Research Questions.—(1) What were the legal and illegal sources of the King’s revenues? (Ransome, 151, 155). (2) What might be said to constitute the private property of the crown? (3) What contributed to make Charles’s court expensive? (Traill, IV, 76). (4) How would this need for money make for parliamentary greatness?[25]

In a similar way the remaining topics of this section of English history are recorded, guiding the pupil in his outlines and his readings. With suitable care on the part of the teacher to see that the student fixes the outline firmly in mind, there is no danger of becoming lost in a wilderness of words. At the same time the pupil’s mind is enriched from many noble sources, instead of being limited by the presumably meagre resources of a single teacher. By this method the child may enjoy the benefits of modern erudition, without at the same time being harmed by dissipation of mental energy.

Other authors reach the same ends by different means. Fiske’s “History of the United States,” for example, concludes each chapter with a topical outline in which cause and effect are emphasized. At the close of Chapter X, on the “Causes and Beginning of the Revolution,” we find the following:—

Topics and Questions

76. Causes of Ill Feeling between England and her Colonies.

  1. What was the European idea of a colony, and of its object?
  2. What erroneous notions about trade existed?
  3. What was the main object of the laws regulating trade, etc.?

77. The Need of a Federal Union.

  1. One difficulty in carrying on the French wars.
  2. An account of Franklin.
  3. Franklin’s plan of union, etc.

78. The Stamp Act Passed and Repealed.

  1. The kind of government needed by the colonies.
  2. How Parliament sought to establish such a government.
  3. The nature of a stamp act, etc.