Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 3.

[p. 127] and currents of strength and power in the family is a task that does not present itself to them. A dead array of names and dates is the ultima Thule of their genealogical ambition. It is as though a man considered his fence built when the holes were dug for the posts.

Vermonters are justly proud of the part played by their troops at Gettysburg. The writer of this article once met among the Vermont hills a youth who could recount in considerable detail the movements, organization, and record of one of the Vermont regiments in that battle, but he did not understand the significance of Gettysburg in the Civil war; he barely knew the nature of the war. He had heard over and over the record of the Vermonters at Gettysburg from one or two veterans who had gone from his town. It had never occurred to him that there was anything else to it. History was a blank to him, except as it concerned his own community, by the limits of which his vision of the world was bounded. But how small from that point of view were the grand deeds of Stannard's heroes! To know Gettysburg that youth needed to know the war; to know the war he must know the long political and constitutional struggle and the social and economic developments that made the war inevitable; behind that he must find the sources of AngloAmeri-can life in the colonies, in England, in Europe. That superb stand against Pickett in the bloody angle was an episode in the history of a great race and a great struggle, but as that young Vermonter saw it the scene dwindled to a mere brutal encounter between armed men. There is no break in historic continuity, and even local historical societies must keep the whole in view. This is not to say that they should undertake studies in general history, but that their work must be directed with constant reference to broader human relationships than those of the community. The community is like a plant whose roots are imbedded in and draw their life from the deep soil out of which comes