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* * * * *
The History Teacher’s Magazine
Volume I.
Number 5.
PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1910.
$1.00 a year
15 cents a copy
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
INTRODUCTORY COURSE IN HISTORY IN HARVARD COLLEGE,
by Prof. Charles H. Haskins 95
IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY TEACHING, by Sara A. Burstall 96
“THE OLD SOUTH LEAFLETS” CLASSIFIED, by Rex W. Wells 98
MUNICIPAL CIVICS, by Dr. James J. Sheppard 99
HAS HISTORY A PRACTICAL VALUE? by Prof. J. N. Bowman 103
CALDWELL AND PERSINGER’S “A SOURCE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES” 105
EDITORIAL 106
AMERICAN HISTORY IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL,
by Arthur M. Wolfson, Ph.D. 107
ASHLEY’S “AMERICAN HISTORY,” reviewed by H. R. Tucker 108
ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL,
by William Fairley, Ph.D. 109
EUROPEAN HISTORY IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL,
by D. C. Knowlton, Ph.D. 110
HISTORY IN THE GRADES, by Armand J. Gerson 112
REPORTS FROM THE HISTORICAL FIELD, by Walter H. Cushing:
The English Historical Association; California Association;
New York City Conference; Missouri Society; Bibliography of
History for Schools 113
CORRESPONDENCE:
Source Methods; School Libraries 114
* * * * *
Published monthly, except July and August, by McKinley Publishing Co.,
Philadelphia, Pa.
Copyright, 1909, McKinley Publishing Co.
Entered as second-class matter, October 26, 1909, at the Post-office at
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Harding’s Essentials in Mediaeval History
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Indiana University, in consultation with ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, LL.D.,
Professor of History, Harvard University
Price, $1.00
This text-book is designed for elementary college classes, having
already proved successful as a basis of Freshman instruction in Indiana
University. It gives a general survey of mediaeval history from
Charlemagne to the close of the fifteenth century. It economizes time
without sacrificing anything of real importance. The facts to be taught
have been selected with great care. The continuity of the history has
been preserved from beginning to end, and the fundamental features
of mediaeval life and institutions are clearly brought out. The book
affords a clear, scholarly, compact outline, which can be filled in
in various ways. At the end of each chapter are suggestive topics and
search topics, and numerous specific references to the best books for
collateral reading. The aim of the book is to be accurate in substance
and definite in statement, to seize the vital and interesting facts,
and as far as possible to give that concreteness of treatment which is
necessary in dealing with matters so remote and alien as those which
fill the history of the Middle Ages.
Complete Catalogue of Text-Books in History sent on request
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cloth, net $4.50; postpaid, $4.84.
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is scrupulously impartial.”--_American Historical Review._
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net $3.00; postpaid, $3.20.
Broad, liberal, reasonable, and thoroughly informed, Professor
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* * * * *
The History Teacher’s Magazine
Volume I.
Number 5.
PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1910.
$1.00 a year
15 cents a copy
Introductory Course in History[1] In Harvard College
BY PROFESSOR CHARLES H. HASKINS.
Perhaps the most difficult question which now confronts the college
teacher of history is the work of the first year of the college course.
The problem is comparatively new, and becomes each year more serious.
Twenty-five or thirty years ago the small amount of history taught
in American colleges came in the junior or senior year, and was not
organized into any regular curriculum. With the recent development
of historical courses, however, the teaching of history has worked
down into the sophomore and often into the freshman year, so that
the teacher of the first course in history is not only charged with
introducing students to college work in history, but must also take
his share of the task of introducing them to college work in general.
At the same time the enlargement of the curriculum and the improvement
of instruction in history in many of our secondary schools result
in sending to the colleges a body of students who have already some
familiarity with history and cannot be treated in the same way as the
great mass of freshmen. Moreover, the first college course in history
in all our larger institutions attracts a considerable number of
students, in some cases as many as four hundred, so that the management
of a large class adds another element to the problem; and matters are
further complicated by the fact that while some of these will continue
their historical studies in later years, others must get from this
course all the historical training which they will receive in college.
I take it that no one pretends to have found the solution of these
difficulties, and that what is at present likely to prove helpful is
not dogmatic discussion so much as a comparison of the experience of
different institutions.
The introductory course at Harvard, History 1, is designed to be useful
to those whose historical studies are to stop at this point, as well as
to serve as a basis for further study. A period of the world’s history
is chosen which is sufficiently large to give an idea of the growth
of institutions and the nature of historical evolution, yet not so
extensive as to render impossible an acquaintance at close range with
some of the characteristic personalities and conditions of the age; and
an effort is made to stimulate interest in history and to give some
idea of the nature and purposes of historical study. The field covered
is the history of Europe, including England, from the fourth to the
fifteenth centuries. This period has generally received little or no
attention in school, so that students come to it with a freshness which
they could not bring to ancient history or American history, and are
introduced to a new world of action and movement and color which easily
rouses their interest. The year devoted to the Middle Ages bridges the
gap between their ancient and modern studies, and not only gives a
feeling of historical continuity, but by showing the remote origin of
modern institutions and culture it deepens the sense of indebtedness to
the past and furnishes something of the background so much needed in
our American life.
Most introductory courses now give considerable attention to the Middle
Ages; the point of difference is whether the attempt should be made to
cover something of the modern period as well. Where a longer period
has been chosen, it has been quite generally found impracticable in
a single year to bring the course down to the present time, and such
courses have ordinarily stopped somewhere in the eighteenth century,
leaving to a subsequent year the study of the more recent period.
Thus the course which was given at Harvard until 1903 stopped at the
Treaty of Utrecht. Assuming that two years are necessary for the
satisfactory treatment of mediæval and modern history for the purposes
of the general student, the question then becomes one as to the point
where the break shall come, and we believe that experience is in
favor of placing this point fairly early. The pace should be slower
in the first year than in the second, so that students may not be
confused and hurried while they are learning new methods of work and
being emancipated from habits of close dependence on the text-book.
There should be time for reading and assimilation, as well as for
thorough drill, in a way that is not possible when too much ground
is gone over. Good training in the first year makes it easier to
cover a considerable period in the second. Such at least has been the
experience at Harvard, where about half of the students in History 1 go
on to the survey of modern history given in History 2 in the following
year, while most of the others go directly to modern English history or
American history. It ought to be added that while about nine-tenths of
the class of three hundred who elect History 1 are freshmen, students
who have given a good deal of attention to history in school are
permitted to go on immediately to more advanced courses; and for those
who take only American history in their later years, the introductory
course in government is accepted as sufficient preparation.
The class meets three times a week, twice in a body for lectures,
and the third hour in sections of about twenty. The lectures do not
attempt to give a narrative, but seek to bind together the students’
reading, comment upon it, clarify it, reënforce the significant
points, and discuss special aspects of the subject. The processes of
historical interpretation and criticism are illustrated by a few simple
examples, and from time to time the work is vivified by the use of
lantern slides. The reading is divided into two parts, prescribed and
collateral, and indicated on a printed “List of References” which each
member of the class is required to buy. The prescribed reading, from
seventy-five to one hundred pages a week, is made, as far as possible,
the central part of the student’s work. At first this is selected
largely from text-books and illustrative sources; later in the year
text-books drop into the background, and narrative and descriptive
works are taken up, although the student is urged to have at hand a
manual for consultation and for securing a connected view of events.
The effort is made to break away from high school methods of study
and to teach students to use intelligently larger historical books.
Stubb’s “Early Plantagenets,” Jessopp’s “Coming of the Friars,” Bryce’s
“Holy Roman Empire,” Brown’s “Venetian Republic,” Day’s “History of
Commerce,” Reinach’s “Apollo,” and Robinson and Rolfe’s “Petrarch,”
are examples of the kind of books from which the required reading
is chosen. Some sources are given in their entirety, such as the
“Germania,” the “Life of St. Columban,” and Einhard’s “Charlemagne”;
but reliance is placed mainly upon the extracts given in Ogg’s “Source
Book” and Robinson’s “Readings.” It is found that the proper use and
appreciation of sources is one of the hardest things for beginners
to learn, and careful and explicit teaching is required both at the
lectures and at the meetings of the sections. Each student is required
to provide himself with two or three texts, a source book, and an
historical atlas, and many buy a number of the other books used in
the course. The books in which the reading is assigned are kept in a
special reading-room, where the supply is sufficient to provide one
copy of each for every ten men in the course. Duplicates of the works
recommended for collateral reading are also furnished.
At the weekly section meetings the students are held responsible for
the required reading and the lectures for the week. There is always a
short written paper about twenty minutes in length, including usually
an exercise on the outline map, and the rest of the hour is spent in
explanation, review and discussion. No attempt is made at systematic
quizzing, as the work of the week is much more effectively tested by
the written paper. These sections are held by the assistants, four in
number, who are chosen from men who have had two or three years of
graduate study and generally some experience in teaching.
For the collateral reading certain topics are suggested each week,
and every month each member of the class is required to read the
references under at least one of the assigned topics. These topics
have considerable range, and students are encouraged to select those
which have special interest for them and to read freely upon them.
Thus if a student takes the Northmen as his topic, he will read the
greater part of Keary’s “Vikings,” and translated extracts from Norse
poetry or sagas; if he chooses Henry II, he will have Mrs. Green’s
biography and Stubb’s characterization in the introduction to Benedict
of Peterborough; if he reads on monasticism, he will compare different
views of the subject as found in specified chapters of Montalembert,
Lecky, Taylor’s “Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages,” and in
Harnack’s “Monasticism”; on castles and castle life he will read
portions of Miss Bateson’s “Mediæval England,” and Viollet-le-Duc’s
“Annals of a Fortress,” and examine the illustrations in Enlart’s
“Manuel” and Schultz’s “Höfisches Leben”; on St. Louis he will have
Joinville, certain pages of Langlois, and William Stearns Davis’s
novel, “Falaise of the Blessed Voices.” A certain fixed minimum of such
reading is set for each one in the course, and a higher minimum for
those who expect distinction, and ambitious students will read from
1,500 to 2,000 pages in the course of the year.
The effort is constantly made to develop individual aptitudes and
stimulate the better men. Every student has at least eight individual
conferences with the assistant during the year. The conference is
devoted mainly to a discussion of the collateral reading, but it
also serves as an opportunity for examining note books, talking over
difficulties, and in general for closer personal acquaintance between
assistant and student. Sometimes small voluntary groups of men have
been formed which meet the assistant weekly at his room for the reading
and discussion of short historical papers written by students.
Considerable attention is given to well-reasoned note-taking upon both
lectures and required reading, a matter respecting which the freshman
is at first likely to be quite helpless. Here the personal supervision
of the assistant is of the greatest value, and is often exercised
weekly.
Special emphasis is put upon historical geography, not only by constant
reference to wall maps and by special exercises involving the use of
the principal historical atlases, but also by means of the regular use
of blank outline maps. Members of the class are required to bring such
a map to all meetings of the sections, and to be able to locate upon it
important places and boundaries. The mid-year and final examinations
also include a regular test of such geographical knowledge. More time
than should be necessary is devoted to this work, but experience
has shown that college students have at the outset only the vaguest
ideas of European geography, and in this and in some other respects
it is necessary to do in college, work that ought to have been done
in the secondary or grammar school. If the ordinary freshman brought
with him an elementary knowledge of geography and the ability to read
intelligently, the task of the college teacher of history would be
greatly lightened.
No attempt is made to require theses or formal written reports,
as such work is useful rather for those who are to continue their
historical studies, and as regular training of this sort is given in
the second-year courses. Some attempts have, however, been made to
coördinate the student’s work in history and in English composition by
having the results of reading upon an historical topic embodied in a
brief essay which is read and graded both by the instructor in history
and the instructor in English. Such coöperative efforts are still in
the experimental stage, but they are regarded favorably by those who
believe that the occasion for writing good English is not confined to
courses in English composition, and that a broader policy with regard
to the student’s work is necessary if the American college is to give
an education as well as to teach particular subjects.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Some use has here been made of material contained in a paper
on “The Historical Curriculum in Colleges,” in the Minutes of the
Association of History Teachers of the Middle States and Maryland for
1904; and in the Report of the Conference on the First Year of College
Work in History, in Report of the American Historical Association for
1905, I, pp. 147-174.
Impressions of American History Teaching[2]
EXTRACTS FROM MISS BURSTALL’S RECENT WORK, “IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICAN
EDUCATION.”
Miss Sara A. Burstall, head mistress of the Manchester (England) High
School for Girls, traveled in the United States during the year 1908,
studying and inspecting American educational systems. Miss Burstall has
written out her experiences in America in a book entitled “Impressions
of American Education in 1908.” The author was particularly interested
in the teaching of history in American schools. The following extracts
are printed in the belief that American teachers would desire “to see
themselves as others see them.” In the chapter on “Method” occur the
following statements:
“Recitation is indeed an accurate description of what one hears,
sitting in an American class-room; the pupil stands up and recites
what he has learnt, whether from the standard text-book or from other
sources. The teacher may question some statement in order to make
sure that the pupil understands what he has said, other pupils will
also question it. A girl will put up her hand and (the teacher giving
permission by looking in her direction) will say, ‘But I thought
that I read in----’ and will proceed to give some other view of the
subject. A general discussion will follow which the teacher will not
authoritatively close by giving her correct opinion; she will pass
on to another part of the subject and ask another pupil to recite
what he or she has learnt about it. If the reciter makes an error the
teacher will call upon another pupil to correct it; very rarely does
the teacher make a correction herself, and still more rarely does
she express her opinion. We were not struck by the good English or
excellence of oral composition which we heard. The American boys and
girls did not do any better in this respect than the English girls
we know. One can hardly expect fluent, elegant oral descriptions and
accounts except from practiced speakers. With a class of thirty or
forty and a lesson period of forty-five minutes obviously not all in
the class recite; quite half may take no share except as listeners.
The presumption is that they have learnt up their work, that they
are interested in listening to what others say about it; their turn
will come next day, and in any case it is to their interest to follow
carefully what goes on.
