Organization of the Field of American History and Government.

Probably all teachers of American history will admit that broadly stated the course in American history and government should be organized with special emphasis on the national period, and should represent an attempt to show how out of the diversity of the colonial period there finally emerged the spirit of federal union, and how American history largely centers around the erection of a sovereign federal state, in face of English opposition, and the maintenance of the union, in the face of internal dissensions, and finally, the growth and expansion of the United States as a world power. The European background, the native or American background, exploration, colonization and colonial development must all be touched on lightly. Then a careful study should be made of the steps leading up to union and to independence, though the military side of the revolutionary struggle is frequently over-emphasized, and the beginnings of national government as we know it to-day can be studied in connection with the formation of the constitution. Territorial expansion, foreign and civil wars, colonial expansion and problems of internal development can all be treated in relation with the central problem of successful federal government and in relation with the present. Interwoven frequently with American national history is the history of one’s own state, and teachers can frequently use local interests to make the story of some particular phase of national development more real and significant.

There is quite a marked tendency to separate American government from American history in the fourth year of the high school, and to give a half year’s work in each subject. If American government is taught as a separate subject a text-book should be selected which allows the teacher to organize the course so as to work from the familiar to the unfamiliar aspects of government, from the local to the national aspects of the field of study. Several good text-books of this character have been recently published.[4]

The attempt has been made in this article to show how the history teacher can be trained, or can train himself, to organize thoroughly the field of study to be covered so as to complete the course in the time allotted and also bring out the meaning and importance of the study undertaken. Proper organization of the field of study will undoubtedly aid the teacher greatly, but such organization must be followed by successful recitation and class-room work. The next paper in this department will therefore, be devoted to a discussion of the training of history teachers in the organization of the recitation.

Instruction in American Government in Secondary Schools

A COMMENT ON THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF FIVE.

By William A. Schapes,
Chairman of the Committee of Five, Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

The American Political Science Association has taken an interest, not only in the investigation and discussion of the scientific questions arising within the field of Political Science, but has also paid attention to the problem of improving the instruction in Government in our schools and colleges. To further this work a section on instruction in Political Science was organized at its first annual meeting. In 1906 the committee of five, originally of three members, was appointed to complete certain investigations which had been started in the section on instruction, the partial results of which had been published in a paper by the writer in the proceedings for 1905. The committee was required to ascertain the amount and kind of instruction in American Government being offered in the secondary schools of this country and make recommendations for the consideration of the association. In accordance with these instructions the committee undertook to collect its information directly by correspondence with the teachers in about 600 high schools distributed throughout the United States. The work extended over more than two years, the final report being read at the Richmond meeting in December, 1908, and published in the proceedings for that year.

The point on which the report lays greatest stress, namely, the necessity of teaching Government as a distinct subject in the secondary schools, was expressly approved by the association without a dissenting vote. It does not follow, of course, that the report expresses the views of every member of that association, in every particular. In fact it does not. The report does represent the views of the entire committee after making an exhaustive study of the question.

The report covers 38 pages of the proceedings, and is therefore too elaborate to be properly presented in a brief article. Only a few of the essential features will be referred to.

At the very outset the committee was confronted with the pedagogical question as to whether Government should be taught as a distinct subject or whether it should be taught in connection with history. The teachers are still somewhat divided on the subject, and practice varies. The information collected indicates that the teaching of American Government, Civil Government or Civics as it is still barbarously designated, is suffering from a lack of proper recognition in the school curriculum, for want of especially trained teachers, from lack of a working school library on Government and from inadequate text-books. It seems a curious thing that our public schools, which were instituted and are operated by governmental agency to maintain an enlightened citizenship, have taught every other subject excepting Government. There can be little doubt that the rather confused and contradictory recommendations of the Committee of Seven ten years ago helped materially to spread the impression among high school teachers that the subject of Government could not be successfully studied apart from History, and that it is a sort of poor relation to it on which little time need be spent. The suggestion of the Committee of Seven that the subject might be taught in connection with American History was adopted by a large number of schools. The results obtained are generally considered to be unsatisfactory. In the West out of 240 schools heard from, 153 were offering separate instruction in Government, 47 taught the subject in connection with History, and 40 failed to specify the plan in use. The teachers or principals in these schools personally preferred the separate course by 158 to 30, 54 failing to commit themselves.

