Called on at the last moment, owing to the illness of Mr. Eggleston, to
take the place of one whose absence can never be fully compensated, I
present to you a paper on the writing of history. It is in a way a
continuance of my inaugural address before this association one year
ago, and despite the continuity of the thought I have endeavored to
treat the same subject from a different point of view. While going over
the same ground and drawing my lessons from the same historians, it is
new matter so far as I have had the honor to present it to the American
Historical Association.
A historian, to make a mark, must show some originality somewhere in his
work. The originality may be in a method of investigation; it may be in
the use of some hitherto inaccessible or unprinted material; it may be
in the employment of some sources of information open to everybody, but
not before used, or it may be in a fresh combination of well-known and
well-elaborated facts. It is this last-named feature that leads Mr.
Winsor to say, in speaking of the different views that may be honestly
maintained from working over the same material, "The study of history is
perennial." I think I can make my meaning clearer as to the originality
one should try to infuse into historical work by drawing an illustration
from the advice of a literary man as to the art of writing. Charles
Dudley Warner once said to me, "Every one who writes should have
something to add to the world's stock of knowledge or literary
expression. If he falls unconsciously into imitation or quotation, he
takes away from his originality. No matter if some great writer has
expressed the thought in better language than you can use, if you take
his words you detract from your own originality. Express your thought
feebly in your own way rather than with strength by borrowing the words
of another."
This same principle in the art of authorship may be applied to the art
of writing history. "Follow your own star," said Emerson, "and it will
lead you to that which none other can attain. Imitation is suicide. You
must take yourself for better or worse as your own portion." Any one who
is bent upon writing history, may be sure that there is in him some
originality, that he can add something to the knowledge of some period.
Let him give himself to meditation, to searching out what epoch and what
kind of treatment of that epoch is best adapted to his powers and to his
training. I mean not only the collegiate training, but the sort of
training one gets consciously or unconsciously from the very
circumstances of one's life. In the persistence of thinking, his subject
will flash upon him. Parkman, said Lowell, showed genius in the choice
of his subject. The recent biography of Parkman emphasizes the idea
which we get from his works--that only a man who lived in the virgin
forests of this country and loved them, and who had traveled in the far
West as a pioneer, with Indians for companions, could have done that
work. Parkman's experience cannot be had by any one again, and he
brought to bear the wealth of it in that fifty years' occupation of his.
Critics of exact knowledge--such as Justin Winsor, for instance--find
limitations in Parkman's books that may impair the permanence of his
fame, but I suspect that his is the only work in American history that
cannot and will not be written over again. The reason of it is that he
had a unique life which has permeated his narrative, giving it the stamp
of originality. No man whose training had been gained wholly in the best
schools of Germany, France, or England could have written those books. A
training racy of the soil was needed. "A practical knowledge," wrote
Niebuhr, "must support historical jurisprudence, and if any one has got
that he can easily master all scholastic speculations." A man's
knowledge of everyday life in some way fits him for a certain field of
historical study--in that field lies success. In seeking a period, no
American need confine himself to his own country. "European history for
Americans," said Motley, "has to be almost entirely rewritten."
I shall touch upon only two of the headings of historical originality
which I have mentioned. The first that I shall speak of is the
employment of some sources of information open to everybody, but not
before used. A significant case of this in American history is the use
which Doctor von Holst made of newspaper material. _Niles's Register_, a
lot of newspaper cuttings, as well as speeches and state papers in a
compact form, had, of course, been referred to by many writers who dealt
with the period they covered, but in the part of his history covering
the ten years from 1850 to 1860 von Holst made an extensive and varied
employment of newspapers by studying the newspaper files themselves. As
the aim of history is truth, and as newspapers fail sadly in accuracy,
it is not surprising that many historical students believe that the
examination of newspapers for any given period will not pay for the
labor and drudgery involved; but the fact that a trained German
historical scholar and teacher at a German university should have found
some truth in our newspaper files when he came to write the history of
our own country, gives to their use for that period the seal of
scientific approval. Doctor von Holst used this material with pertinence
and effect; his touch was nice. I used to wonder at his knowledge of the
newspaper world, of the men who made and wrote our journals, until he
told me that when he first came to this country one of his methods in
gaining a knowledge of English was to read the advertisements in the
newspapers. Reflection will show one what a picture of the life of a
people this must be, in addition to the news columns.
No one, of course, will go to newspapers for facts if he can find those
facts in better-attested documents. The haste with which the daily
records of the world's doings are made up precludes sifting and
revision. Yet in the decade between 1850 and 1860 you will find facts in
the newspapers which are nowhere else set down. Public men of commanding
position were fond of writing letters to the journals with a view to
influencing public sentiment. These letters in the newspapers are as
valuable historical material as if they were carefully collected,
edited, and published in the form of books. Speeches were made which
must be read, and which will be found nowhere but in the journals. The
immortal debates of Lincoln and Douglas in 1858 were never put into a
book until 1860, existing previously only in newspaper print. Newspapers
are sometimes important in fixing a date and in establishing the
whereabouts of a man. If, for example, a writer draws a fruitful
inference from the alleged fact that President Lincoln went to see Edwin
Booth play Hamlet in Washington in February, 1863, and if one finds by a
consultation of the newspaper theatrical advertisements that Edwin Booth
did not visit Washington during that month, the significance of the
inference is destroyed. Lincoln paid General Scott a memorable visit at
West Point in June, 1862. You may, if I remember correctly, search the
books in vain to get at the exact date of this visit; but turn to the
newspaper files and you find that the President left Washington at such
an hour on such a day, arrived at Jersey City at a stated time, and made
the transfer to the other railroad which took him to the station
opposite West Point. The time of his leaving West Point and the hour of
his return to Washington are also given.
The value of newspapers as an indication of public sentiment is
sometimes questioned, but it can hardly be doubted that the average man
will read the newspaper with the sentiments of which he agrees. "I
inquired about newspaper opinion," said Joseph Chamberlain in the House
of Commons last May. "I knew no other way of getting at popular
opinion." During the years between 1854 and 1860 the daily journals were
a pretty good reflection of public sentiment in the United States.
Wherever, for instance, you found the _New York Weekly Tribune_ largely
read, Republican majorities were sure to be had when election day came.
For fact and for opinion, if you knew the contributors, statements and
editorials by them were entitled to as much weight as similar public
expressions in any other form. You get to know Greeley and you learn to
recognize his style. Now, an editorial from him is proper historical
material, taking into account always the circumstances under which he
wrote. The same may be said of Dana and of Hildreth, both editorial
writers for the _Tribune_, and of the Washington despatches of J. S.
Pike. It is interesting to compare the public letters of Greeley to the
_Tribune_ from Washington in 1856 with his private letters written at
the same time to Dana. There are no misstatements in the public letters,
but there is a suppression of the truth. The explanations in the private
correspondence are clearer, and you need them to know fully how affairs
looked in Washington to Greeley at the time; but this fact by no means
detracts from the value of the public letters as historical material. I
have found newspapers of greater value both for fact and opinion during
the decade of 1850 to 1860 than for the period of the Civil War. A
comparison of the newspaper accounts of battles with the history of them
which may be drawn from the correspondence and reports in the Official
Records of the War of the Rebellion will show how inaccurate and
misleading was the war correspondence of the daily journals. It could
not well be otherwise. The correspondent was obliged in haste to write
the story of a battle of which he saw but a small section, and instead
of telling the little part which he knew actually, he had to give to a
public greedy for news a complete survey of the whole battlefield. This
story was too often colored by his liking or aversion for the generals
in command. A study of the confidential historical material of the Civil
War, apart from the military operations, in comparison with the
journalistic accounts, gives one a higher idea of the accuracy and
shrewdness of the newspaper correspondents. Few important things were
brewing at Washington of which they did not get an inkling. But I always
like to think of two signal exceptions. Nothing ever leaked out in
regard to the famous "Thoughts for the President's consideration," which
Seward submitted to Lincoln in March, 1861, and only very incorrect
guesses of the President's first emancipation proclamation, brought
before his Cabinet in July, 1862, got into newspaper print.
Beware of hasty, strained, and imperfect generalizations. A historian
should always remember that he is a sort of trustee for his readers. No
matter how copious may be his notes, he cannot fully explain his
processes or the reason of his confidence in one witness and not in
another, his belief in one honest man against a half dozen untrustworthy
men, without such prolixity as to make a general history unreadable.
Now, in this position as trustee he is bound to assert nothing for which
he has not evidence, as much as an executor of a will or the trustee for
widows and orphans is obligated to render a correct account of the
moneys in his possession. For this reason Grote has said, "An historian
is bound to produce the materials upon which he builds, be they never so
fantastic, absurd, or incredible." Hence the necessity for footnotes.
While mere illustrative and interesting footnotes are perhaps to be
avoided, on account of their redundancy, those which give authority for
the statements in the text can never be in excess. Many good histories
have undoubtedly been published where the authors have not printed their
footnotes; but they must have had, nevertheless, precise records for
their authorities. The advantage and necessity of printing the notes is
that you furnish your critic an opportunity of finding you out if you
have mistaken or strained your authorities. Bancroft's example is
peculiar. In his earlier volumes he used footnotes, but in volume vii he
changed his plan and omitted notes, whether of reference or explanation.
Nor do you find them in either of his carefully revised editions. "This
is done," Bancroft wrote in the preface to his seventh volume, "not from
an unwillingness to subject every statement of fact, even in its
minutest details, to the severest scrutiny; but from the variety and the
multitude of the papers which have been used and which could not be
intelligently cited without a disproportionate commentary." Again,
Blaine's "Twenty Years of Congress," a work which, properly weighed, is
not without historical value, is only to be read with great care on
account of his hasty and inaccurate generalizations. There are evidences
of good, honest labor in those two volumes, much of which must have been
done by himself. There is an aim at truth and impartiality, but many of
his general statements will seem, to any one who has gone over the
original material, to rest on a slight basis. If Blaine had felt the
necessity of giving authorities in a footnote for every statement about
which there might have been a question, he certainly would have written
an entirely different sort of a book.
My other head is the originality which comes from a fresh combination of
known historical facts.
I do not now call to mind any more notable chapter which illustrates
this than the chapter of Curtius, "The years of peace." One is perhaps
better adapted for the keen enjoyment of it if he does not know the
original material, for his suspicion that some of the inferences are
strained and unwarranted might become a certainty. But accepting it as a
mature and honest elaboration by one of the greatest historians of
Greece of our day, it is a sample of the vivifying of dry bones and of a
dovetailing of facts and ideas that makes a narrative to charm and
instruct. You feel that the spirit of that age we all like to think and
dream about is there, and if you have been so fortunate as to visit the
Athens of to-day, that chapter, so great is the author's constructive
imagination, carries you back and makes you for the moment live in the
Athens of Pericles, of Sophocles, of Phidias and Herodotus.