“Three criticisms must occur to even a sympathetic English teacher:
first, the possibility of what in England would be a probable waste
of time to the listeners. Americans say that these, though they often
look indifferent and inattentive, are really attending; they are
used to the method and they play the game, so to speak, by listening
attentively as well as by reciting readily when their turn comes.
Second, the whole thing is very dull and slow; each pupil speaks very
slowly, with very little grace of delivery or beauty of language, such
as might be expected from the teacher, and nothing like the same amount
of ground is covered as is the case in a lesson on the oral method.
With the recitation method in England we should not arouse sufficient
interest to get the best out of our pupils; we could not get through
the work we have to do in the time, nor would English boys and girls
be sufficiently quick and clever to understand the difficulties in
geometry, for example, or in Latin or French grammar, unless they
had clear and skilful explanations from the teacher, who presumably
understands the art of making things clear. Americans would probably
say that their students are quick enough and earnest enough to make
progress without this careful exposition and without this atmosphere of
interest and intellectual stimulus, and there is probably some truth
in the reply. Our pupils too often do not want to work, and their
minds do move more slowly. We have been obliged to find ways of making
class-work attractive, either by intellectual stimulus and interest,
or by rewards and punishments, since we have not that strong outside
belief in education which makes the task of the American teacher much
more easy. It is also true that the examination demand has forced us to
explain clearly to the duller pupils in the class difficulties which
the cleverer ones could see through for themselves. Probably here
Americans are right and we are wrong; we make the work too easy by,
as it were, peptonizing the lesson material, before giving it to the
hungry sheep who look up to us to be fed. Our aim has been to help them
to assimilate the knowledge required, not to develop in them the power
to grapple with new material. This aim the American recitation system
undoubtedly develops, and this is one of its great merits.
“Our third criticism is that the teacher appears to do too little; her
share in the lesson is at a minimum; the new ideas do not come from
her, her influence is indirect. Here, again, the American would say, so
much the better. The democratic ideal is undoubtedly one cause for the
existence and the popularity of the recitation method. The teacher and
the pupils are very much on a level. She is not teaching them; she acts
rather as chairman of the meeting, the object of which is to ascertain
whether they have studied for themselves in a text-book, and what they
think about the material they have been studying. Clearly, then, the
master is the text-book, and here we strike on a vital peculiarity of
American education. Its aim has been intellectually the mastery of
books; with us education has always been very much more, always and
everywhere, a personal relation. The children learn from the master or
mistress with or without the aid of a book.”
“The rise of the method can be explained from historical causes;
in the old ungraded rural school of America, meeting perhaps only
for a few months in the year, taught, it may be, by a woman in the
summer, and a man in the winter, there could be no classification
or organization. Each pupil worked through an authorized text-book,
much as in the old Scottish rural school, when a plowman might come
back for a couple of months to rub up his arithmetic or English in
the book if he did not finish before leaving school. The teacher went
around and helped individual pupils over difficulties, or heard them
‘recite’ the lesson they had each learnt, while the others went on with
their own tasks. Then when the schools came to be graded, a number
of pupils at about the same stage could recite together out of the
book, and so the recitation method developed, evolved by the American
genius for invention to fit the necessities of the position. Among
these conditions was the absence of a body of experienced and skilled
teachers; much of the work was done by all sorts of people, many with
very scanty qualifications, who would ‘teach school’ for a few months
to earn enough to go on with some other occupation. Such people could
not be in the true sense of the word teachers; they could ‘conduct
recitations’ and engage in the friendly questioning and discussion as
an equal, which the American method implies. When first-rate, highly
qualified, skilled teachers come to play on this instrument they bring
forth from it a wonderful result.
“The writer was fortunate enough to see some very fine work by a woman
teacher, brilliant, systematized, full of interest and fire, the pupils
really taking part and bringing their material which the teacher
skillfully percussed so that it kindled. Indeed, the recitation method
at its best and our own oral method are almost identical in effect;
and far excel as educational instruments anything that can be attained
by lectures. But how rarely is it seen at its best? At its worst, of
course, it becomes mere memoriter repetition out of the text-book with
very little intelligence anywhere; any teacher would do this who could
keep order.
“It is hoped that this imperfect sketch may at least afford some idea
of what is to be seen in the United States by a teacher of history,
and of what we can learn from them. Probably there is more to be
learnt in this subject by English students of American education than
in any other, and the study is the more interesting and profitable
since the evolution of the present condition of history teaching
there is so recent. The present writer can only say that she has
heard finer history teaching in more than one American institution
than she ever heard in England, though her experiences here have been
fortunate, and that such teaching has set for her an ideal standard of
professional skill in our difficult art. England might learn, too, from
the life and vigor of the subject in the common schools, the breadth
and thoughtfulness and the self-reliance in the history classes of
secondary schools, and the volume and power of the historical work in
the colleges and technological institutes.
“The equipment is well worth our imitation if only we could get the
money for it. Every good high school has a room or rooms for the
history lessons; cases of maps to be drawn down when required--a
product of the American skill in mechanical appliances--are universal,
and an average high school has a better supply of these maps than some
of our colleges. Pictures of every sort abound.
“It is the opinion of one of the leading American authorities on the
teaching of history, herself a distinguished teacher, that there is
a very real increase of intellectual interest; some of it may be
superficial, but it is at least widespread. A nidus has been formed and
there is a real advance in the subject.
“In England we have, as things are, the tradition of public service and
the inner instinct of patriotism; formal teaching of civic duty is not
so much needed among the wealthier and more cultivated classes, though
more ought to be done than is done in the public elementary schools,
and in some of the new secondary schools. In America this sociological
teaching given in connection with history is the one thing they have
to train citizens for citizenship; religious instruction has been
excluded from their school system, personal influence and corporate
life play but little part compared with the powerful one they play
here. There is no universal military service as in Germany and France
to teach by hard experience the duty and the need of patriotism; the
tradition of unpaid public work so strong in England is not known in
the United States. The teaching of history and of patriotism through
history is the one force which America has in her schools and colleges
to stimulate and train the sense of civic duty. One cannot but conclude
that to a half-conscious conviction of this truth is due the system,
the earnestness, the concentration, and the excellence that America
achieves in the teaching of history throughout every grade of her
education.”
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Impressions of American Education in 1908, by Sara A. Burstall, pp.
xii, 829, Longmans, Green & Co.
“The Old South Leaflets” Classified
BY REX W. WELLS, TEACHER OF HISTORY, EAST HIGH SCHOOL, TOLEDO, OHIO.
English History.
Vol. No.
Augustine in England V 113
King Alfred’s Description of Europe V 112
Magna Charta (1215) I 5
Passages from Wyclif’s Bible (1382) V 125
Passages from More’s “Utopia” (1516) V 124
Letters of Hooper to Bullinger (“The First Puritan”) III 58
The Invention of Ships, Raleigh VII 166
The Petition of Right (1628) I 23
Sir John Eliot’s “Apologie for Socrates” III 59
Ship Money Papers III 60
The Scottish National Covenant (1638) I 25
Pym’s Speech against Strafford (1641) III 61
The Grand Remonstrance (1641) I 24
The Agreement of the People (1648-9) II 26
Cromwell’s First Speech to his Parliament (1653) II 28
The Instrument of Government (1653) II 27
Vane’s “Healing Question” (1656) I 6
Milton’s “Free Commonwealth” (1660) III 63
Sir Henry Vane’s Defense (1662) III 64
The Bill of Rights (1689) I 18
Old Jersey (Island of) VI 150
Miscellaneous Subjects.
Strabo’s Introduction to Geography (10 B. C.) II 30
Dante’s “De Monarchia” V 123
Grotius’s “The Rights of War and Peace” (1625) V 101
Marco Polo’s Account of Japan and Java II 32
Penn’s Plan for the Peace of Europe III 75
The Law of Nature in Government, John Wise (1717) VII 165
The Swiss Constitution (1874) I 18
The Hague Arbitration Treaty (1899) V 114
America--(Unclassified).
Boston in 1788, Brissot VI 126
Boston at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century VI 136
Washington’s Address to the Churches (1789) III 65
Washington’s Words on a National University IV 76
Kossuth’s First Speech in Faneuil Hall V 111
Monroe’s Message on Florida (1818) VI 129
Samuel Hoar’s Account of His Expulsion from Charleston VI 140
America--(Discovery and Exploration).
NORTHMEN:
Voyages to Vinland, 1000 II 31
SPANISH--Columbus (Genoese):
Columbus’s Letter Concerning His First Voyage II 33
The Discovery of America, Account by Columbus’s
Son II 29
Columbus’s Account of Cuba V 102
Columbus’s Memorial to the King and Queen on
His Second Voyage III 71
Amerigo Vespucci (Florentine), First Voyage II 34
His Account of His Third Voyage (for Portugal) IV 90
Explorers--De Vaca’s Account of His Journey to
New Mexico II 39
Cortez’s Account of the City of Mexico (1519) II 35
Coronado’s Letter to Mendoza (1540) I 20
The Death of De Soto (1542) II 36
The Founding of St. Augustine (1565) IV 89
ENGLISH:
Voyages of the Cabots (Venetian) II 36
John Cabot’s Discovery of America (1497) V 115
Frobisher’s First Voyage (1576) V 117
Drake on the California Coast (1579) V 116
Gilbert’s Newfoundland Expedition (1583) V 118
The First Voyage to Roanoke (1584) IV 92
Raleigh’s First Roanoke Colony (1585) V 119
Hakluyt, “England’s Title to North America” V 122
Gosnold’s Settlement at Cuttyhunk (1602) V 120
The Discovery of the Hudson River (1609) IV 94
Captain John Smith’s “New England” (1614) V 121
FRENCH:
Voyage of Verrazzano (Florentine), (1524) I 17
Champlain, “The Founding of Quebec” (1608) IV 21
Father Marquette at Chicago (1673) II 46
America--(The Colonies).
SOUTHERN:
Capt. John Smith’s Account of the Settlement of
Jamestown (1607) VII 167
Lord Baltimore’s Plantation in Maryland (1634) VII 170
The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669) VII 172
MIDDLE:
Old Jersey VI 150
The Founding of New Sweden (1637-8) IV 96
De Vries, New Netherlands in 1640 VII 168
Van der Donck, New Netherlands (1655) III 69
William Penn’s Description of Pennsylvania (1683) VII 171
Pastorius’s Description of Pennsylvania (1700) IV 95
Franklin’s Plan of Union (1754) I 9
NEW ENGLAND:
Rufus Choate, “The Romance of New England History” V 110
“Reformation without Tarrying for Any” (in
Holland) IV 100
The Words of John Robinson (in Holland) VI 142
Bradford’s “Voyage of the Mayflower” VII 153
The Massachusetts Bay Charter (1629) I 7
Winthrop’s “Conclusions for the Plantation in
New England” II 50
“God’s Promise to His Plantations” (Sermon, 1630) III 53
Letters of Roger Williams to Winthrop III 54
The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1638) I 8
The Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641) VII 164
White, “The Planting of Colonies in New England” VII 154
Bradford’s “Memoirs of Elder Brewster” II 48
Bradford’s “First Dialogue” II 49
“The Way of the Churches in New England” III 55
Winthrop’s “Little Speech on Liberty” III 66
Cotton Mather’s “Bostonian Ebenezer” III 67
The New England Confederation (1643) VII 169
Cotton Mather’s “Lives of Bradford and Winthrop” IV 77
The Settlement of Londonderry, N. H. (1719) IV 93
The Battle of Quebec (1759) III 73
America--(The Indians).
Morton, “Manners and Customs of the Indians” IV 87
Eliot’s “Daybreak of the Gospel among the Indians” VI 143
Eliot’s “Indian Grammar Begun” (1666) III 52
Eliot’s “Narrative of the Gospel among the Indians” I 21
King Philip’s War (1675) IV 88
Fight with the Indians at Brookfield (1675) VII 155
Wheelock’s “Narrative” (1762) I 22
America--(The Revolution).
Lexington Town Meetings (1765-1775) VII 154
Samuel Adams, “Rights of the Colonists” (1772) VII 173
Governor Hutchinson’s Account of the Boston Tea
Party (1773) III 68
Paul Jones’s Account of the Bonhomme Richard and
the Serapis (1775) VII 152
Washington’s Account of the Army at Cambridge (1775) II 47
The Declaration of Independence (1776) I 3
Washington’s Capture of Boston (1776) IV 86
Lafayette in the American Revolution IV 97
Letters of Washington and Lafayette IV 98
Washington’s Circular Letter to the Governors (1783) I 15
America--(United States)--Government.
The Articles of Confederation I 2
Debate in the Convention on the Suffrage in Congress III 70
Numbers (1) and (2) of “The Federalist” I 12
Washington’s Letters on the Constitution IV 99
The Constitution of the United States I 1
Washington’s Inaugurals I 10
Washington’s Farewell Address I 4
Hamilton’s Report on the Coinage III 74
John Adams’s Inaugural V 103
Jefferson’s Inaugurals V 104
The Monroe Doctrine III 56
America--(United States)--Territorial Expansion.
The Cession of Louisiana, Official Papers VI 128
Official Account of Louisiana in 1803 V 105
Jefferson’s Life of Captain Meriwether Lewis II 44
Franklin’s Plan for the Western Colonies (1754) VII 163
Gray’s Discovery of the Columbia River (1792) VI 131
Pike’s Discovery of Pike’s Peak (1806) VII 174
The Fall of the Alamo (1836) VI 130
Fremont’s Ascent of Fremont’s Peak (1842) II 45
Perry in Japan (1853) VII 151
Sumner’s Report on the War with Mexico VI 132
Seward’s Address at Sitka, Alaska (1869) VI 133
Northwest Territory.
Washington’s Journal of His Tour in Ohio (1770) II 41
Clarke’s Account of the Capture of Vincennes (1779) II 43
The Northwest Ordinance (1787) I 13
Washington’s Letter to Benjamin Harrison I 16
The Ordinance of 1784 VI 127
Cutler’s Description of Ohio (1787) II 40
The Constitution of the State of Ohio (1854) I 14
Garfield’s Address on the Northwest Territory (1873) II 42
America--(United States)--Slavery and Secession.
