College Teaching Part 28

It is highly desirable that in teaching modern history very much more time be given to recent history than has generally been the case.

Frederick William I showed that he accepted this when he instructed the tutors of Frederick (later the Great) to teach the history of the last fifty years to the exactest pitch. So important is this that, even when teaching early periods, constant contrasts or comparisons with present conditions should be made, and the descent of ideas and inst.i.tutions to modern times should be sketched, as it shows the student that remote events or inst.i.tutions have a relations.h.i.+p to current life.

=Disciplinary values of history=

Certain special aims of history have been advocated. It is held to be of disciplinary value, especially in strengthening the memory. Though this is true, it is hardly a good reason for studying history, as the memory can be perfected on almost anything, on the dictionary, poetry, formulae, family records, gossip, or cans on grocery shelves, some of which may indeed be of more practical value than dates. In college, at least, history should aim to explain social tendencies and processes in a rational way rather than to develop the memory. The latter method tends to make the student pa.s.sive and narrow, the former requires cerebration and develops breadth and depth of vision. Understanding history, rather than memorizing it, has cultural value. To be sure, understanding presupposes information; but where there is a desire to understand, the process of seeking and acquiring the information is natural and tends to care for itself.

History is not a prerequisite to professional careers in the way mathematics is to engineering; still, special periods, chiefly the modern, are highly useful to lawyers, journalists, publicists, statesmen, and others, each of whom selects what he finds most useful to his purposes.

=Organization of courses in history--What to teach in the beginning course=

The point of view in history teaching is more material than the machinery or methods employed. These must and should vary with persons and conditions. Ordinarily, however, it seems preferable to offer some part of European history as the first-year college course, because students have usually had considerable American history in high school, and the change adds new interest. Whether this course be general, medieval, or modern European history is of little importance, though, of course, medieval should precede modern history. In any case, the course should offer the student a good deal more than he may have had in high school, if for no other reason than to justify the profound respect with which he ordinarily comes to college. It should come often enough a week to grip the student, especially the history major.

=Gradation of courses determined by content=

Gradation of courses in history on the basis of subject matter is largely arbitrary, and turns upon the method of presentation. General courses naturally precede period courses. A sound principle is to select courses adapted to the stages of the student's development. On this principle it has already been suggested that the first college course should be, not American but European history. English, ancient, medieval, or modern history immediately suggest themselves, with strong arguments in favor of the first if but one freshman course is offered, as it forms a natural projection of American history into the past. Beyond this, what subject matter is offered in the several years is largely a matter of local convenience, as the college student understands the general history of all nations or periods about equally well. It is now clear, however, that the student should know more modern and contemporary European history than he has been getting, and the sound training of an American of the future should include thorough training in modern European history.

=Gradation of courses may be determined by method of teaching=

Gradation based on the method of presentation is more nearly possible.

Graduate courses presuppose training in the auxiliary sciences, in the necessary languages, in research methods, in the special field of research, as well as a knowledge of general history. This establishes a sort of sequence of the methods to be employed, irrespective of subject matter.

=Method of teaching introductory courses--Lecture method=

The lecture method is convenient for the elementary courses, especially if, as is so often the case, these have a large number of students. It cannot, however, be gainsaid that convenience or, worse still, economy is a weak argument in favor of the lecture course, especially for the first-year student. To him the lecture method is unknown, and he flounders about a good deal if he is left to work out his own salvation; and then, too, just when he needs personal direction and particularly when, as a youth away from home for the first time, he needs some definite and unescapable task that shall teach discipline and duty as well as give information, the lecture system gives him the maximum of liberty with the minimum of aid or direction. These considerations strongly advocate small cla.s.ses for freshmen, frequent recitations, discussions, tests, papers and maps, library problems--in short, a laboratory system. Every student should always have at least one course in which he is held to rigid and exact performance. These courses should be required, no matter what the special field or period of history, and should form a sequence leading to a degree and providing training for a technical and professional career. In addition to these courses, designed to a.s.sure personal work and supervision, enough other, presumably lecture, courses should be required to secure a general knowledge of history. Beyond that there are always enough electives to satisfy any personal wish or whim of the student.

=Topical method in European history=

There is much to be said, especially in modern history, for the topical treatment of inst.i.tutions. In a very specialized course a single inst.i.tution may be treated; but even in a general course, treating the several human inst.i.tutions as evolutionary organisms seems preferable and is more interesting than a chronological narrative, which grows more inane the more general the course. Courses which come to modern times can trace existing inst.i.tutions and their immediate antecedents, thus giving an advantage that many instructors neglect from the mere tradition that history does not come down to living man. No primitive superst.i.tion needs to be dispelled more than this, if history is to maintain its hold in the modern college.

Indeed, whenever possible--which is always with modern history--a course should start from the present by dwelling on the existing conditions the historical antecedents of which are to be traced. If this is done, the student forthwith secures a vital interest and feels that he is trying to understand his own rather than past times. After this preliminary the past can be traced chronologically or topically as preferred, the textbook serving as a quarry for data, the teacher seeing to it that the change or progress toward the present condition is perceived and understood, and furnis.h.i.+ng corroborative and a.n.a.logous materials from the history of other nations and periods.

=a.s.signed reading=

It is the general practice of college courses in history to require outside reading. Though this rests on the sound ground that the student ought to get a large background and learn to know books and writers, it is very doubtful whether this aim is, in fact, achieved.

The student often has too much work to permit of much outside reading, and often the library is too limited to give him a good choice, or to permit him to keep a desirable book until he has finished reading it.

