Mexican soldiers and civilians constitute as pretty an example as one could find of the bare-faced fake." In 1913 Mr. Charles Henry Hart read before the American Historical Association a paper on Frauds in Historical Portraiture," dealing largely with American portraits. No more is necessary than a reference to that, since it is in print. Before the days of the camera, facts passed through the alembic of the personal viewpoint of the artist, with possible change and distortion. And the camera? That dumb, mechanical, faithful agent reproduces impartially whatever is set before it, both truth and After all, however, the occasional fault no more impairs the utility of the print than the possibility of error, or the bias or confused judgment of the witness "lessens the usefulness of printed or manuscript sources. The "personal equation" cannot be absolutely eliminated from written, printed or pictured testimony. Even the printing of a government document does not necessarily mean the telling of the whole truth. Views, whether photographic or painted or drawn on the spot by an artist, will generally be accepted as fairly trustworthy representations. On the other hand, pictures of occurrences, battles, mob attacks, sessions of representative bodies, are practically never produced synchronously with the event. There is the photograph, of course, but that cannot, for obvious reasons, give a battle, for instance, at close hand. It may sometimes reproduce a small slice of an event, and then becomes at best anecdotal history. The painting or drawing of a battle or other affair, even if the artist was present, can at best give but his impression. In other words, it is the artist's privilege, just as it has been of certain historians of a vivid style, to put the breath of life into a recital. John Trumbull, himself a participant in the Revolution, left a dramatic representation of the Battle of Bunker Hill. It is an open question whether he expressed the spirit of the scene any more truly than did Howard Pyle a hundred years later in his two illustrations, one showing the British grenadiers doggedly advancing up the hill in close formation, the other depicting Bostonians watching the battle from their house-tops. The New York public library owns a large scrapbook of drawings executed on the front, during the Civil War, by Frank Leslie's artists. There you may find a note such as men with oilcloth, very wet and muddy, . . . make them take better aim." This sketch was redrawn, then, in New York, after which it was engraved on wood. So that two draughtsmen and an engraver stood between you and the facts. Still, it is the closest eye-witness account, in pictorial form to be had. "" Of course if the artist's impressions are based on insufficient knowledge, the results are disconcerting. For instance, some years ago a newspaper letter called attentions to illustrations showing Wolfe reading Gray's elegy on the way to Quebec (while there was no moon that night to give light to read by), Montgomery's army on Lake Champlain in full uniform with bayonets (while there were few uniforms and bayonets in 1775), Prescott at Bunker Hill in full regimentals (while it is recorded that he was in civilian garb, including a long seer-sucker coat), Sergeant Jasper at Fort Moultrie picking up the Stars and Stripes (while his flag was that of South Carolina). When we come to portraits, it is, as with views, a matter of the photograph or painting or drawing from the actual object—the portrait from life. And while in an engraving after such a portrait we are given, indeed, nature doubly translated, first into the impression of the painter and then into the traduction of the engraver, yet we get as close to the original as possible. There is, too, the possibility of comparing various engravings of a subject with the original or a photograph thereof, and with each other, so as to avoid the use of a copy or a copy of a copy, for one engraver often copied another. Of course a painted portrait shows the subject seen through the eyes— and the mental attitude of the painter. And the photograph? Has that changed all? Not quite. That reproduces the momentary aspect, the mental and physical pose. The artist, on the other hand, if he be one of real power, can conceivably work on the synthetic plan, giving us a résumé, a reflection of the general character of the sitter. The good likeness frequently carries conviction, and is not that after all a determining matter in much testimony honestly given? Sigmund Jacob Apin, indeed, in his little books on the collecting of portraits (Nuremberg 1726) met objections regarding the likeness of a portrait by asking, “but may it not be like?" It is interesting, too, to note how research in this specialty of historical illustration may develop expert knowledge. For instance, the subject of uniforms of the American Revolution has been worked up by an amateur enthusiast, and by H. A. Ogden, the illustrator, down to the very buttons and wristbands, while a "sub" specialty has been developed, that of Pennsylvania regiments during the same war, by the artist J. L. G. Ferris. It really seems that the attitude has changed for the better. In our country the most noteworthy attempts at critical presentation of illustrations are probably Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History (1884-89), Woodrow Wilson's "History of the American People" (1902), and Avery's unfinished "History of the United States" (1904-10). In the last two the list of illustrations is illuminating and aims to fix as nearly as possible the correctness of a given print, stating doubts frankly where they exist, as for instance in the case of the portrait of Lasalle. Mr. I. N. Phelps Stokes, in a recent address before the Grolier Club, New York, on New York city views, showed an original drawing of the city, possibly done in 1642, of the authenticity of which he was not yet quite convinced. The interesting point about it was that, while it came to light seven or eight years ago, it shows two windmills in New Amsterdam. Now, said he, it was only through a photograph of the Manatus map (long known as the "Vingboons Survey," owned by Henry Harrisse), taken a year or so ago, that it was found that there existed two windmills in the settlement instead of one. That is an example of studying views with the help of contemporary records. The movement for historical teaching with the aid of illustrations has been voiced in recent years, for example in the HISTORY TEACHER'S MAGAZINE. The intention is, of course, to put the pupil in accord with the spirit of the period which he is studying, and contemporary pictures seem to be selected as much as possible. At the time of this writing the Metropolitan Museum, of New York, has in preparation handbooks intended to show the teachers of history in the public schools what there is in the museum to help them illustrate their teaching. Obviously it is not only paintings, personal impressions of events and personages, which come into play here, but also objects of applied and decorative art, reflecting tastes and aspirations of given peoples and periods. In the little volume Art museums and schools," the chapters by G. Stanley Hall on museums and teachers of history, and O. S. Tonks on museums and teachers of the classics, deal particularly with this matter. add that in the case of the social history of our own land I dipped lightly into the subject in two articles for the "Critic" for August and September, 1905, which nevertheless necessitated the examination of every picture in every comic paper of any note that was procurable, published for fifty years after 1835. Finally, apart from the more or less obvious illustration of outer manifestations-costume, customs, racial characteristics-which the printed picture holds for us, there is the deeper significance of art. The fact is that all art really worth while is an expression of its time and land. Paul Clemen even says that art "is the finest flower of the culture of a people; without a knowledge of the same the life of a people cannot be understood." And he is simply one in a long list of authors who have borne witness to this, including Taine, R. Eucken, Percy Gardner, W. M. Flinders Petrie, B. Handcke and Clive Bell (who asserts that "the idea is intolerable to scientific historians"). Characteristic instances of art as a manifestation of its time and place are not hard to find. The Gothic Cathedral, the Japanese color print, the Greek statue, the Persian miniature, British mezzotints, Chinese ceramics-or, in our own land, the Hudson River School" of painting, civic art, colonial furniture, the sky-scraper, the bungalowall these and so many others, are expressions of racial and national viewpoint and tendency. In that point of view lie perhaps the deepest meaning, the richest possibilities, of art as an aid in the interpretation of history. All works of art directly or indirectly form records of the activity of mankind at various times, in various surroundings, under various conditions. That fact is obvious, at least in its superficial manifestations; references to it stare us in the face everywhere in the literature of art. The fact is graphically illustrated by art throughout the ages. In our own country, take as a simple illustration the products of certain painters of the middle of the last century-W. S. Mount, F. W. Edmonds, R. Caton Woodville, W. Ranney, Bingham. They painted the pioneers and trap- England," and in this comparison Russia certainly does not pers of the West, the flatboatmen of the Ohio, the Long Island farmer driving a horse trade, whittling, or listening to "Old Dan Tucker" scraped by the local fiddler. So they left records of costume and customs and mental viewpoint. Less concerned, often, on the whole, with individual happenings than with the broader aspect, the more general trend, of occurrences, is the art of caricature. Some years ago there was exhibited in New York city a collection of about two hundred caricatures relating to the American Revolution. And a sub-division of this specialty is dealt with in R. T. Haines Halsey's "The Boston Port Bill as pictured by a contemporary London cartoonist" (Grolier Club, 1904). The Jacksonian period and the Civil War add their quotas to the pictorial comment on happenings offered by the comic art. The interest and value of the often searching sidelight which both political and social caricatures throw on our historic periods have been shown by the publication of numerous books dealing with individual persons, countries or periods in caricature. I might In the July volume of the "Hibbert Journal," "A Discourse on War," by the late Stopford A. Brooke, will appeal to historians because of its interpretation of the general spirit of war. In the same volume Harold Begbie has a most interesting comparison of religious conditions in Russia and England in his " Spiritual Alliance of Russia and suffer. Dr. William Z. Ripley, professor of political economy in Harvard University, and one of the highest authorities on transportation problems in the United States, discusses "The Railroad Eight Hour Law" in the October "Review of Reviews." Dr. Ripley's article is by far the sanest and most non-partisan treatment of the Adamson Law which has yet appeared. Albert B. Faust has an interesting article on "Swiss Emigration to the American Colonies in the Eighteenth "" in "The American Historical Review" for OctoCentury ber. The Swiss settlements were made in Pennsylvania and the Carolinas, he says, and flourished in spite of the hardships, obstructions, social ostracism and deprivation of rights and privileges imposed by the home government. In the "London Quarterly Review" for July, St. Nihal Singh pays a high tribute to the retiring Viceroy of India in his article on "Lord Hardinge's Indian Administration." The success of Lord Hardinge, he claims, was due to his sympathy with Indian aspirations; his limitations, to his inability to effect