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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF HISTORY

and tolerate a variety of usages; by showing us that societies have often been transformed, it familiarises us with variation in social forms, and cures us of a morbid dread of change. Lastly, the contemplation of past evolutions, which enables us to understand how the transformations of humanity are brought about by changes of habits and the renewal of generations, saves us from the temptation of applying biological analogies (selection, struggle for existence, inherited habits, and so on) to the explanation of social evolution, which is not produced by the operation of the same causes as animal evolution.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

THE SECONDARY TEACHING OF HISTORY IN FRANCE

I. The teaching of history is a recent addition to secondary education. Formerly history was taught to the sons of kings and great persons, in order to give them a preparation in the art of governing, according to the ancient tradition, but it was a sacred science reserved for the future rulers of states, a science for princes, not for 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

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