11. Subjugation by Persia.
With the coming into view of Media and Persia, we get our first glimpse of a conquering Indo-European people. Their struggle to get into Europe is foreshadowed and we are brought to the threshold of the Greek story.
[The College Teaching of History]
PROFESSOR GEORGE BURTON ADAMS, OF YALE UNIVERSITY.
There are many things which the college teacher of history may set before him to do: He may say, “the things most fundamental are the facts of history,” and devote his work to thorough drill in names and dates. He may have a keen sense of the valuable discipline of mind and faculties to be obtained in historical study and give himself to this. He may perhaps be under the influence of the reaction which has begun and seems certain to continue and believe in reviving the ancient maxim, “history is philosophy teaching by example,” seeking primarily in his teaching to enforce lessons of statecraft and political wisdom. More likely he may be imbued with the spirit of the generation just closing and be disposed to insist that the only proper method of instruction is that by which the scholar and specialist are trained. Or he may believe that the opportunity offered him in history to impart a broad and liberal culture is the one which he should least of all neglect. Any of these purposes, or more than one of them at once, are possible to the college instructor in history. His field of choice is bewilderingly wide. Is there any one of them which is more than another the proper object of college instruction?
Any satisfactory answer to this question must be sought by determining in the first place what is the proper object of the college course itself. Such a preliminary question would be absurd had we not by our educational reforms of the past fifty years gone far to put the college into a place in advanced education which does not belong to it, and in consequence to confuse all our ideas as to its natural functions. I am not finding any fault with these reforms. They were so necessary and have proved so valuable that they can never be called in question. But in bringing them about, some things were done, unnecessary and ill-advised. In consequence for one thing the duty lies upon the next generation, as one of its most important tasks, of restoring the college to its historical and to its logical position in the university. For the present purpose it suffices to say that the function of the college is general training and general preparation. It is the one department of the university which has, and which should have, no special object. Or it is more accurate to say that it can be adapted at the same time to a number of different objects to meet the needs of students whose ultimate purposes are different, and the possibility of doing this wisely and efficiently is one of the happiest results we have gained from the changes of the last generation. The work of the college is fundamental to that of all the other departments of the university, and in the normal university they should all require and build upon it. But it should also not be forgotten that the work of the college is not of necessity fundamental to any special line of advanced study. The number of students in our colleges who are not looking forward to professional or specialist work, but who are expecting to go into various lines of commercial activity, is already large and constantly increasing. They have no desire to follow out a course of study whose purpose is a technical preparation, nor is such a course well adapted for them. The demand which their presence in the college makes is for what we may call a general preparation for life, some knowledge of facts, some training of judgment and taste, sympathy with a variety of intellectual interests, such broadening and liberalizing of mind as is possible. To the instructor who teaches in the eager atmosphere of an active university such a demand may seem illegitimate, because it seems vague and weak. But this opinion is proper only to the narrow specialist who cannot see beyond the limits of his own field. The demand is perfectly legitimate; it is certain to be increasingly heard; and it is the duty of the college to meet it. It is to be remembered also that the best preparation for technical work does not omit all studies which are cultural merely, just as the best general preparation for life should embrace some training in technical lines.
With these considerations in mind let us ask to which of the two ways by which the college discharges its preparatory function, technical preparation or general preparation, the study of history is most naturally adapted, and which of the purposes already stated as those the instructor may have in mind is most likely to secure the desired end. It is not easy to specify a line of professional work to which the study of history stands in a technical relation, except that of the history teacher, whose numbers are at present so small, in proportion to the college as a whole, as to be almost negligible, and who perhaps needs above all others that point of view in regard to history which a general rather than a special training will give. Law and theology come the nearest perhaps to having a technical need of historical study, and yet it is also true of them that what they need of history is not technical but general preparation. The clergyman or lawyer may need a more permanent hold upon the facts of history than does the business man. They are to him more an end in themselves rather than chiefly a means for producing a result, as in the case of the other. But preacher and business man alike need to study the same facts in the same way each for his own purpose. It is in truth the later studies of the professional man which serve to keep alive the facts which he and his classmate in business once learned in the same class room.
The proper purpose then of the study of history in the college course is general preparation—preparation for life in general rather than for some special line of later study which builds upon it. To accomplish this purpose, and indeed every other, a certain amount of drill in names and dates is indispensable. Without it every result is insecure and all the instructor’s lessons hang in the air with no foundation to rest upon. But the teacher who makes drill in the facts his main object overlooks the almost universal experience that no matter how well a body of details may once have been learned they inevitably fade out of mind in later years unless the necessities of one’s daily occupation keep them fresh. What remains a constant possession is the general effect, the general impression once made by means of the details. The teacher who makes the general his main object, drawn from and enforced by a knowledge of the special which is for the moment clear and sound, deals with the most abiding of educational results.