Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/22

 to win but to work for. The Modern History School has thriven with very little nursing; and it needs but a glance at the class lists to show that there has been and continues to be, I will not say abundant promise, but actual work done m the cause of historical study by those who have distinguished themselves in our examinations. It is not invidious to mention the names of some who have challenged public criticism by their books, and have not merely shown in them the usefulness of historical training, but conferred lasting benefits on the students that follow them. The Law and Modern History School helped at least to train my excellent colleague, the Chichele Professor, for his labours; and it has helped to give us from Mr. Kington an English life of Frederick II, from Mr. Bryce a monograph on the Western Empire, which have already taken their place as standard books on our shelves. But far more than this has been done by the direction into the same channel of a considerable part of the more industrious teaching power of the Colleges, so that there is now a strong and, I hope, an increasing, staff of College tutors, whose time and mind are devoted primarily to the cultivation of this study. With these my occasional visits here as examiner have put me into communication, and the association with them in their work is to my mind one of the happiest incidents of my present position. I would, indeed, that this thought had been without the drawback that, at the very moment of my return, I in common with the whole of the rest of the University should have to lament the loss of one [Dr. Shirley], noble, good, and wise far beyond his years, who had watched and worked for the development of this study from the day of its introduction to Oxford, whose labours and influence were ever used for good and for every thing that was good, whose early promotion and effective character had marked him out as the man who was to do great things for the University and the Church of God in this age. Seldom has so much promise, seldom have so great earnests of great work been so sadly or so fatally blighted: we cannot look that his place can ever in all respects be so filled that there will not still be much, very much, to desiderate; for it