History was only introduced into secondary education in the nineteenth century, under the pressure of public opinion; and although it has been allotted more space in France than in England, or even in Germany, it has continued to be a subsidiary subject, not taught in a special class (as philosophy is), nor always by a special professor, and counting for very little in examinations.

Historical instruction has for a long time felt the effects of the manner in which it was introduced. The subject was imposed by the authorities on teachers trained exclusively in the study of literature, and could find no suitable place in a system of classical education based on the study of forms, and indifferent to the knowledge of social phenomena. History was taught because it was prescribed by the programme; but this programme, the sole motive and guide of the instruction, was always an accident, and varied with the preferences, or even the personal studies of those who framed it. History formed part of the social conventions; there are, it was said, names and facts "of which it is not permissible to be ignorant"; but the things of which ignorance was not permitted varied greatly, from the names of the Merovingian kings and the battles of the Seven Years' War to the Salic Law and the work of Saint Vincent de Paul.

The improvised staffs which, in order to carry out the programme, had to furnish impromptu instruction in history, had no clear idea either of the reasons for such instruction, or of its place in general education, or of the technical methods necessary for giving it. With this lack of tradition, of pedagogic preparation, and even of mechanical aids, the professor of history found himself carried back to the ages before printing, when the teacher had to supply the pupil with all the facts which formed the subject-matter of instruction, and he adopted the mediaeval procedure. Armed with a note-book in which he had written down the list of facts to be taught, he read it out to the pupils, sometimes making a pretence of extemporising; this was the "lesson," the corner-stone of historical instruction. The whole series of lessons, determined by the programme, formed the "course." The pupil was expected to write as he listened (this was called "taking notes") and to compose a written account of what he had heard (this was the redaction). But as the pupils were not taught how to take notes, nearly all of them were content to write very rapidly, from the professor's dictation, a rough draft, which they copied out at home in the form of a redaction, without any endeavour to grasp the meaning either of what they heard or what they transcribed. To this mechanical labour the most zealous added extracts copied from books, generally with just as little reflection.

In order to get the facts judged essential into the pupils' heads, the professor used to make a very short version of the lesson, the "summary" or "abstract," which he dictated openly, and caused to be learnt by heart. Thus of the two written exercises which occupied nearly the whole time of the class, one (the summary) was an overt dictation, the other (the redaction) an unavowed dictation.

The only means adopted to check the pupils' work was to make them repeat the summary word for word, and to question them on the redaction, that is to make them repeat approximately the words of the professor. Of the two oral exercises one was an overt, the other an unavowed repetition.

It is true the pupil was given a book, the Precis d'histoire,[234] but this book had the same form as the professor's course, and instead of serving as a basis for the oral instruction, merely duplicated it, and, as a rule, duplicated it badly, for it was not intelligible to the pupil. The authors of these text-books,[235] adopting the traditional methods of "abridgments," endeavoured to accumulate the greatest possible number of facts by omitting all their characteristic details and summarising them in the most general, and therefore vague, expressions. In the elementary books nothing was left but a residue of proper names and dates connected by formulae of a uniform type; history appeared as a series of wars, treaties, reforms, revolutions, which only differed in the names of peoples, sovereigns, fields of battle, and in the figures giving the years.[236]

Such, down to the end of the Second Empire, was historical instruction in all French institutions, both secular and ecclesiastical—with a few exceptions, whose merit is measured by their rarity, for in those days a professor of history needed a more than common share of energy and initiative to rise above the routine of redaction and summary.

II. In recent times the general movement of educational reform, which began in the Department and the Faculties, has at last extended to secondary instruction. The professors of history have been emancipated from the jealous supervision which weighed on their teaching under the government of the Empire, and have taken the opportunity to make trial of new methods. A system of historical pedagogy has been devised. It has been revealed with the approbation of the Department in the discussions of the society for the study of questions of secondary education, in the Revue de l'enseignement secondaire, and in the Revue universitaire. It has received official sanction in the Instructions appended to the programme of 1890; the report on history, the work of M. Lavisse, has become the charter which protects the professors who favour reform in their struggle against tradition.[237]

Historical instruction will no doubt issue from this crisis of renovation organised and provided with a rational pedagogic and technical system, such as is possessed by the older branches of instruction in languages, literature, and philosophy. But it is only to be expected that the reform should be much slower than in the case of the higher instruction. The personnel is much more numerous, and takes longer to train or to renew; the pupils are less zealous and less intelligent; the routine of the parents opposes to the new methods a force of inertia which is unknown to the Faculties; and the Baccalaureate, that general obstacle to all reform, is particularly mischievous in its effect on historical instruction, which it reduces to a set of questions and answers.

III. It is now possible, however, to indicate what is the direction in which historical instruction is likely to develop in France[238] and the questions which will need to be solved for the purpose of introducing a rational technical system. Here we shall endeavour to formulate these questions in a methodical table.

(1) General Organisation.—What object should historical instruction aim at? What services can it render to the culture of the pupil? What influence can it have upon his conduct? What facts ought it to enable him to understand? And, consequently, what principles ought to guide the choice of subjects and methods? Ought the instruction to be spread over the whole duration of the classes, or should it be concentrated in a special class? Should it be given in one-hour or two-hour classes? Should history be distributed into several cycles, as in Germany, so as to cause the pupil to return several times to the same subject at different periods of his studies? Or should it be expounded in a single continuous course, beginning with the commencement of study, as in France? Should the professor give a complete course, or should he select a few questions and leave the pupil to study the others by himself? Should he expound the facts orally, or should he require the pupils to learn them in the first instance from a book, so as to make the course a series of explanations?

(2) Choice of Subjects.—What proportion should be observed between home and foreign history? between ancient and contemporary history? between the special branches of history (art, religion, customs, economics) and general history? between institutions or usages, and events? between the evolution of material usages, intellectual history, social life, political life? between the study of particular incidents, of biography, of dramatic episodes, and the study of the interconnection of events and general evolutions? What place should be assigned to proper names and dates? Should we profit by the opportunities afforded by legends to arouse the critical spirit? or should we avoid legends?

(3) Order.—In what order should the subjects be attacked? Should instruction begin with the most ancient periods and the countries with the most ancient civilisations in order to follow chronological order and the order of evolution? or should it begin with the periods and the countries which are nearest to us so as to proceed from the better known to the less known? In the exposition of each period, should the chronological, geographical, or logical order be followed? Should the teacher begin by describing conditions or by narrating events?

(4) Methods of Instruction.—Should the pupil be given general formulae first or particular images? Should the professor state the formulae himself or require the pupil to search for them? Should formulae be learnt by heart? In what cases? How are images of historical facts to be produced in the pupils' minds? What use is to be made of engravings? of reproductions and restorations? of imaginary scenes? What use is to be made of narratives and descriptions? of authors' texts? of historical novels? To what extent ought words and formulae to be quoted? How are facts to be localised? What use is to be made of chronological tables? of synchronical tables? of geographical sketches? of statistical and graphic tables? What is the way to make comprehensible the character of events and customs? the motives of actions? the conditions of customs? How are the episodes of an event to be chosen? and the examples of a custom? How is the interconnection of facts and the process of evolution to be made intelligible? What use is to be made of comparison? What style of language is to be employed? To what extent should concrete, abstract, and technical terms be used? How is it to be verified that the pupil has understood the terms and assimilated the facts? Can exercises be organised in which the pupil may do original work on the facts? What instruments of study should the pupil have? How should school-books be compiled, with a view to giving the pupil practice in original work?

For the purpose of stating and justifying the solutions of all these problems, a special treatise would not be too much.[239] Here we shall merely indicate the general principles on which a tolerable agreement seems to have been now reached in France.

We no longer go to history for lessons in morals, nor for good examples of conduct, nor yet for dramatic or picturesque scenes. We understand that for all these purposes legend would be preferable to history, for it presents a chain of causes and effects more in accordance with our ideas of justice, more perfect and heroic characters, finer and more affecting scenes. Nor do we seek to use history, as is done in Germany, for the purpose of promoting patriotism and loyalty; we feel that it would be illogical for different persons to draw opposite conclusions from the same science according to their country or party; it would be an invitation to every people to mutilate, if not to alter, history in the direction of its preferences. We understand that the value of every science consists in its being true, and we ask from history truth and nothing more.[240]

The function of history in education is perhaps not yet clearly apparent to all those who teach it. But all those who reflect are agreed to regard it as being principally an instrument of social culture. The study of the societies of the past causes the pupil to understand, by the help of actual instances, what a society is; it familiarises him with the principal social phenomena and the different species of usages, their variety and their resemblances. The study of events and evolutions familiarises him with the idea of the continual transformation which human affairs undergo, it secures him against an unreasoning dread of social changes; it rectifies his notion of progress. All these acquisitions render the pupil fitter for public life; history thus appears as an indispensable branch of instruction in a democratic society.

