Conflict in Stuart England

Book excerpt: The authors of these articles, adept in combat and conflict, were introduced to the political turbulence of the seventeenth century under congenial auspices. They remember fondly the intellectual companionship and warm friendship of Wallace Notestein. There is much talk these days about the scholar-teacher which every school should produce and every student strive to become. Notestein is a scholar-teacher, precisely because he is nothing like the paragon described in pedagogical tracts. In shome respects he is typical of scholar-teachers in the generation whom we honour, but typical only to that degree. The attribute which primes a distinguished scholar-teacher is one that is clearly always left out of the fanciful descriptions -- his own character and individuality. Notestein is our remembrancer that a scholarly career is most happily lodged in gentle human qualities. His character, independence, intellectual vigour, scholarly method, routine of work and life cannot be trapped in a formula. Students pay him the tribute of knowing better than to suppose they can imitate him, but from his character and method they have learned, though he never bothered to preach it, that a good teacher must be genuinely himself. These days it is the fashion in certain quarters to be disdainful of the fact-grubbing of scholarship. Notestein always believed in the hard manual labour of scholarship and has been quite unashamed of the toil of research. Here he set his students the first example in scholarly integrity. Wherever they may be working, even those in non-academic pursuits, they are honest craftsmen. - Introductory.