Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/409

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Plasticity is the one great advantage of youth. We in the Far West naturally wish to excuse what is crude and primitive in our institutional development as due to our youth. If our most distinctive characteristic is youth, and therefore plasticity, we are warranted in placing a strong emphasis on plans and ideals. Our institutional organization should be designed under the best light and for the broadest and highest service before social habits with us and the forms and centers of social activity become fixed and virtually unchangeable.

The assumption of the youth and plasticity of the social development of Oregon, with respect particularly to the organization to be given to its State Historical Society for social service, is one element in the position taken in this paper. The other element in the position assumed is, that in the present stage of development of the social sciences and the exigent need of light for the application of scientific methods in social administration, the work of a State historical society normally comes into active, intiniate, and manifold connections with the life of the commonwealth.

I wish to submit to your judgment the lines of work and the active relations which this society should propose to itself. To do this to any purpose I must by way of preface give some account of the conditions under which the Society was originally organized and the influences that have controlled its development. This will serve to