HISTORY.
"We have heard, O God, with our ears: our fathers have declared to us,
'The work thou hast wrought in their days, and in the days of
old.'"--Psalm XLIII.
"Thus independent of times and places, the Popes have never found any
difficulty, when the proper moment came, of following out a new and
daring line of policy (as their astonished foes have called it), of
leaving the old world to shift for itself and to disappear from the
scene in its due season, and of fastening on and establishing themselves
in the new.
"I am led to this line of thought by St. Gregory's behaviour to the
Anglo-Saxon race, on the break-up of the old civilisation."--Cardinal
Newman, "Historical Sketches," III, "A Characteristic of the Popes."
Of the so-called secular subjects history is the one which depends most
for its value upon the honour in which it is held and upon the
standpoint from which it is taught. Not that history can be truly a
secular subject if it is taught as a whole--isolated periods 01
subdivisions may be separated from the rest and studied in a purely
secular spirit, or with no spirit at all--for the animating principle is
not in the subdivided parts but in the whole, and only if it is taught
as a whole can it receive the honour which belongs to it as the "study
of kings," the school of experience and judgment, and one of the
greatest teachers of truth.
In modern times, since the fall of the Western Empire, European history
has centred, whether for love or for hatred, round the Church; and it is
thus that Catholic education comes to its own in this study, and the
Catholic mind is more at home among the phenomena and problems of
history than other minds for whom the ages of faith are only vaults of
superstition, or periods of mental servitude, or at best, ages of high
romance. Without the Church what are the ideals of the Crusades, of the
Holy Roman Empire, of the religious spirit of chivalry, or the struggle
concerning Investitures, the temporal power of the Popes and their
temporal sovereignty, the misery of the "Babylonian Captivity," the
development of the religious orders--in contemporary history--the Italian
question during the last fifty years, or the present position of the
Church in France? These are incomprehensible phenomena without the
Church to give the key to the controversies and meaning to the ideals.
Without knowing the Catholic Church from within, it is impossible to
conceive of all these things as realities affecting conscience and the
purpose and direction of life; their significance is lost if they have
to be explained as the mere human struggle for supremacy of persons or
classes, mere ecclesiastical disputes, or dreams of imperialism in
Church matters. Take away the Church and try to draw up a course of
lessons satisfactory to the minds even of girls under eighteen, and at
every turn a thoughtful question may be critical, and the explanations
in the hands of a non-Catholic teacher scarcely less futile than the
efforts of old Kaspar to satisfy "young Peterkin" about the battle of
Blenheim.
What about Investitures?
"Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for?"
What about Canossa?
"What they fought each other for,
I could not well make out.
But everybody said" quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory."
What about Mentana or Castel-Fidardo?
"What good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why that I cannot tell," said he,
"But 'twas a famous victory."
The difficulty is tacitly acknowledged by the rare appearance of
European history in the curriculum for non-Catholic girls' schools. But
in any school where the studies are set to meet the requirements of
examinations, the teaching of history is of necessity dethroned from the
place which belongs to it by right. History deserves a position that is
central and commanding, a scheme that is impressive when seen as a whole
in retrospect, it deserves to be taught from a point of view which has
not to be reconsidered in later years, and this is to be found with all
the stability possible, and with every facility for later extension in
the natural arrangement of all modern history round the history of the
Church.
During the great development which has taken place in the study of
history within the last century, and especially within the last fifty
years, the mass of materials has grown so enormous and the list of
authors of eminence so imposing that one might almost despair of
adapting the subject in any way to a child's world if it were not for
this central point of view, in which the Incarnation and the Church are
the controlling facts dominating all others and giving them their due
place and proportion. On this commanding point of observation the child
and the historian may stand side by side, each seeing truth according to
their capacity, and if the child should grow into a historian it would
be with an unbroken development--there would not be anything to unlearn.
The method of "concentric" teaching against which there is so much to be
said when applied to national history or to other branches of teaching
is entirely appropriate here, because no wider vision of the world can
be attained than from the point whence the Church views it, in her
warfare to make the kingdoms of the world become the kingdom of God and
His Christ that He may reign for ever and ever. The Church beholds the
_rational_ not the _sensible_ horizon of history, and standing at her
point of view, the great ones and the little ones of the earth,
historians and children, can look at the same heavens, one with the
scientific instruments of his observatory, the other with the naked eye
of a child's faith and understanding.
