*-] TENDENCY IN ENGLISH HISTORY. 3 
> Ve ll ! sa( l fate, which is ‘not to be thought of, is 
just what befáis, if not the stream itself of British freedom, 
yet the reflexion of it in our popular histories. 
Isow suppose we wish to remedy this evil, how shall we 
proceed? Here is no bad question for historical students 
at the opening of an academic year, the opening perhaps 
to some of their academic course. You are asked to think 
o\ cr English history as a whole and consider if you cannot 
find some meaning, some method in it, if you cannot state 
some conclusion to which it leads. Hitherto perhaps you 
have learned names and dates, lists of kings, lists of 
battles and wars. The time comes now when you are to 
ask yourselves, To what end ? For what practical purpose 
are these facts collected and committed to memory ? If 
they lead to no great truths having at the same time scien 
tific generality and momentous practical bearings, then 
history is but an amusement and will scarcely hold its own 
in the conflict of studies. 
Ko one can long study history without being haunted 
y the idea of development, of progress. We move onward, 
both each of us and all of us together. England is not 
now what it was under the Stuarts or the Tudors, and 
in these last centuries at least there is much to favour 
t e view that the movement is progressive, that it is 
toward something better. But how shall we define this 
movement, and how shall we measure it? If we are to 
study history in that rational spirit, with that definite 
0 ject which I have recommended, we must fix our minds 
on this question and arrive at some solution of it. We 
must not be content with those vague flourishes which the 
o school of historians, who according to my view lost 
themselves in mere narrative, used to add for form’s sake 
before winding-up. 
1—2