Various

“ The teacher of history in secondary school or college has a better opportunity to influence the community in which he lives than the teacher of almost any other subject; and if to history it be his or her lot to add economics and government as well, the field of influence should be correspondingly widened. Mathematics, formal English, exact science, the foreign languages, one and all, must give way in human interest to that of biography and history. At the beck and call of the historian there are all our records of what man has thought and said and done. ”

“ The pupil goes from the grades, high school and college into life to take his part as a workman some eight hours of the day and as a citizen all twenty-four; as an active, creative worker through the prime of his life, and as a member of society to his grave. The parents and the people out in life ask the question of the practical value, and they answer it from the standpoint of life and social efficiency. Does history stand the test?
From this point of view the specialist fails; the storehouse of facts is static, efficiency is active; the method of facts results only in another static fact. ”

“ Studying is a step beyond reading; Virgil and Beatrice are here dismissed. It explores some field of interest and follows some thread; it reads pages and chapters and not volumes or series. The books may be stories, texts or documents—the story must be pieced together from many sources. In reading, the books lead the reader; in studying, the student leads the books. It is the transitory inquisitiveness of the child become somewhat constant in the later grades and high school, and fixed in the university in the professional study of “ut clauses.” ”

“ The specialist is interested in history for its own sake; to him the element of history is the fact; the tradition of the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries has forced him to select his facts in the fields of politics, war and diplomacy; the method he uses is rather a one-sided use of the natural-scientific method. He is interested in the facts for their own sake: he is often too little interested in their value, importance and inter-relations. ”

“ There is no universal military service as in Germany and France to teach by hard experience the duty and the need of patriotism; the tradition of unpaid public work so strong in England is not known in the United States. The teaching of history and of patriotism through history is the one force which America has in her schools and colleges to stimulate and train the sense of civic duty. ”

“ It is not enough to have patriotic songs sung. It is a fine thing to have the flag flying and to have it continuously before the youthful mind as a symbol of this great independent nation, of the land of the free and the home of the brave. But as a distinguished man once said, it is a very doubtful advantage to generate emotion which has no practical use, and the emotions of patriotism ought to be stimulated with regard to certain important and practical ends. Study of civics, the knowledge of the actual operation of our government is most important. ”

“ Professor Fay says that the sources should not be in the hands of the pupils, “being unsuited to their mental capacity.” I have used them with first year and with fourth year pupils, and in all periods of history. The use of them requires more work by the teacher. They should generally be accompanied by questions or topics; or they can profitably be made a source of class study. What an excellent opportunity of teaching the pupils how to study,—a thing in which but few high school students are entirely proficient. ”

“ The specialist and his pupils can easily stand off from and out of present, active life like men from Mars. Tolerance, then, is desirable in the consideration of questions, and of the activities acknowledged by society; for tolerance, like liberty, does not mean license. Again, history has a practical value in connecting the present almost as intimately with the past as hope does the present with the future. ”

“ The history work must be adapted to the life needs of the pupils as members of society: those facts, those generalizations, and especially those processes of reaching from one to the other, that can make him an efficient member of society. Isolated facts will be soon forgotten, generalizations will perhaps stick longer, but methods of generalization can be used throughout life on new facts to reach new generalizations.
What are some of the things in life and society for which history may be used,—the ends to which it may be adapted in study and teaching? ”

“ But what man who is a reformer does have his whole scheme adopted? Professor Fling did certainly arouse history teachers from their lethargy and from the “one-book” method of teaching; at least, he contributed in no small part to this result.
I can find nothing in Professor Fling’s article at variance with modern educational thought. It does not argue, I take it, that we shall make trained historical scholars out of our high school pupils; but it does argue—and rightly so, it seems to me—that we give them a glimpse of the material out of which history is written. ”

“ Governor Hughes is quite right in emphasizing “the importance of giving our teachers and of having them communicate to their pupils the proper sense of responsibility of citizenship in this country.” That sense of responsibility will hardly be strong and effective if it is to come from purely academic study of government. It will be powerful and helpful if it comes from an earnest and sympathetic study of government in operation, a study of what the government is actually doing for the student, what it ought to do and what he himself can do to improve it. ”

“ One cannot but conclude that to a half-conscious conviction of this truth is due the system, the earnestness, the concentration, and the excellence that America achieves in the teaching of history throughout every grade of her education. ”

