The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 33, July 1929 - April, 1930 Page: 15

The Beginnings of the State Historical Association

installment of that fatal .Diplomatic Correspondence, for the July
QUARTERLY, superintended, as usual, the final preparations for the
issuance of that number, and then, a few days later, was gone, cut
down in his prime, and literally dying in harness-what we might
call the harness of the cause of the history of Texas. The July
QUARTERLY was the last number to carry his name on its cover.
Three succeeding numbers came out with that sad blank, after
which it was filled by the name of one of the associate editors, Dr.
Barker.
After Dr. Garrison's death, I ceased to be in close touch with
the progress of Association affairs and had no longer an intimate
knowledge of what was going on. The cover and inside pages of
TIHE QUARTERLY show from time to time new names blossoming
,out into our record, but as what I know of them did not come to
me through personal experience, and is therefore second-hand
information rather than what I have been trying to give you this
evening as first-hand, I leave the story of service connected with
those names to those who come after me.
But though I thus, in 1910, ceased to be of the inner circle and
may not offer further information from that point of view, I have
nevertheless a later estimate of the work to give, which, like all
that I have so far offered, is from personal experience. For after
several years of separation from intimate knowledge of the course of
Association events, I have come again into closer relation to it from
an entirely different angle, that of one observing from the outside
instead of from the inside, of one who is a beneficiary of its
activities instead of a contributor to them. And in that position
I get a demonstration of the value of what has been accomplished
during those thirty-one years of our existence possible to but few.
In making investigations into the earliest history of Austin and
the surrounding region of Central Texas, I am filled with wonder
at the immense wealth of material now accumulated in the Archives
Department of the University, and even more so at the availability
of it all. And here again personal experience helps to guide my
estimate, for as a member of one of the first women's clubs in our
State to turn its attention to the study of Texas history, I am able
to contrast the paucity of historic material to be found thirty-five
years ago with what we find now and also to compare the facility