plans for continuing the preparation of its report and for securing discussion of its recommendations by the various associations of teachers of history throughout the country. Complimentary resolutions of the usual character were presented and passed. The committee on nominations, Professors G. L. Burr, C. D. Hazen, and J. H. Latané, proposed a list of officers, all of whom were chosen by the Association. Judge Simeon E. Baldwin was elected president, Dr. J. Franklin Jameson first vicepresident, and Professor George B. Adams second vice-president. Mr. A. Howard Clark, Professor C. H. Haskins, and Dr. Clarence W. Bowen were re-elected to their former positions. In the place of Professors Burr and Cheyney, who had been thrice elected to the Executive Council, Professors Charles M. Andrews and James H. Robinson were chosen. The place of meeting for December, 1906, is Providence. OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL President, First Vice-president, Second Vice-president, ASSOCIATION. Judge Simeon E. Baldwin, New Haven. Professor George B. Adams, New Haven. Corresponding Secretary, Professor Charles H. Haskins, 15 Pres Treasurer, cott Hall, Cambridge, Mass. Clarence W. Bowen, Esq., 130 Fulton St., New York. Executive Council (in addition to the above-named officers): 1 Hon. Andrew Dickson White,1 1 Professor Goldwin Smith,1 Professor John Bach McMaster,1 Committee on Programme for the Twenty-second Annual Meeting: Professor Charles H. Haskins, Harvard University, chairman; Professors William E. Dodd, Max Farrand, William MacDonald, and Williston Walker, and George P. Winship, Esq. Joint Local Committee of Arrangements for the American Historical Association, the American Economic Association, and the American Political Science Association: William B. Weeden, Esq., Providence, chairman; Professors Henry B. Gardner, William MacDonald, and George G. Wilson (with power to add members at the discretion of the chairman). Committee on the Entertainment of Ladies at the Twenty-second Editors of the American Historical Review: Professor George B. Adams, Yale University, chairman; Professors George L. Burr, Albert Bushnell Hart, J. Franklin Jameson, Andrew C. McLaughlin, and William M. Sloane. Historical Manuscripts Commission: J. Franklin Jameson, Carnegie Institution of Washington, chairman; Professors Edward G. Bourne and Frederick W. Moore, Reuben G. Thwaites, Esq., Worthington C. Ford, Esq., and Thomas M. Owen, Esq. Committee on the Justin Winsor Prize: Professor Charles H. Hull, Cornell University, chairman; Professor Edward P. Cheyney, Roger Foster, Esq., Professors Williston Walker and Evarts B. Greene. Public Archives Commission: Professor Herman V. Ames, University of Pennsylvania, chairman; Professors William MacDonald, Herbert L. Osgood, Charles M. Andrews, and Edwin E. Sparks, Dunbar Rowland, Esq., and Robert T. Swan, Esq. Committee on Bibliography: Professor Ernest C. Richardson, Princeton University, chairman; A. P. C. Griffin, Esq., William C. Lane, Esq., J. N. Larned, Esq., Professors W. H. Siebert and Frederick J. Turner. Committee on Publications: Professor Earle W. Dow, Univer sity of Michigan, chairman; Professor Charles H. Haskins, Committee on the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize: Professor Charles Gross, Harvard University, chairman; Professors George L. Burr, Victor Coffin, John M. Vincent, and James W. Thompson. General Committee: Professor Henry E. Bourne, Western Reserve University, chairman; Professors Charles H. Haskins, Lucy M. Salmon, Lilian W. Johnson, John S. Bassett, William MacDonald, Frank H. Hodder, Franklin L. Riley, Benjamin F. Shambaugh, Reuben G. Thwaites, Esq., and Professor Frederick G. Young (with power to add adjunct members). Finance Committee: James H. Eckels, Esq., Chicago, chairman, and Peter White, Esq. Committee of Eight on History in Elementary Schools: Professor J. A. James, Northwestern University, chairman; Superintendents E. C. Brooks, Wilbur F. Gordy, and J. H. Van Sickle, Professors Julius Sachs, Henry E. Bourne, and Henry W. Thurston, and Miss Mabel Hill. OLD STANDARDS OF PUBLIC MORALS.1 WHOEVER reads the book-lists of publishers, whoever glances over the titles of new books displayed on the counters of the bookshops, must surely have remarked the extraordinary activity shown. in recent years by writers on American history. Essays, travels, monographs, biographies of our great men of every sort from frontiersmen to presidents, histories of our country in many volumes, histories of the states, and scores of books on particular phases of our national life, have come from the press year after year in a steadily increasing quantity. It