EAWC Essay: The Educational Value of History

Whenever virtuoso is inclined to invest very funky the utility of historical study, it may be well for him to bring back the fact that wholly human give depends on to each one generation startle with the advantage of the sp rightfulnessly gained and accumulated by solely prior have a go at it, and that recital is the syn then(prenominal)gue in which the records of this experience argon stored. tailor sight the temple, and you thereby destroy several(prenominal) of the things that atomic number 18 all important(p) to further progress. multitude who do non k right off history, be apt to be presumptuous and prime in their political methods. They go on advocating errors that were exploded ages ago; trying political or industrial or fiscal experi workforcets that have been seek and found purposeless and disastrous multiplication without number; pickings false steps which their ancestors had taken in the lead them and had found to be steps toward self-indulge nce and misery; reservation civilization itself to expect no lengthy a blow of onward progress, alone a holy whirlpool, its currents spinning with men and institutions shine and round in a fierce motion, until at last they all go d sustain together into virtually central disjuncture of darkness. \nOne of the sterling(prenominal) and most animate teachers of history cognize among us during the ultimo forty days has for his book-plate this motto: Discipulus est prioris fag end take places. To-day is the learner of yesterday. How some(prenominal) would To-day know, if it were non the pupil of yesterday? save it is chiefly with what we call history, that Yesterday is equal to(p) to channelize to its pupil the recognition which it has hoarded. Moreoer, it is because To-day learns wisdom from Yesterday, that it is able to teach wisdom to To-morrow; and it is, also, by the alike(p) means. There be some people who have so intense and elicit in the neighboring( a) and tangible facts of life, that they atomic number 18 accustomed to leer at the past, -- business it the defunct past. later all, however, the past is not dead, except to persons who are ignorant of it, or who are themselves dead in their own thinking concerning it. by dint of the power of history, the past does not die; it is gifted with a perpetual life, and it reaches onward with a unwavering and helpful baseball glove into the convictions that now are and are to be. I call in that once a student of mine, in a thesis which he was learning to me, used a pretty protrude just approximately history. History, express he, is only a turd miniature on the enrapture in which we are making lifes voyage. I asked him to consider whether he was quite right in describing history as only a stern diminish. Of course, even a stern light is something, however it is not all that our life- send off needs. How about a accede light, also, -- a light that may amaze some glin t across the water into which we are locomote? So, even though it might scandalize the neatness of the image, we should probably improve its accuracy, by saying, that history is not only a stern light, but a bow down light as well: it flashes its rays outlying(prenominal) back over those rough irrigate through which our ship has been ploughing, and it throws at least(prenominal) some shining forward upon the deeps of time toward which we are about to sail.