THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES METHOD IN HISTORY FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS BT WILLIAM H. MACE POTSSOR OF HISTORY IN SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, AND AUTHOR or "A WORKING MANUAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY" ' The Law In the Hind and the Thought In the Thing determine the Method" WM. A. JOKES GINN & COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO LONDON COPYRIGHT, 1897 BY WILLIAM H. MACE ALIi KIGHTS BESEKVED 510.12 gl)t fltftenaum OINN * COMPANY PRO- PRIETORS BOSTON U.S.A. Education PEEFATOEY NOTE. IKI" THIS book was not made to order, but grew out of an effort, extending over several years, to justify the study of the Pedagogy of History in a University Normal School. Out of almost daily conferences over the problems of general and special method arose the germs of that masterful work, The Philosophy of Teaching, by Prof. Arnold Tompkins, University of Illinois, and of the present volume, " Method in History." It is particularly gratifying to me that this work, in passing through the press, has again had the benefit of Professor Tompkins' deep insight into the problem of teaching. The general principles of the book have had also the great benefit of being reviewed by Superintendent Lewis H. Jones, Cleveland, Ohio, and by President E. Benjamin Andrews, Brown University. I am deeply indebted to Prof. Cyrus W. Hodgin, Earlham College, not only for friendly encouragement while devel- oping the work, but particularly for generous and valuable service in the criticism of both its form and content. I desire, also, to express my obligation to Prof. Moses Coit 1267907 IV PREFATORY NOTE. Tyler, Cornell University, for the exceptional privilege of working out a portion of the book in his Historical Seminar, and for his scholarly and sympathetic criticisms. Finally, the work has profited by the careful proof-reading of Mr. Herbert P. Gallinger, Fellow in History, Amherst College. W. H. M. SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, March 10, 1896. CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION _ xi GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HISTORY. General Character of the Problem 1 Erroneous View of History _ 2 Ideas of Form and Content in History 3 Continuity and Differentiation 7 Five Great Institutions in History 10 The Five Phases not always Coordinate 14 Organic Unity of Institutional Life 15 PROCESSES INVOLVED IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. General Nature of Organization 19 Organizing Principle of History 20 Fundamental Processes in Organization 21 THE PROCESS OF INTERPRETATION. Nature and Kinds. Definition of Interpretation 21 Interpretation of Events 26 Forms of Thought and Sentiment as Discovered in Inter- pretation. Causes 27 Positive and Negative Causes 28 Fundamental and Particular Causes 29 Purpose and Means 34 Immediate and Remote Ends 39 Material Presented for Interpretation. Second-hand Material 42 Original Material 43 VI CONTENTS. Educational Value of Interpretation. PAGE Nature of the Question 46 Integration and Unification 46 The Mechanical Historical Whole , 47 The Organic Historical Whole 49 Comparison the Basis of Integration 50 Simplification of Historical Knowledge 52 Division and its Uses 52 Interpretation Develops Historical Judgment 56 Emotional Results of Interpretation 68 Ethical Value of Interpretation 60 THE PROCESS OF COORDINATION. Nature of the Process. Basis of Coordination 64 Theoretical and Practical Need 65 Principle Stated 67 Suggestions as to Application.. 68 Educational Value of Coordination. Effects as to Knowledge 74 Power of Judging Contemporaneous Events 75 ORGANIZATION OF THE PERIODS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. PERIOD OF THK GROWTH OF LOCAL INSTITUTIONS. THE RELATION OF DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS TO THIS PERIOD. Not a Coordinate Phase of Institutional Life.. 77 True Connection and Rank 78 Non-American History 81 THE PERIOD AS A WHOLE. What Constitutes a Period 82 Nature of this Period 82 Organizing Idea 84 Phases of the Period 85 DIFFUSION OF RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. Why the New Differentiation is Made 86 The Organizing Principle in the Concrete 87 CONTENTS. Vll Principle Governing New England's Conduct toward PAGE English Authority 91 CENTRALISATION OF RIGHTS AND OPPORTUNITIES. Nature of this Organizing Idea 93 General Causes of the Movement 94 Economical Aspects 94 Social and Educational Effects 96 How the Principle Worked in Politics and Religion.... 98 Conclusion 100 Principle Governing Southern Colonists' Attitude toward England 101 THE MIDDLE COLONIES. Internal Institutional Growth 103 Attitude toward English Authority 104 PERIOD OF THE GROWTH OF UNION. THE PERIOD AS A WHOLE. Transition from Isolation to Union 105 Period Proper 107 Organization as a Whole 109 Phases of the Period Ill UNION AGAINST ENGLAND. Organizes Events from 1760 to 1783 112 Union on Basis of Rights of Englishmen 113 Union on Basis of Rights of Man 118 Organization of Military Events 120 UNION BETWEEN THE STATES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT. Organizing Idea of Second Half of the Revolution 129 Union on Basis of Sovereignty of the State 132 Union on Basis of Sovereignty of the Nation 135 Process and Material of Organization 137 Limit to the Process of Organizing a Period 140 Result 142 PERIOD OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONALITY. THE PERIOD AS A WHOLE. General Nature of the Period 145 Phases of the Period ..... 148 Vlli CONTENTS. NATIONALITY AND DEMOCRACY. PAGE A PEBIOD OF CONFLICT. Germs of the Conflict 149 Unconscious Progress of National Sentiment 150 Struggle Originates over Domestic Questions 152 Progress of the Conflict over Foreign Relations 158 Rapid Development of Anti-Democratic Sentiment among the Federalists 164 The Triumph of Democracy 166 THE MUTUAL APPROACH OF NATIONALITY AND DEMOCRACY. General Features of this Phase 170 Purchase of Louisiana 172 English Aggressions 175 Democracy's Efforts at Redress 176 Effects on Progress of Nationality and Democracy 179 War of 1812 as a Product of the National Spirit 180 The War as a Factor in Nationalizing Democracy 185 Significance of the Era of Good Feeling 190 THE FUSION OF NATIONALITY AND DEMOCRACY WORKING OUT ITS RESULTS. General Significance of this Phase 191 Significance of Jackson's Election 192 Jackson's Rule Interpreted 196 Campaign of 1840 201 Era of National Pride 203 NATIONALITY AND SLAVERY. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONFLICT. Origin of the Struggle 206 Meaning of the Missouri Struggle 210 Slavery Nullifies the Tariff 211 Meaning of the Movement for Texas 216 THE GROWTH OF 8ECTIONALIZATION. Process already Begun 216 Motive and Results of the Mexican War 219 How the Discovery of Gold in California Aided in Sec- tionalizing the Nation 222 Compromise of 1850 224 CONTENTS. IX PAGE Kansas-Nebraska BUI 226 Dred Scott Decision 229 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 230 Other Symptoms of the Triumph of Sectionalization.... 231 Meaning of the Charleston Convention 233 Significance of Secession 236 THE DESTRUCTION OF SLAVERY AND THE TRIUMPH OF THE NATION. Significance of Slavery's Appeal to Arms 238 Revival of Nationality in the North 240 How the Slavery Question Forced its Way to the Front 241 Significance of the Proclamation of Emancipation 245 Leading Military Events Making Good the Proclama- tion of Emancipation and the Restoration of the Nation 247 Other Events from the Proclamation to the Close of the War 250 Digging Slavery up by the Roots 252 THE ELEMENTARY PHASES OF HISTORY TEACHING. THE SENSE PHASE OF HISTORY. THE GENERAL PROBLEM. Logical and Chronological Method 255 Nature and Purpose of Sense History 256 The Material for Sense History 260 THE REPRESENTATIVE PHASE OF HISTORY. THE GENERAL PROBLEM. Nature and Immediate Purpose 269 The Remote Purpose 273 The Ethical Purpose 274 MATERIAL FOR REPRESENTATIVE HISTOBY. The Starting-point .... 276 Lines of Transition from the Present to the Past 278 A Background for Colonial Life 280 The Colony and the Institution with which to Begin.... 280 CONTENTS. PAGE KOKMS IN WHICH KEPRE8ENTATIVE MATERIAL MAY BE PRE- SENTED. The Story of the Ideal Historical Person 283 The Story of the Keal Historical Person 289 The Story Side of the Event 294 Illustrations of Material and Method of Work 298 HISTORY BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.... 309 I WELL know the danger that argues against wrenching a subject to make it support a preconceived theory. Efforts have been made to avoid this, and thus escape error and reach the truth. However, certain general principles of education have been present from the beginning, and have been either confirmed or modified by the investigation. It is now proposed to indicate the nature of the problem attacked and explain the method of its solution. To state the matter negatively, the aim has not been to discuss devices and external manipulations in teaching history ; the term " method " is not even intended to suggest diagrams, chronological charts, or expedients of like nature. But something far more fundamental has been the aim : the determining factors in method and not the determined the principal and not the accidental ones have been sought for and put to work at the problem. Whether diagrams, outlines, maps, and so on are to be used in teaching history cannot be decided by the whim of the teacher or by some current fashion in teach- ing the subject, but is to be decided, like other questions about devices and expedients, by an appeal to principles. Xll INTRODUCTION. It has been held in mind that education is an organic process carried on by the cooperation of two forces : mind, with its powers, processes, and products ; and subject, with its real or possible system 'of principles and facts. No neces- sity exists here for the discussion of the unsettled problem concerning the identity or non-identity of mind and sub- ject ; it is sufficient to know that in the educative process, conscious or unconscious, there is such a correspondence and cooperation between the two factors that changes are wrought in one of the factors, mind ; and we often speak of the subject as being changed from crude facts into some sort of system. In any event, the mind of the learner becomes educated its possibilities made realities by possessing the thought of the subject. ^_ In the process of learning the mind is conscious of the thing it thinks and not of its own subjective processes. In the process of teaching the learning mind is led and directed in its efforts to come into contact with the content of things. The teaching act involves another act of cor- respondence and cooperation ; the mind of the teacher and the mind of the learner cooperate in this act; the learner, as before stated, being conscious only of his subject, while the teacher is conscious of the learner's thinking of the subject. The teacher either is or is not directing a mental process. If he is, then his conscious attention must rest upon that process. The subject presents the common ground where the teaching mind and the learning mind meet. The sub- ject itself is the product of a series of mental processes ; it is a sort of mental formula which expresses the experi- INTRODUCTION. Xlll ence of the minds that have wrought it out. In order, therefore, to direct the student mind in its creation of the subject, the teacher must first have analyzed it into its mental processes and products!} The above are fundamental*iacts of method in teaching. 1 They are some of the determining principles upon which the so-called " methods " of teaching rest. To these must appeal be made in deciding what devices shall be used, questions asked, or directions given. How can a teacher know, for a certainty, what general devices are usable in any subject, without knowing the general forms of activity the subject calls forth ? How can a teacher prepare for the work of each day who cannot forecast the thinking and feeling to be aroused ? The above factors are valuable as correctives of experi- ence; they are above experience, for they inhere in the nature of the teaching act. Experience makes mistakes, and therefore is not the only guide, but must itself be guided. Following the experience of others may be mere imitation and make one the slave of forms, while teaching under the guidance of principles gives inspiration and confers freedom. The analysis of a subject into its mental process not only forms the basis for any rational discussion of the devices to be used in stimulating the learning mind, but such an analysis also forms the true basis for a discussion of the subject's educational value. The platitudes on 1 The teaching process is fully elaborated and illustrated in Tomp- kins' Philosophy of Teaching. xiv INTRODUCTION. educational values might well be exchanged for a critical analysis of the processes stimulated and the products created in the learning mind. Such an analysis is best made by observing the mind in the actual and concrete probess of working its way through the subject, and the most competent person to make this observation is the competent teacher whose function is to direct this process. The well-equipped public school teacher ought to be better able to make a helpful discussion of educational values in special fields than the superintendent, for he tests general products and results, while she ought to consciously direct processes in particular subjects. The specialist in a Normal School or University ought, also, to be better authority on the problem of method in his field than even the Professor of Methods or the Chair of Pedagogy. If specialists were to turn their attention to the problem of method and edu- cational values in this higher sense, we should ultimately bridge the chasm between our theory and practice ; our theory would vitalize our teaching and in return our teach- ing would exemplify the principles of our theory. This chasm is partly due to the fact that our educational doc- trines are obtained from a general study of mind alone, while they ought to be obtained from reducing this general view to a concrete form, or, perhaps better, the