Yet, if there is any validity to what I said earlier about history being the memory of human society—and of individual humans as well—I suspect that history has had some utility—direct and indirect—to even the most pragmatic amongst us. Certainly _something_ of what was taught us in our history courses has entered our memories, even if subconsciously so. Otherwise we could not have any opinions about it. It is even more certain that the reader of a daily newspaper will retain _some_ recollection of what he has read in that paper, and then will relate these recalled events to what he does, what he thinks, what he talks about, and what he reads in the next day’s newspaper. These events, recorded in the newspaper, are as much history as events which happened in the days of Roman power, as recorded by Julius Caesar, Livy, and other writers of those times. Thus the man who reads a daily newspaper, or a weekly newsmagazine, is making definite use of history—otherwise he wouldn’t bother to read!
Equally, events which happened to us in our daily work last year, last week, even today, are as much historical events as things which occurred centuries ago. These events are experience, and our recollection of these day to day events are used by all of us in planning and doing things in subsequent days. Deprived of this memory, we would be both useless and helpless. The same is true of society as a whole. Recognizing this, there are economic and social historians who concentrate their efforts on events of the very recent past, in order to provide useful inputs to the memories of scholars, policy makers, and others who are concerned with modern economic or social affairs. It is beside the point whether or not we believe the job could be done more systematically.
Even more basically, some of us believe that a sense of history, and a consciousness of participation in history, is a basic human need. Now there are, of course, different kinds of basic human needs—there are the powerful and elemental forces of life and the preservation and continuation of life; instincts and drives relating to food, shelter, sex, parenthood and survival. Then there are the other, more social, needs—as for recreation, privacy, living space, and the like. It is in this latter category that I would place the need for a sense of history. Aside from the memory aspect, to which I have already alluded, there is an enrichment and humanizing effect on peoples’ lives resulting from a consciousness of making history as they vote in an election, testify at a local hearing, help create a local institution, or work at responsible jobs. Essential to this enrichment is some kind of prior realization of what history is, and how these personal activities can contribute to it.