The First Number of “The Liberator” (1831) IV 78
The Anti-Slavery Convention of 1833 IV 81
Samuel Hoar’s Account of His Expulsion from Charleston VI 140
Dangers from Slavery, Theodore Parker (1850) IV 80
Sumner, “The Crime against Kansas” (1856) IV 83
Stowe, “The Story of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’” IV 82
The First Lincoln-Douglas Debate (1858) IV 85
Words of John Brown IV 84
Calhoun on the Government of the United States V 106
Lincoln’s Cooper Institute Address V 107
Lincoln’s Inaugurals and Emancipation Proclamation I 11
Governor Anderson’s Address to the Massachusetts
Legislature VII 158
Wendell Phillips’s Oration on Garrison IV 79
America--(Literature and Education).
Harvard College (1643) III 51
First Graduates of Harvard, Class of 1642 VII 160
Poems of Anne Bradstreet (Selections) VII 159
Selections from Various Versions of the English Bible III 57
Franklin on War and Peace VII 162
Franklin’s Autobiography (Boyhood) VII 161
William Emerson’s Fourth of July Oration (1802) VI 134
Massachusetts Schools in 1824 VI 135
The First Number of “The Dial” (1840) VI 137
Horace Mann’s Address on “The Ground of a Free
School System” V 109
Horace Mann’s “Education and Prosperity” (1848) VI 144
Channing’s “Essay on a National Literature” VI 141
Ireland’s “Recollections of Emerson” VI 138
Prospectus of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary VI 145
Elihu Burritt’s “Congress of Nations” VI 146
Autobiography of Peter Cooper (1791-1883) VI 147
Dorothea Dix, “Criminal and Defective Classes in
Massachusetts” VI 148
The Lowell Offering (1845) VII 157
Founding of Hampton Institute for Negroes VI 149
The Longfellow Memorial (1882) VII 175
Municipal Civics in Elementary and High Schools[3]
BY JAMES J. SHEPPARD, PRINCIPAL OF HIGH SCHOOL OF COMMERCE, NEW YORK
CITY.
In an address at the dedication of an educational building at Albany a
few days ago, Governor Hughes said: “I want to refer to the importance
in this day of giving our teachers and of having them communicate to
their pupils the proper sense of the responsibility of citizenship in
this country. It is not enough to have patriotic songs sung. It is a
fine thing to have the flag flying and to have it continuously before
the youthful mind as a symbol of this great independent nation, of the
land of the free and the home of the brave. But as a distinguished
man once said, it is a very doubtful advantage to generate emotion
which has no practical use, and the emotions of patriotism ought to be
stimulated with regard to certain important and practical ends. Study
of civics, the knowledge of the actual operation of our government is
most important.”
In this statement the governor puts the case admirably. Civics should
be taught in the schools, and it should be taught in a practical way.
When your committee made its investigations some half dozen years ago
into the matter of instruction in municipal government in elementary
and high schools, it discovered two things: First, a lamentable lack of
proper instruction in the subject in the schools of the country, and
second, an earnest desire on the part of those in authority to remedy
this lack. Advice and assistance were asked for by many who replied to
our questionnaire. We were impressed with the importance of presenting
something definite and concrete in the way of recommendations. It
was easy enough of course to say that the subject should be taught
in both elementary and high schools, that it should be so placed in
the curriculum, as to reach all the pupils, and that it should be,
as Governor Hughes puts it, a study of the actual operations of our
government. But the schools wanted something more directly helpful than
this. Few, if any, text-books suitable for the purpose were available.
Practically all of them were written along the conventional lines of
a scientific treatment of the framework of government with but slight
and ineffective attempts to make the study other than one of broad
generalizations of little direct and concrete meaning to the youthful
student. Happily there has been some endeavor since the committee’s
first report to make texts which really meet the need, and there are
now on the market a few books which are genuinely helpful. There is
every reason to believe that the production of this class of books is
greatly to increase. However the committee believes that suitable texts
can only help to solve the problem.
Governor Hughes is quite right in emphasizing “the importance of
giving our teachers and of having them communicate to their pupils
the proper sense of responsibility of citizenship in this country.”
That sense of responsibility will hardly be strong and effective if
it is to come from purely academic study of government. It will be
powerful and helpful if it comes from an earnest and sympathetic study
of government in operation, a study of what the government is actually
doing for the student, what it ought to do and what he himself can do
to improve it. A study of this kind can hardly fail to give the future
citizen a feeling of pride in his own city, and a proper sense of his
own responsibility in making its government honest and efficient.
The municipal campaign recently concluded in New York seems to have
been conducted largely on the idea that the average voter is more
interested in personalities than policies. Such a campaign would be
impossible before an electorate having even an elementary appreciation
of the direct bearing upon its own personal interests of an honest
and efficient administration of the city’s affairs. It is plainly the
business of the schools to use their extraordinary opportunity and
extraordinary power to equip the voters of to-morrow with a training
in these vital affairs of government that shall make them intelligent
critics of what their servants in office have done or what claimants
for their ballots propose to do. Heretofore the schools have been
generally content to give instruction on matters of state and national
government, with but scantiest reference to municipal affairs, in spite
of the fact that municipal government is of most direct and vital
importance to the citizen, touching him in his daily life at every
turn. If the schools could only establish firmly in the minds of the
students just the one fact that party labels are of no importance in
municipal matters, that honest and efficient administrators should
be chosen regardless of party connection or endorsement that alone
would be a tremendous gain. We have been going on the assumption
that a knowledge of state and federal government will furnish enough
insight into matters of administration to guide the voter in matters
of municipal government. It would be far better if the choice were
necessary to rely upon a proper knowledge and appreciation of municipal
interests to guide the voter in the broader fields of government. The
choice is of course not necessary. State and national government should
still be studied, but in a more rational way. Much the same method may
well be employed as in the study of municipal government.
As has already been stated, your committee believes that instruction
in municipal government should reach every pupil in the schools. That
means that it should not be delayed in the elementary school till the
last year of the course, or in the high school until the senior year,
as is still generally the rule. A large percentage of elementary school
pupils drop out before they have completed even the seventh year of
the course, and a still larger percentage of high school enrollment
is lost long before the graduation stage. The committee believes that
there should be continuous instruction in civics during the last four
years of the elementary course, moving along in easy and progressive
fashion from a very simple study of municipal housekeeping to a fairly
comprehensive notion of the city’s government activities. The course as
outlined in the New York City program of studies for elementary schools
has some admirable features. The course in its present form is due
in no small measure to the work of your committee under the original
chairmanship of Superintendent Maxwell. It provides in the fifth year
for some study of the duties of citizens and public officials, and also
of civic institutions. The study begins very logically with the most
obvious form of municipal activity, the school itself, and goes on to
other departments, such as charities, tenement house, and parks, in
each instance emphasizing what good citizenship involves in the pupil’s
relation to the department. In other words, the study is not merely
descriptive, it is personal as well. In the sixth year the outline
calls for instruction concerning the chief administrative office of the
city. In the seventh year and the first half of the eighth year there
is no definite provision for municipal civics, the time being devoted
to national government. In the last half of the eighth year there is
a return to the city government with “increasing emphasis upon the
duties and responsibilities of a citizen, or as a member of a family,
as pupil, as employer or employed, as voter or as office-holder.”
The course would be greatly improved by making a study of the city’s
municipal activities continuous throughout the four years. At present
there is a break in the work from the end of the sixth year to the
beginning of the last half of the eighth year. The difficulty is of
course that of a crowded curriculum, but the very great importance of
the study ought to win for it a definite place in the curriculum even
at the expense of some other study.
Just how well the elementary course in municipal civics is administered
in New York City or in other cities where it is prescribed it is
impossible for the committee to say. A recent writer in the “Survey”
seems rather skeptical of the results obtained in New York. From her
own showing, however, I think the situation is not so bad as she seems
to imagine it. We who teach know the difficulty of getting pupils to
do themselves justice in examinations or tests. They really know more
than their answers indicate. Patient, skillful, sympathetic questioning
will often reveal intelligence where only ignorance seemed to exist. It
would be a matter for surprise, however, if our civics teaching was at
present all that it ought to be. It is a new thing in the curriculum.
Both its content and its proper presentation must be worked out by
experiment. It can only be well handled by teachers with a keen love
for the subject, a genuine appreciation of its value and some taste for
first hand investigation. Supervisory officers must give it cordial
support and helpful direction.
For the immediate future we must look to the high schools, I think, to
show the most marked development in the study of municipal activities.
The conditions of teaching are more favorable and the teaching force
better qualified to meet the problem. History and economics are both
more generally taught and certainly much better taught than they were
a decade ago, and it will not be difficult, I think, to interest
instructors in these subjects in the new field of municipal government.
Of prime importance is the place of the new study in the curriculum.
The general custom hitherto has been to postpone all teaching of civics
in secondary schools until the fourth year, when American history is
taken up. This is a serious error, as it means no instruction whatever
in the subject for the vast majority of high school students, a
relatively small proportion of whom complete the full course. It should
not be postponed till even the second year, but should be taken up at
once by the student upon entrance into the high school as a serious and
important study. Confessedly pupils of 14 or 15 are not well prepared
to receive instruction in civics, as it is generally taught as a
scientific study of state and national government, with a historical
background. The latter may well continue to be a part of a well-rounded
high school course, modified only by the inclusion of much more work
on the municipal side and greatly improved by more rational methods of
teaching. But your committee earnestly insists upon place being made
in the very first year of the high school course for this new work.
At present there is only one high school in New York which is doing
this, but it is interesting to note that no less than three committees
are now at work in that city upon plans for a program of study in this
subject. And, moreover, two of these committees have been appointed
by bodies of a public character who are asking and securing the
cooperation of progressive teachers in the task of bringing about the
desired change. It is a very reasonable hope that in a comparatively
short time all the high schools in the Greater New York will be giving
the civics instruction so urgently needed to all the boys and girls who
enter their doors. Once New York or any other important educational
center shows the way, we may confidently expect the movement to spread
rapidly. Judging from the numerous communications the chairman of your
committee has received there is already widespread interest in the
subject.
The time is therefore ripe, apparently, for us to offer definite
recommendations in the make-up of a proper course of study in the new
subject, whose value as a part of the curriculum will depend chiefly
upon the manner in which it is presented. On the whole, it is fortunate
that a text-book is hardly possible except as a supplementary aid, for
there is grave danger that a study of municipal activities based upon
a text-book would take too much of an academic character and interfere
with or minimize the first-hand observation and investigation on the
part of both pupil and teacher, which are of primary importance in
realizing the aims of the work. However, there are some books with
which the teacher should familiarize himself, among them such works as
Baker’s “Municipal Engineering and Sanitation,” Eaton’s “The Government
of Municipalities,” Fairlie’s “Municipal Administration,” Wilcox’s “The
American City,” Zueblin’s “American Municipal Progress” and Shaw’s
excellent books. These are useful in a broad, general way. The teacher
should make copious use of the city charter and reports of the various
city departments, such as health, tenement house, parks, schools, etc.
The pupil’s chief reliance will be on the city charter apart from the
teacher’s instruction and his own observation and investigation.
The course might well be outlined in the following general way:
I. A brief consideration of the way in which government in general
arises, with a discussion of the rise of a village and its development
into the city. The pupil will be led to note the extension of the
coöperative idea from its simple manifestation in the primitive
community to the comprehensive undertakings of a modern metropolis.
The relation of the city to the State will be made clear in this
discussion, and a proper understanding of what a city charter is be
given.
II. Following immediately upon this brief introductory study, which
will take on added meaning as the course progresses, should come a
study of what may properly be considered the central element of city
life--the street. Here we can appeal directly to the pupil’s own
experience and observation in a marked degree, and we are sure of his
interest when the work is related so closely to his daily life. It is
probably worth while to give a pretty full outline of the topics to
be taken up in a study of the city street. The one which follows has
been in successful use for several years in the High School of Commerce
in New York, and naturally covers some points of slight importance in
other cities.
The Street the Central Element of City Life.
(a) How streets are made.
(b) To whom they belong.
(c) Who pays for their improvement?
(d) What they are used for and what they contain.
1. Roadways for traffic. 2. Sidewalks. 3. Gutters. 4. Sewers. 5.
Water pipes. 6. Telegraph, telephone and electric light wires. 7.
Car tracks. 8. Subways. 9. Gas pipes. 10. Conduits.
A. Which of these belong to the city government?
B. Who controls each of these? (Exact officials as found in city
charter.)
C. How these public utilities came to be in the streets.
D. Franchises; what are they?
The Street.
(a) The proper arrangement of streets.
(b) The defects of the local system as compared with that of other
cities.
(c) Why our street system was laid out as it is.
(d) The surface of the street.
1. Paving.
a. The various kinds, comparative advantages and costs.
b. The importance of good paving to the business interests, as
shown in transportation charges.
c. Why the surface of the streets is not better, and who suffers
from it.
(1) Poor paving at the beginning, and the reason for it.
(2) Constant tearing up of the streets and failure to replace
properly.
(3) Remedy for these evils.
A. The conduit or subway.
1. Why we do not have it.
2. Additional evils resulting from its absence.
a. Waste of gas.
b. Waste of water.
c. Difficulty of making repairs.
d. Injury to health and vegetation.
Poisonous gases.
Uncleanliness.
2. The cleaning of the streets.
a. Who has charge of it.
b. What it costs.
c. Why necessary.
d. How the department is run.
e. What is done with the refuse and what should be done.
f. Duties of the householder.
g. How we may keep the streets cleaner.
h. The sprinkling of the streets.
1. By whom done.
3. The regulation of traffic.
a. Who makes the regulations (ordinances, rules)?
b. Who enforces them, such as the direction and speed of traffic?
c. The encumbering of sidewalks and streets.
d. The restriction of certain streets.
e. Remedies for the congestion of traffic, as tunnels, belt lines,
etc., for freight.
f. The growth of business limited by traffic.
