CONTENTS.
| Page. | |
| INTRODUCTORY COURSE IN HISTORY IN HARVARD COLLEGE, by Prof. Charles H. Haskins | [95] |
| IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICAN HISTORY TEACHING, by Sara A. Burstall | [96] |
| “THE OLD SOUTH LEAFLETS” CLASSIFIED, by Rex W. Wells | [98] |
| MUNICIPAL CIVICS, by Dr. James J. Sheppard | [99] |
| HAS HISTORY A PRACTICAL VALUE? by Prof. J. N. Bowman | [103] |
| CALDWELL AND PERSINGER’S “A SOURCE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES” | [105] |
| EDITORIAL | [106] |
| AMERICAN HISTORY IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL, by Arthur M. Wolfson, Ph.D. | [107] |
| ASHLEY’S “AMERICAN HISTORY,” reviewed by H. R. Tucker | [108] |
| ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL, by William Fairley, Ph.D. | [109] |
| EUROPEAN HISTORY IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL, by D. C. Knowlton, Ph.D. | [110] |
| HISTORY IN THE GRADES, by Armand J. Gerson | [112] |
| REPORTS FROM THE HISTORICAL FIELD, by Walter H. Cushing: | |
| The English Historical Association; California Association; New York City Conference; Missouri Society; Bibliography of History for Schools | [113] |
| CORRESPONDENCE: | |
| Source Methods; School Libraries | [114] |
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This text-book is designed for elementary college classes, having already proved successful as a basis of Freshman instruction in Indiana University. It gives a general survey of mediaeval history from Charlemagne to the close of the fifteenth century. It economizes time without sacrificing anything of real importance. The facts to be taught have been selected with great care. The continuity of the history has been preserved from beginning to end, and the fundamental features of mediaeval life and institutions are clearly brought out. The book affords a clear, scholarly, compact outline, which can be filled in in various ways. At the end of each chapter are suggestive topics and search topics, and numerous specific references to the best books for collateral reading. The aim of the book is to be accurate in substance and definite in statement, to seize the vital and interesting facts, and as far as possible to give that concreteness of treatment which is necessary in dealing with matters so remote and alien as those which fill the history of the Middle Ages.
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The History Teacher’s Magazine
Volume I.
Number 5.
PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1910.
$1.00 a year
15 cents a copy
Introductory Course in History[1] In Harvard College
BY PROFESSOR CHARLES H. HASKINS.
Perhaps the most difficult question which now confronts the college teacher of history is the work of the first year of the college course. The problem is comparatively new, and becomes each year more serious. Twenty-five or thirty years ago the small amount of history taught in American colleges came in the junior or senior year, and was not organized into any regular curriculum. With the recent development of historical courses, however, the teaching of history has worked down into the sophomore and often into the freshman year, so that the teacher of the first course in history is not only charged with introducing students to college work in history, but must also take his share of the task of introducing them to college work in general. At the same time the enlargement of the curriculum and the improvement of instruction in history in many of our secondary schools result in sending to the colleges a body of students who have already some familiarity with history and cannot be treated in the same way as the great mass of freshmen. Moreover, the first college course in history in all our larger institutions attracts a considerable number of students, in some cases as many as four hundred, so that the management of a large class adds another element to the problem; and matters are further complicated by the fact that while some of these will continue their historical studies in later years, others must get from this course all the historical training which they will receive in college. I take it that no one pretends to have found the solution of these difficulties, and that what is at present likely to prove helpful is not dogmatic discussion so much as a comparison of the experience of different institutions.
The introductory course at Harvard, History 1, is designed to be useful to those whose historical studies are to stop at this point, as well as to serve as a basis for further study. A period of the world’s history is chosen which is sufficiently large to give an idea of the growth of institutions and the nature of historical evolution, yet not so extensive as to render impossible an acquaintance at close range with some of the characteristic personalities and conditions of the age; and an effort is made to stimulate interest in history and to give some idea of the nature and purposes of historical study. The field covered is the history of Europe, including England, from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. This period has generally received little or no attention in school, so that students come to it with a freshness which they could not bring to ancient history or American history, and are introduced to a new world of action and movement and color which easily rouses their interest. The year devoted to the Middle Ages bridges the gap between their ancient and modern studies, and not only gives a feeling of historical continuity, but by showing the remote origin of modern institutions and culture it deepens the sense of indebtedness to the past and furnishes something of the background so much needed in our American life.
