I. NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS THE ANGLO-AMERICAN CONFERENCE OF HISTORIANS, LONDON, THE Anglo-American Conference of Historians, held in London on July 12-16, was the second of the quinquennial series inaugurated in 1921 under the auspices of the University of London and of its Institute of Historical Research. The conference of 1926 was under the same auspices as its predecessor, but a special responsibility for it rested upon the Continuation Committee, created by the conference of 1921 for the purpose of "securing continued co-operation between historical workers in the United States, Great Britain, the British Dominions, and India". Upon Professor A. F. Pollard, director of the Institute and chairman of the Continuation Committee, Dr. Guy Parsloe, secretary of the special Committee on Organization, and Dr. H. W. Meikle, secretary of the Continuation Committee, fell the burden, no light one, of programme and arrangements, and to them, as well as to their colleagues of the special committee, those who enjoyed the fruits of their exceedingly successful labors owe a debt of gratitude and appreciation not easily to be reckoned. success. From every point of view the conference had a full measure of The attendance of three hundred scholars, of whom fifty were Americans, indicates the importance which, on both sides of the Atlantic, has come to be attached to this occasion. As was to be expected, London, under the gentle stimulus of Professor Pollard and his associates, displayed its most hospitable aspect, and the weather was calculated to make visitors from the banks of the Potomac and the Charles feel equally at home. Teas at University and King's Colleges, at Lambeth Palace, at Merchant Taylors' Hall, and at the home of the Royal Historical Society, a sumptuous luncheon at Bedford College, a brilliant reception by the Senate of the University of London at the Imperial Institute, and soirées at the town houses of Lady Power and Viscountess Astor provided everybody with a maximum of spiritual and material entertainment. These lighter features of the conference were concluded by an informal subscription dinner at University College on the Friday evening, followed, during the long twilight of northern midsummer, by a conversazione in the pleasant common room and garden of the Institute of Historical Research. On the following day a post-conference excursion to Canterbury was arranged by Sir William Ashley, to whom many American scholars, privileged to have been his students, owe so much for the intellectual stimulus and the inspiration to research imparted by his instruction. Finally, what may be termed the clinical features of the conference consisted of special opportunities to attend sessions of Parliament and of parliamentary committees, of a demonstration by Sir William Schooling of his apparatus for making reduced photographic negatives and positives and of projecting and enlarging them, and of visits to the records of the House of Lords in the Victoria Tower, to the Public Record Office, and to the library of Lambeth Palace. The members of the conference were most fortunate in that its organizers had been able to secure the presence of the Prime Minister, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, at one of its sessions. In a felicitous address, marked by evidences of keen insight and broad sympathies,1 Mr. Baldwin greeted the large audience which gathered in King's College to hear him. Modestly disclaiming any special competence to address a body of historians, Mr. Baldwin spoke of the special interest which politicians must take in history, because it is only history that can judge them. He insisted, however, upon the impossibility of passing a just verdict upon the conduct of statesmen until such time should have elapsed as to make it possible to know not only the motives which inspired the course of conduct under examination, but its after effects as well, and also to compare it with the conduct of other statesmen of the same time. Speaking particularly to the Americans present Mr. Baldwin extended to them a special greeting on behalf of the Government and dwelt upon the importance, for American history, of research in British and European records, for, he said, "every emigrant that has gone over in the last 150 years is the product of the generations before him . . . and you can never understand your own problems-problems of such amazing human interest, that could not have been foreseen by the founders of the republic-until you understand the problems of the stock of these men who are now making your country ". In drawing up the programme of the scientific sessions of the conference the committee set an example which may be highly recommended to all other bodies charged with similar duties. Instead of overloading the sessions with a formidable number of unrelated papers, each session, with one or two exceptions, was devoted to a single subject on which a leading paper was read. This communication was followed by a discussion which, commencing with one or two 1 Printed verbatim in the London Times, July 14, 1926. prepared contributions, speedily developed into an open forum in which the number of participants was usually considerable and the quality of their contributions gratifyingly high. Such a plan gave an intelligibility to the conference as a whole that such occasions sometimes sadly lack, increased the interest of those attending, and did not too heavily tax the mental digestion even of one who might be endeavoring to "cover" it all for the benefit of absent colleagues. The conference was organized in eight sections, devoted respectively to medieval, modern European, colonial, economic, American, local, and Slavonic history, and to the history of war. Sixteen sessions were held, three of which were general in character, and about thirty prepared papers or communications were presented, while the number of those who took part in the discussions must have exceeded one hundred. The first general session, which was also the sectional session on American history and was presided over by Professor C. W. Alvord, had as its subject Recent American Interpretations of Anglo-American Relations, 1848-1865. The leading paper, by Professor Thomas P. Martin of the University of Texas, was devoted to an appreciation and criticism of Professor E. D. Adams's recent work, Great Britain and the American Civil War. Professor Martin, while paying a high tribute to the work as a whole, and to its objective quality, pointed out certain important sources which in his opinion might have been advantageously utilized, notably the papers of leading business and shipping firms of the time, and the papers of such leaders as John Bright and Richard Cobden. In the discussion that followed, Professor Adams's volumes were eulogized in the highest terms by various British scholars as constituting a fresh contribution of the first importance. The second general session, Professor Wallace Notestein chairman, was devoted to a communication by Mr. W. G. Leland of the Carnegie Institution of Washington on International Co-operation in Historical Studies, in which he gave an account of the historical activities of the International Union of Academies and of its American member, the American Council of Learned Societies, and spoke particularly of the recent organization of the International Committee of Historical Sciences. At the conclusion of the session the conference adopted a resolution expressing its gratification at the organization of the International Committee. 