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 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 'HE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 
 
 BY 
 
 HERBERT B. ADAMS, Ph. D., LL. D., 
 
 OF JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. 
 
 (From the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1896 
 Vol. I, pages 243-263.) 
 
 « • 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1897. 
 

 FEB 3 W03 
 D. of u« 
 
 
 
 
XII —THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 
 
 By HERBERT B. ADAMS, Ph. D., LL. D., 
 OF JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. 
 
 243 
 

 \ 
 
 V, 
 
 
 v 
 
 <v 
 
THE TEACHING OF HISTORY, 
 
 Bv Herbert B. Adams. 
 
 In 1896 I spent my entire summer vacation in Great Britain, 
 Ireland, and Scotland visiting university towns and attending 
 so-called "Summer meetings," or summer schools, of which I 
 have been making a study for the United States Bureau of 
 Education. At Old Chester there was a meeting of the 
 National Home Eeading Union, corresponding to the American 
 "Chautauqua." This union now embraces thousands of 
 readers and is under the practical guidance of some of the 
 best university men in England. Dr. Mandel Creighton, the 
 newly appointed Bishop of London, gave the opening address 
 on "The moral aspect of history." Other historical lectures 
 were given by Cambridge men and Girton women ; also talks 
 on English architecture by eminent specialists, with Chester 
 Cathedral and the Cistercian Abbey of Yalle Crucis for class 
 rooms and object lessons. Excursions were made to ancient 
 castles and places of historical interest near Chester. The 
 town itself with its ancient walls, quaint architecture, and 
 Roman survivals, Hawarden and Conway Castles, Offa's Dike, 
 and the whole country round were open books for the teaching 
 of history. 
 
 The same was true of Old Cambridge, where University 
 Extension students and teachers assembled from all parts of 
 England, with guests from Belgium, Germany, Austria, Den- 
 mark, and Scandinavia. History was taught not only in class 
 rooms, but by the associations and architecture of the place. 
 One of the most interesting courses of historical lectures de- 
 livered at the Cambridge Summer Meeting was upon the sub- 
 ject of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. What a striking 
 object lesson of monastic spoliation and transformation was 
 afforded by those Cambridge colleges. For example: (1) Trin- 
 ity, the noblest college of them all, founded upon nine earlier 
 
 245 
 
246 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 
 religious establishments; (2) Jesus College, whose very build- 
 ings once belonged to a Benedictine nunnery; (3) Sidney- 
 Sussex (the college of Cromwell), built on the site of a Fran- 
 ciscan monastery, the Grey Friars; (4) Emmanuel (the alma 
 mater of John Harvard, the first university extensioner in the 
 New World), erected on the very spot where the Dominicans 
 or Black Friars lived and preached until dispossessed by that 
 arch spoilsman, Henry VIII; (5) St. Mary Magdalene College, 
 on ground once occupied by the Monks' Hostel of the Bene- 
 dictine students from Croyland Abbey; (6) Peterhouse, the 
 oldest college in Cambridge and an institutional offshoot of 
 the bishopric of Ely. Think of an historical excursion to that 
 old cathedral town, with lectures and peripatetic talks by the 
 dean and his canons on the very premises of the Benedictines ! 
 That was a kind of history teaching which I had never before 
 enjoyed, and I gladly recommend it to American students and 
 instructors who would like to vary their pedagogical experi- 
 
 ence. 
 
 In alternate years the Summer Meeting is held at Oxford, 
 which is perhaps even richer than Cambridge in historic asso- 
 ciations. At these summer gatherings Americans hear and 
 meet some of the best historical teachers and lecturers in Eng- 
 land and come home, as I did, with enlarged views of public 
 educational duty and of modern university opportunities. It 
 is not enough to teach history to college boys and girls. It 
 must be taught to school teachers and to the American people. 
 The campaign before this American democracy is educational, 
 moral, and religious. History, politics, and economics, with 
 religion, ethics, music, art, good literature, good newspapers, 
 good public speaking, and good, popular lecturing Avill be 
 among the winning forces. Churches, libraries, school boards, 
 colleges, and universities must all enter the open field of mis- 
 sionary labor for the public good, the salus publica. 
 
 At the Edinburgh Summer Meeting I was most interested, 
 pedagogically, in the remarkable attempt to combine polit- 
 ical and natural science, sociology and biology, history and 
 geography, zoology and botany. Prof. Patrick Geddes and his 
 colleagues are actually succeeding in this combination. Dr. 
 Wenley, a professor of philosophy lately called from Glasgow to 
 the University of Michigan, lectured on the relation between sci- 
 ence and philosophy. Mr. Branford discussed the "Comparative 
 Economics of Europe from the standpoint of natural history." 
 
i 
 THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 247 
 
 Some years ago I called attention to the original association 
 of civil history with natural history in the ancient curriculum 
 of Harvard College. That idea, which I once thought absurd, 
 has been actually realized every summer at Edinburgh during 
 the past ten years by Professor Geddes, whose lectures on 
 "Contemporary Social Evolution" combined biology and his- 
 tory. His course on "Scotland, historic and actual," was 
 another study in social evolution, combining in a most inter- 
 esting and suggestive way physical geography and ethnogra- 
 phy with historical sociology. Professor Geddes laid great 
 stress in his familiar teaching upon historic survivals and their 
 interpretation — upon the survey of regional environments like 
 that of the historic city of Edinburgh and the neighboring- 
 kingdom of Fife. He was fond of taking his classes to the 
 Outlook Tower on Castle Hill at Edinburgh and there pointing 
 out object lessons in the physical and political history of Scot- 
 land. He led a series of excursions to places combining bio- 
 logical and social interest. Often would he replace the formal 
 lecture of the class room by demonstration from actual and 
 visible objects. For him the old town of Edinburgh, King 
 Arthur's country, Melrose and Dryburgh abbeys, Eoman 
 walls, Stirling Castle, the fiords, lakes, islands, hills of Scot- 
 land, and even the Caledonian Canal were not only picturesque 
 phenomena, but good illustrations of history, politics, eco- 
 nomics, and sociology. Professor Geddes believes that " knowl- 
 edge must always grow from the things and facts familiar and at 
 hand to those far off and recondite." He does not believe in 
 "proceeding from a past which the pupil has no means of real- 
 izing toward a present which he never reaches at all." He 
 says: "It is through the vivid endeavor to comprehend the 
 present that we are impelled toward the reconstruction and 
 interpretation of the past." 
 
 In this connection as a teacher of history I should like to 
 explain that I have never taught that all history is past poli- 
 tics and that all politics are present history, but only that 
 some history and some politics are thus defined. It must be 
 fully recognized that history is past religion, past philosophy, 
 past civilization, past sociology, and includes all man's recorded 
 action and experience in organized society; but for practical 
 and working purposes we may adopt any historical motto that 
 we like. There is a sense in which the dictum of the late 
 Professor Freeman is true, and it is recognized by some of the 
 
248 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 best scholars in England and Germany. Lord Acton, the suc- 
 cessor of Prof. J. E. Seeley at Cambridge, said in a public 
 lecture that a student of history "is the politician with his 
 face turned backward." He quotes with manifest approval a 
 German saying: "Die Geschichte ist derselbe Janus mit dem 
 Doppelgesicht, das in der Geschichte, in die Yergangenheit, in 
 der Politik in die Zukunft hinschaut." Droysen used to say : 
 "What is politics to-day becomes history to-morrow." Pro. 
 fessor Maureubrecher, at Leipzig, in his inaugural address, 
 while recognizing that there are other fields of historical 
 interest and inquiry beside the State — for example, the church, 
 religion, art, and science — maintains that history proper is 
 political history, for without law and government there can be 
 no culture or civilization. History reaches its goal in politics 
 and politics are always the resultant of history. The two 
 subjects are related like past and present. 1 The subject of 
 historic evolution would have no vital interest unless the past 
 was in some way related to the present. " History made and 
 history making," says Lord Acton, "are scientifically insepa- 
 rable and separately unmeaning." 
 
 Twenty years ago I was an advocate of local history. I 
 then believed in an American approaching the great field of 
 the world's historic life from the vantage ground of local inter- 
 est. I taught my students to some extent the local history of 
 New England, e. g., of Plymouth Plantations, of Salem and 
 the Massachusetts Bay towns as typical of the English mode 
 of settlement and as illustrative of the continuity of Germanic 
 common land tenure and village institutions in the New World. 
 The idea proved stimulating to similar studies in various parts 
 of the country, North and South ; but I early discovered that 
 there was not sufficient historic training and positive knowl- 
 edge on the part of the average college or university student 
 to justify the devotion of very much time to local studies on 
 the part of either teacher or pupil. 
 
 While I am still an advocate, for patriotic and other reasons, 
 of American graduate students in their own country choosing 
 for the most part American subjects for historical research, I 
 believe that an American teacher of history should not lead 
 his class prematurely, by lectures or seminary exercises, into 
 
 ' For a fuller discussion of "History and Politics, " see Proceedings of the Sixth Animal 
 Meeting of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools in the Middle States and 
 Maryland, 1894: "Is History Past Politics?" By H. B. Adams. 
 
THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 249 
 
 local, State, or even national byways of specialized historical 
 inquiry. In short, my present conviction is that a long period 
 of college and university study, say, four or five years, in gen- 
 eral history, should precede specialization in local history or 
 American history. 1 have been acting upon this conviction in 
 department work at the Johns Hopkins University, where for 
 a long time fully two-thirds of both collegiate and graduate 
 work in history has been upon Old World ground rather than 
 upon New World territory. The college or university teacher, 
 it seems to me, should seek to give bis pupils a proper back- 
 ground of English, European, classical, and Oriental history 
 before allowing them to specialize in the history of their 
 country. 
 
