Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text
enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
* * * * *
The History Teacher’s Magazine
Volume I.
Number 1.
PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER, 1909
$1.00 a year
15 cents a copy
* * * * *
Announcements for 1909-1910
◖ The History Teacher’s Magazine is devoted to the interests of teachers
of History, Civics, and related subjects in the fields of Geography and
Economics.
◖ It aims to bring to the teacher of these topics the latest news of his
profession. It will describe recent methods of history teaching, and
such experiments as may be tried by teachers in different parts of the
country.
◖ It will give the results of experimentation in such form that they may
be of value to every teacher. It will keep the teacher in touch with
the recent literature of history by giving an impartial judgment upon
recent text-books.
◖ It will give announcements of meetings of Teachers’ Associations and
accounts of their work. It will furnish personal facts when these will
be of interest to the teacher.
◖ Its columns being open to the questions and contributions of every
history teacher, it will serve as a clearing-house of ideas and ideals
in the profession of history teaching.
Published monthly, except July and August, by McKinley Publishing Co.,
Philadelphia, Pa.
Copyright, 1909, McKinley Publishing Co.
* * * * *
STRONG TEXT-BOOKS IN HISTORY
ESSENTIALS IN HISTORY
Edited under the supervision of ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, LL.D.
=Wolfson’s Essentials in Ancient History.= By A. M. WOLFSON, PH.D.,
First Assistant in History, DeWitt Clinton High School, New York
City, =$1.50=
=Walker’s Essentials in English History. = By A. P. WALKER, A.M.,
Master in History, English High School, Boston. =$1.50=
=Harding’s Essentials in Mediæval and Modern History.= By S. B.
HARDING, PH.D., Professor of European History, Indiana University.
=$1.50=
=Hart’s Essentials in American History.= By A. B. HART, LL.D.,
Professor of History, Harvard University. =$1.50=
Each of these writers is a trained historical scholar, familiar
through direct personal relations with the conditions and needs of
secondary schools. Special attention is paid to social history, to the
characteristic life and standards of the people, as well as to the
movements of sovereigns and political leaders. The books are readable
and teachable, and furnish helpful maps, illustrations and pedagogical
apparatus.
HARDING’S ESSENTIALS IN MEDIÆVAL HISTORY
By S. B. HARDING, Ph.D., Professor of European History, Indiana
University. =$1.00=
A book for elementary college classes which gives a general survey
of mediæval history from Charlemagne to the close of the fifteenth
century. Whatever is of little importance has been eliminated in
order to save the student’s time. The continuity of history has been
preserved from beginning to end, and the fundamental features of
mediæval life and institutions are clearly brought out.
NEWTON AND TREAT’S OUTLINES FOR REVIEW IN HISTORY
By C. B. NEWTON. A.B., Head of the Department of History in
Lawrenceville School, and E. B. TREAT, A.M., Master in Lawrenceville
School. Each, =$0.25=
American History
English History
Greek History
Roman History
Each outline brings out the subject as a whole, and makes the picture
clear-cut and vivid in the pupil’s mind. By its use the prominent
figures and the smaller details, the multitude of memories and
impressions, will be fixed and established in the proper perspective.
Brief summaries of the leading facts and events are given in
chronological order. Ease of reference is made of primary importance
throughout.
OGG’S SOURCE BOOK OF MEDIÆVAL HISTORY
Edited by FREDERIC AUSTIN OGG, A.M., Assistant in History, Harvard
University, and Instructor in Simmons College. =$1.50=
A collection of documents illustrative of European life and
institutions from the German invasions to the Renaissance. Great
discrimination has been exercised in the selection and arrangement
of these sources, which are intended to be used in connection with
the study of mediæval history, either in secondary schools, or in the
earlier years of college. Throughout the controlling thought has been
to present only those selections which are of real value and of genuine
interest. This book can be used to very great advantage in connection
with Harding’s Mediæval History.
Send for the History Section of our Descriptive Catalogue of Text-Books
for High Schools and Colleges.
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO BOSTON SAN FRANCISCO ATLANTA
* * * * *
The History Teacher’s Magazine
Published monthly, except July and August, at 5805 Germantown Ave.,
Phila., Pa., by
McKINLEY PUBLISHING COMPANY
A. E. McKINLEY, Proprietor
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE. One dollar a year; single copies, 15 cents each.
POSTAGE PREPAID in United States and Mexico; for Canada, 20 cents
additional should be added to the subscription price, and to other
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CHANGE OF ADDRESS. Both the old and the new address must be given when
a change of address is ordered.
ADVERTISING RATES furnished upon application.
* * * * *
Editors of the History Teacher’s Magazine
=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.
=Some 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.
=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.
Managing Editor, Albert E. McKinley, Ph.D.
* * * * *
The History Teacher’s Magazine
Volume I.
Number 1.
PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER, 1909
$1.00 a year
15 cents a copy
THE MAGAZINE.
Editorial comment upon the plans for the conduct of the MAGAZINE is
unnecessary. A general statement of the character of the paper will
be found on the first page of the cover, and a list of the editors
is given on the second page. Professor McLaughlin’s letter shows the
existing need, and the field which the paper should occupy. But the
best introduction to their fellow teachers of history and civics which
the editors can have, is to be found in the nature of the articles
printed in this number. It has been the aim to make these articles
stimulating, leading to higher professional standards; to make them
practical, leading to valuable suggestions for the conduct of history
classes; and to have them conduce to the formation of a stronger union,
a better _esprit de corps_, among history teachers.
THE HISTORY TEACHER.
Leaving normal school, college, or graduate school, the young teacher
of history, if he or she is fortunate enough to get a chance to teach
his own subject at once, enters a high school, or small college,
where, in many cases, he is permitted to work out his own pedagogical
salvation. From alma mater he has brought a knowledge of certain
methods of history teaching practised upon him by his own instructors,
together with detailed information respecting several narrow fields
of human history. Rarely has he received in college or graduate
school any intimation of the best methods to be pursued in secondary
school history teaching. Rarely does he in his new position receive
much inspiration or advice concerning his actual class work from his
administrative superiors.
Left to his own resources, often losing contact with his former
instructors and intellectual leaders, he may lose energy, ambition,
outlook, and become at last a dreaded teacher of a dreadful subject.
On the other hand the young teacher, if he succeeds, keeps in contact
with the best thought in his profession, and grows as the profession
grows. He will seek the acquaintance of other and more experienced
history teachers, as a business man must be acquainted in his own line
of business; he will keep in touch with new historical works, the
latest reviews and magazines; and, if he can do it without sacrificing
his duty to his class, he will engage in some original historical work.
But best of all, he will remain a good teacher, opening the doors upon
vistas which will delight and lure the student into many an untraveled
intellectual path.
THE OPENING DAYS OF A HISTORY COURSE.
There is no more important time in the whole year’s work than the
first few class exercises. In these days administrative details are to
be attended to, new students are coming in late, the weather is hot,
and the students are unaccustomed to study; all these and many other
distractions tend to prevent the smooth running of the class work.
There is a temptation to laxness both on the part of student and of
instructor; and many a good instructor’s work is made more difficult
in the next few weeks because he and his class did not begin aright.
Instead of slighting the work of these opening days, the teacher should
treat it more carefully, and plan it more definitely than any other
part of the course.
In the first place the teacher must be sure to make a good impression
upon his class in the opening days,--a good impression not in the
purely personal sense, but in the pedagogical sense of winning respect
for his position, maintaining the dignity of his subject, and awakening
the interest of his students. Such a good impression is to be gained
not by amusing the students, nor by witty cynicisms, nor by severe
discipline alone. There must be a combination of tact and strength, of
sympathy and precision; above all there should be nothing in the dress,
attitude, or language of the teacher which will lead the students to
ridicule him.
Secondly, the opportunity should be taken in the opening days to
impress clearly upon the class the character of the work to be required
of them. There should be a frank understanding between teacher and
scholar upon the methods of acquiring knowledge, the methods of keeping
notes, the forms of recitations, tests, and examinations, and the
occasional use of reports, maps, debates, or lectures. The teacher
should know exactly what he or she intends doing, and he should, so far
as is necessary for the proper conduct of the class, explain his plans
to the class. Better be too definite upon this point, than not to give
enough. Of course, it is not best to take out altogether the element
of surprise from the work; but this element can best be given by the
nature of the subject matter as it unfolds before the class, rather
than by sudden changes in the method of conducting the class.
Another important topic to be considered at the beginning of the course
is the reason for the study of the chosen field of history. Of what
value is this particular story? What influence has this country had
upon the world’s history? How has this influence persisted down into
the student’s own life? The pupil’s interest should be aroused by
showing the relation of the period to be studied to the civilization
of his own nation. If the study is Grecian history, for instance, the
teacher can show the influence of Greek literature and religion upon
our own literature; the influence of Greek philosophy and science
upon the Middle Ages and ultimately upon ourselves; and the influence
of Greek art, particularly in architecture, throughout this country,
which, through its passion for Greek democracy, has copied extensively
not only Greek names of persons and places, but also all of its styles
of architecture and decoration.
Next, the teacher should take up the geography of the country to be
studied; pointing out its situation upon the general map of the world,
its coast-lines, its rivers and mountains, its natural products, its
lines of trade and communication. In nearly all the countries he must
study there will be seen a geographical unity which can be easily
comprehended by the student. Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley, Greece, the
Mediterranean world, and England all possess a geographical simplicity
which appeals to the weakest student. In the case of European history
and American history the case is somewhat complicated by the variety of
geographical conditions; but this very variety should be shown to be
one of the reasons for the subsequent splitting of Europe into separate
states, and for the variation of political and social ideals throughout
the United States.
Lastly, before approaching his proper subject, the history teacher
should relate his chosen field of history to that of previous nations.
This work is usually done for the teacher by the text-book makers. In
English history we have chapters upon pre-historic man, the Britons,
and the Romans, before the Anglo-Saxons are reached; in ancient history
the relation of the Greeks to earlier civilizations is discussed; in
European history, the Roman Empire or Charlemagne’s Empire will be
presented; while in American history we have the great problem of the
European background.
If the teacher has successfully thought out these several introductory
topics, and presented them well to the class, then the pupils will be
ready to enter upon their study with force and interest. They should
have acquired respect for the instructor; have become certain of what
is expected of them; have gained interest because the study touches
their own life; and have obtained the antecedent geographical and
historical knowledge necessary to a good understanding of the subject.
The Field of the Magazine
DISCUSSED IN A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR ANDREW C. McLAUGHLIN, HEAD OF
HISTORY DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Editor THE HISTORY TEACHER’S MAGAZINE:
A magazine devoted to the interests and the problems of the history
teacher ought to be of service. We all have so much to learn, our
tasks are so perplexing and trying, that we can profit much by the
experience of others and gain something by discussion and exchange of
opinions. This is true even if we admit that all can not follow the
same route and use the same methods, and that, in history teaching,
success depends in a peculiar degree on character, aptitude, and native
skill. We are in special need of helpful discussion, because we are
still considering the elementary phases of our profession; we are not
confident of the curriculum; we have no clear common opinion as to the
purpose and end of historical instruction; we are pondering dubiously
the problems that have long since been solved for other studies in the
program. In such respects we are notably far behind the teachers of the
classics, mathematics or physics; in fact, we are probably behind the
teachers of all other subjects commonly taught in the schools, for,
despite the grumblings and complaints of the ubiquitous critic, English
itself, our former companion in unhappiness, has found a régime and a
method and is gaining in confidence and self-respect. We are further
along, it is true, than we were a decade ago; but we are far from
agreement and still further from perfection.
I sometimes think when I grow weary of the interminable discussion
of the history curriculum that there is no need of our trying to
establish anything like uniformity, and that the safest and easiest way
is to tell every program-maker to go his own way and every teacher to
do what he likes; but I know that such despondency is weakness, that
in all probability we can reach substantial agreement, and that, until
we have a general, if incomplete, consensus concerning the sequence
of studies from kindergarten to university, we cannot discuss, as we
should, many other topics that demand consideration. We must remember,
too, when we find ourselves involved in wearying argument about the
mere framework of the curriculum, that history as an educational
subject is but a child of yesterday--or to-morrow; and that it has
to find its place and justify itself by results, in competition with
subjects like Latin, which have been taught ever since the Renaissance,
or indeed ever since flogging Orbilius applied the stimulating birch to
Horace. And so, we must be patient as well as eager and appreciate the
difficulties of our problem.
There are so many topics pressing for immediate consideration that I am
tempted to prolong what I mean to be a brief letter into a catalogue
of our necessities; but I will allow myself only one word. There is
a wide-spread complaint that, with all the time given to history,
much more time than was commonly given ten years ago, pupils leave
the high schools with indefinite knowledge--I had almost said with
indefinite ignorance--of the subject. College teachers are perplexed
and discouraged by the frailty and inaccuracy of the students’
attainments when the students first appear in their classes; perhaps
there is like cause for discouragement when they disappear from their
classes. The cold fact is that our boys and girls too often do not
have distinct, decided, accurate information; but have aptitude in
guessing, supposing, and approximating. The first thing, then, that we
need to consider is this: Can we make the most and get the best from
the newer methods of teaching? Can we teach students to handle books
and to think as well as remember? Can we give them the historical idea
and the historical point of view? Can we stimulate them to read and
arouse their imagination? Can we do these things, and still be sure
that this information is exact, that they have reverence for truth, and
that what they have learned is firmly fastened in their minds? If we
cannot, I fear that sooner or later we shall all slip back quickly into
the old rote method and make each day’s lesson an unalloyed grind on an
unvarying modicum of unadorned and unadorning fact; and when we do slip
back thus far, we might as well slip out of the school room altogether,
for there is no time or place in the school for history instruction
that is content with stuffing minds with dates and names. Our task,
then, is to get and to give all the educational value of history; and
experience proves that the task is a heavy one. We all hope that the
new journal will help us lift the load and carry it.
Cordially, A. C. MCLAUGHLIN.
