and elsewhere to find the answers, and each year as the emphasis
changes new data will be wanted. A summary of its early period
should provide full answers to all factual questions about the Hall
of Records. In addition it should prove useful to succeeding members
of the Hall of Records Commission who are not especially appointed
but who serve ex-officio and may not therefore be thoroughly ac-
quainted at first with the history and functions of the institution
they are required to govern. It will also, of course, be useful to fu-
ture archivists of Maryland and members of the staff of the Hall of
Records.

The printed Annual Reports of the Archivist, listing, as they
are bound to do, the accomplishments of single years, cannot con-
sider the events of the first four years and as a result neglect alto-
gether the work of Dr. Robertson and his staff. Judge Carroll T.
Bond once wrote to Governor Harry W. Nice that it was supremely
important to begin the work of the Hall of Records as solidly as
possible. If that were done, the future, he thought, would be as-
sured. It is important for us, therefore, as well as for those in the
future who may have some interest in the matter, to know what
that solid foundation was. It is also just that credit should be given
where it is deserved.

The materials for this account are almost entirely in manu-
script form: the Annual Reports of the Archivist, the Minutes of
the Hall of Records Commission, the Minutes of the Tercentenary
Commission, the papers of Governors Ritchie and Nice, the scrap-
book of the Hall of Records. There is little word-of-mouth informa-
tion because of the original Commission no one is still a member,
and only two are still alive. Of the original staff not one remains at
the Hall of Records. Therefore, all that was not recorded cannot
now be known—there is in this an obvious moral for archivists—
and cannot be included in this sketch. It would have been conven-
ient had the first four annual reports been prepared so that they
might have been published without alteration at a later date, but
this unfortunately was not the case. They are of a confidential na-
ture and they are organized for the most part around individual
members of the staff rather than around the tasks accomplished and
projected.

The form of this report will be that of the printed reports. For
example, under "Hall of Records Commission" the original members