How to teach American history; a handbook for teachers and students

Front matter

Prof. A. P. Lange

Education JJepi;.

Prof. A. P. Lange

Preface

THIS volume is intended for use as a textbook in normal schools, teacher-training classes, and teachers' institutes, and as a handbook for the teacher and stu dent in school or at home. The principles discussed are believed to be true of history in general, but the application throughout has been made to American history and to the study and teaching of history in American schools.

An effort has been made to have the style simple and intelligible. Technical terms not well settled in common usage have been avoided. A rather close and logical classification by chapters has been attempted, and the book lists have been classified and distributed. It has been my aim throughout to give in the book lists and footnotes information of practical value and to place it where it can be found conveniently. It is hoped that the complete index appended will be found a useful feature.

The methods herein suggested are an outgrowth of practice, and have been proved in the experience of capable teachers and students of history in many parts of the country. The portions of the book for which the author ventures to claim more or less originality, for example, Chapters IV, XIV, XVII, XIX, XX, XXIV, XXVI, XXVIII, XXX, are no exception to this rule ; for they have all been evolved from actual

vii viii PREFACE

classroom experiment, most of them by what may properly be termed the laboratory process.

Special emphasis has been placed upon the moral values of history in normal social relations. Conse quently the principles acknowledged are those that are constructive rather than destructive. The heroes ex tolled and the victories cheered are those of peace rather than those of war ; and the " brave at home " are given due recognition.

It is suggested that teachers may find it desirable to introduce the matter of Chapter XXVII near the be ginning of a course of instruction.

Special obligation is acknowledged to my friend, Miss Yetta S. Shoninger, B.S., of the George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee, for valu able suggestions regarding the treatment of certain topics, and to Miss Elizabeth P. Cleveland, A.B., one of my colleagues in the State Normal School, Harrisonburg, Virginia, for helpful criticisms regarding form and for aid in reading proof.

For various appreciated favors grateful acknowl edgment is made also to the following : Miss Beulah Wardell, M.A., Columbus, Ohio; Professor E. M. Violette, First District Normal School, Kirksville, Mis souri ; Dr. Frank A. Magruder, Princeton University ; President John Preston McConnell, State Normal School, East Radford, Virginia.

JOHN W. WAYLAND.

HARRISONBURG, VIRGINIA, July 20, 1914,

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Two PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS .... 1

II. THE MEANING OF HISTORY 10

Chapter I

WE spend so much time and energy on the " What " and the " Where" and the "When" of history, as well as of other things, that we often forget or neglect the "How" and the "Why." All are important, and each must receive due attention in its place; but now let us consider briefly, in an introductory way, the "How" and the "Why."

Why study history. — First, we should study it, let us say, for the pleasure of it. Most things that most people do, when they act upon choice, are done for this reason. It may not be the best reason, but it is compelling in its appeal and universal in its scope. If the pleasure sought or found is clean and wholesome, then the reason is good. Normal pleas ure, like springtime and youth, gives health to the body and growth to the spirit. The pleasure that comes with the study of history is like the pleasure of travel, which fills the eye with ever changing won ders ; or like the fascination of the drama, which lifts

B 1 the far-flung curtain on a world stage, and presents before our eyes the Esthers, the Caesars, the Alfreds, the Shakespeares, and all the people, in habit and in action.

Second, we should study history for the knowledge it supplies. Consciousness of intelligence and knowl edge increases one's proper confidence, and heightens one's legitimate pleasures. Knowledge is the light of the soul, and only those souls that are born of the night can be satisfied in the narrow cells of igno rance. The great decree, "Let there be light," was spoken not to the world of material chaos alone, but to the world of potential consciousness as well. The desire to know is strong in every healthy mind, and this desire is justified by an eternal right. History is one of the great doors through which the soul goes out seeking and finding knowledge.

Third, we should study history as an aid to the appreciation of other things. The young lady who said, "I like history because I am very fond of read ing, and history helps me to understand and enjoy what I read," gave a good reason. History enriches literature, it explains civil government, it justifies social institutions, it gives character to art, speech to architecture, and accompaniment to music. It teaches a thousand years of progress in a single arch or column, and unfolds the story of a race in the meaning of a word. It lifts the vision to a mountain-top, and there points down upon the moving ages. The family grows large in history; the church comes to adorn herself with humility and charity; the state proves the need of justice and equity ; and the school emerges as the fundamental rector of society. Geometry, physics, chemistry, and medicine are all well clad in the robe of history. The Roman law in Louisiana and the German law in England are anomalies until history uncovers the winding ways of the past. Shakespeare is only half understood and Milton speaks in an unknown tongue till Clio unfolds her wondrous parchment and be comes interpreter. Then strange words have mean ing, and old words count double. Then the masters speak in our own familiar tongue, and we, delighted, listen.

