A standard history should be worked through, and other books, notably the original historians, will be suggested. A lending library is therefore essential. An essay subject will be set in connection with each lecture to form a centre for reading.
Illustrations.Throughout, the importance of concrete illustrations cannot be too strongly insisted upon. In many places the lectures can be supplemented by visits to local museums, Roman relics, etc. (e.g., Chedworth Villa near Cheltenham, Gloucester Museum, Bath). For elder classes a visit to the British Museum would obviously be helpful, but it is wonderfully easy to interest even quite young children. A board schoolboy of eleven, who was wandering aimlessly about the Elgin room, was delighted when I showed him the Nemesis head and told him the story of the Persian Invincible Armada, which never set up its trophy.
Invaluable help can also be obtained from the Educational Museum of the Teachers’ Guild. A full catalogue is published, in which we specially notice (1) illustrations of Greek dress, which might be copied by the mythology class (Course A); (2) maps and plans, especially of Athens and Rome (Holzel); (3) coins, museum reproductions; (4) portraits; (5) lantern slides. Mention may also be made of views of the English Photographic Co., Constitution Square, Athens, who send a priced catalogue; the series of card reliefs, 6d. each, by Lecherchier, Barbe et Cie., to be obtained from the Art Schools Association, 21 Queen’s Square, Bayswater; card illustrations from Menge’s Antike Kunst. These illustrations would be of double value were they the permanent possession of the class-room; the class could then become really familiar with each one. It would be a great boon if a central loan collection could be formed by some such body as the Teachers’ Guild, from which illustrations of special periods could be borrowed term by term, a plan which at present is only adopted for lantern slides. This would give access to a greater selection of pictures and models than a single school can provide, and might lead to the development of the historical side of the school museum, and the consequent formation of a school archæological society.
Maps.Kiepert’s wall-maps may be taken for granted. The list in the Teachers’ Guild catalogue is helpful, but a teacher must make her own period maps. (White blind holland is an excellent material.)
Books.1. Text-books. (a) Roman. Creighton’s Primer; E. S. Shuckburgh’s History of Rome for Beginners and History of Rome; Well’s Short History of Rome to the death of Augustus; How and Leigh’s History of Rome; Mommsen’s History of Rome (abridged for schools); Pelham’s Outlines of Roman History (Epoch Series); Bury’s Student’s Roman Empire.
(b) Greek. Fyffe’s Primer; Oman’s History of Greece; Cox’s General History of Greece (Epoch Series); Butcher’s Demosthenes.
(c) Transition. Freeman’s Europe (Primer); Freeman’s General Sketch of European History.
2. Historical atlases. Student’s Kiepert.
3. Suggestions for school library in connection with junior courses. Miss Gardner’s Friends of the Olden Time and Rome the Centre of the World; Church’s Stories; Cox’s Tales of Ancient Greece; Kingsley’s Heroes and Poems; Macaulay’s Lays; Hawthorne’s Tanglewood Tales; Epics and Romances of the Middle Ages (Wagner and Anson); Lang, Leaf and Myers’ Iliad; Butcher and Lang’s Odyssey; Worsley’s Odyssey; Morris’ Earthly Paradise and Life and Death of Jason; Browning’s Balaustion and Aristophanes’ Apology; Miss A. Swanwick’s Æschylus; Tennyson’s Œnone, etc.; Milton; Atlas of Classical Portraits—(a) Roman; (b) Greek (published by Dent); Baumeister’s Bilder aus dem Alterthum.
German Scheme for History Teaching:—