The guiding principle of historical pedagogy will therefore be to seek for those subjects and those methods which are best calculated to exhibit social phenomena and give an understanding of their evolution. Before admitting a fact into the plan of instruction, it should be asked first of all what educational influence it can exercise; secondly, whether there are adequate means of bringing the pupil to see and understand it. Every fact should be discarded which is instructive only in a low degree, or which is too complicated to be understood, or in regard to which we do not possess details enough to make it intelligible.

IV. To make rational instruction a reality it is not enough to develop a theory of historical pedagogy. It is necessary to renew the material aids and the methods.

History necessarily involves the knowledge of a great number of facts. The professor of history, with no resources but his voice, a blackboard, and abridgments which are little better than chronological tables, is in much the same situation as a professor of Latin without texts or dictionary. The pupil in history needs a repertory of historical facts as the Latin pupil needs a repertory of Latin words; he needs collections of facts, and the school text-books are mostly collections of words.

There are two vehicles of facts, engravings and books. Engravings exhibit material objects and external aspects, they are useful principally for the study of material civilisation. It is some time since the attempt was first made in Germany to put in the hands of the pupil a collection of engravings arranged for the purposes of historical instruction. The same need has, in France, produced the Album historique, which is published under the direction of M. Lavisse.

The book is the chief instrument. It ought to contain all the characteristic features necessary for forming mental representations of the events, the motives, the habits, the institutions studied; it will consist principally in narratives and descriptions, to which characteristic sayings and formulae may be appended. For a long time it was endeavoured to construct those books out of extracts selected from ancient authors; they were compiled in the form of collections of texts.[241] Experience seems to indicate that this method must be abandoned; it has a scientific appearance, it is true, but is not intelligible to children. It is better to address pupils in contemporary language. It is in this spirit that, pursuant to the Instructions of 1890,[242] collections of Historical Readings have been compiled, of which the most important has been published by the firm of Hachette.

The pupils' methods of work still bear witness to the late introduction of historical teaching. In most historical classes methods still prevail which only exercise the pupils' receptivity: the course of lectures, the summary, reading, questioning, the redaction, the reproduction of maps. It is as if a Latin pupil were to confine himself to repeating grammar-lessons and extracts from authors, without ever doing translation or composition.

In order that the teaching may make an adequate impression, it is necessary, if not to discard all these passive methods, at least to supplement them by exercises which call out the activity of the pupil. Some such exercises have already been experimented with, and others might be devised.[243] The pupil may be set to analyse engravings, narratives, and descriptions in such a way as to bring out the character of the facts: the short written or oral analysis will guarantee that he has seen and understood, it will be an opportunity to inculcate the habit of using only precise terms. Or the pupil may be asked to furnish a drawing, a geographical sketch, a synchronical table. He may be required to draw up tables of comparison between different societies, and tables showing the interconnection of facts.

A book is needed to supply the pupil with the materials for these exercises. Thus the reform of methods is connected with the reform of the instruments of work. Both reforms will progress according as the professors and the public perceive more clearly the part played by historical instruction in social education.



APPENDIX II

THE HIGHER TEACHING OF HISTORY IN FRANCE

The higher teaching of history has been in a great measure transformed, in our country, within the last thirty years. The process has been gradual, as it ought to have been, and has consisted in a succession of slight modifications. But although a rational continuity has been observed in the steps taken, the great number of these steps has not failed, in these last days, to astonish, and even to offend, the public. Public opinion, to which appeal has been made in favour of reforms, has been somewhat surprised by being appealed to so often, and perhaps it is not superfluous to indicate here, once more, the general significance and the inner logic of the movement which we are witnessing.

I. Before the last years of the Second Empire, the higher teaching of the historical sciences was organised in France on no coherent system.[244]

There were chairs of history in different institutions, of different types: at the College de France, in the Faculties of Letters, and in the "special schools," such as the Ecole normale superieure and the Ecole des chartes.

The College de France was a relic of the institutions of the ancien regime. It was founded in the sixteenth century in opposition to the scholastic Sorbonne, to be a refuge for the new sciences, and had the glorious privilege of representing historically the higher speculative studies, the spirit of free inquiry, and the interests of pure science. Unfortunately, in the domain of the historical sciences, the College de France had allowed its traditions to be obliterated up to a certain point. The great men who taught history in this illustrious institution (J. Michelet, for example), were not technical experts, nor even men of learning, in the proper sense of the word. The audiences which they swayed by their eloquence were not composed of students of history.

The Faculties of Letters formed part of a system established by the Napoleonic legislator. This legislator, in creating the Faculties, by no means entertained the design of encouraging scientific research. He had no great love for science. The Faculties of Law, of Medicine, and so on, were intended by him to be professional schools supplying society with the lawyers, physicians, and so on, which it needs. But three of the five Faculties were unable, from the beginning, to perform the part allotted them, while the other two, Law and Medicine, successfully performed theirs. The Faculties of Catholic Theology did not train the priests needed by society, because the State consented to the education of the priests being conducted in the diocesan seminaries. The Faculties of Sciences and of Letters did not train the professors for secondary education, the engineers, and so on, needed by society, because they were here met by the triumphant competition of "special schools" previously instituted: the Ecole normale, the Ecole polytechnique. The Faculties of Catholic Theology, of Sciences, and of Letters were therefore obliged to justify their existence by other modes of activity. In particular, the professors of history in the Faculties of Letters could not undertake the instruction of the young men who were destined to teach history in the lycees. Deprived of these special pupils, they found themselves in a situation analogous to that of those charged with historical instruction at the College de France. They too were not, as a rule, technical experts. For half a century they carried on the work of higher popularisation in lectures delivered to large audiences of leisured persons (since much abused), who were attracted by the force, the elegance, and the pleasing style of their diction.

The function of training the future teachers for secondary education was reserved for the Ecole normale superieure. Now at this epoch it was an admitted principle that to be a good secondary teacher it is necessary for a man to know, and sufficient to know perfectly, the subject he is charged to teach. The one is certainly necessary, but the other is not sufficient: knowledge of a different, of a higher, order is no less indispensable than the regular "scholastic" equipment. At the Ecole there was never any question of such higher knowledge, but, in accordance with the prevailing theory, preparation was made for secondary teaching simply by imparting it. However, as the Ecole normale has always been excellently recruited, the system in vogue has not prevented it from numbering among its former pupils men of the first order, not only as professors, thinkers, or writers, but even as critical scholars. But it must be recognised that they made their way for themselves, in spite of the system, not thanks to it, after, not during, their pupilage, and principally when they had the advantage, during a stay at the French School at Athens, of the wholesome contact with documents which they had not enjoyed at the Rue d'Ulm. "Does it not seem strange," it has been said, "that so many generations of professors should have been turned out by the Ecole normale incapable of utilising documents?... Formerly, in short, students of history, on leaving the Ecole, were not prepared either to teach history, which they had learned in a great hurry, or to investigate difficult questions."[245]

As for the Ecole des chartes, which was founded under the Restoration, it was, from a certain point of view, a special school like the others, designed in theory to train those useful functionaries, archivists and librarians. But professional instruction was early reduced to a strict minimum, and the Ecole des chartes was organised on a very original plan, with a view to provide a rational and complete apprenticeship for the young men who proposed to study mediaeval French history. The pupils of the Ecole des chartes did not follow any course of "mediaeval history," but they learnt all that is necessary for doing work on the solution of the still open questions of mediaeval history. Here alone, in virtue of an accidental anomaly, the subjects which are preliminary and auxiliary to historical research were systematically taught. We have already had occasion to note the effects of this circumstance.[246]

This was the state of affairs when, towards the end of the Second Empire, a vigorous reform movement set in. Some young Frenchmen had visited Germany; they had been struck by the superiority of the German university system over the Napoleonic system of Faculties and special schools. Certainly France, with its defective organisation, had produced many men and many works, but it now began to be held that "in all kinds of enterprises the least possible part should be left to chance," and that "when an institution proposes to train professors of history and historians, it ought to supply them with the means of becoming what it intends them to be."