Fourth, we should study history as a means to a better understanding of ourselves. " Know thyself " was inscribed over the main entrance to the temple at Delphi, and all the history of the world seems to be written as an aid to him who endeavors to obey. When the heathen said that that command came down from heaven, they spoke better than they knew. It is, indeed, divine. Being divine, it must be heeded ; and obedience is blessed. History teaches a man how small he is by showing him so many greater. It teaches him how great he may be by showing him what less favored men have done. It purges him of conceit by revealing his fancied origi nality as a commonplace of centuries gone. It overthrows his dogmatism by proving to him that other men no less honest than he, and much wiser, have been mistaken in their judgments. It convinces him that he did not begin with himself, and that he cannot end with himself ; that the most he has others have given him ; that the most he knows others have taught him ; and that all he can do he owes to others. History helps him to see himself as one among countless millions, yet it brings him to know himself as a man, in whom is potentially every power, feeling, thought, and achievement that any man has ever had, felt, known, or done.

Fifth, we should study history to broaden and quicken our sympathies with others. As we learn to know ourselves we are brought into closer touch with our fellows, whether of this age or of other ages. As we begin to know ourselves as men and women, we begin to understand other men and women, whom we soon recognize as our kinsfolk. From the primi tive sense of the family bond, we soon perceive the cosmopolitan circle, and say for ourselves : " Being human, no human being is altogether a stranger to me." I have a little more charity for the crimsonhanded worshipers in the dark forests of Germany when I remember that my ancestor was there, and that he probably forged the blade with which the victims were slain. I can understand a little better the swift fierceness of the Viking when I see that he was seeking a home for my mother's children. I feel a little nearer to my neighbor here and now because history reveals to me that we were brothers just a few generations ago, and sat around the same hearth fire yonder.

I count every man a little braver because John Hampden and Walter Reed were men ; every maid a little truer because Grace Darling and Elizabeth Zane were maids ; and every woman a little nobler because Cornelia and Mary the mother of Washing ton were women. The laughter of Sarah, the senti ment of Ruth, the vanity of Darius, the hate of Electra, the frugality of Charlemagne, the wrath of William, the deceitfulness of Elizabeth, and the tears of Marie Antoinette bring the races and the ages nearer together ; for a " touch of nature makes the whole world kin." If drama be a mirror to nature, history is its sympathetic system.

Sixth, we should study history to make us more efficient citizens. " History for its own sake " is as incomprehensible as " knowledge for its own sake.7' If knowledge for self is selfish, knowledge for itself is absurd. It is knowledge for service that is wisdom. As a great American educator has recently put it, " Scholarship and knowledge fulfill themselves only in service to men." 1

History for self is selfish ; history for itself is ab surd. History for efficiency in service to home and church and state, in the present and for the future,

1 President Edwin A. Alderman.

is history worth while. The study of history should make the citizen more intelligently patriotic, and increase his capacity for all healthy sentiment. It should enlarge his powers for social influence and constructive statesmanship. It should give him aggressive confidence, balanced by judicial caution. It should make him a seeker after the truth and the right in every public question, rather than a partisan vendor of arguments. It should give him breadth and perspective, and at the same tune give him pene tration and skill in particular cases.

How to study history. — This is a subject which we should study with enjoyment, as something fasci nating; with discernment, as something profound; with reverence, as something bequeathed the race in sacred trust ; with intense earnestness, as something vital to the welfare of society.

Let the child study history at home, in his own family. Perhaps the house he lives in has a history. Perhaps his father or his grandfather has done or knows something of historical significance. There may be some old land patents, beautifully written on parchment now yellow with age, in that old desk. There may be files of an old newspaper, almost price less now, stored away in the attic. In yonder an cient chest are almost certainly some old letters written from Manassas in '61, from California in '49, or from the falling cities in '37. That old diary is now a treasure house of long-forgotten facts, and that old relic may recall the story of thrilling days and deeds. Let all these sources and resources of the child's home be utilized to wake up and lead out the child's spirit. It will answer to these voices of the past, for they speak in familiar tones.

