180 ROBINSON— THE NEW HISTORY. [April 22, 



school is a series of dramas in each of which a few great men per- 

 form the leading parts and use the rest of mankind as their instru- 

 ments."^ The commonly accepted definition of history was long, 

 " a record of past events " and these, naturally, the most startling 

 and romantic and the best adapted for efifective literary presentation. 

 Dovibtless there was some serious effort to describe conditions and 

 institutions, since they formed the necessary setting for the events 

 and anecdotes ; sometimes they would even be assigned a place on 

 their own intrinsic merits ; but what may be called the epic ideal of 

 history prevailed until perhaps fifty or sixty years ago when, owing 

 to the influence of the modern scientific spirit, a very fundamental 

 revolution became apparent. 



Now let us review, by way of preliminary, what were deemed 

 the advantages of the study of history of this older type. Lord 

 Bolingbroke in his " Letters on the Study of History," written about 

 1737, says: ''An application to any study that tends neither to make 

 us better men and better citizens, is at best but a specious and in- 

 genious sort of idleness; . . . and the knowledge we acquire by it is 

 a creditable kind of ignorance, nothing more. This creditable kind 

 of ignorance is, in my opinion, the whole benefit which the generality 

 of men, even the most learned, reap from the study of history : and 

 vet the study of history seems to me of all others the most proper to 

 train us up to private and public virtue." History, he quite prop- 

 erly says, is read by most people as a form of amusement, as they 

 might play at cards. Some devote themselves to history in order 

 to adorn their conversation with historical allusions, — and the argu- 

 ment is still current that one should know enough of the past to 

 understand literary references to' noteworthy events and persons. 

 The less imaginative scholar, Bolingbroke complains, satisfies him- 

 self with making fair copies of foul manuscripts and explaining hard 

 words for the benefit of others, or with constructing more or less 

 fantastic chronologies based upon very insecure data. Over against 

 these Bolingbroke places those who have perceived that history is 

 after all only "philosophy teaching by example." For "the exam- 



' " The Present State of Historical Writing in America," reprinted from 

 the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society for October, 1910; 

 Worcester, 1910, p. 18. 