In the South 85 schools reported a separate course in Government, 53 a combination course with History. The teachers or principals reporting preferred the separate course by 111 to 33.

In the East and Mid-West 98 schools reported a separate course on Government and 74 a combination course. The teachers or principals expressed a personal preference for the separate course by 110 to 42.

It should be noted that the committee divided the States into three more or less arbitrary sections; the West, embracing all the States west of the Mississippi, excepting Missouri and the States to the south; the South including all the States south of the Ohio River and Mason and Dixon’s line and east of the Mississippi, but including Missouri and the States to the south; the East and Mid-West including the States east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River line.

The reports from all the sections show that experience is demonstrating that the plan of teaching American Government and American History as one subject is bad pedagogy and false economy. The fact that the teachers personally prefer the separate course in Government by a large majority in all three sections is significant. It means that experience is a little ahead of practice, and that when practice has caught up with the best experience, the combination course will be relegated to the scrap-heap of discarded methods.

In its recommendations the committee urges the need of more and better instruction in Government, throughout the entire school system from the fifth grade up. There can be no question that improvements in the administration of the government have not kept pace with the advances, for example, in industry, in commerce, in transportation, or even in pure science. It is a well-known fact that foreigners find much to learn from this country in the organization of industry and in the methods of conducting business, but they do not find so much to commend in the administration of our governments. Yet it is in this very field of politics and government that this country was long supposed to have completely outstripped all the older countries. In the framing of constitutions and in the inauguration of new systems of popularizing political institutions America has led and contributed much, but in the careful, efficient management of public affairs we have not been so successful. In the management of our cities it is conceded that our mistakes and failures are rather more conspicuous than our successes. The question naturally arises whether the public schools have not contributed to these mistakes and failures by neglecting to provide adequate instruction in matters of Government. It may be difficult to demonstrate that school training in the science of Government does result in purer political methods and more efficient administration of public business, but surely a citizenship whose political information has been gleaned from election posters, stump speeches, newspaper head lines, and highly colored magazine articles will not furnish a model of civic enlightenment and success.

The duty of fitting the youth for the services and responsibilities of citizenship in the Republic under the complex conditions which now prevail, belongs primarily to the public school. It has not discharged its highest function until it provides for every child adequate instruction in the government of this country. So far the public school has failed to do this. There are large cities in this country in which no systematic instruction in Government is given in the otherwise splendidly equipped high schools, nor is the subject taught in the grades. Some of these cities are in the boss-ridden class. The question naturally presents itself to our minds, is one circumstance the cause of the other? Certainly a high school, situated in a large city, that does not lead its boys to study the complex organization and functions of the community in which they live fails in performing its first and highest duty.

The Committee of Five therefore recommends that the instruction in Government begin with the fifth grade. In the fifth, sixth and seventh grades the subject should be presented in general school exercises, in the subjects selected for language lessons, in connection with geography and other exercises. In these grades the method of instruction must be largely oral without a text. Such topics as the fire department, the police, the water works, the parks, garbage collection, the health officer, the light housekeeper, the life saving station suggest subjects for discussion. The aim being to lead the child to think of the community and realize that it has rights, obligations, property, that it does certain kinds of work and that every individual citizen has a part to play in the life and activities of this community.

In the eighth grade more formal instruction on local, State and national government may be given. A simple text should be selected, and this should be supplemented. The main emphasis must be placed on the study of local government to make the subject concrete and bring it home.

