6 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



extent, still is. To use Macaulay's words in one of his ballads, much 

 popular history is little more than "a nurse's tale." 



This has been a fruitful source of error and misrepresentation. 



"For the study of history," said Charles Francis Adams in an 

 address to the Massachusetts Historical Society, "there should be 

 but one law for all. Patriotism, piety, and filial duty have nothing 

 to do with it; they are, indeed, mere snares and sources of delusion. 

 The rules and canons of criticism applied in one case and to one 

 character must be sternly and scrupulously applied in all other similar 

 cases and to all other characters; and while surrounding circum- 

 stances should, and, indeed, must be taken into careful consideration, 

 they must be taken into equal consideration, no matter who is con- 

 cerned. Patriotism in the' study of history is but another name for 

 provincialism. To see history truly and correcth% it must be viewed 

 as a whole." 



This is surely sound doctrine, and it may be remarked that 

 nowhere had the " filio-pietistic method" of dealing with history 

 taken firmer root or flourished more vigorously than in Massa- 

 chusetts. 



John Fiske, another son of New England, in a foot-note to his 

 "Discovery of America," referring to the manner in which some 

 discreditable event had been ignored by a Spanish chronicler, remarks 

 with a touch of sarcasm: "That is the way history has too often 

 been written. With most people it is only a kind of ancestor-worship. 

 What may be called the Cosmopolitan school of history is, perhaps, 

 a thing yet to be developed; for the fact is, our histories are all 

 Catholic or Protestant — European or American — English, French, 

 Spanish or German — Whig or Tory — Federalist, Democrat, or 

 Republican. The historian invariably scrutinizes the record through 

 eyes jaundiced by faith, or patriotism, or filial affection, or partizan 

 zeal; and he is even lauded for doing so. He dilates on the blood- 

 sealed devotion of the martyrs to the faith he professes, and the 

 valour of the soldiers and sailors of the land of his birth ; he execrates 

 those who oppressed the one, and depreciates those who fought 

 against the other . . . Ancestor- worship is the rule." 



The conquered race, the beaten party, the lost cause seldom 

 receives fair play and rarely has been given a hearing. Hannibal's 

 own story or an account of his campaign in Italy by Brennus would 

 probably throw some new light on Roman history. 



The real actions of some remarkable persons in the past have 

 been almost forgotten because their names have become inseparably 



