Page:Inaugural lecture on The Study of History.djvu/17

 Geoffrey Malaterra. But I think that no one followed the whole of the various sections of this vast whole and I know well how few were those who attended-the later course, and listened to the details of the expulsion of the Moor, and the building up of the Norman realm. Unfortunately those who were interested in Timoleon and Agathocles could not be induced to follow the exploits of Maniakes or Roger, and vice versa. To those who were ready to specialize in the one period, the other period was only a small comer of that vast bulk of universal history which cannot be studied in a minute fashion. We all believe, in short, in the unity of history, but we know to our sorrow that it is not possible to master all parts of it with the same thoroughness. Freeman used to ascribe the indifference of the members of the University to his lectures on Gregory of Tours or Geoffrey Malaterra to the Examination system, his pet aversion: he thought that if graduates and undergraduates had not been pinned down to Period IV or Period VI, or the textual knowledge of the Charters of Stubbs, and all our other technicalities of the Schools, they would have been thronging to his lectures on the Frank or the Norman. I fancy that he erred—the real rock in the way was the growing sense of the vastness of history and the necessity for specialization. How many men in a hundred, if each were allowed to choose his own course and read what he pleased, would pitch on the particular epoch that happened to be that which most interested the professor of the day? A small proportion at the best, and therein lies the whole difficulty of reconciling certain views of the professorial office with the practical facts of the study of history by the average man.

Nothing could contrast more curiously with Freeman's