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Harding’s Essentials in Mediaeval History

By Samuel Bannister Harding, Ph.D., Professor of European History, Indiana University, in consultation with Albert Bushnell Hart, LL.D., Professor of History, Harvard University

Price, $1.00

This text-book is designed for elementary college classes, having already proved successful as a basis of Freshman instruction in Indiana University. It gives a general survey of mediaeval history from Charlemagne to the close of the fifteenth century. It economizes time without sacrificing anything of real importance. The facts to be taught have been selected with great care. The continuity of the history has been preserved from beginning to end, and the fundamental features of mediaeval life and institutions are clearly brought out. The book affords a clear, scholarly, compact outline, which can be filled in in various ways. At the end of each chapter are suggestive topics and search topics, and numerous specific references to the best books for collateral reading. The aim of the book is to be accurate in substance and definite in statement, to seize the vital and interesting facts, and as far as possible to give that concreteness of treatment which is necessary in dealing with matters so remote and alien as those which fill the history of the Middle Ages.

Complete Catalogue of Text-Books in History sent on request

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[95]

The History Teacher’s Magazine

Introductory Course in History[1] In Harvard College

BY PROFESSOR CHARLES H. HASKINS.

Perhaps the most difficult question which now confronts the college teacher of history is the work of the first year of the college course. The problem is comparatively new, and becomes each year more serious. 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. At the same time the enlargement of the curriculum and the improvement of instruction in history in many of our secondary schools result in sending to the colleges a body of students who have already some familiarity with history and cannot be treated in the same way as the great mass of freshmen. Moreover, the first college course in history in all our larger institutions attracts a considerable number of students, in some cases as many as four hundred, so that the management of a large class adds another element to the problem; and matters are further complicated by the fact that while some of these will continue their historical studies in later years, others must get from this course all the historical training which they will receive in college. I take it that no one pretends to have found the solution of these difficulties, and that what is at present likely to prove helpful is not dogmatic discussion so much as a comparison of the experience of different institutions.

The introductory course at Harvard, History 1, is designed to be useful to those whose historical studies are to stop at this point, as well as to serve as a basis for further study. A period of the world’s history is chosen which is sufficiently large to give an idea of the growth of institutions and the nature of historical evolution, yet not so extensive as to render impossible an acquaintance at close range with some of the characteristic personalities and conditions of the age; and an effort is made to stimulate interest in history and to give some idea of the nature and purposes of historical study. The field covered is the history of Europe, including England, from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. This period has generally received little or no attention in school, so that students come to it with a freshness which they could not bring to ancient history or American history, and are introduced to a new world of action and movement and color which easily rouses their interest. 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.

Most introductory courses now give considerable attention to the Middle Ages; the point of difference is whether the attempt should be made to cover something of the modern period as well. Where a longer period has been chosen, it has been quite generally found impracticable in a single year to bring the course down to the present time, and such courses have ordinarily stopped somewhere in the eighteenth century, leaving to a subsequent year the study of the more recent period. Thus the course which was given at Harvard until 1903 stopped at the Treaty of Utrecht. Assuming that two years are necessary for the satisfactory treatment of mediæval and modern history for the purposes of the general student, the question then becomes one as to the point where the break shall come, and we believe that experience is in favor of placing this point fairly early. The pace should be slower in the first year than in the second, so that students may not be confused and hurried while they are learning new methods of work and being emancipated from habits of close dependence on the text-book. There should be time for reading and assimilation, as well as for thorough drill, in a way that is not possible when too much ground is gone over. Good training in the first year makes it easier to cover a considerable period in the second. Such at least has been the experience at Harvard, where about half of the students in History 1 go on to the survey of modern history given in History 2 in the following year, while most of the others go directly to modern English history or American history. It ought to be added that while about nine-tenths of the class of three hundred who elect History 1 are freshmen, students who have given a good deal of attention to history in school are permitted to go on immediately to more advanced courses; and for those who take only American history in their later years, the introductory course in government is accepted as sufficient preparation.

The class meets three times a week, twice in a body for lectures, and the third hour in sections of about twenty. The lectures do not attempt to give a narrative, but seek to bind together the students’ reading, comment upon it, clarify it, reënforce the significant points, and discuss special aspects of the subject. The processes of historical interpretation and criticism are illustrated by a few simple examples, and from time to time the work is vivified by the use of lantern slides. The reading is divided into two parts, prescribed and collateral, and indicated on a printed “List of References” which each member of the class is required to buy. The prescribed reading, from seventy-five to one hundred pages a week, is made, as far as possible, the central part of the student’s work. At first this is selected largely from text-books and illustrative sources; later in the year text-books drop into the background, and narrative and descriptive works are taken up, although the student is urged to have at hand a manual for consultation and for securing a connected view of events. The effort is made to break away from high school methods of study and to teach students to use intelligently larger historical books. Stubb’s “Early Plantagenets,” Jessopp’s “Coming of the Friars,” Bryce’s “Holy Roman Empire,” Brown’s “Venetian Republic,” Day’s “History of Commerce,” Reinach’s “Apollo,” and Robinson and Rolfe’s “Petrarch,” are examples of the kind of books from which the required reading is chosen. Some sources are given in[96] their entirety, such as the “Germania,” the “Life of St. Columban,” and Einhard’s “Charlemagne”; but reliance is placed mainly upon the extracts given in Ogg’s “Source Book” and Robinson’s “Readings.” 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. Duplicates of the works recommended for collateral reading are also furnished.

At the weekly section meetings the students are held responsible for the required reading and the lectures for the week. There is always a short written paper about twenty minutes in length, including usually an exercise on the outline map, and the rest of the hour is spent in explanation, review and discussion. No attempt is made at systematic quizzing, as the work of the week is much more effectively tested by the written paper. These sections are held by the assistants, four in number, who are chosen from men who have had two or three years of graduate study and generally some experience in teaching.

For the collateral reading certain topics are suggested each week, and every month each member of the class is required to read the references under at least one of the assigned topics. These topics have considerable range, and students are encouraged to select those which have special interest for them and to read freely upon them. Thus if a student takes the Northmen as his topic, he will read the greater part of Keary’s “Vikings,” and translated extracts from Norse poetry or sagas; if he chooses Henry II, he will have Mrs. Green’s biography and Stubb’s characterization in the introduction to Benedict of Peterborough; if he reads on monasticism, he will compare different views of the subject as found in specified chapters of Montalembert, Lecky, Taylor’s “Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages,” and in Harnack’s “Monasticism”; on castles and castle life he will read portions of Miss Bateson’s “Mediæval England,” and Viollet-le-Duc’s “Annals of a Fortress,” and examine the illustrations in Enlart’s “Manuel” and Schultz’s “Höfisches Leben”; on St. Louis he will have Joinville, certain pages of Langlois, and William Stearns Davis’s novel, “Falaise of the Blessed Voices.” A certain fixed minimum of such reading is set for each one in the course, and a higher minimum for those who expect distinction, and ambitious students will read from 1,500 to 2,000 pages in the course of the year.

The effort is constantly made to develop individual aptitudes and stimulate the better men. Every student has at least eight individual conferences with the assistant during the year. The conference is devoted mainly to a discussion of the collateral reading, but it also serves as an opportunity for examining note books, talking over difficulties, and in general for closer personal acquaintance between assistant and student. Sometimes small voluntary groups of men have been formed which meet the assistant weekly at his room for the reading and discussion of short historical papers written by students.

Considerable attention is given to well-reasoned note-taking upon both lectures and required reading, a matter respecting which the freshman is at first likely to be quite helpless. Here the personal supervision of the assistant is of the greatest value, and is often exercised weekly.

Special emphasis is put upon historical geography, not only by constant reference to wall maps and by special exercises involving the use of the principal historical atlases, but also by means of the regular use of blank outline maps. Members of the class are required to bring such a map to all meetings of the sections, and to be able to locate upon it important places and boundaries. The mid-year and final examinations also include a regular test of such geographical knowledge. More time than should be necessary is devoted to this work, but experience has shown that college students have at the outset only the vaguest ideas of European geography, and in this and in some other respects it is necessary to do in college, work that ought to have been done in the secondary or grammar school. If the ordinary freshman brought with him an elementary knowledge of geography and the ability to read intelligently, the task of the college teacher of history would be greatly lightened.

No attempt is made to require theses or formal written reports, as such work is useful rather for those who are to continue their historical studies, and as regular training of this sort is given in the second-year courses. Some attempts have, however, been made to coördinate the student’s work in history and in English composition by having the results of reading upon an historical topic embodied in a brief essay which is read and graded both by the instructor in history and the instructor in English. Such coöperative efforts are still in the experimental stage, but they are regarded favorably by those who believe that the occasion for writing good English is not confined to courses in English composition, and that a broader policy with regard to the student’s work is necessary if the American college is to give an education as well as to teach particular subjects.

Impressions of American History Teaching[2]

EXTRACTS FROM MISS BURSTALL’S RECENT WORK, “IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICAN EDUCATION.”

Miss Sara A. Burstall, head mistress of the Manchester (England) High School for Girls, traveled in the United States during the year 1908, studying and inspecting American educational systems. Miss Burstall has written out her experiences in America in a book entitled “Impressions of American Education in 1908.” The author was particularly interested in the teaching of history in American schools. The following extracts are printed in the belief that American teachers would desire “to see themselves as others see them.” In the chapter on “Method” occur the following statements:

“Recitation is indeed an accurate description of what one hears, sitting in an American class-room; the pupil stands up and recites what he has learnt, whether from the standard text-book or from other sources. The teacher may question some statement in order to make sure that the pupil understands what he has said, other pupils will also question it. A girl will put up her hand and (the teacher giving permission by looking in her direction) will say, ‘But I thought that I read in——’ and will proceed to give some other view of the subject. A general discussion will follow which the teacher will not authoritatively close by giving her correct opinion; she will pass on to another part of the subject and ask another pupil to recite what he or she has learnt about it. If the reciter makes an error the teacher will call upon another pupil to correct it; very rarely does the teacher make a correction herself, and still more rarely does she express her opinion. We were not struck by the good English or excellence of oral composition which we heard. The American boys and girls did not do any better in this respect than the English girls we know. One can hardly expect fluent, elegant oral descriptions and accounts except from practiced speakers. With a class of thirty or forty and a lesson period of forty-five minutes obviously not all in the class recite; quite half may take no share except as[97] listeners. The presumption is that they have learnt up their work, that they are interested in listening to what others say about it; their turn will come next day, and in any case it is to their interest to follow carefully what goes on.

“Three criticisms must occur to even a sympathetic English teacher: first, the possibility of what in England would be a probable waste of time to the listeners. Americans say that these, though they often look indifferent and inattentive, are really attending; they are used to the method and they play the game, so to speak, by listening attentively as well as by reciting readily when their turn comes. Second, the whole thing is very dull and slow; each pupil speaks very slowly, with very little grace of delivery or beauty of language, such as might be expected from the teacher, and nothing like the same amount of ground is covered as is the case in a lesson on the oral method. With the recitation method in England we should not arouse sufficient interest to get the best out of our pupils; we could not get through the work we have to do in the time, nor would English boys and girls be sufficiently quick and clever to understand the difficulties in geometry, for example, or in Latin or French grammar, unless they had clear and skilful explanations from the teacher, who presumably understands the art of making things clear. 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. It is also true that the examination demand has forced us to explain clearly to the duller pupils in the class difficulties which the cleverer ones could see through for themselves. Probably here Americans are right and we are wrong; we make the work too easy by, as it were, peptonizing the lesson material, before giving it to the hungry sheep who look up to us to be fed. Our aim has been to help them to assimilate the knowledge required, not to develop in them the power to grapple with new material. This aim the American recitation system undoubtedly develops, and this is one of its great merits.