M. V. Duruy, minister of Public Education, supported the partisans of a renaissance of the higher studies. But he did not think it practicable to interfere, for the purpose either of remodelling, of fusing, or of suppressing them, with the existing institutions,—the College de France, the Faculties of Letters, the Ecole normale superieure, the Ecole des chartes, all of which were consecrated by the services they had rendered, and by the lustre they received from the eminent men who had been, or were, connected with them. He changed nothing, he added. He crowned the somewhat heterogeneous edifice of existing institutions by the creation of an "Ecole pratique des hautes etudes," which was established at the Sorbonne in 1868.

The Ecole pratique des hautes etudes (historical and philological section) was intended by those who founded it to prepare young men for research of a scientific character. It was not meant to be subservient to the interests of the professions, and there was to be no popularisation. Students were not to go there to learn the results obtained by science, but, for the same purpose which takes the chemical student to the laboratory, to be initiated into the technical methods by which new results can be obtained. Thus the spirit of the new institution was not without some analogy to that of the primitive tradition of the College de France. It was endeavoured to do there, for all the branches of universal history and philology, what had long been done at the Ecole des chartes for the limited domain of French mediaeval history.

II. As long as the Faculties of Letters were satisfied to be as they were (that is, without students), and as long as their ambition did not go beyond their traditional functions (the holding of public lectures, the conferring of degrees), the organisation of the higher teaching of the historical sciences in France remained in the condition which we have described. When the Faculties of Letters began to seek a new justification for their existence and new functions, changes became inevitable.

This is not the place to explain why and how the Faculties of Letters were led to desire to work more actively, or rather in other ways than in the past, for the promotion of the historical sciences. M. V. Duruy, in inaugurating the Ecole des hautes etudes at the Sorbonne, had declared that this young and vigorous plant would thrust asunder the old stones; and, without a doubt, the spectacle of the fruitful activity of the Ecole des hautes etudes has contributed not a little to awaken the conscience of the Faculties. On the other hand the liberality of the public authorities, which have increased the personnel of the Faculties, which have built palaces for them, and liberally endowed them with the materials required by their work, has imposed new duties on these privileged institutions.

It is about twenty-five years since the Faculties of Letters began to transform themselves, and during this period their progressive transformation has occasioned changes in the whole fabric of the higher teaching of historical science in France, which up to that time had remained unshaken, even by the ingenious addition of 1868.

III. The first care of the Faculties was to provide themselves with students. This was not, to be sure, the main difficulty, for the Ecole normale superieurs (in which twenty pupils are admitted every year, chosen from among hundreds of candidates) was no longer sufficient for the recruiting of the now numerous body of professors engaged in secondary education. Many young men who had been candidates (along with the pupils of the Ecole normale superieure) for the degrees which give access to the scholastic profession, were thrown on their own resources. Here was an assured supply of students. At the same time the military laws, by attaching much-prized immunities to the title of licencie es lettres, were calculated to attract to the Faculties, if they prepared students for the licentiate, a large and very interesting class of young men. Lastly, the foreigners (so numerous at the Ecole des hautes etudes), who come to France to complete their scientific education, and who up to that time were surprised to have no opportunity of profiting by the Faculties, were sure to go to them as soon as they found there something analogous to what they had been accustomed to find in the German universities, and the kind of instruction they wanted.

Before students in any great number could be taught the way to the Faculties, great efforts were necessary and several years passed; but it was after the Faculties obtained the students they desired that the real problems presented themselves for solution.

The great majority of the students in the Faculties of Letters have been originally candidates for degrees, for the licentiate, and for agregation, who entered with the avowed intention of "preparing" for the licentiate and for agregation. The Faculties have not been able to escape the obligation of helping them in this "preparation." But, twenty years ago, examinations were still conceived in accordance with ancient formulae. The licentiate was an attestation of advanced secondary study, a kind of "higher baccalaureate"; for the agregation in the classes of history and geography (which became the real licentia docendi), the candidates were required to show that they "had a very good knowledge of the subjects they would be charged to teach." Henceforth there was a danger lest the teaching of the Faculties, which must, like that of the Ecole normale superieure, be preparatory for the examinations for the licentiate and for agregation, should be compelled by the force of circumstances to assume the same character. Note that a certain emulation could not fail to arise between the pupils of the Ecole normale and those of the Faculties in the competitions for agregation. The agregation programmes being what they were, this emulation seemed likely to have the result of engaging the rival teachers and students more and more in school work, not of a scientific kind, equally devoid of dignity and real utility.

The danger was very serious. It was perceived from the first by those clear-sighted promoters of the reform of the Faculties, MM. A. Dumont, L. Liard, E. Lavisse. M. Lavisse wrote in 1884: "To maintain that the Faculties have for their chief object the preparation for examinations is to substitute drill for scientific culture: this is the serious grievance which able men have against the partisans of innovation.... The partisans of innovation reply that they have seen the drawbacks of the new departure from the beginning, but that they are convinced that a modification of the examination-system will follow the reform of higher education; that a reconciliation will be found between scientific work and the preparation for examinations; and that thus the only grievance their opponents have against them will fall to the ground." It is only doing justice to the foremost champion of reform to acknowledge that he was never tired of insisting on the weak point; and in order to convince oneself that the examination question has always been considered the key-stone of the problem of the organisation of higher education in France, it is only necessary to look through the speeches and the articles entitled "Education and Examinations," "Examinations and Study," "Study and Examinations," &c., which M. Lavisse has collected in his three volumes published at intervals of five years from 1885 onwards: Questions d'enseignement national, Etudes et etudiants, A propos de nos ecoles.

Thus the question of the reform of the examinations connected with higher education (licentiate, agregation, doctorate) has been placed on the order of the day. It was then in 1884; it is still there in 1897. But, during the interval, visible progress has been made in the direction which we consider the right one, and now a solution seems near.

IV. The old examination-system required candidates for degrees to show that they had received an excellent secondary education. As it condemned those candidates, students receiving higher instruction, to exercises of the same kind as those of which they had already had their fill in the lycees, it was a simple matter to attack it. It was defended feebly, and has been demolished.

But how was it to be replaced? The problem was very complex. Is it any wonder that it was not solved at a stroke?

First of all, it was important to come to an agreement on this preliminary question: What are the capacities and what is the knowledge students should be required to give proof of possessing? General knowledge? Technical knowledge and the capacity of doing original research (as at the Ecole des chartes and the Ecole des hautes etudes)? Pedagogic capacity? It came gradually to be recognised that, considering the great extent and variety of the class from which the students are drawn, it is necessary to draw distinctions.

From candidates for the licentiate it is enough to require that they should give proof of good general culture, permitting them at the same time, if they wish, to show that they have a taste for, and some experience in, original research.

From the candidates for agregation (licentia docendi) who have already obtained the licentiate, there will be required (1) formal proof that they know, by experience, what it is to study an historical problem, and that they have the technical knowledge necessary for such studies; (2) proof of pedagogic capacity, which is a professional necessity for this class.

The students who are not candidates for anything, neither for the licentiate nor for agregation, and who are simply seeking to obtain scientific initiation—the old programmes did not contemplate the existence of such a class of students—will merely be required to prove that they have profited by the tuition and the advice they have received.

This settled, a great stride has been made. For programmes, as we know, regulate study. By virtue of the authority of the programmes historical studies in the Faculties will now have the threefold character which it is desirable that they should have. General culture will not cease to be held in honour. Technical exercises in criticism and research will have their legitimate place. Lastly, pedagogy (theoretical and practical) will not be neglected.

The difficulties begin when it is attempted to determine the tests which, in each department, are the best, that is, the most conclusive. On this subject opinions differ. Though no one now contests the principles, the modes of application which have hitherto been tried or suggested do not meet with unanimous approval. The organisation of the licentiate has been revised three times; the statute relating to the agregation in history has been reformed or amended five times. And this is not the end. New simplifications are imperative. But what is the importance of this instability—of which, however, complaints begin to be heard[247]—if it is established, as we believe it is, that progress towards a better state of things has been continuous through all these changes, without any notable retrogression?

