THE STUDY OF AMERICAN WIRTORY.
Loan Baron has printed the admirable lecture- on The Study of American History (Cambridge University Press, 3a Od. net) with which he inaugurated last June Sir George Watson's Chair of American History, Literature and Institutions. The chair is to be held for brief periods by British or American scholars and publicists, who will lecture in one or more of our universities. Lord Bryce contrived, aa usual, in a brief discourse to open several fruitful lines of thought. He emphasized the fact that American history begins where our own history begins, in the forests and plains of Holstein and East Frisia. He pointed out that the English race in its new Transatlantic home was strongly influenced by climate, at least in the Southern States, and by the need for self-help in the struggle with Nature in the uncleared forest and on the prairie. What would have happened, asked Lord Bryce, if the colonies had not revolted in 1776 ? Would there have been a French Revolution ? Would the West have been settled so rapidly ? Might not slavery have been gradually and peacefully abolished without a civil war ? On the other hand, might not a British Empire which included America have become too powerful—a menace to its neighbours ? Lord Bryce touched on the unsolved problem presented by the mass-immigration of Latins, Slave, Jews and Greeks. Would America be able to absorb these millions of aliens without herself being transformed in the process ? The lecturer then discussed the Federal Constitution, suggesting that it might be better suited than our own Con- stitution to a very large nation. " Freedom in America, as else- where, has been at some moments abused, at others undermined or filched away ; but the pride in freedom and the trust in the saving and healing power of freedom have never failed her people and have enabled them many a time to recover what they seemed to be losing. It is by the moral forces that nations live." Lord• Bryce concluded by pleading for a closer study of America. " The growth of the English-speaking peoples is the most signifi- cant phenomenon of the last hundred years." The opinion of the English-speaking peoples must have a greater influence on the world than any one nation has exercised since the fall of Rome. If these peoples can co-operate in a " broadly fraternal spirit " they may, Lord Bryce urged, do much to restore and maintain universal peace.
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