“Our third criticism is that the teacher appears to do too little; her share in the lesson is at a minimum; the new ideas do not come from her, her influence is indirect. Here, again, the American would say, so much the better. The democratic ideal is undoubtedly one cause for the existence and the popularity of the recitation method. The teacher and the pupils are very much on a level. She is not teaching them; she acts rather as chairman of the meeting, the object of which is to ascertain whether they have studied for themselves in a text-book, and what they think about the material they have been studying. Clearly, then, the master is the text-book, and here we strike on a vital peculiarity of American education. Its aim has been intellectually the mastery of books; with us education has always been very much more, always and everywhere, a personal relation. The children learn from the master or mistress with or without the aid of a book.”

“The rise of the method can be explained from historical causes; in the old ungraded rural school of America, meeting perhaps only for a few months in the year, taught, it may be, by a woman in the summer, and a man in the winter, there could be no classification or organization. Each pupil worked through an authorized text-book, much as in the old Scottish rural school, when a plowman might come back for a couple of months to rub up his arithmetic or English in the book if he did not finish before leaving school. The teacher went around and helped individual pupils over difficulties, or heard them ‘recite’ the lesson they had each learnt, while the others went on with their own tasks. 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; they could ‘conduct recitations’ and engage in the friendly questioning and discussion as an equal, which the American method implies. When first-rate, highly qualified, skilled teachers come to play on this instrument they bring forth from it a wonderful result.

“The writer was fortunate enough to see some very fine work by a woman teacher, brilliant, systematized, full of interest and fire, the pupils really taking part and bringing their material which the teacher skillfully percussed so that it kindled. Indeed, the recitation method at its best and our own oral method are almost identical in effect; and far excel as educational instruments anything that can be attained by lectures. But how rarely is it seen at its best? At its worst, of course, it becomes mere memoriter repetition out of the text-book with very little intelligence anywhere; any teacher would do this who could keep order.

“It is hoped that this imperfect sketch may at least afford some idea of what is to be seen in the United States by a teacher of history, and of what we can learn from them. Probably there is more to be learnt in this subject by English students of American education than in any other, and the study is the more interesting and profitable since the evolution of the present condition of history teaching there is so recent. The present writer can only say that she has heard finer history teaching in more than one American institution than she ever heard in England, though her experiences here have been fortunate, and that such teaching has set for her an ideal standard of professional skill in our difficult art. England might learn, too, from the life and vigor of the subject in the common schools, the breadth and thoughtfulness and the self-reliance in the history classes of secondary schools, and the volume and power of the historical work in the colleges and technological institutes.

“The equipment is well worth our imitation if only we could get the money for it. Every good high school has a room or rooms for the history lessons; cases of maps to be drawn down when required—a product of the American skill in mechanical appliances—are universal, and an average high school has a better supply of these maps than some of our colleges. Pictures of every sort abound.

“It is the opinion of one of the leading American authorities on the teaching of history, herself a distinguished teacher, that there is a very real increase of intellectual interest; some of it may be superficial, but it is at least widespread. A nidus has been formed and there is a real advance in the subject.

“In England we have, as things are, the tradition of public service and the inner instinct of patriotism; formal teaching of civic duty is not so much needed among the wealthier and more cultivated classes, though more ought to be done than is done in the public elementary schools, and in some of the new secondary schools. In America this sociological teaching given in connection with history is the one thing they have to train citizens for citizenship; religious instruction has been excluded from their school system, personal influence and corporate life play but little part compared with the powerful one they play here. 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. 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.”

[98]

“The Old South Leaflets” Classified

BY REX W. WELLS, TEACHER OF HISTORY, EAST HIGH SCHOOL, TOLEDO, OHIO.

Municipal Civics in Elementary and High Schools[3]

BY JAMES J. SHEPPARD, PRINCIPAL OF HIGH SCHOOL OF COMMERCE, NEW YORK CITY.

In an address at the dedication of an educational building at Albany a few days ago, Governor Hughes said: “I want to refer to the importance in this day of giving our teachers and of having them communicate to their pupils the proper sense of the responsibility of citizenship in this country. 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.”

In this statement the governor puts the case admirably. Civics should be taught in the schools, and it should be taught in a practical way. When your committee made its investigations some half dozen years ago into the matter of instruction in municipal government in elementary and high schools, it discovered two things: First, a lamentable lack of proper instruction in the subject in the schools of the country, and second, an earnest desire on the part of those in authority to remedy this lack. Advice and assistance were asked for by many who replied to our questionnaire. We were impressed with the importance of presenting something definite and concrete in the way of recommendations. It was easy enough of course to say that the subject should be taught in both elementary and high schools, that it should be so placed in the curriculum, as to reach all the pupils, and that it should be, as Governor Hughes puts it, a study of the actual operations of our government. But the schools wanted something more directly helpful than this. Few, if any, text-books suitable for the purpose were available. Practically all of them were written along the conventional lines of a scientific treatment of the framework of government with but slight and ineffective attempts to make the study other than one of broad generalizations of little direct and concrete meaning to the youthful student. Happily there has been some endeavor since the committee’s first report to make texts which really meet the need, and there are now on the market a few books which are genuinely helpful. There is every reason to believe that the production of[100] this class of books is greatly to increase. However the committee believes that suitable texts can only help to solve the problem.

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. A study of this kind can hardly fail to give the future citizen a feeling of pride in his own city, and a proper sense of his own responsibility in making its government honest and efficient. The municipal campaign recently concluded in New York seems to have been conducted largely on the idea that the average voter is more interested in personalities than policies. Such a campaign would be impossible before an electorate having even an elementary appreciation of the direct bearing upon its own personal interests of an honest and efficient administration of the city’s affairs. 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. Heretofore the schools have been generally content to give instruction on matters of state and national government, with but scantiest reference to municipal affairs, in spite of the fact that municipal government is of most direct and vital importance to the citizen, touching him in his daily life at every turn. If the schools could only establish firmly in the minds of the students just the one fact that party labels are of no importance in municipal matters, that honest and efficient administrators should be chosen regardless of party connection or endorsement that alone would be a tremendous gain. We have been going on the assumption that a knowledge of state and federal government will furnish enough insight into matters of administration to guide the voter in matters of municipal government. It would be far better if the choice were necessary to rely upon a proper knowledge and appreciation of municipal interests to guide the voter in the broader fields of government. The choice is of course not necessary. State and national government should still be studied, but in a more rational way. Much the same method may well be employed as in the study of municipal government.

As has already been stated, your committee believes that instruction in municipal government should reach every pupil in the schools. That means that it should not be delayed in the elementary school till the last year of the course, or in the high school until the senior year, as is still generally the rule. A large percentage of elementary school pupils drop out before they have completed even the seventh year of the course, and a still larger percentage of high school enrollment is lost long before the graduation stage. The committee believes that there should be continuous instruction in civics during the last four years of the elementary course, moving along in easy and progressive fashion from a very simple study of municipal housekeeping to a fairly comprehensive notion of the city’s government activities. The course as outlined in the New York City program of studies for elementary schools has some admirable features. The course in its present form is due in no small measure to the work of your committee under the original chairmanship of Superintendent Maxwell. It provides in the fifth year for some study of the duties of citizens and public officials, and also of civic institutions. The study begins very logically with the most obvious form of municipal activity, the school itself, and goes on to other departments, such as charities, tenement house, and parks, in each instance emphasizing what good citizenship involves in the pupil’s relation to the department. In other words, the study is not merely descriptive, it is personal as well. In the sixth year the outline calls for instruction concerning the chief administrative office of the city. In the seventh year and the first half of the eighth year there is no definite provision for municipal civics, the time being devoted to national government. In the last half of the eighth year there is a return to the city government with “increasing emphasis upon the duties and responsibilities of a citizen, or as a member of a family, as pupil, as employer or employed, as voter or as office-holder.” The course would be greatly improved by making a study of the city’s municipal activities continuous throughout the four years. At present there is a break in the work from the end of the sixth year to the beginning of the last half of the eighth year. The difficulty is of course that of a crowded curriculum, but the very great importance of the study ought to win for it a definite place in the curriculum even at the expense of some other study.

Just how well the elementary course in municipal civics is administered in New York City or in other cities where it is prescribed it is impossible for the committee to say. A recent writer in the “Survey” seems rather skeptical of the results obtained in New York. From her own showing, however, I think the situation is not so bad as she seems to imagine it. We who teach know the difficulty of getting pupils to do themselves justice in examinations or tests. They really know more than their answers indicate. Patient, skillful, sympathetic questioning will often reveal intelligence where only ignorance seemed to exist. 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. 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. This is a serious error, as it means no instruction whatever in the subject for the vast majority of high school students, a relatively small proportion of whom complete the full course. It should not be postponed till even the second year, but should be taken up at once by the student upon entrance into the high school as a serious and important study. Confessedly pupils of 14 or 15 are not well prepared to receive instruction in civics, as it is generally taught as a scientific study of state and national government, with a historical background. The latter may well continue to be a part of a well-rounded high school course, modified only by the inclusion of much more work on the municipal side and greatly improved by more rational methods of teaching. But your committee earnestly insists upon place being made in the very first year of the high school course for this new work. At present there is only one high school in New York which is doing this, but it is interesting to note that no less than three committees are now at work in that city upon plans for a program of study in this subject. And, moreover, two of these committees have been appointed by bodies of a public character who are asking and securing the cooperation of progressive teachers in the task of bringing about the desired change. It is a very reasonable hope that in a comparatively short time all the high schools in the Greater New York will be giving the civics instruction so urgently needed to all the boys and girls who enter their doors. Once New York or any other important educational center shows the way, we may confidently expect the movement to spread rapidly. Judging from the numerous communications the chairman of your committee has received there is already widespread interest in the subject.

The time is therefore ripe, apparently, for us to offer definite[101] recommendations in the make-up of a proper course of study in the new subject, whose value as a part of the curriculum will depend chiefly upon the manner in which it is presented. 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. However, there are some books with which the teacher should familiarize himself, among them such works as Baker’s “Municipal Engineering and Sanitation,” Eaton’s “The Government of Municipalities,” Fairlie’s “Municipal Administration,” Wilcox’s “The American City,” Zueblin’s “American Municipal Progress” and Shaw’s excellent books. These are useful in a broad, general way. The teacher should make copious use of the city charter and reports of the various city departments, such as health, tenement house, parks, schools, etc. The pupil’s chief reliance will be on the city charter apart from the teacher’s instruction and his own observation and investigation.

The course might well be outlined in the following general way:

I. A brief consideration of the way in which government in general arises, with a discussion of the rise of a village and its development into the city. The pupil will be led to note the extension of the coöperative idea from its simple manifestation in the primitive community to the comprehensive undertakings of a modern metropolis. The relation of the city to the State will be made clear in this discussion, and a proper understanding of what a city charter is be given.