With the abundance of materials for modern history, and, for that
reason, our tendency to diffuseness, nothing is so important as a
thorough acquaintance with the best classic models, such as Herodotus,
Thucydides, and Tacitus. In Herodotus you have an example of an
interesting story with the unity of the narrative well sustained in
spite of certain unnecessary digressions. His book is obviously a life
work and the work of a man who had an extensive knowledge gained by
reading, social intercourse, and travel, and who brought his knowledge
to bear upon his chosen task. That the history is interesting all admit,
but in different periods of criticism stress is sometimes laid on the
untrustworthy character of the narrative, with the result that there has
been danger of striking Herodotus from the list of historical models;
but such is the merit of his work that the Herodotus cult again revives,
and, I take it, is now at its height. I received, six years ago, while
in Egypt, a vivid impression of him whom we used to style the Father of
History. Spending one day at the great Pyramids, when, after I had
satisfied my first curiosity, after I had filled my eyes and mind with
the novelty of the spectacle, I found nothing so gratifying to the
historic sense as to gaze on those most wonderful monuments of human
industry, constructed certainly 5000 years ago, and to read at the same
time the account that Herodotus gave of his visit there about 2350 years
before the date of my own. That same night I read in a modern and garish
Cairo hotel the current number of the _London Times_. In it was an
account of an annual meeting of the Royal Historical Society and a
report of a formal and carefully prepared address of its president,
whose subject was "Herodotus," whose aim was to point out the value of
the Greek writer as a model to modern historians. The _Times_, for the
moment laying aside its habitual attack on the then Liberal government,
devoted its main leader to Herodotus--to his merits and the lessons he
conveyed to the European writers. The article was a remarkable blending
of scholarship and good sense, and I ended the day with the reflection
of what a space in the world's history Herodotus filled, himself
describing the work of twenty-six hundred years before his own time and
being dilated on in 1894 by one of the most modern of nineteenth-century
newspapers.
It is generally agreed, I think, that Thucydides is first in order of
time of philosophic historians, but it does not seem to me that we have
most to learn from him in the philosophic quality. The tracing of cause
and effect, the orderly sequence of events, is certainly better
developed by moderns than it has been by ancients. The influence of
Darwin and the support and proof which he gives to the doctrine of
evolution furnish a training of thought which was impossible to the
ancients; but Thucydides has digested his material and compressed his
narrative without taking the life out of his story in a manner to make
us despair, and this does not, I take it, come from paucity of
materials. A test which I began to make as a study in style has helped
me in estimating the solidity of a writer. Washington Irving formed his
style by reading attentively from time to time a page of Addison and
then, closing the book, endeavored to write out the same ideas in his
own words. In this way his style became assimilated to that of the great
English essayist. I have tried the same mode with several writers. I
found that the plan succeeded with Macaulay and with Lecky. I tried it
again and again with Shakespeare and Hawthorne, but if I succeeded in
writing out the paragraph I found that it was because I memorized their
very words. To write out their ideas in my own language I found
impossible. I have had the same result with Thucydides in trying to do
this with his description of the plague in Athens. Now, I reason from
this in the case of Shakespeare and Thucydides that their thought was so
concise they themselves got rid of all redundancies; hence to effect the
reproduction of their ideas in any but their own language is practically
impossible.
It is related of Macaulay somewhere in his "Life and Letters," that in a
moment of despair, when he instituted a comparison between his
manuscript and the work of Thucydides, he thought of throwing his into
the fire. I suspect that Macaulay had not the knack of discarding
material on which he had spent time and effort, seeing how easily such
events glowed under his graphic pen. This is one reason why he is prolix
in the last three volumes. The first two, which begin with the famous
introductory chapter and continue the story through the revolution of
1688 to the accession of William and Mary, seem to me models of
historical composition so far as arrangement, orderly method, and
liveliness of narration go. Another defect of Macaulay is that, while he
was an omnivorous reader and had a prodigious memory, he was not given
to long-continued and profound reflection. He read and rehearsed his
reading in memory, but he did not give himself to "deep, abstract
meditation" and did not surrender himself to "the fruitful leisures of
the spirit." Take this instance of Macaulay's account of a journey: "The
express train reached Hollyhead about 7 in the evening. I read between
London and Bangor the lives of the emperors from Maximin to Carinus,
inclusive, in the Augustine history, and was greatly amused and