Having had his historical spirit and instincts awakened at home, the child will readily adopt the methods of the school. The teacher should take account of what the child has already done and learned, or failed to do and learn. An appreciation of what he has will make him appreciate what the teacher offers, and soon the resources of the school will be seized upon with eagerness.

From the school it is an easy step to the surround ing neighborhood. Let the teacher and the class find the oldest house in town, and ascertain its history. If the town is a county-seat, the public records to be found there will prove rich and inter esting. Probably in the nearest cemetery is the grave of some noted man or woman ; and almost certainly there is some historic spot in the neighbor hood that ought to be visited and marked before the very place is lost. Frequently patriotic societies offer prizes for essays on historical characters and subjects, and these may be made the means of in ducing a whole class or a whole school to undertake special studies of interest and value. It may be that some person in the community has published a book or paper of historical content. If so, such publication should be made familiar in the school, and the author secured to address the history classes.

The story of one's home and family, his town, his neighborhood, his county, may not be history in the sense demanded by the critics ; but it is a be ginning; and history, like charity, may well begin at home. Beginning at home, the student will go abroad with interest, intelligence, and appreciation. Moreover, the principles of history and of historical study are all, or nearly all, truly illustrated in small circles and in small events as well as in large circles and great events.

Let the student of history not only acquaint him self with the facts that are common knowledge, but also add to the store by every possible discovery. And let it be part of his business to preserve what is in danger of being lost, as well as to discover what has hitherto been unknown.

Finally, let him aim continually at tracing the past into the present ; that is, to show how and in what measure past events, conditions, and move ments have registered themselves in our existing customs, laws, character, and institutions. He must do this to understand the things and the people about him. Whether he begin with the present and go backward, or begin with the far-away past and come forward, he should have always the consciousness that in history there is a unity and a continuity that cannot be broken except with loss. There may be many inhabited globes, but the earth is one, and the people upon it are in all essentials one; and their story, with its many plots, counterplots, and episodes, is, after all, one story.1

1 "The Reconstruction of History Teaching," by J. M. Gathany, in Education for June, 1914, will be read with interest in connection with this chapter.

Chapter II The Meaning Of History

HISTORY is not merely a collection of dates ; it is not a field of disjointed dry bones ; it is not even or altogether a series of pretty stories. And yet all these things enter into history, each contributing its share of color or character or place.

Dates make up a sort of geometry of time. With out them the ages would be not only boundless, but also without proper division and adjustment. The relentless flood of years, like the dark flood of the Nile, would sweep away the landmarks, one by one, and leave the mind of man a wanderer upon the un marked waste. Chronology, therefore, is to the historian what geometry is to the Egyptian. Both are necessary, yet chronology is not history any more than geometry is Egypt. The street numbers are not the city ; yet a city without street numbers would approximate a history without dates.

The paths across the western plains in early days were bordered with disjointed bones and pieces of broken wagons. In these were written the records of a stirring, striving past. Each whitened fragment held its story, heroic and tragic. Yet these scat-

THE MEANING OF HISTORY 11

tered, voiceless fragments were neither attractive nor intelligible. A vital power must breathe upon them ; a prophet's wand must touch them ; then they take form and motion, an exceeding great army. Then the martyrs of a time, the pathfinders of a people, the heralds of an empire pass and speak before us. History is not dry bones ; neither are dry bones history; but when the prophet comes, when the true historian walks upon the plain, the dead past stirs and leaps into the living present.

History stories have a charm, a value, and a place in our work, even though they are not history in the scientific sense. They give color to the whole hori zon, and induce the eager youth to hasten toward the realms of light, to climb upon the heights, and there to see the long procession of the ages coming from the distant East. We shall find much need for history stories as we proceed in this study ; let us, therefore, not reject them, even though they are not strictly history.

Let us open our eyes to the fact that history is not a small subject. Let us forever quit talking about " finishing " English history, for example, in a year. Let us quit thinking that eight years in the grades and one more year in the high school are too many to give to the study of United States history. Let us recognize the impossibility, even by the magic of scientific classification, of compassing or compre hending in a brief lifetime all that it has taken millions of men and women, living and striving and suffering and conquering for uncounted centuries, to work out. Let us not imagine, when we have read a dozen or two books of history, that we have done more than make a beginning upon the thousands of books already written, or the thousands more that might be written.

