Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/414

408 in space is a drawback of constantly diminishing importance in library activity. The main problem then with the Oregon Historical Society is to determine and to define the functions that normally fall to a historical society and State library in a fully developed and well regulated commonwealth organization, and then to secure the means to fulfil such functions. The question, then, is what are a commonwealth's main interests in the development of home activities in historical investigations? Or, in other words, for what services in the life of a commonwealth are historical activities indispensable?

If the contributions of a commonwealth or section to the national life are to be fully recognized accredited records must be preserved, made available, and the annals of the commonwealth brought into relation with the main trends of national development. To the activity of the historical societies of the Middle West is to be mainly attributed the larger place the growth of the West has in our National Story. As historical activity in the Pacific Northwest gets the sources of the history of this section into the hands of the historical scholars the things done on the Lewis and Clark and the Oregon trails and in the development of the institutions of civilization here, will figure more largely in future histories than they have in those of the past. A people is neither true to itself nor true to truth as a whole unless it conserves the sources of its history.

But there is no such thing as perceiving the significance of the facts of local history except through an understanding of the history of the nation and of the world. So organic is the unity of history. To seize upon the really significant in local history and preserve it, the workers in it must be possessed of a comprensive scholarship, and there must be available library facilities through which to apply the power of perceiving the wider and deeper