History in the Summer Schools
The summer school admittedly is organized for the benefit of teachers
who wish to gain intellectually, or advance themselves in their
profession by study in the vacation time. There are indeed in the
summer school regular students who are making up conditions, or
ambitious undergraduates seeking to shorten their course; but these are
a negligible quantity.
Glancing through the announcements of some twenty-five of these summer
schools, located from Maine to California and from Minnesota to
Louisiana, one notices that the history courses fall into three groups.
First, and most numerous is the group containing the usual college
work in history. In many respects these courses are valuable for the
teacher-student; they ignore his official position, and treating
him impersonally, simply place him as student before the historical
material. He gains not only by virtue of the cultural value of his
study, but by the reversal of his usual position.
In the second group of courses may be mentioned those which deal with
American local history. Professor Dodd at the University of Chicago
gives a course in the history of the South, and a seminar in the
history of Secession; Professor J. L. Couger at the University of
Illinois, gives a history of nullification; Professor W. L. Fleming,
of the University of Louisiana, gives a course in the history of
Louisiana, and Professor U. B. Phillips, at Tulane University, one in
the history of the South. There are several announcements of classes
in the Reconstruction period. The history of the West is presented
by Professor Turner at Wisconsin, and Professor F. L. Paxson at the
University of Chicago. Courses in the history of Mexico and of Spain
are given by Prof. E. A. Chavey at the University of California.
The courses in the third group are concerned with the methods of
teaching history and civil government. The purpose of such work is well
expressed in Professor G. C. Sellery’s announcement of his course in
the University of Wisconsin: “The primary object of the course is to
lay the foundation for a method which will enable high-school teachers
to assign and pupils to prepare history work with definiteness and
effectiveness.” Broader in plan is the course of Professor George L.
Burr at Cornell, which discusses “what history is, what it is for,
what are its materials and its methods, what its relations to neighbor
studies, how to read history, how to study it, how to teach it, how
to write it.” Less of the theory and more of the practical is given
in such courses as those of Dr. James Sullivan, at Harvard; Professor
Scholz, at the University of California; Professor Trenholme, at
University of Missouri; Professor Robertson, at Indiana University;
Dr. Arthur M. Wolfson, at Tennessee, and that of Professor Fleming, at
Louisiana.
Methods of teaching civil government are discussed by Dr. Reed, at
California; Dr. Lunt, at Harvard; Professor Woodburn, at Cornell, and
Prof. Schaper, at Minnesota.
One Use of Sources in the Teaching of History
PROFESSOR FRED MORROW FLING, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA.
I have been asked to write an article explaining “just how a source
book is to be used, its relation to the text-book, the kind of
information and the kind of training a careful teacher can impart
through it and the advantage it offers over the exclusive use of
secondary material.” Instead of answering the whole question and
treating of all the uses of the source book, it seemed wise to treat
but one, the most characteristic use to which the sources could be put,
namely, the critical study of sources as evidence, for the purpose of
training the pupil in the methods of historical proof. The importance
that I attach to this matter of method is due to my conception of
educational theory and of the logic of historical science. About this
broader basis upon which the teaching of history must rest, it may be
well to say a word by way of preface.
Method the Object Sought.
Personally I am in hearty sympathy with the new educational theory that
attributes more importance to method than to matter. Professor Lanson,
of the University of Paris, the distinguished historian of French
literature, has given so satisfactory a formulation of the aims of
this theory in its application to secondary education that I cannot do
better than reproduce his statement.[1]
“Now it is necessary,” he writes, “to prove that what we need to-day
is minds scientifically trained. Let us understand by this word
(scientifically) that sounds so ambitious, minds that have the taste
or the sense for the true, that carry into all their actions a serious
desire for clear and exact knowledge, that are conscious of the
difficulties and dangers that one encounters in the pursuit of or in
the elaboration of truth, that distrusting everybody, themselves as
well as others, take all the precautions indicated in each case in
order not to deceive themselves or to be deceived: these precautions
are what we call methods. _The methodical search for truth?_ There, in
a word, is what the scientific spirit means and to make it dominate
in secondary education is to subordinate all studies to the idea that
their common end, their convergent directions ought to be to fashion
minds that all their lives, in all things will know how to practice the
methodical search for truth.... In every study and exercise, the aim of
the master ought to be to develop in the minds of his pupils the sense
and the taste for truth, to cause them to note how in each subject
the truth is found or missed, to put them, finally, in possession of
a certain method or discipline appropriate to a certain object. It is
not a matter of having them learn a large number of laws or facts,
but, by well-chosen examples, to learn what a mathematical truth is
and how it is elaborated; likewise a chemical truth, a physiological
truth, an astronomical truth and a historical truth. How does each of
these truths of different orders come into existence? By what means
does it separate itself from other truths? What are the signs by which
we recognize it as truth? There is the knowledge that ought to be the
principal result of their studies. The young people ought to leave the
high school having learned well what the principal methods are by which
human knowledge is formed and to what objects, for what results, each
method is applied. They ought, on leaving school, to be trained to
do nothing without method, without a method chosen with discernment,
according to the object to be known or the end to be attained.”
This appeals to me as the application to education of the best recent
thought in philosophy and logic. Now the interesting thing is that in
this country, where the mass of the teachers would probably reject the
theory and where supreme emphasis is being laid on the acquisition of
information as the goal of educational effort, the teachers of natural
science are doing the very thing the theory demands, namely, _teaching
methods or processes by which one can get at the truth or test what
is supposed to be the truth in natural science, and giving along
with the knowledge of these processes but a modicum of information_.
The _information_ acquired in a laboratory course is not sufficient
to justify the time given to the course. But it is not necessary to
justify it on any such ground. M. Lanson has given the theory of which
this natural science laboratory work is the application. It only
remains to become conscious of what it means, to extend the same method
to other studies and a great revolution has been wrought in education,
perhaps the greatest in the history of pedagogy.
The Historical Method.
No subject would be more transformed in its teaching by the
introduction of method work than history. But what is history? What
are the materials with which the student works and what the method by
which he arrives at historical truth? What is _proof_ in historical
study? The teacher of history must be able to give an answer to these
questions, if he would do his work intelligently and effectively.
What is history? How does it differ in its aims and methods from
natural science, from political and economic science, from sociology?
According to the new logic, the differences are fundamental. History
concerns itself with the unique evolution of man in his activities as a
social being. It deals with human potentialities in their teleological
connections. Out of past social facts it selects the unique facts
that have a value for the period that is being studied and groups
these facts in complex, evolving wholes. History does not seek for
what is common to the social facts of the past; it does not attempt to
generalize, to establish laws. It could not if it would, for it deals
with facts that have occurred but once, that will not occur again,
and a generalization assumes repetition. The natural sciences, on the
other hand, including economics, political science and sociology, deal
with substances and causal law. They select for their syntheses what
is common to a group of facts; they generalize, they aim to establish
laws, to formulate the conditions under which a thing will repeat
itself. Their ideal is the organization of reality under the point of
view of the general. There is, of course, but one reality and natural
science and history are simply two logical methods evolved by the human
mind for the purpose of organizing it that it may be comprehended. The
ends of the two methods are different, and their methods of getting at
the truth are different. The student trained in the one method is not
necessarily acquainted with the other.
The Historian’s Work.
The natural science method consists of a direct study of the facts,
and, as it is not concerned with the unique as unique, it may
create situations and conditions, thus securing abundant data for
generalization. For the historian this is impossible. He studies
not the fact, as the natural scientist studies plants, animals and
chemicals in the laboratory; he has only the record of the fact, the
fact itself having gone never to return. His knowledge of the fact
will depend upon the abundance and value of the records the fact has
left behind it. Such records we call sources. Sources, then, are the
remains of man’s social activities. They fall naturally into two
groups: remains and tradition. Remains consist of objects that were
parts of the past event, and have survived the destructive action
of time; tradition embraces the impressions of the event recorded
by witnesses, and may be oral, written or pictorial in form. The
historical reconstruction, found in the narrative text, is based, in a
large majority of cases, upon written tradition.
What is the method employed by the historian in restoring the past
from a study of the sources? In simple language what he does is
this: he selects a subject for investigation, searches for all the
sources that can throw any light upon it, criticises these sources
to determine their value and relationship, compares the affirmations
contained in them to learn what the fact was, and, finally, groups
these facts in a complex whole. It is only through an acquaintance with
this process, through the practical application of it, that the pupil
really learns what the grounds for historical belief are and is able
to distinguish between fact and fiction. No amount of reading, even
of the sources, can ever take the place of this critical training in
the historical method, just as no amount of text-book work in natural
science can ever take the place of the knowledge of method obtained
by actual work at the laboratory table. I am aware that there are
well-known teachers and even very distinguished writers of history in
this country who treat this idea of training in historical method,
even for undergraduates in colleges, as a matter not worthy of serious
consideration. Notwithstanding this opposition in high places, I am of
the opinion that the method can be taught and that it should be taught
and that in teaching it results have been obtained that are quite as
encouraging, it seems to me, as those obtained in the laboratories of
the natural sciences. Most of the arguments made against the teaching
of method in the secondary schools are quite aside from the question.
It is not to the point to emphasize the difficulties of historical
work, the impossibility of obtaining from young people results that
can be obtained only by trained investigators, or the unwisdom of
investigating subjects that have never been investigated before,
although, for my part, I can see no serious objection to this last
course. All that the sensible teacher, who knows what he is about,
expects to accomplish by the critical study of the sources is to
open the eyes of his students to the meaning of proof in history, to
create an attitude of healthy scepticism and to put into their hands
an instrument for getting at the truth that they will have occasion
to use every hour in the day. If it is worth while to acquaint the
student with the methods of the natural sciences--and I believe that it
is--it is certainly imperatively important to give him some training
in the use of proof touching the truth of things that he is constantly
concerned with, namely, the facts of social life. This position seems
so self-evident to me that I can hardly conceive it possible that a
teacher, who accepts the new theory of education and realizes the
meaning of historical method, would take any exceptions to it. It
might, however, be objected that, while the method ought to be taught,
it is not practicable to teach it. It is to this objection that the
rest of the paper will be addressed.
Equipment for Source Work.
It is well to concede at the outset that historical method cannot be
taught _successfully_ by a teacher who does not know what it means
or who has never applied the method, i. e., done some research work.
But perhaps nothing would contribute more to the development of a
poorly-trained history teacher than to _oblige him to teach the method;
he would be forced to learn something about it_! It is because we have
not emphasized the method, because we have not required our candidates
for positions as teachers of history to know how to investigate--what
would we think of a teacher of chemistry who could not direct the
work in the laboratory!--that we have so much absolutely impossible
history teaching. The question is, then, can a teacher who knows what
historical proof means successfully conduct exercises in historical
method in a high school? I think there can be no doubt of it. It is
being done.
To conduct the work successfully a source book, differing in some
respects from the majority of source books, is needed. There are two
kinds of historical facts: one class can be established by a single
source, the other--and this is the more difficult, but at the same
time the more valuable as training--can be proved to be true only
by the agreement of independent sources or witnesses. For this last
kind of work more than two sources treating of the same event are
necessary. As the most of the source books are only intended to supply
collateral reading, they contain little material that could be used
for critical exercises. My source book on Greek history contains some
such exercises, and it would be a matter of no great difficulty to
supplement the sources in any of the books by two or three extracts
dealing with the same topic.
Sources in the Class Room.
Two exercises a week would be enough for intensive critical work.
The sources should, of course, be in the hands of the pupils and the
attention of the class should never be allowed to stray from the
evidence in the text. It is not necessary that the work should be
systematic at the outset or that it should be forced. It might be
introduced in a very simple and natural way by an attempt to settle
the truth of some point upon which two school texts disagree. It is
a common practice, in schools where several narratives are used, to
assign different texts to different pupils and in the recitation hour,
to compare the statements of the writers. Suppose they disagree? I once
asked a teacher who employs this method what she did in such a case.
She answered that they discussed the matter, and, if they could reach
no agreement as to which statement was correct, they dropped it. A more
pernicious practice could hardly be imagined. The class was run into a
blind alley and left there! The escape was easy enough, if the teacher
had been master of the situation. It offered an excellent point of
departure for the introduction of the study of historical method.
The problem should have been selected by the teacher, as one easy of
solution, the trap laid and the class led into it. The texts disagree;
which states the truth? Who wrote the texts? Suppose the event treated
is from the French Revolution. How did the writers know anything about
it? What were their sources? How could we find out what actually
happened a century ago? Evidently through the records made by witnesses
of the events. Have we any such on this topic and who are they? This
question may be answered by the teacher, who might put the sources into
the hands of the pupils, or a simple problem in bibliography might be
set the class and the exercise postponed until the next meeting. Let
the pupils bring into the class the statement of at least one man who,
they assume, knew something about this event. Take up these sources
in turn. How do the pupils know that this account was really written
by this man? (Genuineness.) How do they know that the man really knew
anything about the event? (Localization.) How do they know that he
made a correct record of what he saw? (Value of the source, based
on perception and memory.) Even if the man is a good witness, does
his unsupported statement (affirmation) prove the fact? Dwell on the
possibilities of error; show that even if he wishes to tell the truth,
no man can be certain that his uncontrolled memory is not playing him
false or that he saw the thing correctly in the first place. Will the
agreement of two witnesses be sufficient to give us certainty? Show
that this is true only when the witnesses are independent of each
other. In the problem taken up by the class, are there two or more
independent witnesses? Is the fact upon which the school texts disagree
settled by the agreement of two independent witnesses? If so, why do
the texts disagree? It may be due to the fact that each writer used but
one source, and that the statement in that source was incorrect, or the
witnesses may disagree and one writer may have accepted one statement,
the other another. If the conclusions are not equally probable, try to
show on which side the weight of probability lies. Point out, further,
in conclusion, that where we are not certain as to what happened--where
the witnesses disagree--we have only probability, not certainty, and
the secondary text ought to make this clear.
