I. The teaching of history is a recent addition to secondary education. Formerly history was taught to the sons of kings and great persons, in order to give them a preparation in the art of governing, according to the ancient tradition, but it was a sacred science reserved for the future rulers of states, a science for princes, not for subjects. The secondary schools which have been organised since the sixteenth century, ecclesiastical or secular, Catholic or Protestant, did not admit history into their plan of study, or only admitted it as an appendage to the study of the ancient languages. This was the tradition of the Jesuits in France; it was adopted by the University of Napoleon. History was only introduced into secondary education in the nineteenth century, under the pressure of public opinion; and although it has been allotted more space in France than in England, or even in Germany, it has continued to be a subsidiary subject, not taught in a special class (as philosophy is), nor always by a special professor, and counting for very little in examinations. Historical instruction has for a long time felt the effects of the manner in which it was introduced. The subject was imposed by the authorities on teachers trained exclusively in the study of literature, and could find no suitable place in a system of classical education based on the study of forms, and indifferent to the knowledge of social phenomena. History was taught because it was prescribed by the programme; but this programme, the sole motive and guide of the instruction, was always an accident, and varied with the preferences, or even the personal studies of those who framed it. History formed part of the social conventions; there are, it was said, names and facts "of which it is not permissible to be ignorant"; but the things of which ignorance was not permitted varied greatly, from the names of the Merovingian kings and the battles of the Seven Years' War to the Salic Law and the work of Saint Vincent de Paul.