 Of course this preliminary training can not usually be given 
 by one teacher. The work properly involves a division of labor 
 and an organized department. But sometimes it is necessary, 
 for financial and other reasons, for one college professor or 
 teacher of history to represent the whole subject of human 
 history. Under such circumstances I think he would better 
 represent it by giving preliminary courses in general history, 
 or the history of civilization, than he would by confining the 
 attention of his class to the narrower fields of French, German, 
 English, or American history, whether local or national. 
 
 Many ot us remember the old-time limitations of college 
 work in history, and think with gratitude of those broad and 
 comprehensive courses of instruction that were given by indi- 
 vidual teachers like Professors Diman, Stille, White, Torrey, 
 and Allen. About all the history that students learned in 
 those days was through the medium of general lecture courses 
 or Guizot's History of Civilization. It is a gratifying evidence 
 of the permanent value of such methods of general instruction 
 that excellent text-books on European history and civilization 
 have been written by well-known members of this Association. 
 A recent American work of this kind is Prof. G. P. Fisher's 
 History of the Nations and of their Progress in Civilization. 
 
 I have found that one of the best ways of teaching collegiate 
 students general history is by the well-worn and ancient paths 
 of Jewish and church history. Starting with Chaldeean and old 
 Babylonian civilization, one can show the kinship of Hebrew 
 and Semitic ideas and institutions. Phoenician and Egyptian 
 civilizations may be reviewed and the points of contact with 
 Israel clearly noted. The contributions of Israel's neighbors 
 
250 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 to Jewish civilization and to world history should be tabulated 
 in thesis form by members of the class and fortified by cita- 
 tions from private reading. 
 
 This method of undergraduate training in the historical 
 sociology of the Hebrews involves to a certain extent the 
 actual use of original sources of Hebrew literature, and at the 
 same time an acquaintance with matters of general human 
 interest about which American college graduates know far 
 too little. A mayor of Baltimore was once called upon to 
 give an address on the rededication of a Methodist Episcopal 
 Church (colored) called " The Ebenezer Church.' 7 The pious 
 mayor, wishing to testify to his familiarity with the Old Testa- 
 ment as well as his general sympathy with the colored voters, 
 said: "Men and brethren: I- have always had the greatest 
 respect for that old Hebrew patriarch Ebenezer.' 7 The best of 
 this joke is that it is obscure (I Sam. vii, 12) and needs a con- 
 cordance or a commentary. I have told the story to many col- 
 lege students and some professors, and am always gratified if 
 anybody sees the point. 
 
 Some, persons may object to this Baltimore story about 
 Ebenezer as local history, but surely it is worth while to teach 
 a class of boys that " Ebenezer 7 ' was a rude stone altar erected 
 to the Lord on a battlefield where the Philistines were driven 
 backward. It illustrates the historic origin of many a sacred 
 menhir or monumental column from ancient Palestine to the 
 Pillars of Hercules. It is worth while for liberally educated 
 college students to learn something of the fundamental insti- 
 tutions of the Shemites, as taught by such men as Eobertson 
 Smith and George Adam Smith, "the two Smiths 77 who have 
 so enlightened modern Scotland that trials for heresy are no 
 longer possible there, as they still are in our own country. 
 Last summer when I was in Scotland, a theological professor 
 was retired from office by the constituted authorities because 
 he knew nothing of the higher criticism and the students would 
 no longer listen to him. 
 
 There is a perfectly safe way of illuminating the modern 
 student's mind without destroying his religious faith. That 
 way lies through Hebrew literature, social and institutional his- 
 tory. The higher critics have about accomplished their work. 
 Joseph Jacobs, in his " Studies in Biblical Archaeology 77 (XII), 
 says: "Literary criticism seems now to have come to an end 
 of its tether with regard to the 'slicing 7 of the Hexateueh; 
 
THE TEACHING OF HISTOrlY. 251 
 
 the reconstructions of Genesis by Fripp and Bacon, and of 
 the whole Hexateuch by Addis, and the exhaustive work of 
 Holzinger, all serve to show this. They all confirm my con- 
 tention that on this line of research we can not further go. 
 Literary search per se can not solve the problem of the Hexa- 
 teuch, so far as that problem is coucerned with the develop- 
 ment of institutions of the ancient Hebrews." 
 
 Recently I have endeavored to so broaden and deepen my 
 course in Hebrew history that it might gradually become a 
 means of reviewing various Oriental religions. This year I 
 began with Confucianism and Shintooism in China and Japan 
 and continued with Brahminism and Buddhism in India. 
 From this Asiatic background my class approached Judaism 
 and Christianity. 
 
