tical revolutions of the last four hundred years
have weakened authority; but in intellectual development I believe that
in general an important advantage lies in accepting the dicta of
specialists. In this respect our scientific men may teach us a lesson.
One not infrequently meets a naturalist or a physician, who possesses
an excellent knowledge of history, acquired by reading the works of
general historians who have told an interesting story. He would laugh at
the idea that he must verify the notes of his author and read the
original documents, for he has confidence that the interpretation is
accurate and truthful. This is all that I ask of the would-be historian.
For the sake of going to the bottom of things in his own special study,
let him take his physical and natural science on trust and he may well
begin to do this during his college course. As a manner of doing this,
there occur to me three interesting biographies, the Life of Darwin, the
Life of Huxley, and the Life of Pasteur, which give the important part
of the story of scientific development during the last half of the
nineteenth century. Now I believe that a thorough mastery of these three
books will be worth more to the historical student than any driblets of
science that he may pick up in an unsystematic college course.

With this elimination of undesirable studies--undesirable because of
lack of time--there remains ample time for those studies which are
necessary for the equipment of a historian; to wit, languages,
histories, English, French, and Latin literature, and as much of
economics as his experienced teachers advise. Let him also study the
fine arts as well as he can in America, fitting himself for an
appreciation of the great works of architecture, sculpture, and painting
in Europe which he will recognize as landmarks of history in their
potent influence on the civilization of mankind. Let us suppose that our
hypothetical student has marked out on these lines his college course of
four years, and his graduate course of three. At the age of twenty-five
he will then have received an excellent college education. The
university with its learned and hard-working teachers, its wealth, its
varied and wholesome traditions has done for him the utmost possible.
Henceforward his education must depend upon himself and, unless he has
an insatiable love of reading, he had better abandon the idea of
becoming a historian; for books, pamphlets, old newspapers,