History education

“ And the teaching of history in schools has followed the movement of the student of history towards concentration and not the needs of the common citizen towards ampler views, because there has never yet been a proper recognition of the difference in aim between study for knowledge, the historical study of the elect, on the one hand, and teaching, the general education of the citizen for the good not only of the citizen but of the community, on the other. ”

“ Let me just say, before I go on to the next and last point of my subject, that popular lecturing on history can be only one, ay, and only a secondary one, of the implements of historical education, if the people of the next generation are to be qualified to use the power which the men of this generation have placed in their hands. ”

“ I still think that the aim of Historical teaching is the training of the judgment to be exercised in the moral, social and political work of life; and that, as an instrument of education, such teaching will seek its fittest material in those portions of History which have enough of living interest to stimulate research, but have not enough of immediate practical importance to rouse political partisanship ”

“ TWO theories of historical teaching contest for the field of education through history : the first, or English method, aims to ground students in well-chosen secondary books, which they are to read, assimilate, and compare, and the divergences between which they must note, though they have not the means to reconcile them. Even in English universities only the most highly-specialized historical students use sources as an essential part of their study and training. ”

“ Education may also introduce us to the principal facts which have a direct bearing on the subject, namely the different modes or stages of civilization that have been found among mankind, and the characteristic properties of each. This is the true purpose of historical studies, as prosecuted in an University. The leading facts of ancient and modern history should be known by the student from his private reading: if that knowledge be wanting, it cannot possibly be supplied here. What a Professor of History has to teach, is the meaning of those facts. ”

“ A thorough historical knowledge is a necessary part of general scientific education, and is also of manifold value in the professional life of an officer. Accordingly, the lectures which are to lay the foundations for it are continued throughout the three years' course. Their object is to show consecutively the general development of the human race in the successive stages of religious conceptions, of political and social forms, and in the results of science, art, and philosophy. All these phases of human progress are to be illustrated in the history of representative nations and individuals. ”

“ All this lays the basis for a larger study of modern man—history, with the biographical element very prominent throughout, with plenty of stories of heroes of virtue, acts of valor, tales of saintly lives and the personal element more prominent, and specialization in the study of dynasties, wars, authorities, and controversies relegated to a very subordinate place. Sociology, undeveloped, rudimentary, and in some places suspected as it is, should have in the curriculum of her higher education a place above political economy. ”

“ It seems to me that we must frankly recognize that the Modern History curriculum must be drawn up rather with an eye to the vast majority of men who seek in it a general liberal education, than to the small minority to whom a technical training in historiography might conceivably be more profitable. ”

“ We understand that the value of every science consists in its being true, and we ask from history truth and nothing more.332 [240]
The function of history in education is perhaps not yet clearly apparent to all those who teach it. But all those who reflect are agreed to regard it as being principally an instrument of social culture. The study of the societies of the past causes the pupil to understand, by the help of actual instances, what a society is; it familiarises him with the principal social phenomena and the different species of usages, their variety and their resemblances. ”

“ I have also tried to give a proper setting to the great historic forces which have shaped and moulded human progress, and have made the evolution of modern state school systems and the world-wide spread of Western civilization both possible and inevitable. ”

“ In sketching the history of education, I am careful not to limit my consideration to the school. The most important interest to us is a discussion of the new ideas contributed to civilization—the ideas that have come down to our own time, and that have exercised an influence on all the great national movements that have appeared on the surface of history. ”

“ The want of a History suitable for the Schoolroom has long been felt by educators. In most instances, the Histories presented have been too much encumbered with details of but little service to the pupils. This has been one of the causes which has prevented History from being one of the usual branches of study in our Common Schools outside of cities and towns; none can so well appreciate the difficulties which have surrounded this subject as the teacher. Another cause which has precluded the study of History has been the high price of all the text-books on this subject. ”

“ 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" ”

“ In fact, much of the culture value of history depends on the training it affords in composition, and, by intimately connecting these two subjects, a double advantage is gained—the ability to comprehend historical material, and practice in effective expression. ”

“ The Value of the History of Education.—The History of Education from the earliest times should contribute largely to one’s breadth of view and prove a study of the greatest liberal culture. A record of typical instances of the moral, æsthetic, and intellectual development of man in all lands and at all periods should certainly enlarge one’s vision and enable him to appreciate more fully the part that education has played in the 4 progress of civilization. Such cultural values may be found even in a limited survey of the world’s educational development. ”

“ But where, as in this your happy land, national history is the elementary basis of education—where the very schoolboy is better acquainted with the history of his country than in monarchies almost the professors are—in such a country it would be indeed but a ridiculous parading of vanity for a stranger to dwell upon facts which every child is better acquainted with than he can be. ”