interested." On board the steamer: "I put on my greatcoat and sat on
deck during the whole voyage. As I could not read, I used an excellent
substitute for reading. I went through 'Paradise Lost' in my head. I
could still repeat half of it, and that the best half. I really never
enjoyed it so much." In Dublin: "The rain was so heavy that I was forced
to come back in a covered car. While in this detestable vehicle I looked
rapidly through the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan and thought
that Trajan made a most creditable figure." It may be that Macaulay did
not always digest his knowledge well. Yet in reading his "Life and
Letters" you know that you are in company with a man who read many
books and you give faith to Thackeray's remark, "Macaulay reads twenty
books to write a sentence; he travels a hundred miles to make a line of
description." It is a matter of regret that the progress of historical
criticism and the scientific teaching of history have had the tendency
to drive Macaulay out of the fashion with students, and I know not
whether the good we used to get out of him thirty-five years ago can now
be got from other sources. For I seem to miss something that we
historical students had a generation ago--and that is enthusiasm for the
subject. The enthusiasm that we had then had--the desire to compass all
knowledge, the wish to gather the fruits of learning and lay them
devoutly at the feet of our chosen muse--this enthusiasm we owed to
Macaulay and to Buckle. Quite properly, no one reads Buckle now, and I
cannot gainsay what John Morley said of Macaulay: "Macaulay seeks truth,
not as she should be sought, devoutly, tentatively, with the air of one
touching the hem of a sacred garment, but clutching her by the hair of
the head and dragging her after him in a kind of boisterous triumph, a
prisoner of war and not a goddess." It is, nevertheless, true that
Macaulay and Buckle imparted a new interest to history.
I have spoken of the impression we get of Macaulay through reading his
"Life and Letters." Of Carlyle, in reading the remarkable biography of
him, we get the notion of a great thinker as well as a great reader. He
was not as keen and diligent in the pursuit of material as Macaulay. He
did not like to work in libraries; he wanted every book he used in his
own study--padded as it was against the noises which drove him wild. H.
Morse Stephens relates that Carlyle would not use a collection of
documents relating to the French Revolution in the British Museum for
the reason that the museum authorities would not have a private room
reserved for him where he might study. Rather than work in a room with
other people, he neglected this valuable material. But Carlyle has
certainly digested and used his material well. His "French Revolution"
seems to approach the historical works of the classics in there being so
much in a little space. "With the gift of song," Lowell said, "Carlyle
would have been the greatest of epic poets since Homer;" and he also
wrote, Carlyle's historical compositions are no more history than the
historical plays of Shakespeare.
The contention between the scientific historians and those who hold to
the old models is interesting and profitable. One may enjoy the
controversy and derive benefit from it without taking sides. I suspect
that there is truth in the view of both. We may be sure that the
long-continued study and approval by scholars of many ages of the works
of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Tacitus implies historical merit on their
part in addition to literary art. It is, however, interesting to note
the profound difference between President Woolsey's opinion of
Thucydides and that of some of his late German critics. Woolsey said, "I
have such confidence in the absolute truthfulness of Thucydides that
were he really chargeable with folly, as Grote alleges [in the affair of
Amphipolis], I believe he would have avowed it." On the other hand, a
German critic, cited by Holm, says that Thucydides is a poet who invents
facts partly in order to teach people how things ought to be done and
partly because he liked to depict certain scenes of horror. He says
further, a narrative of certain occurrences is so full of
impossibilities that it must be pure invention on the part of the
historian. Another German maintains that Thucydides has indulged in "a
fanciful and half-romantic picture of events." But Holm, whom the
scientific historians claim as one of their own, says, "Thucydides
still remains a trustworthy historical authority;" and, "On the whole,
therefore, the old view that he is a truthful writer is not in the least
shaken." Again Holm writes: "Attempts have been made to convict
Thucydides of serious inaccuracies, but without success. On the other
hand, the writer of this work [that is, the scientific historian, Holm]
is able to state that he has followed him topographically for the
greater part of the sixth and seventh books--and consequently for nearly
one fourth of the whole history--and has found that the more carefully
his words are weighed and the more accurately the ground is studied the
clearer both the text and events become, and this is certainly high
praise." Holm and Percy Gardner, both of whom have the modern method and
have studied diligently the historical evidence from coins and
inscriptions, placed great reliance on Herodotus, who, as well as
Thucydides and Tacitus, is taken by scholars as a model of historical
composition.
