The critical question for history, as for other arts faculties, is "What value is it?" And here value has come to be identified rigidly with economic worth. If a department does not "pay its way" and "produce dividends", then it is, deemed to be an expensive luxury, available only for those who are affluent enough to afford it.
Looking across to Britain from the vantage point of an outsider, I notice that this is symptomatic of an attitude that has insidiously crept across British society - this is a perspective on human endeavours which, like the cyclops of mythology, sees them only from a one dimensional point of view; in this case, economic value has become the single most important arbiter, and other considerations are not given a hearing.
But what use is history? As a collection of disparate facts, it has little value. But as a chronicle of the how the past has changed into the present, it has a great value.
Roman society viewed history as a series of examples to learn from; it is a legacy of Roman education, which still persists today, that history is important for the lessons to be drawn from it. And in many ways this is true, but it is not the most important value of history.
In my opinion, the most important value of history is the binding of a nation into a cultural unity; history displays and unfolds the links and accidents through which a nation came to be united into a whole. Now this may seem quite ephemeral, until we consider the absence of such history in pre-literate societies. In such a situation, myths replace history, and learning in the modern sense - of increasing understanding and knowledge - does not appear.
Moreover, in the absence of history, social cohesion is manifest only in the tribe, which is a grouping of very similar people, with very little tolerance for the outsider; a nation, on the other hand, is often a collection of very different peoples, bound together by the will of a few, and a variety of historical accidents. Without history, it is difficult to see how any sense of national identity can persist on a voluntary basis.
But history is a living art, kept alive at many different levels. Unless there is room for historical research, in which the University must undoubtedly play a part, then history will stagnate and become fossilised; it will become fixed in form, and so move towards myth.
This development can be most clearly seen in Roman society. Because of a neglect in the study of history in the declining Roman Empire, Valerius Maximus produced a book of pre-digested history - the "Memorable Sayings and Doings', this was "to spare those who want to learn the lessons of history the trouble of prolonged researches." Once compiled, there was felt no need to revise, increase or even verify this history.
It is clearly but a short step from this history, with a loose footing on terra firma, to the kind of miraculous lives of the saints which would soon become so popular. For if history is not taught as a critical and investigative study, but simply as a means of demonstrating examples, what check can there be on the most fanciful of examples? History may become literally fabulous, that is, akin to fable, not fact.
It is most probable that British society can survive without too much history at all; there is certainly a residual legacy of past endeavours in the field. But that will not last for ever, and the present lack for support for history as a discipline which is "unproductive" only shows a narrow economic perspective which will, in due course, reap its own reward.
Historical parallels must, of necessity, be treated with caution. But I am mindful of Spartan society in Ancient Greece, where the teaching of everything that was not deemed necessary to the Spartan warrior was omitted; in the event, Sparta not only suffered what might loosely be termed a cultural collapse, but also suffered defeat at the hands of the more versatile Athenians.
A more contemporary example can be drawn from considering the various Independent African nations. Why has the attempt to lay down the seed of democracy proved so fruitless? Why do African nations seem only to produce a parody of democratic rule, where the effective result is tribal dictatorship? Surely the lack of historical consciousness must play a part? Democracy in England grew out of many conflicting forces in society; history teaches us to respect the struggle for freedom. But who taught the African this respect?