 Church history is a general course of liberalizing and illu- 
 minating college study, and one of the best introductions to 
 the history of mediaeval and modern Europe. The subject is 
 usually monopolized by theological seminaries, where it is 
 sometimes taught in a very narrow way. It ought to be 
 taught not as the history of councils, creeds, and heresies, but 
 as the institutional exponent of Christian civilization, in which 
 the mediaeval and modern world live and move and havetbeir 
 being. Lord Acton agrees with Bishop Stubbs in the view 
 that " Modern history, including mediaeval history in the term, 
 is coextensive in its field of view, in its habits of criticism, in 
 the person of its most famous students, with ecclesiastical 
 history." With this great subject naturally belong the history 
 of art and education and the historic relations between civil 
 and ecclesiastical society, which find their best and highest 
 expression in America, where a free church in a free State has 
 become an institutional reality. This is, perhaps, America's 
 greatest and most original contribution to history and polit- 
 ical science. 
 
 The beginning and the end of historical evolution are the 
 most interesting things to study and teach. A former presi- 
 dent of this Association, Henry Adams, once said: "There is 
 no history left for Americans to write except that of the Korth 
 American Indians and the twentieth century." Although 
 somewhat satirical, this remark implies a certain truth. All 
 history begins with savagery and ends, like the story of the 
 Jews and of the Christian Church, in prophetic ideals — in 
 visions of things to come. 
 
252 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 American teachers of history have a singular advantage of 
 being able, within the limits of their own country, to illustrate 
 the beginning and the end of historic evolution. The ethno- 
 logical researches of Major Powell and his associates have 
 taught us that the rudimentary forms of religion and govern- 
 ment may be studied in the folklore and tribal customs of the 
 North American Indians. Last summer, at the University of 
 Edinburgh, I met M. Eeclus, an eminent authority in the field 
 of comparative religion, and he assured me that the historical 
 world owes a great debt to Major Powell and the United 
 States Government for encouraging and publishing such 
 remarkable contributions to the knowledge of primitive faiths 
 and institutions. 
 
 The American teacher of history should not, however, stop 
 on this side of the world if he would fully understand the sig- 
 nificance of the North American Indians. He must compare 
 their religious and social ideas with those of other savages. 
 He must discover the extraordinary resemblance between 
 American forms of spirit worship and ancestor worship with 
 those in ancient Babylonia, in China, and Japan. He must 
 point out the gradual evolution of higher forms of stellar and 
 solar worship. He must show how man began to reverence 
 heavenly powers; how he personified natural forces; how he 
 translated heroes, ancestors, and great kings into celestial 
 deities, and how the divine principle of fatherhood triumphed 
 over and unified all. 
 
 There are few subjects of inquiry more fascinating to teach- 
 ers or to students than the historical evolution of religion and 
 of customary law or government. The history of marriage, as 
 treated by Westermarck, and historieal sociology, as presented 
 by such masters as Herbert Spencer, Fustel de Coulauges, 
 McLennan, Morgan, and Sir Henry Maine, are subjects which 
 I have been teaching by lectures to graduate students at the 
 Johns Hopkins University during the present term. I require 
 every student to tabulate the results of his note-taking and 
 private reading in the form of a syllabus suitable for future 
 reference and possible use when the young man becomes a 
 teacher himself. A surprising amount of good materials is 
 thus classified and assimilated. Every student develops his 
 own system of topical arrangement and takes pride in inde- 
 pendent work. From the start, note taking on lectures and 
 books becomes vital and self-helpful, instead of a mechanical, 
 
THE TEACHING OF HISTOKY. 253 
 
 perfunctory process. In one of my graduate courses, that on 
 the Nineteenth (Jentury, students have been encouraged each 
 to give a class lecture and submit to a general criticism by 
 his fellows. The course on the Early history of society 
 develops from a study of savage customs into more and more 
 civilized institutions, and ends in a review of Greek politics, 
 historical and theoretical. The course is given to graduates 
 only, and once in three years. 
 
 For purposes of graduate training in general history, I have 
 given each year two representative courses of class instruction, 
 one in ancient history and one in modern history. I got the 
 idea from Professor Oncken, of Giessen. All I care to say 
 about the plan is that it works well for purposes of department 
 training. I do not pretend to cover the entire ground. Certain 
 phases only of the subject are presented. Books are recom- 
 mended and read. Organized quizzes and written examina- 
 tions do the rest. 
 
 It seems to me a mistaken policy for instructors to allow 
 their college students to specialize prematurely in narrow 
 fields of local or even national history, when the great empire 
 of universal history is all undiscovered. For college boys and 
 girls the reading of good selections from a few standard 
 authors on great chapters of the world's civilization yields bet- 
 ter educational results than does the close study of historical 
 sources for any given period. Interest may be quickened and 
 the judgment may be trained in historical matters by the com- 
 parison of different historians without the expenditure of so 
 much precious time as is required by the study and digest of 
 original sources. It is enough for the ordinary collegian if he 
 is introduced to a few good books of history and politics. It 
 is too much of a burden to load him down with documents and 
 references to archives and sources. The end to be accom- 
 plished is historical and political culture, the development of a 
 real interest in the world's life and experience. 
 
 The preparation of historical essays is also a good literary 
 means of training collegiate students. They learn by writing 
 to digest the results of private historical reading, but the read- 
 ing of these essays by the instructor, or the presentation of 
 even the best of them to a class, is wearisome and unprofitable. 
 If a teacher will take pains to mark with care every error of 
 statement or style, he can render a substantial service to his 
 
254 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 students and thus aid one of Ms best academic allies — the 
 department of English literature. 
 