Pupils Handling Sources.
The work may be continued in this way, the secondary text supplying the
weekly problem, or the teacher may cut loose from the text and supply
graded problems that increase in difficulty. In the latter case, the
class should be supplied with the problem, the sources (two or three)
and such biographical data as will enable the pupils to criticise the
sources. Take each source up in turn and require written answers, with
citation of proof, to the following questionnaire: 1. Is this source
genuine? 2. Who wrote it and when and where was it written? 3. How much
of it is first-hand evidence and how much second-hand, i. e., how much
did the witness see and hear himself and how much did he get from some
other person? 4. What is the value of the source as a whole, judged
by the character of the source (speech, letter, newspaper, pamphlet,
song, poem, etc.), the personality of the witness (intellectually and
morally) and the time and place of making the records. 5. Make a note
of what the witness affirms concerning the event (interpretation.) Let
the independent criticism of the sources be followed by a comparison
of them to learn whether or not they are independent. Finally, request
the pupils to bring together under one head the affirmations of the
different witnesses on the point under investigation and endeavor to
determine by a comparison of their statements what the truth is. The
result should be formulated in writing in the shape of a definite
assertion, if the agreement of the independent witnesses justify us
in regarding the fact as certain; otherwise it should be represented
simply as probable.
Specific Illustration--Salamis.
As a specific illustration, take the extracts on the battle of
Salamis given in my “Source Book of Greek History” (pp. 118-127).
Here are three sources, Æschylus’ “Persians,” Herodotus’ “History”
and Plutarch’s “Life of Themistocles,” containing almost all the
information we possess upon the portion of the battle dealt with
in the source book. The extracts are accompanied by the following
questions that should be answered in writing by the pupils and form the
foundation of the classroom exercise: “1. Compare the three accounts of
the battle of Salamis given by Æschylus, Herodotus and Plutarch, noting
in what they agree and in what they disagree. Are they independent? 2.
Which account is the most valuable, and why? 3. Point out the myths in
these accounts, i. e., things that could not have happened. 4. Make an
outline of the battle, using the sources, and write a brief narrative,
citing the sources. Where they disagree, explain why you follow one
source rather than another.”
The answer to the first question should be given in the form of three
parallel columns containing all the single affirmations found in the
different sources, references to similar details appearing on the same
line in the different columns, thus facilitating comparison. These
columns should be followed by (1) a column containing the common
details found in all the sources, (2) a second column of details
referred to by two sources, and (3) other columns containing details
given by but one source. In going through this operation all the
pupils will have noticed that Plutarch made use of the “Persians,”
and, consequently is not independent of Æschylus. Before the questions
concerning the independence and value of the sources can be answered,
the sources must be localized. Æschylus probably fought in the battle
of Salamis and was thus an eyewitness. Note, however, the character
of this source; a play performed before the Athenian people and
presented some seven years after the event. A play does not offer a
good opportunity to describe a battle in detail; the dramatist would be
influenced by his desire to produce a work of art and to impress his
audience; he would have forgotten much in the years that had passed
since the battle. Although the record of an eyewitness, we cannot look
upon this play as the best kind of evidence.
Herodotus was an infant, playing in the streets of Halicarnassus,
when the battle of Salamis was fought. He wrote his account nearly
fifty years later, basing it largely, almost wholly, upon oral
tradition, although it is highly probable that he was acquainted with
the “Persians” when he wrote. Nothing that Herodotus tells us here
came from personal observation, nor do we know where he obtained
his information, i. e., whether it was simply common report that he
gathered up, or whether he talked with the most reliable witnesses
of the battle. His account is less valuable than that of Æschylus
as a second-hand record, but its form--a direct, detailed prose
narrative--is more favorable to truth.
Plutarch lived _five hundred years_ after the battle and obtained
his information about it as a reader to-day would obtain information
about the voyages of Columbus, namely, by reading what later writers
had to say about them. He was not a critical historian--neither
was Herodotus--and often based his narrative upon the poorest kind
of evidence. He refers in this extract to four of the men of whose
writings he has made use, and one of them is Æschylus.
Unsatisfactory Evidence.
The evidence is not, as a whole, of a satisfactory kind; the one
_witness_ says little, and that in an unfortunate form, written seven
years after the battle; the second writer depends upon oral tradition,
reproduced when it was so old that it had become unreliable; the third
writer is five centuries removed from the event and an uncritical
compiler. How much certainty can we reach about the battle of Salamis
from such evidence as this? Possibly only the fact that the battle took
place, for it is not even certain that the Greeks won the sweeping
victory that is claimed in the “Persians.” The details of the battle
are only probable, and the degree of probability is decidedly low. This
will become very clear when the outline is made and it is realized how
much of our information comes from Herodotus’ late oral tradition. The
only safe basis of historical certainty, the agreement of independent
witnesses, is lacking here.
After the class has written a narrative of the battle, let them compare
it with the narrative in two or three of the best school histories.
They will be somewhat surprised to learn that these accounts contain no
suggestion of the uncertainty that surrounds the history of the battle,
but describe it with all the confidence that might be displayed by a
historian of events established by a cloud of witnesses.
It may be objected that this sort of source work will raise very
serious doubts in the pupils’ minds as to whether we know anything
with certainty about the history of the early centuries. But what if
it does? What harm has been done, if the impression is a correct one?
Is not much of our knowledge concerning the history of the Greeks
and the Romans of the most fragile character? Why attempt to conceal
it? Should not the pupils be taught by this kind of critical study
that much of what is repeated with confidence as history has hardly a
shred of valuable evidence to rest on? It is the first step toward the
attainment of the ideal that M. Lanson has so clearly and convincingly
set before us.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Lanson, Gustave. L’université et la société moderne (Paris, 1902),
p. 97.
Ancient History in the Secondary School
WILLIAM FAIRLEY, Ph.D., Editor.
Initial Problems.
What is said in the editorial of this number on “The Opening Days of a
History Course” has a deep significance at the beginning of the work
in Ancient History. Such work normally comes in the first year of the
high school course. The pupils are fresh from the grammar schools, and
unused to the kind of work they will have to do in the high school. The
child of educated parents, from a more or less cultivated home, will
take to the work readily enough. What about some of the others, who may
ask, “Why do we have to study this stuff? We do not care about these
old people.” The writer has to confess that, owing to a visit to the
British Museum when he was about five years old, the first association
of ideas that comes to his mind when the Egyptians are mentioned is
of a lot of mummies. To many of our pupils is there not a danger that
ancient history shall seem to them like an exhibition of mummies rather
than of people who lived and moved and worked like ourselves?
It would seem, therefore, that the wise teacher will begin, not by
plunging into a recitation on the first five or ten pages (I have
heard of thirty-five pages being assigned in a city high school), but
by being polite, and introducing the young strangers to their task
and its meaning. Tell them that they have come to the high school to
become educated people; that all educated people read a great deal;
that in their later reading they will very often come across references
to the old world peoples; with the rise and fall of their empires;
their creeds, their superstitions, the wicked things some of them
did, the good that is to be found in many of their codes. Above all,
the young student is to be taught that from these early peoples have
come directly the majority of the things that make up civilized life
of to-day; we are their debtors. The antiquity of civilization needs
to be impressed. Owing to the great mechanical advances of the time
since steam power came in to use, I find that young people are prone
to think of all the ages back of the nineteenth century as very crude
and comfortless. But they should be made to feel that in many ways
this is untrue. George Washington lived a comfortable life without
the telephone and the Pullman car. And it is a fact that, barring
the printed page and the use of gunpowder and the advantages of the
compass, a high-class Citizen of ancient Babylon, Nineveh or Memphis,
probably lived nearly as comfortably as did Washington; certainly the
men of the Roman Empire had many more conveniences and refinements than
he had.
The young pupil, then, needs to be stimulated to his task by a wise
presentation of such facts as those cited.
The Dim Background.
This great development of civilization among the peoples we are to
study, of course implies long preparatory ages of slow and bitter
struggle upward from savagery. These stages may be hinted at enough
to make the pupils reflect that there has been such a weary fight in
unrecorded days. And now our story begins in the middle and not at the
beginning of things. In our year’s work we are to take up the study of
some eight or ten of the great peoples who have helped make our modern
world what it is. We are to note what is like and what unlike our own
ways of doing things; what we owe to these bygone folk.
Many mighty peoples are to be passed by. Why do we begin west of the
Indian peninsula, and ignore the Hindoos, the Chinese, the Japanese?
Because these peoples are out of the great stream of development. The
progressive life of to-day’s world owes little to them, if anything.
But the nations we are to take up have had a direct connection with us.
One has handed on to another the torch of progress which now burns with
electric splendor in our hands.
The Race Question.
The old confident classifications of mankind into races, save for
those made by the obvious test of color, have been given up. Yet it
is wise to use the main lines of cleavage as a working basis. The
Hamitic, Semitic and Indo-European distinctions are useful as guides.
And the primacy of the last named must be taught, not as a thing whose
causes we can trace, but as a sober fact. And while there is such a
primacy I think one of the worthiest things the history teacher can
do all through his work is to emphasize the good that has come from
other races than our own. Probably every good history teacher has been
appalled by the Chauvinism of Young America. The study of history is
its best corrective.
The Use of Geography.
To make these people of antiquity anything but mummies we must compare
them and their doings constantly with ourselves. We speak much of our
American resources: our broad prairies, our mighty water-powers, our
fine harbors, our majestic rivers. These largely condition our lives.
Before the coming of modern means of communication and transportation,
natural surroundings had even more to do with the destiny of nations.
The use of the map (preferably, by all means, the outline map, whether
on board or paper, so that it may be drawn on) will be an early
essential. And the study of the two great valleys, the Tigris-Euphrates
and the Nile, will be emphasized. A good subject for special report in
these connections would be a comparison of the Nile with the Hudson; of
the Tigris and Euphrates with the Mississippi and the Missouri.
A Few Concrete Bits of Knowledge.
In many of our schools the whole Oriental period is merely skimmed,
with the idea of leaving simply a general impression. The demand on
time seems to render this imperative. What can we pick out from these
earlier lessons and insist on its being retained?
The latest fashion is to regard the Babylonian or Chaldean Empire as
antedating the Egyptian. Beginning with that, then dwell on the fact
that this was a Semitic race. Relate them to the Jews of to-day, and
to Abraham, a Semite from “Ur of the Chaldees.” Place Sargon the Elder
at 3800 B.C. as marking, so we are told, the earliest verified date of
history. Coming down to 2250 B.C., we reach Hammurabi, certainly the
most interesting character of his people. Here again is a good occasion
for special report. Some of the text-books give extracts from his code.
Let one pupil find out from such extracts, or better yet, from the
school library, some of the highly moral and kindly edicts. Let another
show what trades and businesses these Babylonians had corresponding
to our own, making special note of the fact that the commercial and
business practices were highly developed.
The essential thing about the Assyrian Empire is that it was the first
power to reach out broadly for world control and to subjugate its
neighbors.
The Phœnicians are notable as the great traders of antiquity. Their
skill in the arts gave them something to sell, and their location
on the Mediterranean developed their powers of navigation. They
seem to have been the first over-sea colonizers. Their trade routes
and colonies would form a good report topic. By way of anticipation
note Carthage, the coming rival of Rome. And our great debt to the
Phœnicians is for the phonetic alphabet.
Religious prejudice, or the fear of touching in public schools anything
bearing on religion should not be allowed to make us neglect the Hebrew
people. True or false, right or wrong, religion is one of the prime
forces with mankind. And here we have another Semitic race developing
as a matter of fact, regardless of any theories as to its origin, the
most sublime monotheism and the purest code of morals which the world
had yet seen. Why this should have been so is as mysterious as was the
flowering of Greece in the Periclean age. But there is the fact, and
every young student should be made familiar with it.
Suggestions for a Lesson on Egypt.
What follows is simply an illustration of one method sometimes used.
The whole class is directed to read the account of Egypt. The work is
then subdivided for more minute study. Depending on the size of the
class, it is divided into topics, one of which is assigned for special
preparation to a student or a group of students. At the recitation
period ten minutes are given in which each student or group is to write
out what has been learned on the particular topic. It will probably
not be possible in a large class for each pupil to read the work thus
written. But one or two treatments of each topic may be read, and a
different set of pupils called on at some other time. Thus the work
will be participated in by all. As each topic is read criticisms and
suggestions from the class are called for; and first of all from those
who have not had that special topic; then in closing, from some student
who has written but not read on that particular field. If note-books
are used, the teacher may guide as to what shall be written down as the
summary of each topic after it is read. A variation of the foregoing
scheme is to send as many pupils as possible to the board to write
out their topics. Appoint to each writer one or two critics. Let one
criticize the English, the spelling, the punctuation (every lesson in
history may be a lesson in English); and another the facts. A sample
list of such topics for a lesson on Egypt is offered.
1. The Nile Valley.
2. The people; the one Hamitic race of prominence.
3. Periods of political history; the two capitals.
4. The government.
5. Classes of society.
6. Occupations and products.
7. Arts and sciences; specially architecture and sculpture.
8. Religion; ideas of immortality.
9. Decay of moral ideals.
10. Foreign conflicts.
11. Subjugation by Persia.
With the coming into view of Media and Persia, we get our first glimpse
of a conquering Indo-European people. Their struggle to get into Europe
is foreshadowed and we are brought to the threshold of the Greek story.
The College Teaching of History
PROFESSOR GEORGE BURTON ADAMS, OF YALE UNIVERSITY.
There are many things which the college teacher of history may set
before him to do: He may say, “the things most fundamental are the
facts of history,” and devote his work to thorough drill in names and
dates. He may have a keen sense of the valuable discipline of mind
and faculties to be obtained in historical study and give himself to
this. He may perhaps be under the influence of the reaction which has
begun and seems certain to continue and believe in reviving the ancient
maxim, “history is philosophy teaching by example,” seeking primarily
in his teaching to enforce lessons of statecraft and political wisdom.