Unguided reading is almost certainly a failure; reading guided only by putting a selected list of books before the student is not sure to be a success. The instructor ought from time to time to tell his cla.s.s something about the books he suggests, and about their authors and their careers, viewpoints and merits, as a reader always profits by knowing these things. As the reading of s.n.a.t.c.hes from collateral books is hardly profitable, so the perusal of longer histories is often impossible, and generally confines the student for a long time to the minutiae of one period while the cla.s.s is going forward. In view of these difficulties there is much to be said in favor of putting a large textbook into the hands of a cla.s.s, and requiring a thorough reading and understanding of it, and correspondingly reducing outside readings. If collateral reading is demanded, it is a good plan to require students to read a biography or a work on some special inst.i.tution falling within the scope of the course,--some selected historical novel even,--for in that way the student reads, as he will in later life, something he selects instead of a required number of pages, a specific thing is covered, an author's acquaintance is made, and therefore a significant test can be conducted. Furthermore, as some students will buy special volumes of this kind, the pressure on the library is reduced. Direct access to reference shelves is always recommended. One of our universities has a system of renting preferred books to students.

=Tests on outside reading=

Tests on outside reading are always difficult, but they must be employed if the reading is not to become a farce. By having weekly reading reports on uniform cards, one can often arrange groups of students who have read the same thing and can therefore be tested by a single question. By extending this over several weeks the majority of students, even in a large cla.s.s, can be tested with relatively few questions. Some instructors require students to hand in their reading notes, others check up the books the students use in the library, still others have consultation periods in which they inquire into the student's reading. Quiz sections, if there are any, offer a good opportunity to test collateral reading.

=Miscellaneous aids in teaching history=

Map making, coordinated with the recitations and so designed as to require more than mere tracing, is desirable in introductory courses.

The imaginative historical theme written by the student is employed--and successfully, it is declared--in one college. A syllabus is highly useful in the hands of students in lecture courses. It can be mimeographed at comparatively slight expense for each lecture, thus permitting changes in successive years--a distinct advantage over the printed syllabus.

=The problem of suitable examination=

How to give a fair and telling examination is the college teacher's perennial problem. The less he teaches and insists on facts and details, the greater his quandary. A majority of students incline to parrot what they have heard, to the dismay of the teacher who wants them to make the subject their own. Hence tests calling the memory only into play do not satisfy the true teacher or the thoughtful student. At the least there should be some questions requiring constructive or synthetic thinking by the student. Above all, the instructor of introductory work should form a first-hand personal opinion of the student by requiring him to come to the office for consultation. Nothing can take the place of the personal touch. Quiz masters are better than no touch; but they are a poor subst.i.tute for the small cla.s.s and direct contact, even if the instructor is not one of the masters of the profession.

=The worth of topical or inst.i.tutional treatment=

The topical or inst.i.tutional treatment of history has been mentioned above as being particularly applicable to modern history. If carefully worked out beforehand it can be made to embrace virtually everything--certainly everything significant--that is contained either in the text or in a chronological narrative. To be sure, a topical treatment of this kind places more emphasis on the common experiences of mankind than does national history, and, as some nations or peoples precede others in a given development, history becomes continuous instead of fragmentary. Perhaps, too, the way certain matters are introduced into "continuous" history may appear forced, unless it be remembered that this impression is created merely by its dissimilarity from the usual interpretation, which is just as arbitrary and forced until one gets accustomed to it.

=Cla.s.sification in topical treatment=

It will be serviceable in arranging a topical treatment of any period of history, which shall show a sense of historical continuity and keep in mind the fundamental stimuli and causes of human action, to note that virtually all human interests can be cla.s.sified under one of the following six heads: physical, economic, social, religious, political, and intellectual (or cultural). Though these are never wholly isolated and are always interactive, one or the other may be specially significant in a given era, and thus we speak of a religious age, an age of rationalism, or the period of the industrial revolution.

SUGGESTED TOPICAL OUTLINE OF MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY

To apply this more specifically to modern European history, there follows an outline of topics. It is general to about 1789, and more detailed for the period since that time (IV below), the endeavor being to show how a topical treatment of the development of democracy can be made to include practically everything of significance. There are certain cautions necessary here: that the outline is suggestive only, that it does not pretend or aim to be complete, that specific data often found in the sub-heads are to serve as ill.u.s.trations and not as a complete statement of sub-topics; and that it is in fact merely a skeleton which can be extended and amplified indefinitely by insertions.

I. Background of the modern period.

_A._ Economic and social conditions at the close of the Middle Age.

_B._ Political nature of feudalism.

The governments of the 15th century.

_C._ The medieval church.

II. The development of religious liberty.

_A._ The Reformation.

_B._ Varieties of Protestant sects, from state churches to individualistic sects.

_C._ The Religious Wars, and toleration.

III. Absolute monarchy.

_A._ Dynastic states.

_B._ Dynastic wars and the balance of power.

IV. The development of democracy.

_A._ The dynastic feudal state (_Ancien Regime_).

1. Description of the _Ancien Regime_.

2. Proponents of the _Ancien Regime_.

Dynasties (divine right monarchs).

Feudal landlords.

Higher clergy and state churches.

The army command (younger sons of the n.o.bility).

The schools (education for privileged cla.s.ses only).

_B._ The revolutionary elements.

1. The dissatisfied feudal serf.

2. The intellectuals, rationalists, political theorists.

The "social compact." ... Popular sovereignty.

3. Religious dissenters.

4. Industrial elements.

_a._ The Industrial Revolution.

Resulting in exportation, markets, and _laissez-faire_ doctrines.

_b._ The bourgeoisie (employers) ... The Third Estate.

_c._ The proletariat ... Unorganized labor elements.

_C._ The Revolutionary Period, 1789-1800.

1. Triumph of bourgeoisie over feudal aristocracy in France, 1789-1791.