 Excellent historical results have been secured from under- 
 graduate classes in Baltimore by requiring the students to 
 tabulate their knowledge of certain subjects in thesis form. 
 For example, in institutional history and the history of civil- 
 ization, college boys, in the second year of their course, have 
 put on record, in brief space, a surprising amount of well- 
 digested material, topically arranged and derived from a com- 
 parative study of the best standard authorities. China, Japan, 
 India, Chaldea, Egypt, Phoenicia, and Palestine have been 
 the fields of our study of the history of civilization. The idea 
 is to treat topically and by groups the social, economic, reli- 
 gious, and governmental institutions of the Eastern World, 
 ancient and modern, somewhat as Herbert Spencer and his 
 coworkers have done in their descriptive sociology or groups 
 of sociological facts. The students give references to authori- 
 ties, which they have actually read, for every statement or 
 group of facts which appear in the written digest. This kind 
 of work is not an essay, but simply a collection of theses or 
 propositions. Materials, thus gathered and arranged, are fairly 
 well assimilated by the student and often prove very suggestive 
 to the teacher. The papers are easily examined, and are some- 
 times of practical benefit to the class if papers are exchanged 
 or exhibited for a comparison of results. Graduate students 
 at the Johns Hopkins University first acquired this method in 
 undergraduate classes. 
 
 After all, the great thing is to interest students in what they 
 are doing, to persuade them that it is worth doing, and that, 
 for the time being and for them, it is the most important work 
 on earth. It is like training for a boat race or a football match- 
 Study becomes an absorbing passion. I have seen old athletes 
 forget their first love, scorn delights, and live laborious days, 
 for the simple sake of reading good books, writing a disserta- 
 tion, and winning a doctor's degree. One of the reasons why 
 Johns Hopkins graduates cut no figure in athletics is simply 
 this : They have no time to spare for the old familiar games. 
 These men are now training for academic life and professional 
 careers. It is the business of the trainer to keep his men in 
 good condition, and he tries to do it; but, alas! some of them 
 break down and some never arrive at the goal. As in the old 
 Greek torch race, when one man falls another catches the 
 
THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 255 
 
 torch and carries it on. " The best master is quickly distanced 
 by the better pupil," says Lord Acton. 
 
 "Run, Pheidippid.es. one race more! the meed is thy due!" 
 
 The true function of the teacher of history is to kindle the 
 historical spirit in his pupils, to teach them to know them- 
 selves, and to understand the development of mankind histor- 
 ically from the past. " The pupil may become much wiser than 
 his instructor," said Frederic Denison Maurice. "■ He may not 
 accept his conclusions, but he will own, ' you awakened me to 
 be myself ; ' for that I thank you." 
 
 REMARKS BY PROFESSORS FISHER AND ANDREWS. 
 
 Professor Fisher (in the chair): Professor Adams in his 
 paper referred to the advantage of the study of history as 
 including a study of politics in the past, and especially on 
 account of the generic relation of the politics of the past to 
 the present. Perhaps I may be allowed to refer to a remark 
 which I was reminded of made by Dr. Arnold, of Eugby — the 
 additional fact that in the study of ancient life, ancient poli- 
 tics, we have a field where a perfectly dispassionate study of 
 politics is possible. In the midst of the life in which we live, 
 and the political campaigns in which all are so zealously excited, 
 there is a difficulty in that dispassionate and unprejudiced con- 
 templation of political life which is possible in historical study. 
 
 Professor Andrews. There is always a certain misfortune, 
 perhaps, in following two speakers with whom one so ardently 
 sympathizes as I do; nevertheless there is always testimony 
 which can be stated, even though one follows along in the same 
 line and defends very much the same propositions. 
 
 I wonder if, in taking up the subject of teaching history and in 
 defending a certain method, we are not more or less influenced 
 by the peculiar conditions under which we are obliged to work 
 as practical teachers. I happen, for instance, to be one of 
 those unfortunates who is obliged to cover a very large period 
 of time; that is, to instruct my students in as much history as 
 I have time for, Avhether in covering a period which shall be, 
 in my mind, sufficient to train them and instruct them at the 
 same time. Therefore, naturally I am inclined to advocate, so 
 far as it relates to certain portions of my work, a course of 
 instruction in general history. I propose to limit myself 
 entirely to that phase of the subject. 
 
256 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 I can not wholly agree "with Professor Burgess's paper. His- 
 tory is more than a residuum. It is the unit, and it is the sum 
 total, which is not merely the sum of all the parts. There 
 may be many different aspects of history, but history in itself 
 considered certainly is something more than those various 
 aspects simply brought into one whole. There is an organic 
 character to history which is something more than a mere 
 summing together. Therefore, if I did not believe that there 
 was such a definition of history, that history were of that 
 character, I certainly should not be able with any conscience 
 to teach as a preliminary course in college that kind of history 
 which I believe to be the history in the largest sense of the 
 Avord. I can not teach a mere residuum. 
 
