The curriculum makers for elementary education do not seem to have
placed a high valuation upon history. Apparently it has not been
considered an essential study of high worth, like reading, writing,
spelling, grammar, and arithmetic. To history are allotted but
290 hours in Cleveland, as against 496 hours in the average of 50
progressive American cities. This discrepancy should give the city
pause and concern. If a mistake is being made, it is more likely to
be on the part of an individual city than upon that of 50 cities.
The probability is that Cleveland is giving too little time to this
subject.
TABLE 8.--TIME GIVEN TO HISTORY
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| Hours per year | Per cent of grade time|
Grade |-----------------------------------------------
| Cleveland | 50 cities| Cleveland | 50 cities |
-----------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0 | 27 | 0.0 | 3.1 |
2 | 0 | 31 | 0.0 | 3.4 |
3 | 19 | 35 | 2.1 | 3.8 |
4 | 25 | 57 | 2.9 | 5.8 |
5 | 25 | 67 | 2.9 | 6.9 |
6 | 51 | 71 | 5.7 | 7.3 |
7 | 85 | 91 | 9.7 | 9.2 |
8 | 85 | 117 | 9.7 | 11.6 |
===========================================================
Total | 290 | 496 | 4.2 | 6.5 |
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The treatment in the course of study manual indicates that it is a
neglected subject. Of the 108 pages, it receives an aggregate of less
than two. The perfunctory assignment of work for the seventh grade is
typical:
"UNITED STATES HISTORY
"B Assignment.
Mace's History, pp. 1-124 inclusive.
Questions and suggested collateral reading
found in Appendix may be used as teacher directs.
"A Assignment.
Mace's History, pp. 125-197.
Make use of questions and suggested collateral
reading at your own option."
For fifth and sixth grades there is assigned a small history text
of 200 pages for one or two lessons per week. The two years of the
seventh and eighth grades are devoted to the mastery of about 500
pages of text. While there is incidental reference to collateral
reading, as a matter of fact the schools are not supplied with the
necessary materials for this collateral reading in the grammar
grades. The true character of the work is really indicated by the last
sentence of the eighth-grade history assignment: "The text of our book
should be thoroughly mastered."
In discussing the situation, the first thing to which we must call
attention is the great value of history for an understanding of the
multitude of complicated social problems met with by all people in a
democracy. In a country where all people are the rulers, all need a
good understanding of the social, political, economic, industrial, and
other problems with which we are continually confronted. It is true
the thing needed is an understanding of present conditions, but there
is no better key to a right understanding of our present conditions
than history furnishes. One comes to understand a present situation by
observing how it has come to be. History is one of the most important
methods of social analysis.
The history should be so taught that it will have a demonstrably
practical purpose. In drawing up courses of study in the subject for
the grammar grades and the high school, the first task should be an
analysis of present-day social conditions, the proper understanding of
which requires historical background. Once having discovered the list
of social topics, it is possible to find historical readings which
will show how present conditions have grown up out of earlier ones.
Looked at from a practical point of view, the history should be
developed on the basis of topics, a great abundance of reading being
provided for each of the topics. We have in mind such topics as the
following:
Sociological Aspects of War
Territorial Expansion
Race Problems
Tariff and Free Trade
Transportation
Money Systems
Our Insular Possessions
Growth of Population
Trusts
Banks and Banking
Immigration
Capital and Labor
Education
Inventions
Suffrage
Centralization of Government
Strikes and Lockouts
Panics and Business Depressions
Commerce
Taxation
Manufacturing
Labor Unions
Foreign Commerce
Agriculture
Postal Service
Army
Government Control of Corporations
Municipal Government
Navy
Factory Labor
Wages
Courts of Law
Charities
Crime
Fire Protection
Roads and Road Transportation
Newspapers and Magazines
National Defense
Conservation of Natural Resources
Liquor Problems
Parks and Playgrounds
Housing Conditions
Mining
Health, Sanitation, etc.
Pensions
Unemployment
Child Labor
Women in Industry
Cost of Living
Pure Food Control
Savings Banks
Water Supply of Cities
Prisons
Recreations and Amusements
Co-operative Buying and Selling
Insurance
Hospitals
After drawing up such lists of topics for study, they should be
assigned to grammar grades and high school according to the degree
of maturity necessary for their comprehension. Naturally as much as
possible should be covered in the grammar grades. Such as cannot be
covered there should be covered as early as practicable in the high
school, since so large a number of students drop out, and all need
the work. Of course, this would involve a radical revision of the high
school courses in history. It is not here recommended that any such
changes be attempted abruptly. There are too many other conditions
that require readjustment at the same time. It must all be a gradual
growth.
Naturally, students must have some familiarity with the general
time relations of history and the general chronological movements
of affairs before they can understand the more or less specialized
treatment of individual topics. Preliminary studies are therefore both
necessary and desirable in the intermediate and grammar grades for the
purpose of giving the general background. During these grades a great
wealth of historical materials should be stored up. Pupils should
acquire much familiarity with the history of the ancient oriental
nations, Judea, Greece, Rome, the states of modern Europe and America.
The purpose should be to give a general, and in the beginning a
relatively superficial, overview of the world's history for the
sake of perspective. The reading should be biographical, anecdotal,
thrilling dramas of human achievement, rich with human interest.
It should be at every stage of the work on the level with the
understanding and degree of maturity of the pupils, so that much
reading can be covered rapidly. Given the proper conditions--chiefly
an abundance of the proper books supplied in sets large enough for
classes--pupils can cover a large amount of ground, obtain a wealth
of historical experience, and acquire a great quantity of useful
information, the main outlines of which are remembered without much
difficulty. They can in this manner lay a broad historical foundation
for the study of the social topics that should begin by the seventh
grade and continue throughout the high school.
The textbooks of the present type can be employed as a part of this
preliminary training. Read in their entirety and read rapidly, they
give one that perspective which comes from a comprehensive view of the
entire field. But they are too brief, abstract, and barren to afford
valuable concrete historical experience. They are excellent reference
books for gaining and keeping historical perspective.
Reading of the character that we have here called preliminary should
not cease as the other historical studies are taken up. The general
studies should certainly continue for some portion of the time through
the grammar grades and high school, but it probably should be mainly
supervised reading of interesting materials rather than recitation and
examination work.
We would recommend that the high schools give careful attention to the
recommendation of the National Education Association Committee on the
Reorganization of the Secondary Course of Study in History.