less; the proportion of native born to the total population will increase; the people will have a stronger attachment to their native state; they will be less tolerant of bad government and more eager to make improvements of every kind, that the state may be a good place in which to live. All these things will come about in the course of time; but they will come much sooner if people are conscious of their need and willing to take measures for bringing about the results which they desire. Among these measures, I take it, none is more important than the works of an Historical Society, such as this.

If the Nebraska State Historical Society did nothing more than make the state interesting to the people who live in it, it would be doing a work the value of which would far outweigh the cost. The West is a wonderful country, well named the Golden West. It has good soil, a fine climate, great fields of corn, cattle upon a thousand hills, splendid resources and prospects of every kind. In so far as material things are concerned the people of the West have everything that they need: food, shelter, clothing-all the necessaries and luxuries of life, not to mention automobiles, which some would place among the best things that the world can give. But it must be admitted that something is lacking; it is hard to say what. Man cannot live by bread alone, nor even by automobiles. There are some higher values without which the lives of the richest must be bare and empty.

The people of Europe may be poor in material wealth, but in their places of historical interest with all the sentiments that attach to them they have treasures that money cannot buy. The Germans have the Rhine which, from Schaffhausen to Aachen, is an epitome of their history for two thousand years. The English have Cromlechs, Norman castles, Gothic cathedrals and historic remains of every kind, calling up memories of a great and glorious past.

The Scots never cease to boast of their little hills and vales, their insignificant streams and barren moors, because they are full of memories of Bruce and Wallace, of Robert Burns and Walter Scott. The Irish may be exiled from their native land, but ever look back with pride and affection to the land of the shamrock, the hill of Tara, the lakes of Killarney. Memories such as these may not satisfy bodily hunger or thirst or protect against the winter's cold, but when people are fed and clothed and sheltered they feel the need of something that shall beautify and glorify life, make them proud of their fellow countrymen and willing to live and die for their native land.

Nebraska is by no means without a history, as the members of this society well know; and it is the purpose of the society to collect and preserve the records of the past, so that the people at large may know that they are living on historic ground, may take a greater pride in the state and be willing to make greater sacrifices for the general good. Material prosperity is desirable, for it is the basis and foundation of higher things; but very many of our fellow citizens have all the material wealth that they need, all the lands, houses and automobiles that they can use, and it is high time that they should take a greater interest in the cultural side of life, in science, art, literature, and history, without which a truly great civilization is impossible.

Some frugal soul--a taxpayer, probably-may ask the very pertinent question, "Will it pay?" In answer to this question it would not be hard to show that all the money spent on the study of local history, like bread cast upon the waters, is likely to be returned many fold. Consider the value of real estate alone, a value that cannot exist unless people stay in the state, where they will not stay unless they find life worth living there. All the things that tend to make life interesting, to glorify and beautify life, such as parks and play grounds, beautiful streets and public

buildings, churches, schools, colleges and universities, art, music, history, science, philosophy, religion, and a spirit of patriotism and good fellowship among the people; all of these things tend to keep the people of Nebraska at home and to increase the value of real estate. On the contrary, the lack of these things tends to drive people away to Colorado, California, or elsewhere, and to cause the value of real estate to come down.

Again, it may be that through the works of the Historical Society other important contributions will be made to the material wealth of the state and this in an unexpected direction. The researches of Mr. Gilmore, for example, show that most valuable results might follow from investigations carried on in a purely scientific spirit. Mr. Gilmore has made a study of certain food plants used by the Indians long before the arrival of the whites, and it may be that some of these plants will prove to be of great economic value and do much to solve the problem of the arid West. If so, the money spent on the Nebraska Historical Society will be returned a thousand fold.

But even if this work should not pay in dollars and cents, if there should be no increase in the value of lands, or houses, or cattle, but only an improvement in the character of the people, an addition to the beauty and dignity of life, a contribution to those spiritual values which make life worth living; even if nothing more than that should come of the study of local history, I am sure that the best citizens of Nebraska would agree with the members of the Historical Society in thinking that all the effort and sacrifice that had been made was well worth while.

HISTORY

BY RIGHT REVEREND J. HENRY TIHEN, Bishop of Lincoln

[Paper read at the annual meeting of the Nebraska State Historical Society, January 13, 1913.]

One God, one human race, one scene of human activity-the world in which we live one story of it all, that is history. One brotherhood that had its inception in the aeons of the past from the Fathers' creative hand, that has ramified and extended itself through the centuries to the present, maintaining its unity in its universality. The great family is still intact, the blood relationship of a common origin still exists, and man may not ignore this relationship nor attempt to rupture it, or, like the prodigal son, to set himself outside the fellowship of brother and the protecting love of Father. Distances of time and space are accidentals that may modify the manifestations of this relationship, but do not change its nature. The fur clad Laplander in his frozen house of the North and the naked negro in the jungles of Africa are bound together by this common tie. Nor does time essentially influence this relationship. What matter though a thousand years separate me from my brother man? He is still my brother because of the common Father to whom "a thousand years are as one day". From Adam the first as he walked forth from the creative hand of his God, through the ages of the past, the present and the future to last of mortals in his dying hour, when the world shall sink back into its original chaos, there runs this golden chain of humanity, each individual human being a link in this chain. No man may with impunity attempt to destroy this solidarity, this

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