The Historian’s Work.
The natural science method consists of a direct study of the facts, and, as it is not concerned with the unique as unique, it may create situations and conditions, thus securing abundant data for generalization. For the historian this is impossible. He studies not the fact, as the natural scientist studies plants, animals and chemicals in the laboratory; he has only the record of the fact, the fact itself having gone never to return. His knowledge of the fact will depend upon the abundance and value of the records the fact has left behind it. Such records we call sources. Sources, then, are the remains of man’s social activities. They fall naturally into two groups: remains and tradition. Remains consist of objects that were parts of the past event, and have survived the destructive action of time; tradition embraces the impressions of the event recorded by witnesses, and may be oral, written or pictorial in form. The historical reconstruction, found in the narrative text, is based, in a large majority of cases, upon written tradition.
What is the method employed by the historian in restoring the past from a study of the sources? In simple language what he does is this: he selects a subject for investigation, searches for all the sources that can throw any light upon it, criticises these sources to determine their value and relationship, compares the affirmations contained in them to learn what the fact was, and, finally, groups these facts in a complex whole. It is only through an acquaintance with this process, through the practical application of it, that the pupil really learns what the grounds for historical belief are and is able to distinguish between fact and fiction. No amount of reading, even of the sources, can ever take the place of this critical training in the historical method, just as no amount of text-book work in natural science can ever take the place of the knowledge of method obtained by actual work at the laboratory table. I am aware that there are well-known teachers and even very distinguished writers of history in this country who treat this idea of training in historical method, even for undergraduates in colleges, as a matter not worthy of serious consideration. Notwithstanding this opposition in high places, I am of the opinion that the method can be taught and that it should be taught and that in teaching it results have been obtained that are quite as encouraging, it seems to me, as those obtained in the laboratories of the natural sciences. Most of the arguments made against the teaching of method in the secondary schools are quite aside from the question. It is not to the point to emphasize the difficulties of historical work, the impossibility of obtaining from young people results that can be obtained only by trained investigators, or the unwisdom of investigating subjects that have never been investigated before, although, for my part, I can see no serious objection to this last course. All that the sensible teacher, who knows what he is about, expects to accomplish by the critical study of the sources is to open the eyes of his students to the meaning of proof in history, to create an attitude of healthy scepticism and to put into their hands an instrument for getting at the truth that they will have occasion to use every hour in the day. If it is worth while to acquaint the student with the methods of the natural sciences—and I believe that it is—it is certainly imperatively important to give him some training in the use of proof touching the truth of things that he is constantly concerned with, namely, the facts of social life. This position seems so self-evident to me that I can hardly conceive it possible that a teacher, who accepts the new theory of education and realizes the meaning of historical method, would take any exceptions to it. It might, however, be objected that, while the method ought to be taught, it is not practicable to teach it. It is to this objection that the rest of the paper will be addressed.