The study of history nowadays may involve the scholar in years of drudgery, such as searching out and listing the exports and imports of the city of London between the years 1340 and 1400. However, the conclusions drawn from his discoveries may be of world-wide importance. The questions of tariff reform, wage-scales, taxation, and representative government will all be affected by the data which his scientific investigation will have brought to light. Those of us whose life-work lies in other directions can give no attention to the details of toilsome labor like this. But the results must always be significant for us. The great movements in the troublous advance of the nations from barbarism to civilization are full of lessons which we must learn. History, regarded as a series of wars, an unceasing fury of bloodshed and misgovernment, is of slight interest to peace-loving people. But history as a series of pictures, showing the conditions of life in various ages and countries, picturing the spread of liberty and equality, and the slow yet sure increase of justice--history viewed in this manner is one of the most stirring and educative subjects for reading and study. How was the Roman Empire built up? What was the condition of the people in the days of Homer? How did the ancient tribes live from which the German nation is descended? What was England like in Shakespeare's time? These are some of the questions which we should ask. Many of the ablest brains in Europe and America have spent their lives in finding out the answers. The following lists group the historians according to the nation which they discuss. GREECE Froude Gladstone Grote Herodotus Mahaffy Plutarch Thucydides ROME Cæsar Farrar Ferrero Freeman Gibbon Hodgkin Josephus Livy Mommsen Pliny Suetonius Tacitus ENGLAND Cæsar Creasy Evelyn Froissart Green Holinshed McCarthy Pepys Raleigh Smith, G. Southey Taine AMERICA Bancroft Fiske Irving McMaster Parkman FRANCE Cæsar Carlyle Creasy French Lit. Froissart Michelet Parkman ITALY Cellini Hodgkin Symonds Villari SPAIN Creasy Prescott Spanish Lit. Egyptian Literature, Guizot's "History of Civilization in Europe," Japanese Literature, Josephus on the conquest of the Jews by Rome, Motley's "Relief of Leyden," Norse Literature, Tacitus's "Customs of the Germans," and Voltaire's account of Charles XII of Sweden are other selections. BIOGRAPHY