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nydus/Introduction to the study of historyPublic
Page 339 of 400
Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF HISTORY

  1. [19] One of us, M. Seignobos, proposes to publish later on a complete treatise of Historical Methodology, if there appears to be a public for this class of work.
  2. [20] It cannot be too often stated that the study of history, as it is prosecuted at school, does not presuppose the same aptitudes as the same study when prosecuted at the university or in after life. Julien Havet, who afterwards devoted himself to the (critical) study of history, found history wearisome at school. "I believe," says M. L. Havet, "that the teaching of history [in schools] is not organised in such a manner as to provide sufficient nourishment for the scientific spirit.... Of all the studies comprised in our school curricula, history is the only one in which the pupil is not being continually called upon to verify something. When he is learning Latin or German, every sentence in a translation requires him to verify a dozen different rules. In the various branches of mathematics the results are never divorced from their proofs; the problems, too, compel the pupil to think through the whole for himself. Where are the problems in history, and what schoolboy is ever trained to gain by independent effort an insight into the interconnection of events?" (Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes, 1896, p. 84).
  3. [21] M. Langlois wrote Book I., Book II. as far at Chapter VI., the second Appendix, and this Preface; M. Seignobos the end of Book II., Book III., and the first Appendix. Chapter I. in the second book, Chapter V. of the third book, and the Conclusion, were written in common.
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