Of course, this is nothing more than the problem of selection which confronts historians and teachers at many points, but rather more persistently at some points than others. There is no patent solution for the problem, but I believe it helps immensely to be thoroughly alive to it, and to keep two principles steadily in mind when we find the difficulty particularly acute--(1) that strong meat is not for babes, and that the finer points of a discussion such as that which concerns the growth of the lower branch of parliament should be reserved for university work; (2) that though truth may be better subserved by bringing out essentials clearly, even with over-emphasis, yet it is possible to suggest qualifications which will leave loopholes for further modification. For instance, the parliaments of 1265 and 1295 may be emphasized as the first and second steps in the beginning of the House of Commons, yet it may be explained that as early as John’s reign knights of the shire were occasionally summoned to parliament. I have dwelt at some length on this subject because, self-evident as it may seem, it is full of pitfalls which only the utmost vigilance will avoid. A Plea for Life and Color. Fortunately there is plenty of stirring action to offset the tedium (to boys and girls) of laws and parliaments. Bannockburn, Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt--what an array of names to conjure with! Let us not be parsimonious, fellow teachers, when we reach these vantage grounds of glory! Let us not be ultra-orthodox in our scientific view of history. In the reaction, the very proper reaction from the view of history which made it a mere record of wars and battles there is danger of making it a valley of dry bones. After all, it is the record of life, and the events which have stirred the imagination and aroused the patriotism of millions are not to be too lightly set aside. Let the young imagination “drink delight of battle with its peers”; let it see what was really noble as well as what was base in chivalry. Surely it is worth while that it should catch the life and color of those middle ages--so different, yet after all so human. Froissart has given us this in a form now easily accessible, or failing a complete edition of his “Chronicles,” Cheyney’s “Readings” furnish a taste (pp. 233-249), but hardly enough, for only Crecy is here described. Green, as usual, is vivid in his battle accounts--Bannockburn, pp. 213 and 214; Crecy, Calais, and Poitiers, pp. 225-230; and Agincourt, pp. 267-268. Henry V’s speech in Shakespeare’s play of “Henry V” is too splendid in its rhetoric to be overlooked. Sometimes a laggard in the class loves to declaim, and may be stirred to some interest by such a speech. Here is the chance to make him useful.