The Teaching of History | Page 6

be given until the habit becomes fixed.
Warning against possible geographical misconceptions should be given
when necessary, together with directions to use the map for places,
routes, and boundaries. A few questions asked in advance, with the
purpose of bringing out the relation of the geography to the history in
the lesson, will be of great assistance. For example, if the class are to
study the Louisiana Purchase, the full significance of that revolutionary
event will be made much clearer if the student is asked to prepare
answers before coming to class to such questions as the following:--
1. What States are included in the purchase?
2. What is its area? How does it compare with the area of the original
thirteen States?
3. What geographical reasons caused Napoleon to sell it?
4. What influence did the purchase have on our retention of the territory
east of the Mississippi? Why?
5. How many people live to-day in the territory included in the
purchase?
His power of analysis and criticism will be stimulated A lesson should
be so assigned that the student will read the text with his eye critically
open to inconsistencies, contradictions, and inaccuracies. With a text of
six hundred pages, and with a hundred and eighty recitations in which
to cover them, it is not too much to expect that the average of three or
four pages daily shall be studied so thoroughly that the student can
analyze and summarize each day's lesson. The teacher should not make
such analysis in advance of the recitation, but he should so assign the
lesson that the student will be prepared to give one when he comes to
class. A word in advance by the teacher will prompt the student who is
studying the American Revolution, to classify its causes as direct and
indirect, economic and political, social and religious. There is no
difficulty in finding good authorities who disagree as to the effect on
America of the English trade restrictions. Callendar's Economic History
of the United States quotes five of the best authorities on this point, and

covers the case in a few pages. A reference by the teacher to this or
some other authority will bring out a lively discussion on the justice of
the American resistance. Let the class be asked to account for the
colonial opposition to the Townshend Acts, when the Stamp Act
Congress had declared that the regulation of the Colonies' external
trade was properly within the powers of Parliament. Let the class be
asked to explain a statement that the Declaration of Independence does
not mention the real underlying causes of the Revolution. A few
suggestions and advanced questions of this sort will stimulate a critical
analysis of the statements in the text, and send the student to class keen
for an intelligent discussion.
Ordinarily, when a class is averaging three or four pages of the text
daily, it is an error for the teacher to point out in advance certain dates
and statistics that need not be memorized. Such selection should be left
to the student. During the recitation the teacher will discover what dates,
statistics, and other matter the student has selected as worthy to be
memorized, and if correction is necessary it may then be made. It dulls
the edge of the pupil's enthusiasm to be told in advance that some of the
text is not worthy to be remembered. Furthermore such instruction does
nothing to develop the student's sense of historical proportion, for it
substitutes the judgment of the teacher for that of the pupil.
Advance questions asking explanation of statements made in the text,
or by other authors dealing with the same period, insure that the lesson
will be read understandingly and that the author's statements will be
carefully analyzed. Such declarations as the following are illustrations
of statements whose explanation might profitably be required in
advance:--
1. "The Constitution was extracted by necessity from a reluctant
people."
2. "Oregon was a make-weight for Texas."
3. "The greatest evil of slavery was that it prevented the South from
accumulating capital."

4. "The day that France possesses New Orleans we must marry
ourselves to the British fleet."
5. "The cause of free labor won a substantial triumph in the Missouri
Compromise."
6. "The second war with England was not one of necessity, policy, or
interest on the part of the Americans; it was rather one of party
prejudice and passion."
The conditions in other countries will add to his comprehension of the
facts in the lesson In so far as the next lesson requires an understanding
of the history or conditions of another country, the attention of the class
should be directed in advance to such necessity. Special references or
brief reports may be advisable. A few well-selected advance questions
will send