Manchester Memoirs, Vol. lix. (191 5), No. 11. 



XI. The Place of Science in History, 

 By Julius MacLeod, D.Sc, /^y 



Professor of Botany in the University of Ghent. * 



Special Lecture, May 4th, 1915. ^w A iiuis*)^ 



( Received for publication May 10th, 1915.) 



Only a few years ago the teaching of history in our 

 schools consisted, for the most part, in an endless enumera- 

 tion of emperors, kings and statesmen, of wars and of 

 battles. We learned by heart the names of the provinces 

 which each sovereign had won or lost after each war, the 

 names of the towns which had been besieged and sacked, 

 and often we were made to learn even incidents of the 

 battlefield, or the means by which victory was gained. 



Such teaching accustomed us to think of the map of 

 Europe as a huge chess board, upon which, throughout 

 the ages, kings have played, urged only by their ambition 

 to dispute the heritage of their parents, to divide their 

 possessions to dower their children, and to deprive their 

 subjects of life and goods, whilst they, the subjects them- 

 selves, seemed to have no other part to play than to furnish 

 their sovereigns with soldiers and money. 



In the same way we learned of many civil struggles, 

 and the contending factions always seemed to us like 

 armies, each army fighting to defend the interests of its 

 leaders. 



Such teaching resulted in an incomplete, and in many 

 cases, main inexact idea of history. 



But for some years the methods employed in the 



August jist, 1915. 