There is no need to explain here in detail the different transitory systems which have been put into practice. We have had occasion to criticise them elsewhere.[248] Now that most of what we objected to has been abolished, what is the use of reviving old controversies? We shall not even mention the points in which the present system seems to us to be still capable of improvement, for there is reason to hope that it will soon be modified, and in a very satisfactory manner. Let it suffice to say that the Faculties now confer a new diploma, the Diplome d'etudes superieures, which all the students have a right to seek, but which the candidates for agregation are obliged to obtain. This diploma of higher studies, analogous to that of the Ecole des hautes etudes, the brevet of the Ecole des chartes, and the doctorate in philosophy at the German universities, is given to those students of history who, qualified by a certain academical standing, have passed an examination in which the principal tests are, besides questions on the "sciences" auxiliary to historical research, the composition and the defence of an original monograph. Every one now recognises that "the examination for the diploma of studies will yield excellent fruit, if the vigilance and conscientiousness of examiners maintain it at its proper value."[249]

V. To sum up, the attractions of preparation for degrees have brought the Faculties a host of students. But, under the old system of examinations for the licentiate and for agregation, preparation for degrees was a task which did not harmonise very well with the work which the Faculties deemed suitable for themselves, useful to their pupils, and advantageous to science. The examination-system has therefore been perseveringly reformed, not without difficulty, into conformity with a certain ideal of what the higher teaching of history ought to be. The result is that the Faculties have taken rank among the institutions which contribute to the positive progress of the historical sciences. An enumeration of the works which have appeared under their auspices during the last few years would, if necessary, bear witness to the fact.

This evolution has already produced satisfactory results, and will produce more if it goes on as well as it has begun. To begin with, the transformation of historical instruction in the Faculties has brought about a corresponding transformation at the Ecole normale superieure. The Ecole normale has also, for two years, been awarding a "Diplome d'etudes"; original researches, pedagogic exercises, and general culture are encouraged there in the same degree as by the new Faculties. It now differs from the Faculties only in being a close institution, recruited under certain precautions; practically it is a Faculty like the others, but with a small number of select students. Secondly, the Ecole des hautes etudes and the Ecole des chartes, both of which will be installed at the end of 1897, in the renovated Sorbonne, have still their justification for existence; for many specialists are represented at the Ecole des hautes etudes which are not, and doubtless never will be, represented in the Faculties; and, in the case of the studies bearing on mediaeval history, the body of converging instruction given at the Ecole des chartes will always be incomparable. But the old antagonism between the Ecole des hautes etudes and the Ecole des chartes on the one hand, and the Faculties on the other, has disappeared. All these institutions, lately so dissimilar, will henceforth co-operate for the purpose of carrying on a common work in a common spirit. Each of these retains its name, its autonomy, and its traditions; but together they form a whole: the historical section of an ideal University of Paris, much vaster than the one which was sanctioned by the law in 1896. Of this "greater" University, the Ecole des chartes, the Ecole des hautes etudes, the Ecole normale superieure, and the whole body of historical instruction given by the Faculty of Letters, are now practically so many independent "instituts."



INDEX OF PROPER NAMES

Abd-el-Kader, 282

Aimo, 158

Alexander the Great, 272

Alphonse of Poitiers, 227

Altamira, R., 328

Anselme, Pere, 303

Ariovistus, 222

Aristophanes, 171

Aristotle, 44

Athenaeus, 300

Bacon, Francis, 291

Bancroft, H. H., 19, 20, 22, 31

Barthelemy, Abbe, 301

Bast, F. J., 78

Bedier, J., 85, 112

Bernheim, E., 6, 7, 10, 13, 38, 56, 74, 91, 99, 100, 156, 182, 198, 237, 297

Blanchere, R., de la, 319

Blass, F., 74, 78, 79, 89, 92

Bodin, Jean, 44

Boeckh, A., 107, 152

Boehmer, J. F., 106

Bollandists, Society of, 35

Bonaventura, St., 88, 90

Bouche-Leclercq, A., 158

Boucherie, A., 113

Bourdeau, L., 275

Boutaric, E., 227

Boyce, W. B., 1

Brequigny, L. G. O. F. de, 106

Broglie, E. de, 29

Brugiere de Barante, A. G. P., 301

Brunetiere, F., 113

Buchez, P. J. B., 1

Buehler, G., 56

Caesar, Julius, 44, 194, 197, 218, 220, 222, 245

Cagnat, R., 57

Cantu, C., 311

Carlyle, Thomas, 132, 230, 303

Champollion, F., 48

Charles IX. of France, 168, 186

Chasles, M., 88

Chateaubriand, F. A. de, 72, 301

Chemosh, the god, 212

Cherot, H., 7

Chevalier, U., 5, 7

Chladenius, J. M., 6

Cicero, 44, 108

Cleopatra, 88, 248

Clovis, 158, 220, 223, 301

Cobet, C. C., 78

Coulanges, Fustel de, 1, 9, 10, 64, 140, 144, 148, 149, 150, 158, 170, 215, 216, 230

