When Frederick the Great wanted his secretary to read history' to him, he used to say, "Bring me the liar." That is one view of that all history is a lie. But that is true only when history is made' into a sort of documented film, to illustrate a theory or to uphold a point of view. The literary artist comes to attach greater importance to the picturesque, the pageant that is true to the fact. Gibbon,' Macaulay, Carlyle, Thucydides, Tacitus, — they all fall into this error more or less. They are literary artists first; history is to them only the background which sets off the picture they would draw. But Mommsen, Lipson or Toynbee in our days treated history in another way. They see man in times. So history written by these men makes a most interesting study. Gibbon unrolls before us a panoramic view of the show, decline and eventual fall of the mighty Roman Empire. Carlyle flashes before our mind's eye vividly men and events of the French Revolution, full of the vitality of real life and we are enthralled by the awe-inspiring spectacle. The study of such records of human achievements and failures can never be dull or uninteresting. Nor, indeed, need they be. The literary history has one advantage. It enlivens memory and makes the past live before our eyes. Even more than that, it breathes life into the dead records and what was dry as dust becomes full of vital interest, the graveyard of the past becomes a gallery of vibrant personalities and events. But in modern times another type of history has emerged — a different type that Chateaubriand indicated when he said "Grecian history is a poem ; Latin history a picture ; modern history– a chronicle." The modern historian prides himself on being a recorder of attested and verified facts, properly collated and analyzed. He dives into all ancient record, — whether engraved on stones or impressed on relics or coins, suggested by pictures or indicated by tradition ; and he studies these with a scientific mind. Such history is often dry reading. Carlyle regarded history as a biography of great-men. To him only they were the makers of history Rabindranath, on the other hand, comments that our history books only lay stress on bloody battles, neglecting the achievements and cultural conquests in the piping times of peace. But moderns take history as succession of emergencies that never follow a set pattern.
But whether history is imaginative or factual, the utility of reading it, is great. The dread of the future judgement of posterity may restrain one from indulging in the abuses of power, of wealth. But even more than that, history serves as a guide, an example and a warning, for avoiding the pitfalls. Out of the pages of history we may gather practical wisdom by applying the lessons of the past to the problems of the present. History confers on the young the wisdom of age without the burden of years. It is thus the pleasantest school of acquiring wisdom. Study of history equips us with wisdom in practical affairs. We can look deep into the past and certainly our vision becomes clearer and our insight more penetrating. In a democratic age, when the duty of forming clear opinions on practical and social problems devolves on all of us, the study of history should be regarded as imperative. For today is only a projection of the yesterdays, and a passage to the unborn future. Thus we can cherish our deep respect for the heroes as well as common workers of the past and realize – 'for us they bled'.
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