Excerpt from The University and the Study of War: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered Before the University of Oxford, November 27 1909 You and those who under your auspices are assembled here today can enter, as no other audience could enter, into the feelings with which, as your first Professor of Military History, I address you for the first time. A man for whom the years spent under the influence of this University were the prelude to the battle of life, and who owes to his Oxford training, how ever imperfectly received, his way of looking at public affairs, now comes back among you with the duty of contributing to the spiritual and intellectual life of Oxford something of what he has learned in the course of a prolonged effort to explore and understand the currents of national energy. The duty laid upon me is at the same time a privilege, for it gives me the opportunity of endeavouring - I will not say to discharge my filial obligation to our generous mother, for which of us could either wish or hope to repay that debt but at any rate to prove that I am no thankless child. To you then I can and must speak freely and sincerely, and, sustained by your goodwill, I shall, according to time-honoured tradition, attempt to set forth the scope of the task which I now undertake, and to interpret the purpose of the University in conferring its freedom upon the study of Military History. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.