4. Sidewalks.
a. Regulations as to laying, repairing.
b. Who has jurisdiction over them.
c. The stoop line.
d. Right of the citizen to demand good sidewalks.
e. Blocking the sidewalk.
5. Gutters.
a. Whose business to keep clear of ice, snow or dirt.
b. Whose business to enforce the law and who makes the law?
6. The sewer system.
a. How and by whom sewers are put in.
b. Who pays for them.
c. Who has charge of them.
d. How connected with the houses.
e. How the sewage is disposed of.
f. What is done in other cities and what should be done here?
g. The importance of a good sewer system to the health of the
community.
7. The water supply.
a. Why the city and not the individual furnishes the supply of
water in a great city.
b. Why the water supply conditions the growth of the city.
c. Where we obtain our present water supply and how it reaches us.
d. Who has charge of the water supply.
e. The total and per capita supply of water in the city.
f. How water is paid for.
g. The danger of a water famine.
1. How it can be averted.
(a) Saving the water by the repairing of leaks, using meters,
etc., salt water for fires and cleaning streets.
(b) New sources of supply. The difficulties.
h. The advantages of city ownership over private company.
i. Cost of water supply.
8. Lighting the streets.
a. How it is done.
b. What it costs.
c. Who has charge of it.
d. Should it be done by the city or a private company?
e. The use of the streets for carrying pipes and wires.
f. Who controls this use?
g. The control over these companies by the city or state.
h. Ought the city furnish light to citizens for their private
purposes?
i. How the furnishing of light and fuel differs from furnishing
meat and groceries.
j. Who gives the right to place telegraph and telephone wires?
k. Why should they be underground?
(a) Appearance, (b) Light, (c) Fire.
9. Transportation by cars on the streets.
a. The giving of franchises, why?
b. What is paid for a franchise?
c. Who has jurisdiction over street railways and to what extent?
d. Should the city own them?
e. Importance of street passenger transportation in the life of
the city.
f. What cheaper fares could do for the city.
10. The rights of citizens on the streets.
a. Laws and ordinances which secure these, as those against
disorderly conduct, crowding, ball playing, excessive speeding
and those regulating processions, banners, etc.
11. Licenses to use streets.
a. What businesses require to be licensed and why?
b. How licenses are secured.
III. Part III of the course takes up the matter of protection to life
and property by the various departments of the city government, as
follows:
Protection to life and property by
1. The Police Department.
2. The Department of Education.
3. Fire Department.
4. The Courts and Department of Correction.
5. The Health Department.
6. The Tenement House Department.
7. The Bureau of Buildings.
8. The Park Department.
9. The Charities Department.
1. Police.
Policing the Streets.--The organization and management of the
police department. The duties of policemen. The importance of an
honest and efficient police department. Why this department is so
often criticized. The evils of graft and why it exists. State or
county control of police. Should the head arise from the ranks?
Should his position be permanent? The rights of citizens as against
the police. How to make complaints. Serving warrants. The police
control over street traffic, street crowds, push carts, etc.
2. Education.
The educational law and why it exists. Why the city furnishes free
education. The organization of the department of education. The
method of appointment of officials and the teaching force. The
advantages of the system of appointments. Kinds of day schools. The
total cost of education in the city. The cost per pupil in each
class of schools. The cost in the high school. The cost of books
and supplies. Is it worth while? Special schools and colleges:
Evening schools, corporate schools. The lecture system. The
vacation playground. Aims and advantages of each. Why they exist.
What they accomplish. The excellences and defects of our system
of education as compared with that of other cities and countries.
Supplementary education.
1. The Natural History Museum.
2. The Botanical Gardens.
3. The Zoological Garden.
4. The Art Museum.
3. The Fire Department.
Protection against fire depends upon (1) the building laws, (2) the
water supply, and (3) the efficiency of the fire department. How
one becomes a fireman. The organization of the department.
(a) The influence of the insurance companies.
(b) The poor construction of buildings.
(c) The esprit de corps. Salaries and pensions.
4. The Courts and the Department of Correction.
1. Civil Courts.
A. Municipal Courts. Their jurisdiction, officers and district.
B. The City Court (county).
C. The Supreme Court.
2. Criminal Courts.
Under the study of courts comes the work of the court officers
and the processes connected with the trial. The term of the
office, selection and salary of the various officials. The
meaning of the various terms used. Probation system.
The Department of Correction.--Its management and duties. Prison
labor. The indeterminate sentence system.
5. The Health Department.
(a) In relation to the ordinary resident. (b) In relation to the
landlord. (c) In relation to the business man.
A study of the actual regulations of this department as found in
the code, and a description of its activities, together with
comparison with the work done in other cities.
6. The Tenement House Department.
When and why formed? Who is subject to it? How organized? What
it has accomplished. Why it needs a strong head. Illustrations
from report of the Tenement House Department. Dictation of most
important provisions of law.
7. Building Bureau.
How it differs in organization from other departments. The
buildings subject to its jurisdiction. Why its inefficient
management is so disastrous. The temptation to graft and what it
costs.
8. The Park Department.
How it protects health. How our park system arose and what it has
cost. How the parks are managed. The need of small parks. What
parks have accomplished in New York. Boulevards as parks. The
need and benefit of playgrounds as conducive to health, educative
and preventive of crime. The desirability of school playgrounds.
Dangers threatening parks.
9. Department of Charities.
The hospital and ambulance service. Out-door relief. Asylums. How
the destitute may be aided. The city’s aid to private charitable
institutions.
In this connection it is both desirable and feasible for the pupils
to visit the more important departments and get some first-hand
impressions of their work. Our experience has been that the city
officials willingly and helpfully coöperate with the school. Not
only have they furnished us much valuable material, but they have
also facilitated the inspection of their departments, and have not
infrequently themselves given helpful talks to the boys.
IV. Following close upon the study of the departments comes a
consideration of the cost to the city. The pupil has noted the
extensive activities of the municipality and the important question
of how they are all paid for looms up before him. The budget must
be studied, and the manner of levying and collecting taxes must be
understood, as well as the raising of money by loans. Under proper
guidance he will come to realize how extravagant and inefficient
government affects him personally, how honest and economic government
has a money value to every citizen. He will want to know what city
officers determine the amount of money to be spent, and just what
officers spend the money. New York City has had a Board of Estimate and
Apportionment in control of its finances for a decade, yet it remained
for the recent three-cornered fight for the mayoralty, with its
resulting choice of a Democratic mayor and a Fusion Board of Estimate,
to bring home to the average citizen what the professional politician
had long understood, that this Board have really much more to do with
the government of the city than the mayor, that in reality New York has
a sort of government by commission.
V. We come finally in our study to a consideration of the citizen’s
part in the administration of municipal affairs. Topics such as the
following should be taken up:
Becoming a citizen. Becoming a voter. Registration. Voting.
Voting but a part. The party organization. The cause of good or
bad government. How the citizen may govern the city through the
party organization. Enrollment. The district captain. The district
committee. The district leader. The general committee. The leader
of the organization. How the leader reaches his place. Organization
the key to success in politics. Candidates for office, how selected,
formally, actually. Why the high school graduate should work through
an organization for an honest, business-like government.
The preceding part of the course will have failed of its purpose if it
hasn’t established in the pupil’s mind certain elementary ideas and
ideals concerning the purpose of government and a sense of the duty and
responsibility which every citizen owes to the community in which he
works and lives. He will be an intelligent reader of the numerous items
in the daily press bearing upon the administration of city affairs, and
he will know how as a voter he may take an active and effective part in
that administration alike for his own best interests and that of the
community.
The course outlined is not an artificial affair based upon pure theory.
It has been successfully carried on in one high school for half a
decade, winning the enthusiastic interest of first-year pupils as well
as of the teachers charged with its conduct. It can be adapted to the
high school of any community, and will fail of its purpose only if
it is managed in a perfunctory fashion by instructors who have not a
professional interest in their work, or a high sense of their great
responsibility and their great opportunity. It would be a splendid
thing if we could require of all teachers in the public schools a
knowledge of the governmental activities of the municipality they are
called upon to serve, for surely they of all citizens, ought to be
familiar with the purpose and practice of government.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Report at the Cincinnati Meeting (November 16, 1909) of the
National Municipal League by J. J. Sheppard, Principal New York High
School of Commerce, Chairman of the Committee on Instruction in
Municipal Government in Elementary and High Schools.
Has History a Practical Value?[4]
BY PROFESSOR J. N. BOWMAN, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.
This question of the practical value of history rises not out of a
theory but out of existing social and educational conditions. In a
practical age where “doing things” receives such generous applause, and
“ends” are held in high estimation; when “results,” and very frequently
material “results,” are the norms of success, and “efficiency” widens
its meaning beyond the physical world,--then history, as well as
other subjects is called into question to render an account of itself
before the judgment bar of the present. Life looms up great beyond all
the parts of the school system. The eighth grade has its graduation
into life as well as the high school and college. The grades feel
their responsibility to the great majority of their pupils who go
directly into life. In the East the high schools are breaking from the
“preparatory status” to the college, and are looking to the good they
can do for their pupils who get no more schooling. Trade schools are
growing up within and beside the high schools, as the professional
schools grew up within and beside the colleges. The college itself
is in question by labor union committees and inaugural addresses.
The university is becoming professional; even Arts and Letters in
preparing teachers and general practitioners of arts and letters. The
industrial movement has now the economic interpretation of history.
The “Market Reports”[5] of the university have brought the “ticker”
within the college walls. Students and parents are asking more and more
insistently, “What is the use?” and “What is the practical value?”
The question is not new; the questioners are not new; the things
questioned are new. In olden days when schools existed primarily for
the Latin professions, the question was answered: these things prepare
for law, medicine, and the ministry. Schools now prepare for other
professions and also for the trades; but the question is not yet
answered without condition, amendment or dissent. In those old days
the members of the Latin professions were the bearers of the highest
culture; but now with our ideas of democracy and opportunity, and the
general diffusion of knowledge, these members are but a small fraction
of the bearers of the highest culture. The school system has grown
from the school of the professions into the school of the people; but
do the schools prepare for the people as the older schools prepared
for the professions? A healthy, growing institution--like Webster’s
mariner--must constantly take its bearings relative to life to know
how far the elements of fads, specialization, and scholarly isolation
are driving it from its true course.
Practical relates to action, use, practice; it refers to ends or means
to ends; it is opposed to theoretical, speculation or ideal. But there
is nothing in the word to debar its use in mental as well as physical
fields. It may be used as the German uses _übung_ in his university
courses. Value is the quality that makes something suitable for ends
or purposes. It permits the wildest limit of “art for art’s sake”; and
equally permits one part of the “art” to be suitable to the ends and
purposes of another part or of another “art.” Practical value, then, is
the quality that renders a thing useful or desirable in meeting ends.
It does not by any means alone imply “for revenue only.”
Has history a practical value? It depends on the ends. The narrowest
specialist as well as the broadest humanitarian will both agree upon
the usefulness and desirability of history to meet their respective
ends, but they disagree upon what the ends are. The specialist is
interested in history for its own sake; to him the element of history
is the fact; the tradition of the seventeenth to the nineteenth
centuries has forced him to select his facts in the fields of politics,
war and diplomacy; the method he uses is rather a one-sided use of the
natural-scientific method. He is interested in the facts for their own
sake: he is often too little interested in their value, importance and
inter-relations. He has performed a great service in the nineteenth
century in correcting old facts and in finding new ones. But now he has
such mountains of facts that he is overawed by their mass, and long
practice in his method prevents him from using them. So a great Harvard
professor is reported as saying, “Keep on piling up facts, their weight
will squeeze out some kind of order.” In his attempt to be scientific
the specialist has used only one side of the scientist’s method; he has
forgotten that the scientist works not only with matter, but with the
activities and relations of matter. He loves to brush the mold off the
dry bones of the past. Perhaps he even has a dream of articulating a
few of the bones into a cross section of the skeleton of the political
past. This is a rightful part of the work in the university and
graduate school, unfortunately often the all-dominating part. I have
spoken at length of this work for the reason that in this state there
is required of all high school teachers a year of graduate work in
some university of the American Association. The specialist’s method
received there is all too often taken, without adaptation into the high
school and occasionally even into the grades. So “art for art’s sake”
is perpetuated. The boy is prepared for carrying on research when he
expects to carry on business, and the girl is drilled in turning out
monographs when she expects to turn out biscuits. Here is where the
parents, and others, raise the question, what is the use? The answer
and the reform must come from the top downwards.
On the other hand the humanitarian is often so broad that his work
contains but little of history; it is so thin and transparent that
it may justly be called culturine. His pupils learn answers, but not
the steps to the answers; or they learn the fashion phrase of the
“example,” but not the steps of solution. At every point in their
journey through the past they are dependent on their Bædecker. Here
again is where the question is raised, what is the use?
It is not necessary to make a choice of either of these for the history
work in the schools. Where the fact-hunter ends his work the historian
may begin his. More important than either fact or generalization is the
method of getting at each so that the pupil may become self-active. If
he learns these methods he can use the facts in finding other facts,
in explaining and interpreting other facts, or in understanding other
departments of life. He can use facts inductively and through a process
of analysis and classification reach generalization; or like Kepler,
Newton and Faraday he can work on the facts deductively. He can follow
lines of interest, threads of activity; he can view them from one view
point or from different view points. On the other hand he can learn and
use the method of working a fact after the Seignobosian “rules of the
game.” So even within the narrower and professional field there is the
practical value.
But the end is still in question. The pupil goes from the grades,
high school and college into life to take his part as a workman some
eight hours of the day and as a citizen all twenty-four; as an active,
creative worker through the prime of his life, and as a member of
society to his grave. The parents and the people out in life ask the
question of the practical value, and they answer it from the standpoint
of life and social efficiency. Does history stand the test?
From this point of view the specialist fails; the storehouse of facts
is static, efficiency is active; the method of facts results only in
another static fact. The culturine teacher fares somewhat better; he is
active, but unfortunately with empty symbols. He deals with answers and
not with problems, with his Bædecker and not with the thing itself.
