president's address — SECTION E. 360 



accept the opinion of others. The " honors " man in our Univer- 

 sities may make up his owti mind within prescribed limits, these 

 limits being the facts that other men choose to put before them. 

 In the case of Stubbs, Maitland, and Gardiner we believe these facts 

 to be well chosen ; but the essential point is that they are chosen ; 

 and in the best kind of historical work, the work we hope to do one 

 day, and may I think begin even now in a small way, the student 

 makes up his own mind and chooses for himself. 



I believe in the paramount importance of original historical 

 research, because any University that is worthy of the name ought 

 to add something to the stock of the world's know^ledge, not only 

 through its professors and lecturers, but also its picked students. 

 I believe in it, further, because original research developes qualities 

 rare and valuable in the minds of the students which cannot be 

 developed by study in the more elementary stages. We may under- 

 stand what these qualities are by a few observations on the character 

 of the work. 



Instead of the material being at hand and arranged for him, 

 the student has to find it, and blessed is the man who is able to find 

 it without heart-sickness and weariness because of the obstacles 

 placed in his way by red-tape officials and fearful administrators. 

 Sometimes these obstacles may be insuperable ; but in any case the 

 student must have patience, industry, tact and a restrained voca- 

 bulary. Having collected his material his next business is to read 

 until he has a nascent consciousness of the scheme of his subject ; 

 and a sense of proportion which will enable him to distinguish 

 between the important and the trivial, the relevant and irrelevant. 

 Then his reading may proceed more rapidly. Up to this point every 

 fact has importance, beyond it he follows a policy of exclusion. 

 He keeps an open mind concerning facts that may force him to 

 modify his early sense of proportion ; but for all that, the task of 

 arranging his material, of marshalling his facts in accordance with 

 the plan that has been gradually maturing, becomes a necessity. 

 The end is dimly in sight so far as the attainment of what he con- 

 siders truth is concerned, and the back of his work is broken. There 

 remains the constructive work. The argument must be worked up 

 in such a way as to give it artistic merit, and the stamp of indivi- 

 duality : a thesis is not a collection of notes ; it is or should be a 

 unity. 



Here, then, in brief, are some of the advantages of research 

 over the more ordinary courses in general history : instead of 

 finding material ready to hand the student has to find it himself ; 

 instead of having it all arranged by some master mind, he has to 

 evolve a scheme for himself ; instead of accepting another's inter- 

 pretation, he uses the material to supply answers to his own ques- 

 tions, and he ends by putting something before the w^orld which 

 has the impress of his own thought and personality upon it. In all 

 this the student is exercising and developing initiative and self- 

 reliance to such an extent that the character of the work done may 