Again, let us not imagine that history is an easy subject — so easy as not to deserve our best effort or require the exercise of our highest powers. His tory has easy phases, easy stages, and may be in troduced to children to their keen delight ; but history in its entirety presents the profoundest phi losophy of human life and destiny. It has had as its producers the mightiest men and women of every nation, and it has engaged the growing interest of toil and genius in every land and every age. The fact that it is not an exact science — perhaps no science at all, as yet — makes its demands upon effort and reason all the more insistent. The fact that it foreshadows so wonderfully the destinies of the race makes its claims upon us compelling.

History is a great and vital subject. It is great for the reasons already indicated ; it is vital because it is ever growing and because our interpretation and application of history mean life or death to the race.

History is the life story of the human race. It is a record of the past and a prophecy for the future. It is like the stream of a mighty river, in that it has a

THE MEANING OF HISTORY 13

course, a direction, an onward movement, despite its many windings, turnings, and eddies; it is like the life of every full-grown man, in that it presents all the stages of progressive development, from child hood to perfect manhood, without the necessity of death.

The story of history is ever growing ; the stream of history is ever widening ; the life of which it tells is ever becoming fuller and richer. History, to be complete, must portray and interpret this life in its manifold phases ; it must not neglect one phase, nor emphasize another phase unduly. In the writing of history and in the teaching of history we are now coming to see that it has an intellectual phase, a moral phase, a religious phase, an economic phase, an industrial phase — many social phases — as well as a military phase and a political phase. Peace gives growth ; anarchy is disease ; war is bitter medicine : these are some of the truths that the historian is beginning to see and to teach.

The editor of the World's Work has recently put certain facts of the case before us in the following good form : —

''The changes in our economic and political life deserve much more attention than they usually get. As a nation we neglect these things. As children we are taught Ameri can history as a series of wars, from the conflicts with the Indians and the French, down through the Revolution, the Mexican War, and the Civil War to our conquest of the Spanish islands. The true history of the United States is a succession of economic and political steps, here and there interrupted by war. Our more serious wars have been operations on the body politic. They have come only when some of the regular machinery of progress has broken down — when our politics and industry were sick. And the convalescence from the operation of war has been long and costly.

"The old saying, 'Happy is the nation whose annals are few,' is true when you think of annals, as most of our historians do, as being in a large part the records of wars. But wars do not mark the progress of a people. They mark their worst periods. The real annals of a people are the exploits of the men of inventive genius and con structive minds who make possible the ever-improving standards of life." 1

Just as social life is constructive, so history is a constructive science, and accordingly deals properly with constructive rather than with destructive forces ; with the positive rather than with the negative; with the normal rather than with the abnormal. War, for example, is destructive, abnormal. It is a negative value, so far as progress is concerned. The causes, the real character, and the results of war may be studied with profit, and should teach the na tions wisdom; but to waste the powers of history in the glorification of war as such is open folly. The biography of a man deals naturally with his healthy

1 The World's Work, August, 1913, p. 363.

THE MEANING OF HISTORY 15

working years and his positive achievements ; not with his days or weeks of illness and violent delirium ; so history finds its proper subject matter in the " years of noble deeds " that enrich the paths of peace, and not in the mad carnage of rage and strife. History is properly a record of life and growth, when strength and beauty are increasing, and the state abounds in good works. Such history will tend to repeat itself as the world grows wiser.

History is a wondrous chain, in which the links are cause and effect, forged in national eras, and com posed of national and personal achievements. An event without a cause, a force without an effect, is as absurd in history as in physics. The forces of history work more slowly than those of physics, but no less surely. The sowing determines in due tune the reaping in the life of a nation as well as in the life of a man. This fact rings a warning ; it also reveals an inheritance. We, the people of the United States of America, are reaping happy harvests every year that were sown across the seas in Greece, in Rome, in Germany, in Britain. Other men have labored, and we have entered into their labors — in benefit as well as in responsibility. Not a single link in the chain is altogether lost or broken ; but some are of wood and stubble ; some are of brass and iron ; some are of blood and sorrow ; and some are of gold.

