Sectional or neighborhood coöperation was also highly desirable. The Louisiana Purchase States, those in the Old Northwest, Kentucky and Tennessee, the Middle West, the Mississippi Valley, the Gulf States, the Pacific Coast, the Canadian Northwest, etc., were all of them sections whose societies or departments might profitably get together now and then to discuss historical needs—the sources of documents, the parceling out of possible publications, the discovery of gaps which need to be filled; together with questions of administration, public and private support, museums, lectures, etc.
National cooperation, he thought, was also quite feasible. Methods and ideals might be improved by annual conferences like the present. There might well be a national committee, or possibly a commission charged with this object like the Historical Manuscripts and Public Archives Commissions, seeking to effect a general improvement—not rejecting genealogy, as has sometimes been urged, but seeking to draw a line between that and real historical work, and cordially coöperating, wherever need be, with the genealogical societies. Then, again, we shall find the Library of Congress and the Carnegie Institution eager for our coöperation; indeed, they are already soliciting our suggestions as to work desirable for them to undertake both at home and abroad.
On motion of Mr. Owen, the council of the American Historical Association was unanimously requested to provide for further conferences of state and local historical societies, the chairman and secretary thereof to be appointed by the council, and such officers to provide a programme for at least two meetings at the next session of the national association. Later in the day the council voted that a similar round table of state and local historical societies and departments be held as one of the features of the annual meeting in Baltimore next winter.