Most introductory courses now give considerable attention to the Middle Ages; the point of difference is whether the attempt should be made to cover something of the modern period as well. Where a longer period has been chosen, it has been quite generally found impracticable in a single year to bring the course down to the present time, and such courses have ordinarily stopped somewhere in the eighteenth century, leaving to a subsequent year the study of the more recent period. Thus the course which was given at Harvard until 1903 stopped at the Treaty of Utrecht. Assuming that two years are necessary for the satisfactory treatment of mediæval and modern history for the purposes of the general student, the question then becomes one as to the point where the break shall come, and we believe that experience is in favor of placing this point fairly early. The pace should be slower in the first year than in the second, so that students may not be confused and hurried while they are learning new methods of work and being emancipated from habits of close dependence on the text-book. There should be time for reading and assimilation, as well as for thorough drill, in a way that is not possible when too much ground is gone over. Good training in the first year makes it easier to cover a considerable period in the second. Such at least has been the experience at Harvard, where about half of the students in History 1 go on to the survey of modern history given in History 2 in the following year, while most of the others go directly to modern English history or American history. It ought to be added that while about nine-tenths of the class of three hundred who elect History 1 are freshmen, students who have given a good deal of attention to history in school are permitted to go on immediately to more advanced courses; and for those who take only American history in their later years, the introductory course in government is accepted as sufficient preparation.
The class meets three times a week, twice in a body for lectures, and the third hour in sections of about twenty. The lectures do not attempt to give a narrative, but seek to bind together the students’ reading, comment upon it, clarify it, reënforce the significant points, and discuss special aspects of the subject. The processes of historical interpretation and criticism are illustrated by a few simple examples, and from time to time the work is vivified by the use of lantern slides. The reading is divided into two parts, prescribed and collateral, and indicated on a printed “List of References” which each member of the class is required to buy. The prescribed reading, from seventy-five to one hundred pages a week, is made, as far as possible, the central part of the student’s work. At first this is selected largely from text-books and illustrative sources; later in the year text-books drop into the background, and narrative and descriptive works are taken up, although the student is urged to have at hand a manual for consultation and for securing a connected view of events. The effort is made to break away from high school methods of study and to teach students to use intelligently larger historical books. Stubb’s “Early Plantagenets,” Jessopp’s “Coming of the Friars,” Bryce’s “Holy Roman Empire,” Brown’s “Venetian Republic,” Day’s “History of Commerce,” Reinach’s “Apollo,” and Robinson and Rolfe’s “Petrarch,” are examples of the kind of books from which the required reading is chosen. Some sources are given in their entirety, such as the “Germania,” the “Life of St. Columban,” and Einhard’s “Charlemagne”; but reliance is placed mainly upon the extracts given in Ogg’s “Source Book” and Robinson’s “Readings.” It is found that the proper use and appreciation of sources is one of the hardest things for beginners to learn, and careful and explicit teaching is required both at the lectures and at the meetings of the sections. Each student is required to provide himself with two or three texts, a source book, and an historical atlas, and many buy a number of the other books used in the course. The books in which the reading is assigned are kept in a special reading-room, where the supply is sufficient to provide one copy of each for every ten men in the course. Duplicates of the works recommended for collateral reading are also furnished.
At the weekly section meetings the students are held responsible for the required reading and the lectures for the week. There is always a short written paper about twenty minutes in length, including usually an exercise on the outline map, and the rest of the hour is spent in explanation, review and discussion. No attempt is made at systematic quizzing, as the work of the week is much more effectively tested by the written paper. These sections are held by the assistants, four in number, who are chosen from men who have had two or three years of graduate study and generally some experience in teaching.
For the collateral reading certain topics are suggested each week, and every month each member of the class is required to read the references under at least one of the assigned topics. These topics have considerable range, and students are encouraged to select those which have special interest for them and to read freely upon them. Thus if a student takes the Northmen as his topic, he will read the greater part of Keary’s “Vikings,” and translated extracts from Norse poetry or sagas; if he chooses Henry II, he will have Mrs. Green’s biography and Stubb’s characterization in the introduction to Benedict of Peterborough; if he reads on monasticism, he will compare different views of the subject as found in specified chapters of Montalembert, Lecky, Taylor’s “Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages,” and in Harnack’s “Monasticism”; on castles and castle life he will read portions of Miss Bateson’s “Mediæval England,” and Viollet-le-Duc’s “Annals of a Fortress,” and examine the illustrations in Enlart’s “Manuel” and Schultz’s “Höfisches Leben”; on St. Louis he will have Joinville, certain pages of Langlois, and William Stearns Davis’s novel, “Falaise of the Blessed Voices.” A certain fixed minimum of such reading is set for each one in the course, and a higher minimum for those who expect distinction, and ambitious students will read from 1,500 to 2,000 pages in the course of the year.
