er part of his life to reading, observation, and reflection must
have gained, if only through a perception of his own deficiencies, some
ideas that should be useful to those who have, life's experience before
them. Hence, if a Freshman should say to me, I wish to be a historian,
tell me what preliminary studies you would advise, I should welcome the
opportunity. From the nature of the case, the history courses will be
sought and studied in their logical order and my advice will have to do
only with collateral branches of learning.

In the first place, I esteem a knowledge of Latin and French of the
highest importance. By a knowledge of French, I mean that you should be
able to read it substantially as well as you read English, so that when
you have recourse to a dictionary it will be a French dictionary and not
one of the French-English kind. The historical and other literature that
is thus opened up to you enables you to live in another world, with a
point of view impossible to one who reads for pleasure only in his own
tongue. To take two instances: Moliere is a complement to Shakespeare,
and the man who knows his Moliere as he does his Shakespeare has made a
propitious beginning in that study of human character which must be
understood if he desires to write a history that shall gain readers. "I
have known and loved Moliere," said Goethe, "from my youth and have
learned from him during my whole life. I never fail to read some of his
plays every year, that I may keep up a constant intercourse with what is
excellent. It is not merely the perfectly artistic treatment which
delights me; but particularly the amiable nature, the highly formed mind
of the poet. There is in him a grace and a feeling for the decorous, and
a tone of good society, which his innate beautiful nature could only
attain by daily intercourse with the most eminent men of his age."[3]

My other instance is Balzac. In reading him for pleasure, as you read
Dickens and Thackeray, you are absorbing an exact and fruitful knowledge
of French society of the Restoration and of Louis Philippe. Moreover you
are still pursuing your study of human character under one of the acute
critics of the nineteenth century. Balzac has always seemed to me
peculiarly French, his characters belong essentially to Paris or to the
provinces. I associate Eugenie Grandet with Saumur in the Touraine and
Cesar Birotteau with the Rue St. Honore in Paris; and all his other men
and wome