CHAPTER I HISTORIANS, CATALOGUES, AND COLLECTIONS SECTION 1.- THE HISTORIANS The student of history should be able to recall without effort the names of the principal historians of his chosen field. With the names should be associated in his memory the important works of those historians, and of these works the scope and value should be known. As study becomes more intensive and the field of research narrower or more thoroughly explored, his bibliography of the subject should attain a comprehensiveness that includes all available material. Bibliographies are too often mere collections of names, series of titles which form a catalogue whose value varies with the knowledge possessed as to each item. Such insufficiency of equipment more often results from lack of a true conception on the part of the student of his needs than from unwillingness to gain the requisite knowledge. The most extended and minute knowledge of authors and their works is incomplete - is, we may say, of little worth - unless it includes a valuation of the items of evidence which bibliography furnishes. This appraisement must be the work of the student himself, and by his success must be measured his understanding of history. To acquire the power of correctly gauging the weight of this or that historian is by no means easy; but it is not impossible. The work of critics and essayists will give views worthy of most respectful consideration; but such work is too often special pleading, and in the last instance the student must, as did the critic, investigate for himself the personality, the environment, and the opportunities of the writer whose work is under examination. Until a knowledge of these is gained, even a study of original materials fails to reveal the meaning and purport of history. |