The writer of this brief manual is convinced that no hard-and-fast
rules can be laid down for the use of a textbook in history. He
believes that every teacher will naturally pursue a system of his own,
and that by so doing he will get better results than if he attempt to
follow a rigid mechanical course which makes no allowance for
individual judgment and gives no scope to originality of method.
The author would simply suggest that where time is limited it might be
well to omit the General Reference Summaries (see, for instance,
p. 43) and to read the text as a continuous narrative. Then the
important points in each day's lesson might be talked over at the end
of the recitation or on the following day.
On the other hand, where time permits a thorough course of study, all
of the topics might be taken up and carefully examined, and the
General Reference Summaries may be consulted by way of review and for
additional information. The pupil can also be referred to one or more
books (see the Classified List of Books in the Appendix) on the
subjects under consideration.
Instead of the teacher's asking a prescribed set of routine questions,
the pupil may be encouraged to ask his on. Thus in undertaking the
examination of a given topic--say, the Battle of Hastings (SS69-75),
the issue of the Great Charter (SS195-202), or "The Industrial
Revolution" and Watt's invention of an improved Steam Engine
(S563)--there are five inquiries which naturally arise and which
practically cover the whole ground.
These are: 1. When did the event occur? 2. Where did it occur?
3. How did it occur? 4. What caused it? 5. What came of it? It will
soon be seen that these five questions call attention first to the
chronology of he event, secondly to its geography, thirdly to the
narrative describing it, fourthly to its relations to preceding
events, and fifthly to its relations to subsequent events.
The pupil will find that while in some instances he can readily obtain
answers for all of these inquiries,--for example, in the case of the
Great Charter,--in other instances he will have to content himself
with the answer to only a part of the questions, perhaps, in fact, to
only a single one; nevertheless the search will always prove
instructive and stimulating. Such a method of study, or one akin to
it, will teach the pupil to think and to examine for himself. It will
lead him to see the inevitable limitations and the apparent
contradictions of history. It will make him realize, as pehaps
nothing else can, that the testimony of different writers must be
taken like that of witnesses in a court of justice. He will see that
while authorities seldem entirely agree respecting details, they will
generally agree in regard to the main features of important events.
Last of all, and best as well as last, these five questions will be
found to open up new and broader fields of inquiry, and they may
perhaps encourage the pupil to continue his work on some subject in
which he becomes interested, beyond the limits of the textbook and the
classroom.
Pursued in this way, the study of history will cease to be a dry
delving for dead facts in the dust of a dead past. It will rouse
thought, it will quicken the pulse of an intellectual life, and it
will end by making the pupil feel the full force of the great truth:
that the present is an outgrowth of the past, and that it is only when
we know what men have done, that we can hope to understnad what they
are now doing.
D. H. M.