But the Biography of Bishop F——­ opens up a further and more interesting question, which I feel myself quite unequal to solving.  One has a respect for erudition, of course, but I find myself pondering gloomily over the reasons for this respect.  Is it only the respect that one feels for the man who devotes patient labour to the accomplishment of a difficult task, a task which demands great mental power?  What I am not clear about is what the precise value of the work of the erudite historian is.  The primary value of history is its educational value.  It is good for the mind to have a wide view of the world, to have a big perspective of affairs.  It corrects narrow, small, personal views; it brings one in contact with heroic, generous persons; it displays noble qualities.  It gives one glimpses of splendid self-sacrifice, of lives devoted to a high cause; it sets one aglow with visions of patriotism, liberty and justice.  It shows one also the darker side; how great natures can be neutralised or even debased by uncorrected faults; how bigotry can triumph over intelligence; how high hopes can be disappointed.  All this is saddening; yet it deepens and widens the mind; it teaches one what to avoid; it brings one near to the deep and patient purposes of God.

But then there is a temptation to think that vivid, picturesque, stimulating writers can do more to develop this side of history than patient, laborious, just writers.  One begins to be inclined to forgive anything but dulness in a writer; to value vitality above accuracy, colour above truth.  One is tempted to feel that the researches of erudite historians end only in proving that white is not so white, and black not so black as one had thought.  That generous persons had a seamy side; that dark and villainous characters had much to be urged in excuse for their misdeeds.  This is evidently a wrong frame of mind, and one is disposed to say that one must pursue truth before everything.  But then comes in the difficulty that truth is so often not to be ascertained; that documentary evidence is incomplete, and that even documents themselves do not reveal motives.  Of course, the perfect combination would be to have great erudition, great common sense and justice, and great enthusiasm and vigour as well.  It is obviously a disadvantage to have a historian who suppresses vital facts because they do not fit in with a preconceived view of characters.  But still I find it hard to resist the conviction that, from the educational point of view, stimulus is more important than exactness.  It is more important that a boy should take a side, should admire and abhor, than that he should have very good reasons for doing so.  For it is character and imagination that we want to affect rather than the mastery of minute points and subtleties.

Thus, from an educational point of view, I should consider that Froude was a better writer than Freeman; just as I should consider it more important that a boy should care for Virgil than that he should be sure that he had the best text.