Cournot, A. A., 246, 249

Cousin, V., 286, 287

Curtius, G., 230, 314

Daniel, Pere, 303

Daremberg, C. V., 308

Darius Hystaspes, 151

Daunou, P. C. F., 5, 6, 43, 47, 54, 55

Delisle, L., 23, 97

Deloche, J. E. M., 148

Demosthenes, 171

Dezobry, C. L., 302

Droysen, J. G., 3, 5, 7, 10, 106, 156, 158, 286, 314

Du Cange, C. du F., 105, 136, 148

Dumont, A., 341

Duruy, V., 327, 338, 339

Ebers, G., 301

Edward VI. of England, 249

Egger, E., 108

Eginhard, 94

Ephorus, 298

Eusebius, 298

Feillet, A., 162

Feugere, L., 105, 136

Fisher, H. A. L., 125

Flaubert, G., 5, 32, 304, 319

Flint, R., 2, 6, 8, 285

France, A., 319

Fredegonda, 197

Freeman, E. A., 5, 7, 10, 46

Froissart, Jean, 19

Froude, J. A., 125, 126

Geiger, W., 56

Gellius, Aulus, 300

Georgisch, P., 106

Giannone, Pietro, 104

Gibbon, E., 44

Gilbert, Gustav, 309

Giry, A., 57

Glasson, E., 149

Goethe, J. W. von, 19, 319

Gow, J., 75

Graux, C., 123

Gregory of Corinth, 78

Gregory of Tours, 144, 146, 158, 180, 198, 256

Groeber, G., 57, 310

Grote, G., 183, 310

Grotius, Hugo, 44

Guicciardini, Francesco, 44

Guiraud, P., 230

Hagen, H., 78

Hardouin, Pere, 99

Harnack, A., 309

Havet, Julien, 12, 56, 97, 123, 128

Havet, Louis, 12

Haureau, B., 84, 111, 118, 123

Hegel, G. W. F., 286

Henry VIII. of England, 249

Henry II. of France, 292

Henry, V., 289

Herodotus, 44, 171, 179, 197

Horace, 99

Hoveden, John, 88

Hroswitha, 99

Hugo, Victor, 88, 89

Hume, D., 44

Jaffe, P., 106

Jameson, J. F., 136

Jerome, St., 112

Jesus Christ, 188

Joan of Arc, 188

John, King of England, 187

Jullian, C., 297

Krumbacher, K., 309

Kuhn, E., 56

Lacombe, T., 2, 233, 241, 277, 288

Lamprecht, K., 230, 247, 284, 290, 314

Langlois, Ch. V., 19, 38, 111, 135, 192, 345

Lasch, B., 68

Laurent, F., 285

Lavisse, E., 134, 328, 333, 337, 341, 342

Lavoisier, A. L., 302

Leibnitz, G. W., 121, 122

Lee, Sidney, 308

Le Moyne, Pere, 7

Lenglet de Fresnoy, N., 6

Leonardo da Vinci, 88, 89

Liard, L., 335, 341

Lindner, T., 81

Lindsay, W. M., 78, 79, 84

Livy, 44, 178, 180, 233, 297, 298

Locke, John, 44

Loebell, J. W., 180

Lorenz, O., 10

Loudun, the nuns of, 208

Louis VIII. of France, 187

Louis of Granada, 88

Luard, H. R., 98

Luther, Martin, 203

Mably, G. B. De, 43, 44

Macaulay, Lord, 303

Macchiavelli, N., 44

Madvig, J. N., 78

Mariani, L., 4

Marquardt, J., 309

Marselli, N., 2

Mary Magdalene, St., 88

Mary, Queen, 249

Matthew of Paris, 98

Matthew of Westminster, 97

Mayr, J. von, 274

Merimee, P., 301

Mesha Inscription, the, 212

Meusel, H., 148

Meyer, E., 158

Meyer, P., 29

Mezeray, F. E. de, 298

Michelet, J., 230, 271, 286, 287, 301, 303, 327, 336

Moeller, W., 309

Mommsen, T., 108, 118, 230, 286, 309, 314

Monod, G., 100, 144, 297, 302

Montesquieu, C. de S., 44, 257, 284, 299

Montfaucon, Pere Bernard de, 29

Montgomery, Gabriel de, 292

Mortet, Ch. and V., 11

Mourin, E., 302

Mueller, I. von, 56, 74, 310

Mylaeus, 6

Napoleon I., 26, 282

Newton, Isaac, 302

Niebuhr, B. G., 158, 182

Nietzsche, F., 319

Nitzsch, C. W., 180

Oncken, W., 311

Orosius, 298

Ossian, 91

Otto I., 175

Paris, G., 309

Patrizzi, Francesco, 6

Pattison, Mark, 115

Paul, H., 75, 310

Pauly, A., 308

Pausanias, 74

Peckham, John, 88

Peiresc, N. F. C. de, 22

Pflugk-Harttung, J. von, 10, 130

Philippi, A., 129

Piaget, A., 91

Pisistratus, 207

Plato, 153

Plutarch, 44, 297

Polybius, 44, 279, 297

Potthast, A., 106

Prou, M., 57

Ranke, L., 140, 286

Raynal, J., 44

Reinach, S., 75, 79

Renan, E., 9, 29, 30, 40, 105, 114, 119, 122, 132, 134, 183

Retz, Cardinal de, 44, 162, 169

Rilliet, A., 162

Robertson, J. M., 115, 241

Robertson, W., 44

Rocholl, R., 285

Rousseau, J. J., 44

Rulhiere, C. C. de, 44

Saglio, E., 308

Saint-Simon, C. H. de, 251

Sallust, 44

Sanchoniathon, 91

Schiller, J. C. F. von, 162

Schlosser, F. C., 311

Schoemann, G. F., 309

Seguier, J. F., 109

Seignobos, Ch., 11, 66, 196, 257, 333, 334

Seneca, 78

Sforza, Ludovico, 282

Sickel, T. von, 56

Simmel, G., 217

Smedt, Pere de, 10, 156, 207, 254

Spencer, Herbert, 287

Stephen, Leslie, 308

Stubbe, W., 10

Suetonius, 94

Suger, Abbot, 170

Suidas, 158

Sully, M., 169

Surville, Clotilde de, 91

Tacitus, 44, 141, 144, 171, 177, 194, 233, 256

Taine, H. A., 140, 143, 247, 286

Tardif, A., 5, 7, 156

Taylor, J., 75

Thierry, Augustin, 98, 140, 230, 259, 265, 301, 302, 303

Thomas, A., 73

Thucydides, 19, 44, 158, 183, 197, 297

Tobler, A., 75

Tschudi, J. H., 162, 171

Turenne, H. de la T. d'A., 162

Vercingetorix, 88

Vergil, 84, 99

Vertot, R. A. de, 44

Villemarque, H. de, 181

Vincent de Paul, St. 326

Voltaire, F. M. A. de, 44, 299

Vrain-Lucas, 88

Waitz, G., 110, 118

Wallace, A. R., 207

Waltzing, J. P., 108

Wattenbach, W., 73

Wauters, A. C., 106

Weber, G., 311

Wegele, F. X. von, 122, 297

Wendover, Roger de, 98

Wissowa, G., 308

Wittekind, 175

Wright, T., 84

Xenophon, 44

Zumpt, A. W., 108

FOOTNOTES:

[1] W. B. Boyce, "Introduction to the Study of History, Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary," London, 1894, 8vo.

[2] For example, P. J. B. Buches, in his Introduction a la science de l'histoire, Paris, 1842, 2 vols. 8vo.

[3] The history of the attempts which have been made to understand and explain philosophically the history of humanity has been undertaken, as is well known, by Robert Flint. Mr. Flint has already given the history of the Philosophy of History in French-speaking countries: "Historical Philosophy in France and French Belgium and Switzerland," Edinburgh and London, 1893, 8vo. It is the first volume of the expanded re-edition of his "History of the Philosophy of History in Europe," published twenty-five years ago. Compare the retrospective (or historical) part of the work of N. Marselli, La scienza della storia, i., Torino, 1873.

The most important original work which has appeared in France since the publication of the analytical repertory of R. Flint is that of P. Lacombe, De l'histoire consideree comme science, Paris, 1894, 8vo. Cf. Revue Critique, 1895, i. p. 132.

[4] Revue Critique d'histoire et de litterature, 1892, i. p. 164.

[5] Revue Critique d'histoire et de litterature, 1888, ii. p. 295. Cf. Le Moyen Age, x. (1897), p. 91: "These books [treatises on historical method] are seldom read by those to whom they might be useful, amateurs who devote their leisure to historical research; and as to professed scholars, it is from their masters' lessons that they have learnt to know and handle the tools of their trade, leaving out of consideration the fact that the method of history is the same as that of the other sciences of observation, the gist of which can be stated in a few words.

[6] In accordance with the principle that historical method can only be taught by example, L. Mariani has given the humorous title Corso pratico di metodologia della storia to a dissertation on a detail in the history of Fermo. See the Archivio della Societa romana di storia patria, xiii. (1890), p. 211.

[7] See an account of Freeman's work, "The Methods of Historical Study," in the Revue Critique, 1887, i. p. 376. This work, says the critic, is empty and commonplace. We learn from it "that history is not so easy a study as many fondly imagine, that it has points of contact with all the sciences, and that the historian truly worthy of the name ought to know everything; that historical certitude is unattainable, and that, in order to make the nearest approach to it, it is necessary to have constant recourse to the original sources; that it is necessary to know and use the best modern historians, but never to take their word for gospel. That is all." He concludes: Freeman "without a doubt taught historical method far better by example than he ever succeeded in doing by precept."

Compare Bouvard et Pecuchet, by G. Flaubert. Here we have two simpletons who, among other projects, propose to write history. In order to help them, one of their friends sends them (p. 156) "rules of criticism taken from the Cours of Daunou," such as: "It is no proof to appeal to rumour and common opinion; the witnesses cannot appear. Reject impossibilities: Pausanias was shown the stone swallowed by Saturn. Keep in mind the skill of forgers, the interest of apologists and calumniators." Daunou's work contains a number of truisms quite as obvious, and still more comic than the above.

[8] Flint (ibid. p. 15) congratulates himself on not having to study the literature of Historic, for "a very large portion of it is so trivial and superficial that it can hardly ever have been of use even to persons of the humblest capacity, and may certainly now be safely confined to kindly oblivion." Nevertheless, Flint has given in his book a summary list of the principal works of this kind published in French-speaking countries from the earliest times. A more general and complete account (though still a summary one) of the literature of this subject in all countries is furnished by the Lehrbuch der historischen Methode of E. Bernheim (Leipzig, 1894, 8vo), pp. 143 sqq. Flint (who was acquainted with several works unknown to Bernheim) stops at 1893, Bernheim at 1894. Since 1889 the Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissenschaft have contained a periodical account of recent works on historical methodology.

[9] This seventh volume was published in 1844. But Daunou's celebrated Cours was delivered at the College de France in the years 1819-30.

[10] The Italians of the Renaissance (Mylaens, Francesco Patrizzi, and others), and after them the writers of the last two centuries, ask what is the relation of history to dialectic and rhetoric; to how many laws the historical branch of literature is subject; whether it is right for the historian to relate treasons, acts of cowardice, crimes, disorders; whether history is entitled to use any style other than the sublime; and so on. The only books on Historic, published before the nineteenth century, which give evidence of any original effort to attack the real difficulties, are those of Lenglet de Fresnoy (Methode pour etudier l'histoire, Paris, 1713), and of J. M. Chladenius (Allgemeine Geschichtswissenschaft, Leipzig, 1752). The work of Chladenius has been noticed by Bernheim (ibid. p. 166).

[11] He has not always shown even good sense, for, in the Cours d'etudes historiques (vii. p. 105), where he treats of a work, De l'histoire, published in 1670 by Pere Le Moyne, a feeble production, to say the least, bearing evident traces of senility, he expresses himself as follows: "I cannot adopt all the maxims and precepts contained in this treatise; but I believe that, after that of Lucian, it is the best we have yet seen, and I greatly doubt whether any of those whose acquaintance we have still to make has risen to the same height of philosophy and originality." Pere H. Cherot has given a sounder estimate of the treatise De l'histoire in his Etude sur la vie et les oeuvres du P. Le Moyne (Paris, 1887, 8vo), pp. 406 sqq.

[12] Bernheim declares, however (ibid. p. 177), that this little work is, in his opinion, the only one which stands at the present level of science.

[13] Flint says very well (ibid. p. 15): "The course of Historic has been, on the whole, one of advance from commonplace reflection on history towards a philosophical comprehension of the conditions and processes on which the formation of historical science depends.

[14] By P. Guiraud, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, March 1896, p. 75.

[15] Renan has said some of the truest and best things that have ever been said on the historical sciences in L'Avenir de la science (Paris, 1890, 8vo), written in 1848.

[16] Some of the most ingenious, some of the most logical, and some of the most widely applicable observations, on the method of the historical sciences, have so far appeared, not in books on methodology, but in the reviews—of which the Revue Critique d'histoire et de litterature is the type—devoted to the criticism of new works of history and erudition. It is a very useful exercise to run through the file of the Revue Critique, founded, at Paris, in 1867, "to enforce respect for method, to execute justice upon bad books, to check misdirected and superfluous work."

[17] The first edition of the Lehrbuch is dated 1889.

[18] The best work that has hitherto been published (in French) on historical method is a pamphlet by MM. Ch. and V. Mortet, La Science de l'histoire (Paris, 1894, 8vo), 88 pp., extracted from vol. xx. of the Grande Encyclopedie.

[19] One of us, M. Seignobos, proposes to publish later on a complete treatise of Historical Methodology, if there appears to be a public for this class of work.

[20] It cannot be too often stated that the study of history, as it is prosecuted at school, does not presuppose the same aptitudes as the same study when prosecuted at the university or in after life. Julien Havet, who afterwards devoted himself to the (critical) study of history, found history wearisome at school. "I believe," says M. L. Havet, "that the teaching of history [in schools] is not organised in such a manner as to provide sufficient nourishment for the scientific spirit.... Of all the studies comprised in our school curricula, history is the only one in which the pupil is not being continually called upon to verify something. When he is learning Latin or German, every sentence in a translation requires him to verify a dozen different rules. In the various branches of mathematics the results are never divorced from their proofs; the problems, too, compel the pupil to think through the whole for himself. Where are the problems in history, and what schoolboy is ever trained to gain by independent effort an insight into the interconnection of events?" (Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des chartes, 1896, p. 84).

[21] M. Langlois wrote Book I., Book II. as far at Chapter VI., the second Appendix, and this Preface; M. Seignobos the end of Book II., Book III., and the first Appendix. Chapter I. in the second book, Chapter V. of the third book, and the Conclusion, were written in common.

[22] In practice one does not as a rule resolve to treat a point of history before knowing whether there are or are not documents in existence which enable it to be studied. On the contrary, it is the accidental discovery of a document which suggests the idea of thoroughly elucidating the point of history to which it relates, and thus leads to the collection, for this purpose, of other documents of the same class.

[23] It is pitiable to see how the best of the early scholars struggled bravely, but vainly, to solve problems which would not even have existed for them if their collections had not been so incomplete. This lack of material was a disadvantage for which the most brilliant ingenuity could not compensate.

[24] "How hard it is to gain the means whereby we mount to the sources" (Goethe, Faust, i. 3).

[25] See C. V. Langlois, H. H. Bancroft et Cie., in the Revue universitaire, 1894, i. p. 233.

[26] The earlier scholars were conscious of the unfavourable character of the conditions under which they worked. They suffered keenly from the insufficiency of the instruments of research and the means of comparison. Most of them made great efforts to obtain information. Hence these voluminous correspondences between scholars of the last few centuries, of which our libraries preserve so many precious fragments, and these accounts of scientific searches, of journeys undertaken for the discovery of historical documents, which, under the name of Iter (Iter Italicum, Iter Germanicum, &c.), were formerly fashionable.

[27] We may remark, in passing, a delusion which is childish enough but very natural, and very common among collectors: they all tend to exaggerate the intrinsic value of the documents they possess, simply because they themselves are the possessors. Documents have been published with a sumptuous array of commentaries by persons who had accidentally acquired them, and who would, quite rightly, have attached no importance to them if they had met with them in public collections. This is, we may add, merely a manifestation, in a somewhat crude form, of a general tendency against which it is always necessary to guard: a man readily exaggerates the importance of the documents he possesses, the documents he has discovered, the texts he has edited, the persons and the questions he has studied.

[28] See L. Delisle, Le Cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque nationale, Paris, 1868-81, 3 vols. 4to. The histories of ancient depositories of documents, which have been recently published in considerable number, have been modelled on this admirable work.

[29] Many of the ancient documents still in circulation are the proceeds of ancient thefts from state institutions. The precautions now taken against a recurrence of such depredations are stringent, and, in nearly every instance, as effective as could be desired.

As to modern (printed) documents, the rule of legal deposit [compulsory presentation of copies to specified libraries], which has now been adopted by nearly all civilised countries, guarantees their preservation in public institutions.

[30] It is known that Napoleon I. entertained the chimerical design of concentrating at Paris the archives of the whole of Europe, and that, for a beginning, he conveyed to that city the archives of the Vatican, the Holy Roman Empire, the crown of Castile, and others, which later on the French were compelled to restore. Confiscation is now out of the question. But the ancient archives of the notaries might be centralised everywhere, as in some countries they are already, in public institutions. It is not easy to explain why at Paris the departments of Foreign Affairs, of War, and of Marine preserve ancient papers whose natural place would be at the Archives Nationales. A great many more anomalies of this kind might be mentioned, which in certain cases impede, where they do not altogether preclude, research; for the small collections, whose existence is not required, are precisely those whose regulations are the most oppressive.

[31] The international exchange of documents is worked in Europe (without charge to the public) by the agency of the various Foreign Offices. Besides this, most of the great institutions have agreements with each other for mutual loans; this system is as sure and sometimes more rapid in its operation than the diplomatic system. The question of lending original documents for use outside the institution where they are preserved has of late years been frequently mooted at congresses of historians and librarians. The results so far obtained are eminently satisfactory.

[32] These are sometimes large collections of formidable bulk; it is more natural to undertake the cataloguing of small accumulations which demand less labor. It is for the same reason that many insignificant but short cartularies have been published, while several cartularies of the highest importance, being voluminous, have still to be edited.

[33] See his autobibliography, published by E. de Broglie, Bernard de Montfaucon et les Bernardins, ii. (Paris, 1891, 8vo), p. 323.

[34] E. Renan, L'Avenir de la science, p. 217.

[35] Romania, xxi. (1892), p. 625.

[36] In the passage quoted above.

[37] Mr. H. H. Bancroft, in his Memoirs, entitled "Literary Industries" (New York, 1891, 16mo), analyses with sufficient minuteness some practical consequences of the imperfection of the methods of research. He considers the case of an industrious writer proposing to write the history of California. He easily procures a few books, reads them, takes notes; these books refer him to others, which he consults in the public libraries of the city where he resides. Several years are passed in this manner, at the end of which he perceives that he has not a tenth part of the resources in his hands; he travels, maintains correspondences, but, finally despairing of exhausting the subject, he comforts his conscience and pride with the reflection that he has done much, and that many of the works he has not seen, like many of those he has, are probably of very slight historic value. As to newspapers and the myriads of United States government reports, all of them containing facts bearing on Californian history; being a sane man, he has never dreamed of searching them from beginning to end: he has turned over a few of them, that is all; he knows that each of these fields of research would afford a labour of several years, and that all of them would fill the better part of his life with drudgery. As for oral testimony and manuscripts, he will gather a few unpublished anecdotes in chance conversations; he will obtain access to a few family papers; all this will appear in his book as notes and authorities. Now and again he will get hold of a few documentary curiosities among the state archives, but as it would take fifteen years to master the whole collection, he will naturally be content to glean a little here and there. Then he begins to write. He does not feel called upon to inform the public that he has not seen all the documents; on the contrary, he makes the most of what he has been able to procure in the course of twenty-five years of industrious research.