II. Following immediately upon this brief introductory study, which will take on added meaning as the course progresses, should come a study of what may properly be considered the central element of city life—the street. Here we can appeal directly to the pupil’s own experience and observation in a marked degree, and we are sure of his interest when the work is related so closely to his daily life. It is probably worth while to give a pretty full outline of the topics to be taken up in a study of the city street. The one which follows has been in successful use for several years in the High School of Commerce in New York, and naturally covers some points of slight importance in other cities.

III. Part III of the course takes up the matter of protection to life and property by the various departments of the city government, as follows:

In this connection it is both desirable and feasible for the pupils to visit the more important departments and get some first-hand impressions of their work. Our experience has been that the city officials willingly and helpfully coöperate with the school. Not only have they furnished us much valuable material, but they have also facilitated the inspection of their departments, and have not infrequently themselves given helpful talks to the boys.

IV. Following close upon the study of the departments comes a consideration of the cost to the city. The pupil has noted the extensive activities of the municipality and the important question of how they are all paid for looms up before him. The budget must be studied, and the manner of levying and collecting taxes must be understood, as well as the raising of money by loans. Under proper guidance he will come to realize how extravagant and inefficient government affects him personally, how honest and economic government has a money value to every citizen. He will want to know what city officers determine the amount of money to be spent, and just what officers spend the money. 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.

V. We come finally in our study to a consideration of the citizen’s part in the administration of municipal affairs. Topics such as the following should be taken up:

Becoming a citizen. Becoming a voter. Registration. Voting. Voting but a part. The party organization. The cause of good or bad government. How the citizen may govern the city through the party organization. Enrollment. The district captain. The district committee. The district leader. The general committee. The leader of the organization. How the leader reaches his place. Organization the key to success in politics. Candidates for office, how selected, formally, actually. Why the high school graduate should work through an organization for an honest, business-like government.

The preceding part of the course will have failed of its purpose if it hasn’t established in the pupil’s mind certain elementary ideas and ideals concerning the purpose of government and a sense of the duty and responsibility which every citizen owes to the community in which he works and lives. He will be an intelligent reader of the numerous items in the daily press bearing upon the administration of city affairs, and he will know how as a voter he may take an active and effective part in that administration alike for his own best interests and that of the community.

The course outlined is not an artificial affair based upon pure theory. It has been successfully carried on in one high school for half a decade, winning the enthusiastic interest of first-year pupils as well as of the teachers charged with its conduct. It can be adapted to the high school of any community, and will fail of its purpose only if it is managed in a perfunctory fashion by instructors who have not a professional interest in their work, or a high sense of their great responsibility and their great opportunity. It would be a splendid thing if we could require of all teachers in the public schools a knowledge of the governmental activities of the municipality they are called upon to serve, for surely they of all citizens, ought to be familiar with the purpose and practice of government.

[103]

Has History a Practical Value?[4]

BY PROFESSOR J. N. BOWMAN, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.

This question of the practical value of history rises not out of a theory but out of existing social and educational conditions. In a practical age where “doing things” receives such generous applause, and “ends” are held in high estimation; when “results,” and very frequently material “results,” are the norms of success, and “efficiency” widens its meaning beyond the physical world,—then history, as well as other subjects is called into question to render an account of itself before the judgment bar of the present. Life looms up great beyond all the parts of the school system. The eighth grade has its graduation into life as well as the high school and college. The grades feel their responsibility to the great majority of their pupils who go directly into life. In the East the high schools are breaking from the “preparatory status” to the college, and are looking to the good they can do for their pupils who get no more schooling. Trade schools are growing up within and beside the high schools, as the professional schools grew up within and beside the colleges. The college itself is in question by labor union committees and inaugural addresses. The university is becoming professional; even Arts and Letters in preparing teachers and general practitioners of arts and letters. The industrial movement has now the economic interpretation of history. The “Market Reports”[5] of the university have brought the “ticker” within the college walls. Students and parents are asking more and more insistently, “What is the use?” and “What is the practical value?”

The question is not new; the questioners are not new; the things questioned are new. In olden days when schools existed primarily for the Latin professions, the question was answered: these things prepare for law, medicine, and the ministry. Schools now prepare for other professions and also for the trades; but the question is not yet answered without condition, amendment or dissent. 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? A healthy, growing institution—like Webster’s mariner—must constantly take its bearings relative to life to know how far the elements of fads, specialization, and scholarly isolation are driving it from its true course.

Practical relates to action, use, practice; it refers to ends or means to ends; it is opposed to theoretical, speculation or ideal. But there is nothing in the word to debar its use in mental as well as physical fields. It may be used as the German uses übung in his university courses. 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. It does not by any means alone imply “for revenue only.”

Has history a practical value? It depends on the ends. The narrowest specialist as well as the broadest humanitarian will both agree upon the usefulness and desirability of history to meet their respective ends, but they disagree upon what the ends are. 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. 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. He loves to brush the mold off the dry bones of the past. Perhaps he even has a dream of articulating a few of the bones into a cross section of the skeleton of the political past. This is a rightful part of the work in the university and graduate school, unfortunately often the all-dominating part. 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. Here is where the parents, and others, raise the question, what is the use? The answer and the reform must come from the top downwards.

On the other hand the humanitarian is often so broad that his work contains but little of history; it is so thin and transparent that it may justly be called culturine. His pupils learn answers, but not the steps to the answers; or they learn the fashion phrase of the “example,” but not the steps of solution. At every point in their journey through the past they are dependent on their Bædecker. Here again is where the question is raised, what is the use?

It is not necessary to make a choice of either of these for the history work in the schools. Where the fact-hunter ends his work the historian may begin his. More important than either fact or generalization is the method of getting at each so that the pupil may become self-active. If he learns these methods he can use the facts in finding other facts, in explaining and interpreting other facts, or in understanding other departments of life. He can use facts inductively and through a process of analysis and classification reach generalization; or like Kepler, Newton and Faraday he can work on the facts deductively. He can follow lines of interest, threads of activity; he can view them from one view point or from different view points. On the other hand he can learn and use the method of working a fact after the Seignobosian “rules of the game.” So even within the narrower and professional field there is the practical value.

But the end is still in question. 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. The culturine teacher fares somewhat better; he is active, but unfortunately with empty symbols. He deals with answers and not with problems, with his Bædecker and not with the[104] thing itself. It is the long stretch between the two that is wanting—the process, the use. 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? Someone has pointed out four ends, but I should like to add another, fully conscious of the excepting and varying relations between them: reading, studying, teaching, writing, and I should like to add living. 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; these also underlie the other two.

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.

Reading runs through all history work from the stories—told and read—in the grades to the reading after dinner by the evening fireside. Interest in life as it was, is, and is becoming: the problems and policies, the activity and struggle, the peaceful life of the cotter or the demon life of the battlefield, the growth of trade and the sailing of Columbus, or the work of Bach or Paracelsus. From some life interest now one travels back to chosen places and times, and under the lead of some Virgil and Beatrice does more than Dante in taking up temporary habitation then and there. From a purely commercial point of view, also, the historian can here benefit himself—and his publisher—in preparing a public to demand his books.

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.” Reflection and study go hand in hand,—the latter to answer the questions of the former. For the very great majority of people this is the nearest they ever get to professional history work. It is of the greatest practical value to those who use history for other than the pleasant hour’s reading.

In living, life and history unite. This, of course, touches the live question of what is history. The specialist and his methods are adaptable practically alone to a past not coming within eighty to twenty years of the present. But the parent and the man in life deal on the one hand with human beings, institutions, matter, etc., and on the other with life forces and energies. All these exist in different and modified forms in the specialist’s past. If this breach between the past and present cannot be bridged, then the laboring man is right in asking that history be displaced by things that can bridge it. The man in life is busy with the art of living—can history help him in this? If history is ever to be a science and be scientific, it must consider, as do the sciences, the consequent question of being an art—of reaching desired effects with known causes.

Those who ask the question, has history a practical value, go from the present life into history. From that viewpoint they see its workings, and from life and society they draw their norm by which they judge it, accept it in the curriculum and pay taxes for the history teacher’s salary. For such a purely selfish note as this history should not wait; but should search out in society and life how it may be of service some way and somehow, and through its teaching supply these needs. It can then make itself indispensable and forestall all question of its practical value.

The practical value of history to life depends on a complex of race, age, country, locality and the individual. Some phases of this value might be stated thus: an ease in observing, analyzing and classifying the life activities of to-day. No other subject taught in the schools touches life at so many points and in so many of its activities. Through seeing in history the close interrelation of activities in the past the student can be led to see the close interrelation of the activities of his own day. Again, he learns to see life as a historic whole—his contemporaneous life in connection with the life of the race. He thus learns valuations and norms for judging character. He learns that Jeffries and Johnson are less valuable in life than Pasteur and Eucken; that even in the history of pugilism they perhaps are less noteworthy than either Sullivan or Corbett. Again, history can help him to save experience. 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. In studying some struggle of the past he learns to see that question from two or more sides; this practice helps, with the practice in other subjects taught in the schools, to consider a present question from its many sides.

Historical impartiality is frequently misused: impartiality plays its part in the consideration of questions, but should not be allowed to mar decisions when once made. 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. It gives two or more points together with the present from which direction and tendency may be seen. It can thus help to break down the loneliness of the present.

The life of each succeeding present must dictate its own norms of efficiency: whether citizenship or patriotism, character or individuality, socialization or socialism, etc. The practical value of history is like the practical value of all other subjects—it must adapt itself to life needs, and by its leadership make itself indispensable to life and society. Also it must be of practical value to the individual for his pleasure, his use, and his business; by its adaptability to these ends it makes itself indispensable to him. It has this practical value for the pupils in the grades, high school, and college, in contributing something for themselves and for their parts in life.

An Idaho cow-puncher last summer defined life as “just one d—— thing after another.” It has also been pointed out that this is the best definition of history, as all too often taught and written. The “cow-puncher” forms a small class, and is rapidly disappearing; history will soon be forced to adapt itself to another class and to a life otherwise defined. In doing so it is hoped that it will not be by this chance and unconscious adaptation, but that it will consciously and deliberately adapt itself to the new class and its life.

I believe history has a practical value in life, and a place in the school system; and also that it can prove this value so efficiently that its critics will not wish to relegate history to the position of Greek and Latin.

[105]

“A Source History of the United States”

BY PROFESSORS CALDWELL AND PERSINGER.

Many of the literary histories written in the last half century have carefully avoided quotations or reprints of documents. In the early historical literature of America documents were inserted or appended to almost every history; but this style gave way to the literary ideal of expressing the thought of the documents in the historian’s own words. There are many volumed histories written toward the close of the nineteenth century which make no pretence of reproducing the form or words of the source-material. It was but natural, therefore, when the study of history came to be taken up seriously in colleges and schools, that teachers and scholars should desire to get away from the insipid literary generalizations, and taste the freshness of the original sources. It was this insistence upon a certain literary style which created the source-book; and to-day we have therefore the literary history and the source-collection side by side. Early source-books contained simply highly significant documents, or documents which might be treated as types. We have advanced far from this, and now our editor aims to give the narrative of history in the language of the original documents.

