The Uses of History

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Excerpt from The Uses of History: An Address Delivered Before the New York Historical Society on Its Eighty-Fifth Anniversary, Thursday, November 21, 1889 Do we not make unconscious confessions of the truth that our age is, in essentials, like its predeces sors and by no means perfect Why study Plato? Why find models of eloquence in Demosthenes and Cicero? Or, coming down later, where do we search for models in art, in architecture, even to some extent in dress? Making all allowance for the childish folly that sometimes stamps a thing as necessarily superior because it is Old, or because it comes from the ends of the earth, we must, if we study history candidly, deny ourselves, as a genera tion, the monopoly Of genius and triumphant mastery over the forces of nature. On the way to Chicago, the other day, I said to a man on the other side of my dining-table, We get out more comfortably than did the first settlers in Chicago. Yes, said he, modestly, it took me twenty-one days to go to it the first time. I respected him, and I did not men tally compliment myself as a traveller any more. And just so, if this lauded nineteenth century calmly confers with some of its predecessors, it will modify its estimate of itself. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.