More likely he may be imbued with the spirit of the generation just
closing and be disposed to insist that the only proper method of
instruction is that by which the scholar and specialist are trained. Or
he may believe that the opportunity offered him in history to impart
a broad and liberal culture is the one which he should least of all
neglect. Any of these purposes, or more than one of them at once, are
possible to the college instructor in history. His field of choice is
bewilderingly wide. Is there any one of them which is more than another
the proper object of college instruction?
Any satisfactory answer to this question must be sought by determining
in the first place what is the proper object of the college course
itself. Such a preliminary question would be absurd had we not by
our educational reforms of the past fifty years gone far to put the
college into a place in advanced education which does not belong to
it, and in consequence to confuse all our ideas as to its natural
functions. I am not finding any fault with these reforms. They were so
necessary and have proved so valuable that they can never be called
in question. But in bringing them about, some things were done,
unnecessary and ill-advised. In consequence for one thing the duty
lies upon the next generation, as one of its most important tasks, of
restoring the college to its historical and to its logical position in
the university. For the present purpose it suffices to say that the
function of the college is general training and general preparation.
It is the one department of the university which has, and which should
have, no special object. Or it is more accurate to say that it can
be adapted at the same time to a number of different objects to meet
the needs of students whose ultimate purposes are different, and the
possibility of doing this wisely and efficiently is one of the happiest
results we have gained from the changes of the last generation. The
work of the college is fundamental to that of all the other departments
of the university, and in the normal university they should all
require and build upon it. But it should also not be forgotten that
the work of the college is not of necessity fundamental to any special
line of advanced study. The number of students in our colleges who are
not looking forward to professional or specialist work, but who are
expecting to go into various lines of commercial activity, is already
large and constantly increasing. They have no desire to follow out a
course of study whose purpose is a technical preparation, nor is such
a course well adapted for them. The demand which their presence in
the college makes is for what we may call a general preparation for
life, some knowledge of facts, some training of judgment and taste,
sympathy with a variety of intellectual interests, such broadening and
liberalizing of mind as is possible. To the instructor who teaches in
the eager atmosphere of an active university such a demand may seem
illegitimate, because it seems vague and weak. But this opinion is
proper only to the narrow specialist who cannot see beyond the limits
of his own field. The demand is perfectly legitimate; it is certain to
be increasingly heard; and it is the duty of the college to meet it. It
is to be remembered also that the best preparation for technical work
does not omit all studies which are cultural merely, just as the best
general preparation for life should embrace some training in technical
lines.
With these considerations in mind let us ask to which of the two ways
by which the college discharges its preparatory function, technical
preparation or general preparation, the study of history is most
naturally adapted, and which of the purposes already stated as those
the instructor may have in mind is most likely to secure the desired
end. It is not easy to specify a line of professional work to which the
study of history stands in a technical relation, except that of the
history teacher, whose numbers are at present so small, in proportion
to the college as a whole, as to be almost negligible, and who perhaps
needs above all others that point of view in regard to history which a
general rather than a special training will give. Law and theology come
the nearest perhaps to having a technical need of historical study,
and yet it is also true of them that what they need of history is not
technical but general preparation. The clergyman or lawyer may need a
more permanent hold upon the facts of history than does the business
man. They are to him more an end in themselves rather than chiefly
a means for producing a result, as in the case of the other. But
preacher and business man alike need to study the same facts in the
same way each for his own purpose. It is in truth the later studies of
the professional man which serve to keep alive the facts which he and
his classmate in business once learned in the same class room.
The proper purpose then of the study of history in the college course
is general preparation--preparation for life in general rather than for
some special line of later study which builds upon it. To accomplish
this purpose, and indeed every other, a certain amount of drill in
names and dates is indispensable. Without it every result is insecure
and all the instructor’s lessons hang in the air with no foundation to
rest upon. But the teacher who makes drill in the facts his main object
overlooks the almost universal experience that no matter how well a
body of details may once have been learned they inevitably fade out of
mind in later years unless the necessities of one’s daily occupation
keep them fresh. What remains a constant possession is the general
effect, the general impression once made by means of the details. The
teacher who makes the general his main object, drawn from and enforced
by a knowledge of the special which is for the moment clear and sound,
deals with the most abiding of educational results.
The effectiveness of history as a means of mental discipline is so
great that the teacher is constantly tempted to make this his main
object. With one who does I have no great quarrel. I have only to
say that at best it is the choice of an inferior good and that it is
devoting oneself to what is already abundantly provided for in the
curriculum of studies. There is so much in any college course with
which discipline of the mental faculties is necessarily connected,
mathematics, elementary language studies, many of the sciences, that
it seems a flagrant waste of opportunities to use history for the same
purpose.
Of the maxim, “history is philosophy teaching by example,” two
different things are to be said. For the scholar and investigator it is
a maxim full of danger, adding gratuitous perils to those which must
beset his way, and it should be summarily discarded. For the teacher
of history the danger is not so great, but he would be a very unusual
man who could interpret the facts of history into political lessons
for others without a very decided personal bias, or even succeed in
disguising the influence of his private convictions upon his doctrines.
It is doubtless more effective in most cases to let the facts speak for
themselves, after a presentation of them which honestly endeavors to
make them clear and to state them exactly as they are.
The belief that graduate and undergraduate students should be taught
alike, that the best method for all is the method by which the scholar
should be formed, that there should be no distinction in the study
of history between general and special preparation, is in my opinion
one of the most pestilent heresies accompanying the changes of recent
years. It is a belief no more likely to be true because the particular
change which produced it is that by which the true university has been
created. There are certain studies in which I am ready to admit its
truth. They are, however, those studies only in which training in the
method of advance peculiar to the given subject is so necessary to an
understanding of its nature that no real knowledge is possible without
it, and their number is, I believe, decidedly less than is commonly
asserted. Assuredly history is not one of them. To acquire a knowledge
of the human past, especially if that knowledge is enriched, as it
should be, with an imaginative conception of the process of the ages,
is a large and worthy intellectual task for teacher and taught, indeed
for the lifetime of a man. To confuse it for the great mass of college
students with the effort to impart to them the method of the scholar,
which is the proper technical training of the graduate school, is, I
firmly hold, morally little short of a breach of trust.
This is only affirming in other terms my belief in the transcendent
importance of that one of the special purposes which the teacher may
set before himself which remains, the effort to make the study of
history one that is directed to the broadening and liberalizing of the
mind. The claim which I make for history is that of all college studies
it most naturally and simply produces these results. Did instructors
in physics and chemistry realize more clearly than they seem to me to
do what they might accomplish of this sort, I should be disposed to
admit their right to dispute this claim, but for the average of college
students, as they come to us in masses, I am not now ready to allow any
other exception. If history be taught with that degree of imagination
without which no man should enter the teaching profession, it is not
difficult to open the mind of the student to two impressions. One is
of what may be called in simplest phrase the continuity of history,
meaning thereby no mechanical continuity, but an organic and living
unity--the continuous and cumulative progress of civilization which
makes us to-day not in a poetic sense, but as a bald and literal fact,
the heirs of all the ages. This needs especially to be imaginatively
presented to induce an imaginative conception of it. The other is of
the fact that somewhere in the past humanity has worked through crises
which are essentially the same as those which now confront it. It is
the especial privilege of the teacher of history to bring the mind
of the student successively into contact with almost every species
of political effort, of intellectual interest, and of moral struggle
of which the race is capable. To the great majority of minds the
optimistic inference is more natural than the pessimistic, and the
conclusion almost draws itself that endeavor is not in vain, that the
good result is in the end secure. If the student can be given in some
degree these two things, a conception not merely intellectual, but
imaginative, it may be more or less emotional, of the sweep of humanity
onward, and a calm assurance of the ultimate good, I certainly believe
he will confess that no step of his mental advancement has opened to
him so wide a horizon or brought him to so steadying a confidence in
the worth of individual effort and the final outcome of things.
I am perfectly well aware that in this I am stating the ideal. I am not
foolish enough to believe that these results can be imparted to whole
classes, or immediately in full perhaps to anyone, nor would I claim
for every instructor the power to produce them. But though the ideal
is unattainable, I do wish to say clearly three things. One is that to
some students very much of these results, more probably than would at
first be thought possible, can be given, and to nearly all something.
Another is that history of all college studies leads to them most
directly and naturally. The third is that the teacher who labors for
them wisely and with proper balance of interest is laboring not merely
for what is likely to be most permanent, but for the highest and best
possible to him.
American History in the Secondary School
ARTHUR M. WOLFSON, PH.D., Editor.
Dignity of the Course.
American history in the secondary schools is, we feel safe in assuming,
the crown of a course extending over at least three or more years.
Students approach it after having devoted time and thought to an
elementary course in American history--possibly even a course in
English and European history--to a secondary course in some one or
more phases of European history and to a course in English history.
The teacher who undertakes to lead a class in American history in the
secondary school should, therefore, approach this subject with higher
ideals and broader purposes than he would set in any other history
course in the curriculum. Here, if ever, the teacher may hope to train
his students in the use of judgment and reasoning in the examination of
facts.
From the beginning, the teacher should assume that his students have
a fair knowledge of the elementary facts of American and of European
history. The teacher will waste time if he attempts to teach the mere
facts of American history without attempting to relate them one to
another. American history in the secondary school should be a study of
the relations of American history to the history of the rest of the
world, and of the steady development of American political, social, and
economic institutions. What we mean by this we trust will become clear
as we go on in this work.
Text-Books.
As to the methods by which these ends should be accomplished, it is our
firm conviction that each teacher can best work these out for himself.
Certain broad generalizations may, however, be of value. First, no
text-book is so perfect that it can be accepted as a complete, an
infallible guide. Of necessity, every text-book will approach the
subject from the point of view of a single individual. The teacher, at
least, should therefore be acquainted with the point of view of several
other writers on the same subject. Again, because it is designed to
meet the needs of many different minds, it will inevitably contain many
facts that the teacher will want to omit; it will omit some things that
the teacher may want to include. Finally, it will often present facts
in an order or in a way that the teacher may desire to change. For
these reasons, while we believe that a single text-book should be in
the hands of every pupil, the teacher should insist from the beginning
that the book is to be used merely as a guide, not as a Scripture,
every page and line of which is to be accepted as infallible.
Second, both the teacher and the student, especially the teacher,
should be familiar with the most important sources of American history
and with the best secondary authorities on the period under discussion.
It will be our aim as we go along to indicate from month to month what
are generally considered as the best books in each period.
Periods of American History.
With these few generalizations in mind, we may now approach the
particular subject of this article. The early history of North America
divides itself into three more or less well-defined epochs. First,
there is the period of discovery, exploration, and settlement extending
over the two centuries from the time of Columbus to the end of the
seventeenth century. Second, there is the century from 1664 to 1763
during which the various nations which had planted colonies in North
America were struggling for dominion and supremacy on the continent.
Third, there is the period of twenty years during which the English
colonies were moving steadily, step by step, toward their complete
independence.
Needless to say, none of these epochs is clear and distinct. Discovery,
exploration, and settlement go on far into the eighteenth century,
even into the nineteenth; colonial wars have their roots in national
differences which have their beginnings in Europe and America long
before the year 1700; and the causes for the American Revolution must
be sought in colonial institutions which were in process of development
from the day that the first Englishman landed on the continent.
Nevertheless, for purposes of class room discussion, the teacher may
safely insist upon this threefold division of colonial history.
The European Background.
In the study of the first epoch, certain subdivisions again become
clear. First, it is necessary, if the student is to understand the
meaning of early American history, that he be made to comprehend the
conditions in Europe which led the Spaniard, the Frenchman and the
Englishman forth on their voyages of discovery and colonization. Far
too many teachers neglect almost entirely what Cheyney calls “The
European Background of American History.”
Every one who has studied the history of the first voyage of Columbus
knows that this voyage was but the culmination of more than four
centuries of European commercial history. Ever since the time of the
crusades, and even before, there had gone on in Europe an extensive
trade in Asiatic wares; spices and gums, drugs, medicaments and
perfumes, diamonds, pearls, rubies and ivories, silk, cotton and woolen
fabrics had been imported in ever-increasing quantities by the Italian
towns and distributed through them from Seville to Novgorod. Then in
the fifteenth century came a time when the eastern trade routes were
closed by the conquering Turks and the nations of Western Europe were
forced in consequence to seek these luxuries by new and unaccustomed
routes. The discovery of America was not an accident, nor was Columbus
the only hero of his age--this the student should be made thoroughly to
comprehend.
Second, a slight knowledge of the aborigines must be insisted upon.
Here, however, the teacher will need to exercise care and judgment lest
he waste time on unessential details.
Third in order comes the geography of the new continent. The study of
the physiography of the North American continent, if properly handled,
will prove to the students a fascinating, an almost inexhaustible
subject. If properly led, boys and girls will study their maps with
even greater interest than they do their text-books. One lesson at
least the teacher should devote to the shore line, the water courses,
the gaps and mountain passes, the portages and the wood roads, else
the story of the exploration of the continent must ever remain to
the students a blind story of purposeless wanderings in a trackless
wilderness. (See Farrand “Basis of American History,” Chaps. I to IV.)
When the student has grasped these fundamentals it will be time, and
then only, to begin to thread with him the labyrinth of voyages and
explorations which mark the first century of American history. Here
the teacher will need to exercise great ingenuity and considerable
caution. Rather a few facts well co-ordinated, than a multitude of
details without any unifying principle is the one infallible rule.
The Norsemen, for instance, one is tempted to say, may with profit
be entirely neglected. “Nothing is clearer,” say Fiske (“Discovery
of America,” I, pp. 235-254), “from a survey of the whole subject,
than that these pre-Columbus voyages were quite barren of results of
historic importance.... [That they constituted] in any legitimate sense
of the phrase, a discovery of America is simply absurd.” Columbus, De
Soto, Cortez, Coronado are really the only Spaniards whose names the
student need remember. Equally, the voyages of Verrazano, Ribault,
Cartier, Champlain, La Salle, Marquette and Joliet tell the whole tale
of French activities over a hundred and fifty years.