general view of mind ought to be approached through the medium of the subject which is mind in its concrete form. In making his preparation for teaching, the student has before him two subjects, apparently very different in every way ; he sees little kinship between psychology and grammar. INTRODUCTION. XV He usually feels that psychology is a professional subject a subject which somehow prepares him to teach, while the special subject is non-professional. Normal Schools generally set aside a portion of their work and dignify it by the term "professional," while other work is cheapened by being called academic. In a Normal School the study of language, history, or mathematics ought to be, and can be, made as strictly professional as the study of psychol- ogy. In truth the latter, as generally taught, is just as non-professional as Latin or algebra; the only way to render any subject professional is to study its bearing on the process of learning and teaching. The essential nature of geography is just as important a factor in determining the method of learning and teaching geography as is psychology. The result of this one-sided view or at best this dual view of professional preparation is that we have a litera- ture that speaks of applied psychology, as if it were a sub- ject to be learned and then in some way forced upon the subject, the subject made to fit a scheme that has been prepared beforehand without particularly consulting the subject to be professionalized. The result is that teachers "professionally trained" still continue unable to bridge the chasm between theory and practice. This imperfect conception of the nature and relations of the factors which must cooperate to determine rational methods of instruction is not confined to the graduates of Normal Schools. In fact, this class of teachers promise to do much toward remedying this evil. It INTRODUCTION. is the prevailing custom among teachers in secondary and primary schools to look upon the subject they teach as contributing very little to the method of its teaching. The result is to lower the subject and, worst of all, the work of teaching in the estimation of the teacher. The sub- ject stands as so much simple and easy matter upon which no special preparation for the recitation is needed. The work ceases to be interesting and sinks into mere drudgery. College graduates, as a rule, take the same low view of work in these schools. They feel that the branches taught even in the best secondary schools present no problem worthy of their metal ! There is a problem here worthy of their best endeavors and one that challenges, in point of difficulty, their strongest and keenest powers. They generally do not know where to look for it; it is a pedagogical, and not an academical, problem. This work is written with the con- fident hope that such a problem will be perceived in the domain of history teaching in the primary and secondary schools. The ideas briefly stated in the preceding pages have given general direction to this work. The plan has been to look into history and discover there the processes and products that the mind must work out in organizing its facts into a system. Accordingly, the first step analyzes a number of historical facts to discover some of the essen- tial concepts in history, and at the same time allows the facts discovered to indicate something about the general way in which the mind must move in the subject. This is followed by a more detailed inquiry into the general proc- INTRODUCTION. XVli esses involved in organizing the material of history into the form of a system. In other words, the general proc- esses of interpretation and coordination and subordination are inquired into and illustrated. Under the head of the educational value of interpretation and coordination and subordination the specific intellectual processes and prod- ucts are indicated and illustrated, and also the emotional and ethical stimulus imparted is pointed out. Next follows an attempt to make more definite the general principles of historical organization, and to show more fully their educa- tional value by looking into the various periods and sub- periods of American history. The purpose here is not to organize the periods in detail, but rather to demonstrate the possibility of doing so. With the ideal of historical organization in mind, as these steps aim to create it, the next part of the discussion deals with those preliminary steps that the immature mind of the primary and grammar grades must take in order to prepare the way for the real- ization of the ideal set forth above. History in its organ- ized or scientific form is an ideal toward which all work in the subject ought to be directed. The teacher in the primary and secondary schools ought to be under the influence of this view of history, and should be consciously influenced by the fact thafc his work is one step toward this goal. METHOD IN HISTORY. THE GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY AND THE PROCESSES INVOLVED IN THE ORGANI- ZATION OF HISTORICAL MATERIAL. ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HISTORY. The General Character of the Problem Two factors unite to produce historical knowledge, the transforming agent, mind, and the material to be transformed, the facts of history. The explanation of how historical facts become mind, and how mind becomes history, is the explanation of the process of learning history. The relation between these factors is an organic one. Hence, they can be most profitably discussed together. In fact it is mere specula- tion about historical science to discuss them out of this living relation, and leaves the ordinary teacher possessed of a body of theory and a body of concrete facts which have no power over each other. It is confidently believed that no better way can be found to enable the teacher to bridge the chasm between theory and practice than to exhibit the mind in the concrete process of working its way through history. 2 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. There must necessarily be two phases to our investiga- tion : the first will set forth the essential attributes of the material out of which history is constructed and the form which this science will take, thus exhibiting it as a system of ideas, history reduced to a form of thought ; the second will investigate the mental forms and processes that history calls forth, mind transformed into history, or at least transformed by history. The first of these phases is the one in which we end with a logical view of history, the form the subject must finally take in the mature mind. This final view is equally valuable to the teacher in every grade from the primary school to the university. This thought of the subject the university professor must build into the mind of the stu- dent, and the primary teacher must hold it in view as the goal for which she is preparing her pupils ; it is the ideal, on the side of the subject, that must inspire and beckon both. The discussion of the first phase naturally falls into two parts : one investigating the fundamental attributes of the subject-matter of history, and the other examining the func- tion of these attributes in the process of giving the subject its scientific form. Although each of these sub-phases will have its turn in the discussion, it is not intended to keep them rigidly separate, but, for pedagogical reasons already given, they will be interwoven. Whenever conclusions are reached as to the nature of historical material, their peda- gogical implications will generally be noted. An Erroneous View of History. One of the most com- mon errors about the nature of history is to regard it as ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HISTORY. 3 a " record." It is not a record, at least not more so than any other subject, for it does not deal with the record as such. History is hardly the thing recorded, for it does not deal with, events for their own sake, but only so far as ' they reveal the life of which they are the result. The " record " idea of history is a conception both superficial and harmful, superficial because it gives the teacher and student no clue to the real nature of the historical problem, and harmful because it both leads to the belief that the book is the subject, and suggests that the proper thing to do is to transfer the record from the book to the pupil's mind by means of verbal memory. 1 After making this brief statement of what history is not, let us go in quest of a conception that is more fundamental, and therefore more helpful ; and one, too, that is drawn from a careful analysis of the material of history itself. The Ideas of Form and Content in History Developed. - The Pilgrims landed in December, 1620; but, as far as we can see, our institutions would not be different if the Pilgrims had landed six months earlier or six months later. The landing was made on Plymouth Eock ; but it is difficult to show that this interesting incident has added to the sta- bility of our institutions. They came over in the Mayflower. What if it had been the Speedwell, a vessel of no mean name ? Would this have given America a different destiny ? This boatload of precious freight numbered one hundred 1 This view of the subject leads to assigning lessons in terms erf paragraphs and pages ; and, what is still worse, the recitation is con- ducted in the same way. 4 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. two souls. What if there had been one hundred or one hundred twenty ? Would this difference in num- bers have changed our political, religious, and social life ? They signed the " Compact " in the cabin of the Mayflower; but it could have been signed on land without having had its significance altered. There is one thing in the life of this hardy band, and in the life of the numerous bands that came to New England and elsewhere, that could not have been changed without changing our history. If these early settlers had been animated by a different set of political, religious, and social ideas, the whole character and trend of our institutions would have been altered. The Declaration of Independence was made in Indepen- dence Hall, Philadelphia, on July 4, 1776, in the hand- writing of Thomas Jefferson, and with the big signature of John Hancock attached. This event is a fact of great sig- nificance in the life of our people, but in what does its significance really consist ? Is it found in any or all of the incidents named ? Many of these, however interesting, seem matters of accident. Could not the Declaration have been made in Carpenters' Hall, on some other day, in the handwriting of some clerk, and have been signed by some other president of the Continental Congress ? Would such a variation in these facts have materially affected the course of the Revolution ? Could not all of these happenings have been different, and yet the wnole of our history have been, in the main, what it has been ? But there is a some- thing here without which the superstructure of our insti- tutional life would be entirely different. This vital thing ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HISTORY. 5 is the thought expressed in the Declaration, the political doctrines of the American people, then and now, which it sets forth. This is the historical content of the event and the document we call the Declaration of Independence ; this is its life ; for without these ideas back of it, the event would not have occurred. The battle of Gettysburg was seen, heard, and felt by its participants. It had a time and a place; there were so many soldiers in line on each side, and these were com- manded by certain officers ; so many men were killed and wounded. In short, a hundred interesting incidents con- nect themselves with this gigantic contest. But did these things constitute the real Gettysburg ? Could not most, if not all, of these features have varied and yet the real his- torical fact have occurred? The ideas and principles that surged in the brains and hearts of the two armies and of the two sections, and without which the physical struggle would not have been, were the true Gettysburg. No ; the student who does not see two sets of political, social, and industrial ideas belch from the opposing cannon and gleam from sword and saber or flash from deadly bayonet misses the permanent and enduring Gettysburg ! If the process of analysis were applied to other events in our history, or to events connected with the life of any people, it would confirm what is already apparent, namely, that there are two sets of facts in history. From this brief analysis, however, the following conclusions may be drawn as to the nature of history and as to the method of its study : 6 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. 1. That one set of historical facts is made up of a people's acts and the other of their thoughts and feelings, ideas and emotions, and that these two sets are parallel in time and together in place. This suggests a more inti- mate connection. 2. That deeds or events are the signs or expressions of . a people's thought and feelings. Man thinks and feels, and acts because he thinks and feels. The act, therefore, is adapted to give expression to his state of mind. Hence, the student may read a nation's thought in its events. 1 3^ It may be said that events constitute the outer form /of the subject-matter of history, while thoughts, emotions, / and so on, constitute the essence or content of history. It follows, then, that the problem of history lies in the mas- I tery of the content, while the events perform the function / of means. 4. Events occur, but ideas continue. Events are tran- sient while ideas are enduring. Only ideas recur. The same idea or sentiment may express itself in numberless events of very different characteristics. The event, there- fore, is particular, while the idea or sentiment may be viewed as general. It follows that connections and con- 1 Every subject of study presents these two phases, form and content. In mathematics we have signs, rules, and formulae; and number, its processes and relations. In language are found words, sentences, and paragraphs ; and also thoughts ; and so on with other subjects. " The amount of bad teaching growing out of a failure to clearly differentiate form and content is simply appalling." The most common mistake is to exalt form into an end, and degrade con- tent into a means, or permit it to disappear altogether. ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HISTORY. 7 tinuity in history must be sought in ideas rather than among events. The full pedagogical significance of this distinction will be seen further on. 5. Primarily, events are effects, while thoughts and feel- ings are the causes. But a people in the process of acting under the impulse of an idea may modify it very greatly, may intensify or diminish its strength, or may catch new glimpses of its advantage or its disadvantage. In a sec- ondary sense, then, events are causes and ideas are effects. The suggestion here is that the teacher must see to it that students catch the change in public sentiment that comes through action, as well as search for the true cause of events in a preceding state of public sentiment. Growth in History is under the Laws of Continuity and Differentiation. It must be apparent from the above conclusions that the problem of how to study and how to teach history can be illuminated by a closer study of what is seen to be the real essence of history, rather than by a study of its outer form. This essence or content is the life of a people, its life of thought and feeling. Thoughts and feelings are forces that tend to realize themselves by growth. They grow in extent by passing from mind to mind. This process may go on until they absorb the attention of the whole people. But such growth is marked by changes in the ideas themselves. The laws under which the content of history develops will appear from the illustrations below. A long time ago, the English kings called around them their richest nobles to see how much they would give to 8 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. carry on government or to prosecute war. This was re peated until it became a right on the part of the lords to grant or refuse aid. After a time, other classes sent repre- sentatives to advise the king. The two sets 'of advisers formed the two houses of parliament, and the people through these representatives managed the government of England. The English colonies carried the idea to Amer- ica. In early colonial times there was but one set of representatives for purposes of legislation, men elected to represent the town or county in the colonial legislatures. But before the Eevolution, nearly all of the colonies had two sets of representatives. The Eevolution called for a third set of delegates to represent the colony in the Con- tinental Congress. The idea of delegated authority has made great strides since that time. Now the ward has its representatives in the common council, the township has its delegates to the commissioners' court, while the county elects men to go to the state legislature, and the. states in turn elect two sets of representatives to the national Congress. The idea goes further : it has penetrated reli- gious, educational, and industrial organizations, and seems to furnish a convenient method of conducting any affair in a large way. The complexity of the system is in strik- ing contrast with the simple method of the colonial days or of the still simpler way of early England. Continuity and differentiation in the content of history are also well illustrated by the development of the idea of toleration in religion. Once Virginia persecuted Baptists and Puritans, while Massachusetts banished Roger Williams ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HISTORY. 9 and hanged Quakers ; but even in colonial times, the laws against Quakers were either repealed or not -enforced, and the penalties against heresy were greatly reduced. The revolutionary struggle wore off the sharp edges of religious prejudice, so that most of the states recognized religious freedom in their new constitutions. The sentiment of toleration won its way so completely that the Constitution declared the national legal separation of church and state ; but religious freedom has not ceased growing after winning a formal and legal recognition of its right ; it is now taking on the form of a moral and personal right. The large and increasing number of religious sects at present, compared with the number in colonial days, shows how rapidly differ- entiation in religious belief has gone on. Other illustrations of these laws may be found by tra- cing the development of our public-school system from its colonial germs to its present high degree of complexity, and also by marking the evolution of the crude industrial ways of our early settlers down to the highly developed organism of our own times. 1 From the above analyses and illustrations the following conclusions may be drawn : 1. That history deals with the life of a people in the process of growth. The content of history is not a dead or fixed thing, but it lives and moves ; it is dynamical and not statical. 1 The importance of clearly understanding these laws justifies large illustration. Each new illustration can be made more helpful by using a different sort of idea from those found in preceding illustrations. 10 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. 2. A people's life of thought and feeling obeys the law of continuity and of differentiation. The law of continuity means that there are no breaks or leaps in the life of a people. Development may hasten or may slacken, and may seem to cease for a time, but it is always continuous ; it always proceeds out of antecedent conditions, and if it be arrested for a time, it begins again at the point where it ended. The operation of continuity makes history a unit, and is the basis of the organization of its facts into a system. 3. The law of differentiation means that the thoughts and feelings of a people take on new form in the process of growth. The new idea or movement, under continuity, bears resemblance to its former self, while under differen- tiation it is becoming unlike its former self. Continuity retains something of the old, while differentiation brings to it something new. In adding to the content of history, differentiation produces complexity and at the same time gives, in the new difference, the basis for noting progress. 1 4. That the understanding of history requires the stu- dent to take ideas as germs and trace them through all phases of their growth, thus putting continuous and paral- lel threads of thought through the entire subject. This is a kind of organization, because it puts a similar, though not identical, content into remote and very diversified events. Five Lines of Growth and Five Great Institutions in History. Not only do certain lines of thought develop in obedience to the laws of continuity and differentiation, 1 The constant recurrence, through their application, of the points under " 2 " and " 3 " makes their further illustration unnecessary. ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HISTORY. 11 but the life of the race, as a whole, grows in the same way. An examination of the life of any people will reveal certain permanent features common to the history of all civilized nations. There will be found five well-marked phases, a political, a religious, an educational, an indus- trial, and a social phase. These are further differentiated by the fact that each has a great organization, called an institution, around which it clusters, and whose purpose, plan of work, and machinery are peculiar to itself. For political ideas the center is the institution called govern- ment ; for religious ideas, the church'; for educational and culture influences, the school ; for industrial life, occupa- tion ; and for social customs, the family. But there was a time when these elements of life were not so fully differ- entiated. The primitive history of all peoples shows that, in the beginning, institutional life presented itself to man's consciousness as a simple and undivided whole. Abraham did not separate in thought his political from his religious duties ; nor did he think of his business and social interests as different and disconnected. In his day there were only the germs of a government, a church, and a school ; and these were so interwoven with other interests that they constituted one great life. But between then and now the principle of differentiation has done its work so perfectly that we often think of the government without the church coming into mind, and so with the other institutions. These institutions have become great crystallized centers of life around which the thoughts and feelings of a people grow. 12 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. \ . Growth becomes permanent by being embodied, through law or custom, in its appropriate institution. Growth in political thought and feeling finds entrance into govern- ment ; public sentiment, under the pressure of war, abol- ished slavery in this country, and the result was written in our constitution ; the rise of political parties has added many new customs to our method of president-making. A movement in religious sentiment may ultimately embody itself in church, creed, or custom. The admission of women to colleges on equal terms with men shows that the school adjusts itself to the growth of educational ideas ; the idea of a practical education, so called, has spread till all classes of schools the public school, the college, and the uni- versity have felt its touch and have remodeled courses of study so as to harmonize with the new idea. Similarly this is true of social and industrial life. This crystalliza- tion of institutional thought and feeling makes progress possible, a given generation profiting by the labor of the one that is past, and building for the one that is to come. But this is not all gain ; for an idea, after embodiment in institutions through formal enactment or by well-established custom, tends to cease growing ; it becomes very largely a conservative force, and hinders to some extent further progress. The established order in society sets itself up in the minds of people as an ideal to be maintained, and public sentiment moves away only after another and differ- ent ideal wins the people to its support. Unless public opinion is unanimous, it is impossible to embody it completely in a rule of action. In most cases, ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HISTORY. 13 even after successful revolution, there is a form of the dominant sentiment too radical to gain the support of a majority. The unembodied sentiment may constitute the germs of a new movement, and under appropriate condi- tions may produce a conscious difference between what is and what ought to be. When this difference becomes marked, a conflict usually follows ; it may be only a spirited controversy ; it may be a new revolution. In the latter case, public sentiment is marked by a high degree of consciousness, by great intensity of passion and the destruction of old forms of thought and action, and by the rapid development of new phases. It often happens in movements attended by the display of passion that many temporary and extraneous phases of sentiment appear, catch the ear of a faction, then disappear and cease to affect either of the great currents of thought and feeling. From this examination of the law of differentiation as applied to the growth of institutional life as a whole, and to the embodiment of growth in permanent forms, certain inferences may be drawn : 1. That the phenomena of history may be grouped in five different classes ; that history is not confined to the study of politics, but includes the entire life of a people. 1 1 It is interesting to note the progress made on this point by our school histories. The earlier texts gave large space to military ex- ploits of all kinds, particularly those with the Indians. This class of works was followed by another that gave less attention to war and more to the study of political events, but ignoring, in the main, the other four phases of life. Many of these texts are now in use in 14 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. 2. That there are five lines of growth that move on down through the life of a people and give linear continuity to the subject, and, therefore, a clue to the method of its organization. 3. That each of these phases of a people's thought clusters around and becomes embodied in a great and per- manent institution. 4. That the more advanced phases of sentiment do not, for the time, become embodied in either law or custom, and thus they form germs that may produce a conflict between what is and what ought to be. Hence the student must take account of ideas and sentiments that fail to find accept- ance with the majority. The Five Phases not always of Coordinate Historical Value. While these great ganglia of humanity's life are all structurally essential to its well-being, yet they are not, at all times and in all movements of that life, of equal his- torical value. Movements, large or small, have been char- acterized usually by the predominance of one of these phases. Now it is the religious, again the political ; and at another time the social and economic are so blended in the movement that neither seems to dominate ; often, as will be demonstrated below, the results may be profoundly felt in every phase of institutional life, and yet very seldom are found equally distributed among them. Political institutions absorb public attention in our age more than any others. This is partly an epochal tendency, schools. But another kind of history text is beginning to find favor, one that takes account of the whole life of the people. ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HISTORY. 15 for it was hardly true of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But it seems mainly true now because govern- mental functions have been so extended as to have over- sight of all other interests. At least, government undertakes to adjust the interests of the various institutions so as to promote the best life of the whole and of its parts. While each institution reacts upon government, yet it effects this indirectly, and more or less unconsciously. The state, therefore, gives direction not only to political history, but to some extent to all history. Since politics is not political only, it seems proper that the political phase of life should constitute a greater portion of history than any other. 