History

History is being studied in almost all school in the world. Why is it that we have to know the knowledge of the past in relation to the present times? What actually is the relevance of doing such studies? What is History?
“Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.” So wrote Cicero, who believed that history was the ‘teacher of life’ and the ‘torch of truth.’ Lord Chesterfield disagreed, charging that ‘history is only a confused heap of facts.’ Anatole France said that when history contains no lies, “it is always tedious;” and Napoleon remarked cynically, “We learn from history only that men do not learn from history.” Even professional historians have two definitions, some defining history as ‘that which has happened,’ and others as ‘an account of that which has happened.’
Nevertheless, a well written story about the past is a drama to be enjoyed. It has quantities of conflict and suspense, of heroes and villains, of disasters and triumphs. Many a piece of historical writing reads as excitingly as any novel, it is usually a more penetrating interpretation of life, and has the virtue of being factually true. The cultural values of reading history is obvious, for it surveys the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities- in fact, everything which we think has happened.
At one time, mathematics and logic were considered the subjects most useful in developing mental discipline; now it is realized that many subjects can serve that purpose. For instance, historians are continuously seeking the ‘why,’ the logical method of presenting a complicated may be found.
Furthermore, sound history is a foe of careless decisions and of snap judgments, for all careful historians insists on collecting sufficient evidence before reaching conclusions. History makes plain that members of a special race or votaries of a particular religion have never had a monopoly on civilization; neither has any nation, or social class, or other limited group. Hence a knowledge of history is an antidote for sectionalism, narrow nationalism, and racism, leading one instead to realize the eternal interdependence of all people.
History’s ability to create a ‘better informed citizenry’ is sometimes over exaggerated; yet what are historical records of not the laboratory data of past experiences? The price of actual experience may be high, but the same wisdom may be secured relatively painlessly if one will only turn to the record of the past. Such knowledge can give the intelligent reader a balance, a more considered judgment, even a happier living, because it can make him feel more at home in his own times.
The lives of famous men and women, or even of infamous rascals, can make profitable as well as entertaining reading. If the purpose of creative composition is, as the ancients said, is to please and to instruct, then history has everything: it entertains while it gives information. From the lives of others to the wonders of every nation, we learn to understand ourselves and to respect the mysteries of relationship between a self and the world.
Like mountain climbing, history undertakes hazardous but challenging tasks- exhilarating because of the significant values they yield. To scan the very horizons of human experience through the lens of sustained reflection can yield a panoramic view of man and his place in the universe. History is often chastised for its high abstractions and its detachments from everyday life, but there are, in past the price of its final satisfactions. The perspectives of history require objectivity and distance to correct the distortions of familiar but fragmentary views of life.
Through many ages, historical thinking has had essentially one basic goal- a reflective view of experience in all its ramifications and relationships. The historians is primarily preoccupied with over-all connections, not, as the scientist, with the details of a limited area. Thus, in all its varieties, history has maintained a unity of aim, no matter how much men have argued over specific answers.
To the general reader, where shall we start reading in history? History is best understood as a personally synthesized view of life or as a rationale for the way of life of a culture or an historic period. To the scholar, however, history is a succession of possible answers to particular technical problems involving all possible theories.
We need not, however, retrace twenty five centuries to understand the present. You can quite as well begin with the problems of contemporary thoughts and trace them back to their roots in the past. But if you seek a historical insight- a good instinct I should say, you cannot rest content with the flat projection map of historical lines and connections. Some integrating and organizing focus is needed to place before the mind’s eye a living landscape, a viable understanding of the actualities of your lives. Such understanding, as rewarding as it is rare, comes only from that unusually persistent questioning and reflection which history demands of its devotees.
Some prefer to read history backward, beginning with our own country in our own time; others prefer to have a more geographical approach. Still another approach is by historical periods which is the method that most people prefer to use, but history reading should also be read best chronologically. As Carlyle said, “History is the essence of essential thinking and innumerable biographies.” Certainly history reduced to its elements is a combination of the lives of many folk. To understand your own place in the present confusion, it is helpful to look into the confused past. This is not the first time that mankind has been at the crossroads fateful decisions. A mature reader may untangle some of the apparent contradictions in the record of mankind by wisely adopting a chronological program of historical reading.
For every reader of history, there is a sharp and difficult question. Is it not self-evident that the first merit of a life should be its truth, its factual reliability? Yet almost all histories are tinted by the prejudices of their writers, and more or less shaded to protect or condemn their subjects.
Today, when almost every daily headline records new history, it is particularly important that the educated minority which must lead our nation be not ignorant of the wisdom of the past.

Patrick Chua