The sifting of time settles the reputations of historians. Of the
English of the eighteenth century only one historian has come down to us
as worthy of serious study. Time is wasted in reading Hume and Robertson
as models, and no one goes to them for facts. But thirty years ago no
course of historical reading was complete without Hume. In this century
the sifting process still goes on. One loses little by not reading
Alison's "History of Europe." But he was much in vogue in the '50's.
_Harper's Magazine_ published a part of his history as a serial. His
rounded periods and bombastic utterances were quoted with delight by
those who thought that history was not history unless it was bombastic.
Emerson says somewhere, "Avoid adjectives; let your nouns do the work."
There was hardly a sentence in Alison which did not traverse this rule.
One of his admirers told me that the great merit of his style was his
choiceness and aptness in his use of adjectives. It is a style which now
provokes merriment, and even had Alison been learned and impartial, and
had he possessed a good method, his style for the present taste would
have killed his book. Gibbon is sometimes called pompous, but place him
by the side of Alison and what one may have previously called
pompousness one now calls dignity.
Two of the literary historians of our century survive--Carlyle and
Macaulay. They may be read with care. We may do as Cassius said Brutus
did to him, observe all their faults, set them in a note-book, learn and
con them by rote; nevertheless we shall get good from them. Oscar
Browning said--I am quoting H. Morse Stephens again--of Carlyle's
description of the flight of the king to Varennes, that in every one of
his details where a writer could go wrong, Carlyle had gone wrong; but
added that, although all the details were wrong, Carlyle's account is
essentially accurate. No defense, I think, can be made of Carlyle's
statement that Marat was a "blear-eyed dog leach," nor of those
statements from which you get the distinct impression that the
complexion of Robespierre was green; nevertheless, every one who studies
the French Revolution reads Carlyle, and he is read because the reading
is profitable. The battle descriptions in Carlyle's "Frederick the
Great" are well worth reading. How refreshing they are after technical
descriptions! Carlyle said once, "Battles since Homer's time, when they
were nothing but fighting mobs, have ceased to be worth reading about,"
but he made the modern battle interesting.
Macaulay is an honest partisan. You learn very soon how to take him, and
when distrust begins one has correctives in Gardiner and Ranke. Froude
is much more dangerous. His splendid narrative style does not compensate
for his inaccuracies. Langlois makes an apt quotation from Froude. "We
saw," says Froude, of the city of Adelaide, in Australia, "below us in a
basin, with the river winding through it, a city of 150,000 inhabitants,
none of whom has ever known or ever will know one moment's anxiety as to
the recurring regularity of three meals a day." Now for the facts.
Langlois says: "Adelaide is built on an eminence; no river runs through
it. When Froude visited it the population did not exceed 75,000, and it
was suffering from a famine at the time." Froude was curious in his
inaccuracies. He furnished the data which convict him of error. He
quoted inaccurately the Simancas manuscripts and deposited correct
copies in the British Museum. Carlyle and Macaulay are honest partisans
and you know how to take them, but for constitutional inaccuracy such as
Froude's no allowance can be made.
Perhaps it may be said of Green that he combines the merits of the
scientific and literary historian. He has written an honest and artistic
piece of work. But he is not infallible. I have been told on good
authority that in his reference to the Thirty Years' War he has hardly
stated a single fact correctly, yet the general impression you get from
his account is correct. Saintsbury writes that Green has "out-Macaulayed
Macaulay in reckless abuse" of Dryden. Stubbs and Gardiner are
preeminently the scientific historians of England. Of Stubbs, from
actual knowledge, I regret that I cannot speak, but the reputation he
has among historical experts is positive proof of his great value. Of
Gardiner I can speak with knowledge. Any one who desires to write
history will do well to read every line Gardiner has written--not the
text alone, but also the notes. It is an admirable study in method which
will bear important fruit. But because Gibbon, Gardiner, and Stubbs
should be one's chief reliance, it does not follow that one may neglect
Macaulay, Carlyle, Tacitus, Thucydides, and Herodotus. Gardiner himself
has learned much from Macaulay and Carlyle. All of them may be
criticised on one point or another, but they all have lessons for us.