Casting aside all reverence for the document as a completed whole, Professors Caldwell and Persinger have cut and trimmed out every unnecessary phrase and sentence, taking a few words from one document, a few paragraphs from another, a few pages, perhaps, from another. By this process, the volume is made to approach nearly to the consecutive development of thought and arrangement shown in the narrative histories. The language and spelling of the originals are in all cases preserved, and all omissions are indicated by the usual typographical means.

The work is divided into four chapters; the first on “The Making of Colonial America,” occupies 165 pages; the second, “Revolution and Independence, 1764-1786,” fills 100 pages; the third, “The Making of a Democratic Nation,” 131 pages; and the fourth, “Slavery and the Sectional Struggle, 1841-1877,” 86 pages. Or, to put it in other words, the period before 1789 is allotted 284 pages, while that under the constitution to 1877 is given 200 pages. Each chapter is subdivided into sections, and these into smaller groups of sources. Taking for granted that the plan of the editors is a practical one, the test as to whether they have done it well is to be found in the proportions assigned to the several topics, and in the character of the extracts given or excluded. The first thought which comes to mind is that too much space has been given to the colonial and revolutionary periods, and too little to the constitutional period. An inspection of the several sections shows that the colonial period lends itself best to the form of treatment adopted by the authors, and naturally they have emphasized that period. The documents upon recent history, particularly the civil war and reconstruction, have not fitted so readily into the narrative. Yet it must be admitted that the editors have resolutely carried on their method to the close; they give extracts from Lincoln’s public papers and letters respecting slavery and reconstruction, and arrange them in the same analytical form adopted for the extracts bearing upon the Stamp Act or on Bacon’s Rebellion. One cannot but wish, however, that the editors had been as generous in their excerpts for the later period as they were for the earlier; perhaps five pages of quotations is not too much for the “Effects of the English Revolution of 1688” upon America, but surely two pages is too short for Lincoln’s attitude toward slavery; we welcome the ten pages of extracts from Washington’s letters bearing upon the Revolutionary War, but we wish for more than two very short quotations treating of the Civil War.

The method of the editors can best be shown by noting the character of the illustrative material gathered by them upon several topics. For instance in Chapter I there is the sub-topic, “Colonial Constitutional Development, 1689-1763,” occupying 17 pages. Within this space we have quotations from the ordinance of 1696 creating the Board of Lords of Trade and Plantations, and from the additional instructions of 1752 respecting the board. There are as many as fourteen extracts showing the increased parliamentary regulation of colonial affairs in the period 1696 to 1751. These include parts of the navigation act of 1696, Edmund Burke’s account of the sugar act of 1733, extracts from the woolens act of 1699, the hat act of 1732, and the iron act of 1750; excerpts showing the bounties on naval stores, rice and indigo; and quotations from the act regulating colonial coinage (1707), the post-office act of 1710, the debt recovery act of 1732, the naturalization act of 1740, the land-bank act of 1741, and the paper money act of 1751. Next there are four quotations showing the desire of the English authorities to reduce all the colonies to one form of government; and the same number of extracts from plans for colonial union. Then follow three extracts showing the desire to establish an Anglican episcopate in the colonies, and the section closes with papers illustrating the “growing assertion of colonial rights.” Under the latter heading we have four extracts relating to conflicts between the governors and the assemblies; an account of the trial and acquittal of John Peter Zenger; John Adams’ account of James Otis’ speech against writs of assistance; and a report of Patrick Henry’s speech in the Parson’s Cause. Such an array of quotations shows not only wide reading and intensive knowledge of the documents, but it also implies a keen judgment as to their pedagogical value, and an ability to arrange the extracts into a working analysis.

In such a work one would naturally look for the treatment of Culturgeschichte, and indeed the editors have not neglected this side of their story. An interesting section is that describing the industrial, social, and religious condition of the country in 1840. The subject is analyzed minutely,—like all other parts of the work,—into such topics as “business characteristics,” “means of communication,” “the standard of living,” “democracy,” “the South,” and “American Morals.” The sources for quotation are almost exclusively the accounts of European—mainly English—travelers in the country at the period. These accounts are well known to students of the period, but it has been difficult heretofore for teachers to bring the flavor of these criticisms to the scholars of high school or even college classes. The editors of the “Source-history” have selected and arranged a series of accounts from Buckingham, Martineau, Chambers, Dickens, Grund, Lyell, de Tocqueville and others which will be of service in both college and secondary school classes.

The two sections here mentioned show the method of the editors. Not only have they selected their material with skill, but they have also arranged it under such a scheme of topics that it may be used by the tyro in the study of history. He does not need to dig the historical jewels out from the midst of documentary rubbish; that has been done for him. In addition the editors have placed extended series of questions upon the text at the close of each section, and references to the standard text-books. There is an analytical table of contents, but no index. There are some typographical errors in the book which should be corrected in a later edition. It is also to be hoped if we are to have any more of such collections, that a simpler typographical device may be invented to mark omitted matter.

The work is a valuable pedagogical device; it marks the climax of the source-method. It should very widely extend the knowledge of sources in our high schools and colleges. We shall watch its use with interest.

[A Source History of the United States from Discovery (1492) to End of Reconstruction (1877), by Howard Walter Caldwell and Clark Edmund Persinger, pp. xvi, 484. Chicago, Ainsworth & Co., price $1.25.] A. E. M.

[106]

EDITORIAL CONFERENCE.

A meeting of the editors and correspondents of The History Teacher’s Magazine will be held in Teachers’ College, Columbia University, New York, on Tuesday, December 28, at 3.30 o’clock. The meeting will be an open one, and the attendance is requested not only of the editorial staff, but also of contributors and others interested in extending the usefulness of the Magazine. Such a conference, giving opportunity for comparison of views, should strengthen the policy of the paper. It is planned to make the editorial conference an annual matter, meeting at the same time and place as the American Historical Association.

THE HISTORY TEACHER AND THE COMMUNITY.

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. Shall the history teacher leave those fields untouched? Shall he keep his knowledge to himself alone? Shall he limit himself to text-book work in the class-room, and do nothing to extend the interest in his subject throughout the community? If this is his practice, no wonder his subject is treated with disdain by school directors, no wonder that he cannot get a library of books upon his subject, no wonder that he becomes an irresponsive fossil.

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. Forthcoming numbers of The History Teacher’s Magazine will discuss in detail certain of these activities, such as the relation of the history teacher to the public librarian, and to local historical societies; for the present, mention will be made simply of those miscellaneous means the teacher may use to keep alive interest in local history.

A receptive attitude with reference to local tradition and history should always be taken by the history teacher. He should know something of the local history within a few weeks after he has entered a new community, if he has not been able to study it in advance. A young graduate student entering a small western college as instructor, found in the library no volumes upon the subject of his doctor’s thesis. He did not wait for the summer vacation to continue his studies in Europe, but started at once to make certain local studies, which were so successful that they gained for him a national as well as a local reputation, and stimulated others to a scientific study of the State’s history. In a similar way the instructor in any high school or college should familiarize himself with local history, and aim, if possible, to make some definite contribution to its literature.

Another subject in which the history teacher should be interested is that of local names. The tendency of American legislators is to obliterate local names, particularly if they have not what is deemed a proper connotation, and substitute for them the names of petty politicians or, what is even worse, some system of numerals. Compare, for instance, the system of numbering public schools in New York City with that of naming them in use in some other cities; or that of numbering all streets and avenues and wards with the custom of keeping the old historic names. Much of the sentiment for us to-day would be taken from London, or Paris, or even our own Boston, if a numbering system, independent of local traditions, had been adopted two hundred years ago.

The proper marking of historic spots is a matter of interest to any community, and the history teacher should be a leader in such an undertaking. Much is being done in this direction by individuals and societies, but much more needs to be done. In awakening public interest, even by showing the authorities that it is economically wise to mark such spots for the encouragement and convenience of visitors, the history teacher will win respect from the community.

Historical pageants have been held in parts of Europe for centuries, but recently they have been revived upon a large scale, and already America has seen several which would rank high with those of Europe. The pageants at Quebec, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in 1908, at Lake Champlain in 1909, and the Hudson-Fulton celebration in New York all furnish excellent opportunities for education in historical facts and development. Such lessons will grow in number with increasing respect for the past, and with the growing desire for meaning in pageantry, rather than noise and sound in parades. Here also the history teacher will find wide opportunity for all his knowledge and experience.

Surely it is the fault of the teacher and not of history itself if the community ignores him and his subject.

[107]

American History in the Secondary School

ARTHUR M. WOLFSON, PH.D., Editor.

FOUNDATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF THE FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES.

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.

First of all, it should be noted that the history of the nation during its one hundred and twenty years of existence divides itself into five more or less distinct periods. These periods are (1) the thirty odd years from 1789 to 1823, during which time the nation was settling the foundations of its political life, internal and external; (2) the thirty years from 1820 to 1850, during which the nation was moving forward, under two diametrically opposed parties (those in favor of the extension of slavery and those opposed to its extension), in the occupation of the vast tracts of land beyond the Mississippi; (3) the twenty-five or twenty-six years from 1850 to 1876, during which these two parties finally came to blows and settled the constitutional questions involved in secession; (4) the twenty odd years from 1876 to 1898, during which the nation is forced to deal with new and unaccustomed economic questions; (5) the ten years or more since the Spanish-American War, the period of present-day practical politics.

Such an outline as this of the entire course of American history may seem to many teachers to be a little forehanded, yet it is our firm conviction that only that teacher who sees in the beginning the entire work of the term can deal with each lesson as it arises properly. Of this outline, even the class should not be entirely ignorant.

As to the first period—the period of the establishment of our national policy—in it the class will be confronted by two more or less distinct problems: first, the questions of internal policy, the solution of which can be found in the study of the activities of Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, and of his contemporaries. These problems, important as they are, space requires that we leave for the present for the teacher himself to analyze and present to his pupils. In passing, we may say, however, that both teacher and pupils will find themselves amply repaid by a careful study of the reports of Hamilton and Jefferson which are to be found in Macdonald’s “Documents.”

Far more complex, and far more difficult, are the problems which are presented by the relations of the United States to its foreign friends and enemies. 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. In doing this we shall find that all questions of foreign policy fall under one of four headings: (1) commerce, (2) citizenship, (3) territory, (4) the position which the nation will take in case of disagreements between two or more foreign nations. Any class, skilfully led, will be able to furnish the teacher with these four headings. Then one may go on to further analysis. For instance, the class will see at once that commerce in times of peace and in times of war must be conducted upon a different basis. Under the first condition, commercial relations are usually settled by commercial treaties, though under special conditions they may involve questions like the right of the nation to trade with the colonies of a foreign nation, and the question of the “open door” of which we have heard so much in the last two or three decades. In times of war, the rights of neutral trade are much more complicated. Here they involve, especially in the earliest period of United States history, at least four different questions: (1) what constitutes an efficient blockade, (2) what articles may rightly be considered as contraband, (3) how far do “free ships make free goods,” (4) is trade with ports of one of the belligerents, closed in times of peace, open to the neutral in times of war (Rule of 1756)? Each of these questions, we have found, will offer opportunity for spirited class room discussion. None of them is simple, and the teacher should therefore be sure that he has his own answers ready before he attempts to open the discussion to the class.