1 The Organic Unity of Institutional Life. Although the process of differentiation has given us five well-marked sets of institutional ideas, yet the principle of continuity teaches us to look for their organic unity. Some illustra- tions will set forth this life-connection between the phases. The French and Indian war was a great military event, and, as such, belonged immediately to the domain of gov- ernment. It produced, as we should expect, great political results, but besides these there flowed from it religious and industrial consequences of almost infinite importance. This struggle decided that North America should become a new home for English Protestantism, and that French Catholicism must return to European soil. This result lifted a great load from the minds and hearts of the English 1 Whether this ought to be so may perhaps be a question, but that it is so is not a question, whatever the explanation. 16 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. colonists. Yet, even if victory had belonged to France, the religious effect would have been just as great, and the principle of historical growth would have been as fully illustrated. Again, this war brought into personal contact the Puritan, the Baptist, the Dutchman, and the Cavalier ; they messed together, marched together, and fought to- gether; they shared each other's joys and sorrows, victories and defeats. Seven years of this and other forms of mu- tual intercourse did much to tone down religious exclusive- ness and prejudice. A series of military events thus pro- duced profound religious effects. This war also decided that free instead of parochial schools should bless America ; and yet more, for it destroyed the possibility of French family and social life. This long struggle also burdened both England and the colonies with heavy debts. The former tried to lighten her load by putting new burdens on the trade of the latter. The colonies replied by refusing to have commercial intercourse with England, and began to develop their own resources, which led the way to com- mercial as well as to political independence. So much for the political, religious, educational, industrial, and social effects of a series of military events. The American Revolution was a mighty political upheaval whose forces are not yet spent. The American people came out of this struggle with greatly modified social, moral, and religious ideas and feelings. Let us push our examination further by looking at a form of growth that did not have its origin in politics. The planters at Jamestown took that first cargo of dusky ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HISTORY. 17 freight purely as a business venture ; they simply asked how to raise tobacco in the easiest and cheapest way ; they had no thought of its bearing on the other forms of insti- tutional life. The venture proved successful and the system of slave labor filled the South. But slavery gave the master and his children wealth and leisure, while to the non-slaveholding white, it brought poverty and toil ; he could not win a competence for himself and family in competition with slave labor ; whatever his ambition, the poor white could hardly break over the industrial barrier that slavery built between him and success. The children of the planter could be educated, but this institution which began as a business venture denied to the child of the non- slaveholder an opportunity for an education ; poverty could not educate its children, and slavery refused to build free schools. These differences drew a sharp line through Southern social life. There was little fellowship between the two classes of families, for this industrial venture had given into the hands of one class all the social amenities that wealth, leisure, and intelligence could bring, while to the other class all of these were denied. All these influ- ences made the slaveholder the politician of the South ; no other class was so well fitted for statesmanship. He was the most desirable man to send to the colonial legisla- tures, and afterwards to the National Congress. This industrial venture seemed to favor office-holding, for the South, at all times, furnished a larger proportion of na- tional officials, according to her population, than any other section of the country. In the colonial legislatures, the 18 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. slaveholder passed laws that favored the development of this industrial system. In the nation at large, slavery organized and destroyed political parties, dictated the nomination of candidates for the presidency, defeated can- didates opposed to its interests, declared war, and made treaties. Not only did this industrial system thus mold the politics of our country, but it also colored the moral and religious thought and feeling of the entire nation ; it forced Southern pulpits to manipulate Holy Writ in its - defence ; it rent in twain religious organizations that were hoary with age. Thus we see that negro slavery, an indus- trial institution in its origin, affected most profoundly every phase of our institutional life. If this analysis be correct, the following conclusions may be drawn : 1. That the life of a people is an organic whole ; that this life is one mighty stream of five currents moving on toward one goal ; that there is not one destiny for govern- ment, another for the church, another still for the school, and a different one for industrial and social interests, but that all these constitute one life with one destiny. 2. That the student must trace transverse and intricate, as well as parallel, lines of growth in the subject of his- tory ; that he must take each great event and each great series of events, and discover the extent to which many or all of the institutions are affected, thus producing in his own mind a body of organized knowledge which shall be the subjective counterpart of that objective unity found in the life of a people. PROCESSES INVOLVED IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. The General Nature of Organization. The general principles wrought out in the preceding pages throw some light on the possibility of organizing historical material. It is now proposed to ask how the mind takes what appears at first view as disconnected and isolated facts of history and organizes them into a consistent body of knowledge; to state and illustrate the particular processes through which this material goes, and the final form it takes in the mind of the student. This will make clear the trans- formation of historical matter into a system of thought. The analysis of the processes involved in organizing a subject makes the student conscious of the so-called scien- tific view of the subject. Science declares that every subject of investigation presents two sets of facts for organization, generals and individuals, laws and princi- ples on the one hand, and particular and specific phenomena on the other. Neither set viewed alone constitutes the subject, nor do both, taken merely in the aggregate ; it is only when the mind grasps these two sets of facts in their organic unity that we have a subject in the true scientific sense. The relation is a vital one, for science declares that principles * are originally discovered by the examination of 1 Principles in history resemble all others in being general in their nature, and differ from some in being active forces moving to the 20 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. individual facts, while the latter are to be looked upon as the concrete embodiment of principles ; in other words, if the mind begins with one it must pass to the other and back again in order to realize the scientific ideal so far as organ- ization is concerned. The problem of organization, there- fore, is really the problem of constructing a science, that is, of discovering, stating, and explaining the relations between these two sets of facts. Organization is, therefore, a mental process and not a mechanical one. No subject, as many teachers unfortu- nately think, can be organized in a notebook or on a black- board. At best, such an arrangement of "words and signs can only suggest a few of the relations and processes involved in organization. Too often systems of lines, braces, and brackets delude the mind and become a sub- stitute for that real organization which can only take place in the thinking mind. The Organizing Principle of History. There is a central principle in every subject which sets it off from every other subject, and at the same time is the very core of its every phase and fact. 1 In history we have found this central principle to be the growth of institutional production of the individual facts through which they express them- selves. Like most principles, they inhere in content rather than in form, and vary in degree of generality from those found in a few indi- vidual facts to those sweeping in all the individuals of the subject. 1 A fact may be found in one or in many subjects according as it contains the central idea of one or many subjects. The same fact may appear in biology, geology, and history, but in each case it is related to a different principle and exhibits a different content. PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 21 life, because this idea touches and is touched by all the great events which mark the course of human destiny. Some events have helped and some have hindered the evolution of institutional life, but all have been related to it. Not only is this principle fundamental to all events, but also to all sub-phases of human thought and feeling, whether they have characterized periods of calm or periods of agitation, periods of evolution or periods of revolution. 1 The Fundamental Processes in Organization. We have already learned that organization names the proc- esses by which the mind arranges the material of a sub- ject according to its inherent relations. Based upon the relations between the principles of history and its par- ticular facts, historical organization has two fundamental processes : 1. Interpretation, which gives the basis for integration and division ; 2. Coordination and subordination, which, results in the proper selection and ranking of facts. THE PROCESS OF INTERPRETATION. NATURE AND KINDS. Definition of Interpretation. Interpretation is the process by which the mind puts meaning or content into 1 Some excellent thinkers in history express the universal organiz- ing principle of history in terms of rational freedom. Perhaps the only practical objection to this statement of the principle is that it is too abstract to permit a statement of subordinate phases. 22 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. individual facts. This is a universal process and goes on wherever mind and object meet. In each individual fact two phases of content are discovered by interpretation : one phase is common to many other facts, while the other is peculiar to the interpreted fact. When interpretation reveals a content common to many individuals the basis of integration is found, while the discovery of the particu- larizing element furnishes the ground for division. In history the process of interpretation is carried on by discovering the growth of institutional life in particular events or in some more individual phase of thought and feeling. There are thus two kinds of interpretation in history ; one puts content into events, and the other puts content into subordinate phases of institutional life. The Interpretation of Events. Here external occur- rences are viewed as the sign of some internal movement of the people's thought' and feeling. To discover this movement through its sign, the event, is to interpret the latter. We have learned that just as a word is the sign of an idea, so is the act of a people the sign of their ideas and feelings. The event is the more easily interpreted because a people in conscious action generally selects the kind of event best adapted to give expression to its states of thought and feeling. The full meaning of an event is obtained by viewing it under two relations : 1. As a product of a preceding movement in thought and feeling. Here the event is seen to emerge from the concrete life of a people and to be a natural and normal result of surrounding conditions. PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 23 In other words, the event is viewed as a sort of receptacle into which the preceding current of public sentiment flows, and which it really created in the course of its develop- ment. 2. The second step in the interpretation of an event is to view it as a factor producing changes in the movement out of which it grew. Here the event returns, as it were, into the stream of institutional life, and works there those changes which it is capable of producing as cause. Both of these points of view of the content of an event are necessary to its complete interpretation. If the event to be interpreted is a great one or is long continued, then a third step must be taken, namely, to see how public opinion changes while the event is in the process of occur- ring. The excitement of action intensifies thinking, and produces changes in the minds of the persons involved. These changes are often very great, as in the case of a series of events, such as a war. Sometimes this is the only means of accounting for the changes set on foot by the event. In such instances, this intermediate step would become second in the process of interpreting an event. Some illustration of the interpretation of events will serve to make the conception more accurate. The founding of Jamestown was an external event, and it remains such to the student until it is discovered to be the product and the sign of England's desire to extend her institutions and interests to the western continent. Further content is given to this event when its success is seen to stimulate the national desire for colonial empire. The formation of societies for non-importation by the 24 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. colonial merchants is an event to be interpreted. In gene- ral, this is to be done by discovering