College Teaching / Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College

by Paul Klapper

SUGGESTED TOPICAL OUTLINE OF MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY

To apply this more specifically to modern European history, there follows an outline of topics. It is general to about 1789, and more detailed for the period since that time (IV below), the endeavor being to show how a topical treatment of the development of democracy can be made to include practically everything of significance. There are certain cautions necessary here: that the outline is suggestive only, that it does not pretend or aim to be complete, that specific data often found in the sub-heads are to serve as illustrations and not as a complete statement of sub-topics; and that it is in fact merely a skeleton which can be extended and amplified indefinitely by insertions.

I. Background of the modern period.
A. Economic and social conditions at the close of the Middle Age.
B. Political nature of feudalism.
The governments of the 15th century.
C. The medieval church.

II. The development of religious liberty.
A. The Reformation.
B. Varieties of Protestant sects, from state churches to
individualistic sects.
C. The Religious Wars, and toleration.
III. Absolute monarchy.
A. Dynastic states.
B. Dynastic wars and the balance of power.
IV. The development of democracy.
A. The dynastic feudal state (Ancien Régime).
1. Description of the Ancien Régime.
2. Proponents of the Ancien Régime.
Dynasties (divine right monarchs).
Feudal landlords.
Higher clergy and state churches.
The army command (younger sons of the nobility).
The schools (education for privileged classes only).
B. The revolutionary elements.
1. The dissatisfied feudal serf.
2. The intellectuals, rationalists, political theorists.
The "social compact." ... Popular sovereignty.
3. Religious dissenters.
4. Industrial elements.
a. The Industrial Revolution.
Resulting in exportation, markets, and laissez-faire
doctrines.
b. The bourgeoisie (employers) ... The Third Estate.
c. The proletariat ... Unorganized labor elements.
C. The Revolutionary Period, 1789-1800.
1. Triumph of bourgeoisie over feudal aristocracy in France,
1789-1791. Limited monarchy. Mirabeau.
2. Increasing influence and rise to control of France of the
Parisian proletariat. The Republic ... The Terror ...
Robespierre.
3. Radiation of revolutionary ideas to other nations.
4. Wars between revolutionary France and monarchical
Europe.
The rise of Napoleon.
D. The decline of the revolutionary elements, 1800-1815.
1. France converted from a republic to an empire by
Napoleon.
2. The Napoleonic Wars.
a. Reveal Napoleon's dynastic ambition.
b. Lead Europe to combine against him and to blame
democratic ideas for the sorrows of the time.
c. Result in the defeat of Napoleon and the triumph of
anti-democratic or reactionary elements.
E. The fruits of the principle of popular sovereignty during the
19th century (chronologically England and France lead the
other countries in most of these developments).[[39]]
1. Constitutions, embodying ever-increasing popular rights and
powers.
2. Extension of suffrage. Political parties and party politics.
3. The spirit of nationality.
Independence of Greece and Belgium.
Unification of Italy and Germany
National revivals in Poland, Bulgaria, Servia, Rumania,
Bohemia, Finland, Ireland, and elsewhere.
Pan-Germanism, Pan-Slavism, Imperial Federation.
4. Class consciousness and strife.
Feudal aristocratic class—leans toward absolute monarchy.
Bourgeoisie (employing capitalists)—leans toward limited
monarchies or republics.
Labor—leans toward socialism. (The other elements in the
society are slow in developing a group consciousness.)
5. Abolition of feudal forms and tenures.
Fight on great landlords. Encouragement of independent
farmers.
Emancipation and protection of peasants: France, 1789;
Prussia, 1808; Austria, 1848; Russia, 1861.
6. Social, socialistic, and humanitarian legislation.
Factory acts, minimum wage laws, industrial insurance, old
age insurance, labor exchanges, child labor laws, prison
reform acts, revision of penal codes, abolition of slavery
and slave trade, government control or ownership of
railways, telephones, telegraph, and mails.
7. Opposition to state or national churches.
Disestablishment agitations ... Separation of church and
state.
8. Demand for free public schools to replace church or other
private schools. State lay schools in England ...
Suppression of teaching orders in France ... Kulturkampf
in Germany ... Expulsion of Jesuits ... Tendency toward
compulsory non-sectarian education.
9. Imperialism.
