An Ethnologist's View of History / An Address Before the Annual Meeting of the New Jersey Historical Society, at Trenton, New Jersey, January 28, 1896

Transcriber’s Note

AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE Annual Meeting of the New Jersey Historical Society, AT Trenton, New Jersey, January 28, 1896.
BY DANIEL G. BRINTON, A. M., M. D., LL. D., D. Sc.
Professor of American Archæology in the University of Pennsylvania and of General Ethnology at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA, PA. 1896.


Mr. President:

The intelligent thought of the world is ever advancing to a fuller appreciation of the worth of the past to the present and the future. Never before have associations, societies and journals devoted to historical studies been so numerous. All times and tribes are searched for memorials; the remote corners of modern, medieval and ancient periods are brought under scrutiny; and going beyond these again, the semi-historic eras of tradition and the nebulous gleams from pre-historic milleniums are diligently scanned, that their uncertain story may be prefaced to that registered in “the syllables of recorded time.”
In this manner a vast mass of material is accumulating with which the historian has to deal. What now is the real nature of the task he sets before himself? What is the mission with which he is entrusted?