Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/24

no lack of helpers; the great German hive of historical workers is busy as we are on our archives: such and so close are the ties which now, owing to the facilities of travelling and communication, the abundance of libraries and the accessibility of records, the extension of literary and investigative sympathies, and, I am happy to think, the extinction of literary jealousies, are now binding the historical scholars of Em-ope, that I think and hope that the day is coming when, although we may not cease to quarrel with and criticise one another, there will be a great republic of workers able and willing to assist one another; not working for party pm-poses, unfettered by political prejudices, and although as strong partizans and politicians as ever, anxious above all to find the truth, and to purify the cause that each loves best from every taint of falsehood, every inclination to calumny or concealment. I confess that it is towards this consummation that my dearest wishes as a student of History are directed; and that I anticipate with the greatest pleasure the prospect of being instrumental and able to assist in the founding of an historical school in England, which shall join with the other workers of Europe in a common task; which shall build, not upon Hallam and Palgrave and Kemble and Froude and Macaulay, but on the abundant collected and arranged materials on which those writers tried to build whilst they were scanty and scattered and in disorder. The time cannot be far off when all the records of the medieval world which are in existence will be in print either in full or in such abundant abstracts as will be thoroughly trustworthy representations of their contents; when every great Library will contain copies of them all, and when every town will contain a great Library. The seed sown by the old Record Commission, by presenting copies of their publications to the municipal corporations and principal provincial libraries, marks an era, as antiquaries well know, in the development of antiquarian study and the preservation of archaeological treasures. We may hope to see the same principle extended now, and although the chief labours of the historian must continue to find their place in his own study, as no library can supersede the need of books at home, still no man may be obliged to keep