Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/60

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Avoidance of Controversy.
[II.

effect in historical narrative, should be given credit for the germs of a critical faculty and helped to cultivate it, before they are plunged into the details of the struggles of puritanism and absolutism, or the deep religious divisions, that for three centuries have separated Christendom into two camps and do so still. Let them learn the history of early England and early France before they are called to exert their tender judgment on the Great Rebellion or the French Revolution. If the teachers had been so taught the experiment would never have been tried.