This series of English History Source Books is intended for use with any ordinary textbook of English History. Experience has conclusively shown that such apparatus is a valuable—nay, an indispensable—adjunct to the history lesson. It is capable of two main uses: either by way of lively illustration at the close of a lesson, or by way of inference-drawing, before the textbook is read, at the beginning of the lesson. The kind of problems and exercises that may be based on the documents are legion, and are admirably illustrated in a History of England for Schools, Part I., by Keatinge and Frazer, pp. 377–381. However, we have no wish to prescribe for the teacher the manner in which he shall exercise his craft, but simply to provide him and his pupils with materials hitherto not readily accessible for school purposes. The very moderate price of the books in this series should bring them within the reach of every secondary school. Source books enable the pupil to take a more active part than hitherto in the history lesson. Here is the apparatus, the raw material: its use we leave to teacher and taught.

Our belief is that the books may profitably be used by all grades of historical students between the standards of fourth-form boys in secondary schools and undergraduates at Universities. What differentiates students at one extreme from those at the other is not so much the kind of subject-matter dealt with, as the amount they can read into or extract from it.

In regard to choice of subject-matter, while trying to satisfy the natural demand for certain “stock” documents of vital importance, we hope to introduce much fresh and novel matter. It is our intention that the majority of the extracts should be lively in style—that is, personal, or descriptive, or rhetorical, or even strongly partisan—and should not so much profess to give the truth as supply data for inference. We aim at the greatest possible variety, and lay under contribution letters, biographies, ballads and poems, diaries, debates, and newspaper accounts. Economics, London, municipal, and social life generally, and local history, are represented in these pages.

The order of the extracts is strictly chronological, each being numbered, titled, and dated, and its authority given. The text is modernised, where necessary, to the extent of leaving no difficulties in reading.

We shall be most grateful to teachers and students who may send us suggestions for improvement.

S.E. WINBOLT.
KENNETH BELL.

NOTE TO THIS VOLUME.

In dealing with a period of comparatively recent date, I have been dependent in several instances upon the courtesy of the proprietors of the copyright. I acknowledge with many thanks the kind permission of Mr. Henry Gladstone to quote the extracts from Lord Morley’s Life of Gladstone on pp. 75, 78, 83. I also acknowledge with thanks the kindness of Messrs. Macmillan and Co. for granting permission to reprint the extracts from the Life of Professor Huxley on p. 87, and from Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston on pp. 33, 50; of Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. for the extract from the Diary of Henry Greville on p. 32; of Mr. Edward Arnold for the extract from Leader’s Life of Roebuck on p. 65; of Messrs. Chapman and Hall for the extracts from Reid’s Life of Forster on pp. 81, 89. I acknowledge also with thanks the kind permission of the proprietors of Punch for the extracts on pp. 37, 103; and of the proprietors of The Times, Illustrated London News, and Brighton Herald for the various extracts from those journals.

I am also indebted to Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co. for permission to reprint the extracts on pp. 12, 25 from the Greville Memoirs; also to Mr. John Murray for similar permission to reprint the extracts from the Letters of Queen Victoria on pp. 17, 30, and the Life of the Duke of Argyll on p. 41.

E.H.