“AS HIRELING AND NOT AS CONSECRATE.”
A noted journalist, who is also a writer on educational topics, and a trustee of a large eastern university, in writing to the editor respecting the establishment of The History Teacher’s Magazine, said: “Your idea is an admirable one. It ought to do good.... With this teaching, as with all others, I fear the difficulty is the spirit in which it is done, as hireling and not as consecrate.”
Is this charge true of the history teachers of the country? We know that history teachers were among the last to organize for common purposes; that to-day their associations are not as strong as those of teachers of the classics and of other subjects, that their class work is not as well organized as the work of that far more indefinite subject, secondary school English. Are these facts the result of a hireling spirit? We think not. Rather they are due to the unfortunate place which until very recent years, history has occupied in the elementary and secondary school roster. And yet, while we believe there existed and still exist valid impediments to the greatest success of the history teacher, it may be well for each of us to ask himself or herself the question. Am I doing the work as hireling and not as consecrate? At times we need such searching questions. And until the time when we have a great body of history teachers who are teaching the subject because they love it and love to teach it to others our history teaching will be heartless and sterile.
European History in the Secondary School
D. C. KNOWLTON, PH.D., Editor.
THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE.