ppropriate to choose, for such an audience, some literary subject.
And I propose, with some diffidence, to offer a few observations on
the reading of history, because in these latter days, when education
has come in upon us like a flood, rising higher and spreading wider
every year among our people, no part of literature is more sedulously
studied than the field of history. On the other hand, this field is
being very rapidly enlarged. It has been said that the output of
histories during the nineteenth century has exceeded in bulk and
volume the production of all previous centuries. And in all the
countries now standing in the forefront of civilisation, the chief
product of their serious literature is at this time historical and
biographical--for I take authentic biography to be a kind of handmaid
of history. It has been reported that during the ten years ending 1907
there were published in England 5498 books under the head of history,
and 1059 biographies. Moreover, of those who are not actually writing
history, an important number are occupied in criticising the
historians.

Now the first observation that I submit to you is that the production
of all history has been almost entirely the work of Europeans, among
whom I reckon the American writers, as belonging by language and
culture to Europe. So far as the African continent has any trustworthy
history, it is in some European language. In Asia there have been
annalists, chroniclers, and genealogists, mostly Mohammedan, who
narrate the wars and exploits of great conquerors, the succession of
kings, and the rise and fall of dynasties. And I believe that in China
official record of public events and transactions has been kept up
from very early ages. But if we measure these Asiatic narratives by
the standard of literary merit and the demand for authentication of
facts, I fear that they will be found wanting; though they may be
relied upon to give the general course of important events, and an
outline of the result of battles and the upsetting of thrones.

When these Asiatic chroniclers wrote of the times in and near which
they were living, they were fairly trustworthy. But whenever they
attempted to write of times long past and of countries unknown to them
personally, their narratives became for the most part fabulous and
romantic, confused and improbable, with some grains of truth here and
there. Our best information regarding the earlier ages of Asia is
derived, I thi