality and thoroughness of method-the result of fifteen years' teaching-were favorably commented upon.

The representatives of the different high schools, academies and colleges were unanimous in praise of a system of teaching French which combines so well the so-called natural and grammatical methods.

The publication of the method described would be a welcome contribution to our text-book literature.

The second session was held Wednesday, July 6, at 2:30 p. m. A very scholarly paper, "Should Another Modern Language, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese, be Substituted for French or German in Our Curricula?" prepared by a Sister of Mt. St. Joseph's Academy, Brighton, Mass., was read by the Chairman. A lively discussion followed, several of those present advocating the substitution of the Slavish tongues. Stress was laid upon the large immigration of these peoples, and the necessity of safe

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