ABSTRACT
HISTORY has only recently taken its place as an important item in the school curriculum. The Greeks regarded it either as a form of amusement or as a part of the technical training of the politician. To the Romans it was a mere adjunct to rhetoric. “The master,” said Quintilian, “ should not trouble himself with pedantic accuracy in matter of fact.” His prime business was to inculcate a good narrative style and to develop a sense of artistic beauty in the handling of words. Hence, if historic truth did not accord with the æsthetic or dramatic fitness of things, it should be modified by the crafty imagination. During the Middle Ages History was subdued to the service of divine philosophy, and the sublime fictions which, at Augustine's behest, Orosius had formulated “contra paganos” in the fifth century continued through the millennium which terminated in the Renaissance to furnish all that the incurious mediæval mind desired to know concerning the record of the ways of God with man.