Throughout this period, the teacher should keep these guiding posts
constantly before the eyes of his students: First, that the Spaniards,
when once they realized that they had discovered a new continent and
had not reached the longed for shores of Cathay, were lured farther
and farther into the heart of the continent in search of gold; second,
that, owing to the direction of their approach, they occupied the
southern and southwestern part of the continent only; third, that
their forward movement ended in the end of the sixteenth century
because of (a) their loss of naval supremacy (the Armada), (b) their
narrow internal national policy (the expulsion of the Moriscos and the
Inquisition), (c) their struggle to subdue the revolted Netherlands.
French Explorations.
Of the French, it should be noted: First, that they approached the
continent from the north, entering it through the Gulf of St. Lawrence;
second, that they rapidly turned their entire attention to the search
for furs and to the conversion of the heathen Indian, “the quaint
alliance of missionary and merchant, the black-robed Jesuit and the
dealer in peltries,” as Fiske calls it (“Discovery,” II, p. 529);
third, that the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes led them farther
and farther into the continent, and consequently that the French
settlements lacked the unity and compactness which is characteristic of
the later English settlements with which they were soon to come into
hostile contact.
Finally, of the history of this period of Spanish and French
settlements, it may be said that it is better to follow the history of
both nations down to the end of the seventeenth century before entering
upon the English and Dutch settlements.
English and Dutch Settlements.
In studying the history of the English and Dutch settlements the way
will again be a way through a trackless wilderness unless the teacher
is bold enough to make a judicious selection among the many details
which must appear in every text-book, neglecting all the others and
insisting that his students obtain a clear comprehension of the two or
three leading motives which are ever present in the colonizing efforts
of both these nations. First, the student should be compelled to grasp
clearly the significance of the trading and colonizing companies which
were formed in such profusion in both England and Holland in the
end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Cheyney (“European Background,” pp. 137-139), mentions seventy of
them. If teacher and student will follow carefully the activities of
these companies in America they will find a key to the history of the
founding of most of the Atlantic coast colonies.
Second, before attempting to follow the history of the English colonies
in America, the history of the Protestant revolution in Europe must be
reviewed and the attitude of James I toward all dissenters, Protestant
and Catholic alike, must be made clear.
These two finger posts, the trading companies and the religious
agitation in England will serve to guide many a student who might
otherwise lose his way. To attempt at this time to introduce into the
history of the colonies anything about the boundary disputes, the
attempts at colonial union, the growth of colonial institutions or even
the economic conditions which surrounded the life of the colonists is,
it seems to us, a mistake.
Literature of the Period.
A word or two in closing about the literature of this period. Of
sources, here, as throughout American history, there are four
collections which are extremely valuable for use in the secondary
schools: (a) Hart’s American History Told by Contemporaries, (b)
Macdonald’s Documents of American History, (c) The American History
Leaflets, (d) The Old South Leaflets.
Of the works of secondary authorities, those especially fitted for
use in secondary schools are (a) Thwaites, “Colonies,” (b) Fisher’s
“Colonial Era,” (c) Fiske’s “Discovery of America” and his other works
on the settlement and history of the Atlantic coast colonies, (d)
Parkman’s “Pioneers of France in America” and his other works on the
explorations of the French, (e) the earlier volumes of Harper’s “The
American Nation,” and (f) the earlier chapters of Doyle’s and Lodge’s
histories of the English colonies in America.
European History in the Secondary School
D. C. KNOWLTON, PH.D., Editor.
Medieval History a Problem.
It may be superfluous to remind the reader at the beginning of the
difficulties inherent in the presentation of medieval history. The
appreciation of this fact, however, may serve somewhat to compensate
the conscientious teacher who looks back upon his successive efforts to
present the subject with anything but a feeling of satisfaction. When
the German schoolmaster admits, as does Dr. Jaeger, after the reading
of thousands of pages in preparation for his work that “the medieval
world is essentially alien to our comprehension, and that vivid and
realistic description--the most fruitful part of our instruction--is
only possible here to a very moderate extent,[2]” the teacher on
this side of the Atlantic has no reason to feel chagrined over his
own failures. On the contrary he can approach his task with the
satisfaction which comes from the feeling that he is assisting others
in the solution of a most difficult problem. It must also be remembered
that the German teacher has this advantage--of which he makes full
use--that he is presenting the middle ages as the American teacher
presents the colonial period, to furnish a background for the proper
understanding of his own history.
Medieval Culture.
The middle ages do not require the elaborate, detailed treatment of
later periods; and yet it must be admitted that much time will often
be consumed in securing anything like an intelligent comprehension of
the rudiments or elements of the subject. The period may be approached
from many points of view. Possibly the most fruitful are the culture
side and the idealistic side. It is indeed possible to combine these
two ideas. So much of our literature pictures medieval society,
especially as it has to do with the castle and the monastery, that the
first phase cannot fail to prove attractive. Dr. Jaeger further points
out that the men of this period, intellectually so narrow minded, so
uncultured and so limited, would go to any extreme, sacrificing their
personal comfort, aye, even their lives in their devotion to an idea.
At one extreme stands the warrior, at the other the monk, and yet how
much they resemble each other. The monk penetrates the forests of
Germany and braves unknown dangers in his devotion to mother church;
the crusader, no less of a devotee, lays down his life under a foreign
sky, far removed from home and friends. There is then much that is
attractive in the period if we follow it with this second thought in
mind. Although these men were living embodiments of ideas which may
be “alien to our comprehension,” their very ardor and enthusiasm
become contagious, once the teacher catches a little of the spirit
which animated them. Around some of these great personalities, too,
can be woven much of the life of the times. A Charlemagne not only
becomes the embodiment of the imperial idea, but behind him looms the
shadowy outlines of the imperial system; a Richard I suggests the
castle, the tournament, the flower of chivalry, the knight-errant;
finally a Gregory VII becomes the incarnation of a great ecclesiastical
hierarchy, more terrible with its anathemas maranathas than the
bloodiest battlefields. The culture phase is admirably presented in
the recent text-books, _e. g._, in Robinson, Munro, West, Harding, and
Myers. When once the teacher becomes saturated with the life and habits
of thought of these times, it will not prove such a difficult task
to point out and emphasize the ideals of the men of the period, many
of which should enter into the warp and woof of American character.
In this connection the teacher will find Professor Emerton’s address
before the New England History Teachers’ Association on the Teaching of
Mediæval History in the Schools most helpful and inspiring.[3]
The Old Empire and the New.
The discussion for the first few weeks of the course must of necessity
center largely about the new field upon which history is in the process
of making, the empire of Charlemagne, its disruption as the result of
its own inherent weaknesses and the renewed attacks of the barbarians
and the growth of feudalism as a partial result of these and other
forces which have been at work in the Europe of the early middle ages.
Three points will call for special emphasis: the field, the essential
forces at work in this field, and the people who are responsible for
their development. The student can best realize conditions in 800
A.D. by contrasting this new empire with the old Roman empire with
which he is already familiar. Two maps might be made, one of the Roman
empire at its greatest extent, the other of Charlemagne’s possessions,
showing its Slavic neighbors on the east and its Saracenic on the
south. The student should then grasp the fact that for the next five
hundred years, with the exception of tiny England, the history of
European progress is circumscribed by the narrow limits of this new
empire, which although including portions of the old, has transferred
the center of interest to the plains of central Europe. To the east
and southeast are the Slavs and the remains of the eastern half of the
Roman empire, which having played its part in history, remains merely
as the storehouse of the intellectual, literary and artistic treasures
of the remote past; to the south are the Saracens who one hundred years
before had threatened to place the crescent above the cross, but were
beaten back upon the sunny plains of France.
Out of this empire are to emerge the France, Germany and Italy of the
distant future. Spain is not to be rescued from her infidel conquerors
until a new and far distant era dawns, that of Columbus, Cortez and
Pizarro. Christendom, as it is known will have no interests beyond
these confines except as it is obliged to beat off the daring Northmen
or to admit them as unwelcome guests; or as it forces its way eastward
throwing out its outposts to check the Slavic tide moving westward;
or as its enthusiasm is kindled by mother church to undertake the
rescue of Palestine from heathen hands; or as the zeal of its traders,
who even at this early date begin to long for new fields to conquer,
stimulates them to open communication with the strange and distant East.
The two great forces at work are the two ideas of a universal church
and a universal empire. The rise of the Christian church, its relations
with Rome and the German invaders might profitably be reviewed here,
especially its connection with the founding of this new empire, which
differs from the old in its dependence on and union with the papal
power. These are the ideals which men set before them; this will o’ the
wisp of universal dominion was destined to lead many a man to his own
ruin and that of the power upon which he relied to attain his end.
Charlemagne.
The personality of Charlemagne, so naïvely portrayed by Einhard,
his desire not only to conquer but to serve the higher ideal of
establishing a Christian state, cannot fail to attract the student,
especially if the teacher emphasizes the fact that he was the hero
par excellence of the middle ages. Ample material for a study of his
arrangements can be found in the source books, and his system can
easily be compared with the organization of the older empire.
Although the people who were working out these new problems were
largely of German blood, it must not be forgotten that Rome’s influence
had not been for naught, but was still to be seen in the survival of
the Latin language and literature and the material aspects of its
civilization--its roads, bridges, aqueducts and walled towns,--and
above all in this very tradition of universal dominion. This last idea
had been inherited on the one hand by the pope at Rome and on the other
by the king of the Germans.
There is no one book which emphasizes the treatment which has
been suggested for this first period. The teacher can easily
follow this line of development with any of the better text-books.
Freeman, “Historical Geography of Europe,” has a good chapter on the
geographical development (Chapter VI), also Emerton, “Mediæval Europe,”
Chapter I; Seignobos, “History of Mediæval and Modern Civilization,”
Chapter VI, will be found very helpful on feudalism; also Emerton,
“Introduction to the Middle Ages,” Chapter XV, and Adams, “Civilization
during the Middle Ages,” Chapter IX. A good life of Charlemagne
in English is Hodgkin, “Charles the Great.” There is an abundance
of source material. Special mention might be made of Thatcher and
McNeal, Nos. 7-9, 16-19, 191-194, 209-217; Robinson, Chapter VII,
on Charlemagne, Chapter VIII on the Disruption of Charlemagne’s
Empire, and Chapter IX on Feudalism; Ogg, Chapter IX, on the “Age of
Charlemagne,” Chapter X on the “Era of the Later Carolingians,” and
Chapter XIII on the “Feudal System.” Good maps may be found in such
atlases as Freeman, Putzger, and Dow, which should be in the hands of
every live teacher.
College Entrance Questions.
The following questions are selected from some of the recent
examinations:
State as definitely as possible what you conceive to be the place of
Charlemagne in European history.
What did the Holy Roman Empire include? How was it governed?
Trace the connection between the break-up of the Empire of Charlemagne
and the beginnings of (a) France, (b) Germany, (c) Italy.
What connection was there between the break-up of the Carolingian
Empire and the rise of feudalism?
Some Suggestions on Feudalism.
A good vantage point from which to approach the subject is to look
upon feudalism as the result of the need of protection in an age of
disorder and confusion; then to follow this idea with an explanation of
its relation to the holding of land. When these elementary facts have
been made reasonably clear, they will serve as an excellent basis for
what must necessarily follow, namely, an explanation of how the various
factors involved each played its part in building up an organization
which though called a system is very often extremely puzzling for its
very lack of the same. The “feudal grant” has now been made clear and
the entering wedge has been driven for an understanding of vassalage.
It is now easy to explain immunity and to pass from this to the
practice of subinfeudation, and the mutual responsibilities involved
in the feudal relation. The diagram on page 115 of Robinson’s “Western
Europe” will serve to give the student an excellent notion of the
complexity of the feudal relation.
Syllabi.
Finally it is suggested that before taking up the medieval period with
the class the teacher make a careful study of every available analysis,
_e. g._, the Syllabus of the New England History Teachers’ Association,
or the Syllabus of the Regents of the State of New York (which contains
the same outline), or the History Syllabus of the State of New Jersey
(in press) or the numerous outlines of college lecture courses which
have appeared in printed form from time to time as Richardson,
“Syllabus of Continental European History,” and Shepherd, “Syllabus of
the Epochs of History.”
[Illustration: EXPLANATION OF CHART: EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT, 800 TO 962.
The vertical lines represent dates and important events; the
horizontal lines, political divisions. Events of European importance
as distinguished from those of purely local interest are indicated by
lines intersecting the countries concerned.
In 800 there are two main divisions, England and the Empire. (Egbert
and Charlemagne were contemporaries.) In 843, on account of the
division of the Empire at Verdun, it becomes necessary to follow the
fortunes of four units, England, Germany, France and the “Middle
Kingdom,” sometimes called Lotharingia. The Middle Kingdom practically
disappears by the Partition of Meersen (870). Soon after this event the
empire of Charlemagne is temporarily reunited under Charles the Fat. At
his deposition the two larger units, France and Germany, reappear with
several smaller ones, the most important being Burgundy and Italy. In
962 the latter is absorbed in the new German empire of Otto the Great.
Meanwhile England is working out its local problems, influenced as is
the rest of Europe by the coming of the Northmen and the conditions
attendant on the development of feudalism. Although Odo was elected
king of France by the nobles as early as 887, the throne passed back
and forth between his house and the Carolingians, so that Germany came
under a permanent native dynasty much earlier than did France. As
will be seen by the diagram, Germany and Italy, rather than France,
are sacrificed to the ambition of the German rulers to restore and
perpetuate the Roman empire in the West.]
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Jaeger, Oskar, “Teaching of History,” translated by H. J. Chaytor.
Oxford and London, 1908.
[3] Report of the Fall Meeting of The New England History Teachers’
Association, 1904, published by the Association in 1905.
