The History Teacher's Magazine, Vol. I, No. 9, May, 1910Various
History
The History Teacher's Magazine, Vol. I, No. 9, May, 1910
Various
History -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals
The annual spring meeting of the New England Association was held in
Boston on Saturday, April 16, 1910, in the lecture hall of the Boston
Public Library. The morning session was devoted to Roman history and
to the report of the Committee on Historical Material. The opening
address was by Professor Henry A. Sill, of Cornell University, who
spoke on “Some New Points of View in Roman History.” Just one hundred
years ago Niebuhr began the epoch of modern critical historiography,
and for the first time applied the test of modern criticism to the
mass of tradition which passed current as Roman history. Forty years
later Mommsen took up the task, and in 1854 published his first
volume. The works of both writers were rapid and bold, but they
were works of genius and of intuition. The speaker then considered
certain characteristics of Mommsen’s work, among others specifying his
comprehensiveness, his thorough use of the sources, and especially his
modern tone. Mommsen did not make direct references to modern politics,
but through indirect references sought to make the Romans step down
from their pedestals and become real. We owe it to Mommsen’s history
that Rome does not seem a land of fancy.
Although Mommsen made over one thousand contributions with a total
of more than twenty thousand pages, he did not speak the final word.
Recently several attempts have been made to sum up the result of the
numerous special investigations which have been made since Mommsen’s
time, the speaker making mention of Pais, Ferrero, and especially of
Edouard Meyer, whom he termed the master of all. Of American writers
Professor Botsford has made a notable contribution in his “Roman
Assemblies.” Among the periods of Roman history which are being
rewritten are the Foreign Wars, the history to the fourth century
B.C., and the Revolution. Among the new points of view, Professor
Sill enumerated the influence of imperialism, war and its effects on
domestic policy, sea-power, international arbitration, capitalism, and
added that we might even have a pathological view of Roman history! In
conclusion, he cautioned against pushing analogy too far.
Professor Sill’s paper was discussed briefly by Professor H. B.
Wright, of Yale University, and Professor W. S. Ferguson, of Harvard
University, the latter citing an interesting dissertation by a
Roumanian teacher on the nationality of the business men of Rome and
the light it threw on certain problems of Roman history.
Historical Material.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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