Lively or exciting stories are so interesting that we are inclined to
read too many of them, and to read them too carelessly. By so doing, we
fail to get the highest pleasure reading can give, and never receive the
great benefit that is ours for the taking. If we let our arms rest idle
for a long time, they become weak and useless; if a boy takes no
exercise he cannot expect to be a strong man. So, if he reads nothing
that makes him exert his mind, he becomes a weakling in intellect and
never feels the pure delight that the man has who can read in a
masterful way a masterly selection.
As a matter of fact, history when well written is as fascinating as any
story that ever was penned, and it has the merit of being true.
Sometimes it is a little harder to read than the light things that are
so numerously given us by magazines and story books, but no one shuns
hard work where it yields pleasure. A boy will play football or tramp
all day with a gun over his shoulder, and not think twice about the hard
work he is doing. Reading history bears about the same relation to
reading mild love stories and overdrawn adventures that football or
skating bears to stringing beads.
Not all history is hard to read; in some of it the interest lies so
close to the surface that it grips us with the first glance. Such is the
kind we read in the beginning. The adventures of King Arthur, the Cid,
Robin Hood, and other half mythical heroes are history in the
making--the history that grew up when the world was young, and its great
men were something like overgrown boys. That is why we who have boyish
hearts like to read about them. Then Robert the Bruce, Caesar and
Alexander are more like the men of to-day and appeal a little more
strongly as we get more mature. And finally we have Washington, Lincoln,
Lee and Grant as men nearer our own time, whose lives and deeds require
our careful thought and our serious study, because they had to contend
with the same things and overcome the same obstacles that confront us.
There is really no use in trying to tell just how and in what way
history becomes interesting, and nobody cares to read a long article
about history. What we older people would wish is merely this: that our
young friends should begin to read history and so find out for
themselves just how fascinating it is. We can perhaps give a word or two
of warning that may save much hard work and many discouragements.
Macaulay, Gibbon, Hume and others are great men, and in the tomes they
have written are pages of exciting, stimulating narrative; yet one must
read so many pages of heavy matter to find the interesting things that
it is not worth the time and exertion a young person would need to give.
On the other hand, there are writers like Parkman and Prescott who are
always readable and entertaining.
The best way to learn to like history is to begin with such readable
things as are put into these volumes, and then follow any line of
interest that is discovered.
Franklin's description of Braddock's defeat is interesting in itself,
and it calls attention to the French and Indian War and to the wonderful
career of Franklin himself. These are lines of interest that you may
follow out in histories or in works of reference.