Host) Writer, educator and commentator Frank Bryan has been thinking about the life and legacy of the late Vermont Historian, Sam Hand.

(Bryan) Aldous Huxley wrote "Historians are the original creators of our common humanity" . Others call historians "the guardians of our collective memory"

Recently, with the death of Professor Sam Hand, Vermont lost a leading guardian of our memory and humanity. This loss is especially sad for Vermonters because Vermont is one of the few states left in America that is a truly democratic polity - a place where behavior and governance are joined at the human scale.

Professor Hand's contributions bespeak the character of the model teacher-scholar. They can be summarized by three brief examples....