Down as upon a bed.
Stirs right enthusiasm for heroic men.We must, however, not let our sympathy with suffering blind us to the fact that Charles failed in his duty as a king—that had he been successful in what he attempted, England must have suffered from the evils under which France subsequently groaned. We must point out that it was his incurable deceit which brought him at last to the scaffold. But neither, on the other hand, must we ignore the fact that Cromwell trampled on the rights of men, that his was a lawless Government too. We would not, however, have that sham impartiality which paints all men of one colour and height, which is incapable of conceiving a hero, and contemplates crime with calmness, remarking there are always two sides to a quarrel. Need I say that throughout, the teacher must stir noble enthusiasms, a worthy emulation, admiration for true manliness, for virtue, rouse sympathy for the oppressed, zeal for right—show that the history of each nation is that nation’s Bible—the Book which tells of the Heavenly Father’s care for it, as manifested in the incidents of its life? If addressing higher classes, the teacher will point out, as opportunity offers, that each had a work to do in the world, Hebrew, Greek, Roman, as Miss Wedgwood has shown so well in the Moral Ideal.[18]
[18] Moral Ideal, by Julia Wedgwood. Trübner.
Shows the disintegrating power of unrighteousness.The young must learn, too, that the great principle is found everywhere, that what we sow we must reap in the moral as well as the physical world—that the selfish neglect of the poor brought about the Black Death and gaol fevers, that the selfishness, rapacity and immoral greed fostered by England’s unjust claims on France, brought its own punishment; this was seen when the Hundred Years’ War ended in the internecine strife of the fifteenth century, and led to the extermination of a selfish aristocracy. So too the degradation of the higher classes, say in the eighteenth century in France, which led them to regard the lower classes as scarcely human, brought about the fearful retaliation of the Revolution. Or again the wealth of Spain, filling the nation with pride and haughtiness, was actually her ruin; by persistently destroying or expelling, by war or persecution, all the nobler spirits, the nation was degraded in a few centuries. Of course these latter lessons will be more suited to a higher class, but something of it may be taught early.
Questions of right and wrong will ever be arising. What ought to have been done under such circumstances? Is rebellion ever justifiable? and when? What forms of government are best? is there an absolute best? We shall see how short-sighted is crime when we come to the murder of Cæsar, of Henry III., Henry IV., William the Silent. The teacher will not omit to look at the historical clock, when asking whether acts were right or wrong. We must do justice to devotion, while pointing out errors and crimes; we must be warned by seeing that wrong deeds are often done by those who mean well; we must learn that though error and ignorance is evil, and we must fight against both, yet that good often comes of the honest working out even of mistaken opinions; that through illusions we gain the vision of truth.
Teaches by experience.The many experiments of the past show us too that evils which exist in a community cannot be cured by merely changing a form of government, or getting rid of this man or that man by violence; to do this is only to sow dragon’s teeth. A nation is made up of individuals, and only by individual virtue can salvation come; so people now seek to bring about the well-being of nations by education rather than by revolution, because freedom without sense to use it is an evil, and a nation that is truly free will deserve and obtain free institutions. As Mazzini says:—
Teaches the solidarity of man“We must convince men that they are all sons of one sole God, and bound to fulfil and execute one sole law here on earth; that each of them is bound to live not for himself, but for others; rights can only exist as a consequence of duties fulfilled, and we must begin with fulfilling duties in order to achieve rights. We can obtain our rights only by deserving them through our own spirit of love and sacrifice. If we seek our rights in the name of duties, we shall obtain them. If we seek them in the name of egotism, or any theory of happiness and well-being propounded by the teachers of materialism, we shall never achieve other than a momentary triumph, to be followed by utter confusion.”
One may point out the gradual progress which, with occasional recessions, has, we trust, been made. One may stir in the young patriotism, and an enthusiasm of humanity, and make them feel a desire to do what they can to amend the evils of their own time.
and the duty of each to the community.Lessons of political economy seem to me more important for girls than the legislative contests of constitutional history. They cannot enter into these with the keen interest of boys, who may themselves one day be lawgivers. All should be taught that a selfish, wasteful citizen is a disgrace, a sort of moral caterpillar—learn that selfishness, sensuality, falsehood, under whatever disguises, are detestable, whilst a self-devoted life is a heritage for ever. We should especially recognise the faults of our own nation in past times, and in the present too; we should desire the elevation of the degraded classes, and each should feel that his life and example has at least some power, that each of us is responsible to men as well as to God, that it is by noble enthusiasms, by self-devotion, by giving up one to another that human society is possible.
History, like geography, can be approached two ways:—