2 To be printed in the next issue, November, of the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research. The subject of the third general session, over which Professor A. C. Coolidge presided, was Bias in Historical Writing. The discussion was opened by Professor C. H. McIlwain of Harvard University, who pointed out that bias should not be confused with personal conviction or enthusiasm, nor with literary color and style, nor yet with the presentation of a hypothesis, but that it is in reality nothing else than prejudice, often fostered by the demand for quick and easy "lessons of history". In the exceedingly animated discussion that followed, in which, however, only one American scholar took part, the infinite variety of bias was insisted upon as well as its inevitable presence, in some form or other, conscious or unconscious, in all historical writers; in the historians of the "great style" it is the point of view of genius. The greater objectivity of modern scholars was referred to, but indifference was denounced as stupidity. A certain impatience with general conceptions, especially with any attempt to discern in history general laws of human conduct, was discernible, as well as a predilection for that point of view which regards history as literature or as art. The discussion was closed with the constructive suggestion of Dr. G. P. Gooch, that the best way of guarding against bias was to keep constantly in mind the extraordinary complexity of the historical process and to be modest and conscientious in pronouncing judgment. The sectional sessions must be passed over rapidly. The section on medieval history held two sessions. At the first, papers were read by Professor L. J. Paetow of California and by Mr. Charles Johnson of the Public Record Office on the Dictionary of Medieval Latin that is being compiled under the auspices of the International Union of Academies, and on the Anglo-American Dictionary of Late Medieval British Latin. At the second session there was a discussion, led by Mr. J. P. Gilson, keeper of manuscripts in the British Museum, devoted to the serious problem created by the exportation in increasing numbers of historical manuscripts to America. The attitude of the British scholars present towards what must cause many of them grave concern was wholly generous. They were anxious, not so much to prevent a reasonable movement of such historical material to America, as to find some means of recording it and of keeping informed as to its new location. The project of the American Council of Learned Societies for compiling a catalogue of foreign 3 A full report of the discussion is to appear in the October issue of History. 4 Fuller accounts of them may be read in the general report of the conference which is to appear in the next issue, November, of the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research. manuscripts in American libraries and collections was regarded as of great importance, along with some system of registering manuscripts that leave Great Britain, in any solution of the problem. The first session of the section on modern European history was devoted to a discussion of the Value and Limitations of the Diplomatic Documents relating to the Origins of the War. As one listened to the careful and judicious observations of Professor SetonWatson, Dr. Gooch, and others, one could not fail to be impressed with the extreme caution with which competent and conscientious scholars, like the proverbial angels, venture upon a ground where beings of another category gambol with abandon. The subject of the second session, the leading paper of which was by Professor Roger B. Merriman of Harvard, was the Study of European History (fourteenth to sixteenth centuries) in the English-speaking Countries. The section on colonial history listened in its first session to Dr. Frances G. Davenport's paper on English Colonial Expansion, 17001715, in which she dealt with England's aims and achievements in regard to territorial and commercial expansion in American regions claimed by Spain and France, and which served to introduce the general discussion. In the second session Professor J. L. Morison, of Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, read a paper on Lord Elgin and the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, for which he had utilized new material that revealed the important part of the governorgeneral of Canada in the affair, and the methods of propaganda that were employed. The section on economic history held two meetings. The first was devoted to a discussion of the new Economic History Society, and its organ, soon to appear, the Economic History Review. The second session was devoted to a discussion on economic history, led by Sir William Ashley with a paper on the Investigation and Teaching of Economic History in relation to the Teaching of Commerce and Economics on the one hand, and of Pure History and Politics on the other. The section on local history discussed the Organization of Local History and the Relation of Archaeology to Local History, while the section on Slavonic history listened to papers by Professor Paul Milyukov on the Influence of English Political Thought in Russian History, and by Professor Seton-Watson on the Secret Treaty of London and Italian Intervention, in the light of unpublished documents. In the same session there was a discussion, led by Professor A. C. Coolidge, on the study of Slavonic history. Finally the section on the history of war discussed Sir George Aston's article on the 5 To be printed in the first issue of the Economic History Review. |