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The Necessity of Using Primary Sources
No improvement in the methods of historical instruction in our high schools and colleges bids fair to produce better results than the plan of bringing the student into contact with the first*hand accounts of events, or, as they are technically termed, the primary sources. This term may perhaps call up in the minds of some the vision of a solitary stoop*shouldered, spectacled enthusiast, engaged in painfully deciphering obscure Latin abbreviations on yellow parchment. But it is a mistake to conclude that the primary sources are always difficult to get at, dull, and hard to read. On the contrary, they are sometimes ready to hand, and are often more vivid and entertaining than even the most striking descriptions by the pen of gifted writers like Gibbon or Macaulay. The best secondary authorities stand to the sources somewhat as the description of a work of art or of a masterpiece of literature stands to the original. Just as we cannot afford to ignore the picture itself, or the great poem or drama, and confine ourselves to some one else's account of it, so in our historical work we ought to grasp every opportunity of examining for ourselves the foundations upon which history rests. It may, of course, be urged that the trained historians, after acquainting themselves with the people and the circumstances of a particular period, can make better use of the sources than any relatively unskilled student. But, admitting the force of this argument, there is, nevertheless, so much to be learned from a study of the original accounts that cannot be reproduced by the most skilled hand, that no earnest student or reader should be content with second*hand descriptions when primary sources are available. The sources are unconsciously molded by the spirit of the time in which they were written. Every line gives some hint of the period in which the author lived and makes an impression upon us which volumes of second*hand accounts can never produce. The mere information, too, comes to us in a form which we do not easily forget. The facts sink into our memory. One who actually talked with Attila, or who witnessed the capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders, is clearly more likely to excite our interest than a writer of our own day, however much the modern may know of the king of the Huns or of the first crusade. It makes no great impression upon us to be told that the scholars of Dante's time had begun to be interested once more in the ancient learning of the Greeks and Romans; but no one can for get Dante's own poetic account of his kindly reception in the lower regions by the august representatives of pagan literature, * Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, * people "with eyes slow and grave, of great authority in their looks," who "spake seldom and with soft voices." Moreover, the study of the sources enables us to some extent to form our own opinions of the past, so that we need not rely entirely upon mere manuals, which are always one, and generally two or three, removes from the sources themselves. When we get at the sources themselves we no longer merely read and memorize; we begin to consider what may be safely inferred from the statements before us and so. develop the all*important faculty of criticism. We are not simply accumulating facts but are attempting to determine their true nature and meaning. The power to do this is not alone necessary to scholarly work; it is of the utmost importance as well in dealing with the affairs of everyday life. To take a single illustration : one cannot fail to see from a study the sources that Luther was exceedingly unfair to his enemies and ascribed their conduct to evil motives when they were acting quite consistently and according to what they considered the truth. His opponents, on the other hand, treated him with equal unfairness and proclaimed him a wicked and profligate man because he refused to accept their views. We meet precisely the same unfairness nowadays, as, for instance, in the case of a municipal election, where each party speaks only evil of the other. It is, however, not so hard to look impartially at the motives and conduct of people who lived long ago as it is to be fair-minded in matters which interest us personally very deeply. By cultivating sympathy and impartiality in dealing with the past we may hope to reach a point where we can view the present coolly and temperately. In this way really thoughtful, historical study serves to develop the very fundamental virtues of sympathy, fairness, and caution in forming our judgments.



Source: James Harvey Robinson, ed., Readings in European History: Vol. I: (Boston:: Ginn and co., 1904), 1-13.

This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history.
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© Paul Halsall January 1998