military reform, and the great merit of his service the advance made in education. Some Aspects of Supervised Study in History BY ROBERT D. ARMSTRONG, HISTORY DEPARTMENT, HIGH SCHOOL, HAMMOND, IND. The fundamental problem of the high school student in beginning the study of history is how to study effectively. It is entirely within the truth to say that the vast majority of students do not know how, and ordinarily are not aware that the problem of how to study is fundamental. Unless they learn this important lesson early in the course, they are not likely to learn much else. The discouragement which comes with the failure to secure results will kill their interest in history, make their work a burden instead of a pleasure, and in many cases cause them to drop out of school. It is true that many students learn in the long run to study effectively unaided. But at best the learning will be a slow and wasteful process, and the vast majority never will acquire economical and effective study habits without assistance from the teacher. The fundamental problem of every teacher, then, is to teach how to study. It is hard for one to understand what is going on in the mind of another, especially if the other is many years younger than oneself, and immature in his ways of thinking. Still harder is it if he is commencing the study of a subject in which one has had years of training. This is the problem that confronts the teacher, however, and unless he can find out how the minds of his boys and girls work, and how he can make them work better, he fails largely in his efforts to teach them, for of necessity his presentation and method must be based on that knowledge. The function of the high school is not so much to instruct as to educate. The teacher must think of himself not as an instructor or imparter of information, but as a guide, to direct the student's efforts at self-help. The function of the teacher is to draw out the powers of the student, and to train him to exercise them in such a way as to acquire knowledge and gain power. This presupposes a knowledge of what those powers are to begin with, and how they may best be drawn out. Accordingly we must not limit our point of contact with the student to the recitation, but must develop a point of contact with his study. We must watch him at work, observe wherein he is weak, and train him in economical and effective habits of study. Unsupervised study is inefficient study. As to what form the supervision shall take, there is room for difference of opinion. Local conditions may make impracticable many plans otherwise ideal. As to the need for supervising and controlling the study methods of the student, however, there is no room for difference of opinion. In the grades, the student is under almost constant supervision, both in study and in recitation. But when he enters the high school, although confronted with new types of subject matter, new conditions, new teachers, and other conditions which bewilder and confuse him, it is considered time to remove the control, and leave him to his own devices in the study period. It is true that he is usually assigned to study hall or assembly periods, where he is controlled in some measure, but this control, by the very nature of the case, can hardly extend beyond preventing noise and disorder. The teacher in charge of the study hall is not in position to give any effective assistance or instruction in study methods to students from many different classes and teachers. Students who are making conspicuous failures in their work are often assisted by the teacher at a conference period. But such assistance is necessarily incomplete and intermittent, for no teacher, after a hard day's work, can be expected to do as much of this as is really necessary or advisable. If properly done, moreover, it results in much duplication of work, since the same help is imparted individually or to a small group which could be imparted collectively to a whole class. So, on the whole, the student is left to sink or swim, and many times he sinks. Any other course is practically impossible under the traditional system, since the administrative system as at present organized, is not adapted to any throughgoing supervision of study. Really effective work of this kind, necessitates a supervised study period, in which each teacher devotes some time each day to supervising study of his pupils and instructing them in better methods of work. In recent years many high schools have adopted administrative systems and programs which provide specifically for supervised study periods. The purpose of this paper is to present some of the results of such a system in the Hammond High School, and some of the lessons which the writer has learned in supervising the study of history among first-year and second-year high school students. Practically all high schools give double periods to all science courses. It has been recognized that the necessities of the laboratory method make necessary supervision of most of the study of the student in science. It would seem that the student in historical science needs double periods as much as the student of natural science. The laboratory method of study is coming to have a larger place in the course every year, and the data of historical science are admittedly more complex and difficult to deal with. It would be hard to phrase an argument for double periods in natural science that would not apply with equal force to double periods for historical science. The best kind of supervision, as Blaine said of protection, is the kind that eliminates the necessity for itself. There is a limit to the usefulness of supervision, a point at which it begins to hamper the development of the student rather than to assist it. Roughly speaking this point may be fixed at the end of the second year in high school. In general all freshman and sophomore courses should be supervised, and all junior and senior courses unsupervised. We do not wish our infant industry