HISTORICAL NEWS

AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

The annual meeting of the American Historical Association will take place at Cleveland on Friday and Saturday, December 28 and 29. The committee on programme, which consists of Professor Samuel B. Harding, chairman, and Professors J. S. Bassett, Carl Becker, E. J. Benton, A. E. R. Boak, W. E. Dodd, and Julius Klein, has secured the presence of M. Marcel Knecht, who will discuss the subject of AlsaceLorraine, of Professor George M. Wrong of Toronto, who will speak on the new organization of the British Empire, of Lord Charnwood, the biographer of Lincoln (who is to make an address at the Illinois Centennial Celebration this month), and of Professor Thomas Masaryk, who will speak on some subject connected with the history and aspirations of the Czecho-Slovaks. The committee is planning also to have papers, if possible, on certain phases of the Russian situation, such as those relating to the Baltic provinces and the Ukraine, and sessions on the history of the United States and of Latin America in the light of the war. The committee, it will at once be seen, contemplates a programme of exceptional character, and a meeting which will powerfully stimulate patriotic thought and endeavor-the only kind of meeting which would be justified under the present circumstances of the nation. One session will be devoted to simultaneous gatherings of those interested in ancient history, and in the teaching of history, to the conference of historical societies, and to the meeting of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, with attractive programmes in each case. The presidential address will be delivered by Mr. William R. Thayer.

The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1917, which will consist of but one volume, was sent to the printer about the first of September. Page-proof of the two volumes of the annual report for 1916 is ready for indexing. The General Index, 1884-1914, prepared by Mr. David M. Matteson in excellent fashion, and sure to be of great use to historical students, has been distributed (Annual Report, 1914, vol. II.).

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It again becomes necessary to call public attention to an effort to make unauthorized use of the name of the Association. Certain persons giving the address American Historical Association, 1417 U Street, Washington, D. C.", have been sending circulars to large numbers of civilians who have been voluntarily assisting the government, on draft boards and the like, requesting them to fill out blanks with biographical data for an extensive compilation of such materials, to supply personal ( 141 )

photographs, and pay money. It should be needless to remark that no such undertakings have the slightest warrant from the American Historical Association, and that the method employed is regarded by it with the severest reprobation. Steps have been taken toward preventing continuance of such use of the Association's name.

Because of conditions induced by the war, the Military History Prize Committee has decided that it is inexpedient to attempt to award the prize this year. Accordingly the contest has been postponed until further notice.

NATIONAL BOARD FOR HISTORICAL SERVICE

A meeting of the Board was held at Branford, Conn., on September II and 12. Reports of progress in the fields of research, educational service, international service, and materials for war history were made. Professor Greene being unable to continue longer as chairman of the Board, Professor Dana C. Munro was elected chairman in his place and Professor Joseph Schafer was elected vice-chairman.

All reports from England agree in indicating that the series of lectures by Professor McLaughlin, given in Great Britain, chiefly in British universities, during April and May, under arrangements concerted by the Board, was attended with extraordinary success and usefulness. Professor McLaughlin gave four lectures at University College, London, two before the Royal Historical Society, one at the Royal Colonial Institute, one at a gathering of some two thousand teachers, one to a large audience of workingmen at Walsall, and single lectures at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, at Trinity College, Dublin, and at the university colleges of Bangor, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Newcastle, Nottingham, Reading, and Southampton. There can be no doubt. that much good was accomplished by these efforts to explain to educated British audiences the historic and present-day relations of America to Great Britain and to the war, made by one so well informed in these matters, so full of right feeling, and so judicious. It is expected that a full report of the expedition, by Mr. Charles Moore, who bore an important and helpful part in it, will shortly be printed. One of the lectures is printed in the July number of History. The series delivered at University College will be published in a volume by Messrs. Dent.

In the prize essay contest for historical essays on the origins of American participation in the war, in which the awards in individual states have already been made, the “national contest" has now been decided, the prize among high school teachers being awarded to Mr. Elmer W. Johnson, of Roselle, N. J., and that for elementary teachers to Mr. William T. Miller, of the Agassiz Grammar School, Jamaica Plain, Mass.

A large proportion of the articles which will constitute the Board's contribution to the History Teacher's Magazine during the present

school year has been arranged for. The supplement for the October number will contain documents illustrating the contemporary British Empire, edited by Professor A. L. Cross. In the place of the series dealing with the four conventional fields commonly taught in secondary schools, there will be, as already announced, a number of shorter series of articles, on such topics as Historic Problems of the Near East, the British Empire, Economic Aspects of the War, Contemporary European Government, etc. The modifications effected in the policy of the Magazine, and accompanying its new title, The Historical Outlook, are described below (see under "General").

An Outline of an Emergency Course of Instruction on the War for American Schools, prepared for the Board by Messrs. C. A. Coulomb, A. J. Gerson, and A. E. McKinley, is issued from the Government Printing Office under the auspices of the Bureau of Education.

The War Reader for English classes in elementary schools, prepared for the Board under the direction of Professor Dana C. Munro, is shortly to be published by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons. The French War Reader, prepared by Mr. W. G. Leland and Mr. Charles A. Downer, and to be published later by Messrs. Scribner, is nearly ready for the press. These readers will contain selections from the best prose and poetry of the war.