[38] Some dispense with personal search by invoking the assistance of the functionaries charged with the administration of depositories of documents; the indispensable search is, in these cases, conducted by the functionaries instead of by the public. Cf. Bouvard et Pecuchet, p. 158. Bouvard and Pecuchet resolve to write the life of the Duke of Angouleme; for this purpose "they determined to spend several days at the municipal library of Caen to make researches. The librarian placed general histories and pamphlets at their disposal...."

[39] These considerations have already been presented and developed in the Revue universitaire, 1894, i. p. 321 sqq.

[40] It is well known that, since the opening of the Papal Archives, several governments and learned societies have established Institutes at Rome, the members of which are, for the most part, occupied in cataloguing and making known the documents of these archives, in co-operation with the functionaries of the Vatican. The French School at Rome, the Austrian Institute, the Prussian Institute, the Polish Mission, the Institute of the "Goerresgesellschaft," Belgian, Danish, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and other scholars, have performed, and are performing, cataloguing work of considerable extent in the archives of the Vatican.

[41] Catalogues of documents sometimes, but not always, mention the fact that such and such a document has been edited, dealt with critically, utilised. The generally received rule is that the compiler mentions circumstances of this kind when he is aware of them, without imposing on himself the enormous task of ascertaining the truth on this head[sic] in every instance where he is ignorant of it.

[42] E. Bernheim, Lehrbuch der historischen Methode, 2nd ed., pp. 196-202.

[43] C. V. Langlois, Manuel de Bibliographie historique: I. Instruments bibliographiques, Paris, 1896, 16mo.

[44] E. Renan, Feuilles detachees (Paris, 1892, 8vo), pp. 96 sqq.

[45] vii. p. 228 sqq.

[46] E. A. Freeman, The Methods of Historical Study (London, 1885, 8vo), p. 45.

In France geography has long been regarded as a science closely related to history. An Agregation, which combines history and geography, exists at the present day, and in the lycees history and geography are taught by the same professors. Many people persist in asserting the legitimacy of this combination, and even take umbrage when it is proposed to separate two branches of knowledge united, as they say, by many essential connecting links. But it would be hard to find any good reason, or any facts of experience, to prove that a professor of history, or an historian, is so much the better the more he knows of geology, oceanography, climatology, and the whole group of geographical sciences. In fact, it is with some impatience, and to no immediate advantage, that students of history work through the courses of geography which their curricula force upon them; and those students who have a real taste for geography would be very glad to throw history overboard. The artificial union of history with geography dates back, in France, to an epoch when geography was an ill-defined and ill-arranged subject, regarded by all as a negligeable branch of study. It is a relic of antiquity that we ought to get rid of at once.

[47] "Historiography" is a branch of the "History of Literature;" it is the sum of the results obtained by the critics who have hitherto studied ancient historical writings, such as annals, memoirs, chronicles, biographies, and so forth.

[48] This is only true under reservation; there is an instrument of research which is indispensable to all historians, to all students, whatever be the subject of their special study. History, moreover, is here in the same situation as the majority of the other sciences: all who prosecute original research, of whatever kind, need to know several living languages, those of countries where men think and work, of countries which, from the point of view of science, stand in the forefront of contemporary civilisation.

In our days the cultivation of the sciences is not confined to any single country, or even to Europe. It is international. All problems, the same problems, are being studied everywhere simultaneously. It is difficult to-day, and to-morrow it will be impossible, to find a subject which can be treated without taking cognisance of works in a foreign language. Henceforth, for ancient history, Greek and Roman, a knowledge of German will be as imperative as a knowledge of Greek and Latin. Questions of strictly local history are the only ones still accessible to those who do not possess the key to foreign literatures. The great problems are beyond their reach, for the wretched and ridiculous reason that works on these problems in any language but their own are sealed books to them.

Total ignorance of the languages which have hitherto been the ordinary vehicles of science (German, English, French, Italian) is a disease which age renders incurable. It would not be exacting too much to require every candidate for a scientific profession to be at least trilinguis—that is, to be able to understand, fairly easily, two languages besides his mother-tongue. This is a requirement to which scholars were not subject formerly, when Latin was still the common language of learned men, but which the conditions of modern scientific work will henceforth cause to press with increasing weight upon the scholars of every country.[*]

[*] Perhaps a day will come when it will be necessary to know the most important Slavonic language; there are already scholars who are setting themselves to learn Russian. The idea of restoring Latin to its old position of universal language is chimerical. See the file of the Phoenix, seu nuntius latinus universalis (London, 1891, 4to).

The French scholars who are unable to read German and English are thereby placed in a position of permanent inferiority as compared with their better instructed colleagues in France and abroad; whatever their merit, they are condemned to work with insufficient means of information, to work badly. They know it. They do their best to hide their infirmity, as something to be ashamed of, except when they make a cynical parade of it and boast of it; but this boasting, as we can easily see, is only shame showing itself in a different way. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the fact that a practical knowledge of foreign languages is auxiliary in the first degree to all historical work, as indeed it is to scientific work in general.

[49] When the "auxiliary sciences" were first inserted in the curricula of French universities, it was observed that some students whose special subject was the French Revolution, and who had no interest whatever in the middle ages, took up palaeography as an "auxiliary science," and that some students of geography, who were in no way interested in antiquity, took up epigraphy. Evidently they had failed to understand that the study of the "auxiliary sciences" is recommended, not as an end in itself, but because it is of practical utility to those who devote themselves to certain special subjects. See the Revue universitaire, 1895, ii. p. 123.

[50] On this point note the opinions of T. von Sickel and J. Havet, quoted in the Bibliotheque l'Ecole des chartes, 1896, p. 87. In 1854 the Austrian Institute "fuer oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung" was organised on the model of the French Ecole des chartes. Another institution of the same type has lately been created in the "Istituto di studi superiori" at Florence. "We are accustomed," we read in England, "to hear the complaint that there is not in this country any institution resembling the Ecole des chartes" (Quarterly Review, July 1896, p. 122).

[51] This is a suitable place to enumerate the principal "manuals" published in the last twenty-five years. But a list of them, ending at 1894, will be found in Bernheim's Lehrbuch, pp. 206 sqq. We will only refer to the great "manuals" of "Philology" (in the comprehensive sense of the German "Philologie," which includes the history of language and literature, epigraphy, palaeography, and all that pertains to textual criticism) now in course of publication: the Grundriss far indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, edited by G. Buehler; the Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, edited by W. Geiger and E. Kuhn; the Handbuch der classichen Altertumswissenschaft, edited by I. von Mueller; the Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, edited by H. Paul, the second edition of which began to appear in 1896; the Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, edited y G. Groeber. In these vast repertories there will be found, along with a short presentment of the subject, complete bibliographical references, direct as well as indirect.

[52] The French "manuals" of MM. Prou (Palaeography), Giry (Diplomatic), Cagnat (Latin Epigraphy), and others, have diffused among the public the idea and knowledge of the auxiliary subjects of study. New editions have enabled, and will enable, them to be kept up to date—a very necessary operation, for most of these subjects, though now settled in the main, are being enriched and made more precise every day. Cf. supra, p. 38.

[53] What exactly are we to understand by this "incommunicable knowledge," of which we speak? When a specialist is very familiar with the documents of a given class or period, associations of ideas are formed in his brain; and when he examines a new document of the same class or species, analogies suddenly dawn upon him which would escape any one of less experience, however well furnished he might be with the most perfect repertories. The fact is, that not all the peculiarities of documents can be isolated; there are some which cannot be classified under any intelligible head, and which, therefore, cannot be found in any tabulated list. But the human memory, when it is good, retains the impression of these peculiarities, and even a faint and distant stimulus suffices to revive the apprehension of them.

[54] Supra, p. 17.

[55] This expression, which frequently occurs, needs explanation. It is not to be taken to apply to a species of facts. There are no historical facts in the sense in which we speak of chemical facts. The same fact is or is not historical according to the manner in which it is known. It is only the mode of acquiring knowledge that is historical. A sitting of the Senate is a fact of direct observation for one who takes part in it; it becomes historical for the man who reads about it in a report. The eruption of Vesuvius in the time of Pliny is a geological fact which is known historically. The historical character is not in the facts, but in the manner of knowing them.

