Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/53

 may be as good as any other; if a college desires a good History Tutor, I conceive that the best way to get him would be to subject the History candidates (selected in the first instance on the ground of their Honours acquired in the History Schools) to a sound examination in the work of the Literæ Humaniores School, in which teaching power is at present most fully developed. If a college desires to have what is called a man of research, I am not sure but the best way to obtain him would be to choose him without examination. There are not, I believe, many men worthy of such distinction who are not already marked out by work done.

The whole question of research is difficult, the direction as well as the endowment of it. I confess that I do not like the idea of giving a man an income which would by itself be sufficient to make work unnecessary, and telling him to devote himself to research as he pleases. Not to consider cases in which the duty of research would, like other duties heretofore, be eluded,—and idle professorships would take the place of idle fellowships,—the temptation to desultory research must in every case be very great, and desultory research, however it may amuse or benefit the investigator, seldom adds much to the real stock of human knowledge. We have had enough spent already on self-culture taken for granted. If we would provide for research it must, so far as History is concerned, be done by paying for results. Let me not be misunderstood. For results I should rather say work done. There are fields of work in History as well as in Natural Science in which experiment is to be treated as result. If a scientific man tries some new and costly combination of chemicals, if a practical gunfounder or shipbuilder attempts some grand and novel scheme of artillery or naval architecture, and, after making careful calculations, fails, his failure is a result for which he has a right to be paid; it is an addition to our knowledge to have learned that such and such combinations do not produce the effect which it was calculated that they would produce. So in historical study I should place among the lawful researches and results, the investigation of foreign libraries, the exploration of unsearched