A Guide to Methods and Observation in History | Page 4

historical study made in
connection with the study of biography and literature.
2. Renaissance Period: Historical studies pursued as auxiliary to the
interpretation of the classics.
3. Post-Renaissance Period in Europe.
(a) Heraldry and local, contemporary historical incidents and events
taught in Ritterakedemien after 1648.
(b) In Germany, the systematic study of history in schools really dates
from about 1806, though an independent status was given history in the
universities (particularly in Göttingen) in the 18th century.
(c) In France, historical study was introduced by Guizot (about 1833)
but received no great attention until after 1860, though there was
nominally a chair of history in the Collège de France after 1769.

(d) In England, none but incidental attention was given historical study
until after the middle of the 19th century, though there was a
professorship of ancient history at Oxford in 1622, and professorships
of modern history were found at both Oxford and Cambridge in 1724.
4. Historical Study in America.
(a) History was taught incidentally by professors of philosophy in most
of the universities from their founding.
(b) Yale had a professorship of ecclesiastical history in 1778-1795.
(c) Harvard established the first professorship in history (in the general
sense of the term) in 1839, Jared Sparks being the first incumbent.
(d) Columbia University and the University of Michigan established
chairs of history in 1857.
(e) Yale established a chair of history in 1865.
(f) The first seminary in history was established at the University of
Michigan in 1869 by Prof. C. K. Adams.
(g) General history and ancient history were found in normal schools
after about 1850.
(h) In secondary schools (first in academies, then later in high schools)
history was taught as a separate study from about 1830. General history
or ancient history received almost the sole emphasis, though English
history was sometimes taught. In 1847 Harvard first began the practice
of requiring history for admission.
(i) History work in elementary schools grew out of the study of
geography, and became a separate study about 1845.
(j) Until about 1893 the only course given really serious attention in the
high school was that of Ancient History in the classical course. The
courses in General History, English History and American History
were, for the most part, bookish, superficial, and devitalized.

(k) The Madison Conference (instituted by the N. E. A. in 1892) gave
the first concerted impetus to the serious study of history in American
public schools.
(l) The Report of the Committee of Ten of the N. E. A. in 1893
contains extensive and almost revolutionizing suggestions for
improving the organization, study, and presentation of history in the
schools.
(m) The Report of the Committee of Seven of the American Historical
Association in 1896 supplemented the contemporary efforts at reform.
(n) The Report of the Committee of Five of the American Historical
Association in 1907 embodied the best ideas which the decade had
developed looking to further improvement of historical study and
teaching.
(o) The Committee of Eight has still more recently sought to perfect the
art of studying and teaching the subject.

VII. Values and Aims of History.
1. Psychological.
(a) It develops the power of constructive imagination through the
visualizing of scenes, events, and characters, and the effort to put
oneself back into the past.
(b) It trains the reasoning faculty through the necessity of analyzing
data, seeking causes and effects, and following historical development
wherever it may lead.
(c) It develops the power of associative memory through the necessity
of bringing facts into their essential and definite relations.
(d) It trains the judgment, through requiring the mind to make estimates
respecting

(1) The probability of the fact recorded.
(2) The possibility and probability of accurate statement on the part of
the one recording the event.
(3) The efficiency of the adjustment of means to ends.
(4) The righteousness of the act.
(5) The motives and ideals that dominated the act.
(e) It develops the power of comparison through demanding attention
to similarities and differences in motives, agents, means, processes,
events, places, dates, and results.
(f) It develops the power of classification--of coördinating and
subordinating data.
(g) It develops the habit of forming generalizations from detailed facts.
(h) It gives a real conception of the meaning of time, through the
considerations of man's slow evolution in social relations.
(i) It gives ability to take a large view of life's affairs and interests,--to
see things in their essential relations.
2. Social, Political, and Civic.
(a) It gives habits of analyzing the aims and motives of men, and the
means they employ to attain their ends, i.e., it gives insight into
character and hence makes social adjustment easier.
(b) It develops tolerance for the opinions, convictions, and ideals of
others, and tends to prevent hard, dogmatic, and uncompromising
judgments and