Why they ever got into the habit remains to me and to every Philadelphian a problem. Some think it was because the rest of the country depreciated them; some attribute it to Quaker influence, though how and why they cannot say; and some see in it the result of the Philadelpliia exclusiveness that reduces the social life of Philadelphia to one small group in one small section of the town so that it is as small as village life, and has the village love of scandal, the village preoccupation with petty gossip, the little things at the front door blotting out the big things beyond. A more plausible reason is that Philadelphians were so innately sure of themselves—so sure that Philadelphia was the town and Philadelphians the aristocracy of the world—that they could afford to be indifferent. But whatever the cause, this indifference, this depreciation, was worse than a blunder, it was a loss in a town with a past so well worth looking into and being proud of and taking care of.
A few Philadelphians had interested themselves in their past, otherwise the Historical Society would not have existed, but they were distressingly few. I can honestly say that up to the time of the Centennial it had never entered into my mind that the past in Philadelphia had a value for every Philadelphian and that it was every Philadelphian's duty to help preserve any record that might survive of it—that the State House, the old churches, the old streets where I took my daily walks were a possession Philadelphia should do its best not to part with—and I
