THE NEW HISTORY. 



Bv JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON. 

 {Read April 22, 1911.) 



I propose to discuss in this paper the vakie of historical study. 

 The question has long haunted me and certainly merits a more care- 

 ful consideration than it has, so far as I can discover, hitherto re- 

 ceived. It will be impossible to do more here than to analyze the 

 problem and briefly state the general conclusions which that analysis 

 suggests. 



The older traditional type of historical writing was narrative in 

 character. Its chief aim was to tell a tale or story by setting forth a 

 succession of events and introducing the prominent actors who par- 

 ticipated in them. It was a branch of polite literature, competing 

 with the drama and fiction, from which, indeed, it differed often 

 only in the limitations which the writer was supposed to place upon 

 his fancy. As Professor .McAlaster has recently said: "It was by 

 no mere accident that ]\Iotley began his literary career with a novel 

 called " Merry-Mount," and Parkman his with " Vassall Morton.'' 

 These bespoke their type of mind. The things that would interest 

 them in history would be, not the great masses of toiling men, not the 

 silent revolutions by which nations pass from barbarism to civiliza- 

 tion, from ignorance to knowledge, from poverty to wealth, from 

 feebleness to power, but the striking figures of history, great kings and 

 queens, the leaders of armies, men renowned for statescraft, and the 

 dramatic incidents in the life of nations. Each must have his hero 

 and his villain, his plots, conspiracies and bloody wars. Just as 

 Froude had his Henry VIII. ; just as ]Macaulay had his William HI., 

 Carlyle his Robespierre and Cromwell, and Thiers his Xapoleon, so 

 Motley had his William of Orange and Philip of Spain ; Prescott 

 his Cortez, Pizarro, Ferdinand and Isabella ; and Parkman his Pon- 

 tiac, Frontenac and La Salle. History as viewed by writers of this 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC., 1., I99 L, PRINTED JUNE 27, I9II. 



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