Living in History
discovery during the years of the war, so sure that American boys and girls followed "impartially" the great struggle in Europe, and that this judicial attitude would, in the years to come, enable them to pronounce "the true verdict of history," that he "thrilled and tingled" with patriotic—if premature—pride.
"The true verdict of history" will be pronounced according to the documentary evidence in the case. There is no need to vex our souls over the possible extinction of this evidence, for closer observers than our impartial young Americans are placing it permanently on record. But I doubt if the equanimity which escapes the ordeal of partisanship is to be found in the mind of youth, or in the heart of a child. Can we not remember a time when the Wars of the Roses were not—to us—a matter for neutrality? Our little school histories, those vivacious, anecdotal histories, banished long ago by rigorous educators,
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