On Friday week Mr. Haldane presided over an interesting meeting
at the Royal United Service Institution under the auspices of the Committee formed to promote advanced historical teaching in London. The aim of the Committee is to provide permanent lectureships to guide the student in the more advanced forms of historical research, and to enable him to use the vast documentary wealth which London can place at his disposal. It is an object with which we have every sympathy, and we sincerely hope that the very moderate amount of money which is required to carry on the work will be forthcoming. As Sir Spencer Walpole said in moving the chief resolution, no lectures on advanced historical research could produce a Gibbon, but they could "increase the interest in exact historical knowledge among those who read and the sense of responsibility for accuracy of research among those who write." Most historians have had to pick up for them- selves a knowledge of methods of research ; and it is the aim of the Committee to provide this knowledge, so that the heaven-born historian may be saved time in the spade-work of his craft.
Previous page