The question of citizenship is easier. To begin with, we all agree that it is the duty of the nation to protect its citizens against unjust oppression. But not all nations at the end of the eighteenth century, or even to-day, are agreed as to what constitutes citizenship. Does naturalization, for instance, destroy the obligations which the individual owed to the country of his original allegiance? This is, of course, the single vital question involved in the dispute between the United States and England over impressment, though there is a subsidiary question, the right of entrance and search in times of war which the teacher should not neglect in presenting the subject.

The question of the acquisition of territory is again comparatively easy of analysis. All that it requires is for the teacher to show to his class that it was the “manifest destiny” of the nation to acquire, step by step, all the land lying south and west of the original limits of the country as far west as the Pacific Ocean. Whether the nation was wise in going beyond the confines of the continent in the acquisition of territory may be left till a later period for discussion.

Finally, there is the question as to the position which the United States should take in cases of dispute between the European nations. Here again the teacher should be prepared to show that self-preservation required that the United States should assume a position of absolute neutrality, that it was equally necessary, on the other hand, at least in the early years of the nineteenth century, that we demand that the European nations refrain from interfering in the affairs of America.

Coming now to the study of the specific events which illustrate these principles, the teacher will be ready to develop and the class will be ready to appreciate the series of events which begin with Washington’s Proclamation of Neutrality, which are involved in the disputes with England which were settled temporarily by the Jay Treaty and later by the War of 1812 and the Treaty of Ghent. Next the negotiations with Spain concerning the right of entry and deposit at the mouth of the Mississippi and the later negotiations with France concerning the purchase of Louisiana may be developed. Finally in this analysis the class will find the key to that series of proclamations and messages which begin with Washington’s Farewell Address, which proceed through the messages of Adams and Jefferson, which end with Monroe’s message of December, 1823, commonly known as the Monroe Doctrine. When all this is done, the well-equipped teacher will be ready to discuss briefly with his class the later diplomatic history of the country, the gradual modification of the principles for which Washington, Jefferson, John Quincy Adams and Monroe contended, but he will find to his surprise that until the very last years of the nineteenth century little change was made in the whole system.

In the study of this period the teacher is earnestly recommended to have frequent recourse with his class to the documents which illustrate the history. Most of them can be found in convenient form in MacDonald’s “Documents,” in the “American History Leaflets,” in the “Old South Leaflets,” and in Hill’s “Liberty Documents,” a comparatively recent publication. For further reading, the teacher is recommended not only to the standard histories of the United States like Schouler’s, and McMaster’s, but also to the exhaustive work of Henry[108] Adams, “History of the United States in the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison.” Finally, there are the three or four diplomatic histories of the United States of which the best are John B. Moore’s “American Foreign Policy,” Hart’s “Foundations of the American Foreign Policy” and John W. Foster’s “A Century of American Diplomacy.” In each of these works the teacher will find a thorough analysis of the Monroe Doctrine, its history and its application; should he desire to examine the Doctrine further, he will find material in two special studies: George F. Tucker’s “Monroe Doctrine,” and William F. Reddaway’s “Monroe Doctrine.” The first is an American presentation of the subject; the second that of an Englishman.

Additional References.

(1) Lalor’s Cyclopædia under such headings as “Blockade,” “Contraband,” “Naturalisation,” “Neutrality,” etc.

(2) John Westlake, “International Law,” Part I, chapter x, on “Citizenship”; Part II, chapter vii, on “Blockades”; chapters ix and x on “Contraband.”

(3) William Hall, “International Law,” Part II, chapter v, on “Citizenship”; Part IV, chapters v and vi, on “Contraband”; chapter vii, on the privileges of “Free Ships”; chapter viii, on “Blockades.”

(4) Theodore D. Woolsey, “Introduction to the Study of International Law” (the standard American authority); Part I, chapter iii, on “Citizenship”; Part II, chapter ii, on “Neutral Trade.”

Ashley’s “American History”

REVIEWED BY H. R. TUCKER, McKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL, ST. LOUIS, MO.

Mr. Ashley has added another excellent text on American history to the numerous recent ones for secondary schools. The course of events is carried down to 1907. “The subjects have been grouped under topical heads. The author has hoped to indicate by this means the relation of each historical change to the movement of the times and the relation of this smaller movement to the larger phases of our development which are given in the chapters” (preface). The attention given to wars is agreeably less than in texts of some years ago,—only 100 pages out of 550. Industrial and social development, and economic phases are given 100 pages. These chapters are after the various epochal periods; they are complete and attractive. Over 100 pages are given to the period since the Civil War. All these proportions are in agreement with the general trend in historical instruction to-day. The relation of governmental institutions to historical development is especially clear.

The opening chapter is on geographic influences of America and the early European background. Such sections in the book as follows are illustrative of the clearness of topics usually difficult for high school pupils:—40, “English Puritans”; 87, “English Colonists and Their Governors,” where the temperament of governor is considered an important factor; 265, distinction between Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy; 330, “Fundamental causes of Secession”; 331, “Slavery and state sovereignty vs. nationality”; 337-345, “Conditions affecting Union Success.” It is a pleasure to note the comparative brief description of such complicated military or naval movements as the naval episodes of the War of 1812, the Shenandoah Valley campaign of the Civil War (1864), the Vicksburg campaign, &c. The author is quite fair in that period in which every American historian is most open to the charge of being prejudiced,—the Civil War. He shows an impartial attitude; he gives credit to both sides. The account is written in true historical perspective without discrediting the value of the final result. The bearing of lines of communication upon the course of wars are indicated. Many will appreciate the omission of the names of the assassins of the martyred President, probably the first school text to do this.

There are a few defects: It is not evident from the account of the Battle of Bunker Hill why it was called such, though fought on Breed’s Hill. Certainly J. Q. Adams’ name should be given in connection with the “gag resolution” of 1835. The sections of the copy of the national constitution should be subdivided into clauses for convenient reference. All of these points, however, are of minor importance and hardly detract from the general high scholarship of the text.

There are many illustrations, maps and diagrams which bear on the text. These are of a general high order, but some improvements might be made: Map, p. 58, of the New England colonies should be larger; also one on page 97 of the intercolonial war. No map of the important 1609 Virginia grant is given. Not enough as to parallels and coast points is indicated on the map of the Virginia, 1606, grant, p. 40. On the map of the Louisiana purchase, p. 255, the Sabine River should be noted. A map accompanying the description of the early Virginia campaign (Civil War) would be helpful. The map on page 400 is not clear; it would be improved by designating rivers and railroads differently. Not all the necessary rivers on map, p. 406, are named. Some of the maps are without scale of miles, i. e., p. 403, p. 406, &c. All these points are non-essentials, yet they are to be considered in the teaching of the subject.

The bibliographical aids are of several kinds. There are marginal references throughout the narrative, bearing directly upon it. At the close of each chapter there are two classes of references, “topics,” and “studies,” there being several (exact pages given) to the former, and one to each of the latter. There are from two to four topics; and the number of studies averages about ten. It will thus be seen that the text is arranged in such a way that much or little reference reading need be done, as the varying conditions permit.

Suggestive library lists are given. However, they would be more helpful to the busy, “small school” teacher if publisher and price were noted. There is a summary at the close of each chapter; also questions, which are not so much to test one’s memory of the subject as to lead him to independent thinking. The marginal analysis of the text is always helpful. The appendix includes Declaration of Independence, Constitution of the United States, and tables of President and Presidential elections, and statistics of states. The book is substantially bound and attractive from the bookmaker’s standpoint. The index is very full. The phraseology is clear and simple, and the book is entirely adapted to any year of the high school, or to more advanced classes, in view of the extensive references. Mr. Ashley has picked out the salient points in American history. From the standpoint of scholarship and pedagogical requirements, this text will take high rank.

[“American History.” By Roscoe Lewis Ashley. pp. xlvii, 557. The Macmillan Co., New York; $1.40, net.]

NEW JERSEY HISTORY SYLLABUS.

The New Jersey State Department of Public Instruction has in press another section of its syllabus for secondary schools, covering the high school work in history, and divided into the four topics of Ancient, Mediæval and Modern, English and American. The committee which compiled the syllabus was composed of: Arthur Arnold, chairman; S. P. Howe, Jr., Lydia Lavell, Sara A. Dynes, Daniel C. Knowlton. The portion of the syllabus dealing with Ancient History is the work of Dr. Knowlton; Miss Lavell has arranged the European matter; Mr. Howe the English, and Miss Dynes the American.

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Ancient History in the Secondary School

WILLIAM FAIRLEY, Ph.D., Editor.

A REVIEW.[6]

Not a review of the work we teachers have been doing with our friends, the ancient Greeks; but a digression which will be in some sort a review of a notable book will occupy us for a little. There has recently appeared The Lowell Lectures for 1908-9 by Professor John P. Mahaffy, of Trinity College, Dublin, on “What Have the Greeks Done for Modern Civilization.” The book is altogether helpful to the lover of the Greek world. And to him not only; but to the reader who through early limitations of culture may have but slight ideas of the importance of the Greeks, a reading of this book should be what to one brought up in the dim light of a cave or in the dense shadows of some vast forest would be a first glimpse of the glorious orb of day, the source of all the shaded light and all the warmth that had hitherto been his to enjoy without suspicion of the existence of the master light. Professor Mahaffy’s gladsome task is to impress the primacy of Greece in all our best thinking and truest living. He is indeed an enthusiast. Occasionally the judicious reader will question some of the results of his enthusiasm. But the author is the Nestor of the Greek scholars of the English-speaking world. He says of himself at the close of his lectures: “So now, when my part in the race is nearly run, there remains to me no higher earthly satisfaction than this, that I have carried the torch of Greek fire alight through a long life—no higher earthly hope than this, that I may pass that torch to others, who in their turn may keep it aflame with greater brilliancy perhaps, but not with more earnest devotion ‘in the Parliament of men the Federation of the world.’” He bitterly decries the modern displacement of the study of the Greek tongue and the knowledge of Greek life at first hand; but at the same time serves as an interpreter of what was best in Greece to those of us who are not quite at home in this language of queer type and involved syntax.

So in this close of our study of Greece for the current school year, let me earnestly recommend the perusal of this book to all teachers of our department. We cannot give a hundredth part of it to our pupils, now, or in later courses; but it will serve to imbue ourselves deeply with the Greek spirit, and help us to enforce the true value of our heritage from the Greeks, the master minds of all our thinking. Some of us will not have opportunity to read the book. For them let me try to give a few glimpses of its worth.

There are eight lectures: Introductory; Greek Poetry; Greek Prose; Greek Art—I: Poetry and Sculpture; II: Painting and Music; Science; Grammar, Logic, Mathematics, Medicine; Politics, Sociology, Law; Higher Thinking, Philosophy, Speculative and Practical Theology. The thesis of the whole is that the best in life is wrought out elaborately and with pains by men of deep thought and long reflection. It is a glorifying of the ideal as over against the modern rush of practicality.

In his introductory lecture Professor Mahaffy seeks not to account for the Greek preëminence—that cannot be done; but to assert it, as one might extol the sporadic genius of a Mozart. He then shows how the Romans and the men of medieval Europe failed to grasp, as our modern world since the Renaissance has been grasping, the real meaning of Greece. And here comes in his plea for the study of Greek. He writes: “The danger I see before this generation is that which came upon the Roman world insensibly and which resulted in a decadence not arrested till it sunk into the night of the dark ages. The later empire was content to take Greek art and Greek letters at second hand, and to substitute Latin culture for the models which had educated their greatest masters. But ... the copy had not the life of the original. 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.... Happiness does not lie here, no, nor in motors, nor in turbines, nor in wireless messages across the globe, nor in daily newspapers full of inextricable fact and falsehood.”

