CHAPTER II

THE SELECTION OF HISTORICAL MATERIALS SUITABLE FOR THE COMMON SCHOOL GRADES

To select the best historical material which the world can furnish to children in the common school is not an easy task. It is necessary to keep in mind both the children's capacity to appropriate historical knowledge and the character of those historical materials which are needed to interpret modern life. We must also remember the chief aim to socialize and humanize the child by causing him to experience the best epochs of historical growth.

We may first draw the line of separation between history and several very closely related studies with which it is frequently confused. Some writers are accustomed to include the mythologies and folklore commonly taught in the primary grades as a part of history, but for our present purpose we wish to discriminate history from the myth and legend and to limit it chiefly to what is now understood as authentic history which will stand the tests of modern methods of verification.

We are also disposed to draw a sharp line between

history and literature, such literature, for example, as the Homeric poems, the old English ballads, the Arthurian legends, Virgil's "Eneid," the story of Siegfried," "Marmion," and many other historical poems and classics. Historical novels, likewise, even the best of them, are not included in the term "history" as we are now using it in connection with the school course. All of these literary materials are wrought into the school course, partly in the oral story work of the primary grades, partly in the regular study of reading throughout all the grades, and partly in supplementary readings both at school and home. This line of demarcation between history and literature casts no discredit upon literature, mythology, and historical fiction. A full course of study in the best literature of America and of other countries should be provided in the common school curriculum, and is presupposed. This whole subject has been fully discussed in the "Special Method in Reading of English Classics," and in the "Special Method in Primary Reading and Oral Work in Stories," of this series.

History proper deals with materials which have historical veracity, which are based upon good authorities and may be accepted as true. The teacher of history is expected to assume the standpoint of the modern scientific historian, at least so far as the use of authentic material is concerned. Not that the teacher himself is a historian, but he should use

materials which good historians have pronounced trustworthy. It is not expected that the teacher himself will become a technical critic or that he will try to make such critics of the children. But there are certain credulous, one-sided historical books which he should avoid. Biographies giving undue praise and credit to historical characters should be avoided. Books which are ultra-patriotic in their approval of all things American are not healthful historical books. On the other hand, it is not expected that children shall be trained to a carping criticism of great men, or that they should exercise a premature wisdom in judging the leaders in history. What is needed is, rather, a solid respect for historical truth and a disposition to know the facts and to learn the lessons which history really teaches.

In laying out a course of study in American and other history we may get at a good result by the negative process of deciding what historical materials should be excluded from our school course. We will attempt, therefore, to fix a table of exclusions.

1. Anything like a full chronology, either of American or European history, is out of the question in the common school. This sort of systematic chronology has been in vogue in our schools to a considerable extent, but it is rapidly passing away. For children it is certainly necessary that only a few important dates be learned.

2. A brief systematic survey of the history of the

whole world, which has been strongly recommended by some teachers, seems to have very little real basis in the needs of children or of society. Such an outline, if at all appropriate, should be the result of historical study at the end of the course, rather than a preface to it. It is inevitably a dull piece of work and cannot be defended even upon the ground of pure discipline, the belief in which is fast giving way to a more rational conviction.

3. The genealogies of kings and royal houses, and the endless series of court intrigues which once constituted a good share of the text-books in history, are now recognized as worse than valueless to children. Some critics, like Herbert Spencer, have almost totally rejected the study of history in our common schools because it was made up of such trash.

4. Many large periods of European history can be esteemed of no particular value to children up to the age of fourteen. They should not be dragged over the whole long chain of events as a prelude to the study of later ages.

5. The study of wars and military campaigns should be cut as short as possible. There are, indeed, some honorable and some horrible lessons to be learned from the study of war, and the impression of its destructive and devastating character, its ruinous influence upon society, should be made as plain as possible. Thus far, curiously, in the history work of schools, war has been chiefly glorified and its

inhuman and distressing phases overlooked. If taught at all, the truth about wars ought to be told and its brutalities, as well as its heroisms, exposed. This can be done by an occasional detailed treatment of a military campaign or battle. In a Christian nation it is quite admissible to bring out the selfish and unrighteous causes which have led to war, and the plundered fields and towns, and the broken and mangled families which are the sure and incurable results of war.

6. The philosophy of history is not a thing to be taught in the common school, and this applies also to some of those generalizations which even our text-books commonly supply. It is, however, of little value to children to memorize these general inferences. They presuppose just such a knowledge of the facts as the children should be engaged in accumulating. Both teachers and text-books easily drop into this humdrum method of summing up historical events. The pupils get little out of it except a routine drill which dulls the sensibilities.

7. Recent and contemporary history is perhaps the most difficult of historical studies, and for this reason have little appropriateness to children. The history of a hundred years ago can be much more easily understood by children than the current events of to-day. It takes a very wise and experienced scholar and man of the world to judge correctly any of our present political and social controversies.