History matters. Widespread public support for the study of Canadian history confirms that history is not simply another subject but a critical part of the curriculum. The study of history is often said to make us wiser, more cautious and more restrained. If we are to understand today we must search yesterday.

"It is important to know that we did not just arrive here fully formed tumbling from the heavens." We have a past which is the birthplace of the future. It is easy to forget the past was once the future. History by informing us about the past, enables us to judge the future. A better understanding of history may even permit us to achieve some control over our own fate.

It has been said that failure to know our history could result in us becoming a nation without a memory. Memory is life that has passed into history and the key to a country's destiny lies in its past. If we forget about the lives that have been lived, our country risks forsaking its future because no society can be true to itself unless it knows its beginnings. We lose touch with the past at our peril. Continuity in human affairs is critical. Without it "we are as flies in summer."

The past is never simply the past. It always has something to say to us; it tells us the paths to take and the paths not to take.
Pope Benedict

History in the proper sense began with the Greeks when they started to criticize their own legends to see if they were true. So far as is known no attempt was made before the sixth century B.C to sort out critically the data of the past motivated by the will to disbelieve. This willingness to be as satisfied to discover what had not happened as to find out what had happened marks the emergence of the scientific spirit into the art of story-telling. In the true sense history combines these two. The word 'history' itself comes to us from these sixth century Ionians and is the name they gave to their achievement.

History is a grand mirror in which we are reflected. "The virtues of great men and women serve me as a sort of looking glass into which I may see how to adjust and adorn my own life." Because the secret of really knowing and judging ourselves is to see ourselves in others, historical memory is the key to our self-identity. Without it we have no shared remembrance of our past, no knowledge of our common values and no perception of how the past led to the present. History imparts wisdom from the past because all wisdom is not new wisdom.

"People must know the past to understand the present and to face the future."
Nellie McClung

We all have history to draw upon. Across the stage of history the peoples of the earth pass in turn, each exhibiting its hurts and its happiness. History is a procession of infinite ages, time's scroll of human destiny unfurled from the past through the present to the future. "While we see multitudes passing before us, we should remember that we are likewise lost in the great throng. The eye which happens to glance on us is turned in a momemt on those that follow."

History explores the past, informs the present and enhances the future. "We cannot say the past is past, without surrendering the future." Being aware of history equips us better "not only to be history, but perhaps even to make it." The past is prologue to the present and chronicles the journey of our ancestors with all their trials, tribulations, tragedies and triumphs - the stuff of history. The mystery of time past continually enthralls. Long before us, dwelt folk as real as we are today, now utterly vanished as we in our turn shall vanish.

Such as thou art, so once was I
As I am now so shalt thou be.

History parts the curtain of cloud and provides a magic glimpse of these people - their hopes, fears, words and works. As we learn about their lives, we cannot but help feeling "pride and elation as well as awe and anguish at how varied, complex, unpredictable, wretched and glorious is human life." These individuals were neither mere imaginary creatures of fiction, nor remote, make-believe, soft, sissy figures. They were real, rugged and resourceful and helped shape the greatness of our country. The more we know about the indomitable spirit of the men and women who fell, only to rise again to fight the good fight and bequeath to us the benefits of their hard-won experiences, the more we will cherish our country and its accomplishments.

"I know a man whose school could never teach him patriotism, but who acquired that virtue when he felt in his bones the vastness of his land and the greatness of those who founded it."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau

We are heirs of the past. We have been shaped by those who came before us, just as we will influence those who succeed us after we too descend into the depths of time. "A nation is a partnership between the dead, the living and the unborn. It is our responsibility to preserve our nation and its history and to fulfill our duty to this partnership." Knowledge of history enlarges our human experience and increases our self-awareness by creating a link with those who have preceded us. Without some understanding of our roots and our place in the flow of history, we cannot fully understand our own personal opinions, prejudices and emotional reactions. History has to tell us.

History is what we need to know to understand our country and the world.

"Time is a river of passing events, aye a rushing torrent." It describes the storied past of action, intrigue, hope and despair - the saga of people on this planet. History anatomizes time and permits us in a but a brief moment, to perceive other times and places and learn about the lives of those who are no more. We become the contemporaries of all centuries in all countries. For curious and inquiring minds, it is a fascinating discovery of what time has left behind. Reading history is comparable in many respects to foreign travel. The student, like the tourist, is transported into a new time and different state of society, where she/he sees new fashions and is exposed to new experiences and expressions. Her/his mind is expanded by learning about the wide diversities of laws, morals and manners.