In the chapters devoted to literature with wealth of argument and illustration is pointed out our well-known debt for rhythm and meter, period and cadence. In specific cases: “There can be no question that in the oratory of debate the Greeks taught the Romans, then through them mediæval Europe, then, after the Renaissance, modern Europe directly, so that even now they are the acknowledged masters in this splendid art.” And: “The laws of prose composition, as devised and perfected by Isocrates, are the most subtle and complete ever put into practice by any living man.”

These supreme exemplars of prose and verse, he declares, have no lesson for us of unstudied eloquence and unpremeditated art. Everything was polished to the pitch of perfection with unremitting toil.

Architecture and sculpture reveal the highest glories of Greek art. The refinements of line by which optical delusion was corrected in the Parthenon are pointed out with admiration. Speaking of the frieze of the same temple, he remarks: “There is even this subtlety in the detail of the work—that, as this band of figures was intended to be seen high above the spectator, care was taken to carve the lower limbs in slightly flatter relief than the upper, and the limbs of the horses were even made a little lighter than in nature, in order to counterbalance the predominance which the part nearer to the spectator’s vision might assume.” Glimpses of genius—pains and skill—such as that are of high artistic, yes, and moral value to our youth. Attention is called to what so many of us ignore, that color was freely used in both building and sculpture. Our flat whites would have been unbearable to these masters. Their perfection in statuary is the loving despair of the world to-day.

In the chapter on science are a host of facts which are not unfamiliar to the scholar, but which serve to hush some of our modern boastfulness. Some things will be new to many readers. Such are the system of numerical notation, almost as simple as our Arabic digits. The extent of Greek mathematical investigation is better known. Of great interest is the account of Greek medicine, which got so far beyond the nostrums, the philtres and superstitions to which medieval quackery returned.

In politics is found the weak point of Greece; yet even here we must use the historical perspective. And thus, by contrast, this ancient advance over Oriental thraldoms and tyrannies is all the more wonderful.

In matters of private law it is almost startling to come across a will like this, taken from a papyrus of Græcised Egypt: “This is the will of Peisias the Lycian, son of X., of sound mind and deliberate intention. May it be my lot to live on in health and manage mine own property, but should anything human happen to me, I bequeath to my children so much, to my wife such and such things, I set free certain slaves; I set apart money for religious purposes. And I appoint as executors such and such people.” A will like this would be admitted to probate in any surrogate’s court to-day.

The chapters on philosophy and theology are necessarily deep, but of supreme importance. For in them we are reminded of how by pure thinking the Greeks anticipated the best and latest of our modern thought. 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 ... there will still remain[110] the ethical types which Zeno and Epicurus have crystallized in their systems—there will always remain the man of duty and the man of pleasure, the man who lives for others and he who lives for himself, in terms of modern philosophic jargon, the Altruist and the Egoist, the Spiritualist and the Materialist.”

It were well for our youth and their teachers to bow before a race who in that dim and early age could think the thoughts and set in motion the influences which are most vital among us of the later time.

The Fall of the Curtain.

A formal presentation of the closing scenes of purely Greek history is precluded by the foregoing notice of Professor Mahaffy’s work. It may suffice to point out the three subjects most worthy of emphasis. These may well be: 1, the failure of the Greek federations before and after Alexander, owing to jealousies; 2, the extent and the political failure of the work of Alexander, and 3, the Hellenizing of the Mediterranean basin and the lasting benefits accruing therefrom.

European History in the Secondary School

D. C. KNOWLTON, PH.D., Editor.

THE RELIGIOUS WARS.

Some General Considerations.

The long period of struggle which followed the reform movement of the sixteenth century seems of comparatively little importance beside the revolt itself; and yet it offers possibilities of treatment which the secondary teacher cannot well afford to neglect. The modern tendency in text-book writing has been to suppress the details of wars in order to allow for a fuller treatment of other phases of development. Assuming that the teachers of the past generation, and not a few of the present day, have been laying too much emphasis on details of this character, the pendulum has seemed at times to swing too far in the direction of elimination and condensation in the treatment of great epoch making wars. Many an opportunity has thereby been neglected of inculcating great truths which could more easily be exemplified by stories drawn from the battlefield than from less stirring episodes. 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. The religious wars afford the teacher not only the possibility of vivid biographic treatment, but may serve to bind the closer certain common lines of development peculiar to the Europe of the latter part of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century.

Luther and the Beginnings of the Protestant Revolt.

There can be but very little choice of method in the presentation of the facts connected with the beginnings of the Protestant revolt. Luther’s life must be taken up in more or less detail and the attention directed to the various influences with which he came in contact. To secure a proper understanding of the effects of his teachings, the political as well as the religious background of his endeavors must be carefully sketched. Little difficulty will probably be experienced in showing how the Renaissance movement became intimately associated with church reform as it passed the barriers of the Alps and took hold of the more serious-minded Germans. This connection is much easier to establish from the fact that the attention of the class has already been drawn to the part taken by Erasmus in the Renaissance proper. The question will probably arise as to how far the teacher should delve into the more distant past to resurrect the various efforts at reform which marked the earlier centuries. Any opportunity for a résumé of this character should be heartily welcomed, as it serves better than any formal review to test the grasp by the student of the facts already covered. When the teacher is ready to take up the revolt itself, there is apparently but one logical method of securing results, and that is to present Luther’s life in as much detail as time will permit, showing how he felt himself driven by the force of his own logic into a position entirely antagonistic to the Church as it was then established. The parting of the ways is reached with the great scene at Worms. Contrary to his expectations, his protest within the Church had made him not only its avowed enemy, but the founder of a new sect.

Characteristics of Period from 1521 to 1648.

It is a comparatively easy matter to dispose of the remaining events in this drama in which Luther, the Emperor and the Pope are the main actors; but in what connection, and in how much detail, shall the teacher present the beginnings of the reform movement in other countries, the counter movement in the Catholic Church, and the struggles which arose over questions of religion in every land where Protestantism secured a foothold? The fact that sooner or later the struggle between Catholics and Protestants resolved itself into a civil war of considerable proportions makes it possible to utilize these struggles as the principal unifying element in the treatment of the entire period from 1521 to 1648. This plan differs from the ordinary arrangement of material to be found in the text-book in that it places less stress upon the beginnings of the reform movement outside of Germany, subordinating these details to the wars as the central theme and directing the attention of the student only to such events as help to explain the character of these struggles. The teacher must, however, bear in mind throughout that “the story of no European country or group of countries in this troubled period admits of being told as detached from the contemporary history of its neighbors, allies, or adversaries.”[7] Beyond emphasizing the fact that the revolt spread to other lands, it is a question whether the time is wisely spent in treating in detail the Calvinistic movement emanating from Geneva, or the beginnings of Presbyterianism in Scotland, or the overthrow of Catholicism in England. 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. In fact a new era had dawned in which the Church found itself removed from politics and the world given over to interests of quite a different character. This change may be illustrated further along by the insignificant part taken by the representatives of the Pope in the deliberations concerning the Treaties of Westphalia.

The growth of toleration should also be noted as an important characteristic of this new period. Finally the student’s attention may with profit be directed to the general tendency in these struggles toward the subordination of the higher interests of religion to selfish and dynastic interests. Time and again religion serves merely as a cloak for the concealment of ambitions of the most secular character. The ideals of true religion were perhaps never more perverted from their true ends and made to serve the basest and lowest uses.

Outline of Plan of Presentation.

After calling attention briefly to the fact that this spirit of revolt manifested itself in other countries, a logical plan of presentation would be first to discuss the ineffectual efforts of the Emperor Charles V and Pope Leo X to check the movement as it spread through Germany, with an explanation[111] of their failures; then to describe the more successful efforts in this direction taken within the church itself and known as the Counter Reformation; and finally to introduce Philip II as the great champion of orthodoxy, devoting his entire energies and the resources of a great empire to the superhuman task of restoring the church to its former position of power and influence. His career calls up Alva’s efforts to subdue the Netherlands, and that heroic figure, William the Silent; and the sailing of the Great Armada.

One semi-religious war, if not two, have already been under discussion in connection with these efforts to suppress the revolt, the Dutch War of Independence and the Spanish Armada. Here is apparently the proper place to introduce the other struggles, beginning with the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, then taking up in turn the Huguenot wars in France and the Puritan Revolution in England, and closing the period with the sequel to this last struggle, The Glorious Revolution of 1688.

The Thirty Years’ War.

It is natural to turn to Germany first in presenting the religious wars because of the greater familiarity of the student with conditions there. The order becomes thereby strictly chronological, as the Schmalkaldic War broke out in 1546; or, in other words, earlier by several years than either of the other struggles. This war gave rise to the Peace of Augsburg, which was a source of so much discontent that it has been counted as one of the great factors in bringing on the main struggle. Among the points which seem to call for special emphasis are the mixture of religious and political causes underlying the struggle, and the general participation of many of the great powers of Western Europe. This fact served to prolong the war and to give it a more European character and a wider significance. It was not merely a question of cujus regio, ejus religio, but of important dynastic and territorial interests. The efforts directed toward the overthrow of the power of the Hapsburgs and the peculiar interests of Denmark, Sweden and England in the contest call for special emphasis. The power of the Hapsburgs in the time of Charles V and later can be shown to good advantage by the use of outline maps. At least three great personalities dominate the scene, Wallenstein, Richelieu and Gustavus Adolphus, all of whom furnish rich material for biographical study. Although it is possible to follow the campaigns with an atlas like Putzger, this study is comparatively barren of results except as it throws light upon the military genius of a Wallenstein or on the prowess of “The Lion of the North.” The effects of the war were to be seen in Germany in the weakness of the central government and in the wretchedness and misery consequent upon thirty years of marching and countermarching on the part of hostile armies. The picture sketched by Gardiner in his Thirty Years’ War is well nigh incredible. The territorial changes which followed the war can best be shown by the preparation of a map. They are much more readily appreciated if they appear by themselves. (See, for example, the map in Harding, “Essentials,” p. 339, or Wakeman “Ascendancy of France, 1598-1715,” p. 124.)

The French Wars of Religion.

The treatment of the religious wars in France will differ slightly from that of the Thirty Years’ War, as it becomes necessary in this connection to introduce a few facts about Calvinism. This need not involve much more than the briefest possible statement of what Calvin taught, pointing out how his teachings appealed to the intellect and the understanding rather than to the emotions, as did those of Luther. As a result the Huguenots counted among their numbers some of the best families of France. The personal element can be made very prominent in these struggles, as it was largely the intrigues of two families, the Guises and the Bourbons, aided and abetted by the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, which kept France embroiled for all these years. Here, too, is to be noted the same situation which prevailed in Germany, namely, the apparent powerlessness of the French people to solve their own religious and dynastic troubles alone without the interference of outside nations, notably England and Spain. Selfish and dynastic interests seem to have decidedly the upper hand here as contrasted with Germany. Much can be made of such dramatic episodes as the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the conversion of the Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre. The edict of Nantes and its effect upon France should be contrasted with the religious clauses in the Treaties of Westphalia. The great problem which this settlement raised of a state within a state, made necessary the work of Richelieu, whose career can now be rounded out by showing how he was laboring for one and the same end in his treatment of the Huguenots at home and his support of the Protestants abroad. French history is thus brought down to the age of Louis XIV.