in these organizations an idea reaching further than they did, and which appears as content in a wider range of events, and also by discover- ing in them a form of sentiment peculiar to them. The idea found as the content in these events is that of union then (1765) growing up and beginning to control the acts of the colonists from Maine to Georgia. We put union into these organizations by discovering that they are caused by the agitation for organized resistance to the Stamp Act. In doing this the student views this series of events as the natural outgrowth of the movement toward union begun before 1765. But he must take another step, and trace the immediate effect of these participations in organizations on the further growth of the sentiment of union, and thus gather their contribution to this great struggle. This is done by watching how cooperation in their formation and functions roused a stronger sentiment, how it made aggressive the society of the Sons of Liberty ; gave origin to the Daughters of Liberty with their organizations for the promotion of household production and the develop- ment of an infectious enthusiasm for American liberty ; and finally how it stimulated those lower passions of hate and spite between the friends and foes of the new move- ment, and made each firmer in the position taken. But the student must go further in his interpretation, and trace the effect of non-importation upon American thought and feeling. He must see how the merchants gained greater confidence in union and cooperation through these organi- PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 25 zations, since by them they entailed an immense industrial loss upon the English merchant, manufacturer, and laborer. Here the student ought to see the consternation of these classes : of the merchant as no more orders for goods came from America, of the manufacturer as he closed his estab- lishment or discharged a portion of his laborers, of the latter as they ceased to draw wages, and were unable to pay debts and to buy food; and the united action of all these in storming parliament with petitions, and finally the great speeches in that body which reveal changing national sentiment in favor of repeal. In these facts he will discover the true explanation of how fidelity to union was exalted into a virtue, and how opposition was regarded as a crime, how non-importation began to be looked upon as an efficient means of commercial retaliation, which lasted long after the revolution was over. It may not be amiss to explain here how the process of interpretation cannot be carried on. It is customary, when explaining the non-importation societies, simply to say that " they were caused by the Stamp Act." For the student, this may or may not be true. In one sense it cannot be true, for one external act has little if any direct historical influence over another. The Stamp Act and the non-impor- tation societies, as external facts pictured in imagination, were three thousand miles apart and could not touch each other. Let us suppose that physical contact is not meant. Can the teacher be certain from the statement quoted what is meant ? Ordinarily it would not mean that the relation to public sentiment had been traced ; that these organiza- 26 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. tions had been seen to grow out of, and back into, this sen- timent. Perhaps the pupil is left to the ingenuity of his own imagination to discover the true relations between these events. So long as that imagination passes directly from one event to another, no possibility of interpretation exists, for one individual fact has no interpretative power over another of the same rank. The Interpretation of Phases of Institutional Life. The fact that the principles of a subject vary in degree of generality, and that the less general phases of institutional growth are phases of some more general movement, makes the process of interpretation possible for this class of his- torical facts. This form of interpretation may be illus- trated in a brief manner by the following example. The dominant idea in forming the Confederation, the cause for which the small states struggled in the convention of 1787, the principle in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, the recommendations of the Hartford convention, the doctrine of nullification as set forth by Calhoun and South Carolina, and the principle of secession, were only phases of the same great idea, the sovereignty of the state. For the mind to discover the identity of this general institutional idea with this large number of apparently isolated and particular phases, is to interpret them. The meaning of each particular phase is greatly enriched by discovering in it the principle of state sovereignty. Other illustra- tions on a large scale may be found in the phases of union developed during the revolution, and also in the sentiment of nationality from 1789 to 1860. PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 27 FORMS OF THOUGHT AND SENTIMENT AS DISCOVERED IN INTERPRETATION. Causes. It must be apparent, already, that the process of interpretation aims to put the student into close and inti- mate contact with the people whose life he studies. How to make events and other facts adequately reflect that life is a vital question in teaching history. In order to do this, at least all the important phases of thought and sentiment in a given movement must be reached. All. the various color- ings that public opinion puts on in its process of growth will serve to deepen and enrich impressions. To see the way in which these various effects are produced in insti- tutional life greatly aids their interpretation. In fact it is absolutely essential to right interpretation that history be conceived as a process. But it is difficult to view it as such, although we have seen this to be a fundamental char- acteristic of its content. The imagination is prone to pic- ture scenes and situations and thus deceive the judgment into thinking history statical. This false view is best corrected by constantly tracing the influences and forces that produce the historical process. Such factors are denominated causes, but they are such to the student only when traced into the current of institutional life. It is quite fashionable now to go outside the historical field into the domain of geology, geography, and so on, to find the causes of the historical process. This is entirely proper and necessary, provided the student can trace these extra- 28 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. historical causes into the current of human thought and i'eeling and note there the changes made. Only in this way can other subjects contribute to the interpretation of history. We have already seen that in the general process of in- terpretation the student must put into the event the public sentiment that precedes and succeeds it. In doing this the mind looks upon the movement of this sentiment as a cause producing the event, and as an effect partly pro- duced by the event. We thus see that the content of events may be viewed as both cause and effect. It will make interpretation clearer if we look at the nature of historical causes. Positive and Negative Causes. On the basis of their essential nature we may class causes as positive or negative. Public sentiment, or any force which molds public senti- ment, is positive when by virtue of its essential nature it tends to progress, tends to promote civilization. A posi- tive cause is constructive in intent and being. A negative cause is a phase of public sentiment or a force which tends, from its inherent nature, to be destructive, or at least obstructive ; it tends to stand in the way of progress. Thus the sentiment that favored union in the colonies against the aggression of England was positive, while the attitude of king and parliament was negative. The sen- timent in favor of a strong government during the Con- federation was a positive cause, for, in its nature, it was progresssive and constructive ; while the opposition to the adoption of the Constitution was a negative cause, for the PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 29 reason that it tended, from its nature, to hinder progress. The causes of the Civil War, or of any great war, may be classified in the same way. If revolutions be compared as to the number of positive and negative causes, it will be found that the greater number of negative causes belong to the most destructive revolutions, while the number of positive causes increases as the revolution approaches the character of an evolution in institutional life. Hence the interpretative value of classifying the causes of a move- ment in history under these categories. 1 Fundamental and Particular Causes. In viewing the contents of events as active forces, a more valuable classi- fication of causes may be found based upon differences in the degree of generality in the content. On this basis the student will discover that some are particular and special, while others are general and fundamental. The particular and the general, we have seen, bear a vital relation to each other in every department of knowledge. Hence, to be able to discover a series of causes as particular phases of some greater truth means not only more perfect interpre- tation, but is a long step toward organization in the form of integration. An illustration will make this clear. Let 1 Careful analysis will reveal that positive movements produce at times negative results. The American Revolution, as a whole, was a mighty, positive force, making for progress hi almost every phase of institutional life, and yet many of its results were negative. Likewise negative causes may produce positive results. The Boston Port Bill was negative, and yet it produced many positive results. In all such cases some factor intervenes to turn the cause toward an effect oppo- site hi nature. 30 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. us take the causes of the decline of the Confederation. Here they are, as frequently seen in text-books : 1. The Confederation had no executive or judicial department. 2. Congress could not raise an army. 3. No power of direct or indirect taxation was given to the Confederation. 4. Congress had no control over domestic commerce. 5. Congress could not enforce treaties with other nations. 6. The Confederation operated on states and not on individuals. 7. The Articles of Confederation recognized the sov- ereignty of the state. 8. Voting in congress was by states. 9. The people owed allegiance to the state only. The effect of these and of other causes that might be named was the destruction of the Confederation. As causes they were forces in the process of working out the result indicated. The student must see them as such must witness them in this process if the right interpretation is to be made and a proper value set on each cause as a factor in the result. But there are three views, any one of which he may take. He may look upon these state- ments as expressing a given amount of historical fact, statistical in its nature, which may be learned by usin:j memory, thus gaining no interpretation. Again, the stu- dent may see each of these as a real force moving toward its own result. Each is thus only an individual and PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 31 isolated cause and hence of little organizing value. This is always the result of seeing only a series of direct or particular causes. The above points of view may be taken without the con- sciousness of the fundamental cause coming into the stu- dent's mind. In this state of mind he sees no connection between the first cause given above and the last one. The identity of causes two, three, four, and so on, with the last cause in the list is not perceived. The only con- nection, the only kinship among these causes that this view gives is that each aids, as a cause, in producing the same result, the downfall of the Confederation. This process is vastly superior to the first named, for it yields more discipline and a better understanding of the subject. Another view may be taken : the general or fundamental cause may be found and the others may be interpreted with reference to it. The careful comparison and contrast of the causes listed above will show that the first eight are closely related to the ninth cause. By common con- sent, when the colonists transferred their allegiance from England, they gave it on all domestic concerns primarily to their respective colonial governments/ The Continental Congress recognized this relation in creating the Confedera- tion by making the states, in the main, sovereign. Wherever primary allegiance is placed, there sovereignty will reside. This shows that allegiance conditions sovereignty, and that cause seven is the result of cause nine. Great men like Madison and Hamilton attributed much of the Con- 32 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. federation's weakness to the fact that it did not operate on individuals. The truth is that the Confederation had no individuals citizens on which to operate. The people were citizens of the states, because they had placed their allegiance there, hence cause nine is the cause of cause six. Why could not congress enforce treaties made by itself ? Who violated such treaties ? Evidently the citizens of the states. What power had congress over them? None, since they owed allegiance to their respective states. Thus cause five is the effect of cause nine. The fourth cause in the list bears a similar relation to the last one. Logically, the framers of the Confederation could not have given the Confederation control over domestic commerce after recognizing that the people owed it no direct alle- giance. It would simply have aggravated the situation if the Confederation had been given executive and judicial departments. The attempt of the executive to enforce the laws of congress or execute the decisions of the judges would have brought the states and the Confederation into violent collision, for the citizens of the states would have been constantly appealing to their own authorities for pro- tection. The men who made the Articles were more logical than some of their critics have been. In the same way the remaining particular causes of the fall of the Confederation may be traced to the fundamental cause, thus illustrating its interpreting value, as compared with the other possible ways of viewing the causes of this great event in American history. From every point of view we must see that the reduction of these causes to PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 33 their highest terms is vastly more to be desired than either of the other methods of working with them. It thus appears possible to reduce a series of particular causes to one fundamental one, or at least to a few. In no subject Is it more difficult than in history to reduce diversity to unity. The constant tendency of the student, especially in dealing with causes, is to enumerate facts which have obvious differences and take it for granted that a new fact has been discovered, when in truth the new fact may be only another embodiment of a general idea which has already been often discovered in other particular facts. A similar study of the causes of the Civil War will show like results, the reduction of a larger number of particular causes to one, slavery, or at most two, slavery and state sovereignty. This illustration is an example of the process of interpreting great movements as a whole in the light of their causes, and may also be viewed as illus- trating the interpretation of particular phases of thought l rather than the interpretation of events. It is very apparent that the teacher may set his class a very inter- esting and valuable problem : Analyze the particular causes for a general cause and show how the general cause is found in each particular cause. The classification applied to causes may be extended to effects with the same educational advantages. The inter- pretation of a movement as a whole not only requires a study of causes but also of its effects, for the nature of 1 Other illustrations of this most important form of interpretation will be given under the various periods. 