to remain permanently in swaddling clothes. By the end of the second year, the student should have acquired study habits which will make further supervision useless, a waste of time for the teacher and a temptation to undue dependence on the part of the student. Stating the question simply from the administrative point of view, certain courses may be designated as supervised courses and others as unsupervised courses. Most of the former will be those which normally will be taken by freshmen and sophomores, and most of the latter will be those which normally will be taken by juniors and seniors. If the supervised courses be given double periods, the system is flexible and no confusion will result, since the double periods articulate with the ordinary eight period daily program. The courses which freshmen and sophomores will normally take may be so scheduled that they need have no conflicts, and will spend the entire school day in school, with alternate periods of study and recitation. For the normal student, this program will mean little or no home study, which is a consummation devoutly to be wished. An objection that will occur to the administrator is that such a program would be too costly, since many teachers would be able to handle only four classes a day, and very few more than five. Waiving the obvious consideration that four or five classes a day is enough, it can be said that this larger initial unit cost is largely compensated by the smaller rate of elimination, the lower percentage of repeaters, and the elimination of study halls for freshmen and sophomores. We found that the unit cost amounted to about the same under supervised study as without it. Moreover, granting that supervised study costs more, it is clear that it accomplishes more. The teacher may object that such a system would take an undue amount of his time, even with fewer classes. The teacher may feel so before trying the system, but would change his attitude after working under it. After the first year of supervised study, the teachers of the Hammond High School were unanimous in desiring to retain the system. Though the system did demand much time, it was felt that the system solved so many problems that it was time well spent. An administrative system that provides for a supervised study period directly following the recitation. results in abolishing the arbitrary distinction between recitation and study. The teacher comes to regard the double period as a laboratory period in which the students work at history, and the teacher supervises and assists them, keeping in the background and leaving the students to themselves as much as the situation will permit. The recitation still remains, but its character is radically changed. Quizzing for the purpose of determining whether the students have studied largely disappears, because the teacher is in constant and intimate touch with their study, and knows what has been accomplished, without wasting the time of all concerned by going over ground already covered. The recitation becomes simply group study, in which certain kinds of study are carried on which can best be done by the whole group thinking and working together. It can be devoted to material that is new, and to constructive group thinking. It becomes more real and vital, and really contributes to the progress of the group. In the ordinary class group, there are students of widely different capacity. The supervised study period gives greater opportunity for the teacher to find out whether good work is due to long and patient application, or to exceptional ability and little actual study. It affords the teacher an opportunity to adjust the amount of work assigned and the difficulty of the tasks to the capacity of the student. It is a serious injustice to require the same objective standard of achievement from all students alike, for on the one hand it makes the work unduly hard for the lower half of the class, and on the other, makes so little demand on the brighter students, that they are able to perform their tasks with little effort, and do not grow in power. This condition is responsible for the well-founded criticism that our public schools tend to reduce all students to a dead level of achievement. Varying standards of work, both of quality and of quantity, must be set up. The supervised study period gives the teacher an opportunity to get at the facts upon which these standards must be based, and to put them into effect. A minimum standard must be adopted for the whole group and for the students who find this standard too easy to attain, additional tasks must be assigned. In practise the minimum requirement usually amounts to a thorough understanding of the text, and an irreducible minimum of outside reading and notebook exercises. In order to fix a proper minimum standard, the teacher must consciously plan at the very outset the entire content of the course, and the division of that content into topic units for each day's work. He must decide what he expects all the students to get from each topic. This involves an outline of the topic, the assignment of notebook exercises, the formulation of questions calling for reflective thinking, and references to sources and secondary works. It will greatly facilitate fixing and maintaining such a standard, to put in the hands of each pupil mimeographed or printed copies of this syllabus,1 as a sort of laboratory manual, or if this is impossible, to post in convenient places, sufficient copies to enable each student to make use of it in his study. Such definiteness on the part of the teacher encourages definiteness of aim and accomplishment on the part of the student. The economy and efficiency of so standardizing the minimum requirement are apparent. The student is put in possession of all the tools necessary for his study; it remains only for him to use them intelligently. The teacher's relation to the latter problem is the problem of supervising his study, his use of the tools. 