It is the long stretch between the two that is wanting--the process,
the use. The history work must be adapted to the life needs of the
pupils as members of society: those facts, those generalizations, and
especially those processes of reaching from one to the other, that can
make him an efficient member of society. Isolated facts will be soon
forgotten, generalizations will perhaps stick longer, but methods of
generalization can be used throughout life on new facts to reach new
generalizations.
What are some of the things in life and society for which history may
be used,--the ends to which it may be adapted in study and teaching?
Someone has pointed out four ends, but I should like to add another,
fully conscious of the excepting and varying relations between them:
_reading_, _studying_, _teaching_, _writing_, and I should like to add
_living_. Writing is justly the work of the professional, _i. e._, the
graduate school; yet if history ever becomes a science it is not at all
impossible that living may not usurp this position in graduate work.
Teaching, in this state, is also the work of the graduate school and
the last years of the college. This leaves, then, reading, studying
and living that touch the history work from the grades to the college;
these also underlie the other two.
The basis on which all these rest is life itself, and the interest
one takes in life. Since one is here in this world he is interested
in it, to get as much out of and put as much into it as he can; if he
has no interest he at least exerts himself either to be a parasite or
to shuffle off its weight. This interest is the starting point of the
interest in the past of this life; the basis of the ascending scale
from reading onward.
Reading runs through all history work from the stories--told and
read--in the grades to the reading after dinner by the evening
fireside. Interest in life as it was, is, and is becoming: the problems
and policies, the activity and struggle, the peaceful life of the
cotter or the demon life of the battlefield, the growth of trade and
the sailing of Columbus, or the work of Bach or Paracelsus. From some
life interest now one travels back to chosen places and times, and
under the lead of some Virgil and Beatrice does more than Dante in
taking up temporary habitation then and there. From a purely commercial
point of view, also, the historian can here benefit himself--and his
publisher--in preparing a public to demand his books.
Studying is a step beyond reading; Virgil and Beatrice are here
dismissed. It explores some field of interest and follows some thread;
it reads pages and chapters and not volumes or series. The books may
be stories, texts or documents--the story must be pieced together from
many sources. In reading, the books lead the reader; in studying, the
student leads the books. It is the transitory inquisitiveness of the
child become somewhat constant in the later grades and high school,
and fixed in the university in the professional study of “ut clauses.”
Reflection and study go hand in hand,--the latter to answer the
questions of the former. For the very great majority of people this is
the nearest they ever get to professional history work. It is of the
greatest practical value to those who use history for other than the
pleasant hour’s reading.
In living, life and history unite. This, of course, touches the live
question of what is history. The specialist and his methods are
adaptable practically alone to a past not coming within eighty to
twenty years of the present. But the parent and the man in life deal
on the one hand with human beings, institutions, matter, etc., and on
the other with life forces and energies. All these exist in different
and modified forms in the specialist’s past. If this breach between the
past and present cannot be bridged, then the laboring man is right in
asking that history be displaced by things that can bridge it. The man
in life is busy with the art of living--can history help him in this?
If history is ever to be a science and be scientific, it must consider,
as do the sciences, the consequent question of being an art--of
reaching desired effects with known causes.
Those who ask the question, has history a practical value, go from the
present life into history. From that viewpoint they see its workings,
and from life and society they draw their norm by which they judge it,
accept it in the curriculum and pay taxes for the history teacher’s
salary. For such a purely selfish note as this history should not wait;
but should search out in society and life how it may be of service
some way and somehow, and through its teaching supply these needs. It
can then make itself indispensable and forestall all question of its
practical value.
The practical value of history to life depends on a complex of race,
age, country, locality and the individual. Some phases of this value
might be stated thus: an ease in observing, analyzing and classifying
the life activities of to-day. No other subject taught in the schools
touches life at so many points and in so many of its activities.
Through seeing in history the close interrelation of activities in
the past the student can be led to see the close interrelation of the
activities of his own day. Again, he learns to see life as a historic
whole--his contemporaneous life in connection with the life of the
race. He thus learns valuations and norms for judging character. He
learns that Jeffries and Johnson are less valuable in life than Pasteur
and Eucken; that even in the history of pugilism they perhaps are less
noteworthy than either Sullivan or Corbett. Again, history can help
him to save experience. He can learn to apply with due modification to
present problems not the answers of the past to past problems, but
the ways of solving those problems. Material and social environments
exist now as they existed in the days of the Greeks; hunger and
socialization, love and ambition, the desire to know and to feel, are
as effective now as in the days of Socrates. The combination and the
emphasis change. The past cannot answer the problem of the present, but
can help him to answer it. Again, history can help him to be tolerant,
since our day demands tolerance. In studying some struggle of the past
he learns to see that question from two or more sides; this practice
helps, with the practice in other subjects taught in the schools, to
consider a present question from its many sides.
Historical impartiality is frequently misused: impartiality plays its
part in the consideration of questions, but should not be allowed
to mar decisions when once made. The specialist and his pupils can
easily stand off from and out of present, active life like men from
Mars. Tolerance, then, is desirable in the consideration of questions,
and of the activities acknowledged by society; for tolerance, like
liberty, does not mean license. Again, history has a practical value in
connecting the present almost as intimately with the past as hope does
the present with the future. It gives two or more points together with
the present from which direction and tendency may be seen. It can thus
help to break down the loneliness of the present.
The life of each succeeding present must dictate its own norms
of efficiency: whether citizenship or patriotism, character or
individuality, socialization or socialism, etc. The practical value
of history is like the practical value of all other subjects--it
must adapt itself to life needs, and by its leadership make itself
indispensable to life and society. Also it must be of practical value
to the individual for his pleasure, his use, and his business; by its
adaptability to these ends it makes itself indispensable to him. It has
this practical value for the pupils in the grades, high school, and
college, in contributing something for themselves and for their parts
in life.
An Idaho cow-puncher last summer defined life as “just one d----
thing after another.” It has also been pointed out that this is the
best definition of history, as all too often taught and written. The
“cow-puncher” forms a small class, and is rapidly disappearing; history
will soon be forced to adapt itself to another class and to a life
otherwise defined. In doing so it is hoped that it will not be by this
chance and unconscious adaptation, but that it will consciously and
deliberately adapt itself to the new class and its life.
I believe history has a practical value in life, and a place in the
school system; and also that it can prove this value so efficiently
that its critics will not wish to relegate history to the position of
Greek and Latin.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Substance of a talk before a group of history teachers, in San
Francisco, September 18th, 1909.
[5] A weekly report in the _Alumni Weekly_ of the University of
California, on the fluctuating quotations in teachers, engineers,
miners, etc.
“A Source History of the United States”
BY PROFESSORS CALDWELL AND PERSINGER.
Many of the literary histories written in the last half century have
carefully avoided quotations or reprints of documents. In the early
historical literature of America documents were inserted or appended
to almost every history; but this style gave way to the literary ideal
of expressing the thought of the documents in the historian’s own
words. There are many volumed histories written toward the close of the
nineteenth century which make no pretence of reproducing the form or
words of the source-material. It was but natural, therefore, when the
study of history came to be taken up seriously in colleges and schools,
that teachers and scholars should desire to get away from the insipid
literary generalizations, and taste the freshness of the original
sources. It was this insistence upon a certain literary style which
created the source-book; and to-day we have therefore the literary
history and the source-collection side by side. Early source-books
contained simply highly significant documents, or documents which might
be treated as types. We have advanced far from this, and now our editor
aims to give the narrative of history in the language of the original
documents.
Casting aside all reverence for the document as a completed whole,
Professors Caldwell and Persinger have cut and trimmed out every
unnecessary phrase and sentence, taking a few words from one document,
a few paragraphs from another, a few pages, perhaps, from another. By
this process, the volume is made to approach nearly to the consecutive
development of thought and arrangement shown in the narrative
histories. The language and spelling of the originals are in all cases
preserved, and all omissions are indicated by the usual typographical
means.
The work is divided into four chapters; the first on “The Making of
Colonial America,” occupies 165 pages; the second, “Revolution and
Independence, 1764-1786,” fills 100 pages; the third, “The Making of
a Democratic Nation,” 131 pages; and the fourth, “Slavery and the
Sectional Struggle, 1841-1877,” 86 pages. Or, to put it in other words,
the period before 1789 is allotted 284 pages, while that under the
constitution to 1877 is given 200 pages. Each chapter is subdivided
into sections, and these into smaller groups of sources. Taking for
granted that the plan of the editors is a practical one, the test as
to whether they have done it well is to be found in the proportions
assigned to the several topics, and in the character of the extracts
given or excluded. The first thought which comes to mind is that too
much space has been given to the colonial and revolutionary periods,
and too little to the constitutional period. An inspection of the
several sections shows that the colonial period lends itself best to
the form of treatment adopted by the authors, and naturally they have
emphasized that period. The documents upon recent history, particularly
the civil war and reconstruction, have not fitted so readily into the
narrative. Yet it must be admitted that the editors have resolutely
carried on their method to the close; they give extracts from Lincoln’s
public papers and letters respecting slavery and reconstruction, and
arrange them in the same analytical form adopted for the extracts
bearing upon the Stamp Act or on Bacon’s Rebellion. One cannot but
wish, however, that the editors had been as generous in their excerpts
for the later period as they were for the earlier; perhaps five
pages of quotations is not too much for the “Effects of the English
Revolution of 1688” upon America, but surely two pages is too short for
Lincoln’s attitude toward slavery; we welcome the ten pages of extracts
from Washington’s letters bearing upon the Revolutionary War, but we
wish for more than two very short quotations treating of the Civil War.
The method of the editors can best be shown by noting the character of
the illustrative material gathered by them upon several topics. For
instance in Chapter I there is the sub-topic, “Colonial Constitutional
Development, 1689-1763,” occupying 17 pages. Within this space we have
quotations from the ordinance of 1696 creating the Board of Lords of
Trade and Plantations, and from the additional instructions of 1752
respecting the board. There are as many as fourteen extracts showing
the increased parliamentary regulation of colonial affairs in the
period 1696 to 1751. These include parts of the navigation act of
1696, Edmund Burke’s account of the sugar act of 1733, extracts from
the woolens act of 1699, the hat act of 1732, and the iron act of
1750; excerpts showing the bounties on naval stores, rice and indigo;
and quotations from the act regulating colonial coinage (1707),
the post-office act of 1710, the debt recovery act of 1732, the
naturalization act of 1740, the land-bank act of 1741, and the paper
money act of 1751. Next there are four quotations showing the desire
of the English authorities to reduce all the colonies to one form of
government; and the same number of extracts from plans for colonial
union. Then follow three extracts showing the desire to establish an
Anglican episcopate in the colonies, and the section closes with papers
illustrating the “growing assertion of colonial rights.” Under the
latter heading we have four extracts relating to conflicts between the
governors and the assemblies; an account of the trial and acquittal of
John Peter Zenger; John Adams’ account of James Otis’ speech against
writs of assistance; and a report of Patrick Henry’s speech in the
Parson’s Cause. Such an array of quotations shows not only wide reading
and intensive knowledge of the documents, but it also implies a keen
judgment as to their pedagogical value, and an ability to arrange the
extracts into a working analysis.
In such a work one would naturally look for the treatment of
_Culturgeschichte_, and indeed the editors have not neglected this
side of their story. An interesting section is that describing the
industrial, social, and religious condition of the country in 1840. The
subject is analyzed minutely,--like all other parts of the work,--into
such topics as “business characteristics,” “means of communication,”
“the standard of living,” “democracy,” “the South,” and “American
Morals.” The sources for quotation are almost exclusively the accounts
of European--mainly English--travelers in the country at the period.
These accounts are well known to students of the period, but it has
been difficult heretofore for teachers to bring the flavor of these
criticisms to the scholars of high school or even college classes. The
editors of the “Source-history” have selected and arranged a series of
accounts from Buckingham, Martineau, Chambers, Dickens, Grund, Lyell,
de Tocqueville and others which will be of service in both college and
secondary school classes.
The two sections here mentioned show the method of the editors. Not
only have they selected their material with skill, but they have also
arranged it under such a scheme of topics that it may be used by the
tyro in the study of history. He does not need to dig the historical
jewels out from the midst of documentary rubbish; that has been done
for him. In addition the editors have placed extended series of
questions upon the text at the close of each section, and references to
the standard text-books. There is an analytical table of contents, but
no index. There are some typographical errors in the book which should
be corrected in a later edition. It is also to be hoped if we are to
have any more of such collections, that a simpler typographical device
may be invented to mark omitted matter.
The work is a valuable pedagogical device; it marks the climax of the
source-method. It should very widely extend the knowledge of sources in
our high schools and colleges. We shall watch its use with interest.
[A Source History of the United States from Discovery (1492) to End
of Reconstruction (1877), by Howard Walter Caldwell and Clark Edmund
Persinger, pp. xvi, 484. Chicago, Ainsworth & Co., price $1.25.]
A. E. M.
* * * * *
The History Teacher’s Magazine
Published monthly, except July and August, at 5805 Germantown Avenue,
Philadelphia, Pa., by
McKINLEY PUBLISHING CO.
A. E. McKINLEY, Proprietor.
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EDITORS
Managing Editor, ALBERT E. MCKINLEY, Ph.D.
History in the College and the School, ARTHUR C. HOWLAND, Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor of European History, University of Pennsylvania.
The Training of the History Teacher, NORMAN M. TRENHOLME, Professor of
the Teaching of History, School of Education, University of Missouri.
Source Methods of Teaching History, FRED MORROW FLING, Professor of
European History, University of Nebraska.
Reports from the History Field, WALTER H. CUSHING, Secretary, New
England History Teachers’ Association, South Framingham, Mass.
Current History, JOHN HAYNES, Dorchester High School, Boston, Mass.
American History in Secondary Schools, ARTHUR M. WOLFSON, Ph.D., DeWitt
Clinton High School, New York.
The Teaching of Civics in the Secondary School, ALBERT H. SANFORD,
State Normal School, La Crosse, Wis.
