Page:Inaugural lecture on The Study of History.djvu/21

 in this country was handicapped by a want of machinery for the facilitation of research—places where the student can be taught the elements of palaeography and diplomatics, where he can have his run among manuscripts and learn their tricks and habits under skilled supervision, where he can lay his hand readily on scientific bibliographies. Unlike most of the suggestions made in inaugural lectures, this plea had some effect—but only in London. In Oxford, where it might have been expected to have led to some definite and immediate effort, nothing was done: the Common Fund prefers to endow readerships for subjects in which it is perfectly certain that no large class of learners can ever be got together—such as Egyptology—and leaves us with our admirable teachers in palaeography and diplomatic stinted to a miserable £50 or £60 and lecturing for only a few weeks in the year.

The thesis of York Powell's inaugural lecture leads us on directly to that of the present occupant of the Regius chair—my good friend Professor Firth—which most of those present to-day heard delivered some eighteen months ago. The two addresses are linked together by the fact that both of them are pleas for the researcher—York Powell wished to have him equipped with the necessary machinery for starting on his work, Professor Firth wants to have him 'taught history historically', to use the phrase that stands at the head of the printed form of his lecture. Every one must agree with such an aspiration—the very idea of a historian taught unhistorically seems to carry its own refutation on its face. Clearly we all are and must be at one on this point—if we understand the same thing by the same phrase. But I fancy that the exact shade of meaning in Professor Firth's mind when he uses these