History is not only recordation, it is also interpre tation. It records facts and interprets life. In its full and perfect scope it begins and ends in moral values. The qualities of courage, justice, patience, industry, and self-sacrifice that distinguish the better makers of history are all moral qualities ; and the finest results that we seek or realize from the making and learning of history are those that are registered in personal and national character. Achievement, record, interpretation, application : this is the per petual cycle in which the forces of history move as they come from past to present, and go from present to future.1

1 In the American Historical Review, July, 1913, is a scholarly article entitled, "The Interpretation of History," by J. T. Shotwell.

Chapter III Subjects Closely Related To History

BRANCHES of learning, like men and women, are found naturally in groups ; and just as it helps us in studying a man to know something of his kinsmen, so in studying a science it helps us to make use of related subjects. We must, of course, beware of going too far afield, and we must not confuse so many things as to rob all of distinctness ; yet, as we concen trate attention upon the subject in hand, we should give occasional and due recognition to those related subjects that stand nearest.

History depends in a measure upon geography, and is vitally related to literature, music, art, civil government, ethics, sociology, economics, and nat ural science; and in studying it we may profit largely by illustrating it with handwork of various sorts.

In greater or less degree the geography of a country makes its history ; and nearly every great event and stirring incident is associated with some particular place. This association should always be strength ened rather than weakened ; and the bonds should be carried over from both sides. The teacher of history should make a bond with geography, and the teacher of geography should make a bond with his tory. Unfortunately, these bonds often are not well tied, or they are neglected altogether. In num berless cases it has been observed that questions in historical geography are the most puzzling of all to history students. I fear that we teachers have not been doing our duty here. It may be that sometime the ideal textbook will be written, in which the things that belong together will be so skillfully and harmoniously joined that no man can put them asun der. Then, perhaps, the proper association of his tory and geography will be easy. But in the mean time let us make good use of the maps, pictures, and geographical descriptions with which our history books already abound.

It is in the study of industrial history, to which we are giving increasing attention, that the dependence of history upon geography becomes most obvious. Differences over great questions like slavery and the tariff have depended largely upon differences in geog raphy. The location of great manufacturing and commercial cities was never an accident, but each place was marked out ages in advance in the geog raphy of plain or river, of mountain pass or ocean bay.

When we speak of history and literature we are merely turning the shield. For we may speak of history as a branch of literature, or of literature as a branch of history.1 We may not so often study history for its literary value, but we frequently do study literature for the light it gives to history. Literature helps to make history, and history helps to explain literature. How different the modern world would be without the English Bible and the poems of Milton ; yet how little could we under stand or appreciate either without the history in them and around them ! He who studies literature without having his ear open continually to the voice of history limits his understanding and loses half his pleasure. He who follows the path of history without pausing before the glowing pictures that literature has painted robs his imagination and stifles his sentiment. The teacher must not confuse fact and fiction, nor use a novel as a textbook ; but having the skeleton of fact well set up, well proportioned, and well articu lated, let him then clothe it even with the warm flesh and blood of poetry and fiction. It is not alone what we learn that is valuable, it is what we remember. Poetry and fiction make the scene and the character so vivid and full that we cannot forget them. It is not alone what we understand that is helpful, it is what we feel and aspire to. Poetry and fiction often become the oratory of history, and we start up cry ing, " Let us march against Philip ; let us conquer or die ! "

1 See an article in the A merican Historical Review, April, 1913, entitled, "History as Literature," by Theodore Roosevelt.

John Richard Green, in discussing a certain group of Shakespeare's plays, says : —

" No dramas have done so much for Shakspere's enduring popularity with his countrymen as these historical plays. They have done more than all the works of English historians to nourish in the minds of Englishmen a love of and reverence for their country's past. When Chatham was asked where he had read his English history, he answered, ' In the plays of Shakspere.' Nowhere could he have read it so well, for nowhere is the spirit of our history so nobly ren dered." 1

If we are concerned about the spirit as well as the letter of our history, we cannot afford to neglect the best incarnations of that spirit. American students and teachers are fortunate here in a wealth of re sources ; for it is said that no less than forty per cent of the standard novels in English and American literature are historical in theme and setting.2 The number of our fine historical poems mounts into the hundreds. Longfellow's " The Skeleton in Armor " and " Evangeline," Joaquin Miller's " Columbus," Mrs. Hemans's " Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers," Lanier's " Lexington," Bryant's " Song of Marion's Men," Gallagher's "The Mothers of the West,"