An Ancient History Character Social

BY MARY NORTH, MONTCLAIR, N. J.

One hundred and fifty boys and girls in the first-year class of a suburban high school planned and carried through a most successful review in Ancient History last May. The course provides for five periods a week (one of which is unprepared), and it covers Oriental History as well as Greek and Roman. The pupils had exhibited much interest during the year, but were beginning to show signs of listlessness and fatigue, and something had to be done to arouse their enthusiasm. A character social was suggested by the teacher, and more was accomplished by it than could have been gained by weeks of urging and toil.

Each division appointed a committee to assist in the preparations, and by the time that the affair was over more than half of the pupils had taken an active part in the arrangements. Besides committees on program, printing, refreshments and decorating, there were special groups at work. Several boys busied themselves making siege machinery such as the Romans used, while some of the girls dressed small dolls to represent Roman soldiers. All of these models were exact and required much study and skill on the part of the makers. The much-talked-of theory of co-ordination was put into practice, for the Latin department provided accounts and pictures of sieges, while the manual-training teachers allowed the boys the use of the shop. Another set of pupils planned an exhibition of statuary, preparing garments and studying poses of famous classic statues.

The first number on the program was the exhibition of the siege machinery. On the platform were a city wall and tower built of wooden blocks, and before them, arranged for the attack, were many pieces of machinery. The boys who made the machines had charge of the siege, and each exhibited his instrument, giving its name and explaining its mechanism. There were catapults, ballistæ, battering-rams, vineæ, plutei, tre-buckets, wall-hooks and besieging towers. The chairman of the committee explained the grouping of the machines on the field and the relative importance of the various instruments, and then the siege began. Each machine actually worked, and the city wall collapsed. On a table near by the legates, slingers and centurions witnessed the siege, but took no active part. They were very properly clad, but their flaxen locks and gentle eyes belied their warlike apparel.

Another part of the platform had been arranged for the exhibition of statuary and was fronted by a large picture-frame illuminated by electricity. When the curtain was first drawn there stood in the frame the famous “Mourning Athena,” recently found in the ruins of the Parthenon. The Gracchi next appeared and were followed by a vestal virgin, who gave place to two lictors. The last statue was Minerva Giustiniani, perhaps the most successful of all. It had taken the combined efforts of many pupils to produce helmet, serpent and spear, so that all were vitally interested in this statue. Her pose and expression were perfect, and the silence which greeted her was intense until broken by deafening applause.

The early numbers on the program were most interesting, but did not compare with the character social itself. Each person on arriving had been tagged with a number and had communicated to a trusty official the name of the character that he had chosen. These characters could be taken from the Oriental monarchies as well as from Greece and Rome. They must, however, have been mentioned in the text-books (Myers and Morey). Each player was provided with a pencil and printed program containing a list of numbers corresponding to those of the characters present. At a given signal the game began, and each assumed his character. No one told his name, but each talked or acted as if he were Cæsar, or Alexander, or Rameses. As soon as a boy discovered that he was talking to Cæsar, he would scribble down “Cæsar” opposite the proper number and rush off to talk to same one else. One boy wore a double-faced mask and carried little gates; another had a tiny pair of boots pinned to his coat and carried in his hand a beautiful toy horse. A girl carried a lantern and anxiously searched the faces of all her comrades; her quest seemed fruitless, and she would sadly shake her head and move on. Every mind was hard at work, and at the end of the hour it was with difficulty that the room was brought to order to compare characters with the original list.

The correct list of characters was read, and all who had guessed over seventy were invited to the platform. No one responded to the descending numbers called until sixty was reached, when one girl came up. Then others followed in increasing numbers until the faculty began to respond in the thirties. The quiet and suspense during this calling off of numbers was most intense. Of course, no one had conversed with each character present, but many players guessed correctly all the characters they had met.

For days after the social this character-study continued, because the boys and girls kept going over in their minds the characters they had met and not guessed, and kept comparing notes until the list of characters they knew was greatly increased. When the real review came in class, the pupils discovered that scarcely a period could be found that had not been touched upon, while the teacher had again secured an enthusiastic group of students instead of numberless indifferent boys and girls.

The History Teacher’s Magazine

Published monthly, except July and August, at 5805 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa., by

McKINLEY PUBLISHING CO. A. E. McKINLEY, Proprietor.

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EDITORS

Managing Editor, Albert E. McKinley, Ph.D.

History in the College and the School, Arthur C. Howland, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of European History, University of Pennsylvania.

The Training of the History Teacher, Norman M. Trenholme, Professor of the Teaching of History, School of Education, University of Missouri.

Some Methods of Teaching History, Fred Morrow Fling, Professor of European History, University of Nebraska.

Reports from the History Field, Walter H. Cushing, Secretary, New England History Teachers’ Association.

American History in Secondary Schools, Arthur M. Wolfson, Ph.D., DeWitt Clinton High School, New York.

The Teaching of Civics in the Secondary School, Albert H. Sanford, State Normal School, La Crosse, Wis.

European History in Secondary Schools, Daniel C. Knowlton, Ph.D., Barringer High School, Newark, N. J.

English History in Secondary Schools, C. B. Newton, Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, N. J.

Ancient History in Secondary Schools, William Fairley, Ph.D., Commercial High School, Brooklyn, N. Y.

History in the Grades, Armand J. Gerson, Supervising Principal, Robert Morris Public School, Philadelphia, Pa.

CORRESPONDENTS.

Mabel Hill, Lowell, Mass.

George H. Gaston, Chicago, Ill.

James F. Willard, Boulder, Col.

H. W. Edwards, Berkeley, Cal.

Walter F. Fleming, Baton Rouge, La.

METHOD THE NEED.

Printed on another page of this number is a paper by Miss Briggs upon her experiences as an examiner and reader in history for the College Entrance Examination Board, in which figures are given to show that history papers are rated lower than any other of the major subjects, and that the average grade in history, instead of rising, is actually getting lower year by year. Miss Briggs expresses the hope that the low grades are due to the number of applicants who prepare by rapid tutoring or wholly by themselves for the history examinations; a practice, of course, almost impossible in the other major subjects. But while such cramming is partly responsible for the failure of history applicants, it cannot relieve the history teacher of blame. All who have had experience in the marking of history papers in entrance examinations know that much of the teaching of history is careless, indefinite, and without evident purpose or understanding. If our subject is not to lose caste altogether we must find a method which will give the student that which can be measured objectively, as well as furnish subjective satisfaction or culture.

Such a method will not add to the intricacy of history for the student, but it will require more efficient teachers of the subject, and it will prevent that serious evil of the high school teaching of history,—the assignment of history to any unattached instructor, whether he or she knows anything about history or no. History teaching in the college or the graduate school has, to a certain extent, found itself, and won the respect of its fellows; history teaching in the high school and preparatory school has not yet reached that point of self-development.

There has been much talk, and rightfully, about the content of secondary school history courses. The market has been filled with excellent text-books and admirable source books—indeed they are almost too good in that they have made text-book recitations easier and somewhat more interesting. There have been pages and volumes of reading references and map references and source references. Yet with all these aids to the better teaching of history there has not gone a proportionate ability to use them. Let us ask for a while, not what period of history shall we teach? but, how shall we teach any period of history?

In the Latin or Greek class there are objective standards which must be reached; in the mathematics or the English class there is a certain amount and quality of productive work to be accomplished; in the physics or chemistry or botany class there is laboratory experience to be gained and recorded in note-books. Has history a method which can be compared with any of these? Can we measure objectively the student’s acquisition? Can we get him to use in some way his experiences in the field of history, or have him record them in a valuable form?

It may be objected that the establishment of a more intricate historical method will add to the duties and labor of the history teacher. This may be true; and indeed ought to be true. The day ought to have passed when a college graduate who took in college but one course in history, and that in Oriental history, should be thought qualified to teach history in a secondary school. Such cases are not rare to-day; they would be rarer if the historical method were more definite and required better training.

Professor Fling’s article in the September Magazine and Professor Trenholme’s articles in this and subsequent numbers will furnish some details of historical method which should be valuable to every history teacher. In carrying out these suggestions the teacher may temporarily add to his or her own labors; but this will not be for long. Added efficiency will mean greater respect for the teacher and the subject; and increased respect will bring more assistants in history, more time devoted to the subject, and incidentally a stronger demand for good history teachers. Economically as well as intellectually the history teacher will profit by raising the standards of his profession.

“AS HIRELING AND NOT AS CONSECRATE.”

A noted journalist, who is also a writer on educational topics, and a trustee of a large eastern university, in writing to the editor respecting the establishment of The History Teacher’s Magazine, said: “Your idea is an admirable one. It ought to do good.... With this teaching, as with all others, I fear the difficulty is the spirit in which it is done, as hireling and not as consecrate.”

Is this charge true of the history teachers of the country? We know that history teachers were among the last to organize for common purposes; that to-day their associations are not as strong as those of teachers of the classics and of other subjects, that their class work is not as well organized as the work of that far more indefinite subject, secondary school English. Are these facts the result of a hireling spirit? We think not. Rather they are due to the unfortunate place which until very recent years, history has occupied in the elementary and secondary school roster. And yet, while we believe there existed and still exist valid impediments to the greatest success of the history teacher, it may be well for each of us to ask himself or herself the question. Am I doing the work as hireling and not as consecrate? At times we need such searching questions. And until the time when we have a great body of history teachers who are teaching the subject because they love it and love to teach it to others our history teaching will be heartless and sterile.