The Teaching of History | Page 5

you are just entering?
3. What is a source book? Of what use are source books?
4. What source books on this period of history are in the library?
5. What do you think will be the best references for questions on the
artistic, industrial, political, social, economic, and military phases of
the history you are about to study?
6. What encyclopedias and works of general reference are in your
library?

The preparation of answers to such questions as these will present to
the student some of the difficulties inevitable to his future library work
and will send him to class prepared to ask intelligent questions. It will
enable the teacher accurately to gauge how much his students already
know about a library and its uses.
The value and advantage of library work should be carefully explained
to the class. It is a great error to allow pupils to think of their library
work as drudgery, assigned solely to keep them busy or to make the
course difficult. There are too few boys to-day with a genuine love of
books, partly no doubt due to the fact that a reference library has
become for them, not a rich mine of interesting matter, but a
hydra-headed interrogation point. A great good has been done the
student who has been taught the pleasure of using books. Nor is such a
thing impossible. Nothing gives greater satisfaction to the normal high
school boy than to find an error in the text, the teacher's statements, or
the map. He takes pleasure in confuting the statistics or judgments
quoted in class, by others of opposite trend, encountered in his reading.
He enjoys asking keen questions. If the student is told that the library
work is for the purpose of cultivating his powers of investigation and
adding to the matter in the text many interesting details; if the library
requirements are reasonable and wisely directed; if he is given an
opportunity to use the information he has gathered from his reading, his
interest in books will steadily increase.
The teacher should explain the value of remembering accurately the
titles and the authors of books used for reference. The silly habit of
referring to an authority as "the book bound in green" or "the large
book by what's his name" is easily prevented if taken in time.
The teacher should discover by assignments made in class what degree
of proficiency in the use of an index is already possessed by his pupils.
There are few classes where the use of an index is thoroughly
understood. Time should be taken to demonstrate the quickest possible
methods of finding what a book contains. The use of the catalogue and
card index should be carefully explained and illustrated.
Attention should be called to the best sources on the various phases of

the history to be studied. There ought to be no poor histories in the
library, but if there are any to which the students have access, warning
should be given against their use.
The value of periodicals and current literature for work in history
should be illustrated and the use of _Poole's Index_ and the Readers
Guide explained.
The class should be acquainted with the rules of the library and
cautioned against the misuse of books. The necessity of leaving
reference books where all the class can use them should be made
apparent.
Direction in the use of the library, like instruction in the method of
study, is a prerequisite to the best results in high school history classes,
for no matter how conscientious the teacher, the recitation will be
deadly if the student has no working knowledge of the library nor
proper method of preparation. A class unable to ask intelligent
questions about the work is not ready for the presentation of additional
matter by the teacher. It is no difficult matter for a teacher to entertain
his class for an hour with interesting incidents of the period in which
the lesson occurs. A history teacher who cannot talk interestingly for an
hour on any of the great periods of history has surely missed his calling.
But to keep a class quiet, to retain their attention, to amuse and
entertain, is far from making history vital. If the recitation is to be
really vital, the students must do most of the talking, the criticizing, and
the questioning. There can be none of these worth while without proper
preparation.

III
THE ASSIGNMENT OF THE LESSON
Careful assignment will reveal to the student the relation of geography
and history The recitation can never hope to achieve its maximum
helpfulness unless the lesson be intelligently assigned. The work
required must be reasonable in amount, and not so exacting as to
discourage interest. Daily direction to look up unfamiliar words,

expressions, and allusions must