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 mediæval 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