The committee recommends that in the high school Government be presented as a distinct subject of instruction following one semester of American History. At least one-half year should be devoted to the subject with five recitations per week or an entire year where the three-recitation plan is in use.

Some high schools are indeed devoting an entire year to American Government with excellent results. In fact, if the instruction in all the high schools could be brought up to the level of a few conspicuously advanced schools the main desires of the committee would be fulfilled.

In selecting a text the teacher should avoid the old style manual, consisting of the clauses of the constitution with comments. Such books are entirely out of date. They represent the first attempts at textbook making in this field. They never were good texts. It is rather surprising that more than a score of high schools reporting still use these useless books. The teacher should equally avoid the new hybrid text which attempts to combine in one, a treatment of History and Government. In the very nature of things such books must be confusing and distracting to the beginner.

It is equally important that superintendents and principals stop the practice of assigning the subject to any teacher on the force whose time is not fully taken up with other duties. No one can hope to teach Government with the best success who has not a genuine interest and an appropriate training for the work.

Lessons Drawn from the Papers of Candidates of the College Entrance Examination Board

BY ELIZABETH BRIGGS, TEACHER OF HISTORY AND CIVIL GOVERNMENT IN SACHS’ SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, NEW YORK.

In studying the reports of the secretary of the College Entrance Examination Board, the history teacher learns the disheartening fact that less than 60 per cent. of the candidates in history get 60 per cent. or over in the examinations. The proportion of the whole number of candidates in history who have received over 60 per cent. for the past eight years is as follows:

19021903190419051906190719081909
%%%%%%%%
59.253.253.75447.343.250.342.8[5]

It should be noted in passing that the lessening number of successful candidates characterizes not only history, but the whole group of entrance examination subjects. But further disquieting statistics prove that history has generally fewer successful candidates than most of the other subjects; in 1907 it was surpassed in this respect only by physics; in 1908, by German, mathematics and zoölogy. Also in the class of high ratings, 90-100, history comes near the foot of the class; in 1907, all the other subjects ranked higher except physics and chemistry; in 1908, all except Spanish, chemistry, botany, geography and music. That is to say, history makes a poorer showing than all the other large subjects, those offering a thousand candidates or more.

Granting that the demands of the examiners are reasonable, history teachers must conclude that the necessary equipment is not being furnished to their pupils. Although the questions are designed to test something more than a superficial knowledge of events, such a superficial knowledge, provided it be complete as to the whole field, would enable a candidate to obtain a rating of 60. The papers of the candidates are evidence that instruction has been generally omitted on one point, and has been slighted on three others.

In all conferences of history teachers, much time is spent in considering how best to inculcate historical mindedness, accurate thought, cultivation of the imagination, and clear reasoning; primarily it is acknowledged that there must be acquired a stock of definite information, but the discussions seem to assume that the acquisition of the information is an easy matter, and that the exercise of observation, analysis and judgment, may occupy the greater part of the time of pupil and teacher. In the classroom, however, both teacher and pupil while trying to respond to the multiplicity of demands have been unable to divide the time into enough fractions to go round, and the teachers seem to have reached a consensus that the topic to be crowded out shall be geography. In spite of the fact that the requirements in history state that geographical knowledge will be tested by requiring the location of places and movements on an outline map, in spite of the fact that almost every set of questions for nine years has demanded map work, the papers of candidates have shown that instruction in geography, including the use of maps, has been signally neglected. Year after year answers in this subject have been marked uniformly low, seldom attaining a passing mark, being rated 1, 2 and 3, on a scale of 10. In answers to questions which asked that Philadelphia, Constantinople, Alexandria, Delos and Delphi, be marked on the map and their historical importance be explained in the answer book, Philadelphia was placed in North Dakota, Constantinople in India, Alexandria on the Adriatic, Delphi in Italy, and Delos near Genoa; and yet the answer books told correctly the historical importance of each. How completely geography may be divorced from map work was illustrated in a few answers to a question that asked for the marking on the map of the English frontier on the European continent in the time of William I, Henry II, and Henry V; several candidates wrote out their answers in addition to indicating them on the map, with the curious result of a correct list and an incorrect map, that is to say, the memorizing of French provinces had been carefully done, but there had been no practice in map work. A more vicious example of unintelligent memorizing it would be hard to find. Countries as well as cities have been misplaced; Ireland in Norway, Wales in Germany, China in Egypt. That the ignorance here is due to the teachers and not to the pupils is made apparent by the failure on this point in otherwise excellent papers. There could have been no instruction, or the intelligent pupil would have met the requirement. Another proof besides the mass of incorrect answers that map work is neglected in the schools is the fact that when the options permitted a choice between map work and an explanation of geographic control, the choice fell on geographic control. This choice was made not because the candidate was qualified to write about the effect of geographical conditions on the history of the early settlements in America, or on the Revolutionary struggle, but because guessing seemed easy.

