An academic eavesdropper, bugging college classrooms, would hear endlessly repeated the lecturer’s phrase “a matter of the utmost importance is …” The conclusion of the sentence, accompanied by a squeak of chalk, might be almost anything: “the Occasional Conformity Act of 1711,” or “the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713,” or “the Molasses Act of 1733.” The cultural spy would observe the forward quarter of the class eagerly noting down what sounds like an examination question of the utmost importance, while the rearward three quarters, asprawl and aslump, indicate in every limb that the matter is of no importance at all. The teacher is mistaken, or possibly lying. If his pronouncement were of actual importance, his hearers would rouse, gape, cry approval, or protest. The teacher should properly qualify his statement to read, “A matter of the utmost importance to me personally is this or that,” or, “A matter of the utmost importance to those who wish to get a good grade in the course is…” The teacher might in his gloomier moments amplify his reservations; he might ask himself what, if anything, is important in history.

It would seem that we have a simple and incontrovertible means of recognizing the important: it is interesting. But historians have been impelled to introduce a contrary principle. Honoring patient industry, they praise the researcher who has read through the English Court of Chancery records, or a mountain of French provincial archives, or the ledgers of a thousand early ironmongers in Oklahoma. This is splendid, of course; the researchers deserve all the praise they get, and more. However, they are applauded not because their work is interesting but because it is uninteresting. They are rewarded for their endurance in the study of the insignificant. Let us give them a great big hand instead of reading the massive volumes that result from their labors.

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