Page:Inaugural lecture on The Study of History.djvu/37

It matters little what the particular line may be that we take up, so long as we take up some line. There are many before me to-day, admirably competent to set to work to build up some particular comer in the vast gap of unwritten history that shames us all. Work while you may, and where you may. Why have we no real history of mediaeval Scotland— why is there in English no standard general history of Holland, of Hungary, of Norway, of Portugal, even of modern Germany? Why are there still important English Chronicles that have not been reprinted since the early eighteenth century, and others that have not been printed at all? Is it not maddening to think of the vast unsorted bulk of local records and documents? There is work for the man who can summarize and digest existing material, no less than for the man who is intent on making fresh discoveries. Indeed the former is perhaps the more needed of the two at the present moment. Many may urge want of leisure—but surely if there is not leisure for a great there is leisure for a small piece of work. If we cannot write a large book we may write a little one: if even a little book is too much to ask, is there not some small piece of editing or commentary that would have its worth? It may be an unremunerative piece of work, it may be an obscure piece of work, it may even be an uninteresting piece of work, that is incumbent on the individual; but surely every trained specialist owes 'his stone to the cairn'. We have the largest, and as we boast, the best school of history in the realm: must we not each do our best to make it as productive as it is popular, and as solid in its practical results as it is philosophic in its structure?