The Purpose of History

The serious study of history is characteristic of a certain maturity of mind. For the intellectually young, the world is too new and attractive to arouse in them a very absorbing interest in its past. Life is for them an adventure, and the world is a place for excursions and experiences. They care little about what men have done, but much about what they might do. History, to interest them, must be written as a romance which will fire their imagination, rather than as a philosophy which might make them wise. But maturity, somewhat disciplined and disillusioned, confirms the suspicion, which even youth entertains at times, that the world, while offering an opportunity, hedges the offer about with restrictions which must be understood and submitted to, if effort is to be crowned with success.