34 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. a movement is partly expressed in its results. Results reflect to a large extent the movement as a whole which produced them. Hence to classify these as positive or negative and as general or particular is to give a fuller understanding of the movement. Purpose and Means. The process of interpretation is not complete if it leaves out of the content of historical facts the intention and motives of men. The ambition of a single great man, the plans and purposes of men in organizations societies, parties, armies, or nations are factors in the movement of history. In truth, most of the physical forces of history are transformed and enter human consciousness as motives and ends on account of which men struggle. Causes and effects may come and go in history for a long time without arresting the attention of the people, or at most, without absorbing enough notice by touching their interests to create a conscious effort for a well- defined end. As long as this is true, the categories of cause and effect are sufficient to account for and to inter- pret historical movements. But when causes and their effects begin to be more widely recognized, men assume a new attitude toward them. As the movement increases in intensity, persons arise who seek to promote or retard it, or it may be, to use it for other and ulterior ends. When this stage is reached, the student must always take into account the transformation that has taken place. What was once an unconscious moving energy becomes now a great stream of thought and activity marching toward PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 35 some well-defined goal. A striking illustration of this transformation of cause and effect into means and end is seen in the growth of sentiment that made the Civil War possible. Without trying to be very specific we may say that one of the causes of the struggle was the estrangement that grew up between the two sections. This result was of slow growth, its roots extending far back into colonial days. But in that early time no one recognized or took account of it, its work was going on silently. It was not until the first quarter of this century that even great statesmen in both sections began to bestow upon it any- thing like continuous thought. The Missouri struggle was the first event to call general attention to the grow- ing gulf, and although the Webster-Hayne debate, nulli- fication by South Carolina, and the struggle for the right of petition attracted still wider attention to the disparity in thought and feeling between the two sections, yet the idea of their estrangement took great hold on only a few minds. From now on Webster and Clay are devoted, each in his way, to the preservation of the Union, while Calhoun, perhaps unconsciously, gives up his life to a cause that could only promote the growing estrangement of the two portions ; yet it is plain that the majority of the people at this time did not take the question into their thoughts and feelings and resolve to accomplish certain ends, one part of the people had not yet resolved to give its life to secession or the other to the preservation of the Union. More and more, However, these ideas began to win men to their support, tiU, in the latter part of the fifties, as 36 GBNEEAL NATURE OF HISTORY. the old parties were dissolving under the pressure of the conflict, the two sections stood arrayed against each other, one marshalling its forces under the banner of secession and the other under the flag of the Union. Yet even at the opening of the war the sections were not agreed among themselves as to the supreme end of the conflict. For in the South some held to secession only as a means to preserve slavery, while in the North some still called for the destruction of slavery as the highest aim of the war. Other illustrations will be found in the organizing ideas of the various periods. The same law of growth the transformation of causes and effects into purposes and means will be seen. The mastery of this relation between these two pairs of categories is essential in the explanation of great movements in history. It will be seen how inade- quate an explanation is that which rests on causes and effects alone, or upon purposes and means alone. It should be made clear that purposes and motives often arise out of conditions and in the presence of facts that may be called causes, and that these causes are modified by the purposes they originate and the means used in their realization. The effort to attain ends projected by men as individuals or as nations will give rise to a series of events. This suggests that purposes are causes. In fact, it is rightly held that the purpose of an event, if it have one, is its true cause. At least the peculiar form of the event is due to the fact that it comes into being as a means to accomplish PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 37 a result that exists in idea before the event takes place. This difference the student must always detect between an event resulting from an ordinary cause and one that results from a purpose. For on the difference in the form of events depends the conclusion as to whether they result from conscious or unconscious thought and feeling. The conventions in the various states that met to consider the question of ratifying the Constitution, took their peculiar form as events from the nature of the end they were to subserve. Their adaptation to the end in view existed in the thought of the people before the conventions existed in fact. We cannot say that the Stamp Act Congress was in the minds of British statesmen as an end to be accomplished by the passage of the Stamp Act. But one cause of the Stamp Act Congress did exist in thought before it did in fact, namely, the determination to secure the repeal of the Stamp Act. The men who passed the act did not con- sciously plan to arrange the act so that it would produce a congress of the colonies, but the men who secured the repeal of the act did consciously plan the congress to that end. There is, then, a greater degree of adaptation between the purpose and its means than between the cause and its effect. This greater degree of adaptation often suggests a difference in the content of the two classes of events, especially on the side of feeling. The event or the series of events created by the people for the attainment of some cherished end is permeated by an intensity of feeling that is impossible in events that come into being more or less unconsciously. 38 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. Without this idea many series of events could hardly be organized. How could the individual facts of a military campaign become intelligible unless the student can illumi- nate them by the design of the head of the army ? How shall it profit a student if he learn the numbers and disci- pline of the army, the amount and kind of arms and stores, the position of the troops, the character of the country, the movements of the battle, the stratagems employed, without seeing the common idea in each, the idea that makes an intelligible whole, the purpose of the general. Of a series of events used as means the end must be seen in each. This is discovered in two ways : 1. By noting how the means are adapted to secure the given end. This point has just been illustrated. 2. By watching the means in the process of working out the end in view. The very nature of a means requires that it shall take part in a pro- cess, otherwise the end could never be actualized. If the student fails to witness this process, he fails to get at least one-half of the relation which means bears to end. It is easy to say or to learn that Hamilton's bank aimed to strengthen the national government. It is quite another thing to trace the steps by which this end was realized. No doubt Hamilton and Washington and the leading Federal- ists saw the bank in the process of bringing into real exist- ence a result that once existed in their thoughts and desires only. The student, to reach a correct interpretation, must see this means moving to its end just as the men who observed it did. He must observe that the creation of the institution called into existence, in spite of a most deter- PKOCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 39 mined opposition, the doctrine of implied powers ; that the stock of the bank was taken up by business men with great avidity, thus binding certain capitalists to the government by ties of interest, and giving confidence to other business men ; the student must see how the presence of uniform bank notes payable in specie impressed the people with the wisdom of the new plan and the weakness of the old ; how the credit of the nation in the eyes of foreigners was raised by having a responsible financial agent through which it could secure loans. And finally, he must discover that the bank's objects were so perfectly secured that its original enemies were lessened, its recharter defeated in 1811 by but one vote in the lower house, and was carried in 1816. In some such way the student must watch and trace means in the very process by which their ends are attained. Otherwise a set of means becomes a mere collec- tion of mechanically related facts. Immediate and Remote Ends. In the process of inter- pretation it is helpful to distinguish between immediate and remote ends. The difference here is mainly one of degree. A remote purpose is one that can be secured by the use of many intermediate steps ; but the people may project a purpose into each step. The people as a whole come more easily to the contemplation of immediate than remote ends. The probability of speedy attainment seems necessary to stimulate the majority of men to enthusi- astic devotion to a cause. Only statesmen, philanthro- pists, and reformers seem able to strive with persistent zeal for ends whose fulfillment may belong to the remote 40 GENERAL NATURE OP HISTORY. future. The student must see, therefore, that, as a rule, the more immediate the purpose he finds in an event or series, the closer he is getting to the mind and heart of the people as a whole concerned in the undertaking. But while this is true, at the same time he is dealing with ends that are to the leaders of a people's destiny only so many means in the process of attaining remote and more pro- found objects. It thus becomes necessary, if the student masters the thought and feeling of any period in its com- pleteness, to compass both the immediate and the remote ends and aims that moved the people of that time. The levying of the tax on tea in 1767 had for its imme- diate end the collection of a revenue on tea and some other articles. This seemed to most of the people of England and America the chief end in view. But by the leaders in both countries the raising of a revenue was looked upon as a means, while the ultimate end to be reached was the submission of America to parliamentary authority. In America the great mass of the people had before them- selves resistance to the tax by the formation of non- importation and non-exportation societies, while the leaders in the agitation looked upon these efforts as mere means in the accomplishment of a remote and more universal end, the acknowledgment that Americans were entitled to the rights of Englishmen. To get the full content of this struggle, the student must find the motives of all parties engaged in it. In the efforts to attain their ends men and nations bring about results which were not planned by them, and PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 41 whose occurrence they could not foresee. Men may plan and arrange means to carry out definite ends, but effects of an opposite nature often result from their efforts. Passion, interest, and selfishness may be the motive and the end, yet out of these may come results that will bless posterity to the remotest generations. The selfishness of slavery annexed Texas and brought on war with Mexico, from which was wrested an imperial domain. Yet how different the remote result from the immediate aim. Morris' Hegel contains the following on this general point : " The particular historic event exists by the grace of the particular volition of a particular human being ; it is