 History, then, is the organic evolution of peoples. I agree 
 with Professor Emerton, that there is no exact definition which 
 anyone can adopt and defend as against all others. After all, 
 the definition is very like the method. It must be, in some 
 way or other, created by the process of instruction, and I must 
 say that I can only frame my own definition of history by the 
 method which I should employ in instructing students in that 
 which I believe to be most essential for them. Therefore, I 
 would make a plea for, in the early years of a college course, 
 the instructing of students in that general history which alone, 
 I believe, the world is able to give to students — that which 
 they ought to have before them first — on to the higher grades of 
 work. What are such results % What does one seek to attain 
 in such instruction 1 ? Something more, I believe, than mere 
 interest. There is something more in historical instruction 
 than the creation of an interest, although that stands very 
 high. There is, I believe, the development in the mind of the 
 student of a sense of criticism; a power of judging as to that 
 which is important and that which is secondary; a power of 
 concentrating all their energy and thought upon those phases 
 of human life which stand out preeminently important and 
 which characterizes a certain age — the age in which they exist. 
 Now, those preeminently important aspects of history are 
 varied according to the characteristics of the period in which 
 the people lived, characterized by a certain degree of intel- 
 lectual or religious or political or constitutional development. 
 Secondly, I would endeavor to arouse in a class of beginners a 
 judicial sense. That has already been mentioned to-night by 
 Professor Fisher, the chairman. That judicial sense which 
 
THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 257 
 
 enables a student to weigh evidence; and not merely weigh 
 evidence for the purpose of bringing out results as an original 
 investigation, but in order to exercise as toward the material 
 used a careful judicial power, which will enable them to com- 
 pare; not to unduly exaggerate this, or underestimate that, but 
 to act with reason, with common sense, with a mind free from 
 partiality and prejudices, and to draw conclusions which are as 
 near right as human nature is capable of attaining. I do not 
 believe that can be attained by study of the present, and we 
 have to get our first training in a judicial attitude in the past — 
 in that history which does not in any way concern us, either in 
 our politics or religion. Thirdly, I believe that such students 
 should be taught — and perhaps it should stand very high as 
 one of the results of our teaching — a proper sense of perspective 
 and proportion in history, so that they will be able to estimate 
 not only the value of the events of the age as compared with 
 other events of the same age, but will be able to estimate the 
 value and character of one age as compared with the value and 
 character of another age. 
 
 History is, as was just stated, an evolution. We can not 
 infuse into an early period ideas, thoughts, and conceptions, 
 either legal, administrative, or constitutional, which belong to 
 the present time, and unless one is led carefully over a large 
 period of time and is given a sufficient amount of historical 
 material to attain to that perspective ,to see the relation of one 
 period to another, to see how certain phases which are com- 
 mon to us to-day have grown, little by little, out of the past 
 and have become part of the present, unless there be a period 
 of time, such a perspective can hardly be successfully attained. 
 Therefore, I believe and I practice — because I believe it, partly, 
 and because the conditions under which I work are such as to 
 make it necessary, and it makes a difference whether one has 
 the group system or the class system, and this may cover the 
 whole of the years or only one or two years — I believe that 
 the early years of a college course should be given up to work 
 in general history. The question naturally arises : Where is 
 one to begin and where is one to end 1 ? I wish it were possible 
 in my own work to follow the suggestion of my old instructor, 
 Dr. Adams, and begin with the Jews, but unfortunately there 
 are time limits, and I have to begin at a later period in order to 
 come down to that which is, after all, the ultimate of all history. 
 The end is the understanding of things as they are to-day. 
 H, Doc. 353 17 
 
258 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Now, necessarily, in making good citizens,we teach them a 
 comprehension of the issues of to day in such a way as to 
 interest them. Therefore, I find that about all we can accom- 
 plish is to begin with the old Roman Empire and to come down 
 by gradual sequence through the most important of the issues 
 which follow from that time to the present. In that work I 
 believe firmly in the use to the largest extent of illustrative 
 material; that is, that the student should be taught not to 
 depend upon the lecturer or to accept his spoken word as final, 
 but wherever it is possible to be sent, not only to valuable 
 works of the most recent character, whether they be in our 
 own language or any other, whether they be long or short, but 
 to be sent to the original documents, and to be encouraged, 
 just as far as time allows, to read them and to read them care- 
 fully. That I believe to be entirely different from Professor 
 Emerton's characterization as top-heavy history. It is not the 
 creation of history. That is a later matter, but it is letting the 
 student gain by a gradual process of familiarity, an acquaint- 
 ance with the actual written word and the actual appearance, 
 form, and reality of that which is a part and goes to make up 
 history as a whole. Illustrative material I have found to have 
 aided infinitely to the enthusiasm and interest, whereas a mere 
 written lecture would be in itself of only doubtful interest. 
 To give students a document and to have at their own disposal 
 a collection of documents is to give them something that is 
 real, something that has a reality of its own, and brings them 
 pretty closely in contact with the epoch with which the history 
 treats. 
 
 REPORT OP PROFESSOR McMASTER'S ADDRESS. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, in the few remarks 
 which I am to have the honor of making this evening I shall 
 endeavor to remember the injunction that a shoemaker should 
 stick to his last. Therefore I will confine myself entirely to 
 the history of our own country. I do that all the more gladly 
 because, coming at the end of such a line of predecessors, I 
 find that is the only history, except that of the Lost Tribes 
 [laughter], which has not been commented upon so far. In 
 presenting it I would like again to say a few words for the 
 great mass of students of history— those, I mean, that get 
 their history in our common schools and stop their instruction 
 there. We know, of course, that the great mass of the thou- 
 sands of boys and girls that are studying the history of the 
 
THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 259 
 
 United States, almost all of them stop with its text-books and 
 never again obtain any other history of the United States 
 except that which they receive during Presidential campaigns 
 [laughter], or periodically, when some of our Presidents see 
 fit to give the State Department a show. 
 
 At the outset of any discussion of this kind, I think we want 
 to draw very clearly a distinction between what we would like 
 to have and what we can get. We have to deal with the prac- 
 tical question: What can we get? At the base of that ques- 
 tion is the other question : What do we want, aud why do we 
 want if? What is the use, in other words, of a student ever 
 studying the history of the United States'? To that there 
 seem to be a vast number of answers, which can be summed 
 up under three heads. Some tell us that the object is that the 
 student ought to know the history of his own country. We 
 are told again that in a nation such as ours, resting as it does 
 upon the vast mass of the people for its stability, it is espe- 
 cially necessary that those whose course runs in the history 
 should have a good knowledge of the history of their own 
 country. And we are told again by others that there is some- 
 thing in history which makes it the only subject which is capa 
 ble of reasonable, philosophical treatment in order to enable a 
 boy or a girl to distinguish between truth and falsity; hence, 
 to understand that there is such a thing as a temperate and a 
 hasty judgment, and that he or she will revise his or her judg- 
 ment just as it is seen to be revised by the processes of time. 
 
 Now, without going into any discussion as to whether these 
 are good answers or not, we will let them go for what they are 
 worth, and come back to the other question : What can we get? 
 Is it possible to so teach history in our schools all over the 
 country that some real and lasting benefit shall be acquired? 
 That depends upon four elements: First, there is a teacher; 
 second, there is a text-book; third, there is the pupil; fourth, 
 there is the time allowed. With the first two we can deal, 
 but with the student and the time allowed we can not so 
 easily deal. In no course of education is it possible to give to 
 everyone the time that we would like to. Again, we have 
 to deal with the average student rather than with a select few. 
 Those two elements, then, are out of our control. The other 
 two, the text-book and the teacher, are entirely within our 
 control. It is not unreasonable to insist that the teacher of 
 history everywhere should be trained for his work; that the 
 
260 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 day must pass when the teachers of young boys and girls will 
 be to so large an extent persons who do not intend to make 
 teaching a profession. The time has come when a teacher 
 must be educated for his work. Insisting, then, that the 
 teacher shall be all that he should be, we come to the other 
 question : What can be done with a good teacher with the 
 present text-books? The text-book is far from what it ought 
 to be. It seems to me that it is possible to so present the his- 
 tory of our country to young students, within a limited amount 
 of time, that they can get from it not merely information, but 
 certain fundamental principles which will be of benefit to 
 them and enable them to understand very much better the 
 problems they will have to deal with in later times. It seems 
 to me that it would be better to begin by calling attention to 
 the fact that this country was originally in the possession of a 
 certain number of people of foreign nations; that it has passed, 
 by a certain process, from them to us, and that is about all 
 they need to know of the early colonial history. Then that 
 the Spaniards, for reasons not at all accidental, occupied the 
 Gulf Coast; that the French began their career in Canada, 
 for reasons again perfectly well understood, and that these na- 
 tions, with the English, were kept apart for a certain period, 
 and that when they came in contact a very trifling incident on 
 Lake Champlain prevented the French from ever getting down 
 on the Middle Atlantic Coast, and that out of that grew mat- 
 ters of vast importance to us. When, afterwards, they were 
 driven far to the westward, that they were brought into con- 
 tact with such information as enabled them to discover a great 
 river; that the Spaniards, for other reasons perfectly suscepti- 
 ble, were held in the southwest, and that the English then 
 were given an opportunity to develop along the seaboard. 
 Now, with so simple an introduction as that, it is fair to suppose 
 that an ordinary student could understand how the thirteen 
 colonies were organized, and that the English were developing 
 an entirely different form of civilization from that which was 
 being planted by the French in the Mississippi Valley, or by 
 the Spaniards farther to the south. Then there should be pre- 
 sented to the mind of the student the great struggle for tbe 
 possession of the continent, and that when that ended the first 
 of these great nations disappeared as a nation from our his- 
 tory and its place was taken by the English. Now, then, the 
 student has obtained sufficient knowledge by this time to see 
 