English History in the Secondary School
C. B. NEWTON, Editor.
I. Through the Norman Conquest[4]
I have just finished reading “A Centurion of the Thirtieth,” “On the
Great Wall,” and “The Winged Hats”--all from Kipling’s “Puck of Pook’s
Hill” and I now feel in the proper frame of mind to begin the year’s
work in English History. By the proper frame of mind I mean that what
I know, and what I would fain have my class know, is illuminated
and enlivened by a sense of reality without which my teaching and
their learning would be as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. The
fundamental importance of beginning with this “proper frame of mind”
is the first matter which I wish to emphasize, the starting point of
the many matters which we may profitably consider together in our
monthly discussions. For ponder the magnitude of the task before us,
as we return from our vacation in this very modern world of ours to
our very modern pupils. How shall we be true interpreters of the life
of an early day, so remote, so utterly removed, so unreal, unless we
can by some magic touch invest it all with reality? It is a solemn
thing, fellow workmen in this noble field of English history, to think
how many thousands of us shall endeavor, during the next few weeks,
to impart some knowledge, some realizing sense of prehistoric man’s
dwelling in the so different Albion which was the mother of England;
of Celt and Roman and Saxon and Dane; of imperial Cæsar landing on
the unknown barbarous coast of Britain; of Druids and of monks; and
so on through those long, mysterious thousand years which bring us to
a somewhat clearer day (though still remote enough for every exercise
of the imagination!), when the great Duke became the last conqueror of
the little island. A solemn thing, I say, for if we fail to illumine
this mass of material with any ray of the imagination, if we merely
cram facts and theories into the miserable minds of our victims until
they are stuffed with names and dates, then are we become blind leaders
of the blind of whom it may be said, as I once heard it said of a
professor in one of our great colleges, “Think of the hundreds for whom
he has _ruined_ history.”
So I believe, in all seriousness, it shall profit us more to take down
our Kipling or to cull out some of the very human episodes from our
Green, or from Dr. Warren’s little book of selections, and to saturate
our minds therein--insulating them, as it were, from the quick
currents of the present--than to refresh our memories laboriously and
conscientiously from sources and authorities until we are merely primed
with facts. Need I say that this is no slur nor sneer at authorities
and sources? Of course we have not neglected these--we must not, and we
shall not, neglect them. My emphasis is simply on what _is_, too often
neglected; my plea is for setting free the imagination, for letting the
“magic” work which will help us to clothe the dry bones of fact with
the flesh of _life_! We have all been taught to be conscientious and
faithful and painstaking; that is the modern historian’s creed. But all
conscience and no imagination make a mighty dull teacher! Let us never
forget that.
Sincerity and Frankness Indispensable.
If the imagination needs all the arousing and vivifying it can get in
dealing with the early Britons and Romans of whom we receive vivid
impressions in “Puck of Pook’s Hill,” how much more must it cry for
help in beginning, as most text-books of English history do, with
primitive man! I must confess I dread those opening lessons which
deal with the origins of things. “Paleolithic, neolithic, metal
age”--how glibly the names may be reeled off, but what do we really
know about them, and who are we to try to penetrate the seclusion of
those unfathomed ages! I confess my imagination gropes blindly here,
and I must simply admit that I am baffled, that here I can summon up
very little sense of reality. This should be made clear enough to the
class--both that our sources of knowledge are limited, and that the
“backward and abysm” of time baffles the staunchest traveler to the far
past. Our pupils will value our sincerity from the outset if we make
it plain that there is no humbug about us, that we are not pretending
to a knowledge which their quick intelligence tells them must in the
nature of things be very limited. Don’t let us be too “cock sure” about
anything--still less about prehistoric times. For be sure the youthful
mind, if it is worth anything, asks itself how “they” know so much when
by our own admission there are no written records. You will permanently
undermine confidence if you make a false start here. So it appears to
me that all the period before the Romans came should be clothed in a
haze of mystery, a few looming facts in the gloom, but nothing too
clear cut or definite. So, too, throughout the course, let us be frank
in acknowledging the many uncertainties which beset us, so setting an
invaluable example of sincerity, and unconsciously inducing a spirit of
honesty in the attitude of our pupils toward history.
As to Dates and Discipline.
With the landing of Julius Cæsar the fog begins to lift, and certain
clear headlands of knowledge appear. This may be brought out very
sharply by reading to the class, or getting the class to read to you,
an extract or two from “De Bello Gallico,” say Chapter 8 of Book V,
or a chapter from the end of Book IV. This brings home to the class
the “barbarianness” of the Britons in contrast with civilized Rome,
and incidentally gives the average pupil a new and almost startling
view of “Cæsar”! This done, the next task is to prevent the class
from unanimously jumping at the conclusion that Cæsar began the Roman
conquest. The only thing to do is to hammer in the four conquests
or invasions with their dates as landmarks, and to try heroically
to get straight the difference between Celt and Roman and Teuton.
No imagination here, but the sterner side of the year’s work--the
_absolute definite learning by rote of the essential dates and facts_
which must in no wise be slurred or passed by. I do not believe history
to be a “disciplinary study,” but there is plenty of discipline in
it, as there is in all substantial work, and the boy or girl who has,
perhaps, had only some smatterings of elementary history before, might
as well realize in the beginning that entering this large field of
English history means, not only large opportunities for the imagination
and for abounding intellectual interest, but means also real work for
the memory and for the understanding. How to bring this about against
the inertia, inaccuracy, and inefficiency of the class? There is no
royal road--patience, reiteration, insistence on accuracy, and finally,
where necessary, the rod, or whatever substitute our American delicacy
along punitive lines allows, are the only methods open to us. A good
means of reiteration in the matter of dates is to have one pupil put
a set of dates on the board each day--for example, the dates of the
invasions (marking the approximate dates with a plus or minus sign),
and of such landmarks as the Landing of Augustine, the Treaty of
Wedmore, etc., may well be put on the board every day while the class
is studying the period before the Normans. The same thing may well be
done during each dynasty, keeping the dates of that dynasty before the
class without spending much time on them. The recitation of the class
should not, of course, be halted while the dates are being written; a
glance will serve to correct them when they are done.
Concerning Maps and Note Books.
A word in regard to map work and note books. The correlation of
geography with history is, of course, indispensable. In certain places
throughout our subject, which I shall point out from time to time, it
is necessary that the geography of England and of Europe should be
clearly in mind. During this early period these notable points are (1)
the probable geographical conditions before “the channel” was cut;
(2) the divisions of Great Britain and Ireland at the time of Roman
occupation, showing the great walls and the Roman roads; (3) the Saxon
period--the homes of the Saxons, and the Heptarchy; (4) the Danelaw
and Alfred’s kingdom; (5) locations of battles and other points of
historical interest (such as the “holy isle” of St. Columba, Wedmore,
etc.) through 1066. I know no better way to make these five or more
topics clear than by outline maps. In using outline maps, neatness and
clearness are the two points to emphasize. Unless your text-book has
good maps your pupils should get Gardiner’s “School Atlas of English
History” (Longmans, Green & Co.).
As to note books, I believe they are very helpful in teaching English
history; but do not overdo their use. If we insist on their being
very elaborate we make a fetish of them. They have two very simple
uses--(a) to emphasize important matters in each lesson; (b) to contain
any points outside the text-book which the teacher gives the class.
Also their by-products of concentration and accuracy and practice for
college work are by no means to be despised. At the beginning, when
a pupil is possibly taking notes for the first time, we must be very
patient, speaking slowly and practically dictating the things to be
“put down.” As a rule I would not put facts on the board to be copied.
That is too easy. A class must learn to take notes from the voice, and
gradually to catch matters worth setting down without special direction.
Reference Books.
Two very useful books to which constant reference will be made during
the coming months are Beard’s “Introduction to the English Historians”
(MacMillan), and Cheyney’s “Readings in English History” (Ginn &
Co.). Both of these volumes give well-selected quotations from many
sources inaccessible to many of us, and with one or both of them in our
possession we shall be tolerably well equipped for the year’s work.
Then there are two old “standards” which most of us possess or may
easily get at. First of all, in my opinion, is Green’s “Short History
of the English People” (Harper’s one volume edition); and second,
Gardiner’s “Student’s History of England” (Longmans, Green & Co.)
is not only a good one-volume history, but is particularly rich in
pictures of value and interest.
In explaining the missionary efforts of the Irish church, the
fascinating career of St. Patrick should not be neglected. See
“Ireland” in the “Stories of the Nations,” series, by Lawless, Chapter
IV.
Anglo-Saxon government is an important subject. Gardiner has a good
brief explanation of terms, pp. 29-33, and 72-75 of the “Students’
History.” Beard and Cheyney may be read quickly and with helpful
results on this subject.
Alfred the Great, the noblest figure, shall we not say in all English
history--certainly in this period, should be sympathetically studied.
Of course Green paints him vividly, pp. 48-52, but if possible get
Walter Besant’s “Story of King Alfred,” in the “Library of Useful
Stories” (D. Appleton & Co.).
The colossus of the tenth century was Dunstan. Some text-books slight
him. See Green, pp. 55-58 for his remarkable many sidedness.
Of course Freeman’s “Norman Conquest” is full of meat on this period
before the Normans, as well as on the Normans themselves. A judicious
use of the index will make these volumes of Freeman very useful if you
have time for the search. The rise of Normandy and the wonderful career
of Duke William should of course be made sunlight clear.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Subsequent topics: II. The Development of the English Nation; to
Edward I. III. Advance and Retrogression; the Hundred Years’ War. IV.
Various Phases of the 14th and 15th Centuries. V. The Tudors and the
Renaissance. VI. The Great Parliamentary Struggle. VII. Restoration
and Reaction; Many Beginnings. VIII. The Eighteenth Century. IX. The
Napoleonic Era; Pre-Victorian Reforms. X. The Victorian Era.
MISSOURI SOCIETY OF TEACHERS OF HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT.
This society was organized out of the Department of History of the
Missouri State Teachers’ Association at the Christmas meeting of that
body in 1908. It is also affiliated with the State Historical Society,
and a number of its members belong to the North Central History
Teachers’ Association. The object of the society is to promote and
improve the study and teaching of history in the State of Missouri
through semi-annual meetings, with papers and discussions, of history
teachers, investigations into the condition of history in the State
schools, and the publication in the “Missouri Historical Review,” in
which space is officially reserved for the society, of papers on the
study and teaching of history, reports of meetings, and notes and news
of interest to history teachers.
The society has held three successful meetings since its organization,
the most recent being the spring meeting of 1909, held May 1, at
the State University. At this meeting valuable papers were read by
Professor E. M. Violette, of the State Normal School at Kirksville,
on “Setting the Problem,” and by Professor C. A. Ellwood, of the
Department of Sociology of the University of Missouri, on “How History
Can be Taught from a Sociological Point of View.” The meetings ended by
the election of the following officers: President, Mr. H. R. Tucker,
McKinley High School, St. Louis; vice-president, Mr. J. L. Shouse,
Westport High School, Kansas City; secretary-treasurer, Professor
Eugene Fair, Normal School, Kirksville, and editor, Professor N. M.
Trenholme, University of Missouri, Columbia. The next meeting of the
society will be held at Christmas time in St. Louis in connection with
the State Teachers’ Association meeting.
THE MEETING OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION AT ST.
LOUIS, JUNE 17-19.
The semi-annual meeting of this organization was held in the rooms of
the Missouri Historical Society at St. Louis, June 17-19.
The general subject of discussion was the historical importance of
the physiography and ethnology of the Mississippi Valley, and the
papers, presented by well-known middle western scholars, served to
bring out the great importance of physical and racial factors in
American development. This association is affiliated with the American
Historical Association in an unofficial way, and is doing excellent
work for the history of the region in which it is specially interested.
The secretary-treasurer is Clarence S. Paine, of Lincoln, Neb.
* * * * *
Alive to the Student’s Need
For stirring, gripping work in American history look to Professor Mace.
He comes to the task with every sense alert for the student’s help,
and with every means in hand to give the truest and most intelligent
conception of history. The impression he makes is unforgettable.
In
Mace’s Primary History Stories of Heroism
the author takes our great men in every line of life by periods--men
who fought for the good against the bad; he shows them living,
throbbing with power, _doing_. He cuts them into the child’s memory.
And when the student comes to the later grades, he knows his people,
chooses his leaders, and follows them.
In
Mace’s School History of the United States
the treatment of periods broadens, and the men the child now knows live
their big stirring lives through the family, social and industrial
development, through the religious, educational and governmental
progress. They thrill and move the child, steady his thought and build
up his respect for the greatness gone before--they teach him to know
his own responsibility in the affairs of the world to-day.
Illustrated with pen-drawings that mean something
Rand McNally & Company
CHICAGO NEW YORK
* * * * *
History in the Grades
ARMAND J. GERSON, Editor.
The “Type Lesson” in History.
Whatever may be said as to the evil effects of the present overcrowding
of the elementary school curriculum, this condition has brought about
at least one lasting benefit in that it has led through sheer stress of
need to the invention of numerous pedagogic devices for the saving of
time. As subject after subject has been added to the work required to
be covered in the grades, stern necessity has developed in the grade
teacher a wonderful faculty of class-room economy. While it is true
that many of the time-saving devices which have thus found their way
into our public schools have been unquestionably harmful, there are
some among them which have proved themselves efficacious and which
may be said to have constituted a permanent advance in educational
practice. Among this class we must include the “type lesson” idea.
The idea of the type lesson is based upon the principle that since the
increasing complexity of the modern elementary curriculum precludes
the possibility of teaching with proper thoroughness all the details
of the various subjects laid down in our courses of study, it behooves
the teacher to select a few typical phases of his subject, teach
these thoroughly, and use them as the basis for the rest of the work.
Instead of a superficial survey of the entire field, which at best
can leave but a hazy resultant in the child’s mind, let the teacher
lead the pupil to evolve a certain number of consistent and intensive
“type-ideas” to serve as the nuclei of the year’s instruction. To
express this pedagogic principle in terms of psychology, this method
will develop in the child’s mind certain fundamental concepts to which
all later reading and instruction will naturally relate and in the
light of which he may interpret all subsequent mental experiences.
