Hilaire Belloc
speaker
109 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 30 Jul
Hilaire Belloc’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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CHAPTER I. CATHOLIC TRUTH IN HISTORY by Hilaire Belocq.
I had almost written that history is the most important department of all education.
To put this without modification would be, of course, to put it wrongly.
The most important part is the teaching of dogma.
Next, and inextricably connected with it, the teaching of morals.
Next, the securing, and this is also connected with the teaching of dogma and morals, of continuous Catholic daily custom.
History comes of course after all these.
Any Catholic parent would much rather that his children grow up ignorant of history than ignorant of the faith, or of sound morals, or of Catholic custom and habit.
Nevertheless, there is an aspect in which history may be called the most important of all subjects taught, and that aspect is precisely the purely scholastic aspect.
if i am sending my child to a school where he is taught positively certain things for a few hours a day i may at a pinch guarantee his getting his religion and morals at home
but i cannot prevent his history being taught at the school for history is regarded everywhere as part of the secular curriculum and yet upon what view of history he absorbs in youth depends a man's judgment of human life and of the community in which he will pass his days
history is the memory of the state and at the same time the object-lesson of politics it is by true history that men know what they really are false history must make them think themselves different from what they really are by history is the continuity of the state preserved and its character determined now history being of this supreme importance to philosophy to one's whole outlook on life
and yet at the same time universally treated as a secular subject you have meeting in it two issues the conflict between which forms the great peril catholics have to run in this country england history must have a philosophy it must tend to praise or to blame it must judge there is no such thing as mere external history for all history is the history of the human mind
therefore in anti-catholic society history will be anti-catholic it will be anti-catholic in the text-books it will be anti-catholic in the examinations which catholic youth has to pass
effect first let us examine in what way the anti-catholic effect comes in the great error of catholics who would meet the opposing current is that they search out in the text-book which they must use the sentences maligning particular catholic characters times doctrines or false statements with regard to particular events but such passages are rare and are not essential
the essentials of anti catholic history the things which make it anti catholic are first the anti catholic selection of material second what is called the anti catholic tone and third the anti catholic proportion observed in the presentation of historical fact
i would like with your permission to enlarge upon these three points which are capital to our subject first as to selection the telling of any story whatever is a matter of selection if you select so that the truth sought is not revealed then your selection though every fact you present be true
is in its sum total an untruth what facts we choose to tell and in what order determine the picture we present now as to tone i would like to emphasize in this matter of tone in history something which a good deal of detailed work has taught me but which i think is not sufficiently appreciated it is this tone or atmosphere in history is not a vague unseizable thing it does not escape analysis
you can if you will carefully go through a passage exactly noting the adverbs and adjectives used the type of verb also and even sometimes the substantives put your finger upon what gives the particular tone and say that was the way in which the lie was told
thirdly proportion the respective amount of space and weight given to various parts of your story is the final element which determines the whole it is not the same as selection two men may select the same dozen facts to relate and each relate them yet arrange a very different proportion among them of length emphasis and weight
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