Teggart, Frederick J(ohn).in full Frederick John Teggart  ( born
May 9, 1870 , Belfast, County Antrim, Ire.—died Oct. 12, 1946
, Berkeley, Calif., U.S. )  Irish-born American historian who
sought to apply scientific method to social and historical
inquiry.  Teggart studied at Methodist College, Belfast, and
Trinity College, Dublin; went to the United States in 1889; and
studied at Stanford University (B.A., 1894). He taught history
and political science at the University of California, Berkeley,
and in 1919 founded the department of social institutions,
remaining chairman until 1940. He explored social and historical
theory in his first major works, Prolegomena to History (1916)
and Theory of History (1925).  As a historian, Teggart sought,
in the manner of a scientist, to relate isolated historical
phenomena (datable events) to a general class of phenomena by
means of comparison. In two works, The Processes of History
(1918) and Rome and China (1939), he demonstrated correlations
between datable events occur