The series of historical lectures in the great military camps, heretofore mentioned in these pages as maintained during the spring, has been continued during the summer with the new supplies of recruits, in several of the camps. A large expansion of the plan of giving the soldiers historical instruction as to the origins of the war is contemplated by the Military Morale Section of the War Department. Plans for instruction along similar lines are also involved in the war aims courses which are to be given in many of the universities and colleges under the auspices of the Educational Committee of the War Department.

Messrs. R. D. W. Connor, Solon J. Buck, and M. M. Quaife have been appointed a committee for the Board, to prepare a report on the work of state historical institutions in relation to the preservation of war records.

PERSONAL

Reverend Father Arthur E. Jones, S.J., archivist of St. Mary's College in Montreal, died on January 19, at the age of nearly eighty. Aside from the notable assistance he rendered in the editing of Dr. Thwaites's Jesuit Relations, the principal work by which he made known to the world a part of his remarkable learning in Canadian history was the Fifth Annual Report of the Archives Department of Ontario-the volume entitled Huronia, dealing minutely with the history of the Huron Indians and the missions among them.

Herbert Levi Osgood, professor of American history in Columbia University since 1890, died on September 13, at the age of sixty-three. His chief work, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, marked by great accuracy, thoroughness of research, and clearness and precision of statement, has long been recognized as authoritative in its field. He was a devoted teacher, with an exceptional gift for training students in correct methods of research, a tireless worker, and a man of elevated character. It is gratifying to know that his manuscript on the eighteenth century (probably four volumes) was left practically ready for publication.

Charles Henry Hart died on July 29, at the age of seventy. For twenty years, 1882-1902, he was director of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. An authority of the highest standing in matters relating to historical portraiture, he had published books on Houdon, on Gilbert Stuart, on Robert Morris, and on portraits of Washington.

Paul Vidal de La Blache, the foremost of French geographers, author of the volume on the historical geography of France prefixed to Lavisse's Histoire de France, and of La France de l'Est (1917), and of other writings in the field of historical geography, died on April 5, at the age of seventy-three.

Georges Duruy, son of Victor Duruy, biographer of Cardinal Carlo Caraffa, editor of the memoirs of Barras, professor of history in the École Polytechnique, died at the end of March, aged sixty-five.

Mr. J. J. Tracy having resigned the position of archivist of Massachusetts, the secretary of the commonwealth has appointed Mr. John H. Edmonds to the care of the Massachusetts state archives.

Professors Theodore F. Collier of Brown University and Frederick L. Thompson of Amherst College have gone to France in the war service of the Young Men's Christian Association. Professor Collier's place is for the present year to be taken by Professor E. C. Griffith of William Jewell College.

Dr. John C. Hildt of Smith College has been promoted from assistant professor to professor of history; he has been commissioned a captain and is doing service with the Military Intelligence Bureau at Washington. Professors Charles M. Andrews, of Yale University, and A. L. P. Dennis, of Wisconsin, have accepted captains' commissions for work in the same bureau.

Rev. Ralph Pomeroy has been appointed professor of ecclesiastical history in the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopa! Church in New York.

Mrs. William E. Lingelbach is for the present year to act as professor of history at Bryn Mawr, in the absence of Professor Howard

L. Gray. Dr. C. W. David has become associate professor in the same institution.

The University of Pittsburg has advanced Dr. Homer J. Webster to the rank of professor of history, and has appointed Mr. Alfred P. James assistant professor of history.

Rear-Admiral William W. Kimball, U. S. N., has been placed in charge of a History Section created by the Navy Department. Professor Frederic L. Paxson of Wisconsin has been commissioned as major in the Historical Section of the General Staff of the War Department.

Mr. Charles Moore of Detroit, treasurer of the American Historical Association, has accepted temporary appointment by Dr. Putnam as acting chief of the Division of Manuscripts in the Library of Congress, with a view to a large expansion of the library's activities in the collection of material relating to the present war and its administrative history.

Professor William T. Laprade of Trinity College, N. C., has been granted leave of absence for the coming year to act as lecturer in the Y. M. C. A. training camp at Blue Ridge, N. C.

Professors Conyers Read of the University of Chicago, and William W. Davis of Kansas State University have been given leave of absence to engage in the overseas service of the American Red Cross.

Professor Carl R. Fish has leave of absence from the University of Wisconsin to take charge of interests of the American University Union in London.

Dr. Mason W. Tyler has been made assistant professor of history in the University of Minnesota.

At the page corresponding to this in our last number an erroneous statement was made regarding the present status of Dr. Edgar E. Robinson. His position is that of associate professor of American history in Stanford University.

Dr. Cardinal L. Goodwin has been appointed professor of American history in Mills College, at Oakland, Cal.

GENERAL

The editor of the History Teacher's Magazine, Professor Albert E. McKinley, has an enlarged programme for its future, broadening its scope and intending to appeal more largely than hitherto to the general reader, but still consulting always the interests of teachers of history. In accordance with this expansion the journal takes on a new title, The Historical Outlook. Its relations to the American Historical Association and to the National Board for Historical Service remain unchanged. AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XXIV.--10.