“ It would be a matter for surprise, however, if our civics teaching was at present all that it ought to be. It is a new thing in the curriculum. Both its content and its proper presentation must be worked out by experiment. It can only be well handled by teachers with a keen love for the subject, a genuine appreciation of its value and some taste for first hand investigation. Supervisory officers must give it cordial support and helpful direction.
For the immediate future we must look to the high schools, I think, to show the most marked development in the study of municipal activities. ”

“ Americans would probably say that their students are quick enough and earnest enough to make progress without this careful exposition and without this atmosphere of interest and intellectual stimulus, and there is probably some truth in the reply. Our pupils too often do not want to work, and their minds do move more slowly. We have been obliged to find ways of making class-work attractive, either by intellectual stimulus and interest, or by rewards and punishments, since we have not that strong outside belief in education which makes the task of the American teacher much more easy. ”

“ The year devoted to the Middle Ages bridges the gap between their ancient and modern studies, and not only gives a feeling of historical continuity, but by showing the remote origin of modern institutions and culture it deepens the sense of indebtedness to the past and furnishes something of the background so much needed in our American life. ”

“ The mere study of the text-book, we have found, leaves the pupils hopelessly confused and bewildered. As the result of a number of years of experience we have come to believe that it pays, at the beginning, before one attempts to say a word about Washington’s Proclamation of Neutrality, about the principles involved in the struggles with France and England, about the treaties with Spain and the purchase of Louisiana, to devote at least one or two lessons to a careful analysis of all the elements involved in our relations with foreign nations. ”

“ So we, too, with all our science, with our increase of material knowledge and our joyless running to and fro may sink into an ugly, tame, joyless conglomeration of societies, for whom new discoveries supply hosts of new conveniences, but no return to the happiness and contentment of a simpler age.... ”

“ On the whole, it is fortunate that a text-book is hardly possible except as a supplementary aid, for there is grave danger that a study of municipal activities based upon a text-book would take too much of an academic character and interfere with or minimize the first-hand observation and investigation on the part of both pupil and teacher, which are of primary importance in realizing the aims of the work. ”

“ New York City has had a Board of Estimate and Apportionment in control of its finances for a decade, yet it remained for the recent three-cornered fight for the mayoralty, with its resulting choice of a Democratic mayor and a Fusion Board of Estimate, to bring home to the average citizen what the professional politician had long understood, that this Board have really much more to do with the government of the city than the mayor, that in reality New York has a sort of government by commission. ”

“ Then when the schools came to be graded, a number of pupils at about the same stage could recite together out of the book, and so the recitation method developed, evolved by the American genius for invention to fit the necessities of the position. Among these conditions was the absence of a body of experienced and skilled teachers; much of the work was done by all sorts of people, many with very scanty qualifications, who would ‘teach school’ for a few months to earn enough to go on with some other occupation. Such people could not be in the true sense of the word teachers ”

“ Wars are often presented in so cursory a fashion as to convey little idea of their real character and significance. They become little less than dry summaries of causes and effects and are stripped altogether of that personal element which is so necessary to the attainment of the best results in history teaching. The possibility of utilizing these struggles as a correlating element has usually been farthest from the thought of the teacher, or at best been but imperfectly realized. ”

“ He can learn to apply with due modification to present problems not the answers of the past to past problems, but the ways of solving those problems. Material and social environments exist now as they existed in the days of the Greeks; hunger and socialization, love and ambition, the desire to know and to feel, are as effective now as in the days of Socrates. The combination and the emphasis change. The past cannot answer the problem of the present, but can help him to answer it. Again, history can help him to be tolerant, since our day demands tolerance. ”

“ Let me repeat at this point that it is of the utmost importance in all our history work that we shall emphasize essentials and omit entirely the discussion of intricate points which, while of some constitutional importance, and frequently of great interest to the mature student, can only work harm if introduced into the work of the grades. It is in accordance with this principle that I would advocate reducing to a minimum any discussion of the contest which occurred in Congress over the question of the Missouri constitution. ”

“ The English struggle can be discussed along much the same lines as the wars in France and Germany. More time should perhaps be given to pointing out the effects of the Renaissance on England and the great intellectual, economic, social, and religious changes which had come to pass in the time of the Tudors. Their reigns mark the great period in English history. The dominant characteristic of English development, the growth of liberty, which had often placed England in sharp contrast with the continent was never more prominently displayed than during the period under consideration. ”

“ The ratification of the Constitution of the United States marks the end of one period of American history and the beginning of another. At that point the teacher should pause and gather up with his class all the threads which he has thus far been following. The problems henceforth to be presented are those of a well-established, entirely independent nation. ”

“ He has performed a great service in the nineteenth century in correcting old facts and in finding new ones. But now he has such mountains of facts that he is overawed by their mass, and long practice in his method prevents him from using them. So a great Harvard professor is reported as saying, “Keep on piling up facts, their weight will squeeze out some kind of order.” In his attempt to be scientific the specialist has used only one side of the scientist’s method; he has forgotten that the scientist works not only with matter, but with the activities and relations of matter. ”

“ Value is the quality that makes something suitable for ends or purposes. It permits the wildest limit of “art for art’s sake”; and equally permits one part of the “art” to be suitable to the ends and purposes of another part or of another “art.” Practical value, then, is the quality that renders a thing useful or desirable in meeting ends. ”

“ The atomic theory, the unity of the universe, the oneness of God, the eternal sanctions of the right, the high behests of the moral law, were all worked out over two thousand years ago.
“If the time should ever come when men will no longer be led by revelation, when they will reject miracle and prophecy, and determine to be led by the mere light of reason ... ”

“ In those old days the members of the Latin professions were the bearers of the highest culture; but now with our ideas of democracy and opportunity, and the general diffusion of knowledge, these members are but a small fraction of the bearers of the highest culture. The school system has grown from the school of the professions into the school of the people; but do the schools prepare for the people as the older schools prepared for the professions? ”

“ In many ways the history teacher may influence the community. He may advise and co-operate with the local librarians in the purchase and loan of books; he may give public lectures upon historical topics; he may write historical articles for papers or for publication in book form; he may found or join societies for the study of local history; he may use means to keep alive the local interest in history. These activities will win respect for the teacher and the subject, and develop in our American communities a similar respect for local history and tradition. ”

“ Writing is justly the work of the professional, i. e., the graduate school; yet if history ever becomes a science it is not at all impossible that living may not usurp this position in graduate work. Teaching, in this state, is also the work of the graduate school and the last years of the college. This leaves, then, reading, studying and living that touch the history work from the grades to the college ”

“ Twenty-five or thirty years ago the small amount of history taught in American colleges came in the junior or senior year, and was not organized into any regular curriculum. With the recent development of historical courses, however, the teaching of history has worked down into the sophomore and often into the freshman year, so that the teacher of the first course in history is not only charged with introducing students to college work in history, but must also take his share of the task of introducing them to college work in general. ”

“ The one central idea which the student should grasp as a result of his study of the period—an idea which is decidedly within the range of his comprehension and appreciation—is that religion, which had long been a dominant factor in European politics, now lost its power to sway the political destinies of thrones and empires. ”

“ The conditions of teaching are more favorable and the teaching force better qualified to meet the problem. History and economics are both more generally taught and certainly much better taught than they were a decade ago, and it will not be difficult, I think, to interest instructors in these subjects in the new field of municipal government. Of prime importance is the place of the new study in the curriculum. The general custom hitherto has been to postpone all teaching of civics in secondary schools until the fourth year, when American history is taken up. ”

“ The basis on which all these rest is life itself, and the interest one takes in life. Since one is here in this world he is interested in it, to get as much out of and put as much into it as he can; if he has no interest he at least exerts himself either to be a parasite or to shuffle off its weight. This interest is the starting point of the interest in the past of this life; the basis of the ascending scale from reading onward. ”

“ It is plainly the business of the schools to use their extraordinary opportunity and extraordinary power to equip the voters of to-morrow with a training in these vital affairs of government that shall make them intelligent critics of what their servants in office have done or what claimants for their ballots propose to do. ”

“ It is found that the proper use and appreciation of sources is one of the hardest things for beginners to learn, and careful and explicit teaching is required both at the lectures and at the meetings of the sections. Each student is required to provide himself with two or three texts, a source book, and an historical atlas, and many buy a number of the other books used in the course. The books in which the reading is assigned are kept in a special reading-room, where the supply is sufficient to provide one copy of each for every ten men in the course. ”

“ I have spoken at length of this work for the reason that in this state there is required of all high school teachers a year of graduate work in some university of the American Association. The specialist’s method received there is all too often taken, without adaptation into the high school and occasionally even into the grades. So “art for art’s sake” is perpetuated. The boy is prepared for carrying on research when he expects to carry on business, and the girl is drilled in turning out monographs when she expects to turn out biscuits. ”