The Three Edwards.
Bannockburn.
Famine in England.
The Hundred Years’ War begins.
Battle of Crecy.
The Black Death (Plague).
Battle of Poictiers.
Bolingbroke dethrones Richard II.
Froissart’s Chronicle.
Wallace and Bruce. Dante. John of Gaunt. Rienzi. Van Artevelde.
Wickliffe. Huss. Boccaccio. Petrarch. William Tell.
It will, if what we have tried to describe has conveyed its intended
meaning, be seen that an observer passing slowly down the length of
the room, may appreciate at a glance the relative position of the
principal events in the world’s history. He can hardly avoid noticing,
with fair accuracy, the distance between Homer and Socrates, between
Socrates and Paul, and between the Christian epoch and the times of
Milton and Shakespeare. He will be impressed at once, as, possibly,
he never was before, with a perception of the brief and very recent
portion of time which contains the whole of the annals of our own
nation. If, in addition to thus obtaining a sort of bird’s-eye view
of the progress of the world, it is desired to go into detail and
devote time to the enquiry, a certain amount of help will be found
to have been provided on the table-shelf. Detailed schedules taken
from the “The Centuries” (see advertisement) have been mounted on
board conveniently for hand use, and are placed on the table-shelf at
the foot of each century. A few books of reference in biography and
history, and numerous maps, have also been suitably placed, and there
are chairs.
The “Historical Schedule” described takes up, as we have said, the
whole of one side of the long room. The other side of it, as well
as much of the floor-space, is occupied by somewhat miscellaneous
illustrations of prehistoric times, and of nations and races which
have not as yet attained to history. The anthropoids, anthropology
and ethnology in general here find illustration, in large part, but
not wholly, by pictorial aid. We have also a few interesting objects
suitable, as illustrating social progress, for what is now known as a
Folk-Museum.
It is believed that this department of the Museum offers special
facilities to teachers, who bring their classes into it and give
explanations on the spot, and that by enabling the pupil to obtain a
wide purview of historical times, it may do somewhat to obviate the
inevitably cramping influence of the too detailed study of single
epochs.
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