subjects. The
secondary schools which have been organised since the sixteenth century,
ecclesiastical or secular, Catholic or Protestant, did not admit history
into their plan of study, or only admitted it as an appendage to the
study of the ancient languages. This was the tradition of the Jesuits in
France; it was adopted by the University of Napoleon.

History was only introduced into secondary education in the nineteenth
century, under the pressure of public opinion; and although it has been
allotted more space in France than in England, or even in Germany, it
has continued to be a subsidiary subject, not taught in a special class
(as philosophy is), nor always by a special professor, and counting for
very little in examinations.

Historical instruction has for a long time felt the effects of the
manner in which it was introduced. The subject was imposed by the
authorities on teachers trained exclusively in the study of literature,
and could find no suitable place in a system of classical education
based on the study of forms, and indifferent to the knowledge of social
phenomena. History was taught because it was prescribed by the
programme; but this programme, the sole motive and guide of the
instruction, was always an accident, and varied with the preferences, or
even the personal studies of those who framed it. History formed part of
the social conventions; there are, it was said, names and facts "of
which it is not permissible to be ignorant"; but the things of which
ignorance was not permitted varied greatly, from the names of the
Merovingian kings and the battles of the Seven Years' War to the Salic
Law and the work of Saint Vincent de Paul.

The improvised staffs which, in order to carry out the programme, had to
furnish impromptu instruction in history, had no clear idea either of
the reasons for such instruction, or of its place in general education,
or of the technical methods necessary for giving it. With this lack of
tradition, of pedagogic preparation, and even of mechanical aids, the
professor of history found himself carried back to the ages before
printing, when the teacher had to supply the pupil with all the facts
which formed the subject-matter of instruction, and he adopted the
mediaeval procedure. Armed with a note-book in which he had written down
the list of facts to be taught, he read it out to the pupils, sometimes
making a pretence of extemporising; this was the "lesson," the
corner-ston