THE TEACHING OF HISTOKY. 261 
 
 how the country which we occupy was populated by these 
 people; how in the course of time they came in conflict, and 
 how out of that conflict resulted the disappearance of one of 
 them and the expansion of the territory of the other. ISow 
 comes the struggle between the. colonists and the parent 
 country. If that is presented in the proper way the student 
 will obtain a far better knowledge of the instrument, of which 
 none of us know too much 7 called the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. That is nothing but the great American Whig 
 platform of the day. Every specification which went in there 
 meant something to the men to whom it appealed. To us it 
 means nothing. The number of persons who could take that 
 instrument up and, beginning with the first charge, specify 
 exactly what that meant, are extremely few. I remember 
 not long ago to have seen an answer to a question which it 
 seemed to me summed it all up. It was a question asked by 
 a teacher: What is the Declaration of Independence? The 
 boy to whom the question was put replied : " It is that part of 
 the book at the back which nobody ever reads." [Laughter.] 
 Now, if the Declaration of Independence is presented to a 
 student as it should be the student ought to know what those 
 things which were thought to be serious enough to be the 
 cause of a great rebellion meant. Now, then, it seems to me 
 the student is ready for another idea which is not beyond his 
 comprehension. If he is to understand the history of our own 
 country from that day down, he must recognize that when we 
 became independent and free there were along the seaboard 
 three great centers of population, one clustering around Boston 
 as a center, another around Philadelphia and Baltimore, and 
 a third farther south; that each had been founded by people 
 utterly distinct from each other ; that the motive which brought 
 them together and the laws and customs which they estab- 
 lished were utterly distinct from each other; that when the 
 time came for them to spread westward that they streamed 
 out of these three centers, not in a miscellaneous sort of way, 
 and that they went due west, and that that has been the 
 marked characteristic of emigration so far as we can trace it. 
 If these people had all been alike, the results would probably 
 have been different. Each stream as it passed across the con- 
 tinent planted its own institutions, and it built up a population 
 east and west which to some extent was similar. Then in the 
 course of time events, which it is not necessary to spend much 
 
262 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 time on or to remind you of, so developed those bands of 
 population that they came to be by the time of the civil war 
 two distinct nations; that there grew up in consequence of 
 that two sets of people who utterly failed to understand each 
 other, and to a large extent do not do so to the present day; 
 that those in the extreme south were in every sense different 
 from those at the extreme north, and we had the division of 
 the country on an east and west line. Now, if attention is 
 Called, then, as it can be by the aid of even such maps as 
 are given in the census reports, to that important fact, the 
 student has got another. What use should he make of it? 
 The next fact, I think, should be that while those immense 
 streams of population have been passing westward they have 
 not gone slowly or steadily. Sometimes they have moved with 
 great rapidity, and at other times they have been checked, 
 and the causes which checked them are practically the history 
 of our country since. It is easy enough to understand that 
 when the French Eevolution was opened certain conditions 
 were presented to a certain part of the country which enabled 
 them to be the great ocean carriers of the world, and to an- 
 other part of the country to become the greater producers of 
 the world. That produced such a condition of affairs on the 
 seaboard that the population was stacked up there, and there 
 it remained until that condition had ended. Now, that brings 
 the student down to the war of 1812. By that time an en- 
 tirely new condition of affairs existed. Then began that rush 
 of population which built up in a few years five cities in the 
 Mississippi Valley. Then something checked it. Then the 
 student has brought to his attention certain ideas which per- 
 haps never occurred to him before. That is, it was possible 
 for such a thing as a canal to cross this State and to produce 
 a condition of affairs which was in itself a great social revolu- 
 tion. The introduction of a new way of doing things and 
 better means of transportation, enabling men to cover a larger 
 field, led to the growth of great cities in the East. Then 
 came a period of hard times, and then the causes for it. The 
 student can be presented with certain ideas which will enable 
 him to understand the history of his country far better, and 
 give him a better idea of the growth of population, and enable 
 him to see that, while our ancestors drew up the famous Dec- 
 laration of Independence they made something which they 
 could not practice; that at the very time when they were de- 
 
THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 263 
 
 daring that all men were equal they were forming State con- 
 stitutions which made them most unequal ; and we find, then, in 
 that great instrument — the ordinance of 1787 — that these men 
 put into it a kind of government they could not give them- 
 selves. Now, it seems to me that in such a way it is possible 
 to do something to improve the general condition of history 
 teaching in our schools. Whether that is done or not rests 
 not upon any individual' or body of men, but it rests upon 
 every citizen; and it seems to me that no better use could be 
 made of the opportunities afforded by this Association than 
 to do something toward the improvement of history teaching, 
 not merely in our colleges, but in the common schools of the 
 land, dealing especially with those who come to us from for- 
 eign lands, so that they may see the history of our country in 
 such a way that they shall clearly understand it. [Applause.]