As a matter of fact, history when well written is as fascinating as any story that ever was penned, and it has the merit of being true. Sometimes it is a little harder to read than the light things that are so numerously given us by magazines and story books, but no one shuns hard work where it yields pleasure. A boy will play football or tramp all day with a gun over his shoulder, and not think twice about the hard work he is doing. Reading history bears about the same relation to reading mild love stories and overdrawn adventures that football or skating bears to stringing beads.
Not all history is hard to read; in some of it the interest lies so close to the surface that it grips us with the first glance. Such is the kind we read in the beginning. The adventures of King Arthur, the Cid, Robin Hood, and other half mythical heroes are history in the making—the history that grew up when the world was young, and its great men were something like overgrown boys. That is why we who have boyish hearts like to read about them.

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