The Study of History [pp. 427-434]

EDUCATIONAL
DEPARTMENT.
THE STUDY OF HISTORY.
AN A)DRDSS TO PREPARATORY STUDEFNTS.
HAT is the use of studying
L1 D ~ history? is in some re'/ XI~ ~ spects a difficult question
to answer; for, behind it
lies the larger question,
What is the use of study ing anything? I remember that a Yale student once said that
college would be a very nice place, were
it not for the religious and literary exercises. I think there are a good many
boys who have something of this feeling,
and who regard all studies as a useless
interruption to fun. There is no time
now to enter upon the solution of this
larger question, and we shall have to
take it for granted that there is some use
in study. If we start with this assumption, I do not think we shall find it hard
to make out a good case for history as
compared with other branches of human
knowledge.
When I was a school boy we were not
consulted as to what we should study,
nor was it ever explained to us why we
should study any particular thing. We
were told to study certain things, Latin,
Greek, and mathematics, mainly, and we
had to study them or take the consequences.
The theory had not then arisen that a
boy was so much wiser than any one
else, that he alone could be trusted to determine what studies were good for him.
There is something to be said in favor of
the old method, but I think that it would
have been well, if our teachers had taken
the trouble to let us know why we were
set to study Latin, Greek, and mathe 427
matics. A suspicion early arose in my
mind that they did not know themselves,
and this suspicion has never been wholly
eradicated.
I fear that a great many school boys
find the study of history very uninteresting. This is odd. Most boys like stories
and like to believe them true. History
is a story, and is as nearly true as any
story can be. The difficulty which there
is in following it is due to the fact that it
is a very complicated story. It is always
being "continued in our next," and it is
somewhat hard to grasp the connections
between the various parts. It is like
some of those stories in the Arabian
Nights, which are made up of a series of
lesser stories. You will remember that
in these tales, as any new person appears
upon the scene, a new story is begun to
explain who he is and how he happens to
turn up at this particular moment, and to
mingle in the main line of the narrative.
In following out these minor tales, we are
apt to forget the main one, and when we
come back to it, it is with a confusion of
mind as to the exact connection, which
compels us to turn back the pages to the
point of departure. It is very much the
same with history. The great story of
human progress is woven out of innumerable episodes, the lives of men and nations and ideas. As we follow these
episodes they are so interesting,'that
they are apt to absorb us wholly, and
make it hard for the mind to grasp the
unbroken current of the world's onward
sweep.
Indeed, it is not possible for the begin