Part 2 (1/2)
A lesson should be so a.s.signed 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 a.n.a.lyze and summarize each day's lesson.
The teacher should not make such a.n.a.lysis in advance of the recitation, but he should so a.s.sign the lesson that the student will be prepared to give one when he comes to cla.s.s. A word in advance by the teacher will prompt the student who is studying the American Revolution, to cla.s.sify 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 a.n.a.lysis of the statements in the text, and send the student to cla.s.s keen for an intelligent discussion.
Ordinarily, when a cla.s.s 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 subst.i.tutes 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 a.n.a.lyzed. Such declarations as the following are ill.u.s.trations of statements whose explanation might profitably be required in advance:--
1. ”The Const.i.tution 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 acc.u.mulating 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 pa.s.sion.”
_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 cla.s.s should be directed in advance to such necessity. Special references or brief reports may be advisable. A few well-selected advance questions will send the cla.s.s to recitation prepared to discuss what otherwise the teacher must explain. A few questions on the character of James II, his ideals of government, the chief causes of the revolution of 1688, and its most important results will do much to explain the colonial resistance to Andros. A few questions designed to bring out the imperative necessity of English resistance to Napoleon will make clear the hostile commercial decrees, impressment, and interference with the rights of neutral s.h.i.+ps. Such questions reduce the necessity of explanation by the teacher to a minimum.
_His disposition to study intensively will be encouraged_
If the teacher expects the cla.s.s to deal more intensively than the text with the matters discussed in the lesson, a few advance questions will be of great a.s.sistance. Suppose, for example, that the text contents itself with saying that for political reasons the first United States Bank was not rechartered, and shortly after informs the reader that the second United States Bank was rechartered because the State banks had suspended specie payments. The student may or may not be curious about the failure of the first bank to receive a new charter, the operation of State banks, or why they suspended payment in 1814. If he has been properly taught, he probably will be, but if the teacher wishes to discuss these considerations in detail at the next recitation it will be infinitely better to have the facts contributed by the cla.s.s than for the teacher to do the reciting. It is quite possible that the individual answers to advance questions a.s.signed with such a purpose will be incomplete, but the interest of the cla.s.s will be incalculably greater if they themselves furnish the bulk of the additional matter required.
Collectively the cla.s.s will usually secure complete answers to reasonable questions. The teacher has his opportunity in supplying such important facts as the students fail to find.
Until the student may reasonably be expected to know the books of the library having to do with his subject, the teacher in giving out an advance lesson should mention by author and t.i.tle the books most helpful in the preparation of a.s.signed questions; otherwise the student in a perfectly sincere effort to do the work a.s.signed may spend an hour in search of the proper book.
It may be urged that this search is a valuable experience, but it is obviously too costly. As the year advances and the pupil learns more and more about the uses of books and methods of investigation increasingly less specific instruction as to sources should be given by the teacher.
Early in the year, with four lessons to prepare daily, the pupil cannot afford an hour simply to search for a book. He needs that hour for preparation of other work, and if by some fortunate conjunction of circ.u.mstances his other work is not sufficiently exacting to require it, he cannot hope to appear in history cla.s.s with a well-prepared lesson if an hour of his time has been spent in simply looking for a book.
It is frequently worth while to spend a few minutes of the recitation in characterizing the epoch in which the events of the lesson take place or in listening to a brief character sketch of the men contributing to these events. Care should of course be taken that biography does not usurp the place of history, but it materially adds to the interest of the recitation if the kings, generals, and statesmen cease to be merely historical characters and become human beings.
_His acquaintance with the great men and women of history will be vitalized_
It is needless to say that characterizations of men or epochs should not be a.s.signed without instruction as to how they should be prepared. In the case of a great historical character, what is needed for cla.s.s purposes is not a biography with the dry facts of birth, marriage, death, etc. The report should be brief, but bristling with adjectives supported in each case by at least one fact of the man's life. These may be selected from his personal appearance, private life, amus.e.m.e.nts, education, obstacles overcome, public services, political sagacity, or military prowess. The sketch may close with a few brief estimates by biographers or historians of his proper place in history.
If a characterization of a period of history is to be required, the teacher should explain that such a characterization should be an exercise in the selection of brief statements of fact reflecting the ideals, inst.i.tutions, and conditions of the period being described. From histories, source books, fiction, and literature, let the student select facts ill.u.s.trating such things as the spirit of the laws, conditions at court, public education, amus.e.m.e.nts of the people, social progress, position of religion, etc. A little time spent in characterizing a period of history and a few of its great men will a.s.sist in changing the recital of the bare facts given in the text to an intelligent understanding of conditions and a vital discussion of events. For instance, the ordinary high school text, in dealing with the French and Indian war, speaks briefly of the lack of English success during the early part of the struggle and then says that with the coming of Pitt to the ministry the whole course of events was changed because of the great statesman's wonderful personality. The teacher who wishes to make such a dramatic circ.u.mstance really vital to his cla.s.s must have more information with which to work. A picture of the coa.r.s.e, vulgar England with its incompetent army and navy, apathetic church, and corrupt government, followed by a stirring character sketch of the great Pitt, will cost but a few minutes of the recitation and will metamorphose a moribund attention to a vital interest.
Care should be taken that the characterizations given in cla.s.s be properly prepared. To this end it will be well to a.s.sign the preparation of these sketches at least a week in advance, at the same time arranging a conference with the student a day or two before the recitation. In this conference the teacher should make such corrections in the pupil's method of preparation and selection of matter as seem necessary. The characterizations should not be read, but delivered by the student facing the cla.s.s, precisely for the moment as though he were the teacher. Future tests and examinations should hold the cla.s.s responsible for the facts thus presented. If, as is too often the case in work of this sort, the student giving the report is the sole beneficiary of the exercise, the time required is disproportionate to the benefit derived.