A most fruitful question the writer found was this: “Why was it left for me in 1918 to undertake this task?” There has been a need of some such general account of man’s story in the universe for many years. Such an account is surely a necessary part of any properly conceived education. One might almost say it was the most necessary part. For why do we teach history to our children? To take them out of themselves, to place them in a conscious relationship to the whole community in which they live, to make them realise themselves as actors and authors in a great drama which began long before they were born and which opens out to issues far transcending any personal ends in their interest and importance. And it is a commonplace to say that in the last century or so the sphere of human interest has widened out with marvellous rapidity until it comprehends the whole world. Economically, intellectually, and in many other ways the world becomes one community. But, while there has been this enormous enlargement of human interests, there has been, if anything, a narrowing down of the scope of historical teaching. If the reader will look into the sort of history that is taught in schools to-day and compare it with the yellow old books of our great-grandfathers, he will find rather a shrinkage towards the intensive study of particular periods and phases of history than an extension to meet the more extensive needs of a new age. This is a curious result, but it is not a very difficult one to understand. Something of the same sort of narrowing down from broad views to closer and more detailed study went on for a time also in the teaching of science. In both cases the narrowing down can be ascribed to the same cause, to the growing accumulation, refinement and elaboration of detailed knowledge, and to the increasing numbers and the consequent increased division in labour and specialisation, of the original workers in the two fields. In the field of physical science particularly, and also in the field of biological science to a lesser degree, an extensive revision of fundamental conceptions has largely corrected this tendency towards narrow and specialised attention, but there has not been the same recasting of fundamentals in historical study. And the teaching of history in schools has followed the movement of the student of history towards concentration and not the needs of the common citizen towards ampler views, because there has never yet been a proper recognition of the difference in aim between _study for knowledge_, the historical study of the elect, on the one hand, and teaching, _the general education of the citizen_ for the good not only of the citizen but of the community, on the other. But these are divergent aims. The former is a deep and penetrating pursuit of truth; the latter a common instruction and discipline in broad ideas and the general purpose. The material may be the same, the science of physics, biology or history as the case may