European History in Secondary Schools, DANIEL C. KNOWLTON, Ph.D.,
Barringer High School, Newark, N. J.
English History in Secondary Schools, C. B. NEWTON, Lawrenceville
School, Lawrenceville, N. J.
Ancient History in Secondary Schools, WILLIAM FAIRLEY, Ph.D.,
Commercial High School, Brooklyn, N. Y.
History in the Grades, ARMAND J. GERSON, Supervising Principal, Robert
Morris Public School, Philadelphia, Pa.
CORRESPONDENTS.
HENRY JOHNSON, Teachers’ College, Columbia University, New York.
MABEL HILL, High School, Lowell, Mass.
GEORGE H. GASTON, Wendell Phillips High School, Chicago, Ill.
JAMES F. WILLARD, University of Colorado, Boulder, Col.
H. W. EDWARDS, High School, Berkeley, Cal.
WALTER L. FLEMING, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, La.
MARY SHANNON SMITH, Meredith College, Raleigh, N. C.
* * * * *
EDITORIAL CONFERENCE.
A meeting of the editors and correspondents of THE HISTORY TEACHER’S
MAGAZINE will be held in Teachers’ College, Columbia University, New
York, on Tuesday, December 28, at 3.30 o’clock. The meeting will be an
open one, and the attendance is requested not only of the editorial
staff, but also of contributors and others interested in extending the
usefulness of the Magazine. Such a conference, giving opportunity for
comparison of views, should strengthen the policy of the paper. It is
planned to make the editorial conference an annual matter, meeting at
the same time and place as the American Historical Association.
THE HISTORY TEACHER AND THE COMMUNITY.
The teacher of history in secondary school or college has a better
opportunity to influence the community in which he lives than the
teacher of almost any other subject; and if to history it be his or her
lot to add economics and government as well, the field of influence
should be correspondingly widened. Mathematics, formal English, exact
science, the foreign languages, one and all, must give way in human
interest to that of biography and history. At the beck and call of
the historian there are all our records of what man has thought and
said and done. Shall the history teacher leave those fields untouched?
Shall he keep his knowledge to himself alone? Shall he limit himself to
text-book work in the class-room, and do nothing to extend the interest
in his subject throughout the community? If this is his practice, no
wonder his subject is treated with disdain by school directors, no
wonder that he cannot get a library of books upon his subject, no
wonder that he becomes an irresponsive fossil.
In many ways the history teacher may influence the community. He may
advise and co-operate with the local librarians in the purchase and
loan of books; he may give public lectures upon historical topics; he
may write historical articles for papers or for publication in book
form; he may found or join societies for the study of local history;
he may use means to keep alive the local interest in history. These
activities will win respect for the teacher and the subject, and
develop in our American communities a similar respect for local history
and tradition. Forthcoming numbers of THE HISTORY TEACHER’S MAGAZINE
will discuss in detail certain of these activities, such as the
relation of the history teacher to the public librarian, and to local
historical societies; for the present, mention will be made simply of
those miscellaneous means the teacher may use to keep alive interest in
local history.
A receptive attitude with reference to local tradition and history
should always be taken by the history teacher. He should know
something of the local history within a few weeks after he has entered
a new community, if he has not been able to study it in advance. A
young graduate student entering a small western college as instructor,
found in the library no volumes upon the subject of his doctor’s
thesis. He did not wait for the summer vacation to continue his studies
in Europe, but started at once to make certain local studies, which
were so successful that they gained for him a national as well as a
local reputation, and stimulated others to a scientific study of the
State’s history. In a similar way the instructor in any high school
or college should familiarize himself with local history, and aim, if
possible, to make some definite contribution to its literature.
Another subject in which the history teacher should be interested
is that of local names. The tendency of American legislators is to
obliterate local names, particularly if they have not what is deemed
a proper connotation, and substitute for them the names of petty
politicians or, what is even worse, some system of numerals. Compare,
for instance, the system of numbering public schools in New York City
with that of naming them in use in some other cities; or that of
numbering all streets and avenues and wards with the custom of keeping
the old historic names. Much of the sentiment for us to-day would be
taken from London, or Paris, or even our own Boston, if a numbering
system, independent of local traditions, had been adopted two hundred
years ago.
The proper marking of historic spots is a matter of interest to any
community, and the history teacher should be a leader in such an
undertaking. Much is being done in this direction by individuals
and societies, but much more needs to be done. In awakening public
interest, even by showing the authorities that it is economically wise
to mark such spots for the encouragement and convenience of visitors,
the history teacher will win respect from the community.
Historical pageants have been held in parts of Europe for centuries,
but recently they have been revived upon a large scale, and already
America has seen several which would rank high with those of Europe.
The pageants at Quebec, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in 1908, at Lake
Champlain in 1909, and the Hudson-Fulton celebration in New York all
furnish excellent opportunities for education in historical facts and
development. Such lessons will grow in number with increasing respect
for the past, and with the growing desire for meaning in pageantry,
rather than noise and sound in parades. Here also the history teacher
will find wide opportunity for all his knowledge and experience.
Surely it is the fault of the teacher and not of history itself if the
community ignores him and his subject.
American History in the Secondary School
ARTHUR M. WOLFSON, PH.D., Editor.
FOUNDATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF THE FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES.
The ratification of the Constitution of the United States marks the end
of one period of American history and the beginning of another. At that
point the teacher should pause and gather up with his class all the
threads which he has thus far been following. The problems henceforth
to be presented are those of a well-established, entirely independent
nation.
First of all, it should be noted that the history of the nation during
its one hundred and twenty years of existence divides itself into five
more or less distinct periods. These periods are (1) the thirty odd
years from 1789 to 1823, during which time the nation was settling
the foundations of its political life, internal and external; (2) the
thirty years from 1820 to 1850, during which the nation was moving
forward, under two diametrically opposed parties (those in favor of
the extension of slavery and those opposed to its extension), in the
occupation of the vast tracts of land beyond the Mississippi; (3)
the twenty-five or twenty-six years from 1850 to 1876, during which
these two parties finally came to blows and settled the constitutional
questions involved in secession; (4) the twenty odd years from 1876
to 1898, during which the nation is forced to deal with new and
unaccustomed economic questions; (5) the ten years or more since the
Spanish-American War, the period of present-day practical politics.
Such an outline as this of the entire course of American history may
seem to many teachers to be a little forehanded, yet it is our firm
conviction that only that teacher who sees in the beginning the entire
work of the term can deal with each lesson as it arises properly. Of
this outline, even the class should not be entirely ignorant.
As to the first period--the period of the establishment of our national
policy--in it the class will be confronted by two more or less distinct
problems: first, the questions of internal policy, the solution
of which can be found in the study of the activities of Alexander
Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, and of his contemporaries. These
problems, important as they are, space requires that we leave for the
present for the teacher himself to analyze and present to his pupils.
In passing, we may say, however, that both teacher and pupils will find
themselves amply repaid by a careful study of the reports of Hamilton
and Jefferson which are to be found in Macdonald’s “Documents.”
Far more complex, and far more difficult, are the problems which are
presented by the relations of the United States to its foreign friends
and enemies. The mere study of the text-book, we have found, leaves
the pupils hopelessly confused and bewildered. As the result of a
number of years of experience we have come to believe that it pays, at
the beginning, before one attempts to say a word about Washington’s
Proclamation of Neutrality, about the principles involved in the
struggles with France and England, about the treaties with Spain and
the purchase of Louisiana, to devote at least one or two lessons to a
careful analysis of all the elements involved in our relations with
foreign nations. In doing this we shall find that all questions of
foreign policy fall under one of four headings: (1) commerce, (2)
citizenship, (3) territory, (4) the position which the nation will
take in case of disagreements between two or more foreign nations.
Any class, skilfully led, will be able to furnish the teacher with
these four headings. Then one may go on to further analysis. For
instance, the class will see at once that commerce in times of peace
and in times of war must be conducted upon a different basis. Under
the first condition, commercial relations are usually settled by
commercial treaties, though under special conditions they may involve
questions like the right of the nation to trade with the colonies of a
foreign nation, and the question of the “open door” of which we have
heard so much in the last two or three decades. In times of war, the
rights of neutral trade are much more complicated. Here they involve,
especially in the earliest period of United States history, at least
four different questions: (1) what constitutes an efficient blockade,
(2) what articles may rightly be considered as contraband, (3) how far
do “free ships make free goods,” (4) is trade with ports of one of the
belligerents, closed in times of peace, open to the neutral in times of
war (Rule of 1756)? Each of these questions, we have found, will offer
opportunity for spirited class room discussion. None of them is simple,
and the teacher should therefore be sure that he has his own answers
ready before he attempts to open the discussion to the class.
The question of citizenship is easier. To begin with, we all agree
that it is the duty of the nation to protect its citizens against
unjust oppression. But not all nations at the end of the eighteenth
century, or even to-day, are agreed as to what constitutes citizenship.
Does naturalization, for instance, destroy the obligations which the
individual owed to the country of his original allegiance? This is,
of course, the single vital question involved in the dispute between
the United States and England over impressment, though there is a
subsidiary question, the right of entrance and search in times of war
which the teacher should not neglect in presenting the subject.
The question of the acquisition of territory is again comparatively
easy of analysis. All that it requires is for the teacher to show to
his class that it was the “manifest destiny” of the nation to acquire,
step by step, all the land lying south and west of the original limits
of the country as far west as the Pacific Ocean. Whether the nation was
wise in going beyond the confines of the continent in the acquisition
of territory may be left till a later period for discussion.
Finally, there is the question as to the position which the United
States should take in cases of dispute between the European
nations. Here again the teacher should be prepared to show that
self-preservation required that the United States should assume a
position of absolute neutrality, that it was equally necessary, on the
other hand, at least in the early years of the nineteenth century, that
we demand that the European nations refrain from interfering in the
affairs of America.
Coming now to the study of the specific events which illustrate these
principles, the teacher will be ready to develop and the class will be
ready to appreciate the series of events which begin with Washington’s
Proclamation of Neutrality, which are involved in the disputes with
England which were settled temporarily by the Jay Treaty and later by
the War of 1812 and the Treaty of Ghent. Next the negotiations with
Spain concerning the right of entry and deposit at the mouth of the
Mississippi and the later negotiations with France concerning the
purchase of Louisiana may be developed. Finally in this analysis the
class will find the key to that series of proclamations and messages
which begin with Washington’s Farewell Address, which proceed through
the messages of Adams and Jefferson, which end with Monroe’s message of
December, 1823, commonly known as the Monroe Doctrine. When all this
is done, the well-equipped teacher will be ready to discuss briefly
with his class the later diplomatic history of the country, the gradual
modification of the principles for which Washington, Jefferson, John
Quincy Adams and Monroe contended, but he will find to his surprise
that until the very last years of the nineteenth century little change
was made in the whole system.
In the study of this period the teacher is earnestly recommended
to have frequent recourse with his class to the documents which
illustrate the history. Most of them can be found in convenient form
in MacDonald’s “Documents,” in the “American History Leaflets,”
in the “Old South Leaflets,” and in Hill’s “Liberty Documents,” a
comparatively recent publication. For further reading, the teacher is
recommended not only to the standard histories of the United States
like Schouler’s, and McMaster’s, but also to the exhaustive work of
Henry Adams, “History of the United States in the Administrations of
Jefferson and Madison.” Finally, there are the three or four diplomatic
histories of the United States of which the best are John B. Moore’s
“American Foreign Policy,” Hart’s “Foundations of the American Foreign
Policy” and John W. Foster’s “A Century of American Diplomacy.” In each
of these works the teacher will find a thorough analysis of the Monroe
Doctrine, its history and its application; should he desire to examine
the Doctrine further, he will find material in two special studies:
George F. Tucker’s “Monroe Doctrine,” and William F. Reddaway’s “Monroe
Doctrine.” The first is an American presentation of the subject; the
second that of an Englishman.
* * * * *
Additional References.
(1) Lalor’s Cyclopædia under such headings as “Blockade,” “Contraband,”
“Naturalisation,” “Neutrality,” etc.
(2) John Westlake, “International Law,” Part I, chapter x, on
“Citizenship”; Part II, chapter vii, on “Blockades”; chapters ix and x
on “Contraband.”
(3) William Hall, “International Law,” Part II, chapter v, on
“Citizenship”; Part IV, chapters v and vi, on “Contraband”; chapter
vii, on the privileges of “Free Ships”; chapter viii, on “Blockades.”
(4) Theodore D. Woolsey, “Introduction to the Study of International
Law” (the standard American authority); Part I, chapter iii, on
“Citizenship”; Part II, chapter ii, on “Neutral Trade.”
Ashley’s “American History”
REVIEWED BY H. R. TUCKER, McKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL, ST. LOUIS, MO.
Mr. Ashley has added another excellent text on American history to the
numerous recent ones for secondary schools. The course of events is
carried down to 1907. “The subjects have been grouped under topical
heads. The author has hoped to indicate by this means the relation of
each historical change to the movement of the times and the relation
of this smaller movement to the larger phases of our development which
are given in the chapters” (preface). The attention given to wars is
agreeably less than in texts of some years ago,--only 100 pages out of
550. Industrial and social development, and economic phases are given
100 pages. These chapters are after the various epochal periods; they
are complete and attractive. Over 100 pages are given to the period
since the Civil War. All these proportions are in agreement with
the general trend in historical instruction to-day. The relation of
governmental institutions to historical development is especially clear.
The opening chapter is on geographic influences of America and the
early European background. Such sections in the book as follows are
illustrative of the clearness of topics usually difficult for high
school pupils:--40, “English Puritans”; 87, “English Colonists and
Their Governors,” where the temperament of governor is considered an
important factor; 265, distinction between Jeffersonian and Jacksonian
democracy; 330, “Fundamental causes of Secession”; 331, “Slavery and
state sovereignty vs. nationality”; 337-345, “Conditions affecting
Union Success.” It is a pleasure to note the comparative brief
description of such complicated military or naval movements as the
naval episodes of the War of 1812, the Shenandoah Valley campaign of
the Civil War (1864), the Vicksburg campaign, &c. The author is quite
fair in that period in which every American historian is most open to
the charge of being prejudiced,--the Civil War. He shows an impartial
attitude; he gives credit to both sides. The account is written in true
historical perspective without discrediting the value of the final
result. The bearing of lines of communication upon the course of wars
are indicated. Many will appreciate the omission of the names of the
assassins of the martyred President, probably the first school text to
do this.
