The Saint Paul globe., 1905-01-22
PRovIpINe FoR posTERlrY

"iiSu Lie dICIdtOlOSlSI OF "A. II. SSU0
stands on the brink of the gap in
the high bridge and speculates on how
it happened, to what record will he
turn for information? That is the
question-reduced to local exposition
that President Eliot, of Harvard,
asks his contemporaries. He COM
planned, in an address delivered before
the Archaeological Institute of Amer
lea, that nothing is being done to pre-
serve the history of this period for re-
mote posterity; that, unlike the an
clients to whose forethought we are in
debted for some of the most interest
ing information that ever men of learn
ing fought over, we are doing nothing
to illumine our pilgrimage for the ed
lf1cation of our descendants.
And there really is some ground for
President Eliot's plaint. We are so
busy laying up store of dollars for our
children Of the next generation to
S4o1hdSA Oh SllON -UOu1Gu d1TSIlDS
that we have altogether overlooked
making provision for the remote de-
scendants of the archaeologists of to-
day. We erect public building at the
cost Of millions in money and billions
in explanation and justification for the
expenditure; we bury under the corner
stone 1912 in current coin, today's
newspapers containing yesterdays
news and a writing bearing the names
of the architect and that of the dis
tinguished gentleman who performs the
function Of tapping the stone with an
expensive trowel All Of which will be
very helpful when the building falls
down in fifty years or less if the rec
ord is rescued from the ruin, but which
will probably not be Of much use to
the savant of 1905 in case it is left for
him to unearth.
Of course the future has not done so
much for us that we are bound to be
grateful, but some of those gentlemen
who, like the Laird of Skibo, are in
danger of dying in disgrace might do
much worse than to make some pro-
vision for leaving a record of the do
ings of these stirring times for the in
spiration Of posterity. For it would be
most aggravating to the shade of A.
Carnegie to be judged according to es-
innate of Marie Corelli, in case the
archaeologfst of the future should find
potsherd containing a critique of the
ironmaster by that delectable writer.
And the dust Of all of us would rise in
rebellious cloud if the poets of the
age were to be valued in the future by
the standard set by the discovery of
copies of the works of Alfred Austin or
the Sweet Singer of Michigan"
To provide against being unappre-
ciated by the archaeologist of 1000
years hence we should do something.
Experience teaches us that the man of
science sometimes goes far afield in
making his conclusions. 1t would be a
matter of eternal regret to all of us if
we were permitted to understand that
the finding Of jawbone of massive
proportions buried in the site of the
lost city of Boston led the curator of
the Smithsonian institution in 1906 to
construct about it an effigy of Thomas
w. Lawson, while we know that the
bone was, in 1905, devoted to the per-
sonai use of Col John L. Sullivan.
1t is plainly up to us to correct the
errors Of the historian of the future by
leaving him unmistakable evidence Of
the facts we want known. But we fear
that President Eliot's plant will be
unavailing. Those of US who can best
afford to contribute to the preserva-
ton of the truth for posterity are
rather anxious that the truth be for
gotten.
Mr.. Carnegie has evinced dispo-