dramatic circumstance really vital to his class must have more
information with which to work. A picture of the coarse, vulgar England
with its incompetent army and navy, apathetic church, and corrupt
government, followed by a stirring character sketch of the great Pitt,
will cost but a few minutes of the recitation and will metamorphose a
moribund attention to a vital interest.

Care should be taken that the characterizations given in class be
properly prepared. To this end it will be well to assign the preparation
of these sketches at least a week in advance, at the same time arranging
a conference with the student a day or two before the recitation. In
this conference the teacher should make such corrections in the pupil's
method of preparation and selection of matter as seem necessary. The
characterizations should not be read, but delivered by the student
facing the class, precisely for the moment as though he were the
teacher. Future tests and examinations should hold the class responsible
for the facts thus presented. If, as is too often the case in work of
this sort, the student giving the report is the sole beneficiary of the
exercise, the time required is disproportionate to the benefit derived.


_He will correlate the past and the present_

If there are facts recounted in the lesson that may be clinched in the
student's mind by showing the relation of those facts to present-day
conditions or institutions, a few advance questions calculated to bring
out this relationship may well be assigned.

It is generally conceded that one chief purpose of history instruction
is to enable us to interpret the present and the future in the light of