As for the other “eye of history,” chronology, there is a respectable showing. The examination questions have not asked for lists of dates, though a knowledge of dates has been frequently demanded by the nature of the questions, and such demands have not found the pupils wanting. An occasional anachronism has occurred, and has served to enliven the reading, as the statements that the barons of the time of William the Conqueror spent most of their time smoking and drinking, and that Milton was effective by means of his efforts in the daily papers. Occasionally a candidate would show what he could do by prefacing or concluding his answer book with a chronological table for the whole subject.

Answers to what may be called sweeping questions such as “Trace the rise and fall of the naval power of Athens,” show a lack of practice in reviewing by topics; though meagre, they suggest more acquaintance with the subject than is written down, giving evidence of considerable drill on isolated points, if not on the continuous story. All the history papers since 1901 have had questions of this sort, and it would seem likely that teachers would take the hint and exercise their pupils in following a train of events from reign to reign, from administration to administration, from century to century. The general failure with this type of question and the general success in timing isolated events leads to the fear that the history is studied wholly by reigns or administrations without regard to the “ceaseless course” of Time.

The history examiners have also made a point of introducing questions characterized by their timeliness, about Alfred the Great in the year when the thousandth anniversary of his death was being celebrated, in 1904 on the Louisiana Purchase, in 1909 on Grover Cleveland, questions which it was expected would receive unusually full treatment. The expectation was disappointed, possibly because their “timeliness” did not exist for the candidate; because current events have had no share of his attention, though they might be taking the form of celebration of the past. As for current events pure and simple, those that belong to the present per se, any option on them is avoided. The only subject of current interest on which information has seemed to be widespread was the melodramatic experience of Miss Ellen Stone. Allied to this ignorance of current events, is the ignorance of the nineteenth century in Modern history and in English history. A candidate could write a passable account of Charlemagne and fail on Bismarck, could be accurate about Wolsey and yet state that Gladstone wrote standard law books. For this knowledge of the remote past and ignorance of the recent present, Dr. James Sullivan says that the text-books should be held responsible, as few teachers are any better than their text-books.

In biography, whenever the options made it possible to write on several persons rather than on one, the greater majority of the candidates found it easier to present a few meagre facts about several individuals than an extended account of one individual. Evidently biography in school is confined to the foot notes or the descriptive introductory paragraph on the page that mentions a new leader for the first time. In fact one student apologized for his limited knowledge of Pitt and Nelson on the ground that Montgomery gives no extended biographies. Like Dr. Sullivan, he blamed the text-book. It should not be implied that the reader finds no evidence of collateral reading. Indications of it do appear, but they are rarer than oases in Sahara. Far from hinting at collateral reading, many answers showed inadequate attention to the slender material offered in the text-book. It seems not unreasonable to expect that every student going up for examination in English history should be able to place Milton and Nelson correctly, yet their names have brought out such statements as, there is nothing recorded in history showing any personal service that Milton did for the Roundheads and that personally he was a Tory, that Milton wrote books of travel and wild improbable adventures of sea and land; that Nelson explored for England and went furthest north, that he sunk the Spanish Armada, that he defeated the combined French and Spanish navies at Waterloo, and that he signaled, “Don’t give up the ship.” The only satisfactory item to be credited to these statements is the fixed association of these names respectively with literature and the sea. Any hint as to the personality of the subject is seldom found, yet William the Conqueror, Henry VIII, and Cromwell, seem to have had some hold on the imagination.

To summarize experiences as a reader is not a happy task for the secondary school teacher. As regards what may be termed the New Learning in history—geographic control, economics, and the exercise of observation, analysis, and judgment, the teacher need not blush at his failure to render his pupil able to observe, analyze, and judge in clear and correct English in fifteen-minute sections of a two-hour examination, or to deal successfully even in an elementary way with subjects that have either only recently become part of a college course or are not generally studied by freshmen. But what history teachers do need to concern themselves with is the failure to supply their pupils with a reliable store of facts. If the statistics of the Board seem to imply that history teaching is inferior to teaching in most other subjects, it would be consoling to accept the suggestion that the poor returns are not the result of poor teaching, but of no teaching, since many candidates have tried the examination without instruction, an experiment they would make in no other subject.

The Study of Western History in Our Schools

BY PROFESSOR CLARENCE W. ALVORD, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

The West has always been self-assertive. This may sound somewhat banal, but no adjective describes so exactly that principal characteristic of her vigorous youth. Commercially, politically, socially she has displayed her egoism and has continually demanded from her elder sister, the East, praise for her achievements. Youth is, however, passing away; over a century of political life has been left behind; age has brought with it a new pride in the consciousness of accomplishment. To-day the West realizes that she has had a history that is no mean part of the national story. The cry from the prairies is no longer: “See what we are doing;” but, “See what we have done.” Self-assertion again! Yes, perhaps bumptiousness, but such is the fact. On every side there are signs of this new phase of western self-consciousness. In no part of the Union is there such an interest in local history. State-supported departments of history, State historical societies, county and city historical societies, even women’s clubs and public schools, and larger unions such as the confederation of the societies of the Ohio Valley and the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, are all active in collecting material for and exploiting western history. Some of the efforts are misdirected, many of the papers presented before these learned societies are absurd; but even the aimless gropings of the historical amœbæ indicate the innermost yearnings for a knowledge of the past and the consciousness of deeds worth recording.

In developing this consciousness of her past, the West, naturally enough, has found a grievance against the historians of America who have somewhat neglected this important phase of the national development. Before the eyes of the historian educated under the shadow of the gilded dome of the Puritan Capitol, the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers looms larger on the historical horizon than the occupation of the Old Northwest during the Revolutionary War, so that he gives a more careful and extensive description to the former than to the latter event. The westerner gazes upon another horizon, where the relative importance of events are differently grouped. To him many events confined to New England, the description of which fills pages of our national histories, appear of local interest; and events belonging to other parts of the country assume national importance.

This grievance is not altogether fictitious, as a glance at any of our large histories and particularly at the text-books used in our schools will disclose. The signs of the times, however, point to a healthful change; for in the last many-volumed American history, chapter after chapter is devoted to the history of the West. The correction of the error in proportion, moreover, lies in the hands of the western historians, who can bring to prominence the events of their section only by producing serious and scientific studies on the development of the West; and consciously or unconsciously the recent movement in the study of western history is directed toward that end. Besides the popular interest in the subject, already noted, the universities are turning the attention of their graduate students to the field; the scientifically-trained instructors of these institutions are conducting researches into the history of the valley; in other words, western history is already recognized as a legitimate field for research work. Time alone is needed for the results of this activity to become a part of the national consciousness, when the relative importance of western events will be correctly given in our larger histories and be finally disseminated through text-books and popular works to the public.