“ In fact, the teaching of civics may be based almost entirely on current events. (See Civics, p. 52 et seq.) The influence of a knowledge of current events on the study of history is very plainly seen to-day in the earnest and widespread effort to discover the causes of the war that is devastating Europe at the present time. History becomes real when pupils understand that what is happening now has its roots in the past and, at the same time, is history in the making. ”

“ To our knowledge, such an application of work instruction has nowhere as yet been attempted, either abroad or in this country....
“In the teaching of history to these young children we hold it essential that the teacher should be entirely independent of any text-book, and able to freely handle the vast material at his disposal, and to draw from it, as from an endless storehouse, with fixed and definite purpose. We attach even greater importance to the moral than to the intellectual significance of history. ”

“ To these four main sources we have made many additions in modern times, building an entirely new superstructure on the old foundations, but the groundwork of our civilization is composed of these four foundation elements. For these reasons a history of even modern education almost of necessity goes back, briefly at least, to the work and contributions of these ancient peoples. ”

“ Although encumbered with survivals, the history curriculum of the twentieth century has sought independence of purely political and military events and has striven for a scientific presentation of historical truths which should fit for “complete living.” This new viewpoint was well exemplified in the report of a committee of the National Education Association in 1916, which proposed a six year course in the social studies from the seventh to the twelfth grades, stressing the teaching of practical and present-day problems. [228]
Shortly thereafter the United States entered the World War. ”

“ A wide appreciation of the growth of morality, culture, and social life, rather than merely the development of patriotism, became the object in studying this subject. English and German history, as well as American, which alone was formerly taught, and sometimes Greek, Roman, and Norse, appear in the curricula of many elementary schools, and, instead of being confined to the two upper classes, historical material is often presented from the third grade up. ”

“ Then besides the people of the present there are the people of the past, and, because the things which they did enable us to live as we do, children should be taught history, particularly the history of their own country, state, and town. ”

“ The modern community has yet to develop a type of teacher with the freedom and leisure to make a thorough 7and continuous study of contemporary historical and other scientific knowledge in order to use these accumulations to the best effect in general education. ”

“ The study of a general compend of history, such as is frequently used as a text-book, is highly useful, if it comes in at the right stage of education, when the mind is sufficiently matured, and has acquired sufficient preliminary knowledge to understand and appreciate so condensed a generalization as a summary of the whole history of a nation contained in an ordinary volume must necessarily be. ”

“ After reading these authoritative opinions, it would be rather difficult to understand the false impressions which have obtained so commonly for the last three centuries with regard to education in the Middle Ages, if we did not realize that history, especially for English-speaking people, has for several centuries been written from a very narrow standpoint and with a very definite purpose. ”

“ The only history that is of practical value is what may be called Descriptive Sociology. And the highest office which the historian can discharge, is that of so narrating the lives of nations, as to furnish materials for a Comparative Sociology; and for the subsequent determination of the ultimate laws to which social phenomena conform. ”

“ The teacher cannot determine merely from a knowledge of history what history is suitable for a given type of pupils. In the elective system of the high school and of the college there is a liberal recognition of the principle that instruction must be adapted to individuals, both in content and method. ”

“ Education is the preparation of the individual for the community, and his religious training is the core of that preparation. With the great intellectual restatements and expansions of the nineteenth century, and educational break-up, a confusion and loss of aim in education was inevitable. We can no longer prepare the individual for a community when our ideas of a community are shattered and undergoing reconstruction. ”

“ History cannot give the final answer to such questions, but it makes a contribution to the final answer in reporting the results of racial experience and in assisting students to understand present problems in the light of their past. The history of education has a practical value, but it is not alone the source of guidance. ”

“ What our classical institutions pretend to give can and actually will be given to our youth with much more fruitful results by competent historical instruction, which must supply, not names and numbers alone, nor the mere history of dynasties and wars, but be in every sense of the word a true history of civilisation. ”

“ And so the true aim of the study of history in the elementary school is not the realization of its utilitarian, its cultural, or its disciplinary value. It is not a mere assimilation of facts concerning historical events, nor the memorizing of dates, nor the picturing of battles, nor the learning of lists of presidents,—although each of these factors has its place in fulfilling the function of historical study. ”

“ It should meet the requirements of those high schools and preparatory schools where ancient history, as a separate discipline, is being supplanted by a more extended course introductory to the study of recent times and contemporary problems. ”

“ This school believes that historical facts or events are comparatively of little value unless they have a bearing upon the present world of thought and action. The real function of history teachings according to the new school is to develop constructive and interpretative power in order that we may rightly judge contemporaneous problems, movements, institutions, and public leaders. ”

“ 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? ”