Essays on the Teaching of History, Volume 1

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University Press, 1901 - 104 pages
 

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Page vii - LL.D., Downing Professor of the Laws of England in the University of Cambridge.
Page xiv - As to the wretched middle ages, they, it was well understood, had been turned over to " men of a low, unpolite genius fit only for the rough and barbarick part of learning." One of these mere antiquaries had lately written a History of the Exchequer which has worn better than most books of its time. Also he had written this sentence: "In truth, writing this history is in some sort a religious act.
Page 54 - Gods name leave off our attempts against the Terra firma. The natural Situation of Islands seems not to sort with Conquests in that Kind. England alone is a just Empire. Or when we would enlarge ourselves let it be that way we can, and to which it seems the eternal Providence hath destined us, which is by Sea.
Page xiii - ... its none too simple history was not so common in England as it might reasonably be expected to be in all parts of His Majesty's dominions. Also it is not impossible that a prince of that house which had Leibnitz for its historiographer may have thought that such historiographers as England could show hardly reached a creditable standard. So he founded professorships of modern history at Oxford and Cambridge (1724). Out of the stipends that were assigned to them the professors were to provide...
Page 26 - Roman method by kalends, nones, and ides, or else in the modern way from the first onwards. But there are peculiar systems, that of Bologna and the Cisiojanus, which require to be mastered separately.
Page 41 - We must throw overboard the most mischievous and untrue statement that, according to the classical economists, 'it was only on the assumption of free competition that their principles and terminology could apply, or that, as they held, any economic science was possible'
Page 54 - ... the subject was deposited in three sacred volumes, which were approached by the devout disciple in much the same spirit as that in which the youthful Brahmin draws near to the Vedas. To read the first volume of Stubbs was necessary to salvation ; to read the second was greatly to be desired ; the third was reserved for the ambitious student who sought to accumulate merit by unnatural austerities — but between them they covered the whole ground. The lecturer lectured on Stubbs ; the commentator...
Page xix - ... Atlantic. More co-operation, more organisation, more and better criticism, more advice for beginners are needed. And the need if not met will increase. History is lengthening and widening and deepening. It is lengthening at both ends, for while modern states in many parts of the globe are making new history at a bewilderingly rapid rate, what used to be called ancient history is no longer by any means the ancientest : Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, and even primeval man are upon our hands. And history...
Page xix - To make Gibbons or Macaulays may be impossible : but it cannot be beyond the power of able teachers to set in the right path many of those who, say what we will, are going to write history well or are going to write it ill. Unquestionably of late years an improvement has taken place in England ; but still it is not altogether pleasant to compare English books of what we will again call departmental or sectional history with the parallel books that come to us from abroad. When the English Historical...
Page 53 - Wherfore on the iii. day, the quene made a great banket to the kyng, and all them that had Justed : And after the banket done, she gave the chefe price to the kyng, the ii.

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