The guiding principle of historical pedagogy will therefore be to seek for those subjects and those methods which are best calculated to exhibit social phenomena and give an understanding of their evolution. Before admitting a fact into the plan of instruction, it should be asked first of all what educational influence it can exercise; secondly, whether there are adequate means of bringing the pupil to see and understand it. Every fact should be discarded which is instructive only in a low degree, or which is too complicated to be understood, or in regard to which we do not possess details enough to make it intelligible.

IV. To make rational instruction a reality it is not enough to develop a theory of historical pedagogy. It is necessary to renew the material aids and the methods.

History necessarily involves the knowledge of a great number of facts. The professor of history, with no resources but his voice, a blackboard, and abridgments which are little better than chronological tables, is in much the same situation as a professor of Latin without texts or dictionary. The pupil in history needs a repertory of historical facts as the Latin pupil needs a repertory of Latin words; he needs collections of facts, and the school text-books are mostly collections of words.

There are two vehicles of facts, engravings and books. Engravings exhibit material objects and external aspects, they are useful principally for the study of material civilisation. It is some time since the attempt was first made in Germany to put in the hands of the pupil a collection of engravings arranged for the purposes of historical instruction. The same need has, in France, produced the Album historique, which is published under the direction of M. Lavisse.

The book is the chief instrument. It ought to contain all the characteristic features necessary for forming mental representations of the events, the motives, the habits, the institutions studied; it will consist principally in narratives and descriptions, to which characteristic sayings and formulæ may be appended. For a long time it was endeavoured to construct those books out of extracts selected from ancient authors; they were compiled in the form of collections of texts.[241] Experience seems to indicate that this method must be abandoned; it has a scientific appearance, it is true, but is not intelligible to children. It is better to address pupils in contemporary language. It is in this spirit that, pursuant to the Instructions of 1890,[242] collections of Historical Readings have been compiled, of which the most important has been published by the firm of Hachette.

The pupils' methods of work still bear witness to the late introduction of historical teaching. In most historical classes methods still prevail which only exercise the pupils' receptivity: the course of lectures, the summary, reading, questioning, the rédaction, the reproduction of maps. It is as if a Latin pupil were to confine himself to repeating grammar-lessons and extracts from authors, without ever doing translation or composition.

In order that the teaching may make an adequate impression, it is necessary, if not to discard all these passive methods, at least to supplement them by exercises which call out the activity of the pupil. Some such exercises have already been experimented with, and others might be devised.[243] The pupil may be set to analyse engravings, narratives, and descriptions in such a way as to bring out the character of the facts: the short written or oral analysis will guarantee that he has seen and understood, it will be an opportunity to inculcate the habit of using only precise terms. Or the pupil may be asked to furnish a drawing, a geographical sketch, a synchronical table. He may be required to draw up tables of comparison between different societies, and tables showing the interconnection of facts.

A book is needed to supply the pupil with the materials for these exercises. Thus the reform of methods is connected with the reform of the instruments of work. Both reforms will progress according as the professors and the public perceive more clearly the part played by historical instruction in social education.

APPENDIX II

THE HIGHER TEACHING OF HISTORY IN FRANCE