(a) It gives habits of analyzing the aims and motives of men, and the means they employ to attain their ends, i.e., it gives insight into character and hence makes social adjustment easier.
(b) It develops tolerance for the opinions, convictions, and ideals of others, and tends to prevent hard, dogmatic, and uncompromising judgments and attitudes.
(c) It gives appreciation of the civic and political institutions of to-day—their origin, development, and purposes—and hence teaches the rights and obligations that are inherent in citizenship.
(d) It inspires patriotism "through arousing noble emotions that revolve about inherited responsibilities." ["A study of the times that tried men's souls tends to form souls that are capable of enduring trial."—Hinsdale.]
(e) It reveals the slow evolutionary processes that operate in social life, and hence tends to encourage one to put himself in harmony with the laws of social evolution and to strive for social betterment while he at the same time is patient with existing conditions.
(f) It breaks down provincialism through revealing the relations, common traits, and interdependence of one community with another, and one nation with all other nations.
3. Moral and Religious.
(a) It habituates to weighing motives and actions as regards their righteousness.
(b) It implants ideals of personal character by disclosing the personal qualities and moral accomplishments of men and women who have, in large ways, affected history, and who have in consequence received lasting honor and renown.
(c) It teaches us to see something of the intangible forces that override personal preferences and hinder the direct application of principles sincerely held.