should seem at first sight as if every nook and corner of the broad domain of history must have been by this time fully explored. But a sifting of the output for ten years past leaves no doubt that back of much of this activity is pure commercialism; that some of it is, after all, but a new threshing of the old straw; and that but little of it can be said to be inspired by a sincere desire to do better what has been done before. Meantime great fields of history have been left untilled. No writer has as yet thought it worth while to enrich our literature with an impartial, well-told story of the rise and fall of political parties. Much has been written concerning the political and still more concerning the military events of the great struggle for independence. But where shall we turn for a narrative of the doings and the sufferings of the people during that long period of strife and revolution? No feature of our national existence is more fascinating than the westward movement of population, the great march across the continent. Yet we have no history of this migration-no account of the causes which led to it; of the paths along which the people moved; of the economic conditions which now accelerated, now retarded it; of the founding of great states; of the ever-changing life on the frontier as the frontier was pushed steadily westward over the Alleghenies, across the valley of the Mississippi, and over the plains to disappear in our own day at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. We still wait for a history of the Continental Congress; for the man who shall compress within the limits of a single volume the history of our national life; for the man who within a like space shall tell the marvellous story of our economic and industrial development; and 1 The President's address to the American Historical Association, December 26, 1905. for the man who shall do for American what Mr. Lecky has so well done for European morals. Such a work would indeed be an addition to our historical literature, and not the least interesting part of it would be that devoted to the study of public morals. The code of public morality which has at any time really been lived up to, in our country, is a great help to the understanding of the social and political conditions of that time. The sort of men who find their way into public life; the kind of government which prevails at any time or in any place; the acts done by Congresses, legislatures, city councils, municipal bodies of any sort, are just such as the mass of the people are content to have and often insist on having. What has been the conduct of the people when called on to meet great issues, where expediency, profit, prosperity stood on the one hand, and some principle of public morality on the other hand, is therefore very properly a part of our history, and sheds a flood of light on the phases of life which it is the duty of the historian to record. Of struggles of this sort the annals of our country furnish many signal instances. When the Continental Congress which gathered at Philadelphia in May of 1775 found itself forced to assume the conduct of a war with the mother-country, it sought to pay expenses by an issue of bills of credit. The fatal step once taken, other issues followed fast and followed faster till depreciation brought the bills so low that to print one cost more than it was worth. On the faces of them were no solemn promises that they should ever be redeemed at any time or place. "This bill ", so ran the wording, "entitles the bearer to receive two Spanish milled dollars, or the value thereof in gold or silver, according to the resolution of the Congress held at Philadelphia on the tenth of May 1775." But that the bills should be redeemed at some time and place was the plain intent and expectation of both the Congress and the people. To doubt this intent, to deny that the Congress money was as good as gold, to refuse to take it at par, to refuse to take it at all, was rank toryism. For so doing scores of men were dragged before committees of safety, were reported to provincial congresses, were advertised as enemies of their country, were forced to submit under threats of imprisonment, and were stripped of their property without due process of law. In the dark days when the British were marching across the Jerseys, when the fate of the rebellious colonies seemed trembling in the balance, Putnam put forth a proclamation warning the people of Philadelphia that if any man refused to sell his goods for continental money, the goods should be seized and the offender cast into prison; Congress called on the Council of Safety for help, and the |