The English Historical Review Vol 32

Excerpt from The English Historical Review, Vol. 32: 1917 Any account of the study of modern history in the English universities must naturally begin with the foundation of the professorships of that subject at Oxford and Cambridge by George I. Yet it must not be inferred that the subject was not read by young men in the universities before that date. It was part of their private reading; and when they studied it they did so for their own pleasure or profit, not because it was prescribed by authority. The only recognized historical study was ancient history. That flourished most at Oxford, where Camden in 1622 had founded a chair for the subject and endowed it with an annual stipend of 140 per annum, and where the existence of the University Press did much to encourage the publication of works bearing on ancient history. It cannot be said that the establishment of professorships of modern history at Oxford and Cambridge was due to any demand for such teaching in the universities themselves. The impulse came from outside. Statesmen and men of the world had long been agreed on the educational value of history and on the practical utility of a knowledge of modern history. Their ideas on the subject can be gathered from Bolingbroke and Chesterfield. History, wrote Bolingbroke, is the study 'of all others the most proper to train us up to private and public virtue'. It is useful in forming our moral character and making us better men. In the first place it supplies us with a stock of good examples. In the second place, 'To converse with historians is to keep good company; many of them were excellent men, and those who were not have taken care to appear such in their writings'. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."