We shall all agree that the aim of history is to get at the truth and
express it as clearly as possible. The differences crop out when we
begin to elaborate our meaning. "This I regard as the historian's
highest function," writes Tacitus, "to let no worthy action be
uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror
to evil words and deeds;" while Langlois and the majority of the
scholars of Oxford are of the opinion that the formation and expression
of ethical judgments, the approval or condemnation of Julius Caesar or of
Caesar Borgia is not a thing within the historian's province. Let the
controversy go on! It is well worth one's while to read the
presentations of the subject from the different points of view. But
infallibility will nowhere be found. Mommsen and Curtius in their
detailed investigations received applause from those who adhered rigidly
to the scientific view of history, but when they addressed the public in
their endeavor, it is said, to produce an effect upon it, they relaxed
their scientific rigor; hence such a chapter as Curtius's "The years of
peace," and in another place his transmuting a conjecture of Grote into
an assertion; hence Mommsen's effusive panegyric of Caesar. If Mommsen
did depart from the scientific rules, I suspect that it came from no
desire of a popular success, but rather from the enthusiasm of much
learning. The examples of Curtius and Mommsen show probably that such a
departure from strict impartiality is inherent in the writing of general
history, and it comes, I take it, naturally and unconsciously. Holm is a
scientific historian, but on the Persian Invasion he writes: "I have
followed Herodotus in many passages which are unauthenticated and
probably even untrue, because he reproduces the popular traditions of
the Greeks." And again: "History in the main ought only to be a record
of facts, but now and then the historian may be allowed to display a
certain interest in his subject." These expressions traverse the canons
of scientific history as much as the sayings of the ancient
historiographers themselves. But because men have warm sympathies that
cause them to color their narratives, shall no more general histories be
written? Shall history be confined to the printing of original documents
and to the publication of learned monographs in which the discussion of
authorities is mixed up with the relation of events? The proper mental
attitude of the general historian is to take no thought of popularity.
The remark of Macaulay that he would make his history take the place of
the last novel on my lady's table is not scientific. The audience which
the general historian should have in mind is that of historical
experts--men who are devoting their lives to the study of history. Words
of approval from them are worth more than any popular recognition, for
theirs is the enduring praise. Their criticism should be respected;
there should be unceasing effort to avoid giving them cause for
fault-finding. No labor should be despised which shall enable one to
present things just as they are. Our endeavor should be to think
straight and see clear. An incident should not be related on
insufficient evidence because it is interesting, but an affair well
attested should not be discarded because it happens to have a human
interest. I feel quite sure that the cardinal aim of Gardiner was to be
accurate and to proportion his story well. In this he has succeeded; but
it is no drawback that he has made his volumes interesting. Jacob D.
Cox, who added to other accomplishments that of being learned in the
law, and who looked upon Gardiner with such reverence that he called him
the Chief Justice, said there was no reason why he should read novels,
as he found Gardiner's history more interesting than any romance. The
scientific historians have not revolutionized historical methods, but
they have added much. The process of accretion has been going on since,
at any rate, the time of Herodotus, and the canons for weighing evidence
and the synthesis of materials are better understood now than ever
before, for they have been reduced from many models. I feel sure that
there has been a growth in candor. Compare the critical note to a later
edition which Macaulay wrote in 1857, maintaining the truth of his
charge against William Penn, with the manly way in which Gardiner owns
up when an error or insufficient evidence for a statement is pointed
out. It is the ethics of the profession to be forward in correcting
errors. The difference between the old and the new lies in the desire to
have men think you are infallible and the desire to be accurate.