The Puritan Revolution.

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 Great Civil War partakes of the twofold character of the continental wars. It marks on the one hand a struggle between two religious sects; on the other a contest between the king and the representatives of the people. The prominence of this second phase, the fact that it was a struggle between two Protestant sects instead of between Catholics and Protestants, and that it took place so long after the general upheaval following the break with Rome, have served to isolate it more or less from the struggles on the continent. The gains for freedom, which were the final outcome of this struggle, differentiate it from those in France and Germany. Henry IV and Richelieu prepared the way for the absolutism of Louis XIV. In Germany the disorganization and demoralization of the central government placed the destinies of the German people in the hands of rival princes, whose political creed may be summed up in the words of Frederick William I of Prussia, “Salvation belongs to the Lord; everything else is my business.” The rulers of England, on the contrary, were forced to recognize the power of parliament to control their ministers, and more important still, to acknowledge the sovereign people as the ultimate source of their power and authority. The admission of this principle of government was not entirely the work of the Puritan Revolution, but needed the additional lesson of the tyranny and overthrow of James II. Not the least important among the benefits which the movement of 1688 conferred upon England was the general recognition of the principle of toleration.

The opportunity which this method affords the teacher of contrasting English conditions with those on the continent should lead to a better understanding and appreciation of England’s relation to and part in general European progress. Her internal history furnishes another illustration of the great characteristic of this period, the passing of religious questions from the sphere of politics and the appearance of issues of an entirely different character.

Bibliography.

The text-book will probably be found to furnish all the material needed for the presentation of this period, with the possible exception of details of a biographical character. “The Heroes of the Nations” series contains good biographies of Gustavus Adolphus, by C. R. L. Fletcher; of Henry IV, by P. F. Willert, and of Cromwell, by Charles Firth. These may be supplemented by the volumes in the “Foreign Statesmen Series,” on Richelieu, by R. Lodge; on William the Silent, by Frederic Harrison, and on Philip II, by Martin Hume. The volumes in the “Epochs of Modern History Series,” which cover this period, The Thirty Years’ War and the Puritan Revolution, by S. R. Gardiner, furnish considerable supplementary information in a convenient and compact form. The best atlases are probably Putzger, and Gardiner (“Atlas of English History”).

[112]

History in the Grades

ARMAND J. GERSON, Editor.

THE ADMISSION OF MISSOURI.

A Type Lesson.

Happily our pupils nowadays are no longer compelled to commit to memory lists of the states admitted during each administration. While we are all agreed as to the futility of this antiquated practice we must at the same time recognize that no pupil should leave our schools without a fairly definite idea of the process by which new states are created. This knowledge is essential to a comprehension of the present condition of the nation and of its development in the future. It is the purpose of the present article to show how a grasp of the process of admitting states may be developed by means of the story of the admission of some one typical state.

Vermont and Kentucky at once suggest themselves because of the very early date of their formation. To these states, however, as to others admitted in the first few administrations, there is the objection that their admission was not typical of the process. This is due to their previous dependence upon or relation to some of the original states. Missouri, on the other hand, lying west of the Mississippi, may be said to typify most of the states subsequently admitted. Another reason for the choice of Missouri lies in the fact that our courses of study require us to present the subject of the Missouri Compromise, thus furnishing the best excuse in the world for developing in that connection our type-lesson on the admission of new states.

The first point that should be developed is the relation between the national government and the territory of the United States. Only one definite reference to this relation occurs in the federal constitution. In Art. IV, section 3, we find this statement: “The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States.” We should impress our pupils with the significance of this clause which places in the hands of the national legislature complete control over United States territory. The wide extent of land which had come into our possession by the Louisiana Purchase could be disposed of by Congress in any way that it might see fit. In this land lay the future state of Missouri.

Having thus given due consideration to the general relation between the United States government and the territory which it owns, we should pass next to the question of the creation of new states. Our pupils are presumably acquainted with the necessity of referring to the Constitution for any reference to a matter of fundamental national law. It might be worth while to have the children themselves find the Constitutional provision which relates to the admission of states. The first part of Art. IV, section 3, provides that “new states may be admitted by the Congress into this Union,”—the rest of the clause, as far as our present purpose is concerned, may be dispensed with. Attention should be called to the extreme indefiniteness of this provision and to the general fact that while the Constitution gives Congress full control of United States territory and further delegates to it the power to admit new states, the actual mode of procedure has been left to Congress itself to work out.

The ordinance of 1787 next calls for reference and rapid review. For the purposes of this lesson the ordinance is important as having furnished the type of territory destined to become an integral part of our political organization. Further, it had made definite provision for the future admission of states to be carved out of the Northwest territory. To be sure, this ordinance was the work of the Continental Congress, but it had been re-enacted by the first Congress under the Constitution as early as 1789. The process mapped out in this famous ordinance had already furnished the model for the creation of territories and the admission of states in various parts of the country.

The territory of Missouri, originally as we have said a part of the Louisiana Purchase, was organized by act of Congress June 4, 1812. The class must be brought to see the significance of this organization. As a territory Missouri had definite boundaries and an organized government. It had a governor appointed by the President of the United States, and a territorial legislature. It of course had no voice in national affairs, and was in last resort subject to the will of Congress.

A flood of immigration from the eastern states rapidly increased the population of the new territory. It may be well, because of the subsequent significance of the fact, to point out that a large pro-slavery element had made repeated unsuccessful attempts to secure for slavery the states which so far had been made from the Northwest Territory. The anti-slavery provision of the Northwest Ordinance, however, continued to hold good, and slave holders began to look across the Mississippi for the extension of their dominion. So rapid was the increase of population in Missouri that in less than six years after its organization as a territory we find it seeking admission as a state. In the early months of 1818 several memorials were presented in the House petitioning for statehood, and on April 3 of that year an enabling act was introduced.

The discussion of the enabling act constitutes one of the most important “type elements” of our lesson. Normally the passing of such an act by Congress must be regarded as the first step in the transition of a territory to a state. There are, to be sure, some striking instances where states have been admitted without the previous passage of an enabling act by Congress—Texas and California are cases in point—but in our type lesson we are concerned with the normal practice only. We must develop in our pupils the idea of an enabling act as the authorization of a territory by Congress to adopt a state constitution and present itself for admission into the Union on equal terms with the other states; the act further fixes the boundaries of the prospective state.

As we have already mentioned, an enabling act for the admission of Missouri had been introduced into the House as early as April 3, 1818. The passage of the final Missouri Enabling Act, however, did not take place until March 6, 1820. The fact that this delay was caused by the bitter fight over slavery extension must by all means be emphasized, but the history of the struggle in Congress,—of the amendments, references, committee reports, etc., is far too complex to form a part of any elementary lesson. It will be sufficient if our pupils understand that there was a constant struggle to preserve the balance of slave and free states, and grasp the significance of the admission of Alabama in 1819 and of the application of Maine in that same year.

The Enabling Act of 1820, as typical of enabling acts in general, should receive careful attention. Section 1 authorizes the people of the territory of Missouri “to form for themselves a constitution and state government, and to assume such name as they shall deem proper.” Section 2 consists of an exact statement of the boundaries of the new state. The phrasing of these sections is significant, typical, and interesting, and should be presented to the class in full.[8]

Section 7 states that the new constitution, when drafted, shall be transmitted to Congress. This provision for approval by Federal authority is important and characteristic of enabling acts in general, which regularly require the applicant state to submit its constitution for approval to the Federal government, usually to Congress.

Section 8 of the Enabling Act embodies the Missouri Compromise, and is of great importance on that account. As far, however, as the mere question of the admission of new states is concerned, this section cannot be considered pertinent. If the teacher’s aim is to present the admission of Missouri and the Missouri Compromise as one general topic, full consideration of[113] this section must here be given. Otherwise passing reference will suffice.

The people of Missouri acting under authority of their enabling act, at once proceeded to frame a state constitution. Beyond the fact that state constitutions are framed by conventions chosen by the people, and are usually submitted to the people themselves for ratification, the intimate details of the process will serve rather to confuse than to clarify the idea we are seeking to develop. Suffice it to say that a pro-slavery constitution was finally adopted in July, 1820, and transmitted to Congress later in that year.

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 class should of course understand that there was such a contest, and that Henry Clay did more than any other one man to bring it to an amicable conclusion. On March 2, 1821, the resolution to admit Missouri as a state was approved, and on August 10th a proclamation announced the addition of another star to the flag.

Reports from the Historical Field

WALTER H. CUSHING, Editor.

THE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION (ENGLISH).[9]

English teachers of history organized an association about three years ago, in May, 1906. At a preliminary meeting held at University College, London, it was resolved to form an Historical Association. On June 30th of the same year a constitution and by-laws were adopted and officers of the Association were elected. All persons are eligible for membership who are engaged or interested in the teaching of history. The annual subscription to the Association is five shillings, payable on July 1st. The president is Professor C. H. Firth, Oxford. The treasurer is J. E. Morris, and the secretary Miss M. B. Curran, 6 South Square, Gray’s Inn, London, W. C. There are 15 vice-presidents, including men and women connected with college and school life of the kingdom, many of whom are well-known in America. In addition to these officers there is a council of 29 persons. The association has established a number of local branches which in March, 1909, numbered 13. The activities of the Association are the holding of annual meetings, the encouragement of local centers and the study of local history, and the publication of a series of leaflets. Up to June, 1909, these leaflets numbered 17. The topics treated are as follows:

No. 1. Source-books.

No. 2. Some Books on the Teaching of History in Schools.

No. 3. A Summary of Historical Examinations, including Matriculation Examinations and Entrance Scholarships.

No. 4. Address by the Right Hon. James Bryce, on the “Teaching of History in Schools.”

No. 5. A Brief Bibliography of British History for the use of teachers.

No. 6. Books upon General History, Ancient History and European History.

No. 7. Supplementary Reading.

No. 8. Books on Colonial History and The History of the British Empire.

No. 9. Bibliography of Exeter.

No. 10. Address by Thomas Hodgkin, Esq., on the “Teaching of History in Schools.”

No. 11. The Teaching of Local History.

No. 12. Illustrations, Portraits and Lantern Slides Chiefly for British and Modern History.

No. 13. Historical Maps and Atlases.

No. 14. Bibliography of London.

No. 15. The Teaching of Civics in Public Schools.

No. 16. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era.

No. 17. An Experiment in the Teaching of History.

CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION.

The program for the History Section of the California Teachers’ Association is:

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 29TH, 1909.

Topic: “The Correlation of Grade and High School History Teaching.”

Papers: I. D. Steele, San Jose High School; Miss Minnie Maher, Girls’ High School, San Francisco. Discussion opened by Miss Lucy R. Watkins, Watsonville High School; R. D. Faulkner, Horace Mann Grammar School, San Francisco.

Topic: “The Correlation of History with Other Subjects in the Teaching of History in the High School.”

Papers: E. D. Adams, Stanford University; T. M. Marshall, Alameda High School.

Discussion opened by Miss Eleanor Johnson, Oakland High School; F. H. Clark, Lowell High School, San Francisco.