But the teaching of history as it has been carried on for some years,
would have to travel a long way to arrive at this central point of view.
As an educational subject a great deal has been done to destroy its
value, by what was intended to give it assistance and stimulus. The
history syllabus and requirements for University Local and other
examinations have produced specially adapted text-books, in which facts
and summaries have been arranged in order with wonderful care and
forethought, to "meet all requirements"; but the kind intention with
which every possible need has been foreseen between the covers of one
text-book has defeated its own purpose, the living thing is no longer
there--its skeleton remains, and after handling the dry bones and putting
them in order and giving an account of them to the examining body, the
children escape with relief to something more real, to the people of
fiction who, however impossible to believe in, are at least flesh and
blood, and have some points of contact with their own lives. "Of course
as we go up for examinations here," wrote a child from a new school, "we
only learn the summaries and genealogies of history and other subjects."
A sidelight on the fruit of such a plan is often cast in the
appreciations of its pupils. "Did you like history?" "No I hated it, I
can't bear names and dates." "What did you think of so and so?" "He
wasn't in my period." So history has become names and dates, genealogies
and summaries, hard pebbles instead of bread. It is unfair to children
thus to prejudice them against a subject which thrills with human
interest, and touches human life at every turn, it is unfair to history
to present it thus, it is misleading to give development to a particular
period without any general scheme against which it may show in due
proportion, as misleading as the old picture-books for children in which
the bat on one page and the man on the other were of the same size.
There must necessarily be a principle of selection, but one of the
elements to be considered in making choice ought always to be that of
proportion and of fitness in adaptation to a general scheme. It was
pointed out by Sir Joshua Fitch in his "Lessons on Teaching" (an
old-fashioned book now, since it was published before the deluge of
"Pedagogics," but still valuable) that an ideal plan of teaching history
to children might be found in the historical books of Holy Scripture,
and in practice the idea is useful, suggesting that one aim should be
kept in view, that at times the guiding line should contract to a mere
clue of direction, and at others expand into very full and vivid
narrative chiefly in biographical form. The principle may be applied in
the teaching of any history that may be given to children, that is to
say, in general, to Sacred history which has its own place in connexion
with religious teaching, to ancient history within very small limits, to
Greek and Roman history in such proportion as the years of education may
allow, and to the two most prominent and most necessary for children,
the history of their own country and that of modern Europe directed
along the lines of the history of the Church.
There are periods and degrees of development in the minds of children to
which correspond different manners of teaching and even different
objects, as we make appeal to one or other of the growing faculties. The
first stage is imaginative, the second calls not only upon the
imagination and memory but upon the understanding, and the third, which
is the beginning of a period of fruition, begins to exercise the
judgment, and to give some ideas concerning principles of research and
criticism.
The first is the period of romance, when by means of the best myths of
many nations, from their heroic legends and later stories, the minds of
children are turned to what is high and beautiful in the traditions of
the past, and they learn those truths concerning human life and destiny
which transcend the more limited truths of literal records of fact. In
the beginning they are, to children, only stories, but we know ourselves
that we can never exhaust the value of what came to us through the story
of the wanderings of Ulysses, or the mysterious beauty of the Northern
and Western myths, as the story of Balder or the children of Lir. The
art of telling stories is beginning to be taught with wonderful power
and beauty, the storyteller is turning into the pioneer of the
historian, coming in advance to occupy the land, so that history may
have "staked out a claim" before the examining bodies can arrive, in the
dry season, to tread down the young growth.
The second period makes appeal to the intelligence, as well as to the
imagination, and to this stage belongs particularly the study of the
national history, the history of their own race and country; for English
girls the history of England, not yet constitutional history, but the
history of the Constitution with that of the kings and people, and
further the history of the Empire. To this period of education belong
the great lessons of loyalty and patriotism, that piety towards our own
country which is so much on the decline as the home tie grows feebler.
We do not want to teach the narrow patriotism which only finds
expression in antagonism to and disparagement of other countries, but
that which is shown by self-denial and self-sacrifice for the good of
our own. The time to teach it is in that unsettled "middle age" of
childhood when its exuberant feeling is in search of an ideal, when
large moral effects can be appreciated, when there is some opening
understanding of the value of character.