There are a few defects: It is not evident from the account of the
Battle of Bunker Hill why it was called such, though fought on Breed’s
Hill. Certainly J. Q. Adams’ name should be given in connection
with the “gag resolution” of 1835. The sections of the copy of the
national constitution should be subdivided into clauses for convenient
reference. All of these points, however, are of minor importance and
hardly detract from the general high scholarship of the text.
There are many illustrations, maps and diagrams which bear on the text.
These are of a general high order, but some improvements might be
made: Map, p. 58, of the New England colonies should be larger; also
one on page 97 of the intercolonial war. No map of the important 1609
Virginia grant is given. Not enough as to parallels and coast points is
indicated on the map of the Virginia, 1606, grant, p. 40. On the map
of the Louisiana purchase, p. 255, the Sabine River should be noted. A
map accompanying the description of the early Virginia campaign (Civil
War) would be helpful. The map on page 400 is not clear; it would be
improved by designating rivers and railroads differently. Not all
the necessary rivers on map, p. 406, are named. Some of the maps are
without scale of miles, _i. e._, p. 403, p. 406, &c. All these points
are non-essentials, yet they are to be considered in the teaching of
the subject.
The bibliographical aids are of several kinds. There are marginal
references throughout the narrative, bearing directly upon it. At the
close of each chapter there are two classes of references, “topics,”
and “studies,” there being several (exact pages given) to the former,
and one to each of the latter. There are from two to four topics;
and the number of studies averages about ten. It will thus be seen
that the text is arranged in such a way that much or little reference
reading need be done, as the varying conditions permit.
Suggestive library lists are given. However, they would be more helpful
to the busy, “small school” teacher if publisher and price were noted.
There is a summary at the close of each chapter; also questions,
which are not so much to test one’s memory of the subject as to lead
him to independent thinking. The marginal analysis of the text is
always helpful. The appendix includes Declaration of Independence,
Constitution of the United States, and tables of President and
Presidential elections, and statistics of states. The book is
substantially bound and attractive from the bookmaker’s standpoint. The
index is very full. The phraseology is clear and simple, and the book
is entirely adapted to any year of the high school, or to more advanced
classes, in view of the extensive references. Mr. Ashley has picked
out the salient points in American history. From the standpoint of
scholarship and pedagogical requirements, this text will take high rank.
[“American History.” By Roscoe Lewis Ashley. pp. xlvii, 557. The
Macmillan Co., New York; $1.40, net.]
* * * * *
NEW JERSEY HISTORY SYLLABUS.
The New Jersey State Department of Public Instruction has in press
another section of its syllabus for secondary schools, covering the
high school work in history, and divided into the four topics of
Ancient, Mediæval and Modern, English and American. The committee
which compiled the syllabus was composed of: Arthur Arnold, chairman;
S. P. Howe, Jr., Lydia Lavell, Sara A. Dynes, Daniel C. Knowlton. The
portion of the syllabus dealing with Ancient History is the work of Dr.
Knowlton; Miss Lavell has arranged the European matter; Mr. Howe the
English, and Miss Dynes the American.
Ancient History in the Secondary School
WILLIAM FAIRLEY, Ph.D., Editor.
A REVIEW.[6]
Not a review of the work we teachers have been doing with our friends,
the ancient Greeks; but a digression which will be in some sort a
review of a notable book will occupy us for a little. There has
recently appeared The Lowell Lectures for 1908-9 by Professor John
P. Mahaffy, of Trinity College, Dublin, on “What Have the Greeks
Done for Modern Civilization.” The book is altogether helpful to the
lover of the Greek world. And to him not only; but to the reader who
through early limitations of culture may have but slight ideas of the
importance of the Greeks, a reading of this book should be what to one
brought up in the dim light of a cave or in the dense shadows of some
vast forest would be a first glimpse of the glorious orb of day, the
source of all the shaded light and all the warmth that had hitherto
been his to enjoy without suspicion of the existence of the master
light. Professor Mahaffy’s gladsome task is to impress the primacy of
Greece in all our best thinking and truest living. He is indeed an
enthusiast. Occasionally the judicious reader will question some of the
results of his enthusiasm. But the author is the Nestor of the Greek
scholars of the English-speaking world. He says of himself at the close
of his lectures: “So now, when my part in the race is nearly run, there
remains to me no higher earthly satisfaction than this, that I have
carried the torch of Greek fire alight through a long life--no higher
earthly hope than this, that I may pass that torch to others, who in
their turn may keep it aflame with greater brilliancy perhaps, but not
with more earnest devotion ‘in the Parliament of men the Federation of
the world.’” He bitterly decries the modern displacement of the study
of the Greek tongue and the knowledge of Greek life at first hand; but
at the same time serves as an interpreter of what was best in Greece to
those of us who are not quite at home in this language of queer type
and involved syntax.
So in this close of our study of Greece for the current school year,
let me earnestly recommend the perusal of this book to all teachers of
our department. We cannot give a hundredth part of it to our pupils,
now, or in later courses; but it will serve to imbue ourselves deeply
with the Greek spirit, and help us to enforce the true value of our
heritage from the Greeks, the master minds of all our thinking. Some of
us will not have opportunity to read the book. For them let me try to
give a few glimpses of its worth.
There are eight lectures: Introductory; Greek Poetry; Greek Prose;
Greek Art--I: Poetry and Sculpture; II: Painting and Music; Science;
Grammar, Logic, Mathematics, Medicine; Politics, Sociology, Law; Higher
Thinking, Philosophy, Speculative and Practical Theology. The thesis of
the whole is that the best in life is wrought out elaborately and with
pains by men of deep thought and long reflection. It is a glorifying of
the ideal as over against the modern rush of practicality.
In his introductory lecture Professor Mahaffy seeks not to account for
the Greek preëminence--that cannot be done; but to assert it, as one
might extol the sporadic genius of a Mozart. He then shows how the
Romans and the men of medieval Europe failed to grasp, as our modern
world since the Renaissance has been grasping, the real meaning of
Greece. And here comes in his plea for the study of Greek. He writes:
“The danger I see before this generation is that which came upon the
Roman world insensibly and which resulted in a decadence not arrested
till it sunk into the night of the dark ages. The later empire was
content to take Greek art and Greek letters at second hand, and to
substitute Latin culture for the models which had educated their
greatest masters. But ... the copy had not the life of the original. So
we, too, with all our science, with our increase of material knowledge
and our joyless running to and fro may sink into an ugly, tame, joyless
conglomeration of societies, for whom new discoveries supply hosts of
new conveniences, but no return to the happiness and contentment of a
simpler age.... Happiness does not lie here, no, nor in motors, nor
in turbines, nor in wireless messages across the globe, nor in daily
newspapers full of inextricable fact and falsehood.”
In the chapters devoted to literature with wealth of argument and
illustration is pointed out our well-known debt for rhythm and meter,
period and cadence. In specific cases: “There can be no question that
in the oratory of debate the Greeks taught the Romans, then through
them mediæval Europe, then, after the Renaissance, modern Europe
directly, so that even now they are the acknowledged masters in this
splendid art.” And: “The laws of prose composition, as devised and
perfected by Isocrates, are the most subtle and complete ever put into
practice by any living man.”
These supreme exemplars of prose and verse, he declares, have no lesson
for us of unstudied eloquence and unpremeditated art. Everything was
polished to the pitch of perfection with unremitting toil.
Architecture and sculpture reveal the highest glories of Greek art.
The refinements of line by which optical delusion was corrected
in the Parthenon are pointed out with admiration. Speaking of the
frieze of the same temple, he remarks: “There is even this subtlety
in the detail of the work--that, as this band of figures was intended
to be seen high above the spectator, care was taken to carve the
lower limbs in slightly flatter relief than the upper, and the limbs
of the horses were even made a little lighter than in nature, in
order to counterbalance the predominance which the part nearer to
the spectator’s vision might assume.” Glimpses of genius--pains and
skill--such as that are of high artistic, yes, and moral value to our
youth. Attention is called to what so many of us ignore, that color was
freely used in both building and sculpture. Our flat whites would have
been unbearable to these masters. Their perfection in statuary is the
loving despair of the world to-day.
In the chapter on science are a host of facts which are not
unfamiliar to the scholar, but which serve to hush some of our modern
boastfulness. Some things will be new to many readers. Such are the
system of numerical notation, almost as simple as our Arabic digits.
The extent of Greek mathematical investigation is better known. Of
great interest is the account of Greek medicine, which got so far
beyond the nostrums, the philtres and superstitions to which medieval
quackery returned.
In politics is found the weak point of Greece; yet even here we must
use the historical perspective. And thus, by contrast, this ancient
advance over Oriental thraldoms and tyrannies is all the more wonderful.
In matters of private law it is almost startling to come across a will
like this, taken from a papyrus of Græcised Egypt: “This is the will of
Peisias the Lycian, son of X., of sound mind and deliberate intention.
May it be my lot to live on in health and manage mine own property,
but should anything human happen to me, I bequeath to my children so
much, to my wife such and such things, I set free certain slaves; I set
apart money for religious purposes. And I appoint as executors such
and such people.” A will like this would be admitted to probate in any
surrogate’s court to-day.
The chapters on philosophy and theology are necessarily deep, but of
supreme importance. For in them we are reminded of how by pure thinking
the Greeks anticipated the best and latest of our modern thought. The
atomic theory, the unity of the universe, the oneness of God, the
eternal sanctions of the right, the high behests of the moral law, were
all worked out over two thousand years ago.
“If the time should ever come when men will no longer be led by
revelation, when they will reject miracle and prophecy, and determine
to be led by the mere light of reason ... there will still remain
the ethical types which Zeno and Epicurus have crystallized in their
systems--there will always remain the man of duty and the man of
pleasure, the man who lives for others and he who lives for himself, in
terms of modern philosophic jargon, the Altruist and the Egoist, the
Spiritualist and the Materialist.”
It were well for our youth and their teachers to bow before a race who
in that dim and early age could think the thoughts and set in motion
the influences which are most vital among us of the later time.
* * * * *
The Fall of the Curtain.
A formal presentation of the closing scenes of purely Greek history is
precluded by the foregoing notice of Professor Mahaffy’s work. It may
suffice to point out the three subjects most worthy of emphasis. These
may well be: 1, the failure of the Greek federations before and after
Alexander, owing to jealousies; 2, the extent and the political failure
of the work of Alexander, and 3, the Hellenizing of the Mediterranean
basin and the lasting benefits accruing therefrom.
FOOTNOTE:
[6] What Have the Greeks Done for Modern Civilization? The Lowell
Lectures for 1908-9 by John P. Mahaffy, C. V. O., D. C. L., (Oxon.), of
Trinity College, Dublin, Pp., ix, 263. New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Price, $2.50.
European History in the Secondary School
D. C. KNOWLTON, PH.D., Editor.
THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
Some General Considerations.
The long period of struggle which followed the reform movement of the
sixteenth century seems of comparatively little importance beside the
revolt itself; and yet it offers possibilities of treatment which the
secondary teacher cannot well afford to neglect. The modern tendency
in text-book writing has been to suppress the details of wars in
order to allow for a fuller treatment of other phases of development.
Assuming that the teachers of the past generation, and not a few of
the present day, have been laying too much emphasis on details of this
character, the pendulum has seemed at times to swing too far in the
direction of elimination and condensation in the treatment of great
epoch making wars. Many an opportunity has thereby been neglected of
inculcating great truths which could more easily be exemplified by
stories drawn from the battlefield than from less stirring episodes.
Wars are often presented in so cursory a fashion as to convey little
idea of their real character and significance. They become little less
than dry summaries of causes and effects and are stripped altogether of
that personal element which is so necessary to the attainment of the
best results in history teaching. The possibility of utilizing these
struggles as a correlating element has usually been farthest from the
thought of the teacher, or at best been but imperfectly realized. The
religious wars afford the teacher not only the possibility of vivid
biographic treatment, but may serve to bind the closer certain common
lines of development peculiar to the Europe of the latter part of the
sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century.
Luther and the Beginnings of the Protestant Revolt.
There can be but very little choice of method in the presentation of
the facts connected with the beginnings of the Protestant revolt.
Luther’s life must be taken up in more or less detail and the attention
directed to the various influences with which he came in contact. To
secure a proper understanding of the effects of his teachings, the
political as well as the religious background of his endeavors must
be carefully sketched. Little difficulty will probably be experienced
in showing how the Renaissance movement became intimately associated
with church reform as it passed the barriers of the Alps and took hold
of the more serious-minded Germans. This connection is much easier to
establish from the fact that the attention of the class has already
been drawn to the part taken by Erasmus in the Renaissance proper. The
question will probably arise as to how far the teacher should delve
into the more distant past to resurrect the various efforts at reform
which marked the earlier centuries. Any opportunity for a résumé of
this character should be heartily welcomed, as it serves better than
any formal review to test the grasp by the student of the facts already
covered. When the teacher is ready to take up the revolt itself, there
is apparently but one logical method of securing results, and that
is to present Luther’s life in as much detail as time will permit,
showing how he felt himself driven by the force of his own logic
into a position entirely antagonistic to the Church as it was then
established. The parting of the ways is reached with the great scene at
Worms. Contrary to his expectations, his protest within the Church had
made him not only its avowed enemy, but the founder of a new sect.
Characteristics of Period from 1521 to 1648.
