The Story of Cambridge (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Story of Cambridge

The condensation of a history, covering so many centuries, and involving the consultation of so many authorities, monastic records, college annals, dry-as-dust monographs, antiquarian and architectural papers, into a readable story, which shall be at once continuous, picturesque, and consistent, can never be an easy task. Obviously for a complete presentation of the many and various forces at work, and the large issues involved for both university and nation, a much wider canvas than mine would be needed. Apart from the history of the Colleges, it has been possible for me to do little more than to disengage the leading lines of academic history, and to mark the influences and tendencies which seem most to have governed the results as we see them in the university life of to-day. If historical truth is to be reached, even partially, many trivial details are necessary, and such details make dull reading. I trust, however, that I have not anywhere been so absorbed in detail that my reader will find it difficult to see the wood for the trees. And at least where some detail seemed necessary, I am not ashamed to confess that I have always tried to keep an open eye for picturesque and an open ear for humorous detail.

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