If the first period of childhood delights in what is strange, this
second period gives its allegiance to what is strong, by preference to
primitive and simple strength, to uncomplex aims and marked characters;
it appreciates courage and endurance, and can bear to hear of sufferings
which daunt the fastidiousness of those who are a few years older;
perhaps it can endure so much because it realizes so little, but the
fact remains true. This age exults in the sufferings of the martyrs and
cannot bear the suggestion that plain duties may be heroic before God.
There is a great deal that may be done for minds in this period of
development by the teaching of history if it is not crippled in its
programme. To make concrete their ideals of greatness in the right
personalities--a work which is as easily spoiled by a word out of season
as a fine porcelain vase is cracked in a furnace--to direct their ideas
of the aims of life towards worthy and unselfish ends, to foster true
loyalty because of God from whom all authority comes--and this lesson has
its pathetic poignancy for us in the history of our English martyrs--to
show the claims that our country has upon the devotion of its sons and
daughters, and to inspire some feeling of responsibility for its honour,
especially to show the supreme worth of character and self-sacrifice,
all these things may and must be taught in this middle period of
children's education if they are to have any strong hold upon them in
after life. It is a stubborn age in which teaching has to be on strong
lines and deep ones; when the evolution of character is in the critical
period that is to make or mar its future, it needs a strong hand over
it, with power both to control and to support, a strong mind to command
its respect, strong convictions to impress it, and strong principles on
which to test its own young strength; and all those who have the
privilege of teaching history to children of this age have an
incomparable opportunity of training mind and character. The strength of
our own convictions, the brightness of our own ideals, the fibre of our
patriotism and loyalty will tell in the measure of two endowments, our
own spirit of self-sacrifice and our tact. Children will detect the
least false note if self-sacrifice is preached without experimental
knowledge; and as it is the most contradictory of all ages, it takes
every resource of tact to pilot it through channels for which there is
no chart. The masterpieces of educators are wrought in this difficult
but most interesting material.
Those who come after them will see what they have done, they cannot see
it themselves. With less difficulty perhaps, because reason is more
developed and the hot-headed and irritable phase of character is passing
away, they will be able to apply the principles which have been laid
down. With less difficulty, that is to say against less resistance, but
not with less responsibility or even with less anxiety. For the nearer
the work approaches to its completion and the more perfectly it has been
begun, the more deeply must anyone approaching to lay hand upon it feel
the need for great reverence, and self-restraint, and patience, and
vigilance, not to spoil by careless interference that which is ready to
receive and to give all that is best in youth, not to be unworthy of the
confidence which a young mind is willing to place in its guidance.
For although so much stress is laid upon the impressionability of first
childhood and the ineffaceable marks that are engraven on it, yet as to
all that belongs to the mind and judgment this third period, in the
early years of adolescence, is more sensitive still, because real
criticism is just beginning to be possible and appreciation is in its
spring-tide, now for the first time fully alive and awake. A transition
line has been passed, and the study of history, like everything else,
enters upon a new phase. The elementary teaching which has been
sufficient up to this, which has in fact been the only possible
teaching, must widen out in the third period, and the relative
importance of aims is the line on which the change to more advanced
teaching is felt.
The exercise of judgment becomes the chief object, and to direct this
aright is the principal duty of those who teach at this age. It is not
easy to give a right discernment and true views. To begin with one must
have them oneself, and be able to support them with facts and arguments,
they must have the weight of patient work behind them, and have settled
themselves deeply in the mind; opinions freshly gathered that very day
from an article or an essay are attractive and interesting and they
appeal very strongly to young minds looking out for theories and clues,
but they only give superficial help; in general, essay-writers and
journalists do not expect to be taken too seriously, they intend to be
suggestive rather than convincing, and it is a great matter to have the
principle understood by girls, that it is not to the journalists that
they must look for the last word in a controversy, nor for a permanent
presentment of contemporary history. Again, it is necessary to remember
the waywardness of girls' minds, and that it is conviction, not
submission of views that we must aim at. A show of authority is out of
place, the tone that "you must think as I do," tends without any bad
will on the part of children to exasperate them and rouse the spirit of
opposition, whereas a patient and even deferential hearing of their
views and admission of their difficulties ensures at least a mind free
from irritation and impatience, to listen and to take into account what
we have to say. They are not to be blamed for having difficulties in
accepting what we put before them; on the contrary we must welcome their
independent thought even if it seems aggressive and conceited; their
positive assurance that they see to the end of things is characteristic
of their age, but it is better that they should show themselves thus,
than through want of thought or courage fall in with everything that is
set before them, or, worse still, take that pose of impartiality which
allows no views at all, and in the end obliterates the line between
right and wrong. The too submissive minds which give no trouble now, are
laying it all up for the future. They accept what we tell them without
opposition, others will come later on, telling them something different,
and they will accept it in the same way, and correct their views day by
day to the readings of the daily paper, or of the _vogue_ of their own
particular set. These are the minds which in the end are absorbed by the
world: the Church receives neither love nor service from them.
