A Guide to Methods and Observation in History Part 3

General history or ancient history received almost the sole emphasis, though English history was sometimes taught. In 1847 Harvard first began the practice of requiring history for admission.

(_i_) History work in elementary schools grew out of the study of geography, and became a separate study about 1845.

(_j_) Until about 1893 the only course given really serious attention in the high school was that of Ancient History in the cla.s.sical course. The courses in General History, English History and American History were, for the most part, bookish, superficial, and devitalized.

(_k_) The Madison Conference (inst.i.tuted by the N. E. A. in 1892) gave the first concerted impetus to the serious study of history in American public schools.

(_l_) The Report of the Committee of Ten of the N. E. A. in 1893 contains extensive and almost revolutionizing suggestions for improving the organization, study, and presentation of history in the schools.

(_m_) The Report of the Committee of Seven of the American Historical a.s.sociation in 1896 supplemented the contemporary efforts at reform.

(_n_) The Report of the Committee of Five of the American Historical a.s.sociation in 1907 embodied the best ideas which the decade had developed looking to further improvement of historical study and teaching.

(_o_) The Committee of Eight has still more recently sought to perfect the art of studying and teaching the subject.

VII. _Values and Aims of History._

1. Psychological.

(_a_) It develops the power of constructive imagination through the visualizing of scenes, events, and characters, and the effort to put oneself back into the past.

(_b_) It trains the reasoning faculty through the necessity of a.n.a.lyzing data, seeking causes and effects, and following historical development wherever it may lead.

(_c_) It develops the power of a.s.sociative memory through the necessity of bringing facts into their essential and definite relations.

(_d_) It trains the judgment, through requiring the mind to make estimates respecting

(1) The probability of the fact recorded.

(2) The possibility and probability of accurate statement on the part of the one recording the event.

(3) The efficiency of the adjustment of means to ends.

(4) The righteousness of the act.

(5) The motives and ideals that dominated the act.

(_e_) It develops the power of comparison through demanding attention to similarities and differences in motives, agents, means, processes, events, places, dates, and results.

(_f_) It develops the power of cla.s.sification--of coordinating and subordinating data.

(_g_) It develops the habit of forming generalizations from detailed facts.

(_h_) It gives a real conception of the meaning of time, through the considerations of man's slow evolution in social relations.

(_i_) It gives ability to take a large view of life's affairs and interests,--to see things in their essential relations.

2. Social, Political, and Civic.

(_a_) It gives habits of a.n.a.lyzing the aims and motives of men, and the means they employ to attain their ends, i.e., it gives insight into character and hence makes social adjustment easier.

(_b_) It develops tolerance for the opinions, convictions, and ideals of others, and tends to prevent hard, dogmatic, and uncompromising judgments and att.i.tudes.

(_c_) It gives appreciation of the civic and political inst.i.tutions of to-day--their origin, development, and purposes--and hence teaches the rights and obligations that are inherent in citizenship.

(_d_) It inspires patriotism "through arousing n.o.ble emotions that revolve about inherited responsibilities." ["A study of the times that tried men's souls tends to form souls that are capable of enduring trial."--_Hinsdale._]

(_e_) It reveals the slow evolutionary processes that operate in social life, and hence tends to encourage one to put himself in harmony with the laws of social evolution and to strive for social betterment while he at the same time is patient with existing conditions.

(_f_) It breaks down provincialism through revealing the relations, common traits, and interdependence of one community with another, and one nation with all other nations.

3. Moral and Religious.

(_a_) It habituates to weighing motives and actions as regards their righteousness.

(_b_) It implants ideals of personal character by disclosing the personal qualities and moral accomplishments of men and women who have, in large ways, affected history, and who have in consequence received lasting honor and renown.

(_c_) It teaches us to see something of the intangible forces that override personal preferences and hinder the direct application of principles sincerely held.

(_d_) It inspires a love of truth.

(_e_) It develops charity for the past; forbearance for the present; and faith and hope for the future.

4. aesthetic (appealing to the sense of order, beauty, and proportion).

(_a_) It stirs to an appreciation of the beauties of man's handwork in sculpture, architecture, painting, musical and literary form, industry and commerce.

(_b_) It reveals the beauties of human genius in adapting inst.i.tutions and governmental forms and processes to desired ends.

(_c_) It refines and enriches the emotions by bringing them into contact with the emotional expressions of the race.

(_d_) It develops literary expression, and a taste for good reading.

(_e_) It thrills and inspires, and incites to more thorough-going efforts to attain ideals of proportion and order.

5. Practical.

(_a_) It aids in interpreting many allusions in literature and current expressions.

(_b_) It vitalizes geography.

(_c_) It gives a perspective for viewing all other branches of study, and hence for a fairer comprehension of them.

(_d_) It makes the experiences of travel intelligible.