im- mediately what the individual intended, and is explained by his intention, but by the grace of God it acquires a character beyond what was intended, requiring a deeper and broader explanation. The whole interest and thought of the individual may be practically confined to his imme- diate personal aims and restricted plans. Beyond them he may not consciously see ; to aught beside them he may be indifferent. But the sequel shows them to have been the material for the accomplishment of a plan of history, which is none other than the realization on this planet of self-consciousness and self-mastering spiritual existence, passing himself through knowledge and control of a natural world of which he is the crown, and through knowledge and love of a God who is the ultimate ground and the eternal goal of all travail both of Nature and of Man. Thus God makes even the wrath of man to praise him." 42 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. This view makes the whole process of history all its events and all ambitions of men and of nations a means in the working out of the Divine Ideal. MATERIAL PRESENTED FOR INTERPRETATION. Second-hand Material The facts of history come to the student in all stages of interpretation. The ordinary narrative text-book mainly confines itself to a description of the externals of history while adding some statements about ideas and sentiments. If the events are presented fully enough, the teacher will have an excellent opportu- nity to train to interpretation by means of inferences as to the content of events. But since the power to infer specific content from the form of the event is limited, there is need of a larger presentation of the facts in order to 'obtain a fuller interpretation. These facts may sometimes come from the teacher, but better from the students by the use of larger works as references. The demands of accu- rate interpretation will not be met by turning this fuller reading into a mere hunt for additional facts, for each would demand interpretation ; but since each new fact is an element in the greater event, it will make its contribution to the interpretation needed, if the right attitude of mind is assumed. But if the student is taught by experience to expect that an enumeration of facts will be called for, he will, consciously or unconsciously, prepare for it. If, how- ever, additional and richer meaning of the event is pressed for, he will fuse his collection of details into some great idea PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 43 which he now sees, perhaps for the first time, to be a por- tion of the content of the great event. The point of view in gathering material to aid in inter- pretation is of great consequence, for in still another way may it fail of its end. It is often mistakenly believed that some unusual value attaches to gathering the opinions of the various authorities. In the first place, works of similar scope do not vary enough in the amount of matter and the peculiarity of opinions to make it worth while to search for them. In the second place, even if the wor.ks are much larger and from a different point of view, it is far better for the student to feel that he is interpreting history rather than the views of various authorities. Original Material. Every historical people leaves be- hind, in some form or other, the direct records of its ideas and sentiments, customs and institutions. These records are the first-hand material out of which history is made, and consist, in the main, of official documents setting forth the ideas and principles of government ; of the declarations of political parties, or the creeds of religious sects ; of the speeches before legislative and judicial bodies ; of the cor- respondence and diaries of men, great and small ; of orations made on the platform, in short, of any contemporaneous writings that express the nature and tendency of public sentiment in any period. The value of such material largely depends upon the position of its author. If he was in a position to speak for a community, a party, or the nation, his utterance must be of first importance in ena> 44 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. bling the student to put the right meaning into the facts which he is endeavoring to interpret. Of course, the record is of much greater value if it embodies officially the institu- tional ideas of the whole community. The superiority of this sort of material in the process of interpretation may be understood from the following con- siderations : 1. The facts thus presented are first-hand unorganized, and the student is left to contend with a real problem with no ready-made solution at hand; he must work without the author's aid. Without discussing the educational value of this sort of work, it is apparent at a glance, that a wide difference separates the direct study of the Mayflower Compact from the study of a school text's statements about this document. 2. This direct study brings immediate contact with the source of truth concerning the content of the Compact. It is possible that texts have been written whose authors did not have first- hand access to the material of history, but have written from another's interpretation of that material. But what of it ? Simply this : the student of such a text will be still farther removed from the real source of truth, and like the author, not knowing all the concrete facts, or not knowing them exactly as they were, may make erroneous interpre- tations. 3. Even if the facts obtained in the above way are correctly interpreted, there is yet something lacking in the effect produced, which can only be supplied by applying the process of interpretation to original material. In no other way, in the study of historical material, may the student get deep and realistic conceptions of the life he PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 45 studies ideas and passions, motives and prejudices, and all those subtle influences that go to make up concrete public sentiment. Take the examples of interpretation given above : how much more easily and correctly could the student put the right content into the events connected with founding Jamestown if he could read the motives of king and company in the charters granted, and could add to these the opinions of the settlers. Even the writings of John Smith, with all their exaggerations, would give meaning and reality to these events, such as could come in no other way. Again, how can the student get most easily and fully into the minds and hearts of the colonial mer- chants, the motives and passions that swayed them when organizing the non-importation associations ? Evidently by reading the addresses sent to king and parliament and to the colonial legislatures ; by reading the resolutions of town meetings in pledging support ; by studying the cor- respondence between the associations of different towns, and by following the newspaper and pamphlet war that arose over these organizations and their work. Likewise with the struggle over state sovereignty, or any other phase of thought which the student tries to reach through events. Depth of impression and richness of content will always come from this sort of face to face contact with a people. Original matter may be made to serve, as in the case of reference histories, merely as another source of individual facts. This defeats its use as a means of interpretation. In order to make it serve this function truly, the additional 46 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. matter must be used as a key to the content of the event or movement under consideration. The student must not, unless he is searching for undiscovered truth, get the idea that he is examining records as records to determine their historical accuracy. Historical interpretation, and not his- torical criticism, is his problem. THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF INTERPRETATION. Nature of the Question. The examination into the nature of the process of interpretation has furnished the basis for an intelligible answer to the problem of its edu- cational value. There are two phases to the question : one inquires concerning the effect of interpretation upon the crude material of history, and the other concerning the resulting mental discipline and development. These two phases of the inquiry are intimately related, since both at bottom are questions of mental experience and should be separated only for convenience in discussion. Integration and Unification. Interpretation produces, on the side of knowledge, an integrated or synthesized product. Since the ordinary methods of studying history do not accomplish this important educational result, it is worth while to bring this historical product into conscious- ness and analyze it carefully. Interpretation unifies the facts of history because it discovers in them a common content, and this subjects them to the only process by which knowledge is unified. This is a universal process, since it is common to the organization of material in PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 47 every realm of knowledge. It is also a process of highest educational value on account of the degree of strength called forth. No other subject appears at first glance less likely to admit of any sort of integration. On its external side the one from which the student first sees it history seems a wilderness of unrelated facts. But interpretation, by discovering common ideas, estab- lishes order among these facts and connections among the larger parts of the subject ; and if the process of interpretation is carried on till the student finds the com- mon content of all the leading facts of history, the result is the integration of the subject as a whole. The mind now sees, not isolated and diverse facts, but one great fact, the growth of institutional life. In order to estimate the educational value of the historical whole we must examine into the nature of the different forms it may take. There are two of these : one in which the whole is a mere aggregation with its parts of the same nature, while in the other form the whole is a principle, or idea, and the parts are its phases. There is a vast difference in the pedagogical value of these two forms, and in the pro- cesses by which they are wrought out ; and it is of the utmost importance that the teacher be able to recognize which kind of an historical whole he is creating in the student's mind. The Mechanical Historical Whole. One of the com- monest illustrations in history of this first form of whole is that of time- whole. This is not only common, but is very superficial. Ideas grow and events occur in time, it is true, 48 GENERAL NATURE OF .HISTORY. but neither are controlled merely by the lapse of years. New ideas and new movements do not begin with the opening of the year nor cease with the closing of a cen- tury j hence time-wholes and time-parts are more or less artificial are aggregations of events united by a bond that is outside of, and apparently around, them. We may think of the expedition against Lexington and Concord as occurring within one day, thus surrounding the event in imagination by the limits of a day. The events under this mental form are an aggregation, exhibiting no living principle which gives them organic union. This event may be thrown into time-parts by perceiving that one portion of the events occurred before daylight, another in the forenoon, and still others in the afternoon. These smaller wholes are artificial, for they do not correspond to the real parts of the event; but even if they did so correspond it would only be a coincidence. The imagina- tion may, and often does, hold a vague picture of the events of American history as limited by the two points in time, 1492 and 1907. This is also a mere aggrega- tion. It may be definitely separated by other dates into smaller wholes each time-whole bearing a name which calls up a confused jumble of events that have only time limits. Such periods of history if they are entitled to so dignified a term are mere mechanical wholes. Another illustration of the aggregate whole, in contrast with the organic, is the space-whole. We picture the events of the American Revolution as having certain place-limits, and in so doing we create, as it were, an aggregation a PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 49 mass-whole. By picturing some of these events as belong- ing in the North, some in the West, and others still in the South, we drop our revolutionary space- whole into smaller wholes. These are not, as the imagination pictures them, derived from any peculiar differences in the events them- selves, but are rather divisions based on differences in place, into which we mechanically force the events. It is necessary that the mind should view the events of history under the forms of time- wholes and place-wholes, but such artificial aggregates can hardly be ends in knowl- edge. It would be dangerously superficial to let the rela- tively mature mind stop with such forms of thought or to give much conscious attention to their creation. Such work belongs to the stage of immaturity, but for the logical stage of thought this should be incidental and should result from the mind's struggle with events under the higher form of integration. The Organic Historical Whole. The other form of integrated product is one in which parts are made into a whole by the presence of a common idea which perme- ates each part. Such a whole may be called an organic one one in which each part exists for the whole and the whole for each part. There is a life-connection here, for the destruction of the whole results in the disintegration of the parts. This whole is not an aggregate but a prin- ciple, and its parts are not smaller aggregates, but phases of the general truth. Such a whole expresses itself out- wardly by an aggregation, and each phase of the general idea manifests itself in some part of the aggregation. 