The effort is constantly made to develop individual aptitudes and stimulate the better men. Every student has at least eight individual conferences with the assistant during the year. The conference is devoted mainly to a discussion of the collateral reading, but it also serves as an opportunity for examining note books, talking over difficulties, and in general for closer personal acquaintance between assistant and student. Sometimes small voluntary groups of men have been formed which meet the assistant weekly at his room for the reading and discussion of short historical papers written by students.
Considerable attention is given to well-reasoned note-taking upon both lectures and required reading, a matter respecting which the freshman is at first likely to be quite helpless. Here the personal supervision of the assistant is of the greatest value, and is often exercised weekly.
Special emphasis is put upon historical geography, not only by constant reference to wall maps and by special exercises involving the use of the principal historical atlases, but also by means of the regular use of blank outline maps. Members of the class are required to bring such a map to all meetings of the sections, and to be able to locate upon it important places and boundaries. The mid-year and final examinations also include a regular test of such geographical knowledge. More time than should be necessary is devoted to this work, but experience has shown that college students have at the outset only the vaguest ideas of European geography, and in this and in some other respects it is necessary to do in college, work that ought to have been done in the secondary or grammar school. If the ordinary freshman brought with him an elementary knowledge of geography and the ability to read intelligently, the task of the college teacher of history would be greatly lightened.
No attempt is made to require theses or formal written reports, as such work is useful rather for those who are to continue their historical studies, and as regular training of this sort is given in the second-year courses. Some attempts have, however, been made to coördinate the student’s work in history and in English composition by having the results of reading upon an historical topic embodied in a brief essay which is read and graded both by the instructor in history and the instructor in English. Such coöperative efforts are still in the experimental stage, but they are regarded favorably by those who believe that the occasion for writing good English is not confined to courses in English composition, and that a broader policy with regard to the student’s work is necessary if the American college is to give an education as well as to teach particular subjects.
Impressions of American History Teaching[2]
EXTRACTS FROM MISS BURSTALL’S RECENT WORK, “IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICAN EDUCATION.”
Miss Sara A. Burstall, head mistress of the Manchester (England) High School for Girls, traveled in the United States during the year 1908, studying and inspecting American educational systems. Miss Burstall has written out her experiences in America in a book entitled “Impressions of American Education in 1908.” The author was particularly interested in the teaching of history in American schools. The following extracts are printed in the belief that American teachers would desire “to see themselves as others see them.” In the chapter on “Method” occur the following statements:
“Recitation is indeed an accurate description of what one hears, sitting in an American class-room; the pupil stands up and recites what he has learnt, whether from the standard text-book or from other sources. The teacher may question some statement in order to make sure that the pupil understands what he has said, other pupils will also question it. A girl will put up her hand and (the teacher giving permission by looking in her direction) will say, ‘But I thought that I read in——’ and will proceed to give some other view of the subject. A general discussion will follow which the teacher will not authoritatively close by giving her correct opinion; she will pass on to another part of the subject and ask another pupil to recite what he or she has learnt about it. If the reciter makes an error the teacher will call upon another pupil to correct it; very rarely does the teacher make a correction herself, and still more rarely does she express her opinion. We were not struck by the good English or excellence of oral composition which we heard. The American boys and girls did not do any better in this respect than the English girls we know. One can hardly expect fluent, elegant oral descriptions and accounts except from practiced speakers. With a class of thirty or forty and a lesson period of forty-five minutes obviously not all in the class recite; quite half may take no share except as listeners. The presumption is that they have learnt up their work, that they are interested in listening to what others say about it; their turn will come next day, and in any case it is to their interest to follow carefully what goes on.
“Three criticisms must occur to even a sympathetic English teacher: first, the possibility of what in England would be a probable waste of time to the listeners. Americans say that these, though they often look indifferent and inattentive, are really attending; they are used to the method and they play the game, so to speak, by listening attentively as well as by reciting readily when their turn comes. Second, the whole thing is very dull and slow; each pupil speaks very slowly, with very little grace of delivery or beauty of language, such as might be expected from the teacher, and nothing like the same amount of ground is covered as is the case in a lesson on the oral method. With the recitation method in England we should not arouse sufficient interest to get the best out of our pupils; we could not get through the work we have to do in the time, nor would English boys and girls be sufficiently quick and clever to understand the difficulties in geometry, for example, or in Latin or French grammar, unless they had clear and skilful explanations from the teacher, who presumably understands the art of making things clear. Americans would probably say that their students are quick enough and earnest enough to make progress without this careful exposition and without this atmosphere of interest and intellectual stimulus, and there is probably some truth in the reply. Our pupils too often do not want to work, and their minds do move more slowly. We have been obliged to find ways of making class-work attractive, either by intellectual stimulus and interest, or by rewards and punishments, since we have not that strong outside belief in education which makes the task of the American teacher much more easy. It is also true that the examination demand has forced us to explain clearly to the duller pupils in the class difficulties which the cleverer ones could see through for themselves. Probably here Americans are right and we are wrong; we make the work too easy by, as it were, peptonizing the lesson material, before giving it to the hungry sheep who look up to us to be fed. Our aim has been to help them to assimilate the knowledge required, not to develop in them the power to grapple with new material. This aim the American recitation system undoubtedly develops, and this is one of its great merits.