1 The writer's term syllabus for a semester course in ancient history and a semester course in medieval history is to be published by Atkinson Mentzer & Co., of Chicago, during the winter. It follows the form suggested above. The exceptional student can be required to do more reading, bear larger burdens in the recitation, and perform more notebook tasks. He can also be assigned to pursue independent investigations of his own along lines in which he is particularly interested. The amount and character of such additional work should be adjusted by the teacher to each individual case. The problem attitude should be fundamental in history study. The subject matter upon which the mind of the student is at work, may be treated as presenting a series of problems, which call for essentially the same kind of attack as algebra problems or chemistry experiments. The various forms of problems that occur in history study may be classified as follows: I. The study of secondary work, including the text, which involves: A. Analysis. B. Retention. C. Reasoning-about the nature and importance II. The study of source extracts, which involves: B. Retention. C. Comparison. D. Reasoning-inductive and deductive-building up of facts. III. Notebook exercises (maps, themes, outlines) the DOING OF OBJECTIVE TASKS which necessitates study as above and is the APPLICATION of its results. In supervising the student's attack on these various problems, there are three problems: 1. How to motivate the study. 2. How the student should study. 3. How the teacher should teach the student to study. The first is the problem of the teacher in making the assignment; the second is the student's own problem of method, which the teacher should solve for him in advance; the third is the problem of the technique of the supervised study period. The first essential to effective study is to arouse a mental state which finds its logical expression in active and purposeful effort. This involves arousing interest and curiosity. The pupil should be made to feel that there is a real problem to be solved, and that it is a problem that he would like to solve. If the student feels that the assignment is simply part of the daily grind, his performance is apt to be lifeless and perfunctory. If there is a real desire to find out some new facts that promise to be important, or to perform a task which he is satisfied will improve his knowledge and grasp of the subject, the study will be properly motivated. In this sense, the teacher is a sort of advertising agent for the problem assigned; he must feel enthusiasm for his article of trade, and must have the ability to transmit that enthusiasm to others. Care should be taken, however, not to indulge in any superficial and shallow displays of interest or enthusiasm, for the student sees through the mask. It is essential that the student be really made to see the im portance of the problem and the interest and value involved in it. When we approach the problem of how the student should study, we are confronted with the fundamental fact of individual differences in ideational type. Many students must lay more emphasis in study on one kind of imagery than on another. One girl studies best by moving her lips, and creating kinesthetic images, another by consciously forming vivid mental pictures, another by forming verbal images, The teacher must diagnose each case as it comes before him, and with a full understanding of the pupil's peculiar mental makeup, prescribe a method of study which best utilizes his peculiar imagery. This demands a careful examination of each student etc. who appears to differ from the normal, with perhaps the use of some simple psychological tests, and a personal conference in which the pupil and the teacher together work out the study method adapted to his Thus, by reason of the supervision of study, the course is adapted to the student in degree of difficulty and in quantity, and his method of attack is adapted to his individual characteristics and abilities. case. Perhaps 75 per cent. of the class, however, have a complex ideational type, and respond to various kinds of imagery in practically the same degree. In practise, therefore, the teacher should work out a normal study method, which is calculated to fit the mass of the class. It is impossible, in an article of this length, to discuss the possible variants from the normal, and the appropriate study methods for each. All that can be done here is to discuss the method of study which fits the normal student, and to leave the prescribing of study methods for the abnormal student to the individual case. The writer's idea of the proper study methods for the normal student will be best presented by giving in full the study instructions which he hands out to his pupils. No claim is made that these instructions are perfect; in fact they have been revised many times in the course of the year, and will probably be revised many times again. These instructions have been the result of the inductive experience of the study period. It is not claimed that any particular student should follow all the suggestions given, merely that every student will find suggestions of value which he can apply with profit, and that most of the instructions, particularly those of a routine character, in which uniformity is desirable in itself, should be followed by all. These instructions follow: HOW TO STUDY HISTORY.2 The most important thing for history students to learn early in the course is "How to Study the Lesson Effectively" and 'How to Perform Well the Tasks that the Teacher Assigns." If you do not learn these things well, you are not likely to learn much else. These directions are prepared to help you study effectively. If you will follow them conscientiously and carefully in the preparation of each day's lesson you will be richly repaid in the satisfaction that comes from doing things well. 2 These instructions, complete, are to be published as a part of each syllabus mentioned in note 1. |