Why is history Important?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
-
George Santayama
“We
have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst
in their days, in the times of old”
–King
David of Jerusalem
The English word “history” is derived from the Greek word “Histereo” meaning: “To enquire into.” Into what? You may ask! Into
important events brought about by men who have preceded us.
Kossuth opined
that, “History is the revelation of providence”. Lowell on the other hand
defined history as “clarified experience.” If experience is to be of any value
then so also is history. Cervantes said that history is “the depository of
great actions” and Pliny suggests that history is “a great source of pleasure.”
History helps us to make some amends for the shortness of life enabling us to
project ourselves back over the centuries. “We can breakfast with Augustine,
dine with Luther, and sup with Spurgeon.” Cicero said that, “Not to know what
has been transacted in former times is to continue always a child.” If no use
is made of the record of the past we must ever remain in the infancy of
knowledge. Fuller well said it when he declared of history that, “it maketh a
young man to be wise before he is old”[6]
When the past no longer illuminates the future, then the spirit walks in
darkness[7]. It
is for this reason that we cannot escape history and neither can we escape a
desire to understand it. R. G. Collingwood maintains, “The value of
history . . . is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is.”
We
believe it is for this purpose that God gave man the faculties of memory that
lasts from the cradle to the grave and stretches beyond eternity. It enables us
to recall past events in vivid clarity and, on the records of eye-witnesses, to
participate indirectly in historical occurrences decades or even centuries
before our birth. It is for this reason that I have responded to God’s promptings
in putting this work together.
From
the foregoing, therefore, history is inescapable. It helps us to study the past
so that we can utilize the legacies of the past in the present. Through history, we can connect things through time and encourage our students to take a long
view of such connections. We are all living histories and a good reflection of
the history can help us learn so much from the mistakes of the past so that we
can of course better our future. Penelope C. Corfield rightly said, “The study
of the past is essential for ‘rooting’ people in time. And why should that
matter? The answer is that people who feel themselves to be rootless live
rootless lives, often causing a lot of damage to themselves and others in the
process[8].”
Thus
understanding history is integral to a good understanding of the condition of
being humans. That allows people to build, and, as may well be necessary, also
to change, upon a secure foundation. All living people live in the here-and-now
but it took a long unfolding history to get everything to NOW. And that history
is located in time-space, which holds this cosmos together, and which frames
both the past and the present[9].
If
you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that
doesn’t know it is part of a tree, echoed Michael Circman[10].
In fact, history is not a burden on the memory, but an illumination of the
soul, Lord Acton. Napoleon Bonaparte, also said it right when he declared that
history is the version of the past events that people have decided to agree
upon. The British Statesman, Winston Churchill is of the opinion that in
history lies all the secrets of statecraft and that of course is the truth. To
know Nigeria we must get to know its history very well. That makes it strategically
essential to study the history of your nation, your tribe, to be able to excel above the past. It was Theodore
Roosevelt said that “the more you know about the past, the better prepared
you are for the future.” Without history, there would then be no future. Pearl
Buck has also said that “If you want to understand today, you have to search
yesterday.”
All
true histories contain instructions, though, in some, the treasure may be hard
to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity that the dry, shriveled kernel
scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut.” Anne Bronte, Agnes
Grey.
It
does not matter your status in life, there is always a history to your life,
positive or negative. Saul Alinsky opined that history is a relay of
revolutions, while Cotton Mather has it that history is the story of events,
with praise or blame. Do not dwell or showcase the blames or find faults, but
always look back on the good that happened before and build on that
and learn a lesson from the misleading
antecedents encouraging division, rancor, animosity, blood bath, etc., that are
so visibly seen across the length and breadth of the nations.
Norman
Cousins is of the assertion that history is a vast early warning system. The
sound knowledge of history can help to force us to put the knife back to its sheath.
And since it is said, “Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded”,
the importance of history then cannot be
overemphasized.
Honest history is the
weapon of freedom as A. M. Schlesinger, Jr. suggested. History teaches
everything, even the future said, Alphonese de Lamartine. History is the torch that is meant
to illuminate the past to guard us against the repetition of our mistakes of
other days. We cannot join in the rewriting of history to make it conform to
our comfort and convenience opined Claude Bowers. And according to Robert Penn
Warren, history cannot give us a programme for the future, but it can give us a
fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity so that we can
better face the future[11].
With
these thoughts in mind, let us begin from the beginning, reminding ourselves
line upon line, precept upon the precept that history does not belong to us, we
belong to it[12].
The English Statesman Francis Bacon is right when he said, that histories make men
wise. Therefore, historical awareness is a kind of resurrection[13].
With these thoughts in mind always
remember, that you can't ignore history; you can't escape it even if you want to. You must
develop an interest in the story of the past, identify their mistakes and their
strengths and learn from it so as to better our lives in the now.
O God, we have heard
it with our own ears-our ancestors have told us of all you did in their day, in
days long ago (Psa. 44:1).
We have a
responsibility to transfer history from generation to generation. We have to
learn from the past and tell it to our children so that they can in turn tell
their children and the chain continuous. This is so because history is simply
HIS STORY. Do not break the chain, share it, tell it, write it, sing it, do
whatever you can to ensure the story is told of all God did in their day, in
days long ago. After all, George
Santayana was right when he opined that, “Those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” MJG
End Notes
[3]
C. K. Chesterton,
downloaded on the 15th April, 2015 from www.activehistory.co.uk
[4]
Herbert Hoover, downloaded
on the 20th April, 2015 from www.goodreads.com
[6]
Our Fathers have told us, Robert McCaul, pg 1-2
[7]
Alexix
Tocqueville, downloaded on the 15th April, 2015
from www.activehistory.co.uk
[8]
Downloaded on the 15th
April, 2015 from www.activehistory.co.uk
Penelope
J. Corfield is a professor of history at Royal Holloway, University of London, 2008.
[11]Downloaded on the 15th of April 2015 from www.activehistory.co.uk
[12]
Hans-Georg Gadame., downloaded on the 15th of April 2015 from www.activehistory.co.uk
[13]
Downloaded on the 20th April 2015 from www.goodreads.com
No comments:
Post a Comment