Produced by Ted Garvin, David Wilson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net HISTORICAL ESSAYS BY JAMES FORD RHODES, LL.D., D.Litt. Author of the _History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule at the South in 1877_ New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1909 _All rights reserved_ Copyright, 1909, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1909. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE In offering to the public this volume of Essays, all but two of which have been read at various places on different occasions, I am aware that there is some repetition in ideas and illustrations, but, as the dates of their delivery and previous publication are indicated, I am letting them stand substantially as they were written and delivered. I am indebted to my son, Daniel P. Rhodes, for a literary revision of these Essays; and I have to thank the editors of the _Atlantic Monthly_, of _Scribner's Magazine_, and of the _Century Magazine_ for leave to reprint the articles which have already appeared in their periodicals. Boston, November, 1909. CONTENTS I. History 1 President's Inaugural Address, American Historical Association, Boston, December 27, 1899; printed in the _Atlantic Monthly_ of February, 1900. II. Concerning the Writing of History 25 Address delivered at the Meeting of the American Historical Association in Detroit, December, 1900. III. The Profession of Historian 47 Lecture read before the History Club of Harvard University, April 27, 1908, and at Yale, Columbia, and Western Reserve Universities. IV. Newspapers as Historical Sources 81 A Paper read before the American Historical Association in Washington on December 29, 1908; printed in the _Atlantic Monthly_ of May, 1909. V. Speech prepared for the Commencement Dinner at Harvard University, June 26, 1901. (Not delivered) 99 VI. Edward Gibbon 105 Lecture read at Harvard University, April 6, 1908, and printed in _Scribner's Magazine_ of June, 1909. VII. Samuel Rawson Gardiner 141 A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the March Meeting of 1902, and printed in the _Atlantic Monthly_ of May, 1902. VIII. William E. H. Lecky 151 A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the November Meeting of 1903.