What the Schools Teach and Might Teach

by John Franklin Bobbitt

In discussing the situation, the first thing to which we must call attention is the great value of history for an understanding of the multitude of complicated social problems met with by all people in a democracy. In a country where all people are the rulers, all need a good understanding of the social, political, economic, industrial, and other problems with which we are continually confronted. It is true the thing needed is an understanding of present conditions, but there is no better key to a right understanding of our present conditions than history furnishes. One comes to understand a present situation by observing how it has come to be. History is one of the most important methods of social analysis.

The history should be so taught that it will have a demonstrably practical purpose. In drawing up courses of study in the subject for the grammar grades and the high school, the first task should be an analysis of present-day social conditions, the proper understanding of which requires historical background. Once having discovered the list of social topics, it is possible to find historical readings which will show how present conditions have grown up out of earlier ones. Looked at from a practical point of view, the history should be developed on the basis of topics, a great abundance of reading being provided for each of the topics. We have in mind such topics as the following:

Sociological Aspects of War
Territorial Expansion
Race Problems
Tariff and Free Trade
Transportation
Money Systems
Our Insular Possessions
Growth of Population
Trusts
Banks and Banking
Immigration
Capital and Labor
Education
Inventions
Suffrage
Centralization of Government
Strikes and Lockouts
Panics and Business Depressions
Commerce
Taxation
Manufacturing
Labor Unions
Foreign Commerce
Agriculture
Postal Service
Army
Government Control of Corporations
Municipal Government
Navy
Factory Labor
Wages
Courts of Law
Charities
Crime
Fire Protection
Roads and Road Transportation
Newspapers and Magazines
National Defense
Conservation of Natural Resources
Liquor Problems
Parks and Playgrounds
Housing Conditions
Mining
Health, Sanitation, etc.
Pensions
Unemployment
Child Labor
Women in Industry
Cost of Living
Pure Food Control
Savings Banks
Water Supply of Cities
Prisons
Recreations and Amusements
Co-operative Buying and Selling
Insurance
Hospitals

After drawing up such lists of topics for study, they should be assigned to grammar grades and high school according to the degree of maturity necessary for their comprehension. Naturally as much as possible should be covered in the grammar grades. Such as cannot be covered there should be covered as early as practicable in the high school, since so large a number of students drop out, and all need the work. Of course, this would involve a radical revision of the high school courses in history. It is not here recommended that any such changes be attempted abruptly. There are too many other conditions that require readjustment at the same time. It must all be a gradual growth.

Naturally, students must have some familiarity with the general time relations of history and the general chronological movements of affairs before they can understand the more or less specialized treatment of individual topics. Preliminary studies are therefore both necessary and desirable in the intermediate and grammar grades for the purpose of giving the general background. During these grades a great wealth of historical materials should be stored up. Pupils should acquire much familiarity with the history of the ancient oriental nations, Judea, Greece, Rome, the states of modern Europe and America. The purpose should be to give a general, and in the beginning a relatively superficial, overview of the world's history for the sake of perspective. The reading should be biographical, anecdotal, thrilling dramas of human achievement, rich with human interest. It should be at every stage of the work on the level with the understanding and degree of maturity of the pupils, so that much reading can be covered rapidly. Given the proper conditions—chiefly an abundance of the proper books supplied in sets large enough for classes—pupils can cover a large amount of ground, obtain a wealth of historical experience, and acquire a great quantity of useful information, the main outlines of which are remembered without much difficulty. They can in this manner lay a broad historical foundation for the study of the social topics that should begin by the seventh grade and continue throughout the high school.

The textbooks of the present type can be employed as a part of this preliminary training. Read in their entirety and read rapidly, they give one that perspective which comes from a comprehensive view of the entire field. But they are too brief, abstract, and barren to afford valuable concrete historical experience. They are excellent reference books for gaining and keeping historical perspective.

Reading of the character that we have here called preliminary should not cease as the other historical studies are taken up. The general studies should certainly continue for some portion of the time through the grammar grades and high school, but it probably should be mainly supervised reading of interesting materials rather than recitation and examination work.

We would recommend that the high schools give careful attention to the recommendation of the National Education Association Committee on the Reorganization of the Secondary Course of Study in History.

CIVICS

Civic training scarcely finds a place upon the elementary school program. The manual suggests that one-quarter of the history time—10 to 20 minutes per week—in the fifth and sixth grades should be given to a discussion of such civic topics as the department of public service, street cleaning, garbage disposal, health and sanitation, the city water supply, the mayor and the council, the treasurer, and the auditor. The topics are important, but the time allowed is inadequate and the pupils of these grades are so immature that no final treatment of such complicated matters is possible. For seventh and eighth grades, the manual makes no reference to civics. This is the more surprising because Cleveland is a city in which there has been no end of civic discussion and progressive human-welfare effort. The extraordinary value of civic education in the elementary school, as a means of furthering civic welfare, should have received more decided recognition.