Industrial societies depend on imports, exports, and markets
as means of keeping labor employed and people
prosperous. This means export of capital, hence, plans for
colonies, closed doors, preferential markets, and demands
for the protection of citizens abroad and political stability
in backward areas.
Partition of Africa, Asia, and Near East.
10. Militarism.
Expansion and colonial acquisition by one country exclude
another, thus unsettling the balance of power. Therefore
rival nations depend on force and go in for military and
naval programs.
F. The conflict between reactionary and bourgeois interests,
1815-1848.
1. Reactionary elements in control—opposed to
democracy and revolutionary doctrines.
a. Restore Europe as nearly as possible on old lines at
Vienna, 1815.
Ignore liberal tendencies and national sentiments.
b. Seek to maintain status quo.
Metternich ... Holy Alliance.
Carlsbad Decrees ... Congresses of Troppau, Laibach,
Verona ... Intervention in Naples, Piedmont, and Spain.
Proposal to restore Latin America to Monarchy.
Opposed by Great Britain in compliance with bourgeois
interests.
Monroe Doctrine.
c. Failed to prevent:
Greek revolution and independence (national movement).
Separation of Belgium from the Netherlands (national).
Revival of liberal demands in various quarters, producing
the revolution of 1830 in France and elsewhere.
2. The ascendancy of the bourgeoisie, 1830-1848.
a. Industrialism on the continent.
b. The bourgeois (capitalist employer) secures political
power to advance his interests.
Revolution of 1830.
Reform bill of 1832.
Legislation against labor organizations and for tariffs
favoring trade.
c. The development of organized labor and socialism.
Legislation hostile to labor. Chartism.
Labor in France, Germany, and Belgium.
Spread of socialist doctrines.
d. The Revolution of 1848.
Socialist republican state in France, 1848.
The winning of constitutions in Prussia, Austria, and
elsewhere—breach in the walls of reaction.
G. The broadening base of democracy, 1848-1914.
1. The organization of labor.
2. The spread of socialistic views and of class consciousness.
Karl Marx.
3. The resistance of the old aristocratic class and the
bourgeoisie, who gradually fuse to form the conservative
element in all nations.
Napoleon III restores the Empire in France.
In Austria and Prussia, Bismarck and Francis Joseph II
retrieve losses of 1848.
Disraeli and Conservatives in England.
4. The progress toward universal suffrage after 1865,
strengthening political position of lower classes.
Vindication of democratic government through triumph of the
North in the United States gave impetus to democracy
abroad.
Electoral reform bills in Great Britain, 1867, 1884, 1885.
Franco-Prussian War and the Third French Republic.
Universal suffrage.
Unification of Germany and universal suffrage.
Russian Revolution, 1917.
Woman suffrage.
5. Popular sovereignty and its consequences.
a. Triumph of republicans and radicals in France over
monarchists and clericals.
b. Liberal ministries in United Kingdom.
Lloyd George Budget ... Parliament Act.
Social legislation.
c. Growth of Social Democratic party in Germany.
Bismarck and state socialism.
d. In recent times the many divergent political parties fall
rather instinctively into three groups which have opposing
views and policies on almost every question, and which
may be called:
Conservatives (Tories, aristocrats, monarchists,
Junkers, clericals, capitalists, imperialists, militarists);
peasants and farmers, being conservative, are usually
politically allied to this group.
Liberals (progressives, democrats, labor parties,
Socialists, social democrats, Dissenters,
anti-imperialists, anti-militarists).
Radicals, Bolsheviki or revolutionists seeking change of
the economic and social order.
6. Effects of the war
a. Extensive nationalization and socialization of industry and
human rights in all belligerent countries.
b. Develops into a "war for democracy," and for moral as
opposed to materialistic aims.
c. Culminates in an attempt to secure a righteous and
lasting peace through the instrumentality of a league of
nations.

Edward Krehbiel
Leland Stanford Junior University

Bibliography

TEXTS

Andrews, C. M. Historical Development of Modern Europe. Two vols. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1900.

Hayes, Carlton J. H. A Political and Social History of Modern Europe. Two vols. The Macmillan Company, 1916.

Robinson, J. H., and Beard, C. A. The Development of Modern Europe. Two vols. Ginn and Co., 1907, 1908.

Schevill, Ferdinand. A Political History of Modern Europe. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907.