In recent years the type lesson idea has found its chief exponents in
the field of geography. Possibly the overwhelming mass of detail of
which elementary geography is composed and the apparent separateness
of the facts which constitute its subject matter have led educators
to seek for their “short cuts” in this subject first. Be the reason
for this activity what it may, teachers of geography have evolved an
effective type lesson system for the teaching of their subject. The
geographer has asked, “Why burden the minds of our young pupils with
description of ALL the great rivers of the world, of ALL the great
mountain systems, of ALL the great cities? Why not carefully select
one or two typical rivers, two or three typical cities? In these we
can interest the children without any difficulty. Moreover we can then
require and expect a definite amount of definite information to be
retained. For the rest, let us teach our pupils to read widely, let
us cultivate a broad geographical interest, and trust to the seeds we
have planted so carefully to yield in the course of time a plenteous
harvest.” And the geographer’s forecast has not been far amiss.
Why should not the teacher of history apply the same mode of thinking?
At first glance it is evident that the subject matter of history lends
itself most admirably to the type lesson method of development. The
average grade teacher is frankly dissatisfied with his results in
history. In spite of his best efforts to string historical facts along
the chain of cause and effect, in spite of his most carefully prepared
topical outlines, the teacher of history in the grades is too often
obliged at the end of his year’s work to acknowledge that his efforts
to make the facts of history a real part of the child’s mental content
have been largely futile. Let us see to what extent the type lesson
might simplify the problem.
Let the teacher of a particular grade make a selection of a series of
type lessons which shall constitute the core of the year’s work in
history. Ten or a dozen such lesson units can be carefully planned
in such a way that the rest of the work may be grouped about them.
These type lessons are to be used throughout as bases for comparisons,
relations and generalizations; in other words, they will constitute the
framework of the history instruction for the year.
To take a specific instance, the teacher of a certain grade finds by
reference to the course of study that his pupils are supposed to cover
in more or less detail the period of American history from 1492 to
1763. This period falls naturally into three divisions: (1) the period
of exploration, (2) the period of colonization, (3) the period of
intercolonial wars. In teaching the period of exploration the various
explorers naturally group themselves according to nationalities. One or
two type lessons should suffice for each group.
Columbus might be chosen as the typical Spanish explorer. In that case
his explorations should be taught with considerable detail, bringing
out particularly those phases of his life and work which form the basis
for the teaching of other Spaniards who took an active part in opening
up the New World. This type lesson should furnish the pupils with
definite notions of Spanish life, Spanish policies, Spanish motives,
Spanish methods of navigation, etc. With this basis the subsequent
Spanish explorations could be gone over very rapidly, the matter of
results alone being emphasized.
Similarly the teacher might give a type lesson on Sir Francis Drake
to form the basis for the English explorations of the sixteenth
century. Marquette might be selected to represent the French missionary
activity.
For the period of colonization one typical colony in each of the
three groups could easily be selected. Virginia, Pennsylvania, and
Massachusetts at once suggest themselves. For the period of the
intercolonial wars a typical battle or two might be taught intensively
and realistically. Maps, pictures, literary descriptions will all help
to vivify the picture so that the resulting concept may form a type or
pattern for the comprehension of all other battles to which reference
may subsequently be made.
The instance just cited will indicate the way in which the teacher of
history in any particular grade may make a choice of topics for type
lessons. More important, however, than the choosing of the topics will
be the actual planning of the lessons so that they may be type lessons
indeed. This department of the HISTORY TEACHER’S MAGAZINE will from
time to time publish illustrative type lessons in history which it is
hoped may be found of practical value. While the method is not put
forward as something entirely novel, nor as by any means a panacea
for all the troubles of the history teacher, it is our earnest hope
that the lessons to be outlined in subsequent issues may contain some
suggestions which teachers of history in the grades may find applicable
in their daily work.
* * * * *
A LIBRARY OF History and Exploration Invaluable for Every School.
The Trail Makers
Prof. JOHN BACH McMASTER, Consulting Editor. Each Volume Small 12mo.
Cloth. Illustrated. With Introductions, Illustrations and Maps. 17
volumes. Each $1.00 net.
=The Journey of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca=, and his companions from
Florida to the Pacific, 1528-1536.
Translated by Fanny Bandelier. Edited with an Introduction by Ad. F.
Bandelier.
=Narratives of the Career of Hernando De Soto in the Conquest of
Florida=, 1539-1542, as told by a gentleman of Elvas, by Luys Hernandez
De Biedma and by Rodrigo Ranjel.
Edited with an Introduction by Professor Edward Gaylord Bourne, of
Yale University. In two volumes.
=The Journey of Coronado, 1540-42.= From the City of Mexico to the
Buffalo Plains of Kansas and Nebraska.
Translated and Edited with an Introduction by George Parker Winship.
=Voyages and Explorations of Samuel de Champlain, narrated by himself.=
Translated by Annie Nettleton Bourne. Edited with an Introduction by
Edward Gaylord Bourne, Professor of History in Yale University. In
two vols.
=The Journeys of La Salle and His Companions, 1678-1687. As related by
himself and his followers.=
Edited with an Introduction by Prof. I. J. Cox, of the University of
Cincinnati. In two volumes.
=Voyages from Montreal Through the Continent of North America to the
Frozen and Pacific Oceans in 1789 and 1793.= By Alexander Mackenzie.
In two volumes.
=History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and
Clark.= With an account of the Louisiana Purchase, by Prof. John Bach
McMaster, and an Introduction Identifying the Route.
In three volumes.
=History of Five Indian Nations of Canada which are Dependent upon the
Province of New York.=
By Cadwallader Colden, Surveyor-General of the Colony of New York. In
two volumes.
=A Journal of Voyage and Travels in the Interior of North America.=
By Daniel Williams Harmon, a partner in the Northwest Company
(beginning in 1800).
=The Wild Northland.=
By Gen. Sir Wm. Francis Butler, K. C. B.
Descriptive Circular on Application to the Publishers
A. S. BARNES & CO.
11-15 East 24th Street, New York
* * * * *
Stories of Heroism
PROFESSOR MACE’S NEW BOOK REVIEW BY CHARLES A. COULOMB.
In spite of repeated attempts at producing a history suitable for
class-room work in the fourth or fifth grades of the elementary school,
the teaching public still awaits a satisfactory book. Children cannot
be interested in a mere chronological narrative, nor are they capable
of forming sound judgments from groups of facts. Since the days of
“Peter Parley,” therefore, the most satisfactory histories of the
United States for children have been biographical. In the present work
Professor Mace has so far followed tradition. But in the endeavor to
secure more continuity of narrative than would otherwise be possible,
the stories have been gathered together in groups of two or three
or more. Each man in the group appears in his proper historical
perspective instead of being partially eclipsed by the fame of some
great personage whose biography is used to cover a long period of time
or several historical movements. The author has selected his stories
from those in which he finds a certain element of heroism, the term
being broad enough, however, to cover the lives of Penn and Samuel F.
B. Morse, as well as those of Drake and John Paul Jones.
The heroism of some of our great men is shown by overcoming great
obstacles just as that of others is indicated by fighting the enemies
of their country. So we find William Penn and James Oglethorpe
associated with Hudson, the explorer, and Stuyvesant, the fighting
Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, in the chapter about “The Men Who
Planted Colonies for Many Kinds of People.”
Out of the three hundred and ninety-six pages in the book, two hundred
and twenty-nine are devoted to our history prior to 1789, leaving but
one hundred and sixty-seven to our history under the Constitution.
The division seems to give a disproportionate amount of space to our
Colonial and Revolutionary history. This is justified to some extent
by the plan of the author. There is no question as to the romance to
be found in the voyages of Polo and Drake, and in the life of Captain
Smith. At the same time there are other equally dramatic features of
our later history that might have been included, and so have given
a better distribution of space. More room is given to Washington’s
activities before the Revolution than to the rest of his life, which
did not, it is true, cover so many years, but is certainly of more
importance. With the exception of the statement that Grant was twice
elected president, and the story of Edison and his inventions, the
history of our country from 1865 to the battle of Manila Bay contains
nothing worth recording, so far as this book is concerned. Out of the
sixty-six names we do not find one jurist; one feels that Chief Justice
Marshall’s name is certainly not sixty-seventh in our history.
The attempt to fix the facts of each chapter by a list of questions
for study is to be commended, as is the unusually satisfactory index.
Professor Mace has, besides, done what few scholars succeed in doing.
He has written his book in such simple, clear English that the pupils
for whom it is intended will have little difficulty in understanding it.
Most of the pictures have been selected for their dramatic value, but
many portraits and pictures of places and things of historic interest
are included in the book. On the whole, the book is a step forward, and
the inequalities in it are no greater than those of other books that
have otherwise less to commend them. In classes where the course of
study in history does not extend beyond the Revolution, the book should
have a wide use.
[A Primary History: Stories of Heroism. By William H. Mace, Professor
of History in Syracuse University. Cloth, 8vo. xxv+ 396 pp. Rand,
McNally & Co. Chicago, New York.]
* * * * *
Translations and Reprints
FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCES OF EUROPEAN HISTORY
“An invaluable series of Sources, still in course of
publication.”--Report of the Committee of New England Teachers’
Association, p. 63.
This series contains translations from the original sources of European
history from Roman times to the reorganization of Europe by the
Congress of Vienna in the nineteenth century. Complete, the set is in
six volumes, but the separate numbers can be had in pamphlet form at
from fifteen to twenty-five cents.
The value of original source material to aid the pupil in obtaining a
vivid sense of the life and manners of past ages is felt by all history
teachers. But it cannot be emphasized too much.
How much more realistic and impressive than the cut-and-dried statement
on the Crusades of the average text-book, are actual accounts by
contemporaries and Crusaders themselves, as, for example, the statement
by Fulcher of Chartres of the start:
“One saw an infinite multitude speaking different languages and come
from divers countries.” ... “Oh, how great was the grief ... when
husband left the wife so dear to him, his children also....”
Or the letter by Count Stephen from before the walls of Antioch, March
29, 1098:
“These which I write you are only a few things, dearest, of the many
which we have done, and because I am not able to tell you, dearest,
what is in my mind, I charge you to do right, to carefully watch over
your land, to do your duty as you ought to your children and your
vassals. You will certainly see just as soon as I can possibly return
to you. Farewell.”
The Crusaders thus appear as real men and women to the pupil. Or let
him read the text of the Act of Supremacy: “An act concernyinge the
kynges Highness to be supreme head of the Churche of Englande and to
have auctoryte to reforme and redresse all errours, heresyes and abuses
in the same,” and he cannot but feel that he has gotten back to the
source upon which the statements of the text-book are based.
It is this kind of material in convenient form that Translations and
Reprints contain. The pamphlet form commends them especially for
classroom use. In the bound form the six volumes are very well adapted
for reference work in the school library.
Besides these extracts from the original sources, there are published
by the Department of History of the University of Pennsylvania the
“Source Book of the Renaissance,” by Professor Merrick Whitcomb,
“Documents on Federal Relations,” by Professor H. V. Ames, and various
Syllabuses, those of special interest to teachers being Munro and
Sellery’s Syllabus of the History of the Middle Ages, 1909, and Ames’s
Syllabus of American Colonial History, revised edition, 1908.
Published by
Department of History
University of Pennsylvania
PHILADELPHIA
* * * * *
A Source-Book of American History
Ten years ago had a high school teacher received a copy of such a
work as Professor MacDonald’s “Documentary Source-Book of American
History” he would have read it with wonder that so many really
significant historical documents could be bound together between the
covers of one small volume. To-day, thanks to the efforts of Professor
MacDonald himself, of Professor Hart, and of many others, we are well
supplied with source-books for several periods of American history.
Consequently, the latest volume of Professor MacDonald has been
accepted as a matter of course; and frequently reviewers have contented
themselves with saying that it contained some of the materials already
printed in the author’s earlier volumes--“Select Charters,” “Select
Documents,” and “Select Statutes.” Such passing notice fails to do the
new work justice, and it is the purpose of this short review to tell
the reader the classes of material which are contained within the six
hundred pages of the Documentary Source-Book.
The extracts contained in the volume consist, in the main, of
constitutional or statutory documents, and in this respect differ
from the material which has been printed by Professor Hart in his
“Source-Readers,” and his “History by Contemporaries,” where the
emphasis is placed upon narratives, descriptions, and personal
contemporary opinions.
Colonial and Revolutionary Documents.
Out of 187 documents, 32 are devoted to the colonial period down to
1764; about 22 deal with the revolutionary period from 1765 to 1789;
and the remaining 133 numbers are concerned with the national period.
For the colonial period, there are charters of eleven of the thirteen
colonies; there are documents illustrative of popular government, such
as the Mayflower Compact, the ordinance establishing representative
government in Virginia, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, and
of New Haven. The relation of the colonies to England is shown by
the Navigation Acts, the Molasses Act, the Sugar Act, and the royal
proclamation of 1763. The relation to other countries is shown by
extracts from the treaty of Utrecht and the treaty of Paris in 1763. No
person who is teaching the colonial period even to elementary students
should be without the fresh contact with the documents which these
extracts make possible.
On the Revolutionary epoch, Professor MacDonald gives us the Stamp
Act, the Intolerable Acts, the Massachusetts Circular Letter of 1768,
the resolves of the Stamp Act Congress, the Association and resolves
of the Continental Congress, the principal acts of Parliament for the
prosecution of the American war, and, of course, the Declaration of
Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Ordinance of 1787, and
the Constitution.
The National Period.