[56] Fustel de Coulanges has said it. Cf. supra, p. 4, note 1.

[57] In the sciences of observation it is the fact itself, observed directly, which is the starting-point.

[58] Infra, ch. vii.

[59] We shall not treat specially of the criticism of material documents (objects, monuments, &c.) where it differs from the criticism of written documents.

[60] For the details and the logical justification of this method see Seignobos, Les Conditions psychologiques de la connaissance en histoire, in the Revue philosophique, 1887, ii. pp. 1, 168.

[61] The most favourable case, that in which the document has been drawn up by what is called an ocular "witness," is still far short of the ideal required for scientific knowledge. The notion of witness has been borrowed from the procedure of the law-courts; reduced to scientific terms, it becomes that of an observer. A testimony is an observation. But, in point of fact, historical testimony differs materially from scientific observation. The observer proceeds by fixed rules, and clothes his report in language of rigorous precision. On the other hand, the "witness" observes without method, and reports in unprecise language; it is not known whether he has taken the necessary precautions. It is an essential attribute of historical documents that they come before us as the result of work which has been done without method and without guarantee.

[62] See B. Lasch, Das Erwachen und die Entwickelung der historischen Kritik im Mittelalter (Breslan, 1887, 8vo).

[63] Natural credulity is deeply rooted in indolence. It is easier to believe than to discuss, to admit than to criticise, to accumulate documents than to weigh them. It is also pleasanter; he who criticises documents must sacrifice some of them, and such a sacrifice seems a dead loss to the man who has discovered or acquired the document.

[64] Revue philosophique, l.c., p. 178.

[65] A member of the Societe des humanistes francais (founded at Paris in 1894) amused himself by pointing out, in the Bulletin of this society, certain errors amenable to verbal criticism which occur in various editions of posthumous works, especially the Memoires d'outre-tombe. He showed that it is possible to remove obscurities in the most modern documents by the same methods which are used in restoring ancient texts.

[66] On the habits of the mediaeval copyists, by whose intermediate agency most of the literary works of antiquity have come down to us, see the notices collected by W. Wattenbach, Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, 3rd ed. (Berlin, 1896, 8vo).

[67] See, for example, the Coquilles lexicographiques which have been collected by A. Thomas, in Romania, xx. (1891), pp. 464 sqq.

[68] See E. Bernheim, Lehrbuch der historischen Methode, 2nd ed., pp. 341-54. Also consult F. Blass, in the Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, edited by I. von Mueller, I., 2nd ed. (1892), pp. 249-89 (with a detailed bibliography); A. Tobler, in the Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, I. (1888), pp. 253-63; H. Paul, in the Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, I., 2nd ed. (1896), pp. 184-96.

In French read the section Critique des textes, in Minerva, Introduction a l'etude des classiques scolaires grecs et latins, by J. Gow and S. Reinach (Paris, 1890, 16mo), pp. 50-65.

The work of J. Taylor, "History of the Transmission of Ancient Books to Modern Times" (Liverpool, 1889, 16mo), is of no value.

[69] This rule is not absolute. The editor is generally accorded the right of unifying the spelling of an autograph document—provided that he informs the public of the fact—wherever, as in most modern documents, the orthographical vagaries of the author possess no philological interest. See the Instructions pour la publication des textes historiques, in the Bulletin de la Commission royale d'histoire de Belgique, 5th series, vi. (1896); and the Grundsaetze fuer die Herausgabe von Actenstuecken zur neueren Geschichte, laboriously discussed by the second and third Congresses of German historians, in 1894 and 1895, in the Deutsche Zeitschrift fuer Geschichtswissenschaft, xi. p. 200, xii. p. 364. The last Congresses of Italian historians, held at Genoa (1893) and at Rome (1895), have also debated this question, but without result. What are the liberties which it is legitimate to take in reproducing autograph texts? The question is more difficult than is imagined by those who are not professionally concerned with it.

[70] Interpolations will be treated of in chapter iii p. 92.

[71] The scribes of the Carlovingian Renaissance and of the Renaissance proper of the fifteenth century endeavoured to furnish intelligible texts. They therefore corrected everything they did not understand. Several ancient works have been in this manner irretrievably ruined.

[72] The principal of these are, for the classical languages, besides the above-mentioned work of Blass (supra, p. 74, note), the Adversaria critica of Madvig (Copenhagen, 1871-74, 3 vols. 8vo). For Greek, the celebrated Commentatio palaeographica of F. J. Bast, published as an appendix to an edition of the grammarian Gregory of Corinth (Leipzig, 1811, 8vo), and the Variae lectiones of Cobet (Leiden, 1873, 8vo). For Latin, H. Hagen, Gradus ad criticen (Leipzig, 1879, 8vo), and W. M. Lindsay, "An Introduction to Latin Textual Emendation based on the Text of Plautus" (London, 1896, 16mo). A contributor to the Bulletin de la Societe des humanistes francais has expressed, in this publication, a wish that a similar collection might be compiled for modern French.

[73] Cf. Revue Critique, 1895, ii. p. 358.

[74] Quite recently our scholars used to neglect this elementary precaution, in order, as they said, to avoid an "air of pedantry." M. B. Haureau has published, in his Notices et extraits de quelques manuscrits latins de la Bibliotheque nationale (vi. p. 310), a piece of rhythmic verse, "De presbytero et logico." "It is not unedited," says he; "Thomas Wright has already published it.... But this edition is very defective; the text is occasionally quite unintelligible. We have, therefore, considerably amended it, making use, for this purpose, of two copies, which, it most be conceded, are neither of them faultless...." The edition follows, with no variants. Verification is impossible.

[75] "Textual emendation too often misses the mark through want of knowledge of what may be called the rules of the game" (W. M. Lindsay, p.v. in the work referred to above).

[76] It has often been asked whether all texts are worth the trouble of "establishing" and publishing them. "Among our ancient texts," says M. J. Bedier, referring to French mediaeval literature, "which ought we to publish? Every one. But, it will be asked, are we not already staggering under the weight of documents?... The following is the reason why publication should be exhaustive. As long as we are confronted by this mass of sealed and mysterious manuscripts, they will appeal to us as if they contained the answer to every riddle; every candid mind will be hampered by them in its flights of induction. It is desirable to publish them, if only to get rid of them and to be able, for the future, to work as if they did not exist...." (Revue des Deux Mondes, February 15, 1894, p. 910). All documents ought to be catalogued, as we have already pointed out (p. 31), in order that researchers may be relieved of the fear that there may be documents, useful for their purposes, of which they know nothing. But in every case where a summary analysis of a document can give a sufficient idea of its contents, and its form is of no special interest, there is nothing gained by publishing it in extenso. We need not overburden ourselves. Every document will be analysed some day, but many documents will never be published.

[77] Editors of texts often render their task still longer and more difficult than it need be by undertaking the additional duty of commentators, under the pretext of explaining the text. It would be to their advantage to spare themselves this labour, and to dispense with all annotation which does not belong to the "apparatus criticus" proper. See, on this point, T. Lindner, Ueber die Herausgabe von geschichtlichen Quellen, in the Mittheilungen des Instituts fuer oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung, xvi., 1895, pp. 501 sqq.

[78] To realise this it is enough to compare what has hitherto been done by the most active societies, such as the Society of the Monumenta Germaniae historica and the Istituto storico italiano, with what still remains for them to do. The greater part of the most ancient documents and the hardest to restore, which have long taxed the ingenuity of scholars, have now been placed in a relatively satisfactory condition. But an immense amount of mechanical work has still to be done.

[79] R. de Gourmont, Le Latin mystique (Paris, 1891, 8vo), p. 258.

[80] See these alleged autographs in the Bibliotheque nationale, nouv. acq. fr., No. 709.

[81] F. Blass has enumerated the chief of these motives with reference to the pseudepigraphic literature of antiquity (pp. 269 sqq. in the work already quoted).

[82] E. Bernheim (Lehrbuch, pp. 243 sqq.) gives a somewhat lengthy list of spurious documents, now recognised as such. Here it will be enough to recall a few famous hoaxes: Sarchoniathon, Clotilde de Surville, Ossian. Since the publication of Bernheim's book several celebrated documents, hitherto exempt from suspicion, have been struck off the list of authorities. See especially A. Piaget, La Chronique des chanoines de Neuchatel (Neuchatel, 1896, 8vo).