Judgment may be passed upon actions as right or wrong in themselves, or
as practically adapting means to end; the first is of great interest
even to young children, but for them it is all black or white, and
characters are to them entirely good or entirely bad, deserving of
unmixed admiration or of their most excellent hatred, which they pour
out simply and vehemently, rejoicing without qualms of pity when
punishment overtakes the wrongdoer and retributive justice is done to
the wicked. This is perhaps what makes them seem bloodthirsty in their
vengeance; they feel that so it ought to be, and that the affirmation of
principle is of more account than the individual. They detest
half-measures and compromise. For the elder girls it is not so simple,
and the nearer they come to our own times the more necessary is it to
put before them that good is not always unaccompanied by evil nor evil
by good.
In the last two or three years of a girl's education all the time that
can be spared may be most profitably spent on the study of modern
history, since it is there that the more complex problems are found, and
there also that they will understand how contemporary questions have
their springs in the past, and see the rise of the forces which are at
work now, disintegrating the nations of Europe and shaking the
foundations of every government. There are grave lessons to be learnt,
not in gloomy or threatening forecasts but in showing the direction of
cause and effect and the renewal of the same struggle which has been
from the beginning, in ever fresh phases. The outcome of historical
teaching to Catholics can never be discouragement or depression,
whatever the forecast. The past gives confidence, and, when the glories
of bygone ages are weighed against their troubles, and the Church's
troubles now against her inward strength and her new horizons of hope,
there is great reason for gratitude that we live in our own much-abused
time. In every age the Church has, with her roots in the past, some buds
and blossoms in the present and some fruit coming on for the future.
Hailstorms may cut off both blossoms and fruit, but all will not be
lost. We can always hold up our heads; there are buds on the fig-tree
and we know in whom we have believed.
In bringing home to children these grounds for thankfulness, the quality
of one's own mind and views tells very strongly, and this leads to the
consideration of what is chiefly required in teaching history to
children, and to girls growing up. The first and most essential point is
that we ourselves should care about what we teach, not that we should
merely like history as a school subject, but that it should be real to
us, that we should feel something about it, joy or triumph or
indignation, things which are not found in text-books, and we should
believe that it all matters very much to the children and to ourselves.
Lessons of the text-book type, facts, dates, summaries, and synopses
matter very little to children, but people are of great importance, and
if they grasp what often they only half believe, that what they are
repeating as a mere lesson really took place among people who saw and
felt it as vividly as they would themselves, then their sympathies and
understanding are carried beyond the bounds of their school-rooms and
respond to the touch of the great doings and sufferings of the race.
It is above all in the history of the Church that this sympathetic
understanding becomes real. The interest of olden times in secular
history is more dramatic and picturesque than real to children; but in
the history of the Church and especially of the personalities of the
popes the continuity of her life is very keenly felt; the popes are all
of to-day, they transcend the boundaries of their times because in a
number of ways they did and had to do and bear the very same things that
are done and have to be borne by the popes of our own day. If we give to
girls some vivid realization, say, of the troubled Pontificate of
Boniface VIII, with the violence and tragedy and pathos in which it
ended, after the dust and jarring and weariness of battle in which it
was spent; if they have entered into something of the anguish of Pius
VII, they will more fully understand and feel deeper love and sympathy
for the living, suffering successor now in the same chair, in another
phase of the same conflict, with the Gentiles and peoples of the rising
democracies taking counsel together against him, as kings and rulers did
in the past, all imagining the same "vain thing," that they can overcome
Christ and His Vicar.
Besides this living sympathy with what we teach, we must be able to
speak truth without being afraid of its consequences. There was at one
time a fear in the minds of Catholic teachers that by admitting that any
of the popes had been unworthy of their charge, or that there had ever
been abuses which called for reforms among clergy and religious and
Catholic laity, they would be giving away the case for the Church and
imperilling the faith and loyalty of children; that it was better they
should only hear these things later, with the hope that they would never
hear them at all. The real peril is in the course thus adopted.