The declarations of war and treaties of peace are given in all
cases; and there is a complete documentary history of territorial
acquisitions, for extracts are given from all treaties agreeing
to the cession of territory to the United States, with the single
exception of the treaty with England and Germany respecting the Samoan
Islands. National problems which have entered into politics are fully
illustrated. It is satisfying to find here in convenient form the
Alien and Sedition Acts, and the counter-blast of the Republicans, the
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. The Missouri Compromise documents
number seven, and are prefaced by an excellent introduction which
gives the congressional history of the compromise measures. A similar
treatment is given the six documents on the Compromise of 1850. The
Civil War period furnishes twenty-three documents including secession
ordinances, the Confederate States Constitution, military affairs,
finance, and other matters. The difficult subject of reconstruction,
with its ramifications in the impeachment of the President and the care
of the freedmen, receives thirty-three extracts.
Valuable Introductions.
This short statement gives an idea of the scope of the book and the
nature of the extracts. In addition to the documents themselves,
another feature gives great value to the book. Many, almost all, of the
documents are prefaced by short introductions which give the historical
setting of the extracts. In the case of the United States statutes the
account of congressional action is very valuable, and in many cases
furnishes a succinct narrative of the movement culminating in the act
under consideration. Abundant references to secondary works and primary
sources are to be found in these introductory remarks.
Thus the book contains a large amount of pedagogical material; sources,
bibliography, and analytical introductions combining to add to its
usefulness. Such a work will protect the teacher and the scholar,
whether in elementary school, in high school, or in college, from loose
thinking and careless statements about the facts of American history.
There need be few errors in class if such a work is on the teacher’s
desk, or, better still, in the student’s hand. And, incidentally, many
of our newspapers would profit by the addition of the Source-Book to
their libraries. To teachers, journalists, and statesmen, who have not
easy access to the Statutes at Large, the collections of treaties, and
the congressional documents, or, who, having such access, desire the
material in convenient desk form, this book will prove invaluable.
[Documentary Source-Book of American History. 1606-1898. By William
MacDonald. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1908, pp. xii-616. Price,
$1.75.]
Cheyney’s Readings in English History
REVIEWED BY PROFESSOR N. M. TRENHOLME, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI.
The movement towards utilizing the remarkably rich and continuous
source literature of English history in the secondary and higher
teaching of the subject is well illustrated in the appearance of this
full and interesting collection of source readings. Leaving aside the
early and rather advanced collections of documentary sources by Stubbs,
Prothero, Gardiner and other English historians, we have had during
the last decade a succession of source-books for English history. No
book, however, has brought together and organized for purposes of
study and instruction so large an amount of diverse material as is
to be found in Professor Cheyney’s “Readings in English History.”
Although but recently published, it is becoming most popular and is
proving invaluable to the earnest and enthusiastic teacher in search of
profitable collateral reading.
The volume is a substantial one of nearly eight hundred pages, and is
divided into chapters to correspond with the author’s “Short History
of England,” which the “Readings” is primarily intended to illustrate.
Right here, however, it should be said that the “Readings” can be used
advantageously with any standard text-book of English history and that
teachers who do not use Professor Cheyney’s text-book will find the
“Readings” almost as valuable for illustrative purposes and collateral
reference as those who do. The “Readings” can stand on its own merits
as a book in every way. Each general chapter is divided into excellent
topical divisions, while the extracts used are numbered consecutively
throughout, showing a total of four hundred and fifty-seven selections,
beginning with Julius Cæsar’s description of Britain and ending with
an editorial from the “New York Times” on the significance of Queen
Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Could anything be more comprehensive?
In regard to the special contents of the volume, space will permit of
only a very brief survey and mention. The selections to illustrate
the geography of England, prehistoric and Celtic Britain, and Roman
Britain have been admirably made and furnish enough collateral reading
for any high school class studying this early period. Classical and
early English sources have been skilfully drawn on and interestingly
presented. For Anglo-Saxon England the great literary and historical
writings such as Tacitus’ “Germania,” Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History,”
the “Beowulf,” the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” Asser’s “Life of Alfred,”
and various collections of Anglo-Saxon laws and documents, have
been freely used and furnish a scholarly and yet not too advanced
a background for the ordinary narrative history. In selecting and
organizing his material for Norman and Plantagenet England Professor
Cheyney has likewise shown remarkable judgment and discrimination. It
is in the modern part, however, that his skilful editorial work is
seen to fullest advantage and the variety and breadth of selection
is really remarkable. The light thrown on the great Puritan movement
of the seventeenth century and on the struggle between the Stuarts
and their parliaments is so interesting and valuable that no American
teacher of English history can afford to ignore or overlook Chapter
XIV on “The Personal Monarchy of the Early Stuarts.” Equally, if not
more, important are the extracts contained in the three last chapters
illustrating the foundation of the British Empire of to-day, the period
of revolution in industry and in politics and government, and the
growth of real democracy and social equality through the great reforms
of the nineteenth century. All forms of public and private record have
been drawn on for illustration, and it will be a poor teacher who
cannot make more vital and interesting any lesson in modern English
history by the aid of these illuminating and interesting selections. If
any criticism is to be made of the contents of the “Readings,” it is
of the sort that is sometimes made after too elaborate and substantial
a dinner--that we have been perhaps a little over-supplied with rich
and savory intellectual food by the efforts and industry of Professor
Cheyney.
How Teachers Can Best Use the “Readings.”
Teachers of English history in high schools and colleges can make most
effective use of the “Readings” by having a copy in the hands of each
pupil and requiring regular study of assignments in conjunction with
the text-book. In this way the “Readings” will furnish a library of
valuable illustrative material supplementary to the text-book and will
meet the problem of outside reading. The extracts have been so selected
and arranged that those for any given topic are not excessive in number
or length. If for any reason, however, it is not possible or advisable
to have each pupil own a copy of the book, a good plan would be to
have available in the school reference library a considerable number
of duplicate copies, which members of the class can study and consult.
The teacher will, of course, be thoroughly conversant with the material
in the “Readings” and can introduce it as a part of the recitation or
discussion. An interesting and important extract read aloud in class
is frequently of great value in giving life and meaning to the subject
matter. The least desirable way for any teacher to use the “Readings”
is that of restricting it to personal use alone, as many teachers are
prone to do in connection with source-books and other reference works.
In order to fulfil its proper function in education a book should reach
both teachers and students and be the basis for discussion in the class
room. A well-trained and efficient teacher is always anxious that the
members of the class shall have every opportunity for reading and study
outside of the text-book. We would, therefore, urge on all teachers
of English history the great desirability of introducing into general
class use this new and exceedingly valuable collection of source
readings.
[“Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources,”
intended to illustrate “A Short History of England,” by Edward Potts
Cheyney, Boston, New York, etc.: Ginn & Co. Pp. xxxvi, 781. $1.60.]
Reports from the Historical Field
WALTER H. CUSHING, Editor.
Associations of History Teachers.
An important result of the increased interest in history teaching
produced by the publication of the report of the Committee of Seven
was the formation of associations of history teachers. In addition
to various local and State groups, three associations, comprising
history teachers of different sections of the country, are doing
much to raise the standard of teaching in this subject: The North
Central History Teachers’ Association, the Association of History
Teachers of the Middle States, and the New England History Teachers’
Association. Besides these, there is the Nebraska Association, a
branch of the State Teachers’ Association, probably the oldest of the
history teachers’ organizations; the Mississippi Association of History
Teachers, organized last year as an auxiliary of the Mississippi
Historical Society; and the Missouri Society of Teachers of History
and Government. In California there is under way a movement to create
an association of history teachers, particularly of those engaged in
primary and secondary work, and some definite results are expected this
fall. In Washington it is proposed to establish a history teachers’
section of the Washington State Teachers’ Association at its next
annual session. The Nebraska association, to focus its work more
closely, is planning a separate and independent meeting for two days in
April.
Of strictly local associations the Boston History Council may be taken
as an example. This Council is made up of the heads of departments in
the various high schools of Boston, and discusses such questions as
changes in text-books, courses of study, fundamental aims and methods.
During the past year the question of introducing English history in the
first year of the high school has been discussed.
Work of the Associations.
Membership in these associations is almost indispensable to the best
work. Not only are the live questions of the classroom discussed,
but reports of greater length are presented by special or regular
committees; while not the least valuable benefit is that derived from
personal association with other workers in the field. The social side
of the meeting as found in informal receptions and luncheons is,
however, capable of much greater development, especially to the end of
reaching the new member.
The three sectional associations have effected an interchange of
publications whereby a member of one association receives without
additional expense the reports of the other two. Many of the articles
and discussions of these associations are of more than local or
temporary value. Space does not permit publication of a complete list,
but mention should be made of a few: Middle States, 1907, “The Study
of History,” Prof. W. M. Sloane; “Methods of Stimulating and Testing
the Work of History Students in College,” Prof. Eleanor L. Lord;
1908, “History and Geography,” Rt. Hon. James Bryce; “Correlation
of History with Other Subjects,” Sarah C. Brooks and others; North
Central Association, 1907, “Influence of the Foreign Population on the
Teaching of History and Civics,” Jane Addams and others; “Teaching
of American History in Schools and Colleges,” Prof. Edward Channing;
“Causes of Immigration During the Period 1830-1850,” Dr. W. V. Pooley;
“An Illustration of Research Methods in the Study of English
History,” Prof. N. M. Trenholme; 1908, “Results to be Obtained in the
College Study of American History,” Prof. W. M. West; “History and Its
Neighbors,” Prof. G. L. Burr; “Geography and American History,” Mr. W.
H. Campbell and Mr. H. R. Tucker. New England Association, 1907, “The
Fall of Rome,” Prof. J. H. Robinson; 1908, “Geography and History,”
Prof. G. L. Burr; “Are Modifications in the Report of the Committee of
Seven Desirable?” Blanche E. Hazard, chairman.
These associations meet annually in the spring, except the New England,
which also meets in October. Information regarding membership,
publications, and other details may be obtained from the secretaries:
Mr. G. H. Gaston, Wendell Phillips High School, Chicago, Ill. (North
Central); Professor Henry Johnson, Columbia University, New York
City (Middle States); Mr. W. H. Cushing, South Framingham, Mass.
(New England); Mr. H. M. Ivy, Jr., Flora, Miss. (Miss. Association);
Professor C. N. Anderson, Kearney, Neb. (President, Nebraska
Association).
Recent Meetings.
The eleventh annual meeting of the North Central History Teachers’
Association was held at the Reynolds Club, Chicago, on Friday and
Saturday, April 2 And 3, 1909. The Friday afternoon session was opened
by Professor Samuel B. Harding, of Indiana University, who read a paper
on “Some Concrete Problems in the Teaching of Medieval and Modern
History.” The discussion was opened by Professor George C. Sellery,
of the University of Wisconsin. In the evening a paper on “The Study
of the Present as an Aid in the Interpretation of the Past” was read
by Professor Edward A. Ross, of the University of Wisconsin, and
discussed by Dean A. W. Small, of the University of Chicago; Professor
Paul Shorey, of the University of Chicago, and Dean E. B. Greene, of
the University of Illinois. The session of Saturday was devoted to
the annual business meeting and to the presentation of the report on
the Annual Bibliography and the Report of the Committee of Eight.
Professor A. C. McLaughlin, of the University of Chicago, a member of
the Committee of Seven, read a paper on “What Changes Should be Made in
the Report of the Committee of Seven.”
The April meeting of the New England Association was held in the
rooms of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. The subject
for consideration was the “Syllabus for the Study of American
Civil Government in Secondary Schools.” A special committee of the
association has been at work for several years in the preparation of a
syllabus, which will be discussed in the next issue of this magazine.
At the last meeting of the Nebraska History Teachers’ Association a
committee was appointed to consider the question of American history in
the Grammar grades, with special reference to Nebraska history.
* * * * *
LEADING HISTORIES OF THE DAY
Robinson--Introduction to the History of Western Europe
By Professor James Harvey Robinson, of Columbia University. In a one
volume edition and a two volume edition.
Robinson--Readings in European History
Designed to supplement the “Introduction to the History of Western
Europe.” In a two volume edition and an abridged edition.
Robinson and Beard--The Development of Modern Europe
An introduction to the study of current history. By James Harvey
Robinson and Charles A. Beard, Adjunct Professor of Politics in
Columbia University.
_Volume I._ The Eighteenth Century: The French Revolution and the
Napoleonic Period.
_Volume II._ Europe since the Congress of Vienna.
Robinson and Beard--Readings in Modern European History
A collection of extracts from sources chosen with the purpose of
illustrating some of the chief phases of the development of Europe
during the last two hundred years. In two volumes arranged to
accompany those of “The Development of Modern Europe.”
Montgomery’s Histories
Clear, accurate, scholarly--Montgomery’s Histories to-day afford
up-to-date courses in history for practically every grade. Their
simple, narrative style has made them especially attractive to pupils
and teachers.
_Beginner’s American History._
_An Elementary American History._
_Leading facts of American History._
_Student’s American History._
_Leading facts of English History._
_Leading Facts of French History._
Myers’s Histories
Myers’s Histories are to-day, more than ever before, the standard
texts for the secondary schools of this country. They are used
in more than twice as many schools as any competing books in
corresponding subjects.
_Ancient History._ (Revised edition.)
_General History._ In a one volume edition and a two volume edition.
_Mediæval and Modern History._
GINN AND COMPANY have on their list of publications histories for
practically every course usually taught from the primary school to the
university. Correspondence with the nearest office in regard to any of
our books will be given prompt attention.
Ginn and Company, Publishers
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO LONDON ATLANTA DALLAS COLUMBUS SAN FRANCISCO
* * * * *
A New Book on American History
By PROF. H. W. CALDWELL Of the University of Nebraska
For a number of years we have published Professor Caldwell’s books,
“Survey of American History,” “Great American Legislators” and
“American Territorial Development,” which were originally issued in
the form of leaflets consisting practically of lectures delivered by
the author. In the making of the new book we propose to make it as
nearly perfect as possible, typographically and mechanically. It has
been decided to insert maps, the book being intended for advanced work
in high schools and for students taking a special course in American
History. It is proposed to divide the book into four chapters as
follows:
CHAPTER I.--The Making of Colonial America, 1492-1763