[History in the Summer Schools]
The summer school admittedly is organized for the benefit of teachers who wish to gain intellectually, or advance themselves in their profession by study in the vacation time. There are indeed in the summer school regular students who are making up conditions, or ambitious undergraduates seeking to shorten their course; but these are a negligible quantity.
Glancing through the announcements of some twenty-five of these summer schools, located from Maine to California and from Minnesota to Louisiana, one notices that the history courses fall into three groups. First, and most numerous is the group containing the usual college work in history. In many respects these courses are valuable for the teacher-student; they ignore his official position, and treating him impersonally, simply place him as student before the historical material. He gains not only by virtue of the cultural value of his study, but by the reversal of his usual position.
In the second group of courses may be mentioned those which deal with American local history. Professor Dodd at the University of Chicago gives a course in the history of the South, and a seminar in the history of Secession; Professor J. L. Couger at the University of Illinois, gives a history of nullification; Professor W. L. Fleming, of the University of Louisiana, gives a course in the history of Louisiana, and Professor U. B. Phillips, at Tulane University, one in the history of the South. There are several announcements of classes in the Reconstruction period. The history of the West is presented by Professor Turner at Wisconsin, and Professor F. L. Paxson at the University of Chicago. Courses in the history of Mexico and of Spain are given by Prof. E. A. Chavey at the University of California.
The courses in the third group are concerned with the methods of teaching history and civil government. The purpose of such work is well expressed in Professor G. C. Sellery’s announcement of his course in the University of Wisconsin: “The primary object of the course is to lay the foundation for a method which will enable high-school teachers to assign and pupils to prepare history work with definiteness and effectiveness.” Broader in plan is the course of Professor George L. Burr at Cornell, which discusses “what history is, what it is for, what are its materials and its methods, what its relations to neighbor studies, how to read history, how to study it, how to teach it, how to write it.” Less of the theory and more of the practical is given in such courses as those of Dr. James Sullivan, at Harvard; Professor Scholz, at the University of California; Professor Trenholme, at University of Missouri; Professor Robertson, at Indiana University; Dr. Arthur M. Wolfson, at Tennessee, and that of Professor Fleming, at Louisiana.
Methods of teaching civil government are discussed by Dr. Reed, at California; Dr. Lunt, at Harvard; Professor Woodburn, at Cornell, and Prof. Schaper, at Minnesota.
[One Use of Sources in the Teaching of History]
PROFESSOR FRED MORROW FLING, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA.