HISTORY

The curriculum makers for elementary education do not seem to have placed a high valuation upon history. Apparently it has not been considered an essential study of high worth, like reading, writing, spelling, grammar, and arithmetic. To history are allotted but 290 hours in Cleveland, as against 496 hours in the average of 50 progressive American cities. This discrepancy should give the city pause and concern. If a mistake is being made, it is more likely to be on the part of an individual city than upon that of 50 cities. The probability is that Cleveland is giving too little time to this subject.

TABLE 8.—TIME GIVEN TO HISTORY =========================================================== | Hours per year | Per cent of grade time| Grade |———————————————————————- | Cleveland | 50 cities| Cleveland | 50 cities | —————————————————————————————- 1 | 0 | 27 | 0.0 | 3.1 | 2 | 0 | 31 | 0.0 | 3.4 | 3 | 19 | 35 | 2.1 | 3.8 | 4 | 25 | 57 | 2.9 | 5.8 | 5 | 25 | 67 | 2.9 | 6.9 | 6 | 51 | 71 | 5.7 | 7.3 | 7 | 85 | 91 | 9.7 | 9.2 | 8 | 85 | 117 | 9.7 | 11.6 | =========================================================== Total | 290 | 496 | 4.2 | 6.5 | —————————————————————————————-

The treatment in the course of study manual indicates that it is a neglected subject. Of the 108 pages, it receives an aggregate of less than two. The perfunctory assignment of work for the seventh grade is typical:

"UNITED STATES HISTORY

"B Assignment. Mace's History, pp. 1-124 inclusive. Questions and suggested collateral reading found in Appendix may be used as teacher directs.

"A Assignment. Mace's History, pp. 125-197. Make use of questions and suggested collateral reading at your own option."

For fifth and sixth grades there is assigned a small history text of 200 pages for one or two lessons per week. The two years of the seventh and eighth grades are devoted to the mastery of about 500 pages of text. While there is incidental reference to collateral reading, as a matter of fact the schools are not supplied with the necessary materials for this collateral reading in the grammar grades. The true character of the work is really indicated by the last sentence of the eighth-grade history assignment: "The text of our book should be thoroughly mastered."

In discussing the situation, the first thing to which we must call attention is the great value of history for an understanding of the multitude of complicated social problems met with by all people in a democracy. In a country where all people are the rulers, all need a good understanding of the social, political, economic, industrial, and other problems with which we are continually confronted. It is true the thing needed is an understanding of present conditions, but there is no better key to a right understanding of our present conditions than history furnishes. One comes to understand a present situation by observing how it has come to be. History is one of the most important methods of social analysis.

The history should be so taught that it will have a demonstrably practical purpose. In drawing up courses of study in the subject for the grammar grades and the high school, the first task should be an analysis of present-day social conditions, the proper understanding of which requires historical background. Once having discovered the list of social topics, it is possible to find historical readings which will show how present conditions have grown up out of earlier ones. Looked at from a practical point of view, the history should be developed on the basis of topics, a great abundance of reading being provided for each of the topics. We have in mind such topics as the following:

Sociological Aspects of War Territorial Expansion Race Problems Tariff and Free Trade Transportation Money Systems Our Insular Possessions Growth of Population Trusts Banks and Banking Immigration Capital and Labor Education Inventions Suffrage Centralization of Government Strikes and Lockouts Panics and Business Depressions Commerce Taxation Manufacturing Labor Unions Foreign Commerce Agriculture Postal Service Army Government Control of Corporations Municipal Government Navy Factory Labor Wages Courts of Law Charities Crime Fire Protection Roads and Road Transportation Newspapers and Magazines National Defense Conservation of Natural Resources Liquor Problems Parks and Playgrounds Housing Conditions Mining Health, Sanitation, etc. Pensions Unemployment Child Labor Women in Industry Cost of Living Pure Food Control Savings Banks Water Supply of Cities Prisons Recreations and Amusements Co-operative Buying and Selling Insurance Hospitals

After drawing up such lists of topics for study, they should be assigned to grammar grades and high school according to the degree of maturity necessary for their comprehension. Naturally as much as possible should be covered in the grammar grades. Such as cannot be covered there should be covered as early as practicable in the high school, since so large a number of students drop out, and all need the work. Of course, this would involve a radical revision of the high school courses in history. It is not here recommended that any such changes be attempted abruptly. There are too many other conditions that require readjustment at the same time. It must all be a gradual growth.

Naturally, students must have some familiarity with the general time relations of history and the general chronological movements of affairs before they can understand the more or less specialized treatment of individual topics. Preliminary studies are therefore both necessary and desirable in the intermediate and grammar grades for the purpose of giving the general background. During these grades a great wealth of historical materials should be stored up. Pupils should acquire much familiarity with the history of the ancient oriental nations, Judea, Greece, Rome, the states of modern Europe and America. The purpose should be to give a general, and in the beginning a relatively superficial, overview of the world's history for the sake of perspective. The reading should be biographical, anecdotal, thrilling dramas of human achievement, rich with human interest. It should be at every stage of the work on the level with the understanding and degree of maturity of the pupils, so that much reading can be covered rapidly. Given the proper conditions—chiefly an abundance of the proper books supplied in sets large enough for classes—pupils can cover a large amount of ground, obtain a wealth of historical experience, and acquire a great quantity of useful information, the main outlines of which are remembered without much difficulty. They can in this manner lay a broad historical foundation for the study of the social topics that should begin by the seventh grade and continue throughout the high school.

The textbooks of the present type can be employed as a part of this preliminary training. Read in their entirety and read rapidly, they give one that perspective which comes from a comprehensive view of the entire field. But they are too brief, abstract, and barren to afford valuable concrete historical experience. They are excellent reference books for gaining and keeping historical perspective.

Reading of the character that we have here called preliminary should not cease as the other historical studies are taken up. The general studies should certainly continue for some portion of the time through the grammar grades and high school, but it probably should be mainly supervised reading of interesting materials rather than recitation and examination work.

We would recommend that the high schools give careful attention to the recommendation of the National Education Association Committee on the Reorganization of the Secondary Course of Study in History.