“Our third criticism is that the teacher appears to do too little; her share in the lesson is at a minimum; the new ideas do not come from her, her influence is indirect. Here, again, the American would say, so much the better. The democratic ideal is undoubtedly one cause for the existence and the popularity of the recitation method. The teacher and the pupils are very much on a level. She is not teaching them; she acts rather as chairman of the meeting, the object of which is to ascertain whether they have studied for themselves in a text-book, and what they think about the material they have been studying. Clearly, then, the master is the text-book, and here we strike on a vital peculiarity of American education. Its aim has been intellectually the mastery of books; with us education has always been very much more, always and everywhere, a personal relation. The children learn from the master or mistress with or without the aid of a book.”
“The rise of the method can be explained from historical causes; in the old ungraded rural school of America, meeting perhaps only for a few months in the year, taught, it may be, by a woman in the summer, and a man in the winter, there could be no classification or organization. Each pupil worked through an authorized text-book, much as in the old Scottish rural school, when a plowman might come back for a couple of months to rub up his arithmetic or English in the book if he did not finish before leaving school. The teacher went around and helped individual pupils over difficulties, or heard them ‘recite’ the lesson they had each learnt, while the others went on with their own tasks. Then when the schools came to be graded, a number of pupils at about the same stage could recite together out of the book, and so the recitation method developed, evolved by the American genius for invention to fit the necessities of the position. Among these conditions was the absence of a body of experienced and skilled teachers; much of the work was done by all sorts of people, many with very scanty qualifications, who would ‘teach school’ for a few months to earn enough to go on with some other occupation. Such people could not be in the true sense of the word teachers; they could ‘conduct recitations’ and engage in the friendly questioning and discussion as an equal, which the American method implies. When first-rate, highly qualified, skilled teachers come to play on this instrument they bring forth from it a wonderful result.
“The writer was fortunate enough to see some very fine work by a woman teacher, brilliant, systematized, full of interest and fire, the pupils really taking part and bringing their material which the teacher skillfully percussed so that it kindled. Indeed, the recitation method at its best and our own oral method are almost identical in effect; and far excel as educational instruments anything that can be attained by lectures. But how rarely is it seen at its best? At its worst, of course, it becomes mere memoriter repetition out of the text-book with very little intelligence anywhere; any teacher would do this who could keep order.
“It is hoped that this imperfect sketch may at least afford some idea of what is to be seen in the United States by a teacher of history, and of what we can learn from them. Probably there is more to be learnt in this subject by English students of American education than in any other, and the study is the more interesting and profitable since the evolution of the present condition of history teaching there is so recent. The present writer can only say that she has heard finer history teaching in more than one American institution than she ever heard in England, though her experiences here have been fortunate, and that such teaching has set for her an ideal standard of professional skill in our difficult art. England might learn, too, from the life and vigor of the subject in the common schools, the breadth and thoughtfulness and the self-reliance in the history classes of secondary schools, and the volume and power of the historical work in the colleges and technological institutes.
“The equipment is well worth our imitation if only we could get the money for it. Every good high school has a room or rooms for the history lessons; cases of maps to be drawn down when required—a product of the American skill in mechanical appliances—are universal, and an average high school has a better supply of these maps than some of our colleges. Pictures of every sort abound.
“It is the opinion of one of the leading American authorities on the teaching of history, herself a distinguished teacher, that there is a very real increase of intellectual interest; some of it may be superficial, but it is at least widespread. A nidus has been formed and there is a real advance in the subject.
“In England we have, as things are, the tradition of public service and the inner instinct of patriotism; formal teaching of civic duty is not so much needed among the wealthier and more cultivated classes, though more ought to be done than is done in the public elementary schools, and in some of the new secondary schools. In America this sociological teaching given in connection with history is the one thing they have to train citizens for citizenship; religious instruction has been excluded from their school system, personal influence and corporate life play but little part compared with the powerful one they play here. There is no universal military service as in Germany and France to teach by hard experience the duty and the need of patriotism; the tradition of unpaid public work so strong in England is not known in the United States. The teaching of history and of patriotism through history is the one force which America has in her schools and colleges to stimulate and train the sense of civic duty. One cannot but conclude that to a half-conscious conviction of this truth is due the system, the earnestness, the concentration, and the excellence that America achieves in the teaching of history throughout every grade of her education.”