It is a comparatively easy matter to dispose of the remaining events
in this drama in which Luther, the Emperor and the Pope are the
main actors; but in what connection, and in how much detail, shall
the teacher present the beginnings of the reform movement in other
countries, the counter movement in the Catholic Church, and the
struggles which arose over questions of religion in every land where
Protestantism secured a foothold? The fact that sooner or later the
struggle between Catholics and Protestants resolved itself into a civil
war of considerable proportions makes it possible to utilize these
struggles as the principal unifying element in the treatment of the
entire period from 1521 to 1648. This plan differs from the ordinary
arrangement of material to be found in the text-book in that it places
less stress upon the beginnings of the reform movement outside of
Germany, subordinating these details to the wars as the central theme
and directing the attention of the student only to such events as
help to explain the character of these struggles. The teacher must,
however, bear in mind throughout that “the story of no European country
or group of countries in this troubled period admits of being told as
detached from the contemporary history of its neighbors, allies, or
adversaries.”[7] Beyond emphasizing the fact that the revolt spread
to other lands, it is a question whether the time is wisely spent in
treating in detail the Calvinistic movement emanating from Geneva,
or the beginnings of Presbyterianism in Scotland, or the overthrow
of Catholicism in England. The one central idea which the student
should grasp as a result of his study of the period--an idea which is
decidedly within the range of his comprehension and appreciation--is
that religion, which had long been a dominant factor in European
politics, now lost its power to sway the political destinies of thrones
and empires. In fact a new era had dawned in which the Church found
itself removed from politics and the world given over to interests of
quite a different character. This change may be illustrated further
along by the insignificant part taken by the representatives of the
Pope in the deliberations concerning the Treaties of Westphalia.
The growth of toleration should also be noted as an important
characteristic of this new period. Finally the student’s attention may
with profit be directed to the general tendency in these struggles
toward the subordination of the higher interests of religion to selfish
and dynastic interests. Time and again religion serves merely as a
cloak for the concealment of ambitions of the most secular character.
The ideals of true religion were perhaps never more perverted from
their true ends and made to serve the basest and lowest uses.
Outline of Plan of Presentation.
After calling attention briefly to the fact that this spirit of revolt
manifested itself in other countries, a logical plan of presentation
would be first to discuss the ineffectual efforts of the Emperor
Charles V and Pope Leo X to check the movement as it spread through
Germany, with an explanation of their failures; then to describe the
more successful efforts in this direction taken within the church
itself and known as the Counter Reformation; and finally to introduce
Philip II as the great champion of orthodoxy, devoting his entire
energies and the resources of a great empire to the superhuman task of
restoring the church to its former position of power and influence.
His career calls up Alva’s efforts to subdue the Netherlands, and that
heroic figure, William the Silent; and the sailing of the Great Armada.
One semi-religious war, if not two, have already been under discussion
in connection with these efforts to suppress the revolt, the Dutch War
of Independence and the Spanish Armada. Here is apparently the proper
place to introduce the other struggles, beginning with the Thirty
Years’ War in Germany, then taking up in turn the Huguenot wars in
France and the Puritan Revolution in England, and closing the period
with the sequel to this last struggle, The Glorious Revolution of 1688.
The Thirty Years’ War.
It is natural to turn to Germany first in presenting the religious
wars because of the greater familiarity of the student with conditions
there. The order becomes thereby strictly chronological, as the
Schmalkaldic War broke out in 1546; or, in other words, earlier by
several years than either of the other struggles. This war gave rise
to the Peace of Augsburg, which was a source of so much discontent
that it has been counted as one of the great factors in bringing on
the main struggle. Among the points which seem to call for special
emphasis are the mixture of religious and political causes underlying
the struggle, and the general participation of many of the great
powers of Western Europe. This fact served to prolong the war and to
give it a more European character and a wider significance. It was not
merely a question of _cujus regio, ejus religio_, but of important
dynastic and territorial interests. The efforts directed toward the
overthrow of the power of the Hapsburgs and the peculiar interests of
Denmark, Sweden and England in the contest call for special emphasis.
The power of the Hapsburgs in the time of Charles V and later can be
shown to good advantage by the use of outline maps. At least three
great personalities dominate the scene, Wallenstein, Richelieu and
Gustavus Adolphus, all of whom furnish rich material for biographical
study. Although it is possible to follow the campaigns with an atlas
like Putzger, this study is comparatively barren of results except as
it throws light upon the military genius of a Wallenstein or on the
prowess of “The Lion of the North.” The effects of the war were to be
seen in Germany in the weakness of the central government and in the
wretchedness and misery consequent upon thirty years of marching and
countermarching on the part of hostile armies. The picture sketched
by Gardiner in his Thirty Years’ War is well nigh incredible. The
territorial changes which followed the war can best be shown by the
preparation of a map. They are much more readily appreciated if
they appear by themselves. (See, for example, the map in Harding,
“Essentials,” p. 339, or Wakeman “Ascendancy of France, 1598-1715,” p.
124.)
The French Wars of Religion.
The treatment of the religious wars in France will differ slightly
from that of the Thirty Years’ War, as it becomes necessary in this
connection to introduce a few facts about Calvinism. This need not
involve much more than the briefest possible statement of what Calvin
taught, pointing out how his teachings appealed to the intellect
and the understanding rather than to the emotions, as did those of
Luther. As a result the Huguenots counted among their numbers some of
the best families of France. The personal element can be made very
prominent in these struggles, as it was largely the intrigues of two
families, the Guises and the Bourbons, aided and abetted by the Queen
Mother, Catherine de Medici, which kept France embroiled for all these
years. Here, too, is to be noted the same situation which prevailed
in Germany, namely, the apparent powerlessness of the French people
to solve their own religious and dynastic troubles alone without the
interference of outside nations, notably England and Spain. Selfish
and dynastic interests seem to have decidedly the upper hand here as
contrasted with Germany. Much can be made of such dramatic episodes
as the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the conversion of the Huguenot
leader, Henry of Navarre. The edict of Nantes and its effect upon
France should be contrasted with the religious clauses in the Treaties
of Westphalia. The great problem which this settlement raised of a
state within a state, made necessary the work of Richelieu, whose
career can now be rounded out by showing how he was laboring for one
and the same end in his treatment of the Huguenots at home and his
support of the Protestants abroad. French history is thus brought down
to the age of Louis XIV.
The Puritan Revolution.
The English struggle can be discussed along much the same lines as
the wars in France and Germany. More time should perhaps be given to
pointing out the effects of the Renaissance on England and the great
intellectual, economic, social, and religious changes which had come to
pass in the time of the Tudors. Their reigns mark the great period in
English history. The dominant characteristic of English development,
the growth of liberty, which had often placed England in sharp contrast
with the continent was never more prominently displayed than during
the period under consideration. The Great Civil War partakes of the
twofold character of the continental wars. It marks on the one hand a
struggle between two religious sects; on the other a contest between
the king and the representatives of the people. The prominence of this
second phase, the fact that it was a struggle between two Protestant
sects instead of between Catholics and Protestants, and that it took
place so long after the general upheaval following the break with
Rome, have served to isolate it more or less from the struggles on
the continent. The gains for freedom, which were the final outcome
of this struggle, differentiate it from those in France and Germany.
Henry IV and Richelieu prepared the way for the absolutism of Louis
XIV. In Germany the disorganization and demoralization of the central
government placed the destinies of the German people in the hands
of rival princes, whose political creed may be summed up in the
words of Frederick William I of Prussia, “Salvation belongs to the
Lord; everything else is my business.” The rulers of England, on the
contrary, were forced to recognize the power of parliament to control
their ministers, and more important still, to acknowledge the sovereign
people as the ultimate source of their power and authority. The
admission of this principle of government was not entirely the work of
the Puritan Revolution, but needed the additional lesson of the tyranny
and overthrow of James II. Not the least important among the benefits
which the movement of 1688 conferred upon England was the general
recognition of the principle of toleration.
The opportunity which this method affords the teacher of contrasting
English conditions with those on the continent should lead to a better
understanding and appreciation of England’s relation to and part in
general European progress. Her internal history furnishes another
illustration of the great characteristic of this period, the passing of
religious questions from the sphere of politics and the appearance of
issues of an entirely different character.
Bibliography.
The text-book will probably be found to furnish all the material needed
for the presentation of this period, with the possible exception of
details of a biographical character. “The Heroes of the Nations” series
contains good biographies of Gustavus Adolphus, by C. R. L. Fletcher;
of Henry IV, by P. F. Willert, and of Cromwell, by Charles Firth.
These may be supplemented by the volumes in the “Foreign Statesmen
Series,” on Richelieu, by R. Lodge; on William the Silent, by Frederic
Harrison, and on Philip II, by Martin Hume. The volumes in the “Epochs
of Modern History Series,” which cover this period, The Thirty Years’
War and the Puritan Revolution, by S. R. Gardiner, furnish considerable
supplementary information in a convenient and compact form. The
best atlases are probably Putzger, and Gardiner (“Atlas of English
History”).
FOOTNOTE:
[7] Cambridge Modern History, Vol. III. Preface.
History in the Grades
ARMAND J. GERSON, Editor.
THE ADMISSION OF MISSOURI.
A Type Lesson.
Happily our pupils nowadays are no longer compelled to commit to memory
lists of the states admitted during each administration. While we are
all agreed as to the futility of this antiquated practice we must at
the same time recognize that no pupil should leave our schools without
a fairly definite idea of the process by which new states are created.
This knowledge is essential to a comprehension of the present condition
of the nation and of its development in the future. It is the purpose
of the present article to show how a grasp of the process of admitting
states may be developed by means of the story of the admission of some
one typical state.
Vermont and Kentucky at once suggest themselves because of the very
early date of their formation. To these states, however, as to others
admitted in the first few administrations, there is the objection that
their admission was not typical of the process. This is due to their
previous dependence upon or relation to some of the original states.
Missouri, on the other hand, lying west of the Mississippi, may be
said to typify most of the states subsequently admitted. Another
reason for the choice of Missouri lies in the fact that our courses of
study require us to present the subject of the Missouri Compromise,
thus furnishing the best excuse in the world for developing in that
connection our type-lesson on the admission of new states.
The first point that should be developed is the relation between the
national government and the territory of the United States. Only one
definite reference to this relation occurs in the federal constitution.
In Art. IV, section 3, we find this statement: “The Congress shall
have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations
respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United
States.” We should impress our pupils with the significance of this
clause which places in the hands of the national legislature complete
control over United States territory. The wide extent of land which had
come into our possession by the Louisiana Purchase could be disposed
of by Congress in any way that it might see fit. In this land lay the
future state of Missouri.
Having thus given due consideration to the general relation between
the United States government and the territory which it owns, we
should pass next to the question of the creation of new states. Our
pupils are presumably acquainted with the necessity of referring to
the Constitution for any reference to a matter of fundamental national
law. It might be worth while to have the children themselves find the
Constitutional provision which relates to the admission of states.
The first part of Art. IV, section 3, provides that “new states may be
admitted by the Congress into this Union,”--the rest of the clause,
as far as our present purpose is concerned, may be dispensed with.
Attention should be called to the extreme indefiniteness of this
provision and to the general fact that while the Constitution gives
Congress full control of United States territory and further delegates
to it the power to admit new states, the actual mode of procedure has
been left to Congress itself to work out.
The ordinance of 1787 next calls for reference and rapid review. For
the purposes of this lesson the ordinance is important as having
furnished the type of territory destined to become an integral part of
our political organization. Further, it had made definite provision
for the future admission of states to be carved out of the Northwest
territory. To be sure, this ordinance was the work of the Continental
Congress, but it had been re-enacted by the first Congress under
the Constitution as early as 1789. The process mapped out in this
famous ordinance had already furnished the model for the creation of
territories and the admission of states in various parts of the country.
The territory of Missouri, originally as we have said a part of the
Louisiana Purchase, was organized by act of Congress June 4, 1812. The
class must be brought to see the significance of this organization.
As a territory Missouri had definite boundaries and an organized
government. It had a governor appointed by the President of the United
States, and a territorial legislature. It of course had no voice
in national affairs, and was in last resort subject to the will of
Congress.
A flood of immigration from the eastern states rapidly increased
the population of the new territory. It may be well, because of
the subsequent significance of the fact, to point out that a large
pro-slavery element had made repeated unsuccessful attempts to secure
for slavery the states which so far had been made from the Northwest
Territory. The anti-slavery provision of the Northwest Ordinance,
however, continued to hold good, and slave holders began to look across
the Mississippi for the extension of their dominion. So rapid was the
increase of population in Missouri that in less than six years after
its organization as a territory we find it seeking admission as a
state. In the early months of 1818 several memorials were presented in
the House petitioning for statehood, and on April 3 of that year an
enabling act was introduced.
The discussion of the enabling act constitutes one of the most
important “type elements” of our lesson. Normally the passing of such
an act by Congress must be regarded as the first step in the transition
of a territory to a state. There are, to be sure, some striking
instances where states have been admitted without the previous passage
of an enabling act by Congress--Texas and California are cases in
point--but in our type lesson we are concerned with the normal practice
only. We must develop in our pupils the idea of an enabling act as the
authorization of a territory by Congress to adopt a state constitution
and present itself for admission into the Union on equal terms with the
other states; the act further fixes the boundaries of the prospective
state.
As we have already mentioned, an enabling act for the admission of
Missouri had been introduced into the House as early as April 3, 1818.
The passage of the final Missouri Enabling Act, however, did not take
place until March 6, 1820. The fact that this delay was caused by the
bitter fight over slavery extension must by all means be emphasized,
but the history of the struggle in Congress,--of the amendments,
references, committee reports, etc., is far too complex to form a
part of any elementary lesson. It will be sufficient if our pupils
understand that there was a constant struggle to preserve the balance
of slave and free states, and grasp the significance of the admission
of Alabama in 1819 and of the application of Maine in that same year.
The Enabling Act of 1820, as typical of enabling acts in general,
should receive careful attention. Section 1 authorizes the people of
the territory of Missouri “to form for themselves a constitution and
state government, and to assume such name as they shall deem proper.”
Section 2 consists of an exact statement of the boundaries of the new
state. The phrasing of these sections is significant, typical, and
interesting, and should be presented to the class in full.[8]