Officers: President, J. N. Bowman; secretary, H. W. Edwards.

On the principle of history being a continuous subject from grade to university, grade and high school teachers were united in the same section. This plan has been adopted by the English section also, and others are thinking of it.

[114]

NEW YORK CITY CONFERENCE.

The New York Conference of History Teachers held its meeting on Saturday, December 11, 1909, at the College of the City of New York. After the opening address, Professor Henry Johnson, of Teachers’ College of Columbia University, gave the principal paper upon “Special Aids to Visualization in the Teaching of History.” This was followed by a discussion upon “The Solution of Some Practical Difficulties.” Miss Francis E. Chapman, of the Flushing High School, spoke upon “Lack of Judgment”; Miss Clara Byrnes, of the Normal College, on the “Lack of Vocabulary”; Miss Edith M. Tufts, of the Speyer School, upon the “Failure to Understand Alien Morals,” and Mr. James G. Croswell, of the Brearley School, upon “Lack of Imagination.” At the close of the meeting a luncheon was held in a neighboring hotel.

The report of the committee on nomination for officers for 1909-10 was adopted as follows: For chairman, Livingston Rowe Schuyler; secretary, Daniel C. Knowlton; treasurer, W. Franklin Brush. For members of the executive committee: Miss Clara Byrnes, Arthur P. Butler, William Fairley, James G. Croswell.

This New York Conference was organized in response to an unanimous vote of the third annual convention of the Association of History Teachers of the Middle States and Maryland, which authorized the formation of local conferences of history teachers. The announcement of the conference meeting states that “The primary purpose of the conference is the same as that of the association—‘to advance the study and teaching of history and government through discussion,’ and ‘to promote personal acquaintance among teachers and students of history.’ In these meetings a large number of teachers can be reached whose duties and location prevent them from attending conventions at a distance. Such conferences also afford opportunities for wider discussion than is possible at the meetings of the association. Free statement of opinion indicates lines of work of great worth and interest. The constitution and organization are of the simplest type, and the fee a nominal one of one dollar a year.”

MISSOURI SOCIETY.

The Missouri Society of Teachers of History and Government will meet on December 28th and 29th in the Central High School Building, St. Louis. The following program has been arranged:

TUESDAY AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 28TH.

1.45—Address: “The Eternity of Rome,” William Schuyler, McKinley High School, St. Louis.

“What Topics in Ancient and Mediæval History Need Special Emphasis to Prepare the Pupil for the Modern Period?” Miss Ellen B. Atwater, Central High School, St. Louis. Discussion.

“Recent Books,” Professor N. M. Trenholme, Columbia.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 29TH.

1.45—History in the Grades: “Geographic Influences in American History,” Miss Grace Graves, Hannibal; “Victories of War vs. Victories of Peace,” Miss Fannie Bennett, Eighth Grade, Siegel School, St. Louis. Discussion.

“The Future Citizen and Civics Instruction in the High School,” Principal S. A. Baker, Joplin. Discussion.

Collection of papers for General Secretary and for Society Secretary.

Business meeting. Preliminary reports of committees: 1. “On History Instruction in the High Schools of Missouri,” E. M. Violette, State Normal, Kirksville. 2. “On History Instruction in the Grades.”

A cordial invitation is extended to all to visit the valuable collection of the Missouri Historical Society, 1600 Locust Street, hours 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The officers are: President, H. R. Tucker, St. Louis; vice-president, Jesse Lewis, Maryville; secretary and treasurer, Eugene Fair, Kirksville; editor, N. M. Trenholme, Columbia.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HISTORY FOR SCHOOLS.

The bibliography of history for schools which was published serially last year in the “Atlantic Educational Quarterly,” is about to be issued in more elaborate form by Longmans, Green & Co. The work seems to meet a need among teachers who find it difficult to keep abreast of available historical literature in English, and who are often in doubt as to the relative merits of various standard works. The bibliography, as enlarged and revised, will contain selected lists of the most approved historical works in English, covering the whole field of history, with separate sections devoted to historical reading for children. The portions relating to American history will be worked out with unusual fullness and care. Works on aids to history, method, universal history, biography, ecclesiastical, constitutional and economic history will also be included, and a specially prepared list of books on American government will be given. Every work mentioned whether in one volume or many volumes, will be carefully annotated in a criticism of from two to twenty lines, and in the case of larger works at even greater length. Each entry will contain the name of the author, the title of the work in full, year of publication, price and name of the publisher. The bibliography has been prepared by a committee of the Maryland History Teachers’ Association, consisting of Professor Charles M. Andrews, of the Johns Hopkins University; Mr. J. Montgomery Gambrill, head of the department of history and civics of the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, and Miss Lida Lee Tall, supervisor of grammar grades, Baltimore county, Maryland. It will be issued under the auspices of the Association of History Teachers of the Middle States and Maryland.

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Correspondence

USE OF SOURCES.

Saint Louis, Nov. 29, 1909.

Editor History Teacher’s Magazine:

Kindly permit me to write a word in regard to Professor Fay’s criticism of Professor Fling’s article in the September number of your excellent magazine.

Professor Fling some years ago blazed the trail for a reform in history instruction throughout the country. Like every pedagogical reformer, he advanced a theory which many—perhaps, only few—were willing to carry out in its entirety. 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. What better way to get them to practice the critical attitude towards the printed page? 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.

I will admit that I am not prepared to go the extent that Professor Fling advocates, and apply “internal” and “external” criticism to references twice a week. But because we cannot endorse his method entirely, should we reject it entirely? There are many ideas which he advances in the “Salamis” study which can easily be followed in many other periods. The use of sources will be very imperfectly handled in the hands of an unskilled teacher, but that is no criticism on the use of them. What better reference for 1789 in France than the source, Arthur Young’s “Travels.” In using such an attractive work, must we not raise the very questions which Professor Fling suggests in the “Salamis” study? A study of one page of the expense account of the South Carolina Legislature during reconstruction days will mean more than a whole chapter of secondary authority on reconstruction expenses. By the way, could civics be taught without the sources? History instruction is to furnish information; but it is also to develop discriminating judgment. In the use of[115] the sources—to what extent, will depend on the teacher,—these results will be attained, and the subject vitalized, more than in any other way.

The fact that we cannot afford two recitations a week when only four are given to history is no argument against the method. Professor Fling’s statements as to allotment of time were made with reference to five hours a week for history. And, anyway, it is immaterial whether we can follow Professor Fling’s method according to the letter; we certainly, in our high school instruction, need to follow the spirit of his method. In fact, from one paragraph of Professor Fay’s article, where he says he would arouse the pupils’ interest “in scenes and countries removed by time and space from themselves,” it would seem that he would use the source. The difference is one of degree, not of kind; one of how to use them, not whether to use them or no.

H. R. Tucker,
Wm. McKinley H. S., St. Louis.

SCHOOL LIBRARIES.

Editor History Teacher’s Magazine:

The question raised by Mr. Parham, Librarian of the Little Rock High School in the November number, concerning the supply of reference books in history, is a very vital one. I should like to make one or two remarks by way of relating some things concerning the making of the library in the State Normal School with which I am connected.

Our library has been created practically within the last six years. Prior to that time it consisted of a few hundred volumes, indifferently selected and poorly adapted to class-room needs. From the beginning of its reorganization every instructor who has had anything to do with the ordering of books has sought first to purchase duplicate copies of those books which his classes will use in their class work from day to day. The aim has been to make it possible for every member of the class to read the same references, hence duplicates ranging from three to twenty have been purchased. The general plan has been to have one copy for about every three members in the class. As a result we have numerous duplicates of those titles that are used as references for general class work. Of course these books will wear out pretty rapidly—some are already well worn out—and in a short time they will all have to be replaced. But this will give us an opportunity to put other books that have been more recently written in their place, and thus keep abreast of the times.

But all our purchases have not been made in this manner. We have been ordering many other books in single copies which are used chiefly for theme or thesis work, though there are occasions when an entire class will be sent to several different books for a given subject.

So successful has this plan of buying duplicate copies in large numbers been, that we are constantly advising those who consult us to do the same thing. Just the other day a High School teacher wrote me she had $35 to spend for library books on Ancient History for a class of 70. I immediately wrote her, recommending that she put practically all of that precious $35 in just two titles, Tucker’s “Life of the Ancient Greeks” and Johnstone’s “Private Life of the Romans.” I estimated that she could get about ten copies of each of these titles, and perhaps have enough left to buy Oman’s or Bury’s “History of Greece,” and How and Leigh’s or Pelham’s “History of Rome.” I am sure that the results she will get from this scheme will be far more satisfactory than they would be if she spent all of her money for single copies of a great many more titles.

There may be objections to giving the same assignment of reading to the entire class, but I have found in my own work here that the students in the history courses of high school rank and those also of college rank do better work and get better results if they are, most of the time, given identically the same assignments of reading. I believe most firmly in the definite assignment of pages in a book for the day-after-day work. The student may be left to his own devices in some instances, but not in many. And the only way to make this plan work is to buy numerous duplicate titles of at least a few books, and to keep this up until all the books for general class work have been purchased. When that is done, then attention can be given to stocking up the library with those books that will be needed in single copies only.

If there is anything fundamentally wrong with this method of doing things I should like to have it pointed out. So far it has been the way of salvation to us here and to many others around us.

E. M. Violette.

Department of History,
State Normal School,
Kirksville, Mo.

Editor History Teacher’s Magazine.

We have recently placed in our history and other classes a series of Underwood and Underwood stereographs. Will you kindly publish in The History Teacher’s Magazine some suggestions as to how they may be used with profit? Among others we have placed one of the complete Italian tours. We shall have about 60 in Roman history next semester. Any suggestions you may see fit to publish will be highly appreciated.

I cannot stop without telling you how much I enjoy the Magazine. It grows better each month. The suggestions are very helpful. I have worked a number of them out, and find them exceedingly practical. It is always with considerable pleasure that I look forward to the delivery of the Magazine. It is a timely publication, and will do much for the history teaching throughout the nation.

C. R. G.

Have our readers any suggestions to offer for such work?

PACIFIC COAST BRANCH.

The Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association held its annual meeting at Stanford University, November 19-20. The afternoon session of Saturday, the 20th, was devoted to History in the Secondary Schools, the topic being “Ancient History in the First Year of the High School.” A very practical paper was read by W. C. Westergaard, of the Alameda High School, on the subject, “Points of Contact between Ancient History and the Present.”

The discussion that followed brought out several points. Ancient History has been the object of attack by several critics of the high schools, and if it is to retain its place it must justify itself. It is the weak point in our secondary history work, chiefly for two reasons: 1. It is the most remote of the four “fields,” and yet is put before beginners, whose mental power is undeveloped. 2. It is usually placed in charge of less experienced teachers than are the other courses. The method set forth in the essay is well calculated to overcome the first of these conditions. Children enjoy discussing historical “problems” of a simple sort: e. g., the conduct of the Romans after Caudine Forks; the wisdom of Cæsar’s clemency. Anything that will make the men of the past real is useful; value of letters (Pliny’s, etc.).

After the discussion was closed, the election of officers resulted in the choice of Professor E. D. Adams, Stanford University, president; Prof. J. N. Bowman, University of California, secretary-treasurer.

H. W. E.

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