n the historian.+ If the schools are to prosecute
this study, history is the chief field for it. No historian ever gets
out of the mores of his own society of origin. He may adopt a party in
church, politics, or social philosophy. If he does, his standpoint will
be set for him, and it is sure to be sectarian. Even if he rises above
the limitations of party, he does not get outside of the patriotic and
ethical horizon in which he has been educated, especially when he deals
with the history of other countries and other times than his own. Each
historian regards his own nation as the torchbearer of civilization; its
mores give him his ethical standards by which he estimates whatever he
learns of other peoples. All our histories of antiquity or the classical
nations show that they are written by modern scholars. In modern Russian
literature may be found passages about the "civilizing mission" of
Russia which might be translated, _mutatis mutandis_, from passages in
English, French, or German literature about the civilizing mission of
England, France, or Germany. Probably the same is true of Turkish,
Hindoo, or Chinese literature. The patriotism of the historian rules his
judgment, especially as to excuses and apologies for things done in the
past, and most of all as to the edifying omissions,--a very important
part of the task of the historian. A modern Protestant and a Roman
Catholic, or an American and a European, cannot reach the same view of
the Middle Ages, no matter how unbiased and objective each may aim to
be. There is a compulsion on the historian to act in this way, for if he
wrote otherwise, his fellow-countrymen would ignore his work. It follows
that a complete and unbiased history hardly exists. It may be a moral
impossibility. Every student during his academic period ought to get up
one bit of history thoroughly from the ultimate sources, in order to
convince himself what history is not. Any one who ever lived through a
crisis in the history of a university must have learned how impossible
it is to establish in memory and record a correct literary narrative of
what took place, the forces at work, the participation of individuals,
etc. Monuments, festivals, mottoes, oratory, and poetry may enter
largely into the mores. They never help history; they obscure it. They
protect errors and sanctify prejudices. The same is true of literary
commonplaces which gain currency. It is commonly believed in the United
States th