Surrounded as we are by non-Catholics, and in a time when no Catholic
escapes from questions and attacks, open or covert, upon what we
believe, the greatest injustice to the girls themselves, and to the
honour of the faith, was to send them out unarmed against what they must
necessarily meet. The first challenge would be met with a flat denial of
facts, loyal-heartedly and confidently given; then would come a
suspicion that there might be something in it, the inquiry which would
show that this was really the case; then a certain right indignation,
"Why was I not told the truth?" and a sense of insecurity vaguely
disturbing the foundations which ought to be on immovable bed-rock. At
the best, such an experience produces what builders call a "settlement,"
not dangerous to the fabric but unsightly in its consequences; it may,
however, go much further, first to shake and then to loosen the whole
spiritual building by the insinuation of doubt everywhere. It is
impossible to forewarn children against all the charges which they may
hear against the Church, but two points well established in their minds
will give them confidence.
1. That the evidence which is brought to light year after year from
access to State papers and documents tells on the side of the Church, as
we say in England, of "the old religion," and not against it. Books by
non-Catholics are more convincing than others in this matter, since they
are free from the suspicion of partisanship; for instance, Gairdner's
"Lollardy and the Reformation" which disposes of many mythical monsters
of Protestant history.
2. That even if the facts were still more authentic to justify personal
attacks on some of the popes, even if the abuses in the Church had not
been grossly exaggerated, even putting facts at their worst, granting
all that is assumed, it tends to strengthen faith rather than to
undermine it, for the existence of the Church and the Papacy as they are
to-day is a wonder only enhanced by every proof that it ought to have
perished long ago according to all human probability. With that
confidence and assurance even our little girls may hold their heads
high, with their faith and trust in the Church quite unabashed, and wait
for an answer if they cannot give it to others or to themselves at the
moment. "We have no occasion to answer thee concerning this matter,"
said the three holy children to Nabuchodonosor, and so may our own
children say if they are hard pressed, "your charges do but confirm our
faith, we have no occasion to answer."
It is impossible to leave so great a subject as history without saying a
word on the manner of teaching it (for in this a manner is needed rather
than a method), when it is emancipated from the fetters of prescribed
periods and programmes which attach it entirely to text-books.
Text-books are not useless but they are very hard to find, and many
Catholic text-books, much to be desired, are still unwritten, especially
in England. America has made more effort in this direction than we. But
the strength of historical teaching for children and girls at school
lies in oral lessons, and of these it would seem that the most effective
form is not the conversational lesson which is so valuable in other
subjects, nor the formal lesson with "steps," but the form of a story
for little ones; for older children the narrative leading up to a point
of view, with conversational intervals, and encouragement for thoughtful
questions, especially at the end of the lesson; and in the last years an
informal kind of lecture, a transition from school-room methods to the
style of formal lectures which maybe attended later.
Lessons in history are often spoiled by futile questions put in as it
were for conscience' sake, to satisfy the obligation of questioning, or
to rouse the flagging attention of a child, but this is too great a
sacrifice. It is artistically a fault to jar the whole movement of a
good narrative for the sake of running after one truant mind. It is also
artistically wrong and jarring to go abruptly from the climax of a
story, or narrative, or lecture which has stirred some deep thought or
emotion, and call with a sudden change of tone for recapitulation, or
summary, or discussion. Silence is best; the greater lessons of history
ought to transcend the limits of mere lessons, they are part of life,
and they tell more upon the mind if they are dissociated from the
harness and trappings of school work. Written papers for younger
students and essays for seniors are the best means of calling for their
results, and of guiding the line of reading by which all oral teaching
of history and study of text-books must be supplemented.
When school-room education is finished what we may look for is that
girls should be ready and inclined to take up some further study of
history, by private reading or following lectures with intelligence, and
that they should be able to express themselves clearly in writing,
either in the form of notes, papers, or essays, so as to give an account
of their work and their opinions to those who may direct these later
studies. We may hope that what they have learned of European history
will enable them to travel with understanding and appreciation, that
places with a history will mean something to them, and that the great
impression of a living past may set a deep mark upon them with its
discipline of proportion that makes them personally so small and yet so
great, small in proportion to all that has been, great in their
inheritance from the whole past and in expectation of all that is yet to
be.