50 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. To see the history of our country as an organic whole requires that the student shall find one idea the growth of institutional thought and feeling manifesting itself in all the details of that history. This idea constitutes the whole of our history and also its phases growth of local institutions, union, and a national spirit. These phases are usually denominated periods, and are really smaller wholes when considered in themselves. Periods in history are such for the student by virtue of the process of integration which follows from , interpretation having discovered the great dominant phase of growth which characterizes the period and which furnishes the content of leading events of the time. The periods so viewed are organic wholes. They must be such in order to give the highest form of knowledge and the greatest degree of discipline. Comparison the Basis of Integration. Fuller meaning can be given to the educational value of integration in history if we turn from its form the historical whole to its process, comparison. Integration is a synthetic process. Constructive mental processes in history, as in all subjects, are based upon the discovery of resemblances in the facts interpreted. The process of interpretation which results in integration is carried on by the special process of comparison, the process by which the mind discovers resemblances. Comparison, then, is the mental instrument by which historical wholes are wrought out. In order to produce the best results, comparison should become a conscious instrument in the hands of the student. PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 51 When he feels its value by actual conscious experience, he becomes self-directive. Nothing frees him sooner from the monotony and drudgery of the history text than a conscious search for likenesses. These are not often formally expressed in school histories, so that this work may be performed by him under the stimulus of a direction or question put by the teacher. Such work stimulates to real discovery ; the student feels that he is getting more than is expressed in the book he uses, and this, too, without the direct aid of the teacher. The consciousness of his own strength thus comes to him, and he begins to be a seeker after first-hand historical truth. When the student forms a taste for searching after resemblances in historical material, the teacher will have no trouble at all in leading him into the habit of enlarging his comparisons by searching more than one author. It must be kept in mind here that this extension of the proc- ess is not for the purpose of being able to state the par- ticular views of each author, but rather that the student may have a deeper and fuller knowledge of the facts under investigation. If the likenesses and differences between authors are constantly alluded to, the attention is put in the wrong place. This is not a distinction without a difference. Nothing is more common in teaching history than for very different results to come from different teachers, apparently doing the same thing in the same way. This arises from a very subtle difference a difference in the point of conscious attention or em- phasis. 52 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. Integration through Comparison Simplifies Historical Knowledge. - This does not mean simplification by a reduction in the number and complexity of its facts, but, as hinted several times above, by discovering unity in the midst of diversity. This is the process by which the student grows into the conviction that, comparatively, only a few great ideas have battled for mastery on the fields of history ; it convinces him that new and strange events may be only the new embodiment of old ideas ; new and strange as to form, but old as to content. Division and its Uses. It is a law of knowledge that whatever features enter into subjective truth must have their correspondence with objective truth. In no other place is this principle more often violated than in making divisions in history. Perhaps the reason is found in the fact that such divisions are made instead of discovered. . In our analysis of the nature of history it was seen that in obedience to the law of continuity there are no gaps or breaks in the institutional life of a people, but that con- tinuous and connected growth is its characteristic feature. It was discovered that the phenomena of history are sub- ject to another principle of development, differentiation. It is the movement of institutional life under this law that enables the student to discover progressive changes in the line of growth and thus mark transitions from one phase of thought and feeling to another. The operation of this law enables him to discover in the midst of some dominating movement different tendencies which may, under favoring conditions, become in turn the feature of some other period. PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 53 When, by interpretation, it is noted that certain periods of time are marked by peculiar phases of life, the basis for a division into parts is found. If this is to be done consciously for purposes of organization, three or four suggestions must be followed : (1) as already intimated, the parts are to be discovered, not made, must be found in, rather than fitted on, the subject ; (2) that if coordinate and logical parts are to be found, there must be but one basis of division for any set of parts and that basis must be the phase of growth that integrates the facts of the period, or, if possible, some phase of this integrating idea ; (3) the basis of division ought to be a fundamental one, that is, some phase of institutional growth rather than portions of time, parts of country, or series of events. It is quite the custom to divide history into parts on the basis of differences in time, thus marking centuries, half- centuries, and decades in the subject. But these are not so much divisions in the thing studied as divisions in the calendar. It is evident to the student of life that the end of one century and the beginning of another no more mark the end of one movement and the beginning of another than any year within the hundred does. Life moves right on over decades and centuries does not stop to take a holiday the first day of each new year as is implied in dividing and classifying events by years. Such divisions may be convenient when speaking of history in a general way, but they certainly do not in themselves reveal or designate anything fundamental in the life studied. But if the student needs a framework to lean upon, as little 54 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. harm will come from a chronological division as from any other artificial means. The same.objection holds against geographical divisions. These may seem to be convenient, but are generally super- ficial, misleading, and give no insight into the nature of the thing studied. The familiar division of our history into discoveries, settlements, intercolonial wars, war of the revolution, confederation, administrations, and so on, gives parts that are not entirely artificial, but are based on differences in events ; they are somewhat superficial, for they deal with the externals of history rather than with history itself. The basis of separation is not fundamental enough to be helpful in the process of organization. If we drop below the surface-play of events to the growth of institutional ideas the principle on which the sub- ject as a whole is integrated and ask what are the great differentiating features of American institutional life, it will be found that between 1607 and 1860 there are three great forms of development : (1) the growth of European ideas into local institutions ; (2) the growth of local insti- tutions into the form of a nation ; (3) the development of the spirit of nationality. This division, to be true, must meet all the requirements of organization. The process of division is not an end in itself, but a means to more concrete interpretation and more minute integration. History is separated into its parts, not only because there is a basis for separation in the thing itself, but, pedagogically, because it enables the mind to attack the problem of historical organization in detail. This idea PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 55 of division as a means to more concrete study will be amply illustrated in the application of the principle of organiza- tion to the various periods and sub-periods. The process of division is an analytic one, so far as the subject of history is concerned. In this respect division is the opposite of integration in its product and in its proc- ess. Hence the discovery of differences in the act of interpretation trains the mind to make careful discrimina- tions. To get the exact phase of public sentiment demands a most discriminating judgment. Interpretation can be made to do this if the teacher knows the content of the events interpreted and presses the student for it. It is difficult to see how this analytic study can be pushed too far if there goes at each new step the new act of syn- thesis the making of a new integration. But when the end is forgotten, and especially when the process is applied to the mere form of historical material, events and other accidental features, then there is danger ahead. Most of the so-called " methods " of teaching history, such as the topical, the outline, the diagram, the exponen- tial, and the brace method, are based merely on the rela- tions of whole and part. A student may outline or diagram a lesson in history as presented by some author, and know almost nothing about it. The most imposing out- lines or diagrams of history are those made independent of any real basis of division, while to be of any teaching value, they must adhere to some fundamental- idea as a basis, which usually renders them insignificant in appear- ance. It should not be forgotten by the diagram-maker 56 GENERAL NATUltE OF HISTORY. that the student must understand the relations in history before he can make, a logical diagram, and that after these relations are once mastered, he has comparatively little use for such artificial representations. Again, the outline and diagram represent historical material as statical, while in truth, it is predominantly dynamical. On still another count 'these artificial systems are found wanting ; they represent on the blackboard or in the notebook a thing that has no corresponding existence in fact ; often the pupil carries away only a picture of the subject in two dimensions a picture utterly unlike, in form and feature, the facts studied ; and the only redeeming feature about it is that the pupil will lose his false conception as soon as the artificial framework passes away. Finally, these systems at best are based upon but two out of the many categorical relations. Diagrams are a means, but not a means of very high order. Interpretation Develops the Historical Judgment. In the discussion upon the nature of history, it was discovered that the acts of individuals or of nations are adapted to express the thought and feeling that give rise to them. The imagination sets men and nations before the judgment in the process of acting. From what they are seen to do and from the way in which it is done, the judgment reaches its conclusions as to the thoughts and feelings, ideas and emotions that give rise to the events and, therefore, give meaning to them. This act of judgment is the interpreta- tive act proper, and the faculty that puts it forth may be designated as the historical judgment. History is entitled PROCESSES IN ORGANIZING HISTORY. 57 to give name to this phase of the judgment's activity from the fact that history almost, if not entirely, alone stimulates and develops it. It would seem that it is reserved for his- tory to confer upon the mind the peculiar and very important faculty of reading thought and feeling through deeds. The training which gives the power to reach the plans and purposes of men through their acts has not only high pedagogical value, but also has very great practical value. Progress in historical study is largely dependent upon the growing skill with which the student can infer accurately and rapidly the content of events as they pass in quick review before the imagination. Mere accumulation of facts in memory is not meant here, but instead, that power which gets from events or facts described in historical narrative, their true significance. The power to do this has direct and important bearing on the affairs of every- day life. What else are men doing who meet each other in the various walks of life ? Men contend or men cooperate in the conduct of all the institutions of human society. But to do either well intelligently and successfully they must penetrate to ideas, motives, and plans through the deeds of one another. How poorly we judge of the con- duct of men and of society! Surely there is need that teachers of history shall recognize and utilize the capacity in their own subject, to confer upon the student this pecu- liar guiding power. The exercise of the historical judgment in the process of interpretation fosters the formation of a most valuable habit of mind, the habit of questioning appearances. This 58 GENERAL NATURE OF HISTORY. is not only an important historical habit, but it is of great thinking value to the non-historical student, for its tend- ency is to force the mind to look through appearances to reality to look through phenomena to the laws of phe- nomena. Every act of historical interpretation gives the mind this tendency. Emotional Results of Interpretation. The preceding discussion of the educational value of interpretation has con- sidered only intellectual processes and products. But some of the most valuable results of historical study pertain to the stimulus of emotions and the development of character. In the first place, the process of interpretation in history gives the rational basis for interest in the subject. It brings the mind of the student into direct contact with mind as it manifests itself in history ; this is life in touch with life. The life of the student responds to the touch of the life of other men in other times. This is inevitable, for, as he touches the whole round of human experience as it is reflected in events, he will find much that is closely akin to his own. It seems strange, therefore, that any one should dislike history. About the only 'way to prevent a love of history from arising in the, normal mind is t