The Teaching of History | Page 8

spent in characterizing a period of history and a few of its
great men will assist in changing the recital of the bare facts given in
the text to an intelligent understanding of conditions and a vital
discussion of events. For instance, the ordinary high school text, in
dealing with the French and Indian war, speaks briefly of the lack of
English success during the early part of the struggle and then says that
with the coming of Pitt to the ministry the whole course of events was
changed because of the great statesman's wonderful personality. The
teacher who wishes to make such a dramatic circumstance really vital
to his class must have more information with which to work. A picture
of the coarse, vulgar England with its incompetent army and navy,
apathetic church, and corrupt government, followed by a stirring
character sketch of the great Pitt, will cost but a few minutes of the
recitation and will metamorphose a moribund attention to a vital
interest.
Care should be taken that the characterizations given in class be
properly prepared. To this end it will be well to assign the preparation
of these sketches at least a week in advance, at the same time arranging
a conference with the student a day or two before the recitation. In this
conference the teacher should make such corrections in the pupil's

method of preparation and selection of matter as seem necessary. The
characterizations should not be read, but delivered by the student facing
the class, precisely for the moment as though he were the teacher.
Future tests and examinations should hold the class responsible for the
facts thus presented. If, as is too often the case in work of this sort, the
student giving the report is the sole beneficiary of the exercise, the time
required is disproportionate to the benefit derived.
He will correlate the past and the present If there are facts recounted in
the lesson that may be clinched in the student's mind by showing the
relation of those facts to present-day conditions or institutions, a few
advance questions calculated to bring out this relationship may well be
assigned.
It is generally conceded that one chief purpose of history instruction is
to enable us to interpret the present and the future in the light of the
past, but it all too often happens that current history is forgotten in the
recital of facts that are centuries old. Candidates for teachers'
certificates in their examinations in United States history show far less
knowledge about the great problems and events of the present day than
they do of colonial history. The student in English history in our high
schools to-day knows all about the Domesday Book, but almost
nothing of the recent history of England. Quite possibly the text has
nothing to say about it, and it is equally likely that the class may fail to
cover the text and miss the little that is actually given. No opportunity
should be missed to indicate the bearing of the past on present-day
conditions. Even if the events of the lesson exert no direct influence on
affairs to-day, their significance may be brought home to the student by
an illustration from current history. The account of the Black Death
gives excellent occasion for a brief discussion of modern sanitation and
the war on the White Plague. The efforts of Parliament to fix wages can
be illustrated by some of the minimum wage laws passed by recent
legislatures. John Ball's teachings suggest a brief discussion of modern
socialism, daily becoming more active in its influence. The medieval
trade guilds and modern labor unions; the monopolies of Elizabeth's
time and the anti-trust law of to-day; George the Third's two hundred
capital crimes and modern methods of penology; the jealousy of Athens

in guarding the privilege of citizenship and the facility with which
immigrants at present become American citizens are only a few
illustrations, indicating the ease with which the past and the present
may be correlated.
He will be required to memorize a limited amount of matter verbatim In
assigning a lesson it is sometimes desirable to require certain matter to
be learned verbatim. In American history the Preamble to the
Constitution, the principles of government contained in the Declaration
of Independence, the essential doctrine in the Virginia and Kentucky
Resolutions, certain clauses of the Constitution, and extracts from other
historical documents may well be required to be memorized accurately.
It is scarcely to be supposed that the student can improve on the clarity
and definiteness of the English in such documents. He is expected to
understand the principles which they assert. He may well be required to
train his memory to accuracy by learning certain assignments verbatim.
If memory work received a little more attention in our