History need not be a weary pilgrimage through dusty, dreary textbooks or interminably tiresome memorization of lists of dates, names and places leading to a fixed result. It is well to remember, however, that while having to learn dates, names and places may be burdensome and boring they are critically important. What would we do without them? e.g. 1812, 1837, 1867, 1945. They are basic since they establish sequence by indicating what preceded and what followed thereby leading towards an understanding of cause and effect. They are "the bones of historical anatomy."

Chronology, the sequence of historical events, is a method of structuring time by placing all happenings in the order in which they occurred. It is the key to narrative. It allows us to establish relationships - learn what came first, what was the cause, what was the effect. Without chronological order issues and events become mixed up, muddled, confused and difficult to understand. Using evidence from the past and examining cause and effect relationships, it is possible to discover what might influence the future. Unless causes and connections are considered along with facts, history is but "a rope of sand," a panorama that passes quickly before our eyes.

To Clio
With the willingness of one who was alive when these things happened to abide by the verdict of her cold lips.

Clio, the muse or Greek goddess of history, appeals to our love of stories. Within Clio's great grasp there are myriad tales which start with expressions like "Let me tell you about ...," or "In the beginning ..." that pique our interest. The word history comes from the Greek "historia - an account of one's inquiries." It shares that etymology with the English word 'story'. Some historians are story tellers who deal with true stories that stimulate interest and provide pictures for the imagination, effects which can be produced without violating truth.

The word story can refer to a person's entire life or a single moment in that life. It can refer to factual narratives and fictitious ones and even suggest a lie, a "tall story" Stories work and stories matter because they are fundamental to the way we understand the world. Stories not only help us comprehend the world, they help us remember what we have learned. Life is too complex to comprehend without being reduced to manageable dimensions. Stories are the tools we use to bring order to chaos. Stories are where facts gain meaning. We all instinctively appreciate the power of stories. The stories we like best contain heroes. Hero stories have many elements, but there is always a moment of unveiling, an event that sets them apart from others and marks them as extraordinary - defining the person's character and marking him/her as a person to be watched.

History began in myths - a traditional story of unknown authorship. The word myth in this case means that which is generally believed to be true. Early historians were simple story-tellers whose history came from myths and legends. Like drama and the novel history grew out of mythology. History is fundamentally a form of story-telling, an answer to the question what happened next? History is a flow of events - a tale well told. It can sometimes tell the truth, it can sometimes lie, but it always tells a story.

Good story-telling is at the heart of good history. Many believe that the historian's principal craft is the art of narrative: character revealed by actions over time. "The art of history is the art of narrative: that is bedrock." It is the lifeblood of history. The Greek Herodotus, commonly called the father of history, was a story-teller and every great historian since his time has shared this role. It is narrative that counts. Stories unfold. Always have always will.

History should flow like a stream not squat like a puddle. It need never be dull and 'dryasdust.' It can be as exciting as any fictitious tale. "In the right hands truth can be just as thrilling as fiction."

"Deal in anecdote as well as character, for often epiphany is worth a thousand words of expostion." Details, leaks and lore, the little-known aspects of great historical moments, are never too trivial for the majesty of history. Pages should brim with vignettes, for stories starved of anecdotes are less interesting. They add life and colour to the work of historians Private letters, diaries, reports, orders and messages lend immediacy and intimacy and reveal character. They make circumstances come alive. When history is highlighted with sketches, incidents and anecdotes - what Winston Churchill called "the gleaming toys of history" - it appeals to our imagination while enriching our knowledge. Constructed out of personal details that are seemingly minor matters - little-known events, fragmentary tales, interesting episodes and chance discoveries - history can paint an intriguing picture of a vanished life.

Such shards have often been relegated to the footnotes of history, but as they recochet through time they enhance history with special human interest, life and vitality. Gripping and firing the imagination, they ease our entrance into the past by providing images and impressions of individuals in the widest sense. It is well to remember that history is full of small, trifling, fortuitous events, close-up stories or little history books, recounting events that had momentous consequences and may even have changed the world.

History began with biography because the lives of powerful people were written about before stories of great events. If history is the science of men/women in time, then biography may justly claim to be the science of one man/woman in time. While biography becomes history when it considers the individual in his setting in society, it is biography, not history, when it deals exclusively with a single life. Some writers argue that biography is history in its most digestible form. They argue the most memorable hallway to history is personality. To them there is no history, only biography, because the forces behind what we call history have their roots in human beings and their behaviour. The first duty of a biographer is to preserve a becoming brevity - a brevity which excludes everything that is redundant and nothing that is significant. According to Lytton Strachey, "It is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one."

"There is properly no history, only biography." Ralph Waldo Emerson