A Guide to Methods and Observation in History | Page 8

the course on a more advanced plane; then
taking up the work a third and fourth time, supplementing and
expanding with each new attack.
4. Biographically, i.e., by means of biographies only.
5. Topically, i.e., tracing the development of particular elements in
history, continuously and uninterruptedly, from the early stages to
complete forms.
QUERIES
1. Which, to you, seems the best approach to the study of history?

2. May several of the above-mentioned modes be employed
simultaneously?
3. Is it largely true that the personal or biographic appeals most to the
child; the speculative, to the boy; the vitally and concretely
constructive, to the youth; and the critical and philosophical to the adult?
If so, what should be the character of the work in history in the high
school?

X. The Process of Learning History.
1. Acquiring and relating detailed facts.
2. Formulating a mental picture of the events.
3. Analyzing the conditions and determining the vital, distinguishing
characteristics.
4. Getting back of the outer forms, visible expression, or the vital facts
to the real life of the people--their ideals, ideas, emotions, and beliefs.
5. Discovering the motives that produced the events considered.
6. Deducing the principles that operate in human relations.
7. Applying those principles to contemporary civilization to-day, and
foreshadowing the probable trend of society in the future.
8. Holding consciously to the fact that history is dynamic, not static, i.e.,
that all historical material constitutes a unity that is revealed under the
two laws of continuity and differentiation.
"There are no breaks or leaps in the life of a people. Development may
hasten or may slacken, and may seem to cease for a time, but it is
always continuous; it always proceeds out of antecedent conditions,
and if it be arrested for a time it begins again at the point where it
ended."

"Since the essence of history is the real life of a people--their ideas and
feelings--history develops as ideas and feelings develop. But thoughts
and feelings never exhibit themselves repeatedly in the same forms, but
take on new modes of expression in the very process of
growth."--Mace.
QUERIES
1. Does the teacher observed lay emphasis on details as ends in
themselves or as means to other ends?
2. Is there a "richness" of details or is there a dearth of them?
3. Are details presented in a vivid manner, with many gripping
tentacles, or are they set forth in bold, uninteresting forms only?
4. Are the details intimately fused or correlated?
5. Is effort made to get each pupil to develop a mental picture of the
scene represented by the details?
6. When the image is fashioned, is an effort made to discriminate and
to abstract the dominant characteristics?
7. Is effort made to get at the spirit of the historical fact, and to discover
the motives that operated to produce it?
8. Are generalizations and principles of human thought, feeling, and
conduct deduced from the study?
9. Is effort made to test the validity of such principles among social
relationships of to-day?
10. Does the teacher make history appear what it is, i.e., a ceaseless
development, a unity, or does she leave the impression among the
pupils that history is a mass of disconnected dead facts?

XI. The Organization of History in High Schools.
+--------------------------------+-------------------+-------------------+ |
PLAN 1 | PLAN 2 | PLAN 3 |
+--------------------------------+-------------------+-------------------+ | 9th
grade} General History |Ancient History | | |10th grade} |Med. & Mod.
History|Anc. & Med. Hist. |
+--------------------------------+-------------------+-------------------+ |11th
grade} American History |English History |Modern History | |12th
grade} |U.S. Hist. & Civics|U.S. Hist. & Civics|
+--------------------------------+-------------------+-------------------+ | | | |
+--------------------------------+-------------------+-------------------+ |
PLAN 4 | PLAN 5 | PLAN 6 |
+--------------------------------+-------------------+-------------------+ | 9th
grade Loc. Hist., Civics |Ancient History |Recent history | | and
Industries | | Local Civics | | | | Local Indust. |
+--------------------------------+-------------------+-------------------+ |10th
grade Ancient History |Med. & Mod. Hist. |{Indust. Hist. 1/2 | | |
|{Commer. Hist. 1/2 | | | | Ancient History |
+--------------------------------+-------------------+-------------------+ |11th
grade Med. & Mod. Hist. |{Eng. History 1/2 |Mod. & Med. or | | |{U. S.
History 1/2 | Eng. History |
+--------------------------------+-------------------+-------------------+ |12th
grade U. S. Hist. & Civics|{U. S. History 1/2 |U. S. History | | |{Civics
1/2 | Civics |
+--------------------------------+-------------------+-------------------+
QUERIES
1. Which of the above plans appeals to you most? Why so?
2. What is the plan of organization in the school observed?
3. What courses are prescribed, and what are elective? Do you
approve?
4. How many recitation periods per week are allotted to the work in
each course? Is this wise?

5. Is there one period per week devoted to "unassigned" or
"unprepared" class work?
6. If so, how is the period employed?
7. Do you approve of such a period as a regular feature of the